That’s not really a collapse of epic proportions. That would be the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers, or the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, or even the 1969 Chicago Cubs. And there are a few others that fans of respective teams could probably talk about with disgust. The Mets ran out to a great start, but they didn’t sustain it and went 38-55 the rest of the way…fourth worst stretch during that span in MLB.
The real gut punch, though, is that the Mets kind of “stole” Juan Soto from the New York Yankees and grabbed the biggest free agent prize on the market. Soto may have struggled at the beginning of the season while the Mets ran out to their 45-24 first place record, but he rebounded and had one of his best seasons ever, while the Mets suffered through the 38-55 stretch and failed to make it to the post season. Oh, and the Yankees finished in a tie for first place in the American League’s Eastern Division without him. Think about that.
Let’s give credit where credit is due: Soto finished with 43 home runs and 105 RBI and 120 runs scored. That is pretty damn good. But wait, there’s more. He also led the league with 127 walks and an OBP of .396. Not too surprising. What WAS surprising is that he led the league with 38 stolen bases. So if you look at everything statistically, he had a brilliant season, the kind that garners you a MVP award and a hefty contract. He already got the hefty contract.
What the statistics DON’T show is how awful he is in the outfield, which doesn’t help when you don’t have a great defensive team to begin with. And that when HE was doing well, the team wasn’t winning. So he was not the “impact” player that the Mets thought they might be getting.
The team was winning when the starting rotation was the best in the league. Well, at least they were performing that way. Then, one by one, they went down with injury, became suddenly inconsistent, or were just simply gassed. And the bullpen…well…from the guys in the Citifield outfield to the ones on the extended bench in Syracuse….to the ones plucked off the waiver wire. Just unreliable and too often bad. And the reinforcements at the trade deadline were just adding fuel to the fire.
The story of the season, in a nutshell, is Game 162, a MUST WIN game, a game that COULD HAVE put the Mets into the post season thanks to the Reds losing their game, and the Mets didn’t have a single starting pitcher to go out there and give a clutch performance when needed the most. Not a single starter. What team in a MUST WIN situation goes with a “bullpen” game? And that would be great if you had a bullpen like the 1969 Mets when they brought in a Nolan Ryan or a 1986 pen when they shuttled Roger McDowell and Jesse Orosco for multiple innings and exchanged stints in the outfield. But the bullpen that accessed all year long had failed them. How could anyone in their right minds believe that that was the way to go? Although it was apropos as to how they would put the final nail in the coffin.
The Mets got great statistical seasons from Soto, Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, and even to some extent Brandon Nimmo. It’s actually telling that a team could produce those stats from four guys and still not be able to win consistently.
That’s because they weren’t “consistent” even while compiling such statistics. And the rest of the lineup was often injured or just plain bad. The Mets were winning when the starting pitching was on the top of the baseball world for 69 games. Sometime great pitching can be more important than great hitting. Mets history has often indicated that.
The pain of the season that was supposed to be the one when the Mets were going to legitimately vie for a World Series title is over before the post season is even getting started. That’s the disappointment. The guarantee that the Mets would win a title in five years.
Nothing is guaranteed in baseball. Isn’t that the fun of it?
