Sure, so far the Mets’ season is nothing short of a failure. But if the choice is season or sale, I vote season, and here are 800 words why:
The first element for a sale is obviously there, as their current position stinks (I always wanted to get that word into a great newspaper, and now it fits).
On a more mature level, the Mets’ chances to suddenly turn into a bona fide World Series contender remain practically nil. The division is long gone with the best-in-baseball Braves and their eight All-Stars (compared to one Met) up 18 ½ games entering Monday. FanGraphs gives the Mets about a 10 percent chance to make the playoffs (presumably as a wild card), but I’m guessing it’s only that high because they are plugging familiar names and career numbers into a laptop, and haven’t had the displeasure to watch every pitch as we have.
On my own semi-occasional Lack of Power Rankings to gauge underperformance, the Mets hold the third spot: 1. Cardinals (definitely not the Cardinal way!) 2. Padres (at least my original World Series pick has a positive run differential,) 3. Mets (ugh) and 4. White Sox (by Year 2 of this it’s got to be the chemistry, right?)
Any way you look at it, at eight games under, and eight games out of a wild-card spot even after their Giant July start — 2-0!! — things don’t look promising in Queens. Normally a deadline sale would be the obvious way to go. But here’s the problem. For a worthwhile sale, you need to have valuable pieces to sell. And unless the Mets decide to dangle star slugger Pete Alonso (unlikely!), their sale looks less like a Sotheby’s auction and more like one of those mid-1970s Aqueduct flea markets.
Alonso would obviously bring big value as one of baseball’s very best home run hitters, not to mention an impossibly fast recoverer from injury. But as one rival said, “The fans would revolt if they traded Pete.”
Just like the fans, Mets owner Steve Cohen isn’t going to relish punting on 2024. Next year is Year 4 in Cohen’s “three to five years” goal to win the World Series.
Anyway, if you think this season is bad, please consider how dreadful a potential sale would be.
To have a worthwhile sell-off, it’s best to have veteran players (check), players due to be free agents after the season (not many), players having good/career years (very few), players more valuable than the money owed them (even fewer) and a keen interest in saving money (N/A for Stevie Wealthy).
They just don’t have the goods, even compared to the other three Lack of Power Rankings teams.
The Cardinals have three talented pitchers who are free agents-to-be — Jordan Montgomery, Jack Flaherty and Jordan Hicks — plus an obvious glut of hitters.
The White Sox have star starter and free agent-to-be Lucas Giolito, plus Lance Lynn (a veteran pitcher with a 2024 team option) plus a whole bullpen full of pitchers performing reasonably well, including Kendall Graveman, Joe Kelly, Keynan Middleton and Gregory Santos. While they surely want to avoid a complete reset, too, the South Siders have more young veterans on reasonable/trade-able deals and more evidence by now of a chemistry/clubhouse issue.
The Padres have star starter Blake Snell and All-Star closer Josh Hader — both free agents-to-be.
But what do the Mets have, besides agita?
Future Hall of Famers Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer are coming closer lately to their career greatness, and the Mets want to avoid killing their 2024 chances, too. Plus, other owners (all of ’em) are worth less than Cohen’s estimated $20 billion, and won’t want to absorb their record $43.33 million salaries and would thus seek to have the Mets pay them way down. And that’s before we get to the veto powers of the well-heeled duo of Just-Max (new nickname).
Defending batting champion Jeff McNeil has lost 78 points on his batting average, and Cohen didn’t make the 20 extremely large by selling low.
That leaves as trade-able veterans a list a lot shorter and somewhat less glamorous than the GM candidates who rejected the Mets (Mark Canha, Omar Narvaez, Tommy Pham, Luis Guillorme, Tomas Nido, Adam Ottavino, Brooks Raley and David Robertson). They are all very nice gentlemen but almost all are either paid as much or more than their perceived worth (Canha, Narvaez), solid but spare players (Guillorme), a minor leaguer (Nido), a hot hitter coveted by few this winter (Pham) and very veteran relievers (Ottavino, Raley and Robertson).
As one rival put it, “Robertson is the only one [of real value] and I don’t think they get anything great. That’s why I don’t think they sell.”
The Mets showed they agree — for now, anyway — on Monday by acquiring veteran Trevor Gott with Chris Flexen and the $4 million left on Flexen’s deal (Flexen was immediately DFA’ed by the Mets) from the Mariners for young pitcher Zach Muckenhirn, which gives Buck Showalter another realistic pen option and also well-used relievers Robertson, Ottavino and Raley a chance to catch their breath.
The Mets may ultimately decide to sell as they seem ultra-focused on prospects and are known to be willing to eat piles of loot (see Eduardo Escobar). But as unrewarding as the season is, there is nothing more unsatisfying than a useless sale.
