Steve Cohen's New York Mets are reeling, having lost five of their last six games to fall to 19-23. They have dropped the first three games of a four-game set to the Philadelphia Phillies, with the last matchup of the series coming on Thursday night.
Mets fans are beginning to get frustrated, and after Wednesday's loss, Cohen interacted with fans on social media and had a rather concerning response to a tweet. Well, concerning to New York fans, anyway.
Cohen posted “All in the future, not much we can do until the the trade deadline” in response to a fan, and then deleted the tweet.
Well, fans took this to mean that the Mets were planning on being sellers between now and August 1st, resulting on Cohen having to do some damage control.
“I believe in this team,” Cohen told Andy Martino of SNY. “I believe in the back of the baseball card. It’s way too early to speculate on anything. It’s May 16. I expect to make the playoffs. I know the fan base is frustrated, but it’s still early. We’re still very capable of making the playoffs. I fully expect to make the playoffs.”
The Mets have made just one playoff appearance since 2017, when came in 2022 when they lost to the San Diego Padres in the NL Wild Card Round. Going back even further, New York has qualified for the postseason just three times since 2008, and four times since 2001.
Basically, Mets fans are starving for some success and are tired of kicking the can further down the road.
Can this Mets team really expect to compete?
Here's the problem with the 2024 Mets: they aren't very good, especially offensively.
New York ranks 20th in batting average, 21st in OPS, 17th in home runs and 19th in runs scored this season. It would be one thing if their pitching were good enough to make up for it, but the Mets have been mostly mediocre on that end, too, placing 13th in ERA and 22nd in WHIP.
Only one Mets player has an OPS of .800 or better thus far this season. That title belongs to designated hitter DJ Stewart, who has posted an .805 OPS over just 91 plate appearances. Pete Alonso—the club's best power hitter—has nine home runs, but he is slashing just .225/.306/.450. Francisco Lindor, the club's $341 million man, has been putrid, slashing .200/.276/.376.
In a division that houses the Phillies and the Atlanta Braves, that just isn't going to cut it.
Alonso is set to hit free agency after the season, so he will be a prime trade candidate over these next two-and-a-half months. He smashed 40-plus home runs the preceding two seasons, but he struggled to get on base in 2023 and has had the same issues thus far in 2024. Alonso is also pretty poor defensively, so at this point, he does not have much to offer outside of the long ball. Does a world exist in which the Mets move him before the deadline? The fans may hate it, but it may be the wisest thing for Cohen to do.
Then you have outfielders Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte, who are probably untradeable because of their contracts.
Let's face it: Cohen did a poor job of constructing this team. He went all in on Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander over the last couple of years, and that failed. He traded both guys last season. It may be time to sell off some more pieces. The problem is, Alonso may be one of the only players rival teams may be interested in trading for. Perhaps J.D. Martinez and Luis Severino can also be moved.
The Mets are in a bad spot. That's for sure.
We'll see if New York can make any headway in the NL East between now and the trade deadline. If not, Cohen will have some tough decisions to make.
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