It's one thing to be a lousy baseball team. Happens each season, nothing out of the ordinary. But the New York Mets make an art of it. It's not enough to be bad, they must suffer indignities along the way. Once again, they are the LOLMets.

The Mets entered the 2023 season with World Series aspirations. They will end it with a losing record. According to one veteran player who got off the sinking ship back in August, the players in blue and orange are the only ones to blame.

Outfielder Tommy Pham, traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks earlier in the season, told star shortstop Francisco Lindor, “Out of all the teams I played on, this is the least-hardest working group of position players I’ve ever played with,” per a bombshell report from The Athletic's Tim Britton and Will Sammon.

That criticism hits hard coming from the source. Pham has played for seven teams across his 10 season MLB career. He's been in a lot of clubhouses, and seen plenty of team dynamics with his own eyes.

And while Pham's criticism surely stings some people in Flushing, Lindor's reaction was a bit puzzling as well. Lindor acknowledges telling Pham before his trade to Arizona, “Hey man, thank you for teaching me how to work hard again.”

The kick in the butt from Pham clearly worked. Lindor is in the midst of a 5.6 WAR season, good for 12th in all of MLB. But it begs the question where Lindor's focus was in his first two seasons as a centerpiece of the Mets.

When a team spends upwards of $440 million and is fighting to not finish in last place in its own division, people are going to point fingers. And some Mets pushed back on Pham's characterization of the team.

It's just another embarrassing chapter in the book of the New York Mets. Wish David Stearns luck — it sounds like he is going to need it.