Tag Archives: National League East

The Gallows Poles

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Carlos Mendoza

Carlos Mendoza—taking the fall for a deflation not of his making.

On opposite coasts, two baseball men met their unmakers toward the end of last week. One was a manager, the other was a general manager. Both weren’t exactly the prime issues with their bottom feeders.

Met and Angel fans had reason enough to feel a bit of relief after, respectively manager Carlos Mendoza and GM Perry Minasian. But they also had reason to feel frustrated. Mendoza wasn’t the problem with the Mess. Minasian wasn’t the entire problem with the Angels.

Not even bellying up to a bar and getting blinder-than-Ray-Charles drunk would compel anyone to call Mendoza and Minasian the second coming of Casey Stengel or Branch Rickey. But would the same drunk accuse either of being the second coming of Matt Williams or Frank Lane?

Strap someone into the witness chair under oath and neither he nor she will say Mendoza was mistake-free without facing perjury charges. He was executed two days after a comedy of errors against the Cubs while losing 10-5 prompted enough remaining Met fans in Citi Field and about a hundred thousand times that many out of the ballpark to clamour for Mendoza’s head at last.

But Mendoza wasn’t the man who assembled this menagerie of mismatched Mets. It wasn’t Mendoza who pinked half his coaches last winter. Including and especially pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, long since hired to that job by the National League East-leading Braves. It wasn’t Mendoza who let Pete Alonso walk into the free agency arms of the Orioles or Edwin Díaz walk into those of the Damned Dodgers. It wasn’t Mendoza who traded Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo away.

And it wasn’t Mendoza who brought in successors who’d underperform and/or end up on the injured list along with one of the two best remaining Mets, Francisco Lindor. That’s on president of baseball operations David Stearns. The same David Stearns who turned a far lesser budget into consistent success in Milwaukee, once upon a time. But, now, the same David Stearns who’s proving only that if you give him a superbudget he has an apparent knack for shopping the wrong aisles for the wrong merchandise.

Too many new faces came to equal too many parts to build a car that couldn’t or wouldn’t run. This year’s Mets are baseball’s Yugo. All of a sudden, the sorry condition of the 162-224, 2023-2025 White Sox seem even more like ancient history. The White Sox today are at the top of the American League Central heap. The NL East, and everyone else in the Show, have heaped upon the Mess.

Under interim manager (and former Padres manager turned Mets farm director) Andy Green, the Mets finished play Sunday having lost two out of three, with Kyle Schwarber abusing them to become the fastest in Phillies history to hit his 30th home run of a season.

Don’t say things can only look up from here until or unless Stearns turns last week’s trade of once-successful, lately-struggling pitcher David Peterson to the Cubs into a respectable heap of on-the-fly rebuilding pieces by way of continued trade deadline-approach activity. The optimism isn’t exactly high.

Perry Minasian

Perry Minasian—how far behind his back did the Angels’s owner tie his arm?

On the same day the hapless Mendoza met the managerial gallows, Minasian met likewise on the opposite coast, right before the Angels met their longtime left coast rivals the Athletics and got slapped around, 9-3.

Minasian wasn’t exactly the willful demolition expert the likes of Lane, John Holland, M. Donald Grant, Woody Woodward, Dave Littlefield, Cam Bonifay, and Randy Smith proved to be. In all fairness, he operated under the ten-thumbed handicap of the Angels’s owner, Arte Moreno, whose pre-baseball marketing success compelled him to assemble baseball teams according to marketability first and baseball cohesion second through tenth.

It’s only fair to call Minasian out on such mistakes as almost constantly trading any Angels future for hurrying prospects to the parent club so fast it became debatable whether those who looked like real comers down on what remained of the farm would have better than replacement-level success in the Show.

But it probably wasn’t Minasian who insisted upon such blunderful moves as . . .

* Drafting all pitchers in 2021 and watching most of them become trade pieces, injury-addled, or out of affiliated baseball entirely.

* Firing manager Joe Maddon during a twelve-game losing streak to end a tenure in which Maddon (and perhaps anyone else) couldn’t overcome a lack of pitching depth and a crowd of injuries.

* Going all-in at the trade deadline during Shohei Ohtani’s final Angels season . . . but not dealing Ohtani for the badly-needed reinforcement of prime prospects and major league-ready top talent he could have drawn.

* Putting six players onto the waiver wire a month after that all-in deadline—including two of the deadline acquisitions.

* Continuing not to turn the healthy version of Mike Trout into a trade piece that, like Ohtani, would have brought badly needed youth back to commence or continue that badly-needed team and organisational overhaul.

As The Athletic‘s Sam Blum phrased it, “Minasian inherited a bad organisation and left it a disastrous one.” Really, though, Minasian probably spent his entire Angels tenure, loyal though he was to Moreno, with the proverbial arm tied behind his back.

Moreno still can’t decide whether to invest like the large market owner he is or the small market owner too many former Angel personnel have suggested he’s become. Meanwhile, the Angels spent the first weekend of the post-Minasian era taking two of three from the A’s, with Josh Lowe’s first career salami slice all the runs they needed to win, 4-1.

Will Green prove to be the manager the Mets need to stabilised while retooling? Or, will the Mets hunt other candidates, send Green back to running the farm, and put Stearns on a crazy short leash depending upon his trade deadline work? Will they hire Alex Cora as Green’s permanent successor? Carlos Beltran? Hall of Famer-in-waiting Albert Pujols? Rob Thomson?

Will John Mozeliak—who worked in the Cardinals front office for the entirety of Pujols’s original eleven seasons there, and built their 2011 World Series winner—use his interim GM time with the Angels for more than just to oversee the draft and the trade deadline? Will he leave his permanent successor, maybe, with Pujols in the manager’s chair after incumbent Kurt Suzuki’s single-year contract expires?

Forgive Mets and Angels fans if they’re putting their heads between their knees instead of answering.

Slaughter on Sunday: the Mets and the Nats

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Mike Yastrzemski

Yastrzemski’s first-inning throw, flying toward the net pole it hit in the bottom of the first in Citi Field. It helped the Mets’s A.J. Ewing hit one of the strangest RBI doubles of the decade Sunday.

Don’t look now, but one pair of National League East teams don’t look quite as beaten down now as their season openings left them. No matter what their fans might tell you.

I give you the Nationals. At the end of April: 15-17. Since the first of May, including Sunday: 22-18. They’re two games over .500 as I write. Even if they’re ten games out of first place, they’re not exactly the most grotesque thing in the nation’s capital, either. (For starters, they never thought of having UFC cage matches outside Nationals Park for an added distraction.)

Now, I give you the Mets. At the end of April: 10-21. Since the first of May, including Sunday: 22-18. They’re still eight games below .500, but they’re not exactly the most grotesque thing in New York anymore, either. For now. Why, there but for the disgrace of that twelve-game losing streak in April might they be fully equal to the Nats. Might.

Both teams acquitted themselves more than admirably Sunday afternoon. Matter of fact, both their opponents could accuse them of human rights violations. The Mets bushwhacked the Braves, 8-1, handing the NL East leaders their second series loss of the year. The Nats might be called in front of the Hague for the 10-1 sinking they laid upon the Mariners.

Each team had to shake off first-inning trouble, though the Mets might have had the slightly tougher time of it. The Nats only surrendered a single run by way of an outfield bobble; Mets starting pitcher Freddy Peralta had to wrench, twist, and turn his way out of a bases-loaded jam, escaping with no damage worse than a sacrifice fly.

From there?

Nats pitcher Mike Mikolas pitched seven shutout innings after taking over for opener P.J. Poulin. Peralta went forth to throw four shutout innings before four Mets relievers pitched four more to finish the Braves. They didn’t have even close to all the fun.

The Mets dropped a four-run bottom of the first on Braves, including and especially A.J. Ewing hitting one of the most unusual RBI doubles you’re likely to see. Not because of how he hit it but because of how Braves left fielder Mike Yastrzemski’s play on it developed.

Yastrzemski retrieved the ball cleanly and threw in, but the ball escaped him and rang off the netting pole behind the third base line, allowing Young (RBI single) and Juan Soto (safe on a previous fielder’s choice bunt) to score. One out later, Ewing came home on Brett Baty’s single.

Except for James Wood abusing Mariners starter Emerson Hancock with a bottom of the first-opening homer, the Nats were quiet at the plate until the fourth. Then rap-bang-bang-crack-bang! Dylan Crews—leadoff double. CJ Abrams—base hit up the middle, first and third. Kiebert Ruiz—RBI base hit, first and second. Daylen Lile—RBI double, second and third. Nasim Nuñez—two-run single.

James Wood

Wood’s leadoff launch off Hancock in the first only started the Nats’s Sunday punching.

Five straight hits and the fun wasn’t quite done. Nuñez ended up on third thanks to a throwing error on a pickoff attempt and came home when Jorbit Vivas grounded out to first.

The Mets tore another pair out of Braves starter Bryce Elder in the fifth when Ewing and Marcus Semien homered back to back to open the inning. Then, they took another pair out of Braves reliever Molina when Soto slashed a two-run single up the pipe. The Nats had an eighth-inning dance yet to come, a pair of RBI doubles and a run-scoring groundout.

What was it all about? The Mets were written off as such a Mess you’d have thought games such as this would be the kind in which they were the battered and not the battering. The Nats have been hitting tons as a team for much of the season but their pitching wasn’t exactly striking fear into the hearts of opposing lineups.

Come Sunday, the Nats’ pitchers posted an ERA of 1.00 for the day while their batters partied like it was 2019. A team whose pitching took a 4.88 fielding-independent pitching rate into Sunday’s game needed and got a big-game performance up and down the staff. Especially considering how brittle their bullpen really looked after blowing their way to a walkoff 11-10 loss to the sad-enough-sack Giants last Wednesday.

The Mets were pitching only slightly better entering Sunday while their team hitting made a lineup of Bob Ueckers resemble a lineup of Willie Mayses. But their pitching on Sunday, too, showed a game ERA of 1.00. And their hitters posted a .371 game batting average. If only they could lather, rinse, repeat all that most of the time from here.

If only.

Things are intriguing enough in their division right now, especially with the Braves learning the hard way why Spencer Strider hasn’t looked his normal self on the mound (elbow inflammation and an injured list stay) and having to continue compensating for Ronald Acuña, Jr.’s health. (Hamstring; injured list.) And, with the gang from Philadelphia being 26-13 since the first of May and 8-3 so far in June.

The Phillies have dates to play the Mets and the Nats this month. The Mets still have a lot farther to go before they can say they’re anywhere near past the worst of it. The Nats are better off than the Mets but still vulnerable on the mound. These Phillies might struggle even in second place but they’re not yet in the pushover class.

Meanwhile, there are those fellows down Miami way. Through the end of May, the Marlins were 26-34. Their June, so far? 10-2, after they outlasted Paul Skenes and the Pirates. But they, too, have more of a question mark than an exclamation point over their heads.

Bank on it. Even with the Mets and the Nats resembling threshing machines on Sunday, there are gears turning in both front offices. And those in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and even Miami won’t necessarily take breathers just yet.

The long, slow Mets deflation

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Juan Soto

Juan Soto—Not his fault.

A choke? Not exactly. More like the Mets stuck a pin in their $340 million blimp, somehow,  and it deflated slowly enough, agonisingly enough. The team that started the season as the best and most expensive in Show finished . . .

No, they didn’t go from the top of the mountain all the way to the rocks at the bottom. They did finish second in the National League East. On the surface, that doesn’t look anywhere near resembling terrible. Know how many teams would jump from the top of the Flatiron Building if it meant finishing second for a change?

Why, over yonder in the American League Central, the Tigers could have been called going down harder. On 12 June they had an eight-game division lead over the next in line. At one point, the Guardians were 15.5 games out of first place in the group.

Then the Tigers deflated painfully themselves to settle for a wild card while the Guards dug, clawed, gnawed, and shoved their way back to take a division that once looked like the Tigers’ exclusive possession. But since the Tigers get to meet the Guards in a wild card set, the magnifying glass is over the Mets.

And how.

How on earth did a team finish play on 12 June and sit 21 games over .500, with a Show-best 45-24 record, and five games ahead of the eventual NL East champion Phillies, but go from there to play .408 ball the rest of the way?

How did that come to include a 10-15 September that featured an eight-game losing streak and a season-ending weekend in which they looked as though they’d signed surrender papers instead of commitments to fight for their very baseball lives?

Juan Soto regrouped after early inconsistency to get within two thefts of posting a 40-40 season and finish the year leading the National League in on-base percentage. Francisco Lindor posted a second 30-30 season in three years. Pete Alonso Alonsoed (38 home runs and leading the league in doubles with 41). But . . .

“A few players thought [manager Carlos] Mendoza’s communication was not as sharp as it could be,” said The Athletic‘s Tim Britton and Will Sammon.

Others suggested that he showed some unnecessary panic early in the season when he kept shuffling roles for different players. That will be part of the conversation this winter.

“I really think he’s done everything in his power,” another club source said. “In this market, you want that type of leader: somebody who is steady and going to be honest.”

That doesn’t mean Mendoza’s coaching staff is safe. The Mets’ defense was a season-long issue. While the offense put up good overall numbers, it operated far too often in boom-and-bust cycles. The pitching staff never put it together in the second half, with many of its purportedly reliable arms underperforming.

Let’s not wait ’till next year. They’ll have all winter to solve the coaching staff, the booming-and-busting, the pitching inconsistencies, and the defense that would guarantee a war over five minutes after it begins—with the Mets on the wrong side. How should we begin to outline the manner in which this year’s blimp deflated?

* When Kodai Senga, one of the best pitchers in the game for the season’s first month and a half, exited his 12 June start with a hamstring injury incurred covering first base, was brought back just before the All-Star break instead of getting that one extra minor league rehab start, and looked nothing like that early-season ace from there, ending up in Triple-A to get himself straightened out?

* When the Rays swept them in early June, which didn’t look that ominous—the Mets were 4.5 in front of the National League East and owned that 45-25 record going in—until you saw the bullpen’s meltdown over the set, and began to get the awful feeling that it wouldn’t be the last time the pen would prove the cobras’ own mongooses? (C’mon, Mr. Webster, make it official and let us use mongeese as the plural!)

* When they rumbled into Pittburgh, where the sunken Pirates were two months past forcing manager Derek Shelton to walk the plank, and got themselves swept by the Pirates in three straight, outscored 30-4 in the set, letting the Pirates drop at least nine runs per game against them during—without Pirates ace/should-be National League Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes facing them even for a third of an inning?

* When they lost two out of three to the Reds coming out of the All-Star Break, with the 2-1 lead they gifted back-in-the-rotation Sean Manaea squandered by one reliever whose Show debut was just a month earlier but wouldn’t turn up in a Met uniform again? When the Mets won the third game but those first two losses all but handed the Reds the wild-card tiebreaker?

* When relief ace Edwin Díaz’s otherwise stellar season (the finish: 1.63 ERA; 228 FIP; 0.88 WHIP) was rudely interrupted when the Brewers’ Isaac Collins blasted a game-ending home run 10 August, sending the Mets back to New York with their second of a pair of seven-game losing streaks?

* When the Mets turned to Nolan McLean in Philadelphia for his fifth career start, the young man responded with a one-run/5.2 inning performance that would have been enough for the Mets to win . . . if only they could have found a way to score even once? Leading to a Philadelphia sweep and any lingering hope of the Mets reclaiming the NL East they once owned in the trash compactor?

* When the Mets finally gave Jacob deGrom substantial run support in Citi Field—forgetting that deGrom now pitches for the other guys, the Rangers in this case, who’d drop another loss on them the following day for a season-longest eight-game losing streak?

* When the dead-last Nationals beat them 3-2 in the final Mets home game of the year, abetted by a pair of acrobatic fielding plays (robbing Brett Baty of extra bases; swiping a home run from Francisco Alvarez that would have tied the game) by Nats center fielder Jacob Wilson?

* When the Marlins channeled their 2006/2007 ancestors and told the Mets, “Not so fast, boys,” with the Mets needing to scale the Fish on Saturday, the Reds already losing to the Brewers, to nail the third wild card?

* When the non-Díaz bullpen surrendered four in the fourth, forcing manager Mendoza to bring Díaz in early to bind up the wounds?

* When the Mets ended up stranding ten runners, Pete Alonso hit a bases-loaded cruise missle stopped cold by Miami left fielder Javier Sanoja, and the Mets finished 2025 0-70 for the year whenever the other guys led after eight innings? (The number of Mets ninth-inning comebacks this year: zero. The number in 2024, when they got to the League Championship Series: eight.)

“There’s no other way to sugarcoat it,” said Alonso, who didn’t wait too long to let it be known he intended to opt out of his two-year deal and test his market, while leaving a door open wide enough for a reasonable-length deal with the Mets. “Super-talented team and we didn’t even get to October.”

In a sane major league game in which the leagues were aligned and divided reasonably, in which no such thing as regular-season interleague play existed, in which no team earned the right to postseason play unless its fannies were parked in first place at season’s end, the Mets wouldn’t be half the topic they are now.

In a sane baseball world, we wouldn’t have just gone through another wild race of thrills, chills, and spills, on behalf of seeing who’s fighting to the last breath (or rolling over dead trying) to finish . . . in second place.

“Sane” and “Mets” rarely fit comfortably in the same sentence. But this was one of those Met seasons about which you could say it’s liable to get them thrown out of the nut hut.

Do better, Met fans

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Max Weiner

Max Weiner, hoisted by the fan group Metsmerized Online, in the image that stirred SNY’s Andy Martino to outrage. Weiner didn’t call himself the Rally Pimp, so far as we know.

A Mets fan named Max Weiner has been turning up often at Citi Field of late. This would not be great news except that Weiner has a thing for appearing in assorted garish haberdashery at least some of which appears comparable to that worn by actual, professional pimps, and he has become a symbol of the Mets’ in-season resurgence.

Identity unearthed by the Mets fan group known as The 7 Line, Weiner has been tagged colloquially as the Rally Pimp by fans; he may not have  assumed the nickname for himself. But he and they have stirred up a small social media storm, particularly since the Mets have gone 9-3 since his first known appearance at the park following a 1-5 season opening that included losing their first five straight.

We’ve become coldly accustomed to “pimp” as a verb referencing the bat flips and other celebratory displays upon home runs long and longer or theatrical plays in the field. It’s sobering to think that those deploying it so casually may have too little comprehension about the word’s actual, core meaning, in times when baseball’s handlings of domestic violence and sexual assault matters stir contradictory but deeply troublesome passions.

The deployers aren’t just fans any longer; you can hear some broadcasters and journalists use it with the same casual carelessness. But one journalist, SNY’s Andy Martino, author of Cheated, one of a pair of excellent books conjugating the Astros’ illegal, off-field-based, electronic sign stealings of 2017-18, isn’t amused one feather by the Rally Pimp idea. Saying so has gotten him a few rounds of social media abuse.

“Pimp imagery is problematic on so many levels,” Martino Xtweeted, after spying and re-Xtweeting a previous Xtweet from a Mets fan account a photo of Mr. Weiner in a purple fur jacket and large gold-looking chain around his neck holding the Mets’ interlocking NY cap logo at the chain’s end. “Let’s think about it for 2 seconds. Can we please not make this a big part of the 2024 Mets’ imagery? Cue replies about woke culture blah blah. I don’t care, I’m right about this.”

We don’t really know whether Weiner called himself the Rally Pimp or whether the tag was attached to him by zealous Met fans. It certainly didn’t help Martino to say flatly at the finish, “I don’t care, I’m right about this.” But Martino has a point. To tag such haberdashery that way above others, you might (must?) first ask how much you know about the actual doings of actual pimps. Reclaiming Hope, a group dedicated to caring for the survivors of sex trafficking, offers as clear a definition as you might ask of the pimp and his operating style:

Traffickers are often referred to as “Master Manipulators”. They use a variety of tactics to recruit victims and pimps are many times classified as (1) “A Romeo” pimp or someone who portrays himself as a “boyfriend” who loves her and will take care of her, or (2) A “guerilla” pimp who controls through force.

The modern day pimp/trafficker initially seems like a very nice guy who cares deeply about their victims. Then the manipulation and threats begin. One of the most powerful ways traffickers keep their victims controlled is by the trauma bond that develops between the victim and trafficker. Victims are controlled by their pimp through repeated beatings, rapes, drug dependency, withholding of food and sleep, debt bondage, isolation, and psychological abuse, which can include threats against family or friends.

Sex trafficking is a high profit, low risk business with a relatively small risk of a pimp going to prison for human trafficking. Additionally, their “product” can be sold repeatedly, unlike drugs or weapons, where the product can only be sold one time. The faces of victims know no ethnic, religious or social-economic boundaries.

Considering that baseball’s last few seasons have been pockmarked by several players and even front office personnel tagged and disciplined for domestic violence, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse, bringing “pimp” to bear as a term of endearment for a particular and colourfully expressive on-field celebration or a particular and colourfully expressive fan in the stands is described most civilly as grotesque.

More agreeably, the Mets have gone 10-3 since that season-opening five-game losing streak. They’ve done it against teams seen as contenders in the early going, though some may think it debatable that the like of the Reds (from whom they took two of three), the Royals (two of three likewise), and the Pirates (a three-game sweep) will go the distance that way.

Why soil it by attaching to one hideously if demonstrably dressed fan in particular a colloquialism that emanates from a profession whose victims often incur damage even more deranged than those victims of the Roberto Osunas, Aroldis Chapmans, Domingo Germáns, Trevor Bauers, Sam Dysons, Julio Uríases, Wander Francos?

This Met fan since the day they were born urges: Do better, Met fans. Weiner’s costumery is also the type that might be seen wrapped around the bodies of contemporary rock, pop, and hip-hop musicians. Would “Rally Rocker” have had insufficient thrust?

Season lost, Scherzer gone

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Max Scherzer

Scherzer waived his no-trade clause to go from the deflating Mets to the AL West-leading Rangers.

The contemporary Mets fan, to whom a season is usually lost over one terrible inning in early to mid-April, sees Max Scherzer speaking without boilerplate about talking to the front office regarding, stop, hey, what’s that plan, after the Mets traded solid relief pitcher David Robertson to the Marlins for a prime-looking prospect. And, is barely amused.

Then, they see the three-time Cy Young Award-winning future Hall of Famer traded within a day or so to the American League West-leading Rangers, for a more prime-looking prospect. They are somewhere between dryly amused and snarkily contemptuous. Not to mention terribly inattentive or misinformed.

Nobody questions that age has begun to catch up to the righthander. Assorted small injuries plus lingering issues with his back and his side did a little too much to keep him from resembling his vintage self. One moment, Scherzer did a plausible impression of what he once was. The next, he did a plausible impression of a piñata.

There are some who see this year’s 9-4 won-lost record and say, so there! There are others who see this year’s 4.01 ERA and 4.73 fielding-independent pitching rate (FIP) and see a man whose youth and prime may not be visible in the rear view mirror anymore.

When the Mets traded Robertson a few days ago, Scherzer didn’t hold back. He was neither nasty nor snarky about saying it was time for him to talk to the Mets’ front office about the rest of the season and just who projected what. But, first, he was honest enough to begin with a sober assessment of the Mets’ deflating season thus far.

“[O]bviously, we put ourselves in this position,” he said. “We haven’t played well enough as a team. I’ve had a hand in that for why we’re in the position that we’re at. Can’t get mad at anybody but yourself, but it stinks.”

Then he went forward: “You have to talk to the brass. You have to understand what they see, what they’re going to do. That’s the best I can tell you. I told you I wasn’t going to comment on this until [owner] Steve [Cohen] was going to sell. We traded Robertson. Now we need to have a conversation.”

That was after Scherzer looked a little like the old Max the Knife against his old team, the Nationals: striking seven out in seven innings, scattering six hits one of which was a solo home run, and the Mets rewarding him with a 5-1 win, not to mention their seventh win in eleven games. But still.

Some Met fans think the front office elected to punt on third down, metaphorically speaking. Others think that, when Scherzer said they “needed to have a conversation,” it might have meant a conversation about Texas being the next destination for Scherzer himself.

If that involved Scherzer agreeing to go from the sinking Mets to a division-leading troop of Rangers in return for a prize prospect who turns out to be Ronald Acuña, Jr.’s promising brother, it probably took less than we think (even allowing the time) for Scherzer to say yes to one more active, not passive pennant race.

Scherzer had to waive his no-trade clause and exercise his contract’s 2024 opt-in to make the deal. Luisangel Acuña is a middle infielder and center fielder with a live bat (if not always as powerful as big brother’s) who can hit pitching from both sides readily, and wheels to burn on the bases. (42 stolen bases in 82 games; an .894 stolen base percentage.) Most known analyses of him say his challenge is to harness his aggressiveness.

The prime issue for Scherzer at 38 is staying healthy and avoiding home runs. His 1.9 home runs per nine this season are a career high. Yet, his tenure as a Met overall hasn’t exactly been a wash. His Met totals include a 3.02 ERA, a 3.52 FIP, and a 1.02 walks/hits per inning pitched rate. And, a 10.05 strikeouts-per nine rate with a 5.54 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

But they also include his having run out of fuel in Game One of last year’s National League wild card series, battered for four home runs that accounted for all the Padres scoring in a 7-1 loss.

“If [Scherzer] can limit the long ball and stay healthy,” observes The Athletic‘s Brittany Ghiroli, “he should help the Rangers fend off the Astro in the AL West and avoid the wild-card round. What’s more, his competitive personality and postseason experience could rub off on his new teammates.”

He’ll join a Rangers rotation that took a hit when former Met superpitcher Jacob deGrom went down to Tommy John surgery, but resuscitated itself via Nathan Eovaldi and Dane Dunning. He’ll be backed by a bullpen anchored by Will Smith. And a roster hitting .274. So far.

Mets players said goodbye to Scherzer Saturday night, during a rain delay before a game against the Nats that ended in an 11-6 Nats win. Surely they also started wondering what else and who else after Max the Knife could be talked into waiving his no-trade clause. They might have cast eyes first upon Justin Verlander, who’s showing his age as well, but who shook an early injury to look a little better than his old Detroit rotation mate this year.

“It’s not a certainty that Verlander will be traded,” say Athletic writers Will Sammon and Tim Britton, “but the Scherzer deal offered a blueprint of what to expect should the Mets decide to unload their other top starter. Verlander has performed better than Scherzer and, in theory, should net a better prospect.

“However, Verlander also has a no-trade clause in addition to being under contract for 2024 with a vesting option for 2025. It’s also unknown whether the Scherzer trade made Verlander feel any different about playing for the Mets.” Not to mention whether reported serious interest from the Dodgers, the Rangers, and Verlander’s old team in Houston might compel him to revisit his feelings.

The Mets barely said goodbye to Scherzer when Sports Illustrated reported they were in, quote, deep talks with the Astros about bringing back the future Hall of Famer who won an unlikely Cy Young Award in their silks last year but signed with the Mets as an offseason free agent. Unlikely because Verlander’s the oldest pitcher to win the prize after returning from late-career Tommy John surgery.

As with Scherzer, the Mets will likely demand a choice prospect or two (or even three) while the Astros will likely insist the Mets help them pay for Verlander’s return, including his 2025 vesting option. As the Rangers did with Max the Knife, the Astros may not be averse to helping the Mets continue their farm replenishment and remake for the privilege of one more term with JV.

There’s just one problem with that idea, from the Houston side, encunciated by Three Inning Fan podcaster Kelly Franco Throop: “[T]hey have nothing to give: they are considered to have one of the worst farm systems in the game.”

So much for providing a delicious pickle in the AL West, the two who once headed the Tigers’ rotation together going against each other to help decide that division. As of this morning, the Astros were only a game behind the Rangers in the division and in a dead heat with the Blue Jays for AL wild card number one.

The Mets may have pushed the plunger on a 2023 that was getting away from them through too much fault of their own, but all is not necessarily lost. There’s 2024 toward which to gaze.

There’s also a very outside chance that losing their best reliever and one of their better starters sticks the ginger into their tails. They’re “only” seven back in the National League wild card race. But a Met fan since the day they were born says, “Anything can happen (and often enough does).” Today’s patience-of-a-Nile-crocodile Met fan says, “This year’s been next year since the end of spring training.”

Playing the trade deadline period for prime prospects is a win-win, too. Either they become better than useful Mets soon enough, or they provide fodder for a bigger/better deal or three down the road.

Even if all they’ve sacrificed yet is Max the Knife and their best relief pitcher, the Mets are still in position to bring a certain front line starting pitcher into the ranks for a longer period and potentially better results. The unicorn who now wears Angels silks, threatens Aaron Judge’s AL single-season home run record while he’s at it, and becomes a free agent after this season.

On this much the lifelong Met fan and the contemporary Met fan can agree: The Mets are many things. Dull isn’t one of them.