Who's to blame if the Mets miss the playoffs now?
New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza at Citi Field on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
There’s less than a week left in the regular season, so let’s get right to it: If the $340 million Mets don’t make the playoffs, who is to blame?
And will heads roll?
We’ll tackle that second part at the very end of this column. No peeking!
WHO’S TO BLAME?
(Ranked from who deserves the least blame to who deserves the most.)
3. Manager Carlos Mendoza
This isn’t about Xs and Os. Like every manager, Mendoza has made some head-scratching calls (not using Edwin Diaz for a second inning on Saturday after he had thrown just seven pitches in the 10th inning against Washington is the most recent glaring example), and his lineups are hard to predict. The Mets always have a reason for why they play certain guys and sit others, but who had a good game the day before and might be getting hot is usually not one of them, which can be maddening because that philosophy relies more on cold data than what you can see with your own eyes.
The most important characteristic Mendoza brings is an unwavering belief that his guys are going to get it done. It worked last season when they did, very improbably, get it done. It is not working now.
The two teams the Mets are battling in the final week for the last NL wild-card spot have Terry Francona (Reds) and Torey Lovullo (Diamondbacks) as managers. Francona is a future Hall of Famer and Lovullo got an 84-win Arizona team to the World Series in 2023. Both can be considered assets for their teams when it comes to wins and losses.
Can Mendoza? Two years in, that’s not clear.
2. President of baseball operations David Stearns
Stearns went into the season with a patchwork starting rotation by design. He passed on the chance to acquire a true No. 1 and instead hoped depth would carry the Mets through the long season.
There are no sure things when it comes to pitching, but here are two true No. 1s who changed teams in the offseason: Max Fried (Yankees) and Garrett Crochet (Red Sox). Fried was a free agent and Crochet was a trade.
The Mets passed on both, and instead signed Clay Holmes, Frankie Montas and Griffin Canning and re-signed Sean Manaea. Montas and Canning are both out for the season. Holmes did a nice job moving from the bullpen to the rotation, but can’t go more than five innings. Manaea has a 5.59 ERA after returning from an oblique strain.
The lack of innings from the starters led to a predictable drain on the bullpen. Stearns tried to shore up the pen near the trade deadline, but Ryan Helsley, Tyler Rogers and Gregory Soto have been somewhere between terrible (Helsley, 8.47 ERA as a Met) and not so great (Rogers, 0-3 as a Met and Soto, 1-3 as a Met).
Also, centerfield acquisition Cedric Mullins is batting .188 as a Met and probably wishes he hadn’t taken the Acela from Baltimore to New York since he has become a significant target for Citi Field boo-birds.
1. The players
All of them hold some responsibility for the Mets being just four games over .500 and out of a playoff spot as the final week opens. But special notice goes to Manaea, Kodai Senga and Mark Vientos.
Stearns’ gambit with the rotation might have panned out if Manaea had pitched like he did in 2024 and if Senga had maintained the nearly unhittable pace he was on before he hurt his hamstring on June 12.
In 2024, Manaea went 12-6 with a 3.47 ERA in the regular season and was 2-0 with a 2.65 ERA in his first three postseason outings before getting hit hard in Game 6 of the NLCS.
Stearns bet that the talented but erratic lefthander had finally figured it out (kudos to the Mets’ pitching lab!) and re-signed Manaea for three years and $75 million, the most cash he has ever given a starting pitcher. But Manaea got injured and then reverted back to the inconsistency that has plagued him for most of his career.
No one knows what the heck is going on with Senga, who had a 1.47 ERA when he got hurt and was so bad after he came back that he agreed to a demotion to Triple-A. Even with the Triple-A season over, there is no indication Senga is coming back.
If the Mets had first-half 2025 Senga and 2024 Manaea, they would be comfortably in playoff position.
Ditto with Vientos. “Swaggy V” left his swagger in 2024. The Mets did not sign another slugger to complement Juan Soto and were ready to let Pete Alonso walk away as a free agent because they believed Vientos was going to be an All-Star for years to come. Instead, Vientos has mostly bombed on both sides of the ball except for a hot streak in August.
WILL HEADS ROLL IF THE METS MISS THE PLAYOFFS?
Thanks for not peeking.
No.
Stearns is in Year Two of his five-year contract. He already has said Mendoza will be back in 2026.
So unless Steve Cohen all of a sudden becomes mercurial and hot-headed, the Stearns-Mendoza combo will be leading the Mets for years to come.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
