David Lennon: Hard times for the Mets are liable to become much worse after the MLB trade deadline
Tyrone Taylor of the Mets singles during the sixth inning against Atlanta at Citi Field on Monday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
As soul-crushing as this season has been for the Mets, in nearly every capacity, it’s on the verge of sinking to depths that were unimaginable before Opening Day.
With Juan Soto now on the shelf indefinitely with a severe calf strain, and president of baseball operations David Stearns prepared to strip away a chunk of his valuable assets by Monday’s trade deadline, that’s going to leave a skeleton-crew roster occupying Citi Field for the final two months.
It’s a scary thought. These Mets, with the sport’s second-highest payroll at $380 million, could realistically lose 100 games for the first time since the 1993 club, famously known as “The Worst Team Money Could Buy,” stumbled to 103 losses.
Safe to say, Stearns’ ill-fated creation is now more deserving of that infamous moniker, due to the astronomical expense and epic failure. That ’93 team had a price tag of $38 million, which at the time ranked fifth in the majors. Adjusting for inflation, those Mets would still only be valued at roughly $87 million in today’s dollars. That’s a similar payroll to the current Marlins.
Owner Steve Cohen has footed the bill for the same level of ineptitude, at nearly five times the cost, courtesy of Stearns’ suspect roster-building this past winter. That’s a catastrophic miscalculation, and the process of digging out from the Mets’ debris pile is going to get much worse before there’s any legit hope of turning things around.
There was a momentary reprieve Monday night, however, as Francisco Lindor swatted a pair of home runs in a 19-hit effort to power the Mets’ 14-3 victory over Atlanta. Marcus Semien snapped a 3-3 tie in the sixth inning with a two-run homer, his second in as many games. Tyrone Taylor continued to enhance his trade value by also going deep on back-to-back days, this time with a three-run shot, as the Mets (45-62) earned their second straight win over an NL division leader after Sunday’s 8-3 victory over the Dodgers.
Taylor has been the Mets’ hottest hitter since coming off the IL in late June, with a slash line of .410/.477/.974 and six home runs over his last 19 games. But that also means he’ll soon be an ex-Met, so the boost he’s provided in Flushing will be happening someplace else by next Monday.
“It’s phenomenal swings right now, great at-bats,” manager Andy Green said. “Can’t imagine anybody wouldn’t love having him on their team.”
The injured Soto isn’t available to pick up that slack, either. Two seasons into Soto’s 15-year, $765 million contract, the Mets have only gone backward since his arrival, and now he’ll be a spectator to one of the most depressing finishes in franchise histor, although Soto did say he intends on returning before the end of the season.
“It’s frustrating,” Soto said Monday afternoon. “We never expected to be in this kind of spot by now. But we’ve got to take it day by day. We’ve got to be focused on the positives on what we have in here, and what kind of players we can build a team around.”
Obviously, positives are in short supply, and most of them will be headed out the door in the coming days.
Clay Holmes, Freddy Peralta, Brooks Raley, A.J. Minter, Huascar Brazoban and Taylor are certainly goners. Luke Weaver is likely to be dealt, as the rising bids should ultimately sway Stearns, and the Mets could get lucky with Luis Robert Jr., due to an aggressive market for righty sluggers.
That leaves the Mets trying to be competitive with no Soto, no bullpen bridge to their $51 million closer Devin Williams and two holes in their rotation to patch. From a standings perspective, yes the games are meaningless. But the Mets still have to field a team on a nightly basis, and Green, who managed three seasons of 90-plus losses with the Padres, again will have the unenviable task of sifting through the post-deadline wreckage for salvageable items.
“Being great in the big leagues is hard for every team, to some degree,” Green said. “And we’ve got to get better at what is hard. Our team has to do hard better as time goes on.”
The Mets also have MLB’s third-most difficult schedule remaining, with their opponents combining for a .524 winning percentage. Only the Reds (.533) and Cubs (.526) are looking at a tougher road to the finish line. That’s where a healthy Soto could have helped in trying to keep things somewhat respectable.
Instead, Soto now deserves to be added to the growing list of concerns, as one of the sport’s most durable stars is now on the IL for the second time with another calf strain, this more serious than the injury that sidelined him in April. Before this year, Soto, who turns 28 in October, hadn’t played fewer than 157 games the three previous seasons, and now he’s stuck at 84 with his return in doubt.
“It’s just weird,” Soto said. “But we just got to try to figure out what is going on, what is happening.”
Maybe Soto could be seeing more DH time earlier than anticipated in this 15-year contract, and if so, that’s another consideration for Stearns as he looks to fix the ’26 mess during what will be a lockout-shortened winter.
But the Mets have another two months to go before their second overhaul in as many seasons, and it’s not going to be pretty.
“Regrettably,” Green said, “I’ve had some experience as a manager on the wrong side of the trade deadline.”
For the Mets, that’s anyone left at Citi Field after Aug. 3.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
