Paul Articulates – The 2022 Mets had it all except one thing

The New York Mets 2022 season ended in the wild card round.  After accumulating 101 wins in the regular season and occupying first place in the NL East for a majority of the year, many would consider the season a failure.  If the goal of the season is to win the World Series, then it was the 58th time in 60 seasons that the Mets failed to do so.

Baseball is full of failure, and that is part of the allure of the game.  Can you overcome the adversity of a failure to become stronger or better?  Players have to face the difficulty of hitting a small round ball with a cylindrical bat onto a place in the field (or beyond the field) where no one else can reach it.  Teams have to face the constant struggle of injuries, slumps, and other personnel issues through a six month marathon only to then face a number of must-win playoff series to become the champion.  And franchises have to consistently win games, divisions, and championships or face the wrath of the fan base even though there are 29 other franchises battling to do the same.

To be successful, teams have to combine skill, luck, and timing to come out on top or be considered failures.  The Mets did an awful lot of things right this year, but the result was not much better than other years that they were less deserving.  Let’s look at what they did right:

1) The owner set a winning culture from the beginning.  You may question whether Francisco Lindor was worth $341M over 10 years, but the statement from Steve Cohen was, “We’re going to do what it takes to win.”  He, along with his front office has built a team full of resilient players that rally around a “team first” motto.

2) The front office positioned the team to win. Billy Eppler and his staff acquired a great deal of talent but also made sure that the pieces of this puzzle were complementary.  This was a combination of strong pitching, capable hitting, great fielding, and savvy players that knew how to play the game.

3) The manager maintained the team first culture by giving everyone on the roster a role and plenty of time to prove their capabilities.  He managed the innings thrown by the staff so there was no burnout or uncommon injury.  He rotated players from the bench onto the field to give everyone the opportunity to contribute – and they did.

4) Many of the players had great seasons that were worthy of expectations.  Brandon Nimmo continued to improve as a defensive and offensive player.  Starling Marte brought the speed, hitting, and defense that everyone expected.  Jeff McNeil returned to his opportunistic hitting style and captured a batting title.  Pete Alonso retuned to the power player that Mets fans expected, hitting 40 HRs and setting a team record with 131 RBIs.  And Francisco Lindor was finally the player that was acquired to be the core of the franchise – ironman innings, stellar defense, over 100 RBIs, and leadership by example.

5) The pitching staff had a healthy season in baseball terms.  We had the whole package going down the stretch – deGrom, Scherzer, Bassitt, Carrasco, Walker, and a bullpen capped by the unhittable Edwin Diaz.

6) The array of prospects in the minors was uncompromised this year by the trade season and continued to work their way forward, with several getting a shot at the bigs before season end.

So how did this combination of so many good things end up failing in the end?  Certainly we had holes, like the much-maligned situations at DH and catcher.   Certainly there were occasional failures with all the players, from the great to the not-so-great at the most untimely moments.  But that is baseball, and all 30 teams had their holes and their moments of untimely failure.  

These Mets had overcome all of those things for the first five months of the year.  It seemed like someone would always come through when they needed it to win a game or a series. Remember when that was their “thing” – always winning the series?  They went 7 weeks into the season before they lost one.  They had that one intangible thing that drives success in such a failure-oriented game: MOMENTUM.  When you’re on a roll, good things happen – you know it will, and every at-bat, every defensive stop, the players feel like they are going to succeed.  Last year the Braves won the World Series because they had the momentum of a late season surge that carried them through the playoffs.  They weren’t the best team in the league last year – not nearly as good as this year’s club – but they had that intangible.

The Mets lost their momentum on August 16th.  They had won 17 of 20 games including a decisive four games in a five game series at home against the Braves.  That left Mets fans and the players feeling like they “had it”.  On August 16th they began a series in Atlanta against a team that was beating everyone – except the Mets.  It rained that day and both teams tried to nurse their pitchers through a 55 minute rain delay.  Strider made it; Carrasco did not.  He finished a struggle of a 2nd inning and left with tightness in his left side.  The Braves went on to win that game 13-1 and put some doubt in the Mets.  Are they really that good?  Is our pitching staff going to fall apart with late-season injuries?  The next night Taijuan Walker left after 2 innings with back tightness and Charlie Morton shut out the Mets 5-0.  The next night Scherzer pitched, but was not sharp.  The Mets won but almost coughed it up at the end.  The Braves won the next, making it 3 of 4 in that series.  Doubt had set like quick-drying concrete.

The Mets would go on to win plenty of games, hanging on to their lead until the second-to-last series of the season.  But the swagger wasn’t there – every game seemed tougher to win; every RISP situation seemed harder to convert.  Even a stretch of September games against a very beatable set of opponents did not re-kindle that belief that great fortune was around every corner.  To the Mets credit, they kept grinding it out, reflecting on positive things that happened, recounting their confidence in the team.  But you can’t summon momentum like an UBER.  It shows up when all the right things click, but certainly not when you want it or need it.  And as the need increased with a shrinking lead in the East, momentum was impossible to find.

Next season will bring a brand new team, with many changes due to the dynamic nature of baseball personnel movement and the ebb and flow of player talents as they age.  Next season will also bring a clean slate where everyone starts with zero momentum.  Some will build it early, some will find it late.  I wish this same team could run out on the field on March 30, 2023.  They were good enough to win, but not fortunate enough to hold that momentum going into the playoffs.   I still think that next year’s team will be competitive because I trust Steve Cohen and the front office to find a way to position that team to win.  But that is a different story to be written next year.