Tom Brennan - The Dust Is About to Settle in Metsville

There is no jumping for joy in Metsville in 2023.

Today is August 1. The trading deadline is today at 6 PM. 

So be it.

In the movie The Sum Of All Fears, a nuke erupted in Baltimore.

This year, it erupted in Queens.  Cohen hit the destruct button.

Simply, the primary year this team was built for was 2023. Meanwhile…

Because baseball (foolishly in my opinion) has the trade deadline at July 31, when about 35% of the season is yet to be played, teams have to guess whether they’re in or out after just around 105 games played.

Cohen realized he had a very old and hugely expensive team with just a 17% chance of a Wild Card, and a lot of that “expensive” would drift over to 2024, when it is quite reasonable to question whether the likes of Verlander and Scherzer would show sign of age degradation.

So Cohen nuked the Mets, to reset the players and $$$.

Had he had until August 15, perhaps he’d have done differently. 

Maybe the Mets would go on fire and quickly close the Wild Card gap.

But smartly, he realized that given the July 31 deadline, a sharp redirect right now was the most logical and appropriate tactical approach.

Many disappointments - try these 13 for starters:

1) If Edwin hadn’t gotten hurt, they’d be squarely in the WC hunt right now, and none of this would be happening.

2) Two normally fine hitters in Nimmo and McNeil who are sitting in or around the mid .250s, when one would have expected them combined to be hitting .300.

3) Pete and Lindor knocking in lots of runs, but hitting combined in the low .220s. Again, probably 40+ points below expectations.

4) Marte and Escobar sliding sharply, and well below 2022 levels due to injury and age.

5) Megill and Peterson having a very unexpectedly rough first 4 months.

6) Baty hits in a sub-par fashion, leaving us to wonder what his ceiling is.

7) Vogelbach one dimensional mediocrity.

8) Canha sub-par, too, to a lesser degree.

9) Nido’s impotence when Narvaez naturally got hurt badly at the start of the season.

10) Not enough bullpen depth, resulting in more losses.

11) The lowly Nats hitting 24 points higher than the Mets, and scoring the same number of runs. Crazy. Marlins outhitting them, too. Who woulda thunk it?

12) A barren minor league system, so there was no real supply chain.

13) The talented duo of Verlander and Quintana missing so much time in the first 4 months.

Every season has its ups and downs. This season has plenty.

I do not blame Cohen one bit for his course change.

I just wish the trade deadline was August 15, when there is still 25% of the season to be played. More rational, less guesswork.

Because maybe he would have seen a hot Mets team heading into August 15 and been a BUYER instead.

But maybe it is all for the best. 

Or…maybe not. 

That’s baseball, folks.

Of course, the factor no one but me likes to add in. The pitchers’ park and its retarding factor for Mets hitters.

.248 on the road, 13th best in baseball.

.226 at home (28th).

SMALLER HOUSES ARE LESS COSTLY, STEVE

STEVE COHEN, SAVE MILLIONS IN BREAKING-UP-IS-EXPENSIVE-TO-DO MONEY BY MOVING IN YOUR FENCES AND HAVING LESS DEPRESSED (AND HENCE MORE WINNING-ENABLED) HITTERS. 

SIMPLE: 7-8 FEET FURTHER IN ALL AROUND.

Yanks? 87 HRs in 57 home games, but just 59 HRs in 49 home games. Where do you think their hitters are happier?

P.S. Only the Mets’ 2 DSL teams and its FCL team played Monday in the minors, but they managed to compile 34 runs. Nice.