Contending - but Running Out of Room
This is the fourth installment in the 2025 Mets Season Review Series. Each post steps back from day-to-day noise to diagnose what actually happened, why it mattered, and what it revealed about the organization beneath the results.
By the end of July, the Mets were still very much in the race. But the way they were winning — and losing — made one thing clear: the system no longer had slack.
Data sourced from BB Reference, Fangraphs, StatHead. BaseRuns and Pythagorean Record here.
📊 Monthly Snapshot (July)
JULY 2025 SNAPSHOT
OUTCOMES
OPPONENT & SCHEDULE CONTEXT
July mirrored June in form, but with less margin and more volatility.
🧮 Outcomes vs Expectations (July)
Takeaway:
The Mets continued to outperform BaseRuns. Execution and leverage management were still masking erosion — but the gap was widening.
⚾️ Run Creation — Monthly
Runs Scored Distribution
Quantitative read
The offense remained streak-driven
There was still no reliable “grind” profile
Wins largely required favorable scoring environments
🛡️ Run Prevention — Monthly
Runs Allowed Distribution
Quantitative read
High-RA games were now increasingly common
The Mets were no longer suppressing damage
Bullpen stress was translating into outcomes
🧠 Qualitative Context (Monthly)
By July, the Mets’ core problem was fully visible:
Manaea and Montas were effectively lost as rotation stabilizers
Senga never returned to form after his hamstring injury
Peterson was showing clear fatigue signals
Holmes, while solid, could not consistently reach 5–6 innings — and his workload had roughly doubled year over year
The rotation was no longer just thin. It was structurally short on innings.
The bullpen continued to absorb the load — but at a cost that was becoming harder to hide.
📈 Season-to-Date (Through July)
📊 STD Snapshot
The Mets entered the deadline firmly in contention — but trending sideways.
🧮 STD Outcomes vs Expectations
STD takeaway:
The Mets had progressively drifted from “banked wins” toward “borrowed wins.”
🧩 Strategic Takeaway (Pre-Deadline)
By July 31, the picture was clear:
The Mets were good enough to justify adding
But the primary need was innings, not just leverage
The cost of acquiring durable starters was perceived as extremely high
The internal system had no immediate MLB-ready length left
This was not a team one move away. It was a team trying to stabilize a collapsing load-bearing structure.
💬 Audience Prompt
At the deadline moment, did this feel like a roster that needed finishing touches — or one already operating on borrowed time?
🔁 Transition to the Trade Deadline Diagnostic
The Mets acted decisively at the deadline. They addressed what they believed were their biggest risks.
What they chose not to address — and why — would define August.
3 comments:
I think at the end of July, if the acquisitions for the bullpen and of Cedric, the entertainer, had panned out, the Mets would’ve been playoff bound. But the bull pen was crumbling in August with injuries, and the bullpen acquisitions as I said did not come through. I still pen this seasons (2025) collapse on the utter collapse of the pitching. Yes the bullpen guys were worked hard, but the injuries were very unfortunate. However, I’m getting a little ahead of your narrative, other than to say, I think the moves were reasonable, and that if they were even moderately successful, the playoffs would’ve been achieved by the Mets.
Gawd, I hate lookin bak
Through July, I still feel they are destined, but the complete meltdown of the rotation killed the bullpen - even WITH the mini vacay included. Can you imagine without? Sproat’s and McLean should have come in now or the Mullins trade should have been for an arm. Also the Rogers trade was just plain stupid.
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