By Mike Steffanos
After a really rough start, the New York Mets are looking like the competitive team we hoped to see.
Coming into the season, I thought the 2024 Mets bore similarities to the 2005 club. When I resurrected my long-dormant blog in 2020, I wrote a series of posts about those 2005 Mets. They were the first Mets team I wrote about when I started the original version of Mike's Mets in August of that season. I live in a place with few Mets fans. All of my friends were Yankees and Red Sox fans. To this day, I have no close friends or family who root for the Mets. Taking the unusual step of becoming a blogger when I was already in my mid-40s was me looking for a place to talk about that Mets club.
It turns out this year's Mets team had a little too much in common with the 2005 crew. Those Mets lost their first five games of the season before righting the ship and winning six in a row. This year's club also lost their first five. While they didn't emulate 2005's immediate winning streak to get back over .500, the 2024 Mets have gone 10-3 since, boosting their record to 10-8 and achieving a tick above blessed mediocrity. More importantly, they have taken four consecutive series against decent or better teams that had been playing well: Cincinnati, Atlanta, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh. The first three of those series wins were achieved by taking the rubber game, something the Mets were terrible at last season. Then they took it up another notch in sweeping the Pirates. The Reds, Royals, and Pirates were hot coming into their respective series, and winning 2 of 3 in Atlanta was an impressive achievement.
This isn't to say we're watching the gelling of a powerhouse team here in Queens. But we see a club that can hang around in the Wild Card race all year and possibly grab a playoff spot. While certainly not perfect, the bullpen looks like a huge upgrade over last year's. This is crucial for a squad that doesn't feature starting pitchers who go deep into games — not even the 6 or 7-inning outings that pass for exemplary starts in today's game.
José Buttó is one pitcher who has delivered a couple of 6-inning starts after repeating his excellence against the Royals. More importantly, he is providing the Mets crucial starting pitching depth. The Mets are finding it impossible to keep sending Buttó back to Syracuse. José has grabbed that fifth starter slot, at least until Tylor Megill returns. Even if Megill does come back fairly quickly, I could see Buttó locking down the spot starter/long relief role that Trevor Williams excelled at in 2022.
Many people, including some who get paid for their opinions on baseball, wrote the Mets off after they went 1-5 on their opening homestand. That was, of course, silly. It would be equally foolish to foresee the Mets going neck-and-neck with the Braves this season based on the past 13 games. This is not a great team playing in Queens this season. There will be more periods of disappointing play like that first homestand this summer, mixed with more hopeful stretches like the current one. Again, this is reminiscent of the 2005 crew.
But I believe the 2024 Mets have more potential than their counterparts from 19 years ago. While no Pedro Martínez is leading the current rotation, there is more quality top-to-bottom. Kaz Ishii was the fifth starter for half the season for those old Mets and was awful. There were no prospects on the farm ready to debut for that club. Omar Minaya had to scramble to piece together a rotation back in 2005. In contrast, the current farm system has several interesting arms with a real chance to be Major League contributors.
