Tom Brennan - AJ EWING PROMOTED; Macro Overview of 2026 Mets Minors; Over-Analysis?

Maybe that guy WASN’T the problem…

Let us ponder that for a minute… 

“THE METS MAJORS ARE A MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT. GIVEN THAT: HOW IS THAT METS MINOR LEAGUE SYSTEM LOOKING, ANYWAY?”

(Image: SNY)

WELL, THE MINORS SYSREM NO LONGER HAS AJ EWING. 

THE METS JUST CALLED HIM UP.

WELCOME BOARD, AJ.

.339/.447/.514, 17 STEALS.

ENTIRE NY METS TEAM SO FAR: 19 STEALS.

MACRO LEVEL, MINOR LEAGUE PERFORMANCE YEAR TO DATE:

There are essentially two ways to look at minor league performance. 

The first, and probably the most important, is how well the farm system does in producing players that really help on the major league level.

The other way is to see how the teams as a whole are performing.

Viewing performance on the latter macro view leads one to the conclusion that the minor league system for the Mets this year is pretty disastrous. Why? Way below .500 in combined win-loss Mets minors percentage, and many, many hitters, and many, many pitchers performing quite poorly. Heck, Brooklyn is 8-23. Shades of 1962.

But, if one looks at it from the perspective of players becoming ready to be major league assets, the picture brighten somewhat. 

AJ Ewing (promoted on Monday to Queens), Nick Morabito, perhaps Ryan Clifford, if he suddenly decides to continue to seriously reduce his strikeout rate, Jonah Tong, Jack Wenninger, Zach, Thornton, Dylan Ross, and Jonathan Santucci in the near term represent a decent, if not overwhelming numerically, group of prospects from which to promote in the months to come. 

I say “not overwhelming” because I see no Paul Skenes or Jacob Misiorowski level talents in this cluster of prospects. Those two dudes are absolute game changers. 

Regarding Misiorowski, he dominated the hot Yankees on Friday. How so? 

Read on:

METS MISSED ON MISIOROWSKI 

I read this about the bullet train named Jacob Misiorowski who, in his last two Brewers starts, went 11.1 shutout innings, allowing just 2 hits, and fanned NINETEEN:

“Facing the Yankees’ Trent Grisham, Ben Rice and Aaron Judge, Jacob Misiorowski threw 10 pitches in one inning to retire the side — striking out Grisham and Rice on three pitches each and getting Judge to fly out.”

“five of which registered as the five fastest pitches recorded by a starter during the tracking era (dating back to 2008).”

“They came in at 103.6, 103.5, 103.3, 103.3 and 103.2 mph during an inning in which his slowest pitch was a 102.3 mph fastball.”

That is sick, game-changer stuff. Bullet train chasers.

The Mets in 2022 drafted two uber-talents - Jett Williams (#14) and Kevin Parada (#11) - before Misiorowski (#63) came off the draft board. 

Man, oh man, that is quality drafting, huh? No, I mean by the Brewers.

If my MLB team had the worst minor league system ever from a W-L perspective, but it also had those Skenes and the Faster Jacob ready for call up? I’d be very, very happy with my farm system.

So, despite the 2026 Mets minor league system as a whole, to date, being very disappointing to me, what really matters, I.e., available prospects for this present year, looks quite good. Or, at least quite decent. 

Minor league help, for call up to this beleaguered franchise’s MLB roster, is likely coming soon. And not a moment too soon.

OVER-ANALYSIS LEADS TO POOR RESULTSIN METSVILLE

The recently torrid Pete Alonso has been speaking out of late about what some might term the overly analytical David Stearns Approach to baseball. If what I read that Pete said was true, it was awfully…shall we say…BLUNT.

That cogent Stearns analysis kept Pete from signing a lucrative new deal with the Mets. 

So to him, the rejection over two straight off-seasons was personal.

I certainly think he has a real point, for two reasons:

1) being the underdog team in New York perpetually adds to the pressure of playing here under media glare and vocal, impatient fans. Many players cannot handle playing here. Pete Alonso was able to: therefore that should have been factored in as a premium regarding his salary demands because he has proven over time that he could handle the pressure cooker in Queens. 

2) Box office appeal. Pete Alonso was a big box office draw.  Jorge Polanco and Marcus Semien in NY simply are not.  Box office appeal leads to box office ticket sales, which leads to box office, concession, and ancillary revenues, in major amounts.

3) I’ll add a third reason, free of charge: 

Alonso and Nimmo do not miss games. They play every darned game. 

Polanco? Robert?  No. And no. Their infirmary card gets stamped a lot.

if you look at the small print on their uniforms, you’ll see it says “Fragile - handle with care”. 

They spend far too much time in the MLB chassis repair shop.

It truly appeared that David Stearns was looking at constructing a team on a simple WAR calculus. And that was unfair to Pete Alonso for reason numbers one thru three above, and you could probably come up with your own handful of reasons. 

I have no idea if Pete would’ve accepted it, but I would’ve offered him a shorter three year deal, for $125 million.  High AAV $42 MM, vs. his 5 year AAV of $31 MM..

He got 5 years, $155 million, so had he signed that 3 year Brennan-offered deal, he might have been willing to gamble on just 3 years, to see, after its 2028 expiration, if he could subsequently earn more than 2 years, $30 million for his 2029 and 2030 seasons under a new deal then. 

Kyle Schwarber at age 33 signed for 5/150, so his situation worked out beautifully for him at an age pretty similar to where slugging Pete will be at the end of that hypothetical Brennan deal ending in 2028.

And Stearns would have garnered a more time-limited contract for his Mets’ portfolio. And the Mets offense wouldn’t suck so bad.

I often think of other “what-ifs”.

Such as, what if, after the Mets won in 1986, but then failed in ‘87 and ‘88, I had said “what if I try to root for another team instead?  Like the one in the Bronx? I’d probably be much happier over the next 4 DECADES”.

So now, 40 years later, I probably should be asking myself that “what if”question right now. I’m sure that many New York area fans are doing exactly that right now. Some will act on that and make changes.

Why? 

Because I think logical people would prefer to root for a perpetual playoff contender, rather than a perpetual playoff pretender.

No doubt, the percentage of Mets fans who have turned off the TV, stopped going to games, and begun occupying themselves with more controllable fun things has to be skyrocketing.

And that is my memo for the day.

Except, one more thing…we should ask retired Congressman Pete King to write here. He is a Mets fan and just posted this:

Just some facts for David Stearns to consider: In Pete Alonso's entire 7 year career with the Mets, he missed a total of 24 games. In less than 2 months this year Alonso's supposed replacement, Jorge Polanco, has already missed 26 games! Says a lot about whatever analytics formula Stearns is using!

Tom Brennan - Unhappy Recap

ANY EXPECTED WINS THESE DAYS?  NO. NONE. NADA.

EVEN ALKA SELTZER CANNOT COME TO THE RESCUE 

Start of unhappy recap:

On Sunday:

Mets LOST

Syracuse LOST 

Binghamton LOST - TWICE - with just Bingo 8 hits in the doubleheader.

Brooklyn LOST

St Lucie LOST

The 5 teams are a combined 40 games under .500.

It’s not mid-May yet.  Yes, 40 under.

Add in the 1-5 FCL Mets and that deficit goes to 44 games under .500.

End of unhappy recap.

Paul Articulates - The nothing strategy

We have just about heard it all by now.  The Mets have been in almost a year-long swoon now, which began in mid to late June last year and has just snowballed through this season.  The angst amongst Mets fans is at an all time high, and they are calling for the removal of just about everyone, since everyone is failing, which of course would leave no one.  That wouldn't be good, either.

So, let's take a look back and recap.  The 2025 Mets did a slow, controlled flight into terrain with the crash landing occurring on the day before the season ended.  They tried many tweaks during that slide and just about none of them had any impact.  So after the season, David Stearns and his brain trust did a thorough analysis and decided that the team could not win with the current core of players and coaches.  They fired almost all the coaches (except Manager Carlos Mendoza), people in the development staff, and then traded away or did not renew a substantial core of the players which included the Mets all-time home run leader and the longest tenured player.  This was a large scale shake-up that you don't often see in teams that have significant success in their recent history such as the Mets' 2024 run into the NLCS.

Eventually, we all accepted it as change that needed to happen, because after all, it has been 40 years since a World Series Championship flag was raised in the team's home stadium.  Unfortunately, all that change has not reversed the team's direction.  After a few decent series wins, the Mets collapsed into what is now the worst record in MLB.  Along that trajectory, the team has tried many changes, including the signing of many free agents off the waiver wire on rolls of the dice that one of them could be the gem that sparks this team.    None of them have worked, but the revolving door is still in motion.

Meanwhile, back on the farm, the cancer has spread.  All of the Mets minor league affiliates are struggling with losing records (except 20-18 Syracuse) and horrible statistical performances.

The entire system appears to have collapsed.  I am not sure how an entire organization full of promising, high performance athletes can suddenly just collapse into a heap.  So let me put forth a hypothesis - it is not a collapse, but rather a recoil from the massive blow dealt by changing more than the system itself could stand.

You have seen this in everyday life.  A major change is introduced into a business, a school system, a political organization, and the immediate result is chaos.  No one knows what "normal" looks like, so everything looks weird.  Everything is so unfamiliar, it is hard to figure out what happens next, so next doesn't happen as it should and nothing works right.  Does this sound like your 2026 Mets?

If you accept the hypothesis, then you should also conclude that the worst thing you can do to a system spinning out of control is to introduce more change.  That just throws more chaos into the system.  Instead, you have to seek stability.  You have to find routine.  You have to restore comfort.

How do the Mets do this?  Do nothing.  Don't fire the manager, the GM, or the coaches.  Don't release all the players that you held onto in this rebuild.  Just let them find their center.  I'm not saying that they should continue to roll out lineups that look like spring training lineups, but let's not juggle the order every day, let's not try different roles for pitchers every week, and let's not pull the starter after the first baserunner beyond the fifth inning.  Let the players play.  Let the coaches coach.  They have not given up yet, but they are frustrated with always seeing different.

This is not a Seinfeld episode.  It is a method to help everyone deal with the change.  Communicate the approach for the next 30 days and stick with it.  Pick a first baseman, a right fielder, and a third baseman.  Stick with it except for a rest day.  Pick a lineup and stick with it except for minor match-up tweaks.  Stick with the current manager and let him make the decisions on lineups, pitchers, and rest.

In 30 days, if stability has not been achieved and the team is still losing, then there will be a very consistent data set on each position and each player that can be used to evaluate real deficiencies.

Reese Kaplan -- Status of the Major Players on the Injured List

The principal players crowding the Mets IL constitute a major break in the planned ascension from the barely .500 team of 2025 when a flood of new names arrived as familiar names left.  Little by little it’s possible these athletes will return to regular duty but for now it’s a matter of waiting and watching the standings that keep the Mets at or near the bottom of the NL East.

Jorge Polanco

While the news filtered out that Polanco has resumed baseball activities while he’s healing from both the injuries to his wrist and his heel, POBO David Stearns is talking about week-to-week as a guideline for his improvement, not a day-to-day status change that will ensure his prompt return to the major league clubhouse.  Polanco has already gone on record stating that he’s expecting to play first base as he was informed when he signed his free agent deal but it is also possible that they will instead have him take on DH duties to allow him to slowly acclimate to the stress and strain of everyday play.  Of course, a lot of that role assignment is more than loosely connected to the warmth of substitute first baseman Mark Vientos’ bat which may need to stay in the lineup if it continues to contribute to run scoring. 

Francisco Lindor

Most Mets fans are well aware that the severity of Lindor’s calf injury is far worse than what teammate Juan Soto recently experienced.  The basic treatment is three weeks in a walking boot before attempting to resume unaided locomotion and before baseball activities resume.  The best bet has him returning in late May which would be optimistic considering he was disabled on April 22nd.  Others are saying at the All Star break.

Ronny Mauricio

Somewhat highly regarded substitute infielder Mauricio was having and up and down experience at the plate before his thumb fracture which will keep him out for quite some time.  He’s currently sitting on the ten-day IL but it’s possible he will be shifted to the 60-day IL in order to remove him from the 26-man roster and enable someone else to take his place for this extended absence.  Consensus among athletic recoveries, a healing period of 6 weeks is not uncommon. 

Luis Robert

Also still on the 10 day IL, the expected recovery from a herniated lumbar disk is 3.5 to 6 months for non-operative healing whereas surgery pushes it out to as long as 7 months.  It would seem that the expectation of a recovery during the 2026 baseball season is slim and then you’d have to wonder how much effort Robert will be allowed to give during what is considered an easing return to regular activity.

Kodai Senga

Also facing an issue with his lumbar spine, Senga is thankfully already doing light throwing but the expectation is that he will have a lengthy minor league recovery period before he’s returned to take a spot in the starting rotation.  Given his recent injury and effectiveness issues it means that it may amount to another lost season for the Japanese import. 

AJ Minter

Everyone knows that the hip issue that shut down Minter’s recovery was not a good thing and has put major question marks on his recovery time.  The latest symptoms mean his rehab clock has restarted for another 30 days which pushes his return likely into mid June or the All Star break as well.  

Tom Brennan - Many Sunday Tidbits of the Tasty METS Kind

TOM’S MANY TASTY TIDBITS  

YEAH, THE METS LOST ANOTHER, 2-1.  

Three hits. Sheer garbage. Dreck.

More wasted pitching. So… What else can we talk about? Read on…

RICHARD NEER FACEBOOK POST RINGS TRUE RE: METS PRESSURE

I saw Richard Neer post the following on Facebook, and it is very spot on. Which is why I have made the suggestion in recent weeks more than once that that Mets move the team to another, lower pressure, city.

Of course they won’t move the team because of the mega project that Steve Cohen has going on in the area, for which HE needs the team right where it is now located, but when we wonder why the Mets always seem to fall short, I (and Billy Joel) think the main reason is simply one thing: 

PRESSURE!

NEER: “(Brandon Nimmo) … said that a conversation with Alonso convinced him that the Mets were planning to blow things apart in the off season, which influenced him to waive his no trade clause. He said he could detect no undue tension in the clubhouse last year. He observed that playing in Texas showed him how NY is a unique place to play. He was immune to it, being the only organization he grew up with.”

“The atmosphere is much lighter elsewhere, which contributes to some veteran players failing in the big city.”

My take? 

If “some veteran players fail in the big city”, then those failures clearly mean more losses and fewer wins. 

And fewer wins means repeatedly missing playoffs.

MY ANSWER?  I DUNNO - MOVE THE TEAM?

DRAFT BETTER? TRADE BETTER?  ALL OF THE ABOVE? 

And, of course, when many veteran players succumb to the pressure Nimmo refers to, especially when they first join the team, why would you trade away players like Nimmo and Alonso that are immune to the pressure?  

A very serious question to ponder, and one which, given the many trades and signings that David Stearns made this past off-season, he seems to have given insufficient consideration to. To the team’s detriment, so far, at least.

HAIL TO THE KING!

“The King?”

My nickname for Carlos Cortes, when he was in the Mets organization, was King Carlos. So I looked at a box score on Saturday morning, and I noticed that King Carlos (now with the Athletics) had just gone oh for four. 

After that oh-fer, he was hitting .356! 

Heck, the great Juan Soto was hitting just .282.

And in his entire major league career right now, in nearly 200 official at bats, the King is hitting .331/.369/.558!

All hail to the King! (No Mets “pressure” playing for the Athletics, I guess).

Without Carlos, tailgating Mets fans hold No Kings rallies. The King has left the building.

BTW, ex-Met Jarred Kelenic is hitting .278 for CWS. Only 18 ABs, it’s true, but no pressure. Even Pete Alonso was up to 8 HRs, 22 RBIs on Friday.

SPEEDY SAM ROBERTSON:

If the 17th round (2025) IF/OF, Sam Robertson, was involved in politics, he’d definitely be running. He steals with aplomb, and steals more than most politicians do, and it’s all LEGAL.  You see, he swipes bags, 

lots of them, and it’s legal because the bags he swipes are bases. 

So far this year, .250 with a .384 OBP with 16 steals in 27 contests.

And 25 steals in 180 plate appearances.

No power displayed at all, to date, by the 6’1”, 180 Robertson. 

Very little in his year in college, too.

Walks a lot. I don’t know very much about him. But he can swipe bags.

His longer term challenge to pursue his major league dream will be to get his average up and add power. 

Jeff McNeil did it. Why not Sam?

AN OVERRATED PROSPECT PITCHER?

Joel Diaz is # 38 in Prospect 1500’s Mets prospect list. Not extremely highly ranked, but 38 means a lot of guys are ranked below you.

But so far, for Brooklyn this year, he is 0-5, 9.13 ERA in 24 innings, with a 2.15 WHIP. 

That ain’t Top Anything. Bottom 38, maybe.

IF YOU ARE A METS FAN IN NEW YORK … OUCH! 

Saw this Joel Sherman headline:

Yankees look like the best team in the majors — and they haven’t even hit their ceiling

“The Yankees have a fine argument as the best team in the majors — and they are inching ever closer to being whole.”

What? You’re telling me that the Mets aren’t the best team in the majors? 

I guess so!  But I don’t understand how… 

After all, the Mets are so very darn good! LOL

A Mets Prospect With a 0.00 ERA?

I am sure everyone has heard of RHP Jun-Seok Shim. No? 

Anyway…

His ERA in the lower minors in 2026 is 0.00. With a 1.50 WHIP. In 2 IP.

Which is impressive, relatively speaking, as (by comparison) the first two (unnamed) pitchers for the FCL Mets in their Friday blow out 15-4 loss left that game with ERAs exceeding 30.00. An ERA of 0.00 is much better, right? 

Anyway, how did the Mets end up with Mr. Shim? 

Well, he pitched 13 1/3 innings for the Marlins rookie ball team last year, and in that short stint, he allowed 19 runs on 9 hits, and an amazing 23 walks and 8 hit batsmen.  Pretty wild, huh? 

Strike-throwing Bryce Montes de Oca felt better after seeing that.

I guess the Marlins had seen enough. They let Mr. Shim walk.

But 2026 is a new year for Mr. Shim. Last year is ancient history.

My advice?  Throw strikes, strikes, strikes.  And prosper. 

PEELING PAINT:

Here's a fond memory for you: remember Shea Stadium in the early days, with paint peeling very badly off of the seats? If you went to the game wearing short pants, you had to be careful.  

Ahh, the good old days. With upper deck seats being $1.50, you could put up with chipping and peeling paint, back in the days before plastic covered seats came into vogue. If I was a smarter kid, I would've brought sandpaper with me to games.

Boy, I miss those orange, blue and green seats. And I think field level seats were yellow.  Didn’t get down there to box level all that much.

THE NEXT RON HUNT?

Daiverson Gutierrez, catching for Brooklyn, has been a piñata for pitchers in his career. Through Wednesday, he had 842 pro plate appearances and been plunked an amazing 41 times. Hey, it helps the on base %, right?

He was hitting .165 this season, but had a much higher .304 OBP. 

How?  Plunks and walks.

By comparison, in the majors, Brett Baty is approaching 1,150 PAs and been hit by pitch just 7 times. Gutierrez gets nailed 8 times as often as Baty. Is it any surprise that Baty’s career OBP is a mere .293? 

Start sticking your tush out, Brett. Lean that padded elbow in.

Ex-Met Brandon Nimmo has been up 4 times as much as Baty, but has been hit 13 times as much. 

Nimmo and ex-Met Mark Canha get what Brett seemingly does not - long after the HBP bruise heals, that HBP vitally boosts your career OBP - and compensation value.

I don’t care who your guy is…

MY GUY IS…

Randy Guzman, who else?  The proof in the pudding for him will be as he gets to the higher minors, can he succeed against superior pitching, but his combined stats this year and last, through Thursday?

352 ABs, 27 doubles, 3 triples, 17 HRs, 78 RBIs, 51 walks/HBPs, and .290/.375/.525. Pretty sensational, if you ask me.  Let’s see if he can keep it up.

The Mets have him listed as their number 24 prospect. 

On his prospect page, it says that Guzman “ran a 108.5 MPH 90th percentile exit velocity at single A last year, better than Konnor Griffin‘s 107.7 in the same league.” 

Hey, I claimed him first. 

You go find your own guy. 

He’s “My Guy.”

LIFE IS FULL OF INTERESTING TIDBITS LIKE THIS ONE

Mack passed along to me this interesting info about Herb Washington.

“The A's released Herb Washington, the only designated runner in MLB history. 

“He was a world class sprinter who appeared in 105 games as a pinch runner in 1974-75. He stole 31 bases and scored 33 runs. He never had a plate appearance.”

“After his release, he owned 29 McDonald's restaurants, which at the time, made him the African-American franchisee running the most McDonald's outlets in the U.S.” “Washington then went on to become a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”

Federal Reserve Bank Director? 
I never would’ve guessed that one. Very impressive of the now-74 y/o.
Love it! And I’ll take a stolen base with my fries, thank you very much.
I worked at Wetson’s as a teenager. 
They were the “Mets” of burgers and fries.
The Yankees? McDonalds, all the way.