Mack’s Mets – the premier site for information on the New York Mets talent pipeline and dialogue on Mets prospects, Mets news, and Mets opinions.
Mitch was the #38 draft choice out of the University of Michigan in the 2025 draft. He is currently playing for the Brooklyn Cyclones after a hot spring.
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ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER LOSS FOR THE METS
It is now May 1, and the crew is screaming “Mayday Mayday.”
The Mets cruise ship has been taking on water rapidly, as this season has gotten off to a titanically bad start.
Luke Weaver got his BS in college, no doubt, because he blew a big save yesterday, and that is no BS.
AJ Melendez was having a GREAT Offensive day, so what did Mendoza do late in the game? He brought in Slater to pinch hit for him. Slater failed.
Anyway, another day another loss.
Syracuse won two games.
AJ Ewing? Has had one heck of a three game stretch in his triple AAA debut, with 7 for 12, a walk, and no Ks, and we may want to start to think that he might just be ready. Probably premature. Maybe not.
Ryan Clifford is not ready. Why? In Syracuse’s DH sweep, he was 0 for 7 with 5 Ks. 44 Ks on 28 games.
Jack Wenninger was great - bring him up.
Lambert pitched well in relief, Ross did not.
Binghamton hit, and won. Parada had 3 hits, edging him closer to .200.
Brooklyn won 2-1 on 2 late runs. Antonio Jimenez is not hitting much, but did steal home.
St Lucie gave up lots of runs again. Peña and Guzman had fine offensive nights.
Let May begin!
Given the current state of the outfield it’s pretty pathetic. Yes, Juan Soto is back though with some forearm soreness which is keeping him at the DH role instead of playing the outfield. Then you have the likes of MJ Melendez who didn’t make the major league team out of Spring Training, Brett Baty reminding people why he’s no longer a starter, Tyrone Taylor whose defense does not make up for his lack of hitting skills, latest scrap heap pick Austin Slater and suddenly improving Carson Benge.
Yes, the Mets need help out there. The in-house options are not all that promising. The club has one minor league outfielder available for a promotion in speedster Nick Morabito who at a .262 AAA average does not exactly scream, “Promote me now!” Cristian Pache is hitting .307 but isn’t on the 40 man roster. The same goes for .314 hitting Ji Hwan Bae.
Given the paucity of offensive options it is long overdue for the currently playing at a .345 winning percentage Mets, currently tied with the now Don Mattingly led Philadelphia Phillies for the worst record in the league. It would seem that while a great many players are not performing to their expected capabilities that the guy who chose them is doing even worse. In fact, since 2025 ended the only player not embarrassing the front office is the now injured .350 hitting Jared Young. The rest of the newcomers who allegedly swing bats for a living are, well, not exactly threatening to win tin slugger awards, let alone silver ones.
It would seem that even more pressing than the need to replace the manager or the POBO is the need to bring some real offensive power to the Mets. Buying low isn’t working. Buying high thus far isn’t working. Giving up isn’t working. Something’s got to give.
THE METS ORGANIZATION IS BEST PICTURED LIKE THIS
Bad baseball and bad records abound in the Mets organization.
I wish it were otherwise. I am not alone.
We all know the Mets’ very bad situation:
They went from a 7-4 record to 10-20 collapse in just a few short “shock and awe” weeks.
Last night?
They got trounced.
Down 13-2, mid 7th, when I simply gave up. Let me know how the horror show ended. (OK, I peeked. 14-2 loss. Thankfully, they picked up a safety.) Peterson has a better ERA than Manaea (6.53 vs. 6.55).
Carl Edward’s Jr., meanwhile, between spring training and the regular season, in 14.2 IP, has allowed 3 earned runs and fanned 22. We all knew at the start of spring training that he’d be the Mets’ ace, right?
Combined, Lindor, Vientos, Taylor, Alvarez, and Robert have 34 RBIs. Sal Stewart of Cincy had 29 RBIs all by his lonesome.
Kidding (and disturbing facts) aside…
Let’s face it:
1962 IS BACK!
Or, if you prefer:
THE TRAGIC IS BACK!
Of course, fragile, injury-prone Luis Robert, Jr. might be headed to the IL.
Roger Daltry heard that about Robert and asked, WHO’S NEXT?
Syracuse?
AJ Ewing did what was seemingly impossible for him, going hitless on Wednesday night - but only because Syracuse’s game was postponed.
The S-Mets therefore remained at 14-13, slightly over .500, and making them the shining team beacon of light in the organization so far.
8-15 Binghamton? “Let’s not play two.”
The Polo Ponies followed up being no hit on Tuesday for the second time in April with an 8-2 loss in game one of a doubleheader. The hitters didn’t hit, except for a two run first inning, and starter Will Watson is now 0-4, 6.98.
Not good.
In game 2, again there were 2 first inning Binghamton runs! A 3-0 Joander Suarez-supplied lead was narrowed to 3-2 in the 4th. Then, in the 5th, Suarez got pulled and the lead did too. Metoyer was awful. Down 5-3, heading to the 6th. Final? 5-3 loss. Their hitting stopped - again.
Jacob Reimer (.186) had 3 hits in the twin bill.
Next up, the Cyclones:
Their 5-17 record says it all - Brooklyn’s subglacial offense (.184) remained subglacial, with a 5-0 loss. Joel Diaz is sitting ugly at 0-4, 8.68. And Brooklyn is allowing opponents to score 6 runs on average per game.
Not good.
Mitch Voit had two of the squad’s 5 hits, and a couple of steals. After his 3 for 23 season start, he has hit well since (14 for 53, 3 HR, 10 RBIs.
As a point of offensive team comparison, a Winston Salem player named Caleb Bonemer has 11 home runs in 22 games, while Brooklyn’s entire team has 12 in 22 games. Three SAL teams have between 32 and 38 homers already. OUCH!
St Lucie? “Let’s also not play two.”
The Lucites score a good number of runs, but the team’s pitching staff is severely struggling. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen”.
161 runs allowed in 193 IP. Three other FSL teams have allowed 95 or less.
How do you spell “disparity”?
A 7-6 first game 8 inning loss.
One game 1 bright light, Elian Peña, had two hits.
In game 2, St Lucie fell to 10-13, losing a 7 inning affair by the score of 7-4, so on the evening, they allowed 14 more runs in 14 opponent innings.
Pena? A hit and a walk (.346).
And 19 y/o, recently promoted Eddie Lantigua added two RBIs in the 7th.
The two losses came despite their opponent Tampa trying to be generous, by making 8 errors in the short twin bill. They needed to have made 12.
RECAP:
With one April day left:
March/April have been brutal for this Mets organization. No sugar-coating it.
This was an organization where both the Mets and its farm system were ranked by some in baseball’s top 10.
How wrong were those projections, huh? How about #30 and #30, instead?
Outscored brutally by a combined 46 to 17 in 6 games last night? Egads.
And a combined 47-78 (.376) Mets teams’ win-loss record? Egads.
Of little solace in that the NY Yankees are 20-11.
Well, take comfort: the Mets’ teams’ combined May records are currently 0-0.
Green shoots?
Every year, the optimists strive to see green shoots, when what Mets fans really need to see, but all too rarely do see, is a forest.
We simply have no Caleb Bonemer types.
When the New York Mets signed Clay Holmes ahead of the 2025 season, there were significant questions on if the dominant reliever could fully transition into becoming a full-time starter. We had seen examples with David Stearns deploying this strategy with the Milwaukee Brewers with the likes of Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff, but those hurlers made the transition very early in their respective careers. On the flip side, the San Francisco Giants signed Jordan Hicks to a four-year $44 million contract with the hopes of converting him into a starter.
Unfortunately for the Bay Area team, that decision blew up in their faces. For Holmes, it may have not always been pretty, but the decision saw positive returns. The former New York Yankee tossed over 165 innings while pitching to a 115 ERA+ in his first season in Queens. Although we are only a month into the 2026 season, and the biggest question regarding Holmes has been stamina, he has appeared even more comfortable in the early goings during his second season in a big league rotation.
Holmes turned in one of his more dominant outings on Tuesday against the Washington Nationals. The Nats offense has started to come back down to earth but had been surprisingly a solid unit to begin the 2026 campaign. Holmes went six shutout frames and only surrendered three hits and one walk. Earlier in the month, he shutout the Giants across seven innings and only allowed three hits in that contest as well.
There might be reason to believe that Holmes will eventually come back down to earth. A 1.75 ERA is not sustainable for just about any pitcher (except maybe if your name is Paul Skenes). Still, all of Holmes’ pitches are returning plus value. According to Baseball Savant, his overall pitching run value of five is in the 89th percentile among all big leaguers. Both his fastball and offspeed run value are at two (he gets another run of value from his breaking stuff). The offspeed value is all the way up in the 88th percentile. It’s impressive when his breaking pitches are bringing up the rear but still place in the 72nd percentile.
What has been most impressive is that Holmes is retaining his value despite a high volume of innings in the first month. Entering Wednesday,He currently ranks just inside the top 20 in innings pitched. In an era of the five-and-dive starting pitcher, Holmes is giving Carlos Mendoza’s squad length. That within itself is a valuable commodity.
Holmes has brought back his curveball. Prior to 2026, Holmes had not thrown his curve since 2021. The curve replaces the slider, which he threw about 11% of the time a season ago. Whether it was Holmes’ decision or the Mets’ new pitching brain trust, the decision to replace the slider with the curveball has paid off.
Last year, opponents slugged nearly .530 against the slider. Although he is still working in the curve (only thrown 37 total times), hitters have not mustered a single hit against the pitch. He has thrown it almost exclusively to lefties. In addition to re-introducing the curveball into his repertoire, Holmes has ditched the four-seam fastball. He never heavily relied on it, but he did throw it five percent of the time in 2025. This year, he has thrown the four-seamer a grand total of once.
Holmes’ raw stuff has not been overpowering hitters. His strikeout rate (16th percentile), whiff rate (35th percentile) and even his hard hit rate (37th percentile) are nothing to brag about. Where Holmes makes his money is getting hitters to chase outside the strike zone. He is in the 74th percentile in chase percentage.
Normally, one might think that would be associated with a higher whiff rate, but instead, hitters are making contact, but it’s on the ground. Holmes is in the 90th percentile in ground ball rate. He induces ground balls at over 55% of the time. In an era of opponents trying to lift the ball, being able to keep hitters on the ground is a premium skill. Those underlying statistics will allow Holmes to maintain solid numbers even if he isn’t supporting a sub-2.00 ERA within the ensuing months.
This isn’t an anomaly either. From 2021-2023, when he was a dominant relief pitcher, Holmes' opponent pull air percentage was anywhere between 5.5-7.5 percent. Although that number has climbed since becoming a starter, he still maintains a very good pull air rate of just over 13%. That number might appear high given his reliever rates, but it still ranks relatively well when compared to the rest of the league. In the early part of this season, Holmes has cut off over 50 points in wOBA and his launch angle sweet spot is down to just under 25%. This goes a long way to keeping the ball on the ground and giving your defense the opportunity to make plays behind you.
The pitch for Holmes to watch closely will be his sinker. He throws it nearly half of the time. Hitters are currently only batting .161 against his primary pitch, but the expected batting average is .283, which is an enormous jump. This isn’t to say that we should all of a sudden expect his sinker to get knocked around the ballpark, but it’s why his hot start might not be completely sustainable. Maybe Holmes has mastered the ability to get batters to hit the ball to where the defenders play, but the .161 average might start to trend upward, especially once the weather in New York warms up and the ball does carry farther. On the other hand, if Holmes can keep opponents on the ground, that might not be a problem.
When the Mets inked Holmes to a three-year contract, they were hoping he could give them a solid five innings every fifth day and slot into the backend of their rotation. Due to injuries and other starters underperforming, Holmes has been thrusted into a larger role. It’s a big risk when depending on a former reliever to give you quality starter innings over a six-month season. It’s not always going to be pretty and look as dominant as it did on Tuesday night, but in a time when Stearns has faced a lot of backlash for his roster construction, it appears he is being proven right in seeing a full-time starter in Clay Holmes.
Typically, a team would like to ease a rookie into position by providing some stability and a cast of players around him for support. This season, it has been anything but that. Between the poor hitting up and down the lineup and the fragility of the Mets’ outfielders, Benge has had very little support at all. He has shown that he is up to the task nonetheless.
So far this season, Benge has played left field in 13 games, right field in 12 games, and center field in 4 games. Over those games, he has accumulated 56 total chances and made 54 put-outs for a fielding percentage of .964. His speed and range have contributed to stellar numbers in the advanced metrics with the 3 OAA and 2 runs prevented. His OAA numbers rank him fourth among MLB outfielders, and second in the NL behind Pete Crow-Armstrong. Baseball Savant ranks him in the 94th percentile for his range, 93rd percentile for his arm strength, and 91st percentile for his sprint speed. This equates to a superb defender across all outfield positions – and he has only just begun.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Savant
Carson Benge is having a little more trouble adjusting at the plate, getting off to a slow start with only a .188 batting average to date. Benge has adjusted to the pitching at every level he has encountered in his baseball career, and the analytics are saying that he should be able to adjust at this level also. He already has above average numbers for chase rate, whiff rate, and hard hit balls, and his average exit velocity of 91.1MPH is pretty impressive considering his low barrel %. Once he has become accustomed to seeing the stuff that MLB pitchers can deliver, the barrel %, exit velocity, and hitting stats should begin to climb.
He may be the biggest bright spot for a team that continues to struggle to find its mojo on the field. His steady play in the midst of the environment of turmoil caused by the club’s failings is a testament to his mental fortitude. If and when this team picks up and the confidence builds, I expect to see Carson rise to new levels of performance that will have him ranked among the top rookies in the league.
There are two ways to watch a season like this.
You can watch the standings. Or you can watch how a team responds to disaster.
Right now, the standings tell you the New York Mets are fighting just to stay relevant. A push toward .500, maybe hanging around the Wild Card conversation, but nothing that feels stable or bankable.
The response tells you something very different.
This is no longer a “win-now” team in the traditional sense. It’s a live reconfiguration of a roster, a pipeline, and an identity — happening in real time.
And that means the most important games of 2026 haven’t happened yet.
What you’re watching today is not the same team you’ll be watching in June-July.
The current roster — as reflected on FanGraphs — is a bridge state, not an endpoint.
Veterans are stabilizing innings and at-bats.The bullpen is being stretched and stress-tested.The lineup is searching for consistency it may never fully find.
That’s the surface layer.
Underneath, a second roster is forming.
This is where the season flips.
By mid-year, the Mets are likely integrating a wave of players who aren’t just depth — they are directional bets.
A.J. Ewing – athletic profile, defensive flexibility, potential late-season spark
Nick Morabito – true center field traits, speed, range, system fit
Ryan Clifford – power development, middle-of-the-order projection
These are not plug-and-play stars. They are signal generators.
Each at-bat answers a question:
Can this profile translate?
Does this skill set scale at the MLB level?
Is this part of the 2027 core?
Christian Scott – near-ready, already testing MLB viability
Jonah Tong – development curve, command vs. stuff balance
Jonathan Pintaro (assuming your reference here; verify spelling) – depth-to-impact swing arm
Pitching is where seasons either collapse or stabilize.
For the Mets, it’s something else entirely: a live experiment in rotation construction.
Let’s call it clean:
This is a salvage-and-build year, not a contender year.
That doesn’t mean tanking. It means dual-track execution:
Track 1: Stay Competitive
Push toward .500
Don’t lose the clubhouse
Avoid full structural collapse
Track 2: Extract Signal
Identify 3–5 core players for 2027+
Stress-test young pitching
Evaluate defensive range + athleticism upgrades
Redefine lineup construction
If they flirt with a Wild Card, that’s upside.
If they don’t, it doesn’t invalidate the season.
The biggest risk is not finishing under .500.
It’s finishing the season with no clarity.
If the Mets exit 2026 still asking:
Who are our 5–7 foundational players?
What does our rotation look like next year?
What is our actual offensive identity?
Then the season failed; regardless of record.
Success isn’t 88 wins.
It’s something more specific:
2–3 young hitters establish repeatable MLB at-bats
1–2 young pitchers prove they belong in a rotation
Defensive athleticism materially improves
The team plays different games than it did in April
That’s how you turn a drifting season into a directional one.
Every game from here forward should be viewed through one lens:
Is this helping us understand what this team is becoming?
Because by July, the Mets won’t just be trying to win games.
They’ll be answering a much bigger question:
What version of this team is worth building around?
The 2026 Mets are not a finished product.
They’re a system in transition — somewhere between breakdown and breakthrough.
And if you watch closely, you can actually see the moment it starts to turn.
On a night where the Rumble Ponies amazingly were no hit for the second time in their first 3 weeks, and where the downgraded Cyclones met their 4 hits per game quota, there were a few very green shoots:
Carson Benge is hot.
He has gone 7 for his last 15 to rapidly jump to just under the Mendoza line at .195.
And AJ Ewing in his AAA debut? A single, double, triple, and a walk.
He now is raking at .373/.500/.627.
.500? Star stuff.
Maybe, just maybe, AJ was created by AI.
The Mets’ 8-0 win? We will see. But they are 1-0 in their last game.
Really? This move is the best that David Stearns has to offer? I’m sure hoping that there’s a magic “The Natural” spin that’s going to evolve from this stunning and monstrous transaction. After all, if you only look at career numbers then you see that Slater is a career .247 hitter spread over now his 7th team during his highly unimpressive career. His best year ever was way back in 2021 for the Giants when he hit .241 with 12 HRs and 32 RBIs. In David Stearns’ mind he’s the missing jewel from the roster treasure chest. Could he morph into a, say, .250 or .260 hitter? Sure, stranger things have happened but there’s no guarantee and right now he’s another Tyrone Taylor minus the defensive skills.
At the risk of being redundant, have a look at the rest of the roster. Mark Vientos, Brett Baty, Ronny Mauricio, Bo Bichette, Tyrone Taylor, MJ Melendez, Carson Benge, Francisco Alvarez, Luis Robert and even a slumping upon his return Juan Soto are not exactly what would intimidate the opposition. We can go through the same exercise with flawed starting pitchers and relievers but the end result is the same. Something needs to be done and a .247 hitting outfielder and an error prone first baseman without power is not exactly solving the problem.
For now we’re all being apparently asked to swallow hard and keep watching what isn’t working with no health improvements nor slump busting taking place. The pitching is giving away games as well yet in this regard nothing is happening either. How much rope does David Stearns get for his team construction while the Mets plummet into what could be permanent oblivion?
