(Reposting due to prior formatting issues)
If Tuesday’s post explored why this offseason feels misaligned, this series is about what 2025 actually revealed — month by month.
What Happened, Why It Mattered, and What It Revealed
On the surface, the 2025 Mets season looks familiar: a mid-80s win total, playoff relevance into the final weekend, and a year that could be summarized as “close, but not enough.”
But that surface view misses what actually made 2025 important.
This was not just another season that fell short. It was a stress test of an organization in transition — one that exposed where the Mets’ internal timing, roster structure, and risk profile aligned… and where they didn’t.
If you’ve followed my recent posts here, you know we’ve already begun pulling on those threads:
why early success masked fragility,
why April comfort created August constraints,
why the front office’s current posture makes more sense when viewed through an organizational-cycle lens rather than a single-season one.
This series is where we ground those ideas in evidence.
Purpose: Diagnosis, Not Debate
The goal of this review series is not to relive the season emotionally or re-litigate individual decisions in isolation. It’s to diagnose.
Month by month, we’ll examine:
what actually worked — and why
what failed structurally vs. situationally
which trends were sustainable, and which were always living on borrowed time
Most importantly, we’ll separate outcomes from process, and momentum from level — two distinctions that matter enormously when evaluating a team trying to build something durable.
Structure: A Repeatable Diagnostic Lens
Each monthly post will follow the same framework:
Month Overview: Record, RS/RA, run differential, Pythagorean context
Offense & Run Prevention: Scoring tiers, pitching bins, situational leverage
Qualitative Context: Injuries, usage, roster decisions, emotional tone
Strategic Takeaways: What this month tells us about roster design, depth, and front-office philosophy
Audience Prompts: Because this is a shared diagnosis, not a monologue
As the series progresses, we’ll layer in season-to-date trends, injury accumulation, and organizational implications.
How This Fits the Bigger Picture
This review series is not standalone. It feeds directly into the broader work many of you have already engaged with here:
the Mets’ pivot under David Stearns toward durability, controllability, and optionality
the idea of roster construction as risk management, not just talent accumulation
and the growing tension between the annual baseball calendar and the Mets’ internal reset cycle
If 2026 is going to make sense, we need to be honest about what 2025 actually was.
Why This Matters Now
Several of the most consequential offseason decisions — moving on from Alonso, Nimmo, McNeil, and potentially Díaz — were shaped by lessons learned in 2025.
This series aims to:
clarify the logic behind those choices
establish where the team truly stood last year, beyond the final record
and set a grounded baseline for evaluating what’s being built next
The 2025 Mets weren’t simply “close.” They were a case study in what happens when early stability meets later stress without enough margin.
What’s Ahead
The first post — March–April 2025 — drops tomorrow 1/8/26. Subsequent posts will cover May through September/October, followed by:
a Trade Deadline Diagnostic
a look at talent emerging down on the farm
and a Full Season Organizational Postmortem
Along the way, we’ll keep this interactive. Your perspective matters here.
Look past the record. The answers are already in the data.
3 comments:
Load up the first one
Looks good
This should be a very meaty series to inhale. Looking forward to it.
Post a Comment