Mets Monday Morning GM: Playing the waiting game on the offense

A typical New York Mets starting lineup in 2021 includes only two new names from past seasons. Superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor is typically found hitting at the top or in the middle of the order with catcher James McCann closer to the bottom.

The Mets players, to their credit, performed well enough in recent seasons to show the front office not much needed to be done in this department. Even still, the team made the obvious upgrade at the catcher spot and brought in the talents of Lindor for that extra boost.

So far, the Mets haven’t gotten the explosive offense many of us expected. And even if we do get a streak of high-scoring games from this team, how many of us will be convinced it will last?

The Mets don’t have much they can do other than to wait for the offense to figure things out

There’s no hot minor league player waiting for a promotion. There’s no breakout bench star we could insert into the starting lineup. Options for this team are limited to a day-by-day shuffle o the starting lineup and the hope that players begin to perform to something even close to their career averages.

Quite amazingly, despite these offensive woes, the Mets are right there with the rest of the National League East. The league as a whole has been evenly matched with each other. In the Mets’ division, we see four clubs failing to reach their high expectations plus the Miami Marlins.

Way too soon for any major trade, it’s hard to picture where the Mets could insert a big bat into this lineup with making some kind of a complete change of direction. The roster has a lot of young players we expected to be parts of the future. With no obvious and immediate holes, the front office doesn’t have too many options.

Who gets the blame for the bad offense?

Let’s point some fingers. No, not that finger. Things aren’t that bad yet. Only Mr. Met can use it.

Hitting coach Chili Davis has certainly felt his ears ringing in recent days. Often the scapegoat of a lackluster offense, the hitting coach cannot escape this kind of turmoil.

I don’t blame fans demanding he gets fired. Fans put their heart and money into this team and retribution is always top of mind whenever either feels wasted.

Ultimately, the blame does fall on the players. I don’t care how much instruction they do or do not listen to. They are professionals. Many have been around for years. All have been successful before. If they aren’t performing, it falls squarely on them.

However, I would like to see the coaching staff hold the Mets hitters a little more accountable for how poorly they have performed. I have a tough time imagining Luis Rojas chewing out any player for a bad performance. Maybe he’s not the right type of manager for this young roster.

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There’s not much we can do right now other than to wait it out. Sandy Alderson and Zack Scott are handcuffed right now. As fans, we can only hope the pitching is enough to get the team through these absent-offensive days until trade deadline season arrives and maybe a major deal takes place.