It's like the NY Mets forgot the most important lesson Jose Iglesias taught them

Should the New York Mets have re-signed Jose Iglesias? Considering how average his season went as a member of the San Diego Padres, it’s hardly the difference between playing in October or not.

Still, a large portion of the Mets roster remained the same between 2024 and 2025. Many players were re-signed in the offseason to keep a core intact. The team picture between the two seasons includes a couple of new faces, but not the kind of wholesale changes fans are going to demand after missing the playoffs.

Iglesias’ presence might have made a difference. Larger is how the most important lesson he taught the team in 2024 was forgotten by the club in 2025

Every game counts and the Mets forgot all about this fact

Blame management here. Whether it’s David Stearns or Carlos Mendoza you want to hold accountable more, there were far too many games when the Mets didn’t seem like winning was a priority.

It’s not quite karma nor is it revenge or poetry or ironic. Coincidental, maybe? The fact that the Mets got into the playoffs via tie-breaker in 2024 only to get bumped out of making it to the postseason in 2025 is some strange kind of balancing out of the universe. The scales tipped against the Mets this time around.

It was June 1 when Iglesias was freshly back in the big leagues and hustling out routine ground balls for infield singles. The Mets lost the game to the Arizona Diamondbacks. A message was still sent and seemed to be felt by the entire team.

This was already a ball club where Francisco Lindor was viewed as the unofficial captain with Brandon Nimmo providing plenty of leadership, too. For a year, J.D. Martinez was a well-traveled veteran who’d seen it all. He had his own impact on players such as Mark Vientos. No player from the outside seemed to fit those roles in 2025. Less so their abilities on the field but more so how they handled themselves seems to be what was lost.

The Mets became directionless at some point this year. The veteran presence of a journeyman like Iglesias who seemed to appreciate every moment he got to spend between the lines wasn’t there. Neither was the most important lesson he seemed to teach them.