Mets Monday Morning GM: 3 lessons the team can learn from last offseason’s misfires

3) Find guys who want to be here, fit the locker room, etc.

This is the tough one. How do you really tell this? No amount of number crunching can confirm if a player truly wants to be with the team or not. This developed naturally. We saw how appreciative Jose Iglesias was to be on the major league roster. Quite the opposite occurred with others who seemed to let their poor performance get the best of them.

The Mets were a little too casual when it came to finding players who fit into the locker room. Here’s an easy excuse for them: they didn’t have an identity. Because it took until around June 1 for the Mets to become who they truly were in 2024, this is less of a critique and more of a suggestion based on the way everything turned out.

Stearns didn’t completely ignore this element. Bader was a high energy player whose friendship with Pete Alonso helped welcome him. They later added Winker for a more offensive-focused version.

Looking back at this season, the Mets didn’t really have much of a personality for the first two months. Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo were the clear leaders and yet when they spoke it seemed more low key. There wasn’t the same fire they spoke with once the Mets started to win.

Momentum from one season to the next is a fallacy. However, a newly created culture around the Mets with many of the same players coming back is something to build on.

When the Mets signed Max Scherzer before the 2022 season, many pointed to that deal as making the Mets “legitimate.” Nearly three years since he signed his deal, we know that wasn’t the case. Changing the perception of the Mets organization this year is what has helped far more. This isn’t just a team players sign with to get paid. Baseball was fun in Queens. The fan support was undeniable. The allure of wearing orange and blue became real.