Ranking the 5 most frustrating NY Mets players of the 2026 season

It has been a frustrating year for New York Mets fans who only have the hope of the improbable to take place to get the team back into contention. It hasn’t been a complete disaster despite what some would suggest. The team has plenty of time to catch up with the competition. This does little to save us from looking at certain names, faces, or jersey numbers and feel a sense of frustration.

Few teams are assembled with 26 lovable players. This year in particular seems to have more frustrating players than most. Checking in a week into June, these are the five Mets players who’ve been the most frustrating.

These Mets have been bad but more so frustrating

5) Sean Manaea

Consider it a victory for Sean Manaea to be ranked only fifth on this list. Unless he pitches the way he did toward the end of the 2024 season, he’s going to remain one of the more frustrating players on this team. The decision to not get surgery in the offseason undoubtedly has held him back this year whether he’ll admit it or not. In some cases, it’s admirable for a player to battle through an injury. In Manaea’s case, with a full season to recover and even a worst-case scenario where he might not have been ready for Opening Day, his relegation to the bullpen and only minor signs he’s ready for a larger role have him practically cemented on a list of players deserving jeers rather than cheers.

4) Mark Vientos

It’s hard to place exactly where frustration should lie with Mark Vientos because if you admit you’re upset with him it feels like admitting you were bamboozled. Many of us were by his spectacular 2024 season which had him putting up the kind of power numbers few homegrown Mets have in recent years. Clutch moments in the postseason as well, he is playing his way out of any regular at-bats and maybe out of New York entirely. The only reason he's not higher is because this is reality and we should have seen it coming.

3) Bo Bichette

Bo Bichette should be the most disappointing player on the Mets roster. It’s at a point where I don’t think people really regard him any longer as the big ticket free agent he was meant to be. The terribly slow start hasn’t yielded the kind of results the Mets have needed in the absence of multiple major injuries. Booed by fans during opening weekend, he has yet to get on any kind of true prolonged stretch of success that has Steve Cohen tweeting about him again.

2) Kodai Senga

Look up the word “frustration” in the dictionary and there’s a picture of Mets fans putting together expectations for Kodai Senga. It’s the perfect way to describe him. He was supposed to be an ace. After missing nearly all of 2024 due to injury, more time in 2025, and the wreck he has been since his June injury last year, he feels like someone who’ll never turn things around. Carlos Mendoza has been regularly frustrated with him, Mike Puma sharing how the Mets “need to see results” during his ongoing rehab before they activate him.

1) Jorge Polanco

While you may not have thought Jorge Polanco was going to be an All-Star, the Mets certainly bought into the idea that maybe he could be. Signed for $20 million over two years, they essentially paid him three years’ worth of cash over two. The purpose was to give the lineup some needed power and discipline. Who knows if he’s capable of it? Polanco barely played due to injury and when he did, he wasn’t all that good. Yet another setback on his rehab assignment should have us wondering if the Mets did any intel into his health before entrusting him with such a big planned role for this season. A history of injuries was something they ignored. At least Luis Robert Jr., who didn’t make the cut of frustration, has been replaced by the far more exciting A.J. Ewing and we all kind of agree it was a worthwhile risk to send the Chicago White Sox Luisangel Acuna to acquire him. Polanco, on the other hand, was buying into one season of success.

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