3 reasons the 2023 Mets season felt different from last season

The 2023 New York Mets went down as one of the most disappointing teams in franchise history, as the team rendered a $350 million payroll as pointless as they won just 75 games this year and saw a surprising amount of turmoil.

Now that the postseason turmoil has settled in, I went ahead and found some rather stark contrasts as to how the Mets were unable to win games at a high clip this year like they did last year.

1. The New York Mets had trouble setting the tone early in games.

What made the 2022 Mets so dominant at times was their ability to take control of games early and shorten them for Buck Showalter so often. In fact, the Mets led after the first inning 49 times last year, and went 41-8 in that span, the best record in franchise history, while they trailed after the opening frame just 34 times.

This year, one without an effective Starling Marte for much of the year and Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil with batting averages at least 50 points lower than last year, led after the first inning just 28 times (3rd fewest in baseball), in which they went just 16-12, while they trailed after the first inning 47 times (2nd most in baseball). That's 25 fewer such occurrences from last year (remember the Mets won 26 fewer games than last year).

Never in the history of this team has there been such a year-to-year contrast between quantity and quality of first inning leads in Mets history. There were so many times this season that the Mets didn't have comfortable first inning leads thanks to the Mets not hitting and being aggressive early on. The injuries to Edwin Diaz, Jose Quintana, and Justin Verlander magnified the deficiencies in the Mets' offense this year.

2. The New York Mets could not win the high-scoring games.

Winning ballclubs find ways to win a lot of different styles of games, and having an ineffective pitching staff that concedes 123 more runs than they did the year prior doesn't help matters at all.

The Mets did at times, showcase what they were capable of as an offense this year, as they had four players with 24 or more home runs and scored more than 700 runs, but the pitching staff wasted some good team performances from their lineup. They went 7-16 games in which each team scored six or more runs (compared to 8-4 last year), which was the most in the majors this season and it was tied for the most in franchise history.

Some of the most deflating losses of the season, including the gut-punching losses to the Braves and the Phillies in June where the bullpen couldn't hold on to leads, were two examples of these.

In spite of some of the regressions in the Mets offense this year, there were many times where the New York media could have showered praises for them, but instead, were overshadowed by a poorly-constructed pitching staff that couldn't hold onto leads.

David Stearns will need to retool and restore some sanity to the Mets' pitching staff, as they'll need to upgrade their middle reliever group if they are to get back to contention in 2024.