3 early season NY Mets red flags the team is still trying to overcome

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We know not to judge a book by its cover. We’ve all watched enough baseball to also understand if something is going wrong in the first few weeks, give it time. These problems have a way of working themselves out. Some early ups and downs for the New York Mets in April tore in each direction at our emotions. A fight late in the month to get back over .500 and into playoff relevancy made us think some of those early red flags were nothing but a warning.

Now into June when things usually fall apart for the Mets, we now realize those blood-red flags were more of an omen than a final cry to get things corrected.

These three early Mets red flags continue to flap in the breeze. The team continues to fight to overcome them.

1) Red Flag: Core members of the Mets offense are having miserable years

The lineup change which saw Francisco Lindor move to the top, Pete Alonso go to the number to slot, and Brandon Nimmo bat third helped wake all three up but the wins remain tough to come by. As improved as this new starting lineup has been, those three plus Jeff McNeil are well on their way to having some of their worst seasons.

Only Alonso started the season strongly before he underwent an equally massive slump. There’s something to be said about a small sample size here. In a matter of days, Alonso went from hitting .167 to .281. We’ll gladly accept him getting back to .250 again—a mark he hasn’t been at since April 28 when the game began.

Batting average isn’t what we count on from Alonso and while he continues to hit home runs and drive in runners, it’s how little this team has gotten from Lindor, Nimmo, and McNeil that has added to Alonso’s struggles.

McNeil has easily been the worst of the three and aside from a permanent benching there isn’t much they can do about it. We’ve seen McNeil slump terribly in the past. Last year’s “down year” would look terrific right now. Instead, he’s barely doing anything.

How other members of the Mets roster hit is almost irrelevant when these four aren’t. Starling Marte has been okay. J.D. Martinez could probably do more. Mark Vientos has somehow decided to carry the biggest load of all despite playing in so few games.

It’s only recently the Mets decided to do something drastic about these struggling players. McNeil sitting for Jose Iglesias. Vientos completely replacing Brett Baty as the third baseman. There isn’t much more they can do other than hope these guys figure it out.

2) Red Flag: The Mets bullpen was getting taxed in the first weeks of the season

Consider this red flag a two-sided one. The Mets starting pitchers were performing well in the first few weeks but that might be because they weren’t pushed too deeply. As a result, the bullpen was heavily taxed. The relievers did hold up their end of the bargain, but in May we began to see the result. The relief corps is now in shambles and getting pushed a little too much in those early weeks is one of the reasons.

In all fairness to the relievers, the starting pitching hasn’t been exceptional either. Luis Severino and Sean Manaea recently saw their ERAs bump up over 3.50—a watermark number between good and excellent. Severino’s excellent 8-inning performance against the Washington Nationals dropped it down again with a reminder of how brilliant he can be at times.

However, Jose Quintana remains untrustworthy with Tylor Megill and David Peterson continuing to establish which versions of themselves will show up for 2024. It has been good so far.

Some of the best starts the Mets have gotten this year came from Jose Butto and Christian Scott, neither of whom is on the roster right now. We’ve already seen Adrian Houser bumped from the rotation. Quintana is clearly the next one who needs to be, but is there even room in the bullpen for him?

The offense has been putrid but it’s the pitching staff that has let us down most of late. There is no real number one starter. We await the season debut of Kodai Senga all while hoping he doesn’t follow the same direction as his pitching teammates.

3) Red Flag: The Mets were not the defensive stalwart we thought they’d be

The Mets have not played well defensively. It goes beyond errors. We see tons of mental mistakes on the infield on a near-daily occurrence.

Starling Marte should probably be a DH at this point in his career and Jeff McNeil isn’t too far behind. What happened to these once-talented defenders? Have they gotten old that quickly? Brandon Nimmo’s switch to left field on a more regular basis hasn’t been the upgrade we thought it would be. Although Harrison Bader has played well in center field and Tyrone Taylor continues to be a menace off the bench, there really isn’t much to praise on the defensive side.

The biggest messes were easily Omar Narvaez and Joey Wendle. The catcher who can’t throw anyone out and seems to think he must have catcher’s interference called on him each time out is now gone. So is Wendle whose lackluster glove work was too much to bear any longer.

Most surprising, however, is how poorly Francisco Lindor has rated defensively. He has several negative marks against him including a -2 in defensive runs saved. Defensive metrics can be tricky because a couple of balls Brett Baty was able to get to instead of Lindor might’ve taken away a few plays the shortstop would have had.

There is no one perfect defensive statistic to reference, but seeing the team employ just three players with an Rtot (Total Fielding Runs Above Average) that measure over 0 does raise some eyebrows. Those three are Harrison Bader (12), Brandon Nimmo (2), and newcomer Luis Torrens (1). The lowest in this statistic is Starling Marte (-13). Playing alongside Bader has likely accounted for the decline here as the Mets most frequently used center field is surely stealing away a few balls Mart might’ve otherwise gotten to.

No statistic will fully explain how poor the defense has been at times this year. Sloppier at times than we’re used to even if there is no error charged, getting this corrected is a must.

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