Ranking the last 5 Mets offseasons from worst to best

Championship teams are built over a number of years. The offseason is the time to make the most changes. The New York Mets have been active in the winter months often in the last five years. The results have been much different.

Going back as far as the winter before the 2019 season, or BP as fans should probably call it (Before Pete), this is how each of those winters have looked. Although we don’t yet know how the 2022-2023 offseason will turn out, it deserves a spot to contend.

Which of the last offseasons was the best and which was the absolute worst?

5) 2019-2020 NY Mets offseason

Pandemic or not, the 2019-2020 offseason was pretty miserable. The additions the team made were some of the worst in recent memory. This was also the winter when the Houston Astros were exposed and the Mets let go of Carlos Beltran as the skipper before managing a game.

Although the silver-lining was that it was the last offseason under the Wilpon regime, fans had to suffer through a shortened 60-game schedule that felt much longer than it actually was.

The Mets made three notable additions in the offseason. Pitchers Rick Porcello, Michael Wacha, and Dellin Betances were all signed. Fortunately, the former two were only one-year deals.

Porcello never pitched in MLB again, only retiring after the 2022 season. Wacha was another risk the Mets shouldn’t have been willing to take with his obvious decline prior to reaching free agency. Then there’s Betances whose injuries with the New York Yankees sent off warning flares ignored by Brodie Van Wagenen.

The 2019-2020 Mets offseason was easily the worst of the last five.

4) 2018-2019 NY Mets offseason

A year prior to Brodie Van Wagenen’s blunders in the 2019-2020 offseason, he made a few other fumbles. This was the offseason which pretty much began with the notorious trade with the Seattle Mariners. The Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz deal was blasted from the start. It aged better, but other moves failed to make this a memorable winter.

The Mets signed Wilson Ramos to become their new catcher. Outside of his summer hitting streak, he wasn’t anything all that great. Van Wagenen decided to sign a former client of his, Jed Lowrie, to a two-year deal. We all remember how that turned out—or didn’t turn out. He never played in the field and only received a handful of pinch-hitting opportunities in late 2019.

Two more minor moves had much different results. The trade for Keon Broxton was an early season disaster. However, the deal for J.D. Davis ended up as a steal for at least one season.

3) 2020-2021 NY Mets offseason

The first offseason under the Steve Cohen regime wasn’t as bombastic as some thought it would be. The early part of the offseason included signings of Trevor May and James McCann. Originally viewed as positive additions, we can now look back at them for what they were. Choose whatever adjective you’d like.

The 2020-2021 offseason had its biggest move take place in January when the Mets traded for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco. The extension Lindor received later on solidified the move further. Lindor wasn’t going to be gone after just one season.

This offseason wasn’t quite as robust as some others. Aaron Loup turned into a surprising success story. In a lot of ways, the team underwhelmed. Taijuan Walker was good until he ran into the second half.

In the two years since, the Mets have continued to get aggressive in the winter months. Which one looks the best?