The Mets roster has gotten better in some areas but 1 major lineup question looms heavy

The take many non-New York Mets fans and even a few sour pusses in our midst have is that the team has spent all of this money without getting better. That’s kind of missing the point. The Mets would have had to spend much more to stay exactly the same, handing out heftier contracts to guys like Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt, and Taijuan Walker alone. They do have a bullpen they need to address further. One other spot, the lineup, could use a change, too.

The Mets remain a very similar ball club. We can continue to expect more changes to the roster before Opening Day arrives.

Notably is this one major question which continues to loom heavy. What will they do to improve the offense?

The Mets roster is good but the offense has not gotten any better

Even if Justin Verlander is better than Jacob deGrom and Kodai Senga or Jose Quintana is an improvement over Chris Bassitt, it doesn’t equate to the team going any further than they did last season. Max Scherzer’s poor playoff start followed by a weak performance from Bassitt days later hurt the team immensely.

As bad of an outcome as that was, we don’t recall any of those specific Scherzer or Bassitt statistics from the playoffs. One which lingers is the lone hit the Mets had against Joe Musgrove and the San Diego Padres in the final game of 2022 for the 101-win team. Teams don’t typically win one-hitters.

The Mets have not addressed the offense the way many of us were hoping they immediately would. Many of the reasonable DH candidates for the ball club have already signed with other teams. Jose Abreu is with the Houston Astros. J.D. Martinez is now a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers. It’s shaping up for another year of Daniel Vogelbach and a mix of different right-handed hitters when a southpaw starts.

The Mets can start the year with the same lineup they went out with their October 9 defeat. Every hitter who stepped up to the plate in that game is still with the club. Only catcher Tomas Nido appears like he could get benched in favor of newcomer Omar Narvaez.

We’re not looking at a bad offensive team. The streakiness of the lineup but more so the inability to come up with big hits down the stretch is what hurt them. Even mightier, more home run happy clubs fall into this trap as well.

When an offense looks unstoppable, it’s acceptable to come back the next year with the same thing. Mets hitters were anything but. Something needs to happen. What change will they make?