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Mets Scapegoats: 1 person to question, 1 to remain patient with, 1 perfect patsy
Three non-players receiving some of the blame for the misery of the 2024 Mets.
There aren’t enough fingers to point at the New York Mets when finding a scapegoat for the team’s shortcomings. They can’t simply skate by through the rest of the season and make the playoffs. Becoming one of the better clubs in the league is the requirement to become relevant in the National League Wild Card standings.
A problem with the Mets is not one person can be held solely responsible for how badly they’ve done. Among the potential scapegoats, we have one person to question, another worth being patient with, and one final patsy who’ll end up getting more of the blame than he deserves.
1) Mets manager Carlos Mendoza is giving us reasons to question him
Carlos Mendoza has hit a lot of the right buttons this year. He has also come up short at other times. In just the last week-plus he has made some questionable calls. From unnecessarily removing Brandon Nimmo and J.D. Martinez from a game all while losing the DH spot in the lineup in the process to giving Edwin Diaz just one appearance out of the closer spot only to insert him in there the very next day, Mendoza is managing the team boldly yet sometimes ineffectively.
How much power Mendoza has in the decision-making process is questionable with the way MLB teams operate these days. How much is being forced on him? How many of the questionable calls he makes with the bullpen, lineup, and rotation are fully in his court?
The real test for Mendoza will come behind the scenes. He needs to make believers out of the players. With the way the team has played, they aren’t buying in and maybe a lot of it has to do with the expectations of the team and how short-term many of the players are.
2) Remain patient with Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns
As frustrating as year one under David Stearns has been, we need to remain patient. Easier said than done. Looking at the credit card statement for the number of Mets tickets you bought and have yet to even attend, you’re probably wondering if that money was better invested elsewhere. An NFT might’ve been a wiser way to spend your money.
A huge portion of Mets fans failed to buy into what the team was selling for 2024. The ones who still bought tickets even with the increase in price have some regrets right now.
Amazingly, it wasn’t the Mets offseason that has sunk them so quickly. The major players Stearns did sign have played well. Their far bigger issue has been the fringe MLB players and those he inherited. Francisco Lindor having a miserable start alongside Pete Alonso and even more so Jeff McNeil has held them back. For as clutch as he has been at times, Brandon Nimmo isn’t making a push to be a first-time All-Star either.
In an ordinary losing season, the one making the calls on the player personnel would be the one we blame most. Not in this case. Remain patient with Stearns. He doesn’t get a pass for this season, but let’s at least allow him three strikes.
3) Billy Eppler is the perfect patsy for the Mets’ failings
Want to blame someone for how bad the Mets are? Billy Eppler is the perfect patsy. The club’s former general manager would be on the hot seat right now if he had stayed. And just because he is no longer employed by the Mets doesn’t mean we feel any better about some of the decisions he made.
Eppler’s overspending already put the Mets in a deep hole. However, it’s the number of years he gave to Starling Marte, a player option unnecessarily handed to Omar Narvaez, and multiple failing contract extensions further tarnishing his reputation. That’s not to say we disagreed with the Edwin Diaz or Jeff McNeil deals at the time. They just haven’t worked out as planned. We can throw the unneeded Tomas Nido extension in there as well.
Is Eppler actually all that responsible for the team’s poor play this year? As bad as many of the players he had a hand in signing have performed, it’s hard to reasonably blame him all that much. Lindor was already here and even if you disagreed with the McNeil extension, he would’ve been under team control for the 2024 season.
Eppler left the Mets in a better spot than they were at the beginning of 2023. Getting the greenlight from Steve Cohen to unload contracts at the 2023 trade deadline drastically boosted the farm system.
It’s easy to make Eppler into a scapegoat for who the Mets are today. Frankly, it’s undeserved.
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