3 worst Mets front office decisions that doomed their World Series chances

That was quick. After only three games, the New York Mets are out of the playoffs. All 101 wins in the regular season went to waste.

A team that held onto first place for the entire year, only to drop it to the Atlanta Braves late, didn’t quite collapse as much as they may have been caught in a premature celebration. The Mets were the Leon Lett of the 2022 MLB season.

Only one team can win a World Series each year and with a lengthy period since the organization’s most recent postseason appearance, odds were already stacked against them. We can nitpick forever as to why the Mets season ended with such a whimper—and we most certainly will as much as possible until we feel a little bit better.

As part of this reflective pain, let’s take a look at three of the worst decisions that doomed the Mets and their chance at a World Series.

1) NY Mets missed in every way possible at the DH spot

Where do we begin and end with the DH spot on the Mets? The trio of Robinson Cano, J.D. Davis, and Dominic Smith couldn’t get it done early on in the year. Then came the trade deadline when the team decided that a platoon of Daniel Vogelbach and Darin Ruf was the way to go.

The problem the Mets seem to have run into was that they missed at the DH spot from the very beginning. Unwilling to trade away any top prospects, they continued to dig themselves a hole further.

A one-hit loss in Game 3 will linger all winter. How can a team this professional and with this many regular season wins put up such a bleak performance? Joe Musgrove was fantastic but the effort the Mets gave was embarrassingly bad.

From Opening Day onward, there was a question at the DH spot. In its inaugural permanent status in the National League, the Mets whiffed big time.

3) NY Mets had an all-time failure of a trade deadline

Let’s circle back to that trade deadline. Yes, the bats they got were underwhelming. It definitely did doom the team. Vogelbach was easily the best addition they made and even he was limited.

Ruf, Tyler Naquin, and Mychal Givens helped round out what will go down as a questionable-forever trade deadline by this organization. Rather than go big like the San Diego Padres, the Mets looked to fill in their problems with veteran role players.

The Padres are a good example—at least for now—as to why teams do go for the bigger fish. As poorly as Josh Bell and Juan Soto performed in the regular season, Bell had a big Game 1 home run off of Scherzer and Soto was productive throughout.

The Mets had obvious trade deadline needs. We can credit them for holding onto their prospects. But then comes another big question: will players like Brett Baty, Francisco Alvarez, and/or Mark Vientos be able to produce for them in 2023 right away?

We can only hope getting a little bit of experience will accelerate the progress of those three. The front office didn’t seem to think any were quite ready, though, as each was held back from his major league debut until all other options were exhausted.

Winning and losing the trade deadline isn’t the mission of any MLB season. Winning or losing it might directly lead to how far your team can go. With an L on August 2, the Mets suffered an even more painful one on October 9.