r/NewYorkMets • u/Ok_Egg328 • 10h ago
Analysis Why the Mets' Championship Window May Just Be Opening
https://www.si.com/mlb/mets/onsi/why-the-mets-championship-window-may-just-be-opening-01m4tv1dwt18I know it's hard to feel optimistic about the Mets after two straight disappointing seasons, but I genuinely believe their championship window may just be opening.
I wrote about why I think the Mets are in a better position than many realize and why this offseason could be so important to their future.
Curious to hear what others think.
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u/BlueCoBot 7h ago
Potentially but a lot of things need to go right.
Is this the real Zac Thornton? Are Christian Scott’s second half struggles real, or just from a long layoff? Are Tong, Wenninger, and Santucci’s bad minor league seasons mirages?
Other than Rojas, what position player should I be excited about in the minor leagues? Is Bichette coming back?
Who are we signing for the bullpen?
These are all real questions that will have an impact going forward and while I wish I could be as optimistic as some of you, there’s still a lot of questions about “the young core”.
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u/CitizenDain Mark Vientos 4h ago
Don’t forget — how many more at-bats (and thus rallies, innings, and close games) will be wasted on Semien, Vientos, Baty, Polanco, etc? Semien will be here for a while yet.
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u/bowlofcantaloupe Francisco Alvarez 1h ago
Hopefully Vientos is gone, Polanco bounces back as primary DH and is at least as good as 2025 Marte. I could see a Baty/Semien platoon at 2B until Rojas or another prospect is ready. Semien can be easily moved to the bench and Baty still has one more option year.
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u/CitizenDain Mark Vientos 45m ago
If any combination of Semien, Baty, Vientos and Polanco combined gets to 500 at-bats next season, I consider it a failure and an admission that Stearns is happy to continue "rebuilding" until he can get cheap controlled players through trades and farm system. A last place team cannot run the same roster out again the following year and just hope for regression to the mean.
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u/Aggressive-Mix4971 Bob Murphy and The Happy Recaps 7h ago
With the young guys, a lot of those are questions every team has to face about rookies and second year players. And when it comes to the minors there's some very nice infield depth behind Rojas, plus the pitching seemed to step up over the year. It's obviously impossible to guarantee young guys coming up and not struggling, or second year guys not having a bit of a step back once the league gets to see them for a year, but again that's something every team with young players has to deal with.
As for the bullpen, given how they've pieced it together the last few seasons I don't think it'll take much. Morejon would be a fun signing, but they've shown a pretty good knack for putting a relief core together through relatively low-risk free agent signings, farm system guys rising up, and some smart waiver-wire or under the radar deals, so if there's one part of a Stearns constructed team I'm not *too* worried about, I think that'd be it.
I'm not saying ignore the real doubts that can still be there, again especially when hoping for good outcomes from multiple young/second year players, but I don't think a lot of them are particularly out of the ordinary questions for good teams with designs on contending.
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u/metsfan5557 New York Mets 7h ago
We don't need to sign anyone for the bullpen. We have a closer, then Senga, Nunez, Lavender, and Garrett as high leverage arms. Duarte and Warren as the bottom end guys. Then you have waiver guys and Syracuse shuttle for the rest.
As far as position players to be excited about, that's a real thing, but I'd also add that development paths aren't linear. They don't have a ton of top end position player prospects but they have a lot of prospects in general and any of them could pop next year.
Biggest concern to me is the rotation. The Mets are very good at pitching development, so the hope is that they turn one of the lower end guys they got at the deadline into a decent starter. I also hope they grab Morejon from the FA pool and convert him to a starter.
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u/bowlofcantaloupe Francisco Alvarez 1h ago
McLean and Scott are probably the only two guys guaranteed a starting spot at the start of next season. Hopefully they sign 2 proven veterans. Manaea, Senga, and Megill will all be on the opening day roster, but TBD if they'll be starters - I'd prefer to see both Senga and Megill as relievers. Manaea can become the 5th starter or be a long man in the bullpen. Tong will most likely start the season in AAA. Thornton is a toss-up - he'll be competing in Spring Training with everyone mentioned above.
Bichette has heavily hinted that he'll come back. Not sure which prospects will be ready to break out - we could also see some of them traded for Veterans.
Bullpen seems pretty okay for now, but I think we bring back Raley on a one year deal and see him and Lavender as the two lefties, with Yan starting in AAA.
Setbacks from any of the 2026 rookies or Scott would be pretty bad news for the team. But they have no real choice except to keep relying on Benge, Ewing, McLean, and Scott (also Alvarez). Thornton, Tong, prospects, and even Baty could spend time in AAA without it effecting the team much if they come into the season with enough depth.
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u/mormagils 7h ago
I mean that's true for all teams though. Even the dodgers still need stuff to go right for them to be good. The point is that a lot of that stuff probably should go good.
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u/biohazard951753 6h ago
I still say if they all stayed healthy this would have been a whole different conversation. After Lindors return from the il the team went 34-34.
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u/cmullen277 7h ago
As long as Bichette opts in and nobody regresses mightily, we will have a good team next year.
McLean, Scott, and Thornton are a good young core, and hopefully Tong joins them next year. Ewing and Benge looked very promising, and even if their bats regress their defense is very good. A healthy Lindor and Soto will also improve our lineup mightily. If Baty plays like he did in the second half, he will be our 2b/DH. Not a bad lineup at all.
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u/JDDJS The Captain 2h ago
I can't imagine Bichette opting out after having an off year and with the extreme uncertainty of next season and how much teams are going to be spending going forward.
However, if he does opt out, I would be absolutely fine with redirecting his money to Brandon Lowe. Semien and Baty can platoon at 3B until Rojas is ready to come up. Rojas profiles better at 3B than 2B anyway.
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u/mormagils 8h ago
This is the advantage to making everything a short term contract except for your MVP candidates. Down years are just that. The team isn't stuck with long extended decline phases of core players. So Polanco was bad. That sucked for 2026, but it's hardly unfixable. As long as your core stars are still stars, and as long as your farm system is working to develop new talent, both of which are things that should be true for the Mets for the foreseeable future, they can literally compete every year just by retooling in the offsesaon, no matter how bad the last season was.
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u/Aggressive-Mix4971 Bob Murphy and The Happy Recaps 7h ago
Yeah, it's why I understood people not liking certain moves that were made for 2026, but I legitimately saw people I regard as smart Mets fans arguing that the organization was now in a worse place than it'd been since the early 90s or something and it left me absolutely dumbfounded.
Like, obviously the second half of last year post-pitching injuries and then the insane barrage of bad outcomes early this year were both nightmares, nobody will dispute that. There were moves made I really wish hadn't been, namely taking Polanco when there seemed to be better 1B options out there even after Pete left. But Polanco had his absolute worst-case season (was clearly hurt, played barely 35 games, sucked, then missed the whole season) and guess what? Even if he's shot, he's off the books by the end of the '27 season. Even Semien's just two more years, and given the depth of prospects the team has in the infield there's a good chance they can move on from him without skipping a beat on the field or in the budget.
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u/JDDJS The Captain 2h ago
Yeah. This is why I can't understand why people like to make signings like Polanco and Frankie Montas to be some of the worst in history. Yeah, they were extremely clearly bad signings, but they didn't have any long term consequences for the franchise like the actual worst contracts in baseball history do.
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u/NuanceManExe 1h ago
The Mets are not going to become consistent contenders if they have to remake the most of the roster every hear. What’s not to understand? Good players usually don’t sign short term contracts. Whenever a player has to settle for a short term contract, there’s usually a pretty good reason.
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u/mormagils 1h ago
But we aren't remaking the entire roster every year. The role players are turning over. The best players are the ones you keep.
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u/NuanceManExe 1h ago
But we are. And we haven’t been keeping many players other than Soto and Lindor. Seriously look at the 2021-2026 Mets rotations. It’s been a revolving door. Getting rid of the core made it even worse in 2026.
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u/bowlofcantaloupe Francisco Alvarez 1h ago
Outside of Alonso, who should we have kept that we haven't under Stearns' tenure?
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u/mormagils 1h ago edited 25m ago
Manaea and Senga and Peterson have been on the team for years. Megill, Scott, and others have been in the rotation for a while but are sporadic because of injury. The turnover is no more elevated than any other team.
Baty, Vientos, Taylor were been on the team for years. Alvarez too, and we just extended Torrens. We wanted to keep Alonso, he just went somewhere else in free agency.
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u/Mysterious-Draw2510 8h ago
I completely agree. Injuries derailed Soto and Lindor this season as it seemed both couldn’t get healthy at the same time. Having talented youth though is such a huge advantage. Veterans can forget that it is still a game and supposed to be fun. When you get kids up that are excited to play every day it injects that enthusiasm into the lineup.
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u/bigdirty702 7h ago
What would help the Mets the most- move Soto to first base. He is still athletic enough to play the field and not be a full time DH but he is trouble in the outfield.
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u/gotu1 7h ago
One of the biggest reasons this year went the way it did was because David Stearns convinced himself that any lump of meat with a glove can play first base.
This whole notion that Billy Beane set in place with the A’s was based on being unable to afford an actual first baseman. It drives me nuts that it’s now considered analytically saavy. It’s not, it was a necessity for one team 25 years ago.
Why are we so infatuated with forcing guys to play out of position? It almost never goes well
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u/JDDJS The Captain 2h ago
One of the biggest reasons this year went the way it did was because David Stearns convinced himself that any lump of meat with a glove can play first base.
First base defense is absolutely not why the season went south. And we don't even know how Polanco would've handled first if he stayed healthy. You can absolutely fault Stearns for expecting Polanco to stay healthy considering his age and injury history, but we don't know if he was right or wrong about his defense.
Why are we so infatuated with forcing guys to play out of position? It almost never goes well
Players move positions all of the time. Bo Bichette was fine defensively. Off the top of my head: Bryce Harper, Alex Rodriguez, Mookie Betts, Craig Biggio, Jeff McNeil, Fernando Tatis Jr.
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u/iamdanabnormal Mr. Smiles 4h ago
The obsession with moving Soto again is just asinine. He's an OF who just turned 28. Leave him alone. The beauty of having Ewing and Benge in the OF is their athleticism and range allows them to cheat over and cover for Soto, if need be.
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u/JDDJS The Captain 2h ago
He's an OF who just turned 28.
Yordan Alvarez has been primarily a DH since making the majors at 22, and he's going to win MVP this year. Soto is a generational hitter. Everything about his approach at the plate is elite. But he has consistently been a major defensive liability in the outfield.
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u/mormagils 17m ago
We are infatuated with that idea because a surprisibg amount of teams have been very good by putting just about any thunper that can hold a glove at 1B and spending bigger on positions with more defensive value.
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u/The_Chief 7h ago
Solves a lot of problems. I think that was part of the plan to not bring Pete back because it creates a logjam
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u/Yakuza-Moto 6h ago
Hard to imagine it closing. I think we need to pretend for a moment that we just finished the season again among the worst teams in baseball and that lots of time will be needed to right this ship.
Championship window? No idea what that means but i assume it’s not that the Mets are going to surpass about 25 teams this offseason.
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u/muziklover91 5h ago
Just three lil words , Ya Gotta Believe !
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good offseason.
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u/MrDNL 5h ago
I haven’t clicked through yet, but I had a similar conversation with my brother at least as far as the thesis is concerned. The Mets have two future Hall of Famer still in their prime, two rookie of the year candidates on the upswing, and no fewer than three young players who might be solid regulars. That is a very effective for the next five years.
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u/rmullig2 4h ago
Sure, the veterans will all stay healthy and productive. The youngsters will all turn into stars and they'll sign Skubal to be the ace. What are the odds of all of that happening?
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u/JDDJS The Captain 2h ago
Sure, the veterans will all stay healthy and productive.
Soto and Bichette are 27 and 28. They haven't even reached their primes yet, let alone reached ages where they start to decline. Lindor is the only key player who will be over 30 next season.
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u/NuanceManExe 1h ago
Bichette was awful this year though. He doesn’t belong in the same sentence as Soto and Lindor, even ignoring this year. Bichette is not going in the Hall of Fame. Bichette isn’t even a better hitter than Lindor.
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u/Mnementh47 7h ago
Honestly, I think it's wishful thinking. We have Soto maybe in his prime. I don't think Lindor is in his prime. Not really. Definitely not defensively. Very tough to say he's in his prime. I think we're missing our star 1B who is a crucial bat, and no prospect to replace him right now. We have a couple of good promising prospects and rookies, and a young rotation which is strong but not that elite yet. The bullpen we have no idea right now. There are several holes and several uncertainties. So championship window doesn't seem like a realistic view at all right now.
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u/Aggressive-Mix4971 Bob Murphy and The Happy Recaps 6h ago
There's a possibility that signing Skubal and figuring out some kind of decent first base solution is really all the big stuff the team does and they end up being a legitimate contender for the division. I'm not saying to assume that'll happen, given how much it'd mean leaning on young guys to have strong rookie years (e.g. the multiple infield and pitching options they now have on the farm) or avoid sophomore slumps, but the growing list of internal depth options makes something like that more possible than it was heading into years like 2022 or what have you.
But I'm feeling better about where this organization is overall than I was during the shitty, shitty start of the '26 season. Frankie getting older and hurt this year puts a scare into me, but again the farm is showing a lot of promise at 2B-SS-3B right now, so I'm not about to just give up on that front either.
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u/traded99 5h ago edited 5h ago
We have Lindor nearing the end of his prime. And Soto in his prime. Unless there are another two Hall of Famers in their prime coming to replace them I cannot see how a “championship window” is just opening.
They finished in last place in the NLE and were among the worst teams in baseball. There’s some good pieces on the team but overall, they aren’t close.
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u/CautiousAd4110 1h ago
It’s post season delusion. If everything breaks right as it stands we’re still only the third best team… In the division. We have no number one starter. No closer. Nothing at the corners. Only one position player prospect to be excited about.
It’s all a joke. The Brewers, Dodgers, Braves, Phillies, Padres, Cubs, and Cardinals are all better and look to be better in the next 3-5 years. I’ll feel good after this team once we move on from Stearns.
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u/winnielikethepooh15 Darryl Strawberry 8h ago
Its been open ever since they signed Lindor and I'd argue its starting to close unless young Rojas turns into a star / they make a big splash in free agency or trade to plug right in after Lindor starts to show his age.
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u/postwarmutant New York Mets 7h ago
In the last two years they brought up 4 rookies who all look like they will be solid contributors and they have a top 5 hitter under contract long term and you think it’s starting to close?
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u/DistributionMoist800 6h ago
This is All well and good but if we have a season next year, it’ll be a miracle
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u/Charming_Elk4328 Jacob deGrom 1h ago
Baty’s hot finish should get more attention, hopefully he gets the second base gig if bichette stays at third
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u/RustyWheel17 7h ago
2 strong pitching signings, bounce back Lindor season, Bichette opting in and playing like he did in the second half, and better hitting at 1B and 2B.
Last season was weird. We aren’t as bad as we looked last season. Pundits had us as a WS contender in spring and most of the team just underperformed across the board. That can’t possibly happen 2 years in a row.