Shoutout LL Cool J

I 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.

I was wondering what a team of all former Mets would look like, for the purposes of reminiscing on old names as much as anything else. I also thought it was fun to compare to the current group that we finished 2026 with. I ended up doing some digging on BRef and pulling together the best team I could. I'm sure I missed some guys.

The rules:

1. No 2026 Mets, even those that were traded at the deadline. It felt against the spirit of the exercise- obviously a team will offload some of its better players when selling.
2. Prospects count. Any player that was in the Mets farm system is fair game.
3. When in doubt, I tended to just choose the player with a higher bWAR for 2026.
4. I can reconfigure defensive positions as needed- there aren't many SS options, so I shifted Gimenez there

Starting Pitchers (2026 bWAR, innings, ERA):

1. Zack Wheeler (6.0, 162, 3.00)
2. Jacob deGrom (1.7, 162, 4.20)
3. JT Ginn (3.4, 138, 3.71)
4. Michael Wacha (4.3, 200, 3.32)
5. Anthony Kay (1.2, 158, 4.44)

Bullpen (2026 bWAR, innings, ERA)

LR: Luis Severino (1.0, 62, 4.16)

MR: Matt Festa (0.4, 66, 3.78)

MR: Gregory Soto (1.2, 67, 3.63)

MR: Anthony Nunez (0.1, 59, 4.07)

SU: Colin Holderman (1.3, 52, 2.73)

SU: Tyler Rogers (1.8, 71, 1.77)

CL: Paul Blackburn (3.1, 85, 1.69)

?: Edwin Diaz (-0.9, 18.2, 8.68)

Offense (bWAR, At Bats, OPS+)

C: Endy Rodriguez (0.8, 135, 128) S

1B: Pete Alonso (4.9, 602, 149) R

2B: Jeff McNeil (0.4, 478, 87) L

SS: Andres Gimenez (1.1, 468, 78) L

3B: Amed Rosario (-0.2, 227, 88) R

LF: Brandon Nimmo (1.2, 593, 111) L

CF: Pete Crow-Armstrong (9.8, 626, 156) L

RF: Drew Gilbert (1.7, 340, 106) L

C/DH: Gary Sanchez (0.6, 225, 116) R

Bench

COF: Jake Mangum (0.9, 435, 90) S

COF: Michael Conforto (0.7, 271, 118) L

CF: Jose Siri (0.7, 228, 102) R

UT: Luisangel Acuna (-0.1, 210, 52) R

Lineup

1. Crow-Armstrong (L)
2. Alonso (R)
3. Nimmo (L)
4. Sanchez (R)
5. Gilbert (L)
6. Rodriguez (S)
7. McNeil (L)
8. Rosario (R)
9. Gimenez (L)

Thoughts:

The team definitely lacks thump on the left side of the infield. A decent bat at third would be huge for an offense with star power but little depth. A fine shortstop would allow Gimenez to second and move McNeil to the bench, but Lindor has held down the position for so long on the real team that there aren't many options to choose from there.

The pitching staff is really good. Wheeler is still an ace. Ginn and Wacha were both very solid starters (borderline all-star level) in 2026, but deGrom had a bad season by his standards. Even Kay was a passable back-end starter this year.

Of course, it's easiest to assemble a good bullpen in this exercise due to the constant roster churn there. That's probably the area where I missed some good names. Diaz had a terrible year, but has looked much better recently. His ceiling is so high and he was a longtime Met, so I figured I should include him.

What do you think? How do you think this roster compares to the end-of-2026 Mets?

At least we have the best menu in the mlb 🙏

seeing how he abandoned the Brewers to come to the Mets, I guess he has 50 million reasons why he is glad he came if you think money is everything, I seriously wonder if he is rooting for or against the Brewers considering this is essentially his team