Mets' greatest victory of 2024 was establishing a new culture
Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, right, congratulates outfielder Tyrone Taylor after he scores in the seventh inning during Game 6 of the NLCS against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
LOS ANGELES -- Francisco Lindor was the first cornerstone of Steve Cohen’s rebuilding effort in Flushing, and at $341 million, a record investment toward what the mega-billionaire owner envisioned as the Mets’ championship future.
Four years later, Lindor stood in the visitors clubhouse at Dodger Stadium, where the Mets’ dream died Sunday night on the doorstep of the World Series, and spoke confidently about the future of the franchise.
The Mets’ MVP, and almost certainly the NL runner-up to Shohei Ohtani, cautioned about taking this season’s success for granted. But Lindor also expressed little doubt that Cohen and president of baseball operations David Stearns would make these deep playoff runs more of an annual event rather than an OMG-fueled comet that burned brightly before fizzling out in late October.
“I’m sure they’re going to put an extremely high amount of energy and effort in the offseason to continue to make the organization better, and so should the players,” Lindor said. “The players should continue to work as hard as they can, including myself -- I’ll push myself to be in a much better spot next year.
“With that being said, nothing is promised in this game. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how good you are. Nothing is promised. So next year, you’ve got to come in and you can’t take anything for granted. I know that’s one of the things this group did. We held each other accountable and we pushed each other to the limit. If we do that next year, we’ll see where we’re gonna end up.”
That Lindor -- who’s come into his own as the unofficial Mets captain -- could put a voice to this successful concept is encouraging for the clubhouse vibe going forward. The Mets head into the winter with 11 free agents, which is more than a quarter of their 40-man roster, including three-fifths of their rotation: Luis Severino, Jose Quintana and Sean Manaea (he’ll certainly exercise his 2025 opt-out).
On that positional list is homegrown slugger Pete Alonso, spiritual leader (and sparkplug) Jose Iglesias, deadline-import Jesse Winker, hitting whisperer J.D. Martinez and defensive wiz Harrison Bader. From the bullpen, playoff hero Ryne Stanek and lefty specialist Brooks Raley are the headliners.
It’s a sizable chunk of talent, heart and hustle -- but figure the Mets to cut ties with a few significant strands of their winning DNA from 2024 as Cohen and Stearns go more big-game hunting in the months ahead. Remember, Stearns’ first year at the wheel was supposed to be a transitional season, an opportunity to evaluate the Mets as a whole, from the farm system up through to Flushing, while spackling together a long-shot contender with small additional spending (Cohen wanted to keep MLB’s most expensive payroll in check at $350 million).
Much to Cohen’s delight, Stearns not only was able to run a full diagnostics check on the Mets, but got them to the NLCS by finding the right complimentary pieces to stick with the existing core. That wasn’t luck. Stearns did the same, on a much tighter budget, in turning the small-market Brewers into a consistent playoff threat before coming to Queens. Now armed with Cohen’s checkbook, and more than $160 million coming off the payroll (shoutout to Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander) Stearns can draft more of his own blueprint for 2025, with a now-proven manager in Carlos Mendoza and strong pillars like Lindor and Brandon Nimmo already ensconced in leadership roles.
Nimmo, as the longest tenured Met, is now on his sixth manager (if you count Carlos Beltran’s 10-week stint) and Stearns is the sixth head of baseball ops over that same turbulent period. But Nimmo believes this time is different, even after experiencing the hopeful glimmer from the 101-team in 2022 that turned out to be fool’s gold in the wake of that year’s Wild Card Series loss to the Padres.
“We have everybody that we need in order to make this work and to finish the job,” Nimmo said late Sunday night. “We have the right people in place and it’s going to be good to have some stability. I know we have a lot of free agents, and we’re going to have players coming in and out. But to have some stability in the front office, and to have some stability from the top down, it’s going to be very helpful.
“We know the core. We know the front office. We know who’s in charge. We know what kind of standards we’re setting now.”
Hearing Nimmo outline those things, it sounds simple enough. But historically, the “stability” he talks about has been an elusive concept on Seaver Way. And it’s really taken Cohen’s purchase of Mets, followed by his long-awaited hire of Stearns, to finally put them on this trajectory.
Just getting to the NLCS this October doesn’t mean it’s going to keep happening every year. And with Cohen ready to flex his financial muscle again, we probably won’t see another Cinderella season like this one again in a while. But the Mets’ transformation into a perennial NL East powerhouse is now ahead of schedule, and what they were able to do this season -- capped by a memorable October -- only confirmed that timetable.
“We already have a culture here,” Lindor said. “We set a precedent. And the precedent is not going this deep into the postseason. The precedent is you have to be a good person. You have to be accountable. You have to respect the decisions the front office makes. You have to respect the opinions of everyone in here. That’s the culture we set. We just got to stick with that.”
The Mets didn’t win the NL pennant. But they still planted their flag in the baseball landscape this year, with greater goals ahead.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
