Admitting they were on wrong course is a positive first step for Mets
Mets general manager Billy Eppler talks with the media before a game against the Nationals at Citi Field on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
It’s not easy to admit you’ve gone astray, to walk back instead of doubling down and let people say what they will about your vision, or your ability, or even your intelligence.
It’s something the Mets have had to do this past week, when general manager Billy Eppler and, by extension, owner Steve Cohen, very publicly demonstrated that Richie Rich-ing your way to a championship wasn’t going to work.
Goodbye David Robertson, Tommy Pham, Mark Canha and Dominic Leone, but even more notably, goodbye to Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, pitchers who were still in the 2024 picture before getting shipped off ahead of the Aug. 1 trade deadline.
Throughout, Eppler has progressively revealed the Mets’ new ethos: They’re looking for long-term organizational stability and, given the decision to send Verlander to the Astros on Tuesday, this long-term vision doesn’t place next year’s World Series as a top-tier priority.
They’re not “punting 2024,” Eppler said previously. But it sure does sound like they’re calling a run into the line on fourth-and-20.
“Going into 2024, we don’t see ourselves having the same odds we did in 2022, 2023,” Eppler said Tuesday. “We will field a competitive team.”
You know what? Good on Eppler for committing to a path. Good on Cohen, too. And, since we’re all admitting when we were wrong, I’ll add my bit: I was wrong a few days ago when I wrote here that the Mets should hold tight to Verlander, and maybe — just maybe — there are more than a few fans who feel the same way.
This year’s disaster has laid the Mets’ deficiencies bare and, perhaps unsurprisingly, they’re similar to the ones that plagued them during the Wilpon years. That tells us one important thing: The organizational issues they need to remedy are profound and complicated, and until they get fixed, no amount of money is going to stop the “lolMets” foibles that have defined this franchise regardless of whatever free agents they manage to pay off.
They need a shift in priorities, structure and leadership, and blowing everything to smithereens could be the only way to achieve it.
In the meantime, the Mets still have a core that won’t necessarily be embarrassing in 2024. Their rotation is completely wrecked — only Kodai Senga and Jose Quintana are slated to return — but they do still have Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil, along with the expected return of Edwin Diaz. A few modest free-agent signings should be enough for them to field a somewhat watchable team.
But it’s not realistic to expect more.
Most of the Mets key returns are in the minor leagues' lower levels, and they range in age from 17-23; they're promising but a few years off from contributing.
“To get to the sustainability that we always talk about, we were going to have to [build the organization] organically,” Eppler said. “Some of the more traditional ways have been when teams have, for lack of a better word, tanked ... That can take five, six, seven years to do and we don’t want to endure that and we don’t think we have to endure long stretches of that in order to build something sustainable.”
From the moves he made, it’s clear this involves not getting sucked into the big media market hysteria that has often forced front offices into imprudent trades, ones that win back-page headlines for a day, but doom organizations for years. It’s going to sting, but for once, they’re deviating from an old playbook that has netted them exactly one World Series in the last four decades.
There’s no definitive way to know if all this will pan out, but in admitting thorough defeat, Eppler has been able to start over in such a way that plays to his strengths: 1. He has a good eye for emerging talent and 2. This last week has proven that he can make bold, unpopular decisions.
Shortstop Luisangel Acuna is in Double-A and his brother (you might have heard of him, Ronald?) told the Dallas Morning News that Luisangel “is more advanced and better than I was at his age.” For Verlander, the Mets got Drew Gilbert, 22, a lefthanded outfielder and top prospect in the Astros organization, and outfielder Ryan Clifford, the Astros' No. 4 prospect.
If this works the way they hope, the Mets will have fast-tracked a rebuild that could have otherwise taken three-to-five years (sorry, Billy, we know you're calling it a "repurpose," but let's be real here).
Nothing comes without cost, though, and that came to the fore as Eppler fielded questions about Pete Alonso’s contract extension. He still has to speak to Alonso, who has one more year of team control but might very well balk at the idea of signing a long-term deal with the club now that they’re retooling.
“He means so much to the community and our identity,” Eppler said of Alonso. “What comes beyond that, that’ll be a discussion that we hold behind closed doors.”
It's a lot of “what ifs,” and the Mets are jumping into the unknown in a big, new way. But at least it's a cohesive path toward something different.
Because, let's face it: Sometimes, you have to very loudly admit you were wrong if you're ever going to make things right.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
