Mets sure seem to be stuck in muddle

It took six games.

The week before the All-Star break, the Mets managed the improbable and put together a six-game winning streak — a run that more than doubled their playoff probability to around 20%. Two losses after that, FanGraphs said they dipped down to a little under 15%, which is what they bring into the beginning of the second half Friday.

Those numbers matter for a reason, but maybe not for the one you’re thinking.

Mostly, they illustrate how the expanded playoffs have injected an extra jolt of chaos and uncertainty into the proceedings. It’s also created a larger subcategory of borderline teams that are approaching the trade deadline with the sweaty palms of a blackjack player wondering if he should mortgage the house for a slim chance at riches and glory.

For the Mets — a team that’s not quite dead, but certainly not all the way alive — it’s Schrödinger’s trade deadline, and the moves made here should be definitive in a way that brings them closer to some sort of goal.

They can’t be wishy-washy, and Steve Cohen and Billy Eppler need to finally commit to an approach that goes beyond the “win now but also win later” ethos that has muddied the waters so thoroughly, the franchise doesn’t seem particularly primed to do either.

Now, that might not exactly sound like a hot take, but in truth, the easiest and least risky thing for this team to do is to stand pat with a handful of low-impact moves like the ones they made last year. I’ll even trot out the company lines so no one else has to:

“We believe that with two Cy Young winners at the top of the rotation, we can make a significant stretch run.”

Or, “We have a high-caliber lineup that didn't quite put it together in the first half, but eventually, they’ll play to their level.”

Rinse, repeat, and book your tee time for Oct. 2, because that’s just wishful thinking.

Losing Edwin Diaz to injury caused a chain reaction that has routinely thrust poor to middling arms into high-leverage situations. There is no guarantee that Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander will be consistently dominant in the second half. The offense is quite literally mediocre (15th in OPS at .726) and they’re now in a situation where all those first-inning deficits they manage to get into feel often insurmountable.

That’s a big shopping list, but because of their aging (and very expensive) rotation, and that outside shot at the wild card, they haven’t committed to dismantling this team yet.  The next two weeks will be pivotal in deciding whether the Mets will buy or sell.

But any true attempt at buying will have to be significant, and significantly expensive, and, in the past, Eppler has tended toward the conservative. The franchise didn’t trade their top 19 prospects at last year’s deadline, and they weren't able to replace Diaz this offseason (granted, teams aren’t exactly keen on trading their closers before the year even starts, so a move then probably would have required an imprudently large outlay).

All of this gets hairier when you consider that, with more teams in the hunt, there will naturally be fewer GMs willing to sell, and those pieces will go for a premium.

That's all bad news, but if the Mets put together a little run, there are positives to buying.

It would showcase a bite and aggression that's been largely absent since the Carlos Correa deal fell through, and would go a long way toward establishing a culture where giving up quickly isn't an option.

For other teams, that wouldn't be reason enough. But when you have the richest owner in baseball, and the biggest payroll of all time, waving the white flag on Aug. 1 can be the sort of psychological gut punch that stains an organization for years to come. That could be motivation enough to ship off Ronny Mauricio, Alex Ramirez or Kevin Parada.

Selling, meanwhile, should be as close to a full surrender as they can manage.

Will it be embarrassing, given their gargantuan payroll? Absolutely. But trying to move Scherzer or Brooks Raley or David Robertson, or even (gasp) Pete Alonso could hasten Cohen’s goal of building a young, sustainable winner . . . in a few years.

Sure, fans will grouse. People will ask for mass firings. In lieu of City Connect jerseys, everyone can don their sackcloth and ashes. But underperforming players, significant injuries, and a too broad organizational strategy means that things are mostly outside their control right now. Even if they play well in the second half, the Mets have five teams ahead of them for the last wild-card spot.

What is in their control is how they react to those realities.

None of it's going to be pretty — this hasn't been a particularly pretty season, after all — but it could very well shape the Mets' future for years to come. Which means this is no time for half measures. One way or another, the Mets have to pull themselves out of this uncertain space, and not wait around for someone or something else to make the call for them.

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.