As he deflected questions last weekend about the trade deadline and whether the Mets might dismantle for a second straight year, Steve Cohen offered a counterpoint to potentially blowing up a team that might be marginally good enough to reach the postseason.
“You want to build a winning culture and a lot of that is trying to make the playoffs,” Cohen said.
The Mets won for the seventh time in nine games, beating the Padres 2-1 on Friday, and are playing at a level last seen in mid-April. Back then, the Mets won six straight games — including a series victory at Dodger Stadium — and there was optimism this team could at least stay competitive.
But May was a disaster: Francisco Alvarez’s absence behind the plate was felt as he rehabbed from thumb surgery and Edwin Diaz reverted to the 2019 version of himself that was anything but automatic. At other points, the lineup sputtered. Alvarez returned this week and Diaz has dominated in his two appearances off the injured list, which included protecting a one-run lead for the save on this night.
There is a faction of the fan base that already has punted on this season, and would love nothing better than for president of baseball operations David Stearns to trade most of the veteran players for prospects.
Last year, under the previous regime, it was Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, David Robertson, Mark Canha, Tommy Pham and Dominic Leone that got dealt. This year’s possible cast on the trade block includes Pete Alonso, J.D. Martinez, Harrison Bader, Starling Marte, Jeff McNeil, Luis Severino and Sean Manaea.
The more measured approach, which Cohen preached Sunday in London, is to wait before deciding on a course. The Mets have at least a month to figure it out. And if there’s a gray area once late July arrives?
“If we’re sitting in a position come the end of July, where we are [around .500], if we are sitting in that area and then we dismantle it, that would be a tough one to swallow,” Brandon Nimmo said. “There is a part of me that is always going to want to roll the dice and see what happens because you never know once you get into the playoffs. We have seen it two years in a row that a wild-card team has ended up making it to the World Series.”
Those two teams were the Phillies and Diamondbacks, respectively. In 2022, the Phillies were eight games below .500 at the start of June. The D’backs began hot last season, but fell two games below .500 in early August before rallying late. The Mets are now six games below .500. But in a diluted National League, they were just three games behind in the race for the last wild card as play began.
Much of the intrigue surrounds Alonso, who is headed to free agency after the season and could be traded beforehand. Nimmo admitted that once the Mets began nose-diving last month the idea started getting real that he might soon be saying goodbye to Alonso.
“We didn’t play well in May and we had a little stretch where it was OK,” Nimmo said. “It gives you thoughts of ‘We have got to get it going or it’s going to be more than just Pete gone.’ It became real a month ago. But you can turn things around quickly and get on a hot streak and go and we’ve been playing better baseball the last couple of weeks.”
Cohen has been consistent in saying the organization’s focus is long-term — with building a sustainable farm system at the top of the agenda — but New York isn’t Houston, and losing seasons in the name of growth won’t be easily tolerated.
“I get it that you are trying to build for next year and try to get some value out of people,” Nimmo said. “I get the business of baseball. But I am always going to be on the side of if you are right in that area of the playoff mix you go for it.”
In another month it might be clearer for the Mets — or maybe not.
But there is something to be said for the possibility of keeping the band intact and taking a shot if the Mets are in striking distance. Building a winning culture, as Cohen correctly stated, counts for something too.
