Building a Better Future for the Mets

This week, there is more great info on the Mets pitching lab and the young pitching prospects who will benefit from it.

In last week's post, I wrote about the Mets' new pitching lab in Port St. Lucie, based on Mike Puma's reporting in the New York Post. An excellent piece in The Athletic (subscription required) by Tim Britton and Will Sammon came out a couple of days later, which went into more depth on the subject. The Mets hope that taking advantage of the latest technology can help them catch up to more progressive organizations that have been using it for years.

Advanced Biomechanics, Meet the Mets

The Mets pitching lab is open for business in Port St. Lucie. Now the challenge for the club is to properly implement the expensive gizmos they invested in.

One of my biggest frustrations when the Wilpons owned the Mets was how far the team had fallen behind other, more progressive organizations in taking advantage of analytics and technology. Teams in much smaller markets operating under relatively small budgets were miles ahead of a team playing in the greatest city in the world. It's been reported that the Mets' front office was frequently frustrated by their inability to convince ownership that investing in technology would ultimately make the organization more efficient in developing ballplayers. This reluctance pre-dated the nosedive the club's finance took with the collapse of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. The Wilpons were notoriously unwilling to spend on anything they couldn't understand.

Bad Actors

Bad Actor: a mean, ill-tempered, troublemaking, or evil person.

Dictionary.com

As the 2023 New York Mets' season grinds down to what surely will feel like a merciful death, most of us Mets fans are hoping and praying for a 2024 season that is at least compelling, if not triumphant. How that plays out depends on who suits up for the team next year, and that, of course, will greatly depend on who is making what is sure to be a series of significant decisions this offseason. David Stearns, or whoever calls the shots, must hit on most of those calls. The implications of those choices go way beyond 2024 for the Mets. The idea of sustained winning still feels like the ever-elusive white whale for long-time fans like myself. And even Steve Cohen isn't going to stomach massive deficit spending forever.

The Lost Season

Losing sucks. The hope now is decidedly on the future as the current Mets' season completely unravels.

The idea of a "lost season" is nothing new to longtime New York Mets fans. I've lived through so many more than I would care to count. Some years, you knew the team was going nowhere before the season even began. Others began promising, but injuries and a perennial lack of depth derailed them. This year feels even more frustrating because the resources were in place for a successful season. While Billy Eppler's front office made some errors in constructing the roster, there still seemed to be more than enough for the team to at least compete for a playoff spot. Yet key players endured long, unproductive slumps, with the bats time and again falling silent against mediocre opponents, and the pitching staff seemed to save some of their worst efforts for games in which the offense finally did their part.

The Mets' Remarkable 180-Degree Turn

The Mets' trade deadline "repurposing" of assets was even more stunning than their massive winter shopping spree. What happens next will decide how this is all ultimately viewed.

I must admit that I didn't foresee most of what happened with the Mets at this trade deadline. I knew David Robertson would be going and strongly suspected that Tommy Pham would be dealt. I was surprised when the Mets were willing to include so much cash in the Max Scherzer deal. I was less surprised when Justin Verlander was traded, although I had questioned whether owner Steve Cohen would invest millions more in acquiring more prospects. I am finally getting to the stage where I will no longer doubt the Mets owner's will to go to extraordinary lengths in doing whatever he feels needs to be done.