00:00This is Joel Sherman back with three things. Let's stick with the Mets for all three things.
00:06I was at the game on Sunday. They lost to the Nationals 3-2. It was almost an impossible loss in an impossible lost weekend where they lost two out of three.
00:18Because the Nationals are not just a terrible team. They were a terrible team playing terribly all weekend.
00:25And the Mets couldn't take advantage of that to win a series or really they should have been able to sweep this series and put themselves in a healthy situation to play this last week as a head in the wild card instead.
00:40Let's start here. They're tied with the Reds for the final wild card. This is number one. The Reds have the tiebreaker. So the Reds are in control.
00:48The Reds aren't going to win every game this week. The Mets are going to have opportunities in this last week.
00:53But let's start here. This would be the worst collapse in the history of the Mets.
00:58There's a lot of bad moments for the Mets. The one that's always picked out as the worst is 2007.
01:05They blow a seven-game lead to the Phillies with 17 to play.
01:10I'll say this. This is worse. If you go look at that Phillies team, at least they were losing to an historically significant team.
01:16The Phillies, go look at the players on that team. Probably 15 guys ended up being on the Hall of Fame ballot.
01:21A couple are going to get into the Hall of Fame.
01:25They won the World Series, the Phillies, in 2008 and played in the World Series in 2009.
01:30They were in the midst of being in the playoffs for five straight years.
01:33That was a really, really good team.
01:35The Mets have been in slow motion losing this playoff spot for over three months.
01:41And trust me, the Reds, the Giants, and the Diamondbacks, this is not the 2007-era Phillies.
01:47The Mets got Juan Soto from the Yankees.
01:51They brought back Pete Alonzo.
01:53They brought up Nolan McClain, who looks like he's going to be a star.
01:56They have a $300-plus million payroll.
01:58This would be the worst of it.
02:00And just to highlight how bad they've been, and maybe we just have to accept that they're bad,
02:05since June 13th, they have the 27th out of 30 best record in the sport.
02:12It's 35-52.
02:13That's just ahead of Washington.
02:15Washington is 28th, it's 34-54.
02:18The Mets have been bad for more than half a season.
02:20Maybe the reality is they're bad.
02:23If they are, let's go to number two.
02:25We're going to lose some faith in the leadership here.
02:28David Stearns, Steve Cohn, Carlos Mendoza, they were hailed last year.
02:34The Mets started poorly and then surged to the playoffs and then got all the way to Game 6 of the NLCS
02:40before losing to the eventual champion Dodgers.
02:43And it felt like the Mets were on the right track with the right people.
02:47I would still believe that David Stearns running baseball operations is going to be a great move by the Mets.
02:54But his stuff hasn't really worked this year.
02:58Cohn's money hasn't worked this year.
03:00And Mendoza has not been able to reach this group to get the best cohesive play at one time.
03:06This team has been disjointed the entire year.
03:09It has not played clean baseball in the field.
03:12Sometimes that's not about the manager.
03:14It's just like if you're going to have Mark Vientos and Pete Alonso on your corners,
03:18you're going to get some butchery in the field.
03:20And the Mets have gotten that.
03:21But the Mets have not played well.
03:23And obviously now the loudest of the fan base is calling for heads of people.
03:30I would think I spoke to David Stearns in the dugout before the game yesterday on Sunday.
03:36And he again reiterated, Carlos Mendoza is doing a good job.
03:39I asked, is he in trouble?
03:40And he said, no, he's doing a very good job.
03:43So I'm going to assume if Steve Cohn is listening to David Stearns, that that group, that Stearns and Mendoza is safe.
03:52I wonder about the pitching coach, Jeremy Hefner.
03:54I wonder about the hitting coach, Eric Chavez.
03:56If the Mets miss the playoffs this year, and maybe even if they get in and get blown out quickly by, say, the Dodgers in a wildcard round and lose two straight,
04:03I think there's got to be some reassessment about how things went this bad for this long.
04:09And let's go to number three.
04:12There's still a week left here.
04:13There's still six games left.
04:15The Cubs have lost a bunch of games in a row right now.
04:18The Mets are going to Chicago.
04:19The Cubs are pretty much locked into that top wildcard.
04:22They've got to take care of a little business this last week.
04:25But they don't have a ton to play for.
04:27The Mets then go to Miami, a team that hasn't really had anything to play for,
04:30but historically has messed up the Mets season in a lot of different years and could do it again.
04:36This is a have-to-go no less than 4-2, maybe 5-1, heck, 6-0 week.
04:44The Mets' reputation, this 2025 group, is on the line here.
04:49On paper, they're better than Cincinnati and Arizona, who are the last teams that could hop them,
04:54and both have right now the tiebreaker over the Mets.
04:59The Mets have a week to change the perception of this year's team.
05:04Are they strong enough, talented enough, and have the mental fortitude to do that?
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