The Crane Pool Forum

Check out the Mets 2024 schedule!

The Mets open at home against the Brewers on Thursday, March 28. The Mets home opener is the "March 28, 2024 Tournament". The winner of that tournament will have one win added to their Win column.

After an off-day Friday, the Mets will resume play on Saturday, March 30, hosting the Brewers again. That game is also designated as a tournament game (Tournament!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Special treat: Taylor Swift to sing the National Anthem. Come early. It's another tournament! But a different Tournament! than the Home Opener Tournament!

I wasn't planning on attending the Mets home opener, but now that that game's been designated as a tournament game (Tournament!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I think I'll go. I'll be extra interested in rooting for the Mets because the game is a tournament!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! game. I bet that Alonso hits three homers. He practically has to now that the game's a tournament. Tournament!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The good news is that the Mets will not be on any of the first set of Sunday Night ESPN games as announced today.
The bad news is that the Mets are not considered good enough, despite being from a "big market", to be on any of these games.

Oh so the Mets didn't make the ESPN Tournament

ESPN has moved the May 12th start time to 7:10 PM.

No Sleep 'til September!

As I do my annual perusal of the schedule for late night (after 8:15) starting times, I find that we get off easy during
the early part of the season with only a 10:10 start on Friday 4/19 at LAD (followed by day games on Saturday and
Sunday) then a pair of 9:45 games in SF on Monday & Tuesday (22nd & 23rd) before a day game on Wednesday.
So three day games out of six is good news for a mini west coast trip.

And that's it ... until they all pile up in August:
FRI 8/2, 9:38 @ LAA
SAT (grrr) 8/3, 9:38 @ LAA
-- A 4:05 game on Sunday followed by an off-day Monday
TUE 8/6, 8:40 @ COL
WED 8/7, 8:40 @ COL
-- a 3:10 start on 8/8
FRI 8/9, 10:10 @ SEA
SAT (grrrr) 8/10, 9:40 @ SEA
-- Then, after a day game Sunday followed by a day off and nine home games, they head right back to the west coast
THU 8/22, 10:10 @ SDP
FRI 8/23, 10:10 @SDP
SAT (grrrr) 8/24, 9:40 @ SDP
-- day game Sunday, off day Monday
TUE 8/27, 9:40 @ ARZ
WED 8/28, 9:40 @ ARZ
-- that's followed by a WED 3:40 start then two 'early' games at the White Sox [8:10 FRI, 7:10 SAT] 8/30 & 31

Gonna be a rough month for both fans and players alike: 27 games on the sked, 18 of them on the road including
16 in the Mountain or Pacific time zones (plus 2 in Central) with 11 that start late at night for those in EDT-land.

Correct! It's nuts how much is packed into that month.

Late starts on the West Coast are inevitable and those Saturday evening start times are perfectly normal for LA or Seattle. No basis for complaint there.

The fact that the Mets have only 9 home games AND two West Coast road trips in August, however, is pretty crappy.

I do recall there was discussion a few year back that there were teams, including the Mets, that advocated for longer road trips (hence the three-city West-coast trips) versus more trips out West. But maybe not putting them in the same month?

The SoCal teams in particular have always clung to their Saturday night games. Back in the days of old Jack Murphy Stadium when the Padres
both sucked and weren't drawing flies, Saturday nights were always their best attendance games. I guess they figure everyone's at the beach
during the day so we are a bit fortunate to draw an April day game in LA. Would have been nice to get a Saturday day game while in Seattle
though. What are they afraid of, that the day time temperature is going to shoot into the upper '70s?

More likely that summer Saturday afternoons are some of the very nicest times in Seattle and they get better attendance in the evening as a result.

Jayson Stark in The Athletic on why the Mets schedule is how it is this year, and how it explains that tough August:
--------------
• Then there are the Mets. They’ll play the Brewers, Tigers, Royals, Pirates, Cardinals and Cubs in New York before anybody in the NL East stops by.
...
The reason: Since both the Mets and Phillies have to travel to London, MLB wanted to frontload many of their out-of-division games, so they can stick closer to home on either side of that London jaunt.
--------------
So the London trip forced MLB to consolidate the Mets West Coast Travel. I'm not sure it had to be done this way (they went to the West Coast in April last season) but it's a reason.

The Mets will have 3 games exclusively on Apple+ in the first half of the season:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/03/ ... -march-29/

bmfc1 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 09, 2024 8:36 pm The Mets will have 3 games exclusively on Apple+ in the first half of the season:

Or, as I call them, radio games.

Speaking of the radio , I read recently that Howie Rose is cutting back to "approximately 100 games " this season (down from 125 )

Four of the next five games and six of the next nine are day games: Sat, Sun, Mon, Wed, Sat, Sun
Night games Tuesday, Thursday, Friday

The outlier is the unusual Wednesday game at 4:10 PM. Getaway day for the Dodgers who fly back home (and have a day off the next day) but Mets are in the middle of a long homestand. Given their off day, it makes little sense to accommodate the Dodgers with a weeknight game at 4.

The 4:10 start on Memorial Day is a good game time, but the Saturday game would probably have been better served as a night game. It will be interesting to see if there are meaningful attendance differences having eliminated all the Saturday night games.

Week night day (or early evening) games definitely makes it tough for working people to attend games, but the Mets poor performance will have an adverse effect on attendance, regardless of game time.