The Crane Pool Forum

The Mets managed to check a few boxes in the blank slate of their season during their opening-series sweep at home against Milwaukee. And that's good. But they looked noticeably underprepared for the season to start (especially compared to their opponents). Carlos Mendoza certainly evoked plenty of memories of Willie Randolph's start, looking initially out of his depth and, in the case of the Rhys Hoskins fiasco, just small.

The guys who create the most value in being good are being good. If you had to pick who you really needed to get off to a good start, Álvarez, Baty, and Diaz might have been some good picks.

The rotation is currently in a you’re-gonna-get-what-you’re-gonna-get situation. We’ve lot lost four All-Star starting pitchers since the end of 2022. That may be something we're going to have to live with as the team develops, while trying to win by featuring other facets of the team.

The bullpen has not yet been given a lead, and so hasn’t really been tested, but looks like it can certainly be an asset, with Smith in particular looking good.

Nimmo and McNeil are doing a great job of demonstrating the value of a full spring training.

Milwaukee looked really fine tuned — not only making every play, but being in a good position to make every play. Just really sharp.

The team seems designed to get better as the season progresses, so we’ll see. And hey, the New York Mets may be 0–3, but the SYRACUSE Mets are 1–2, so.

From a perspective — and you may have to squint to assume this perspective — David Stearns largely built the team that just swept the Mets, with far fewer resources than he has now. And apart from the sweep, they've been in the post-season five of the last six seasons. So maybe where they're at is where we're going.

Yeah, several people here have mentioned that the team looked underprepared ,or something similar. That's a huge indictment of Mendoza and his staff ,they better get their stuff together and fast.

I dunno if McNeil even reached base in exhibition season -- how is that good for a team to put that guy in the cleanup role in 2 of the first 3 games? I'd sooner have a palooka like short maintain 2nd base and bat 9th while McNiel stays in St Lucie until he demonstrates he can play.

I'm going to have little patience for Severino. He's either gonna give us a chance to win or not, I'm not asking for more.

The team somehow made it through the series without pushing the Joey Wendle button!

Edgy MD wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2024 1:51 pm The team somehow made it through the series without pushing the Joey Wendle button!

One of the mysteries that will confound archaeologists finding the box scores a thousand years from now.
Later

Lindor, McNeil, Nimmo, Baden and Taylor so far are a combined 5/49 with 0 RBI and 0 runs. So that's half your lineup sucking a butt.

McNeil also wasn't deployed at all in the outfield, and hadn't been during any spring training games.

If reading the Bigelow tea leaves, it isn't hard to get to the working assumption that Mendoza doesn't see him as part of the outfield mix.

Edgy MD wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2024 1:51 pm The team somehow made it through the series without pushing the Joey Wendle button!

Hmmm ... I'd like to write at this point that I didn't mean this as a suggestion.

Also worth noting, as the sweepiness continues, the team isn't scoring without the homer. And the homer ain't exactly ubiquitous.

To me, the most worrisome part of the team was the offense. They were bad last year, and before the JD signing, did nothing to improve it.

As of now, they’re dead last in runs scored. And while we expect that to improve, I’m not sure if they’ll end up any better than middle of the pack.

I guess JD will help. But really it will be interesting to see if Gilbert, Jett etc come up and make a difference.