Reflections on 2024

[Centerfield]

Thinking about it on the morning after, it was a great season. I won't quibble about the end.

Yeah, sure, if a couple of breaks went a different way, they might be playing tonight. Or if the breaks went the other way, Francisco Lindor's grand slam could have been a long fly ball to the warning track. That's baseball, Suzyn.

I predicted at the start of the year this team would lose 92 games. I was unimpressed with the starters especially after Senga went down. I saw the bullpen as a dumpster fire. The hitting wasn't so great. And for the first 59 games, they were proving me right at 24-35. I was resigned to another empty summer of meaningless games.

But they caught fire; whether it was Grimace, OMG, throwing a glove into the stands, a team meeting, bringing up Vientos, Manaea changing his pitching style, Peterson getting healthy, finding the right spot on the couch, whatever, it worked. Sure surprised the shit out of me.

AND IT WAS FUN! They won 101 games in 2022 and it wasn't nearly as much fun. Buck Showalter kind of outlawed fun, I think.

Most seasons we look back in anger at all the games they could have won but didn't because of a bad bullpen or a stupid baserunning play or a costly error. We don't have to do that this year!!!! They wound up exactly where they needed to be! They beat the Brewers, They beat the goddamn Phillies, and they gave the Dodgers a run for their money in the NL-friggin-CS. There isn't a person on this board that wouldn't have signed up for that in late March.

And the best part? Now Kamala can win.

If it's ok with you guys, I figured I'd start a new thread.

I love this wrap-up. Agree with all of it. I maybe was a little more optimistic at the start of the season, but I was definitely convinced a few times in August/September we would choke it all away. I can't believe we went as far as we did with that makeshift bullpen.

It will be interesting to see where we go from here, and how we'll look back on 2024 in the future. I'd like to think that this is the year that Cohen's ownership hit its stride and we finally became a well-run organization. I don't think any of us realized how big the Madoff story was when it hit, but in hindsight, it was the start of a 12 year period where the Mets had 10 losing seasons. Just torture for an already scarred fan base. But it makes sense. At least the pre-Madoff Wilpons spent money. What could we expect from owners that are both stupid and broke.

But now I feel like we have good leadership to match Cohen's money. Broke and stupid has been replaced by rich and smart. I have no idea if the Mets will win a World Series anytime soon, but I'd be surprised if we didn't make the playoffs something like four out of the next five years. It's a different era for us.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think in the years to come, let's call them the Nimmo/Lindor years, which will pretty much span the rest of the decade, there will be multiple playoff appearances. The expanded postseason field, of course, has a lot to do with this, but it also makes it harder to get to the later rounds, since two thirds of the playoff teams have to get through an additional round.

So yes, multiple visits to the postseason. But no guarantee that we'll see another LCS, much less a World Series. That will require both skill and luck.

All that aside, I have to say the 2024 Mets are among my favorite versions of the team, right up there with 1985 and 1999, and maybe even ahead of 2015.(I'd count 1973 as well, but I was only ten years old and didn't have the proper perspective at the time to realize what a special team it was. It was only my third season as a fan.)

[metirish]

Yeah, I think Stearns now with a year under his belt here will really shine. I do feel good about things , although I wouldn't want to try and replicate a season like this with the fun gimmicks etc ... I believe in Cohen and Stearns

[MFS62]

I think the year showed, especially with the relievers, that you can't depend on short term free agency to build a staff. They had to do that because all of the top pitching prospects hit their ceilings after AA.

I'll put my comments about what I'd like to see organizationally in 2025 in another thread.
Later

[Lefty Specialist]

Yeah, I'm fine with it. :)

I wanted to sleep on it. In the moment, you're pissed at all the bad pitching and guys left on base and woulda, coulda, shoulda.

But I think I'll look back on this as one of the best seasons to be a Met fan, at least for the last 100 games into the postseason. It's kind of a mirror image of the 1999 season, just sneaking in and then making some noise. They had some amazing moments there, too, had an epic game we still talk about to fight off elimination, but the Braves were just too strong and they didn't quite make it. But I know I was buzzed about the year when it ended.

That's how I feel this season, 25 years later. There'll be a lot of new SNY Classic games from 2024. I never high-fived the missus so much as I did this year. And there were two moments where I literally jumped up and spilled my Cracker Jack going 'Holy shit! Holy shit!' (You know what they are). But there were lots of other fun things as well. The nonsensical power of Grimace. The post-game impromptu concert. The Pumpkin that Slayed the Phillies. Scaring the shit out of the Braves a day after the season should have ended. 6 innings of 5 or more runs in a month. The Camp Day Thursday afternoon in July when they shut out the Nats while a friend and I watched and we both said, "hey maybe, just maybe'.

There'll be changes: a bunch of people will be traded or not re-signed. But that's for another thread. Right now I'm just going to bask in the afterglow and raise a beer to the 2024 Mets. OMG indeed.

[metirish]

Passan has some thoughts too

[MFS62]

From Amazin' Avenue:

The 2024 team is gone. The 2025 team will be different, perhaps vastly so. But no, this team didn’t really ever die. It’s just moved on, and the moments it’s left us and the organization as a whole will stay with us for a long long while.

https://www.amazinavenue.com/2024/10/21 ... n-new-york

Well put.
Later

[The Hot Corner]

This team accomplished far more than I ever expected of them going into the season.

[Cowtipper]

It was a great season.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I'm not sure I buy Passan's premise that we've definitively turned some corner as an organization. It would be nice but I also think:
1- 2024 will be a hard act to follow, and
2- all that magic and we damn near missed the playoffs anyway.

Agree with Ben that this year reminded me most of 1999, one of my favorite Met seasons. 1984 a little too--tho that was a real signal of a team on the rise. I'd like to see more killer prospects on the way.

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, Passan makes it seem like long term success is inevitable and sustainable.
Tell me who's in the rotation next year first. Then we can talk about the 2027 FA class