For the first two months of this season, the posture emitted from Queens has been about winning -- about contending for the postseason in 2024.
"I believe in this team," New York Mets owner Steve Cohen told SNY just 12 days ago. "I fully expect to make the playoffs."
David Stearns, Cohen's head of baseball operations, expressed similar sentiments. "I think we're a good team," he told reporters. "I think we have a talented group that has a run in it and we probably haven't played our best baseball yet."
Since then, though, the Mets have gone 3-7, falling to 22-30 on the season. They are already 14½ games behind the first-place Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East, and six games behind the Atlanta Braves. The metrics suggest their sliver of hope is to win the second or third wild card in a crowded field of contenders. Since Cohen's comments on May 16, their chances of winning a playoff spot on FanGraphs halved again, from 25.3% to 12.8%.
Sure, there are 110 games left to play in the regular season, and teams' odds can change all the time. (Just ask the Braves, who are now planning for another season without Ronald Acuna Jr.) Maybe Cohen turns out to be right; maybe his team, built on the highest payroll in the majors, have a big run in them. But some rival executives believe that the reality of playing in the same division as two of the best teams in the majors, as well as relying on a piecemeal pitching staff with an injured ace in Kodai Senga, will eventually move the Mets into sell mode.
"They kind of are who I thought they would be," said one NL evaluator. "If Senga's out, there isn't enough [pitching] to make up for the offense."
If the Mets do wind up selling, they have a fair number of players who could be attractive to other teams: