On the Mets’ trade deadline, rebuilding in New York and the Pete Alonso dilemma

Now that the trade deadline has passed, it seemed like a good time to check in with Chris Flanders on the state of the Mets.  Below is our email correspondence on some issues facing the Mets both now and the near-future. Brian: For many years, you've advocated for the Mets to do a full-scale rebuild [...]

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Checking in with my preseason prediction for the Mets

In the immortal words of the Talking Heads in their seminal song “Once in a Lifetime”, David Byrne observed his large automobile, his beautiful house and his beautiful wife and asked, “How did I get here?”  Looking at the Mets’ two-thirds of the way through the baseball season, another part of the lyric shouts out [...]

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My trip to Cooperstown and my problems with the Hall of Fame

My wife and I spent the weekend in upstate New York and took a trip into Cooperstown to take a turn around the museum. I’ve written for Mets360 for years and cover the minor league systems of the Mets. I am also an avid baseball fan and have been since the Mike Piazza era of [...]

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The Mets’ current pen since June and who will go when three relievers return?

We’re so used to the Mets’ bullpen needing to add quality relievers that we’re not really prepared for what happens in the next week to 10 days, where the Mets will have to decide how to handle adding three relievers coming off the IL to a group that’s been more good than bad the past [...]

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Carlos Mendoza has proven to be a hands-on manager

Most teams and managers give lip service to playing their entire roster. And every team does that with their pitchers but how many do with their hitters? Friday night, all 30 teams played and eight teams did not make a hitting or defensive change to their starters. Assuming that’s a normal day this time of [...]

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The many ways Jesse Winker will help the Mets

One of the trades that the Mets made before the Trading Deadline was acquiring Jesse Winker from the Washington Nationals this past Saturday night. Just like the other Mets trades, Winker may not be a splashy name that’ll make fans talk World Series contention. But this is a good, underrated acquisition that will benefit the [...]

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The Mets have turned over half of their roster and the results have been amazing

The Mets begin trade deadline day at 56-50, in a virtual tie for the second Wild Card spot. That’s a pace for an 86-win season. But there’s a reason to believe the team is better than that. They’ve done a bunch of shuffling to get the team they have now. Of the 26 players on [...]

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Billy Wagner is not walking through that door

The New York Mets are truly on the precipice of being a really good team.  There is still a good deal of gnashing of teeth over each specific game, but the Mets have demonstrated over the last two months they belong in the World Series conversation. Last year, Billy Wagner got 284 votes for the [...]

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The changing map of the Mets’ bullpen

Every now and then you stumble across something great on the internet. One of my favorite non-sports things was something that came out several years ago, a time-lapse video showing how the borders of Europe have changed throughout the years. That video came to mind when thinking about the Mets’ bullpen. To be sure, it’s [...]

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The Mets shouldn’t be aggressive at the deadline

Say one thing for the 2024 Mets, say they keep it interesting. The team hit what could have been the low point of their season as they dropped to 10+ games below .500 when the calendar flipped from May to June. In the process they somehow looked even worse than the mediocre team most expected [...]

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