Chapter 1: What happens if the Mets have a bad start to the season?
Let's say the Mets get off to a not-so-great start. I don't want to be totally negative and say a terrible start, but just a not-so-great start. Things aren't going well. Who do you think the fan base is going to blame the most? Let's say, I mean, it's tough because I'm not giving you the individual that is struggling. Maybe Juan Soto's not hitting well or something like that.
But just say, we'll use the players as a whole. We'll use Carlos Mendoza, we'll use David Stearns, and we'll use Steve Cohen. Does the fan base start flipping out on who? Stearns won.
Chapter 2: Who will the Mets fan base blame for a poor performance?
Stearns won, you think? Stearns won. Yeah. Again, like you just said, it does depend on how and why they're struggling, but I think just an overall scope of things, if, per se, they are 10 and 20 in the first 30 games, and you've got The Orioles, 18-12, and Pete Alonzo's got seven home runs and 30 RBIs in the first month or whatever. I think David Stearns and Steve Cohen take the brunt of it.
If they're just not playing well, I think it's probably Stearns. I think if pitching-wise, the guys who struggled last year continue to struggle in the early going, I think it's a Stearns thing. I think the Mendoza thing creeps up if you're hearing about issues in the locker room.
Okay. Yeah, that's very true. I do think you're right that it's Stearns, but I don't think Steve Cohen is that far behind.
Oh, I don't either.
Which I think is ridiculous. I really do believe that the Mets fans' ire towards Steve Cohen is... is so far off base. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I mean, he is spending the money. He cares just as much about the team, if not more, than the other projects that he's building. The whole stupid, oh, he only cares about the casino thing.
I mean, he made a massive offer to Kyle Tucker, wanted to get him. Obviously, he was pissed off about the Edwin Diaz thing. He talked about that yesterday. Went in and front-loaded the Bo Bichette contract. All of these things. That he is gone and done. And then we'll see what they end up doing with Peralta.
That's a guy that they may actually sign during the season because he's not a Boris client. But, I mean, he's doing just... And he's also trusting his baseball guy. And he's trusting David Stearns.
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Chapter 3: How will David Stearns and Steve Cohen be perceived during a rough season?
The most negative thing I would say about Steve Kona, if I was a Met fan, would be just inconsistency. And I don't mean from him. I mean from the team. Four years ago, they have Buck Showalter. They won 100 games. They flounder in the postseason, which was a terrible ending to what was a really good season. And you just assume that.
And I don't know why you wouldn't think they would have been really good the next year, and they weren't. They come back. They struggle to start. They get hot. They go to the NLCS. There's so much excitement about the team. You felt like, all right, now here comes the postseason run.
They start well last year, and then, again, the pitching was awful, and they dropped dead in the back part of the season. They missed the playoffs again. Like to me, you look at just what it's been. It's been inconsistent. And I don't know that it's his fault because he has put the resources into the team. They do have a ridiculous payroll. These aren't will pawn issues anymore.
It's much different. They just haven't been able to find any consistency on the field. But I agree with you. It's Stearns one and Cohen is probably right up his butt in terms of what the fans think.
Yeah, which I think is wrong. And I also think that if the Mets get off to a bad start or let's say they're under 500 around Memorial Day, something like that, that Carlos Mendoza will be fired and this guy, Kai Correa, that they brought in is going to be the manager.
And I said it the second that they hired this guy because he has got no connection to the Mets, the current Mets, or Carlos Mendoza. He is an analytic guy who has risen through the ranks. It's almost as if David Stern says, let's get this guy on our staff now because... In a couple of years, he's going to be a manager somewhere else. So let's get him in. And he's the bench coach.
I mean, he is right there as the bench coach. And if they get off to a slow start, I could see him being the manager immediately. He's a really young guy. Still in his 30s, I think, Kai Correa. I think you're right. I think he's 38. So, I mean, that I can see. 37, yeah.
37, okay.
Yeah, so I think that is something to keep an eye on. But hopefully you don't have to worry about it. Hopefully Carlos Mendoza. I like Carlos Mendoza a lot, but it's another one of these guys that I met. I wish I hadn't met. Yeah, no, I get it. But I met him, and I thought... I also loved his answers about 2024.
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Chapter 4: What role does Carlos Mendoza play in the Mets' performance?
you got a guy in Peralta who you expect to be good. Now he's not, and I didn't realize this when they signed him, I didn't realize he's pretty much a five inning pitcher. Um, so you're going to maybe, you know, maybe you can stretch them out to six from time to time, but in the beginning of the year, certainly that's not going to be the case.
Um, Nolan McLean is the guy that we saw a really more than just a glimpse of last year. He looks like he is going to be an ace like pitcher. We'll see if he takes that next step this year. A lot depends on him. And then, um, Clay Holmes, he's one to me. Now, year two as a starter, he was a five-inning pitcher last year. Really, four, and then sometimes five.
If he can take that next step and get you into the sixth inning more times than not. The other guys, I don't know what to think. What is Kodai Sango? What is David Peterson at this point? What is Sean Minaya? I have no idea. I love that. This is where... To me, it's hard to criticize the moves they made with the pitching going into last season because I would have resigned Sean Mania.
I like the fact that David Peterson was back. I didn't love the Clay Holmes becoming a starter thing, but that actually turned out to be a good move. So much to me relies on the pitching, not in terms of complete games, but giving them more depth and more innings than they did last year. And offensively,
You've got to score runs, and you've got to score them when they count, and we'll see if the production is there, especially if Lindor does miss the first couple of weeks of the season.
I'll give you three guys that I think could change the entire season for the Mets that are not the obvious ones. And that is Francisco Alvarez, because we have not seen him be consistent or good enough. Only stretches. This is another one that's a little more obvious, but Nolan McClain and how great he can be. I mean, is this guy an all-star in the conversation in the Cy Young?
He's got that potential. He surely looked like it last year. And then is Carson Bench more of a factor to this team than what Beatty and Vientos have been up until this point? Right.
So now you look at McLean and Benj, two of the factors that you just brought into play. And for all the Cohen detractors, and he talked about this yesterday a little bit, this is now starting to see some of the fruits of the labor. And he said one of the first things they did when he got here, he said his first year was basically just kind of
take an inventory and kind of understand what we've got. And they realized the first thing they had to do was fix the farm system. And it depends on what publication you read, but it's a top 10 program right now in all of major league baseball. And when you see guys like McLean come up and if Benj is going to be as good as they expect, now you start to see why maybe they could let some guys go.
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