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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Jason Fry on 3 April 2026 2:11 pm Annnnd we’ve reached another milestone a lot earlier than we might have hoped: the season’s first game that I recap belatedly because I can’t stand the thought of reliving it.
If you didn’t see Thursday night’s game, well, good on you for making better life choices than I did. The Mets largely didn’t hit, yet again — and one of their offensive stars (to bend a phrase nearly to breaking) was Mark Vientos, whom this front office has treated increasingly callously since he stumbled trying to build on what looked like a breakout year.
David Peterson‘s location was abysmal and he got strafed; Sean Manaea showed few indications that he’s due for a resurrection, perhaps not a surprise since there’s been no credible theory for how this miracle is to unfold. The defense was terrible again, with this night’s chief offenders Peterson and Marcus Semien, who have a reputation as sound gloves and aren’t even being asked to play out of position. And yet again there was a dispiriting air of general heads-up-the-assness to everything the Mets did. The final indignity? The Mets went down meekly against former mate Blade Tidwell, whom they discarded with barely concealed disdain last summer and who was returning to the big leagues for the first time since being shipped away.
The Mets’ season has gone from “wooo that was great” to “well that’s a little disappointing” to “ugh they look flat” to “WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKERS” with head-snapping speed. Baseball teams are never as bad as they look when they’re playing like this, but right now that old adage isn’t bringing much solace. I suspect that’s because we all watched this team be every bit as bad as they looked for more than three months last year, and it still rankles.
That’s unfair in a lot of ways — new year, new personnel — but until the Mets show us something convincingly different, it’s an assessment they’ll be stuck with, and one they’ll thoroughly deserve.
by Greg Prince on 2 April 2026 11:02 am When the Mets aren’t winning every day, everything they are doing badly glares, while everything they are doing well hardly matters to us. The Mets aren’t winning every day. Everything, therefore, feels terrible.
The starting pitchers are doing well, doing the most you could reasonably ask for, at any rate. None of them hasn’t lasted less than five innings, which after 2025 translates experientially to going at least eight and handing the ball to John Franco on a daily basis. So huzzah for adequate length out of the gate and nobody within our rotation singlehandedly shoving the Mets in a hole early. Freddy Peralta’s second start, in St. Louis on Wednesday, kept up a pace similar to the one he set on Opening Day. Freddy went five, bore down when he had to, and persevered into the sixth. Ace enough for now.
Juan Soto is batting .346, buoyed by his first homer of the season in the Busch Stadium finale. Luis Robert, Jr., who already won the Mets a game, has his average above .300. It’s a small sample size, but Mark Vientos has reached .400. Those digits look mighty good.
When closer Devin Williams has had something to close, he’s shut it effectively. Brooks Raley gives up big hits only in strange dreams. Most of the bullpen has pitched capably in innings that don’t begin with a phantom runner on second. If you’re not automatically shuddering when a Met reliever makes an appearance, you can infer Met relief isn’t necessarily lethal to the Mets cause.
Good stuff in several places. But the Mets aren’t winning every day. In fact, they’ve lost three of their past four games, including the most recent one, a 2-1 defeat that took ten innings to wind down to its inevitable conclusion.
Everything, therefore, feels and looks terrible.
There isn’t just one elephant in the room. There have been 53 of them in scoring position since Saturday. Only six of them have scored. The Mets’ RISP output Wednesday was 0-for-11. That’s eleven baserunners situated to score on a base hit, and no base hits delivered. That’s a lot of elephant mess left behind. Can’t get runs in during regulation, suddenly you’re playing extra innings practically every day. It’s a strain on the bullpen. It’s more pressure to do what isn’t being done, which is driving a runner in from a base like second…which they give you just for showing up in the tenth and eleventh innings.
After six games, most Mets aren’t hitting, and even the Mets who are hitting aren’t driving in runs consistently. Maybe six games shouldn’t be played before the second day of April. Blaming the calendar probably amounts to misplaced frustration, but on this day in 1984, the Mets opened their season on what was then the earliest date in their history. It took being the opponent in Cincinnati, the site granted the Baseball-wide Opener annually, for the Mets to be compelled to strap it on so soon. In the past decade, when COVID and lockouts haven’t lurked, March has emerged as the new April. It’s instinctually too soon to be this dismayed by how the Mets are playing. Honestly, last week’s Opening Day romp notwithstanding, it’s too soon for the Mets to be playing.
But they are, kind of. They’re not necessarily keeping track out of outs while in the field (Lindor) and not necessarily taking care as they wander off first base (Lindor again), though you understand such lapses are the aberration and will not be the norm. You force yourself to go through the self-evident exercise of reminding yourself that six games, let alone the first six games of a loooooong season, are only six games. A 3-3 record that could be better could also be worse. Mostly, it could be practically irrelevant in the scheme of the next 156 games, save for the nagging fact that every game counts.
We’ve mastered basic arithmetic. We know six isn’t nearly as many as 156. Yet MLB implores us to watch our team from the very beginning of a season and take it seriously enough to bet on, never mind that we have conditioned ourselves from a tender age to wager nothing less valuable than our emotions on most every pitch. It’s not too soon to notice when something is off. It’s never too soon to turn such a situation around.
by Greg Prince on 1 April 2026 1:35 pm Editor’s Note: Today marks the beginning of a revolutionary new chapter for Faith and Fear in Flushing, as we unveil our innovative artificial intelligence tool fAfIf. As the season progresses, we will increasingly rely on fAfIf to report on select New York Mets contests, with an eye on increasing fAfIf’s ability to eventually achieve optimal blog efficiency. Right now, fAfIf is in beta test mode, but we are confident that a blog post composed by fAfIf will serve the reader as well as any written by our current staff of existing human bloggers. Please enjoy the first wholly fAfIf-composed post below.
When the New York Mets prepared to play the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, it was more than the fulfillment of a date on the Major League Baseball schedule.
It was an experience in the making.
The New York Mets represented an attitude. Cool. Sophisticated. The knowing nod of the Eastern establishment. The St. Louis Cardinals represented a tone. Loyal. Traditional. The hardscrabble assuredness of Midwestern values.
This wasn’t just a baseball game — it was an iconic clash of cultures.
The setting of Busch Stadium was more than a ballpark. It was a symbol of all things St. Louis Cardinals. The history. The success. The runs that had streamed across home plate like the nearby Mississippi River since the days of Pepper “Wild Horse of the Osage” Martin, Leo “The Lip” Durocher, and Joe “Ducky” Medwick. St. Louis Cardinals supporters who closed their eyes could almost hear the homespun dialect of Jay Hanna “Dizzy” Dean as he fired baseballs to his catcher Virgil Lawrence “Spud” Davis in a Redbird patois only the Missouri faithful understood.
The St. Louis Cardinals who took the field at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, weren’t just a baseball team — they were the extension of an emotion that dated back decades.
The name Busch Stadium wasn’t just an appellation. It was the manifestation of a familial connection generations of St. Louis rooters felt with their beer and their ballclub. Busch manufactured can after can of Budweiser and Budweiser Light, much as the St. Louis Cardinals offense hoped to produce run after run versus the New York Mets pitching staff.
The brands of beer weren’t just a product — they were a carbonated metaphor.
The Gateway Arch that overlooked Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, wasn’t just a nationally recognized monument. It was a portal into the soul of St. Louis Cardinals baseball. Stan “The Man” Musial. Bob “Hoot” Gibson. Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky. Under the geometric structure that stood erect along the shores of the Mississippi River, the Gateway Arch symbolized something more than a Gateway to the West.
The Gateway Arch wasn’t just an arch — it was a suggestion of a baseball game yet to come.
The starting pitcher for the New York Mets at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, was to be Freddy “Fastball Freddy” Peralta. He was more than a pitcher. He was a moundsman. Peralta approached his pitching rubber with a certain swagger, an approach born of confidence and genuine belief in his abilities.
The starting pitcher for the New York Mets wasn’t just someone who would attempt to throw a baseball past St. Louis Cardinals batters — he was a weapon for his manager Carlos “Mendy” Mendoza to aim squarely at the opposition.
The scheduled game time for the baseball game between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, was 12:15 PM Central Daylight Time. It was a time for anticipation as much as it was a time for reflection. The sun was meant to appear in the sky over the ballpark.
The sun wasn’t intended to just shine — it was invited to beam.
The weather that greeted the scheduled game time for the baseball game between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, contained clouds and rain. Baseball is a game played in many conditions, with clouds and rain sometimes a part of them.
The clouds and rain that appeared over Busch Stadium weren’t just an indicator of climate activity — they were an impediment to a prompt first pitch.
The rain delay that occurred at what was supposed to be the beginning of the scheduled baseball game between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, would not dampen the enthusiasm of those who gathered from near and far to witness it. The waiting and the wetness combined to create more intrigue within what was already a heated rivalry that seemed to foreshadow a close encounter of the athletic kind.
The rain delay wasn’t just a rain delay — it was a delay wrought by rain. The baseball fans who endured it could only hope to be distracted in the interim period spanning the delay and the game by a smattering of utter foolishness.
The utter foolishness was a human construct — it would not compute on any date that wasn’t April 1.
by Jason Fry on 1 April 2026 6:27 am It happens every spring: A Mets loss arrives and then departs eliciting no reaction beyond a vaguely affronted shrug. A loss — striking in a new season where you still remember every twist of every game, but soon to fade into anonymity, becoming part of the blur of series and road trips and homestands and the season’s ebb and flow.
Happens every summer and fall too, come to think of it.
Kodai Senga looked good against the Cardinals, and if you want to be positive (always recommended), put that summation in your pocket and be done with Tuesday evening. The ghost fork wasn’t always as spectral as one would have wished, but the fastball sizzled and Senga had nothing but good things to say about his mechanics, in-game tactics and other factors that have sometimes come as affronts to his mildly prickly perfectionism. It’s easy to forget what a presence Senga was not so very long ago; Tuesday was a good sign he could be one again.
The Mets’ defense faltered at what turned out to be a key moment, though it wasn’t because Jorge Polanco or Bo Bichette or Brett Baty had been asked to play out of position; rather, the missteps came from Luis Robert Jr., normally reliable in center field.
Those missteps helped put the Mets in a 2-0 hole, one that got half again as deep when Richard Lovelady gave up a home run. Poor Lovelady: It’s no secret that his roster spot will go to A.J. Minter once that more accomplished lefty is ready, and it sure looks like the Mets will find some other warm body before then, once they conclude Lovelady has been battered and bruised beyond even what current negligence will allow.
(Cue Lovelady turning to a postgame interlocutor who’s gently asked about the possibility of finding another line of work: “What, and give up showbiz?”)
A couple of defensive lapses, a late bit of non-relief: None of it might have mattered if the Mets had done anything at all with the bats. Instead they offered us a trio of hits, a quartet of walks and exactly one runner making the acquaintance of third base.
That’ll happen too. Every spring, even. Though one devoutly hopes it doesn’t happen very often.
by Jason Fry on 31 March 2026 12:10 am Bo Bichette knows baseball pretty well, having played a lot of it — and seeing a bunch more before he did that professionally, what with being the child of a fairly renowned big leaguer. So he knows perfectly well that baseball is unpredictable, maddening and shot through with ironies big and small.
Like my blog partner, I was bothered by the Mets’ muffed finale against the Pirates more than seemed reasonable given a series win, the inevitability of losses, the season being a marathon and not a sprint, and all the other perfectly obvious reasons not to get irked about a frustrating though relatively humdrum loss. But Bichette’s candor after the game was refreshing — down to the “too” with which he adorned “I think my at-bats have been terrible too.” And that was even more refreshing when contrasted with Carlos Mendoza‘s omerta about Tim Leiper’s bad send.
(No need to make a federal case out of that last part. Mendy knows it was a bad send and so — one hopes — does Leiper. I’m sure there was a conversation to that effect on the flight to St. Louis or at some other away-from-the-cameras moment. At least for now, let’s move on.)
Baseball being baseball, there was Bichette in the middle of everything against the Cardinals as the Mets began a road trip on which they’ll start accumulating a startling number of frequent flyer miles. (Seriously, every time we blink in 2026 it will be to find the Mets oddly far out west.)
There Bichette was in the first, trying to bring in Francisco Lindor from third after Juan Soto couldn’t do so. He smacked a grounder to hotshot rookie JJ Wetherholt at second and Lindor went on contact — which made me think “oh God not again” until Wetherholt couldn’t get the ball out of his glove and the run scored. Bichette grounded into a double play in the third, but in the fifth he came up with the game knotted at one-all, Carson Benge on third and two out.
The Cards’ Kyle Leahy (pretty good until the tank hit E) left a fastball middle-middle and Bichette whacked it into the outfield for what may have been the most awkward RBI-producing single I’ve ever seen: His follow-through spun him like a top and he wound up sitting on home plate looking a little startled — though fortunately with plenty of time to collect himself and get to first. His next AB was a line shot to the outfield, which Jordan Walker converted into an out but was still much more what we wanted to see.
That’s baseball, isn’t it? You finally get that hit that’s proved so elusive and even then you wind up on your fanny, ready to announce to the world, “You’re probably wondering how I got here.”
Bichette’s mini-saga was the center of a pretty satisfying little game, one refreshingly free of angst and needless drama. Clay Holmes — the only starter who didn’t spit the bit in last year’s disaster — looked solid in his first outing of the year, backed up by near-spotless relief from Tobias Myers, Brooks Raley and Devin Williams. Raley was particularly fun to watch — he has the impassive mien every setup man acquires eventually, going about his business like a grizzled gunfighter who’s walked the deserted street of too many lawless towns, and whose only goal is “not today.”
If I can be petty, it was also satisfying to watch the Mets right their ship against the Cardinals. St. Louis wouldn’t make my list of 100 or even 200 favorite towns: The “best fans in baseball” shtick is self-satisfied and grating, new Busch is surrounded by generic light-beer malls, and the town is a dull place one escapes from rather than aspires to. Nothing sums St. Louis up better than being inside the Gateway Arch: The interior looks like a basement rec room in the suburbs, and when you peer out of it you realize there’s exactly one thing worth seeing in St. Louis and you’re in the one place where you can’t see it. (The only thing I have to recommend in St. Louis is the boozy shake at Baileys’ Range, but even they’ve shuttered their downtown location.)
The Cardinals are bad right now, probably headed for consecutive losing seasons for the first time since the Eisenhower administration. That’s a standard of excellence that even this committed Cardinals despiser has to respect — and it comes with the uneasy feeling that the Cardinals will be tormenting us again before we know it, re-engineered by Chaim Bloom to be a killing machine as per usual. All too soon their fans will be looking smug, SNY will be serving up fawning shots of that useless stupid arch, and the bile will rise in my throat as it has year-in and year-out since I was a kid.
We’ll be back on our butts in St. Louis all too soon, but this time with nary an RBI to show for it. Until then, well, here’s a boozy shake raised in salute to the idea that things change and annoyance can’t last forever.
by Greg Prince on 30 March 2026 2:11 pm When watching television, I sit on the audience-left side of our living room sectional, which means it’s my right arm that flexes out at the end of a particularly frustrating Mets loss, and the side of my right fist that instinctively punches the nearest cushion. Disgust thus manifested, I can move along to my cooling-off period before getting over one lousy ballgame in a lifetime littered by them. Yet Sunday, when the Mets came up one bleeping run short of the Pirates, 4-3, in ten innings, the cushion punch wasn’t enough. Thus, without thinking about it, I stood up, took a couple of steps, and kicked at air. My podiatrist would be glad to know no damage was incurred by my stockinged right foot. The doctor preaches prevention, and I learned long ago from Pat Zachry never to get mad near steps constructed from cement.
I punched. I kicked. I cursed. I muttered. But the irritation associated with this particular loss wouldn’t simmer down. I knew it was Just One Game. I knew it was only the season’s first loss, which I understood was going to show up eventually. Usually, I almost welcome a year’s inaugural defeat (when it’s not on Opening Day), because it represents a quiet victory for withstanding adversity. There’s no getting the game out of the ‘L’ column, but tomorrow comes, we’re still here, let’s go get ’em.
Here it is, tomorrow, and I’m still as annoyed by this loss as I was when it ended. I try not to toss the word “annoyed” around too much because if I let it fly too freely, I will never reel it in. Yet, wow, what an annoying game, and what an annoying end to such an annoying game.
Self-preservation suggests treading lightly over the most damning of details, so I’ll confine myself to the tying run that didn’t score in the tenth, the one Francisco Lindor carried to within inches of home plate from first base on Juan Soto’s double to deep left with nobody out and the Mets down by two. It was clearly enough to score unearned runner Francisco Alvarez from second, which was good, because Alvarez had to chug to make it the required 180 feet. But he did. Lindor I expected to be shadowing Alvarez, because Lindor can be as slick on the basepaths as Alvarez can be sludgy. The faster of our Franciscos whisked to third on a non-obvious triple earlier. I expected Lindor to be sent and I expected Lindor to score.
He was, but he didn’t. The Pirates made the plays they had to make, and even with an offline throw, they nailed Lindor at the plate. One out. Tying the game would have to wait. Soto, who’d landed on second, boldly took third on Bo Bichette’s ensuing grounder to short. Two out. Tying the game would have to continue to wait. Jorge Polanco then unleashed a blast to deep right, but not deep enough. It was caught in front of the wall. Three out.
No tie. No win. A lot of being annoyed, with the punching and the kicking and the cursing and the muttering indicating the level of annoyance. I would have liked to have seen an isolated replay of Lindor taking off from first, but the revamped SNY truck didn’t fire one up, so I don’t know if my confidence in the trail runner and new third base coach Tim Leiper was misplaced. I felt OK enough about the new three-hole hitter and his reputation for clutchitude perhaps picking up for whatever didn’t go right on Soto’s double, but that guy is having his own adjustment issues. Fans in Flushing were booing Bo once his nascent season line descended to 1-for-14 in the tenth. The third baseman acknowledged the reaction and empathized. “If anything,” he said of the impatient reception, “I thought it took too long.”
The new cleanup hitter, Polanco, did what he could do to effect a Luis Robert, Jr.-style ending from the day before, but it was the next day, and good ol’ baseball is the box of chocolates chock full of daily mysteries. Prevail in extras on a big swing from one of your fancy imports on Saturday, fall short in extras when the big swing from one of your fancy imports dies a little shy of glory on Sunday. You couldn’t blame Polanco. You could get miffed at Bichette if you wanted. You could dissect the decision to send Lindor. You could take apart bullpen tactics, too. It was one loss, which a person can mostly accept, certainly in March.
So why the hell was I so mad? Maybe the one-run nature of it was a bit much so soon for me. In August and September of last year, the Mets lost twelve one-run games, six of them at home. Every one of those Citi sags ended, to some extent, the way Sunday’s did. Just one more hit here. Just get the runner home. Just get a rally started. Just do something to avoid losing this very winnable game. But it never happened and 2025 couldn’t have wound down as any more frustrating or any more annoying. It’s 2026, and two exhilarating wins have been followed by a one-run loss that’s had me using the a-word for going on 24 hours.
It’s never really the couch cushion’s fault.
by Jason Fry on 28 March 2026 11:33 pm Opening Day brought balmy temperatures, runs a-plenty and good vibes. Most of Game 2, which arrived separated from Game 1 by the usual “rainouts happen” off-day, was the opposite: It was freezing, big hits were conspicuous in their absence, and the vibes were meh with a side of muttery.
David Peterson was very David Peterson: mostly good except when he lost the strike zone, as he tends to do, but he wiggled free of harm and departed in the sixth with no harm having been suffered. But Mitch Keller — the same Mitch Keller whose breakout has kept not quite arriving for the Pirates, like the bedroom door in Poltergeist — was just as good quantitatively and a little better qualitatively, not that the latter counts.
The Mets were no doubt glad to see Keller depart, but couldn’t break through against Justin Lawrence, last seen getting ambushed by Carson Benge and Francisco Alvarez on Opening Day. Nor could they do anything against Gregory Soto, who as a Met specialized in letting inherited runners score and not paying attention to baserunners and of course is now far more effective while getting paid by someone else. (Seriously, I fucking hate Gregory Soto.) And while we’re being muttery, so far every play Jorge Polanco is involved in at first base is improv. Polanco will get better, but until he does I’d buckle up.
The game was scoreless after nine, meaning it was time for another delightful round of Calvinball Presented by Rob Manfred. Luis Garcia (ha there are three of them so Baseball Reference can’t figure out how to do the link) allowed a Pirate run in the 10th, but we’re getting used to the idea that that’s barely a failure in Calvinball, let alone a fatality. The Mets immediately tied the game and had the bases loaded and nobody out against young Hunter Barco, which was when things took a left-hand swerve into bonkers territory.
Francisco Lindor hit a bouncer to second, a near-carbon copy of the play in which Isiah Kiner-Falefa and the Blue Jays failed to win the World Series. Brandon Lowe threw home as Marcus Semien slid home, but Henry Davis managed to keep a toe on the bag and the Mets’ first shot at a win had gone by the boards.
Up came Juan Soto, who hit a little excuse-me swinging bunt that Barco had to scramble off the mound to field. A lot can go wrong on a play like that — ask poor Orion Kerkering — but Barco made a nifty bare-handed grab and a perfect shovel toss to Davis to force Jared Young at home. Oh for two, and when Bo Bichette flied out the chance was gone.
Enter the peripatetic Richard Lovelady, who got two quick outs and looked like he was going to pull off a Calvinball near-miracle and keep the Manfred Man from scoring. (Do we have a name for this feat yet?) But with former Mets farmhand Jake Mangum on third, luck stopped being a lady, a development I doubt Richard greeted with much love. Bryan Reynolds sent a Lovelady sweeper ambling up the third-base line, a ball clearly destined to spin foul up until the moment that it didn’t and instead became a Mazeika Special that gave the Pirates the lead again. A lead they arguably should have padded when Marcell Ozuna lined a ball inside the right-field line, except Young played it well and the Pirates held Reynolds up at third rather than force the Mets to execute a perfect play.
(It’s just two games, but the Pirates look more than a little off-kilter: defensive lapses, strange bullpen and baserunning decisions, and players who don’t seem quite prepared for their duties, whether those include wearing sunglasses beneath a high sky or making sure the pitcher can get all his warm-up throws in.)
Anyway it was 2-1 Pirates, Barco was back out there for the 11th, and it was time for the Mets to climb that hill again in front of a chilly crowd that was fervently urging on a happy ending, if only to stay warm. Barco walked Polanco and started Luis Robert Jr. off with a bait changeup, which Robert ignored. Robert spent a good chunk of the spring on the back fields in Port St. Lucie, trying to rewire his batting eye to seek deeper counts — an laudable goal that’s awfully hard for hitters to make a reality, though the early returns from the first two games have been promising.
Barco’s second pitch was a slider at the bottom of the zone — another one to spit on, probably, but Robert found it to his liking. He connected and drove the ball toward left-center. A hit? Certainly. Up the gap? Quite possibly. Over the fence for a walkoff three-run homer? Indeed it was. Which maybe felt like the hard way, after the grinding frustration of the early innings and the surrealism of the late frames, but certainly got us to the outcome we wanted.
by Greg Prince on 27 March 2026 1:00 pm Did I hear him correctly? Did I hear Carson Benge, in the wake of his smashing major league debut at Citi Field, tell a friendly interlocutor that ”I want to keep playing here forever”? Don’t toy with us, kid. Because if you’re serious, we’re in the smitten state of mind to take you up on it.
Almost nobody who has indicated he was planning to play here forever plays here forever. It’s certainly not right to hold the freshest-faced of youngsters to such a sentiment. After all, there has been only one Wright in our lives. Proof of the transitory nature of unexpiring attachment to our environs and what they promise as permanent on a sunny, warm, and resoundingly successful Opening Day could be found in the box scores and bullpens of teams decidedly not rooted in Flushing. Did ya see who led off for Texas in Philadelphia? Who batted third for the Orioles at Camden Yards? Who didn’t need to get loose as the Dodgers pulled away from the Diamondbacks? Alas, as we learned anew amid the scalding flame of the Hot Stove, readjusting the parameters of “forever” is intrinsic to the business of baseball, and business was likely the last thing the 23-year-old right fielder of the New York Mets was thinking about in the minutes after he’d completed his very first game in front of an appreciative throng he could right then and there picture hitting home runs in front of for eternity.
Why wouldn’t Carson want to spend his career with us? He homered for us and was reciprocated a curtain call. He did a little of everything and was applauded heartily. He had Metsopotamia leaning forward with him, anticipating more homers, more walks, more steals, more hustle, more talent, more confidence, more of everything that marked our first taste of him and his of us. The fact that forever is a mighty long time escapes an interested party on Opening Day.
Let’s go crazy. Let’s funnel an Opening Day like Thursday’s into a nearby 3-D printer and crank out 161 copies. The weather sent winter to an undisclosed location. The lineup, with one Met entering our consciousness after another, was bountiful in its production. Eleven runs. Eleven hits. Ten bases on balls. A harmless hit by pitch. Nearly 200 pitches elicited from the hapless hurlers representing Pittsburgh. The Mets could leave double-digit runners on and we didn’t have to stress. The visiting Pirates could place one of the sport’s elite pitchers to the hill and we didn’t have to withstand his appearance for as long an inning. Granted, it was a long two-thirds of an inning. Paul Skenes, the Cy Young winner who was probably the reason NBC wanted this game to reactivate its association with baseball, threw 37 pitches to nine Mets. He recorded two outs. The Mets made him work, then made him go away. His center fielder, a converted shortstop of notable height, didn’t help his cause, but our guys — they are all our guys now — put patience in their approach, bats to balls, and Skenes in the dugout.
Erstwhile outlanders Bo Bichette, Jorge Polanco, Luis Robert, Jr., and Marcus Semien meshed marvelously with the holdovers Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Brett Baty, and powerhouse catcher Francisco Alvarez. Benge was the cherry on top of this beautifully blended sundae, evidenced most tantalizingly by his sixth-inning liner over the right-center field fence. If you’re serious about sticking around, Carson, you’re 263 off the franchise career record. But maybe we’ll savor your potential one swing at a time.
The new ace pitcher, Freddy Peralta, hung in for five innings. He was nicked here and there, but he was supported handsomely (including by ABS), so therefore we’ll call his first start splendid. Tobias Myers, the next ex-Brewer up, was leaned on for three frames, and he quashed any notion that the slugfest in progress might get a little too mutually sluggy. Luis Garcia finished up looking more like the kind of veteran Met reliever we’re used to picking up on the open market, giving up a pair of shaky runs out of the gate, but that’s what six-run ninth-inning leads for. The 11-7 final functioned as a satisfying down payment on the days and months ahead.. Results such as this one can’t be easily replicated, but if we could, we’d invite them to keep playing forever.
They probably won’t, but after an Opening Day like 2026’s, you can dream that we will forever pass this way again.
by Greg Prince on 16 March 2026 7:14 pm Once the Oscars have finished doing what they do, the curtain goes up on Faith and Fear in Flushing’s salute to the Mets who have left us — in the baseball sense — over the past year. This is the twentieth annual edition of our tribute to those stars, characters, and bit players who have moved on from the organization. Or twenty-first if you include the montage FAFIF originally screened in 1978.
Like the 2025 Mets, let us start strong…
___
BRANDON TATE NIMMO
Outfielder
June 26, 2016 – September 28, 2025
Brandon Nimmo is more than just happy to be here, but make no mistake: he’s happy to be here. Look at the smile that accompanied him around the bases after he bopped the first home run of his career, the one that elevated the Mets to a 7-1 lead en route to a soggy 10-2 drubbing of the presumed invincible Cubs Friday night. That’s a happy person. I’d include a picture, but I assume Nimmo’s grin is still visible everywhere there is sky. It lit up the atmosphere at Citi Field, it brightened the broadcast wherever you were watching or listening, it took over the league lead in OPS+ — Outstanding Player Smile. The plus is for how contagious Nimmo’s enthusiasm is to the rest of us. That’s a commodity not to be curbed.
—July 2, 2016
(Traded to Rangers, 11/23/2025)
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JEFFREY TODD “Jeff” McNEIL
Infielder-Outfielder
July 24, 2018 – September 28, 2025
Thursday night in Pittsburgh, I rooted for […] Jeff McNeil to continue to get acclimated to big league surroundings…which will doubtlessly take a little more doing (witness Rosario’s stubbornly incremental progress to date). McNeil started at third for the first time in a Mets career that commenced Tuesday. The first ball hit toward him eluded him completely. The first time he was on second, he raced to third despite Jose Bautista having very recently slid into it and not showing any intention of leaving it. Rookies, even the 26-year-old late bloomers who were tearing up every level of the minors, will be rookies. Jeff didn’t have jitters with the bat, though. The relatively young man singled once, walked once, was intentionally passed once and Nimmo’d once (a.k.a. was pinged by a pitch). He’s not a flop. He’s not a star. He’s Jeff McNeil, New York Met, and he just got here. May he have plenty of opportunity to let us discover what he’s all about.
—July 27, 2018
(Traded to Athletics, 12/22/2025)
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PETER MORGAN “Pete” ALONSO
First Baseman
March 28, 2019 – September 28, 2025
Though it wasn’t the definitive turning point of the evening, no moment resonated as more milestone than Pete Alonso’s eighth-inning swing for the fences, and by fences, I mean the fences at LaGuardia’s Delta terminal. Oh, that baseball he connected with was soaring, all right — it flew high enough to slice Venus, never mind the space above the left field pole — but of more concern was the angle his breathtaking launch was taking. Fair? Foul? Somewhere in between somehow? I paused, as I imagine we all did, to gauge its flight pattern. I hoped it was fair, I thought it was foul, I heard silence, I looked around. Was that Pete going into a trot? Was that a roar rising from the modestly sized crowd? Was that the Apple accurately elevating? Hey! It’s a home run! A Pete Alonso late & clutch home run at Citi Field! And I am there, Walter! Being in proximity to a Met doing a superb Met thing doesn’t usually strike me as overly noteworthy, but as I mentioned, I’d not been to a game yet this season, and this season has been the dawn of the Pete Alonso Era at Citi Field, so this was also the first time Pete and I linked our fates in the same facility. Yes, Pete Alonso gets his own era capitalized. We are all in his Polar Bear Club.
—May 22, 2019
(Free agent, 11/4/2025; signed with Orioles, 12/10/2025)
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EDWIN ORLANDO DIAZ
Relief Pitcher
March 28, 2019 – September 28, 2025
We’re not even claiming Edwin Diaz is dependable. We are genetically incapable of telling our closer, “You got this.” In our heart of hearts, we don’t think you do, but we’re willing to fake enthusiasm if it helps. And tap along a toe or two to the trumpet routine that heralds Edwin’s emergence from the pen — the only loud noise transmitted over the ballpark’s overwrought PA system that qualified as a somewhat welcome sound Sunday. Mark and I agreed that if Diaz comes in to pitch in the playoffs at Citi Field with a one-run edge and his music blasting, it, like our team by then, will be awesome. We were actually talking playoffs in July, with Edwin Diaz approaching the pitching rubber to face the dangerous Blue Jays. We may have used sunscreen, but you’re welcome to assume we were experiencing heat stroke. Diaz went about his business in a manner resembling cool, calm and collected. He struck out George Springer, which satisfied the many who howled at the moon (BOOOOOOOO!!!!!) every time the shamed champion Astro showed his face. He walked Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., but a base on balls is the better part of valor when facing a hitter whose slugging percentage of .663 leaps from the scoreboard and knocks your eyes’ socks off while simultaneously taking their breath away. Guerrero is a metaphor-crusher. Don’t let him be a Met-crusher, too. Walk him, just don’t let him get anywhere. Edwin did, but only ninety feet on a wild pitch. Edwin struck out Marcus Semien on three pitches in the interim. It was while facing Bo Bichette that Vlad the Younger moved to second. It was also while facing Bichette that Diaz worked the count full. At three-and-two, James McCann trotted to the mound for a word with his pitcher. From 515, one could only imagine what the word was. It was probably more family-friendly than the words we in the stands had holstered in case the worst was about to occur. We’ll save that variant of our vocabulary for another day, maybe another year. Diaz struck out Bichette to end the game, 5-4 in the Mets’ favor.
—July 25, 2021
(Free agent, 11/4/2025; signed with Dodgers, 12/9/2025)
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Now, like the 2025 Mets, let us proceed mostly with whoever happened to be passing through…
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JOSE MIGUEL UREÑA (Rodriguez)
Relief Pitcher
April 28, 2025
In the ninth, Jose Ureña proved himself worthy of inclusion in any exploration of the Unicorn Score oeuvre. He gave up a walk with one out, but nothing more, and when he fanned Dylan Crews, the Unicorn came galloping onto the field at Nationals Park, visible to anybody seeking a sighting. Mets win, 19-5, the 23rd Unicorn Score in Mets history, the first in two years, the sixth in the past decade, which is as long as I’ve been tracking them.
—April 29, 2025
(Free agent, 5/1/2025; signed with Blue Jays, 5/3/2025)
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JOHN TYLER ZUBER
Relief Pitcher
June 22, 2025
The Mets have brought up Tyler Zuber! Other than Tyler Zuber’s family, I don’t know if anybody else is bringing an exclamation point to bear over this news, but it’s big news to me. Once Zuber gets in a game, he becomes […] the alphabetical last Met in franchise history, bumping Don Zimmer to next-to-last. This has been a development more than 63 years in the making
—June 22, 2025
(Claimed off waivers by Marlins, 7/9/2025)
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BRYCE MONTES DE OCA
Relief Pitcher
September 3, 2022 – September 10, 2022
A pitcher who totaled fewer than four innings but features a name that comes in four parts…
—December 29, 2022
(Free agent, 11/6/2025; signed with Nationals, 1/23/2026)
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DOMINIC AVERY “Dom” HAMEL
Relief Pitcher
September 17, 2025
Congratulations to Hamel on escaping ectoplasm as a Mets ghost — and for becoming the Mets’ MLB-record 46th pitcher used this year. I’ll contain my excitement about the record, though, because cycling arms on and off the roster is the new normal and you can bet someone will use 47 pitchers next year.
—September 17, 2025
(Claimed off waivers by Orioles, 9/20/2025)
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GENESIS CABRERA
Relief Pitcher
May 1, 2025 – May 23, 2025
The Mets weren’t much for rallies all afternoon, and none among Kodai Senga, Genesis Cabrera, Max Kranick and Reed Garrett was at his absolute stingiest. Cabrera, a lefty, is here because neither A.J. Minter nor Danny Young is any longer available. Genesis joined Ty Adcock in supplementing a staff that is running a lot of reliever roulette of late. Brandon Waddell and Chris Devenski are already back at Syracuse. Jose Ureña is a free agent. Wait, these sound like challenges or difficulties or, heaven forefend, problems. Even first-place ballclubs are entitled to sing the blues as applicable. We are the NL East-leading, ten-above-.500 New York Mets, yet we are dealing with injuries, bullpen overuse, starting pitching that doesn’t go particularly long, a spotty offense in clutch situations, and, worst when ranking sins, not winning them all. This season has reminded me that when you’re close to winning them all, your craw gets stuck with the residue of not actually doing that.
—May 2, 2025
(Free agent, 5/27/2025; signed with Cubs, 5/27/2025)
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JOSE ENRIQUE AZOCAR
Outfielder
April 19, 2025 – May 23, 2025
Jose Azocar played in Soto’s stead. Jose Azocar almost never plays, unless it’s to run for a less speedy Met. I don’t think this upfront substitution was entirely the reason the Mets didn’t win one game on one rainy night in May, but I wouldn’t do this again if I could help it. Nothing against Azocar. Good teams need pinch-runners, and pinch-runners oughta test the rest of their skill sets against live competition so they stay fresh for when called on to be complete players. Someday, you might need Azocar to do something besides stretch his legs. Maybe do it in left or center field next time, though.
—May 15, 2025
(Free agent, 5/28/2025; signed with Braves, 5/20/2025)
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ZACHERY MICHAEL “Zach” POP
Relief Pitcher
July 6, 2025
After the Mets made their nightly flurry of moves besides the injured list additions (Hagenman and Rico Garcia are up; Blade Tidwell is down; Austin Warren, designated 27th Man on Wednesday, sticks around), it was reported the Mets signed to a major league deal reliever Zach Pop. My reaction was, “I’ve never heard of Zach Pop.” I’d also never heard of most of the additions the Mets have made to their bullpen these past few months, even though most of them could claim anywhere from a smidgen to a modicum of MLB experience. Zach Pop has more than that; since 2021, he’s pitched in 162 games, a full season’s worth, despite my failing to notice a very noticeable name clearly destined to join our roster of very noticeable, if preternaturally obscure names. My childhood devotion to absorbing the names and faces on baseball cards notwithstanding, I’m coming to believe that just because somebody is a professional big league pitcher, it doesn’t automatically qualify him as famous.
—July 4, 2025
(Free agent, 7/10/2025; signed with Cubs, 7/23/2025)
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JOSHUA RICO GARCIA 1.0
Relief Pitcher
July 6, 2025 – July 10, 2025
Another dribble of activity, in the top of the fifth, culminated in Alonso leaving runners on first and second. Hagenman, in his second inning of work, gave up two runs. In the sixth, Justin, Dicky Lovelady, and Rico Garcia — unplanned relievers are a given with this team — combined to allow two more. The Mets stopped bothering Sugano by the sixth, and the rest of the Oriole bullpen didn’t have to sweat a whole lot en route to Baltimore’s 7-3 win.
—July 11, 2025
(Claimed off waivers by Yankees, 7/14/2025)
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JOSHUA RICO GARCIA 2.0
Relief Pitcher
July 22, 2025 – August 2, 2025
Clay Holmes is gutting out five effective if not efficient innings, which is OK, because we have Rapidly Recidivizing Rico Garcia back, following the ten minutes when he’d inexplicably wandered away from the organization…
—July 26, 2025
(Claimed off waivers by Orioles, 8/5/2025)
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GRANT ALEXANDER HARTWIG
Relief Pitcher
June 19, 2023 – May 19, 2024
Did I see the Marlins beat the Mets? We were likely getting close to that eventuality, what with the Marlins usurping that thin 1-0 lead of the Mets and transforming it into a 2-1 edge of their own in the top of the ninth off noted closers Grant Hartwig and Anthony Kay. Hey, it’s only a game with an impact on the entire postseason picture. Might as well try whoever you have out in the pen to finish off a contender.
—September 29, 2023
(Released, 6/27/2025; signed with Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball, 7/14/2025)
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JUSTIN CHARLES GARZA
Relief Pitcher
June 10, 2025 – June 20, 2025
You may have noticed amid the general miasma of the weekend that the Mets actually used the same pitcher one day and then the next. Justin Garza, a recent pickup from the Giants, went two innings on Friday night and an inning Saturday. He gave up no runs on either occasion. Handy guy to have around. Barring some injury we sure as hell prefer not happen, don’t look for a hand from Garza in Atlanta this week, as he was optioned to Syracuse Sunday in favor of Ty Adcock. Was Adcock a better bet than Garza for the long haul? Or was Adcock’s arm “fresh”? You know the answer. You always know the answer these days. The Mets seem to plan their bullpen usage meticulously, but when the real world of baseball intrudes, everything teeters on the brink of hell.
—June 16, 2025
(Free agent, 9/9/2025; currently unsigned)
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TRAVIS PAUL JANKOWSKI
Recidivist Outfielder
June 26, 2025 – July 8, 2025
So the Mets had another team meeting…and things got worse. Worse as in 12-1, worse as in out of it by the top of the second, worse as in Travis Jankowski finished up on the mound (before seeing a 2025 Mets AB, no less).
—June 30, 2025
(Free agent, 7/13/2025; currently unsigned)
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JANZEN BLADE TIDWELL
Pitcher
May 4, 2025 – July 2, 2025
It’s the top of the sixth at Citizens Bank Park on Friday night. Blade Tidwell, a rookie pitcher carrying a parcel of promise along with a name one can picture Carnac the Magnificent working into one of his curses after an audience doesn’t respond as he wishes to one of his prognostications (“may your Blade Tidwell turn Blade Tidrotten”), is no longer in the game. But he has given the Mets about as much as could have been hoped for, considering he wasn’t so much on their immediate depth chart as he was in somebody’s phone’s address book. The kid who was sitting in Syracuse looking forward only to playing video games the night before looked capable for three-and-two-thirds innings, giving up only two runs during his emergency start. Every Met start is an emergency these days.
—June 21, 2025
(Traded to Cardinals, 7/30/2025)
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PAUL CADY BLACKBURN
Pitcher
August 2, 2024 – August 13, 2025
Except for the top of the sixth inning, Friday night at Citi Field was a pretty good game. The Mets scored five runs versus the Tampa Bay Rays and received five solid innings from Clay Holmes. Gotta like things of that nature occurring. It’s a shame the top of the sixth, when Paul Blackburn and Max Kranick gave up the six runs that negated the 5-1 lead the Mets had built and essentially undid Holmes’s splendid limited-by-design start, had to happen. Otherwise, though, good game. Well, maybe the bottom of the seventh inning lacked whatever makes a game good, as the bottom of the seventh wasn’t much of a half-inning from a Mets perspective.
—June 14, 2025
(Released, 8/19/2025; signed with Yankees, 8/12/2025)
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TYLER NATHAN McKENZIE “Ty” ADCOCK
Relief Pitcher
June 29, 2024 – June 18, 2025
Adcock would get his chance to know the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela in the bottom of the eighth, as three different Pirates sent three of Ty’s pitches toward the mighty Ohio. Three homers for Three Rivers, thrusting Pittsburgh ahead, 14-2, or ten runs better than it was barely an inning before. The last of the dingers, bashed by Rowdy Tellez, was the Bucs’ second grand slam of the game, not to mention the seventh of their franchise record-tying home runs. Worse, somehow, was that amid all the cannon blasts (PNC literally ran out of fireworks), Adcock couldn’t mix in a third out.
—July 6, 2024
(Free agent, 11/6/2025; signed with Padres, 12/4/2025)
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JOSE GREGORIO CASTILLO
Relief Pitcher
May 19, 2025 – August 29, 2025
I sure as hell didn’t know that in the visitors’ fifth, Bohm would have problems with a parabolic microphone’s positioning, tucked as it was in the lower right corner of the center field batter’s eye…or, to be honest, that the thing that looks like a miniature satellite dish is called a parabolic microphone. The umps ordered the item moved, a process that required fourteen minutes, all so the next batter, Marsh, could have an unobstructed line of sight to ground out on the very next pitch Jose Castillo was finally permitted to throw. Castillo became the pitcher of record once the Mets took a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the fifth. The pouring on of Met runs assured he’d be credited with his first major league win in seven years, a wait that I suppose made fourteen minutes of standing around and staying warm tolerable.
—August 26, 2025
(Claimed off waivers by Mariners, 9/3/2025)
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CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL “Chris” DEVENSKI
Relief Pitcher
April 30, 2025 – September 19, 2025
Chris Devenski, who by dint of being recalled on July 4 and not being sent down since, may be the second-longest tenured Met reliever of all time (I’ll have to check) gave up a run in the seventh, but the game was still within reach at 5-2.
—July 22, 2025
(Free agent, 10/1/2025; signed with Pirates, 1/8/2026)
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FRANCELIS “Frankie” MONTAS (Luna)
Starting Pitcher
June 24, 2025 – August 15, 2025
Before the game started, SNY’s cameras spotted Frankie Montas in something of a prayer circle with his family, our starter at the railing, his kin in the stands. It was a very touching tableau, and maybe the congregating with loved ones helped Frankie on the mound. He withstood trouble in the second and third pretty well and put down the Pads on seven pitches in the fourth. But in the fifth, “where’s your God now?” felt a reasonable question to wonder.
—July 29, 2025
(Released, 11/19/2025; currently unsigned)
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GREGORY SOTO
Relief Pitcher
July 27, 2025 – September 28, 2025
In the bottom of the fifth, nothing good happened, except it ended. The season may have ended, too, but that will require hindsight. Give it a day or two. We will know soon enough. Sproat was hit hard.
Alonso did not make a makeable play.
Gregory Soto was hit hard.
Gregory Soto did not pay enough attention to what was happening on the basepaths.
Ronny Mauricio did not pay attention in general. I could go into details, but by the time six runs scored to transform a game a Mets fan could see as a continuation of progress into a game that confirmed every Mets fan doubt, details were almost beside the point.
—September 27, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Pirates, 12/9/2025)
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TYLER SCOTT ROGERS
Relief Pitcher
August 2, 2025 – September 28, 2025
Soto’s blast made it Mets 2 Rangers 0. The best efforts of Tyler Rogers and Edwin Diaz, combined with some not great moments from others stationed away from the mound, didn’t prevent making it Rangers 3 Mets 2 by the bottom of the ninth.
—September 14, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Blue Jays, 12/12/2025)
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BOYCE CEDRIC MULLINS
Outfielder
August 1, 2025 – September 28, 2025
[H]ad I been informed in advance that […] Cedric Mullins would get on base because the previous day’s designated dasher of destiny Daylen Lile would not hold onto a ball Mullins hit, yet Mullins would not advance while on base, because he had no clue at all what was going on (the ball was loose and Lile was down), and that Mullins, stuck at first rather than advanced to second, would get himself doubled off imminently (had he only been on second, he could have gotten himself doubled off there) […] well, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but I wouldn’t have stayed away.
—September 22, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Rays, 12/3/2025)
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RYAN DALTON HELSLEY
Relief Pitcher
August 1, 2025 – September 28, 2025
“Until you’ve been beside a man,” Detroit’s own Bob Seger wailed mournfully, “you don’t know what he wants.” And until you have a high-profile reliever on your team, you don’t know what he is. For the Cardinals, Ryan Helsley was lights out. For the Mets, he turns them off on his own team. Had Helsley done his job perfectly Wednesday afternoon and nothing else about the game he entered at Comerica Park had been different from what it was, the Mets would have still lost, albeit by fewer runs. But Helsley did not do his job perfectly. He came into the seventh inning of a one-run game — Tigers 3 Mets 2 — and proceeded to give up a leadoff single, a walk, then a three-run homer to Kerry Carpenter. The one-run game became a four-run game. Even a little less imperfect keeps the Mets conceivably close. The Helsleyfied margin effectively put the game out of reach. Cue Mr. Seger and “Shame On The Moon” again: When nothing comes easy, old nightmares are real. Newish nightmares, too. Ryan Helsley has been pitching for the Mets since August 1. Many bad dreams. No light at the end of his tunnel.
—September 4, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Orioles, 11/29/2025)
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JOSE ALEXANDER SIRI
Outfielder
March 29, 2025 – September 23, 2025
While Passover isn’t specifically a commemoration of repeated Met failures to pass over home plate more than once thousands of miles from their ancestral home, we are reminded that an unleavened offense can be a sign of eternal struggle. Yet where the veritable children sat, youthful Mets Brett Baty and Mark Vientos surely wondered aloud how the same bad things continue to happen to new generations of faithful people. “We are Mets, we seek to bring joy to millions, yet we continue to hit directly to rival fielders or often not at all. And why must Jose Siri endure such pain from a simple foul ball?” This is where the rabbinical wisdom of a Carlos Mendoza can come to bear. Mendy teaches in his low-key manner the importance of patience and practice, going out and getting them tomorrow. There have been many tomorrows across Met history. This one finds them again wandering the West…West Sacramento, specifically.
—April 13, 2025
(Free agent, 9/29/2025; signed with Angels, 2/1/2026)
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BRANDON CARL SPROAT
Starting Pitcher
September 7, 2025 – September 26, 2025
We now know Sproat as well as we can know any pitcher after six innings. Hey, remember when throwing six innings was something only one Met starting pitcher ever did? Our transformed gang suddenly contains a trio of guys who do it like it’s no big deal, and none of them was with us even one month ago. Brandon, who debuted in Cincinnati Sunday, had a little trouble with control, none with giving up hits for an extended period, and ran into the bad luck of having his teammates come up against a masterful pitching performance from the other side.
—September 8, 2025
(Traded to Brewers, 1/21/2026)
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DANIEL ALEXANDER “Danny” YOUNG
Relief Pitcher
May 2, 2024 – April 26, 2025
We declare that, although we maintain the contracts of many higher-profile relief pitchers, if we have to ring the bullpen, lately we most hope Dedniel Nuñez or Danny Young answers the phone…or even Adrian Houser!
—June 6, 2024
(Free agent, 11/21/2025; signed with Braves, 12/2/2025)
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GRIFFIN ALEXANDER CANNING
Starting Pitcher
March 29, 2025 – June 26, 2025
Who could or would be happy that the Mets beat the Yankees in the Bronx on Saturday? Us, obviously. The Mets beating the Yankees is a thing for us. We’re Mets fans. We like when the Mets beat anybody. We especially like the Mets beating the Yankees. We like Griffin Canning, he of the 2.47 ERA, continuing to start games the Mets win; it’s probably not a coincidence that that happens. Griffin gave up only two solo home runs (one that could have been featured in one of those SNY salutes to local little leagues) over five-and-a-third.
—May 18, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Padres, 2/14/2026)
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MAX JOSEPH KRANICK
Relief Pitcher
March 29, 2025 – June 15, 2025
We didn’t remain on the victory track in the sixth without Kranick continuing to set aside major league hitters. Maybe some other pitcher takes care of the Jays in that situation, but then depth gets tested. Kranick was the depth there. So was Senger, whose walk from the nine-hole commenced the Mets’ lone inning of scoring, the third. Hayden’s base on balls preceded his more famous teammates’ contributions to the cause. Juan Soto walked. Pete Alonso singled to score Senger and send Soto to third. Brandon Nimmo lifted a deep fly to score Soto. Those were the two runs off Bowden Francis that put Peterson in position to be the winning pitcher, if not for his stomach issue. Those instead became the two runs that allowed Kranick to earn his first Met win, and the club its fourth in a row, including all three from Toronto.
—April 7, 2025
(Free agent, 11/21/2025; currently unsigned)
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RYNE THOMAS STANEK
Relief Pitcher
July 28, 2024 – September 28, 2025
We could pretend through the tops of the seventh and eighth that maybe we could string a couple of hits together and grab our lead back, but we were only borrowing the lead to begin with. And, to string hits together, you’d have to start with one. In the bottom of the eighth, Ryne Stanek , who’s maintained Syndergaardian flow beneath his cap if not vintage Thor command around the plate, comes in to, among other items, shake James Wood out of his deep slump. Wood’s three-run homer thrusts the Nats ahead, 9-3, and ensures any hits the Mets suddenly collect in the ninth will make only for sumptuous box score window dressing (window dressing for Low-Leverage Barbie’s Dream House sold separately).
—August 22, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Cardinals, 1/9/2026)
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JOSE ALEJANDRO BUTTO
Pitcher
August 21, 2022 – July 29, 2025
On the cusp of 60, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that Doc Gooden showed up Sunday as the old pro, as polished as a Seaver or a Mays in elder statesmanship, but we still reflexively think of him as being 20 winning 20. He seems to be winning his days nowadays. Those are the victories that count most going forward. After the ceremonies and a 46-minute rain delay, the sun came out and the Mets won a game that you figure can’t but help them going forward. It certainly couldn’t hurt. You couldn’t miss Jose Butto paying proper homage to Dr. K with no runs and nine strikeouts in six innings.
—April 15, 2024
(Traded to Giants, 7/30/2025)
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SEAN IAN REID-FOLEY
Relief Pitcher
April 22, 2021 – June 19, 2024
When Reyes departed with one out and one on, England Dan and Sean Reid-Foley entered. The Rangers really loved to see him last night. Sean proceeded to walk the ballpark. It’s no exaggeration. The paid attendance of 23,849 each received a base on balls, courtesy of SR-F. Of more use to the visitors, so did Corey Seager, Nathaniel Lowe and Adolis Garcia, all on full counts, all in a row. That’ll manufacture a run. It was 3-2, the bags were juiced and you knew what was going to happen next. No, you didn’t. The Texas Rangers certainly didn’t. Despite Reid-Foley pitching like nights were forever with him, he struck out Mitch Garver and then Jonah Heim, the latter at the end of his fourth full count and second nine-pitch battle of the inning. Sean threw 35 pitches to five batters. Sixteen were balls. Somehow the Mets were still ahead and the Rangers were still behind.
—August 31, 2023
(Released, 5/23/2025; signed with Diamondbacks, 5/30/2025)
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JESSE WINKER
Outfielder
July 28, 2024 – July 10, 2025
Mister Secretary, no delegation at this convention is more enthusiastic to have a presence here, no delegation is happier to come off the bench when needed, and no delegation has waited longer to have these words said on its behalf: IT’S OUTTA HERE! Mister Secretary, the great state of Winker not only casts a pinch-hit walkoff home run to defeat the Baltimore Orioles, four to three, but casts aside its batting helmet and inhibitions in quest of the most memorable trip around the bases Winker has ever known! Mister Secretary, Winker votes for a Mets win today, Wednesday, and hopes it will be the first of many in the nights ahead.
—August 21, 2024
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; currently unsigned)
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LUISANGEL JOSE ACUÑA
Infielder
September 14, 2024 – September 27, 2025
The ‘X’ factor among the ‘A’ team was Luisangel Acuña, whose game is allegedly more about slashing and speed. For Syracuse this year, he homered seven times. In no minor league campaign had he exceeded a dozen longballs. Well, in his fourth major league game, he blasted his first home run, which represents a pace of awesome. After going 3-for-4, including delivering the double that carried his first ribbie, Luisangel’s batting .455. That would certainly be a pace to keep up.
—September 18, 2024
(Traded to White Sox, 1/20/2026)
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ANDREW DAVID “Drew” SMITH
Relief Pitcher
June 23, 2018 – June 23, 2024
Enough with Garrett, onto Drew Smith, forever the reliever I forget is on the roster. Bryce Harper recognized Drew and singled to right the first pitch he saw. Smith’s delivery was addressed with such authority that the Phillie runners already on first and second couldn’t advance more than one base, and Harper didn’t have time to make like Jamie Tartt and perform a soccer-style celebration. A modicum of Phillie exultation would have its chance five pitches later, when Smith completed a bases-loaded walk to Bohm. It was now 6-5, Mets. The bases were still philled with Phillies. There was still only one out. Genuine power threat Nick Castellanos was still due up. Drew Smith was still Drew Smith. I neglected to check the Win Probability calculations, but counting on the Mets getting out of this jam rated as folly. But if you were feeling lucky, perhaps you wished to wager a quid or two on the Mets’ good fortune. It’s only some other country’s money, right?
—June 10, 2024
(Free agent, 11/4/2025; signed with Nationals, 2/16/2026)
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STARLING JAVIER MARTE
Outfielder
April 7, 2022 – September 27, 2025
Value in various quantities was palpable up and down the roster. And yet, it’s Starling Marte who felt most like the measurable difference between the 2021 Mets who evaporated by August and the 2022 Mets who couldn’t quite bring it home in September and October but had absolutely reached the plateau where we knew they could make our dreams come true. Starling Marte had or was that certain something. When the Mets had it, they had you convinced they were the best team from coast to coast. When the Mets didn’t have it, they drifted off course.
—December 20, 2022
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Royals, 2/28/2026)
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Finally, unlike the 2025 Mets, let us finish with a little extra oomph…
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JEFFREY TODD “Jeff” McNEIL
The Batting Champ
July 24, 2018 – September 28, 2025
Jeff McNeil was himself and then some on Friday. Jeff McNeil hit the lead-taking homer, made the lead-preserving play, and earned himself a piece of above-the-marquee Subway Series history. You know The Dave Mlicki Game. You know The Matt Franco Game. You know The Mister Koo Game. You’ve just met The Jeff McNeil Game. It’s not like you haven’t met Jeff McNeil before, but it’s always nice to remind ourselves who he can be.
—July 5, 2025
(Traded to Athletics, 12/22/2025)
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BRANDON TATE NIMMO
The Dean
June 26, 2016 – September 28, 2025
Brandon, the rare Met who we’ve watched come of age gradually and therefore not necessarily wondered where the time went, connected for a long and high fly to right. Would it be so long and so high to negotiate the wind and avert the grasp of a leaping Castellanos? It would. Just barely. But it counted. Mets 2 Phillies 1 after six.
—September 23, 2024
(Traded to Rangers, 11/23/2025)
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EDWIN ORLANDO DIAZ
The Closer
March 28, 2019 – September 28, 2025
Mendoza would be turning a tenuous one-run lead over to…you’re kidding. Diaz is going out there for the ninth. He threw, I’m estimating, a million pitches in the eighth. His psyche has to be scarred like he just saw the ghost of Kurt Suzuki. And he didn’t get off the mound when that was paramount. Diaz? Cripes, just get Benitez loose. They showed Ryne Stanek warming up in the bullpen. I can’t say I would trust my baseball life with Ryne Stanek and a one-run lead in the ninth inning in Atlanta with everything on the line, but I can tell you I wasn’t using my one phone call to keep Edwin Diaz in the game. Which may be why they don’t give me access to the bullpen phone. It was ride or die with Diaz. Is that too much hyperbole or not enough? There was little opportunity to mull the question during Matt Olson’s leadoff at-bat, because it was over in one pitch — one effective pitch that Olson popped to Lindor for the first out. OK, maybe this wasn’t a disaster in the making. White singled, then stole second. OK, maybe this is a disaster in the making. Laureano, with three hits on the day, struck out. Two outs, leaving it all up to d’Arnaud. I was 70% leaning toward doom, 30% thinking it was too obvious. And it was. The latter, that is. Old Friend™ Travis did the right neighborly thing and grounded to Lindor, who threw to Alonso for the third out, and Oh My God, the New York Mets defeated the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta in September to make the playoffs. We were in.
—October 1, 2024
(Free agent, 11/4/2025; signed with Dodgers, 12/9/2025)
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PETER MORGAN “Pete” ALONSO
The Franchise Home Run King
March 28, 2019 – September 28, 2025
Pitching, however, could not be the theme of the night when Pete Alonso was crashing and remaking history. When he swung off Spencer Strider — now there’s a swing-off that means something — and the result was laser-tagged until it landed in the visitors’ bullpen, it dawned on those of us fortunate enough to be in attendance what we just saw. We saw seven seasons of Alonso culminate where we projected he’d land as soon as we got a load of what he could do as a rookie. We saw the Straw Man wave him into the top spot on the Met home run chart. Darryl hit career home run No. 155 on May 3, 1988, to take the all-time Met lead from Dave Kingman. It was noteworthy, to be sure, but the lead story from Shea that evening was David Cone making his first start of the year and bulling his way into the rotation to stay, shutting out the Braves (them again), 8-0. Pitching was the theme of that night. Pitching was often the theme while Darryl was adding 97 more home runs to his record between 1988 and 1990. Pitching has been the theme of the Mets most of their life. Darryl’s 252nd home run, off Greg Maddux of the Cubs on September 23, 1990, supported eight winning innings from Dwight Gooden. When you’re hitting home runs and your pitchers are the likes of Cone building a 20-win season and Gooden heading for 19-7, your home runs are only part of the story. Pete Alonso won the Rookie of the Year award in 2019, the same year Jacob deGrom earned his second consecutive Cy Young. From there, it seems the paths of Met hitters and Met pitchers have diverged. Pitching is something we never have enough of in the 2020s. Hitting (recent trends notwithstanding) is more the Met signature in this generation. It is, after all, the Polar Generation. Drink it in, drink it in, drink it in.
—August 13, 2025
(Free agent, 11/4/2025; signed with Orioles, 12/10/2025)
by Jason Fry on 15 March 2026 5:53 pm By the time 2026 rolled around I had a long-established relationship with spring training: I’d put the first televised game on my calendar, watch the initial 20 minutes with avid interest, watch the next 20 with vague attention, and then either be looking at my phone or asleep. And after that I’d wait for the actual season to arrive.
That was the plan going into this spring too, albeit with a side of perplexity about the 2026 Mets.
The Mets talked about improving their defense and then decided the way to do that was to ask Bo Bichette and Jorge Polanco to learn new positions.
They talked about building for long-term success and then imported a bunch of mercenaries and question marks: a guy they aren’t going to want when they’re still paying him (Marcus Semien), a guy who won’t be here in a year (Bichette), a guy who’s talked like he wants to stay but hasn’t inked anything to that effect (Freddy Peralta), and a guy who’s gone from prospect to suspect before everyone’s eyes (Luis Robert Jr.)
They touted homegrown talent and then blocked Brett Baty and Mark Vientos before what are shaping up to be their make-or-break seasons, making vague noises that they’ll get enough ABs here and there and putting them on positional carousels of their own.
I think I know what David Stearns is up to and also why he doesn’t want to talk about it. I think the Mets are caught in between: confident in their next batches of position and pitching prospects but aware those guys are a year or two away. And so they’re trying to cover the gap with spackle, spit and hope.
And the thing is … it might work! The Phillies are older and the Braves are already riddled with injuries again. The mercenaries have large error bars — it’s not crazy to think Polanco, Robert and Semien all turn in good years. Nor is it crazy to imagine that Peralta decides to stay, that Bichette is Bichette (and maybe even likes New York), or that some of the prospects arrive a little early.
But it hasn’t been an inspiring place to be; I’ve spent more of the winter sighing and rolling my eyes than I have imagining good outcomes.
You know what should be the perfect antidote to all this purse-mouthed gloom? Going to spring training.
Over the winter, that plan went from “might be fun” to “OK let’s do it,” thanks to Emily’s reminders that she’d never been to spring training and would like that to change. (I’ve been ribbed more than once that I’m the rare male who was bullied into going to spring training by his wife.)
Once the plan took shape, I was a bit startled to realize I hadn’t been to a Mets spring training game since 1987.
Part of my surprise was understandable: I lived in St. Petersburg during the last four years of the Mets’ tenure there, when they shared Al Lang Stadium with the Cardinals. Back then I’d go pretty much as often as I could, getting my parents to drive me downtown, drop me off by the park and pick me up an hour after the game.
Spring training was a much more casual affair then. You could chat with visiting pitchers in the bullpen through a chain-link fence, an encounter that didn’t even require buying a ticket. Stan Musial was a near-constant presence in the stands, leathery and cheerful in a variety of hideous sportcoats. Players crossed the sidewalk to and from the team bus in full game gear while on various errands. (I once slammed to a halt because I was dumbstruck by the arrival of Wally Backman and so got spiked.)
Port St. Lucie? It was across a fair-sized state and may as well have been on the moon. It was also pretty much nowhere — in the late 1980s St. Petersburg was still derided as “God’s waiting room,” but it was the Left Bank compared with Port St. Lucie.
Once the Mets vamoosed, spring training became a TV pastime for me. It was also true that I was no longer enchanted by Grapefruit League baseball, partially because it was becoming big and expensive and brassy but mostly because I’d come to understand it didn’t really matter.
So you see why coming back took me a while. And yet there Emily and I were, at the midpoint of a wraparound weekend trip that took us from Jacksonville down to St. Augustine and on to St. Lucie and Clover Park.
 I was right about Port St. Lucie — it’s sprawl hacked out of scrub and swamp, a vague place in between other vague places — but wrong about Clover Park. It’s a tidy little stadium, well run and put together with admirable attention to Mets history.
At Clover Park the members of the Mets Hall of Fame get banners — and not just the likes of Tom Seaver and Gary Carter but also Johnny Murphy and George Weiss. Seaver and Mike Piazza and other beloved legends adorn the stadium walls. The exterior of Clover Field even pays homage to the confetti-like squares of long-ago Shea; I don’t miss Shea at all but still found this gesture genuinely touching.
 This is also the home of the St. Lucie Mets, and they have a terrific Road to the Show wall with little plaques denoted every St. Lucie Met’s matriculation as a big leaguer, whether that came as a Met or not — a feature I’m begging the Brooklyn Cyclones to filch for inside their own park.
There’s a lot of staff at Clover Park, and they’re genuinely friendly and helpful, whether supervising parking or helping direct visitors to seats or amenities — Emily brought in a pillow without having to endure a Talmudic dispute about its admissibility, and we surprised more than one staffer by asking permission to do various innocent things, which is what Citi Field does to a Mets fan. The food’s fine, and concessions are run with more cheer and efficiency than in Queens.
 And while the weather forecast was dire, game time arrived and there were actual Mets and Blue Jays down there on the field, including Francisco Lindor making his spring-training debut. The Mets went out and lashed the Blue Jays, with Lindor looking fine at the plate and in the field, Semien crashing a long home run and balls coming off Francisco Alvarez‘s bat with a sound that made me think, Hmm, could be a big year. Toronto’s Grant Rogers wound up getting pulled from the game twice, an only-in-spring-training humiliation; it was bad but would have been a lot worse if not for multiple excellent plays in center by Daulton Varsho.
The weather limited itself to gloom and growls for an hour and a half or so, but then the meteorological gloves came off. We ate some ice cream out of a helmet while standing under cover, they called the game without much fuss or delay, and the Clover Park staff got us pointed out of the parking lot with brisk and admirable aplomb.
Not a full game, but it’s March and none of this matters anyway. In his postgame presser Lindor talked about checking all the boxes, and that’s the way I felt too: I sat in the sunshine, ate a hot dog and ice cream, drank a beer, and saw some baseball up close and personal.
My eyebrows are still raised about the Mets’ plan and whether that’s giving it too grand a name, but it was a day well spent.
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