Ready for the understatement of the year? The 2026 Mets are frustrating.
On the one hand, I love that they’re playing the kids, instead of giving no-longer-deserved time to Proven Veterans™. The latest kid? 2025 Momentary Met Jonathan Pintaro [1], whose inaugural 2026 outing went a lot better than his last one. Progress! Pintaro joins the likes of Jonah Tong [2] and Zach Thornton [3] and Nick Morabito [4] and A.J. Ewing [5], with Carson Benge [6] and Nolan McLean [7] not exactly grizzled old-timers themselves.
More of this! Let’s actually investigate possible futures, instead of handing it to mercenaries and guys with wide error bars, which is the fancy new way of saying “crapshoot.” Let Brett Baty [8] play third, as a consistent fielding address seems to have perked up his bat, at least to the extent that’s possible given a baseline of Metsiness. Let Mark Vientos [9] play first, where he’s shown undeniable signs of improvement. I don’t need to see Jorge Polanco [10] ever again, thanks — that was a bad idea from the jump. Give second base to Bo Bichette [11] once Francisco Lindor [12] returns, and thank Marcus Semien [13] for his service. Let’s see Jack Wenninger [14] and Nate Lavender [15] and Jonathan Santucci [16] and Jacob Reimer [17] and Ryan Clifford [18] and other guys who might actually be part of the future, instead of guys whose bios tout years-old down-ballot MVP votes.
On the other hand, the Mets look offensively comatose regardless of the birthdates on their drivers’ licenses. On Saturday the team did nothing against the Marlins: Until the ninth their lone hit was a little dribbler by Vientos that wouldn’t have gotten a speeding ticket on the interstate, with a little ninth-inning flurry amounted to lipstick smeared haphazardly on the pig of another noncompetitive game [19].
There have been far too many games like that one, where you want to pause your TV and verify the Mets are holding their bats with barrel up and handle down. Little spurts of competence are followed by slides back into being not just awful but deeply boring. (Honestly, the most interesting part of Saturday’s game was when Gary and Ron started talking about Yale professors and residential colleges.)
What’s wrong? Sometimes it’s the enemy pitching, though the 2026 Mets sure seem to bring that out in everyone. Sometimes it’s old guys looking like the giant forks sticking out of their backs are hampering their ABs while the young guys look like they’re learning hard lessons in the bigs. Sometimes it feels like a teamwide nervous breakdown has resumed, with everyone trying too hard and snapping bats over knees and looking down in the mouth. It’s Carlos Mendoza [20] looking grim and staring into the middle distance; it’s rookies hanging on the dugout rail looking faintly stunned; it’s guys challenging or not challenging at exactly the wrong times. It’s about a dozen things, honestly, shifting as part of an ever-changing kaleidoscope of queasy depression.
And it’s us too, sitting on our couches with our hands out in the universal WTF? gesture, or looking up in faint dismay because we couldn’t stand it anymore around the fifth and so started looking at our phones or leafing through a magazine.
Frustrating. Super frustrating. And I’m not sure a youth movement fixes that, though to be clear I’m all in favor of one anyway.
After watching this team stumble around for two months of this season, I’m not sure anything can fix it.