Is This Team Even Salvagable?

For the 2026 New York Mets, there had been a decent level of expectations. This team may not have been talented enough to really challenge for a division title in the National League East, but they should have been competitive enough to be in the thick of things as a wild card team at least in the NL. And for a while there, it looked as if the Mets might be able to overcome their early season struggles and right the ship enough to make a game of it in the long run. As of me writing this, I'm not totally sold.

Let's take a step back here for a moment and go back to the beginning of the season shall we. With all the talent that was moved out during the winter, and with what it was replaced by in the locker room, there was a level of concern for the club. Would they have been contenders for the division title with the Phillies and even the Braves with the talent that's been brought on board? Not totally no. I just didn't get the feeling that they'd have enough go of it in the bats to really be able to stay with the likes of Philadelphia or Atlanta at the top of the division. They had enough pieces here to be able to make a showing of it and get in as a wild card, in theory, sure.

But what we thought would happen at the beginning of April, and what we are looking at right now at the start of the last week of May, are two very different things.

To be fair, injuries have taken their toll on this team. Lindor out hurt, Alvarez hurt, Holmes hurt, Polanco hurt. I can keep going. They have had a few guys like AJ Ewing make some noise in the playing time they're getting with guys down, but it's not much. And sadly it's not enough to carry the team while waiting for the big guns to come back and get back on track. Outside of Ewing and Juan Soto, nobody on this team who's seeing the field regularly is hitting above .250. That's disastrous right there.

They're coming off a weekend series in which they not only got swept by the Miami Marlins, who many projected to be a bad team this year anyway, and in said sweep they scored just two runs the entire time. They can't for whatever reason, get the job done right now with getting guys across the plate during prime chances. To call this maddening would be an understatement.

There's no doubt in anybody's mind at this point moves have got to be considered being made, some of which quite frankly should have been done already. There's no way you can take into account predicting injuries, that's not possible. But you had to have known at the start something this year wasn't going to work out right. The manager can only do so much with the tools he's been given and for that, David Sterns deserves to get his walking papers for what he's done to this team. let's be honest here He built this garbage on the field and should get three to five for doing what he did to a team that was three wins away from a world series appearance just two seasons ago. Carlos Mendoza isn't safe either for not being able to change things with the team that he has been given. How its taken this long for moves to be made with the Mets I have no clue, and still nothing has been done to change it at the time of this writing.

That vent being said, is this still salvageable for 2026. As a playoff team, I'm not totally sold on that bill of goods yet. Can they salvage this year to finish at or above .500? That's a more realistic yes. Will they do either thing? I can't say for sure, only time will tell. But what I can say is that, from what we've seen so far, moves have to be made from the bench and front office to try and change things, because what we are looking at right now isn't working. And if we are being totally honest its embarrassing for what amount of money has been spent on payroll for this club to be where they are at the time of this writing.