More than an hour after the Mets’ once-promising 2022 season came to a screeching halt, the team’s longtime outfielder Brandon Nimmo was still in full uniform in the clubhouse. He had been on the field taking photos with his family after the Mets lost to the San Diego Padres, 6-0, on Sunday night at Citi Field in a decisive Game 3 of the National League wild-card round.
For the first time in his career, Nimmo, 29, is a free agent, and he had no idea if this would be his last time representing the Mets, the only organization he has ever known and the one that drafted him when he was 18.
“I need to enjoy it now and kind of soak it in because you never know, especially in baseball, where the future might take you,” he said. He added later, “Nobody cares that we won 101 games, just that we lost these two. So, it’s a somber mood in the clubhouse now.”
Late into the night inside the Mets’ locker room, players hugged, signed mementos for each other, stuffed their belongings into bags or boxes, shared a drink and said their goodbyes. This Mets team, as constructed, will never again be the same. With so many free agents, the Mets and their major-league-leading $288 million payroll will probably look very different next season.
“It really hurts,” first baseman Pete Alonso said. “It’s not just the losing; it’s the disbanding of the group because every single guy in this clubhouse is really awesome. It just sucks that you know it’s not going to be the same group next year.”
Change is inevitable in professional sports. Executives, managers and coaches have shelf lives. Players age or reach the end of their contracts. Performances fluctuate. The 2022 Mets, after a 101-win regular season that seemed to renew hope about a franchise that was often the butt of jokes, will deal with turnover acutely this winter.
The list of key players who are eligible to become free agents — or might join them if the options in their contracts are not picked up — is long. The entire starting rotation except for Max Scherzer could be gone: Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt, Carlos Carrasco and Taijuan Walker. A large chunk of the bullpen, too: Edwin Díaz, Seth Lugo, Adam Ottavino and Trevor May. Nimmo may depart, too.
And at the very top of the organization, the Mets are searching for a new team president to replace Sandy Alderson, who is shifting into a special adviser role after leading the franchise since the billionaire Steven A. Cohen’s purchase the club two years ago.
“I’ve been a part of organizations where you’re able to have a down year and then reset the next year and be really good,” Scherzer said. “So, it’s too early to comment on what’s going to happen next year because you have all off-season to go. But I’ve been in this situation before and I’ve seen organizations rebound, and there’s no reason this organization can’t rebound.”
“I love the foundation that we have here,” said outfielder Mark Canha, adding that he believed in General Manager Billy Eppler and Cohen. (Cohen, players said, addressed the team after the loss, telling them how proud he was of them.)
As Cohen, Eppler, the Mets’ front office, Manager Buck Showalter, the coaching staff and perhaps the new team president sit down to dissect this season and why it ended earlier than expected, there is plenty that can improve despite amassing the most regular-season wins their last World Series-winning season in 1986.
“There’s a lot that we accomplished, but it really stinks how it ended,” Alonso said. Added shortstop Francisco Lindor, “We didn’t come through. We didn’t finish what we wanted.”
Was the Mets’ offense, more dependent on average and on-base percentage and less on power, the best way to build a lineup in this era of high velocity and movement? With a small lead over the defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves at the time, should the Mets have done more at the Aug. 2 trade deadline to bolster the lineup and bullpen? Can the team re-sign deGrom, 34, who has said he expects to exercise the opt-out clause in his contract extension? And given that they missed large chunks of 2022 with injuries, how much can deGrom and Scherzer, 38 — with their five Cy Young Awards combined — provide as they continue to age? What about the rest of the rotation, bullpen and lineup? Will Cohen continue to spend at a record rate?
Even though the Mets’ season ended Sunday, it had been unraveling down the stretch. The Mets led their division, the N.L. East, for the entire season except six days, most of them at the end.
Had the Mets simply won one more game during the regular season — they were swept by the lowly Chicago Cubs in mid-September, for example, and by Atlanta over the final weekend — they would have been in a better position entering the postseason. Even though Atlanta and the Mets each finished with 101 wins, Atlanta owned the season tiebreaker and thus earned a first-round bye to the best-of-five division series starting Tuesday while the Mets had to play in the wild-card round.
“At times, we needed to win, and we didn’t win some big baseball games like the Braves and tonight,” said deGrom, who secured the Mets’ only win in the wild-card round against the Padres but was beaten, like Bassitt and Scherzer, by Atlanta in their pivotal series a week ago. “Everybody in this room is disappointed, and we would have liked to have been playing for another month.”
Added Nimmo: “We relied on our starting pitching the whole year. This offense was built to score runs consistently but maybe not put up 10 spots and all that stuff. We were built around that starting pitching. So, yeah, when the Braves did what they did to Jake and Bass and Scherz, and then also them scoring runs like they did this weekend, it’s surprising.”
DeGrom, for that matter, has said he has enjoyed his nine years in New York but declined to discuss his contract future on Sunday night. Nimmo, Díaz and Lugo, with tears welling in his eyes since he has been in the Mets organization for 12 years, all said they would like to return but that is yet to be determined. After the game, Díaz said Lindor spoke and the players expected to remain next season wished the potentially departing players good luck.
“They obviously hoped that all of us could return, but unfortunately it’s not like that,” Díaz, 28, said in Spanish. “We’re all not going to be back. And honestly, I’m going to make the best decision for me and my family, and I hope to God that I can come back because it feels like family here.”
But keeping Díaz, deGrom and others, plus pursuing top free agents this winter or swinging big trades, would come with an extraordinary price tag. Some holes may be filled from within, such as third-year pitcher David Peterson sliding into the rotation. As of Sunday, the Mets have $195 million committed in payroll in 2023, according to Baseball Reference.
So much could change, though, between now and spring training. So much already has about the Mets in between their most recent playoff appearances in 2016 and this season: a new owner, more spending, a beefed-up infrastructure, a new manager, improving stability as a franchise.
Lindor said the team’s culture “is going to be one of the best in the game.” Asked what had changed since last year, he said there was “less noise from the outside” in the clubhouse and “it was expected to win day in and day out, and this wasn’t like a tryout, and you’re expected to be accountable.”
In arguing that the Mets were in good shape going forward, Nimmo cited an organization Cohen has said he wants to model the Mets after, the Los Angeles Dodgers. To build a perennial contender, the Dodgers spent a lot of money on major-league payroll and developing minor-league prospects, and they won the 2020 World Series in their eighth straight postseason appearance.
“Sometimes, that experience and getting your young guys that experience can help out in the long run,” Nimmo said of the Mets. “But I think it’s going to be looked back on as a steppingstone in the right direction for this organization. I think they’re in a great spot heading forward. They’ve got an owner that really wants to win and will do whatever it takes to win. And that’s more than half the battle right there. This organization is heading in the right direction.”
