The New York Mets opened the season against the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday afternoon after being hit by rainy weather on Thursday, but conditions couldn't have been worse.The Mets fired one shot at Citi Field — that one shot was a solo home run by Starling Marte — and Geoff McNeil's late-game slide sealed the deal for Rhys Hoskins.. The Brewers won the game 3-1 (box score).
Before Friday's game, Mets owner Steve Cohen told a court of local media that the club had a relatively quiet offseason, but would be disappointed if they missed the postseason again. From the Associated Press:
“I think the goal is to make the playoffs. It's very simple. Let's not overthink it,” Cohen said Friday. “Obviously we’d be disappointed if we didn’t make the playoffs.”
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“(The fans) are still pretty supportive. We're waiting for that to go away. We've got to win at some point,” he said. “Listen, I think the goal is to make the playoffs and be there every year. And I think over time we'll get there. What we're building here is a sustainable I think it’s something.”
The Mets won 101 games and reached the postseason in 2022, but trailed the division leader by 10.5 games and were eliminated in the wild-card series by the San Diego Padres. After that, he slumped to 75 wins and 87 losses in 2023, and things got so bad that he was sold at the trade deadline. Marc Canna, David Robertson, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander were among the veterans traded away.
To Cohen's credit, he agreed to spend a lot of money on these deals, allowing the Mets to get better prospects in return. This offseason, he hired president of baseball operations David Stearns with the idea that Stearns would develop a stable candidate. Cohen has repeatedly said he wants the Mets to become an East Coast version of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This year will be a turning point of sorts for the Mets. As Cohen said, they want to compete, but also use the season as an opportunity to check out the abilities of young players like Brett Batty. at the same time, They recently signed JD Martinez, pushing young slugger Mark Vientos back to Triple-A. Signing Martinez was the most all-in move of the winter.
According to SportsLine, the Mets entered the season with postseason odds of 38.7%. Baseball Prospectus has it one tick higher at 42.8%, while FanGraphs has it lower at 26.0%.
