New York Mets Season Review

With the Major League postseason getting underway last night without a New York representative it leaves us here with nothing to do except think about the season that was. For the New York Mets, it was a season that showed some great promise, yet also raised huge questions.

Prior to the season I predicted that the Mets would finish the year with a 77-85 record; unsurprisingly, I was wrong. Surprisingly, the team exceeded my expectations by winning 79 games. They managed to do so because they got tremendous contributions from some players that no one would have foreseen. Lucas Duda hit 30 home runs at first base, a position that was an area of intrigue and concern entering the season, Jacob deGrom burst onto the scene out of no where to become the Mets best pitcher and should be the National League’s rookie of the year, and the bullpen was fortified, not by Jose Valverde and Kyle Farnsworth (remember them, Mets fans?) but by homegrown players Jeurys Familia and Jenrry Mejia, who teamed to become a formidable eight and ninth inning combo. Rookies Zack Wheeler and Travis d’Arnaud both had ups and downs but showed a lot of promise and that they are ready to take the next step of their MLB careers.

All of those players will be Mets next season and beyond, which is a huge plus for the ball club going forward.

Obviously the season was not all positives for the club, and this year has had it’s share of negatives on the field. The most troubling of which was the underproduction of the team’s two biggest name players: David Wright and Curtis Granderson. Wright set career lows in OBP, slugging percentage and home runs and only drove in only 63 runs. Granderson batted a career low .227 and knocked in only 66 runs. Those two players were slotted into the 3 and 4 holes respectively in the Mets order to start the year. Those are not acceptable numbers for players in those spots.

The team still has a hole at shortstop going into 2015. Neither Ruben Tejada nor Wilmer Flores were all that impressive, even if Flores did show signs late in the season.

And then there was Chris Young. He brought in for $7 million (an astronomical amount for the always money conscious Wilpons) to provide some pop from left field. Long story short, that didn’t happen. At all. He did get featured in Sharknado 2, though, so we can relive his Mets glory forever in a made-for-TV movie.

Any year that finished under .500 can not be called a success, but the 2014 Mets came close to pulling it off. They improved their record from 2013 by 5 wins. The team made the correct decision at first base keeing Duda over Ike Davis, they found homegrown bullpen help, something that has been a huge issue for GM Sandy Alderson in the past and they establish live young arms that can slot in behind Matt Harvey going forward. These are all huge positives. A return to form for Granderson and Wright and some well spent dollars this off season could make this a dangerous team in 2015.