The New York Mets’ hot start has evaporated and all hope that came with it has turned into despair. Injuries have mounted and players have underperformed and everything that can go wrong has gone wrong in Queens. Mets fans are calling sports radio stations and the chatter which was once hopeful has become bleak and depressing. The Mets might need to look at themselves and determine if staying the course with Sandy Alderson is worth it at this point or if they should start blowing it up before the prime years of Noah Syndergaard and maybe Jacob deGrom are wasted.
One cannot argue with the Mets’ attempt to go for a playoff spot this offseason. They brought in veteran Jason Vargas for the back end of the rotation, signed Todd Frazier and Jay Bruce and there were some prospects who might finally contribute, namely Michael Conforto, Dominic Smith, Brandon Nimmo, Steven Matz, Zack Wheeler, and Amed Rosario. In what seems like typical Mets fashion, things didn’t go according to plan and prospects have failed to materialize into potential cornerstones yet for a variety of reasons.
Still, there is a way to salvage the future without mortgaging the present too much. Synergaard is still just 25 and will turn 26 in August and deGrom will turn 30 in June. Syndergaard is an ace when healthy and is still young enough to factor into the future along with a couple of other Mets. The wild card is deGrom. They can choose to keep him and hope he still has something left in the tank when they are ready to compete or they can trade him and get a huge haul in return for him.
There are trade chips on this Mets roster, led by deGrom. They might find a taker for Yoenis Cespedes, Jay Bruce, Todd Frazier, Asdrubal Cabrera, and an assortment of other role players. They might be hard pressed to find a taker for Adrian Gonzalez but Gonzalez has shown a little pop in his bat with five home runs and he is on a cheap one-year contract so you never know.
The Mets are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place at the moment. The Sandy Alderson era is coming to an end and it might be time to hand the reigns back over to Omar Minaya and let him infuse the roster with youth. There is enough young talent on the Mets to make this a quick rebuild and they already have an ace or two in Syndergaard and deGrom if he isn’t traded. The rebuild might not be as quick as the one in the Bronx has been but Minaya at least has shown he can identify young talent.
If this slide gets much worse the Mets might want to think about replacing Alderson and letting the new GM, whether it be Minaya or someone else, rebuild this roster while it isn’t too late. Then again, this season has been strange so the Mets could roll off another hot streak and put themselves back in contention. The time to decide is rapidly approaching.