The Mets won’t keep this up, clearly. They’re not a .720 team. No team is, and the Mets have had the benefit of, if not a weak schedule, a soft one,.
Darned if I know, though, what’s going to happen in the next 25 games.
The projections just before Opening Day from any number of credible outlets with solid track records almost universally had the Mets finishing the year with a win total in the high 80s, roughly 60-70% to make the postseason, but with just a 5-6% chance to win the World Series thanks to their usually not winning the East and having to take four consecutive series in consequence, typically against better teams.
Weirdly, though, there’s room for improvement. The Mets had a respectable shot at having eight of their nine starters with OPS+’s of 100 and higher, with as many as five players projecting to 120 or more, which would make them one of the game’s top offenses. Instead the team’s OPS+ is an ordinary 102.
The pitching has been otherworldly (in spite of the need to move Diaz out of the closer role), where the biggest difference from 2024 is HR suppression, much of which is luck, from 1.0 per 9 in 2024 to 0.4 per 9 in ’25. That’s 15-16 HR fewer in just the 233 innings pitched through the games of April 24, 2025, which translates into around 25 fewer runs scored over the 25 games played to date.
But that’s if those HR turn into caught fly balls instead of, say, doubles in a corner, triples into the gap, or singles on clean ricochets off the fence. Figure instead of 25 fewer runs it’s more like 18 fewer due to good luck (no team gives up anywhere near an average of 0.4 HR per 9), which turns the Mets pythagorean record from 17 and 8 to something like 14 and 11.
Soto’s slump looks a lot like his weak 2022 and 2023 seasons, and it’s clear he benefited a great deal from hitting in front of Judge in ’24, but he’s going to hit better, as should Vientos and Taylor. Nimmo I’m much less sure of. His funk goes back to around the ASB in 2024 and he’d only be the thousandth outfielder in MLB history who at age 32, his legs and feet going, crashed and burned for good.
As for McNeil and Alvarez, their returns may not amount to all that much. Alvy replaces Senger and especially if McNeil is competent in CF he’ll probably bump Azocar back to the minors and take PA from Baty at 2B, but neither is more than a fairly minor addition given their performances in ’24, adding a win each over the rest of the year.
Six tough series over the next month, with only three series against sub-500 teams. It’ll be… interesting.
