It Begins

Hello hello hello. Happy Thursday! This week we’re running a little sale. Mondays and Thursdays are free, but if you want to read The Mets Newsletter every day - including weekends - it’s just $5 a month and for this week only just $45 for the entire year. 

And here we are. Opening Day 2025 for the New York Mets. We made it everybody! Phew! What new memories will be created by these baseball players? How often will we feel pain, joy, despair, excitement, anxiety, all of that jazz? Who will step up and surprise us? Who will disappoint? I have no idea, and neither do you. That’s part of the fun. 

I don’t like making predictions for that reason. I also don’t like doing that because I’m not good at it. I have the unfortunate ability to see anywhere from the 5 percentile to 95 percentile of success on every player happening. Even with the dudes I’m super high on. Ronny Mauricio will win the Rookie of the Year award? I don’t even know if he qualifies, but sure, right on. Mauricio won’t see a major league field this year except maybe on television? Totally. David Peterson will win the Cy Young? I can see that. David Peterson will get figured out, his 2024 will prove to be a massive fluke, pitch to a 6-ERA and get DFA’d? Rough, but sure, possible. The Mets will only win 75 games? How annoying, and yeah, sure, maybe. The Mets will win 108 games like in 1986 and win the World Series? Hey, it’s not a jinx, you said that, not me. 

Yesterday we discovered the Opening Day roster, the original cast of characters in control of our emotions this calendar year. There were no major surprises. A.J. Minter will be active. Paul Blackburn, slated to be the long reliever, is going on the 15-day IL with right knee inflammation instead, which solved the problem of having to choose between the equally deserving Fantastic Max Kranick and Huascar Brazobán for the bullpen. Kranick making the roster is fun. As we all know, he grew up a big Mets fan and loved David Wright the most even though he was born and raised in Pennsylvania. The fact that his MLB debut was a five perfect innings outing cut short by rain says it all about his luck so far. And good for Brazobán too, who for the first time in his career had a full spring training not having to worry about working visa issues.

I don’t want to just write off Blackburn. The poor guy had freakin’ spinal fluid issues last season. Stearns didn’t sound too worried when he revealed this new injury. His exact words to the press was, “We don’t think this is serious. He got an injection to calm it down. We do think this is inflammation. He’ll have 7–10 days no throw and then we’ll get back going pretty quickly. We expect to have him back some point in the month of April.” It’s amazing to think that three Met starting pitchers - Blackburn, Sean Manaea, and Frankie Montas - won’t be on the Opening Day roster due to injury and the vibes don’t seem ruined because of it. (A recent MRI showed Montas with “really good healing” on the lat, but he’s still 1-2 weeks away from an actual throwing progression.)

Hayden Senger officially made the team as the backup catcher to Luis Torrens. He’s another fun story. Besides the fact he’s worked the past two offseasons at Whole Foods, Senger seemed destined to be one of the countless, faceless, lifelong minor leaguers that walk among us. He was drafted in the 24th round in 2018 - MLB drafts are only 20 rounds these days. He’s played the majority of the time with Double-A Binghamton the last four years. Now thanks to his hard work and Francisco Alvarez’s hamate injury, the 27-year-old is going to The Show. He said he’s still not sure if he’ll give up the offseason gig.

Not only did Brett Baty make the team, but Carlos Mendoza confirmed he’ll get "a lot of the reps" at second base while Jeff McNeil is down. His main competition on that front, Luisangel Acuña, was the last of the 26 to find out he made the team. Stearns would not commit to Acuña breaking spring training camp with the big boys at first because he didn’t want to tell a player he made the team and then have to renege on it. In other words, he was hopeful a veteran infielder could be captured via waivers. But apparently no such luck, because Acuña reportedly found out after the team workout in Houston that he’ll stick around at least a little while longer. Do I have to mention that had Stearns and the front office brought by Jose Iglesias none of this would have had to have happened? No? Good. 

Speaking of the squirrel: Stearns reported that McNeil is “progressing positively.” “We’ll now start working him through some dynamic motion stuff and get him back towards baseball activities.” Initially the expectation was he could be back by the end of April. Tick tock, Mr. Baty.

No word on Alexander Canario. I’m guessing he’s currently going through the waiver process and Stearns is sweatily waiting to see if he clears it and the Mets can stash him in Triple-A.

The Mets announced that this season they’ll wear a #7 sleeve patch honoring Ed Kranepool, who passed away last September. His 17 family members will be honored before the home opener on April 4th. Kranepool is the all-time leader in games played as a New York Met. 

The Meet at the Apple folks talked about the new food at Citi Field for 54 minutes. Some people might be into that. I am not one of those folks.

Ryne Stanek was on the show in a different, much shorter episode. Bread was never mentioned. The highlight was the screengrab that greeted you at the top of this post.

Steve Cohen won’t be at Opening Day. He’s having a shoulder procedure.

Francisco Lindor rode the 7 train and hung out at a bodega in a video love letter to Queens in a New Balance ad bumped by the Mets on Instagram.

To celebrate the upcoming 20th season of Mets baseball on SNY, the network ran through every open through the years, which reminded me they’ve never ever changed it. I expressed my displeasure at this and got some criticism for it. Some people just can’t handle the truth. Remember when Met fan Julian Casablacas offered to write a new song for SNY for free? They should have taken him up on it.

If you were hungering for Juan Soto content, you ate really good yesterday. Abbey Mastracco at The New York Daily News focused on how the Mets were surprised to find how shy Soto can be. Starling Marte, who like Soto is from the Dominican Republic city of Santo Domingo, was reportedly a mentor to Soto this spring. Marte called Soto a “good kid”, which might sound condescending until you realize Marte is over 10 years older than him (okay, it’s still a touch condescending.)

Anthony DiComo wrote about how Rafael Zapata, the owner of a youth baseball academy in the Dominican Republic, was the one who converted 14-year-old Juan Soto from a pitcher to maybe the best hitter in the game.  “I had a meeting with all of my coaches. And I floated the idea of transitioning him from a pitcher to a hitter,” Zapata recalled. “Some of them called me crazy. But I didn’t care. I told them: ‘I know his bat has money in it.’” Sometimes when you are right, man, you are right. Zapata did this because he noticed Soto’s amazing pitch recognition in the times he did get to bat, and realized that the international signing class in 2015, coming up in two years, was lacking in left-handed power hitters.

Soto told Tim Healey of Newsday, “I’m in the middle of my prime. I think that’s one of the things I told them, too. The best is coming. We have a long way to go, but I feel like the best Juan Soto has to come in the next couple of years, so I want to be at a place where we can have a really good group surrounding me and try to get the best out of it.” 

He’s 26. My goodness, he might be right. 

It was announced that Soto is featured in an MLB-produced anime. 

I wonder what Ryne Stanek, an anime fan, thinks of it.

The Mets posted a fun little video interviewing Met pitchers who faced Soto in the past. There’s palpable relief in their voices that he isn’t their problem anymore.

While being interviewed by Steve Serby in the New York Post along with Gary Cohen and Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez showed he is really pumped up. 

Q: What will Soto’s reception be when he returns to Yankee Stadium on May 16?

Keith: What he got [Monday]. He’ll be booed. It’ll bring out the best. I was booed in St. Louis, and it just makes you more determined to go in there and … kill ’em. For once the Mets have stolen a star from the Yankees — oh my gosh! This is great!

Got to love that Keith said “kill ‘em” but restrained himself with an “oh my gosh!” in the following sentence.

Forbes published what they consider the money valuations of each MLB team. For what I think is for the first time, they also wrote what they believed to be the operating profits or losses of the franchises. They controversially claimed 11 of the clubs are operating at a loss. The loss leaders? The New York Mets baby! $268 million in the hole. While all articles like these should be taken with a huge grain of salt, it’s notable that almost all of them say the Mets aren’t making a profit for Steve and Alex Cohen. 

Francisco Alvarez got his stitches out on Monday. Tim Healey went long on the 23-year-old catcher. It’s worth your time. Within, Alvarez said, “I think I can be the best catcher in baseball” and that he is aiming to hit 40+ home runs this season. This is an important year for El Troll. For all of the talk that this is Brett Baty’s “last chance”, Alvy’s OPS+ has been just about average (96 and 101 respectively) in his two full seasons in the bigs. And for a catcher, that’s perfectly acceptable. But Francisco is supposed to be special. And maybe he is. He certainly has the work ethic to possibly pull off achieving his goals. 

Brandon Nimmo AND Clay Holmes are turning 32 years young today. I read somewhere that a great birthday gift to give yourself is an Opening Day win. Perhaps I dreamed it, but just to be safe: win today.

Matt Harvey is…want to guess? Time’s up: he’s only 36 years old today. He’s already lived a lifetime or two.

On this day in 1987, the Mets fleeced the Royals out of prospect David Cone.

Four years ago today, Jacob deGrom went three innings and Max Scherzer went the other six to give the Mets a spring training win. It was cool until deGrom came down with an injury and didn’t pitch again until August. 

It’s Opening Day! The Mets play the Astros in Houston. First pitch is scheduled for 4:10pm eastern. Clay Holmes will start for the Mets, while the lefty Framber Valdez toes the rubber for the baddies. The game will be on SNY and GKR, all suited up, will be on the call. 

internal screaming