After Another Season, The Mets Continue To Met

Every single season, there is always one team you can count on to make headlines for things completely unrelated to baseball. Whether that be the emergence of a rare disease caught by a teammate, a fight between a manager and a reporter, or a clubhouse prank gone wrong, you know immediately what team is responsible: the New York Mets.

I believe there’s no other team in Major League Baseball that has quite the misfortune the Mets have. In honor of the Mets continuing to tank their chances of making the wild card (let alone the division), here’s a quick breakdown of what happened this year.

17 Players on the IL

(AP Photo / Robert Sabo)

The Mets are no stranger to injuries. In fact, not only injuries but some of the weirdest illnesses come out of this team. Remember SP Noah Syndergaard’s Hand Foot Mouth disease week in 2018, or SP Matt Harvey’s UTI in 2015? Yeah, no surprise an injury was destined to make this list in 2021. But instead of weird injuries this year, for almost the whole first half of the season, many of the notable players in the lineup were missing. I know what you’re thinking, “Maddie, how is this anything weird?” Well, it is something when 17 players are out at around the same time. Yes, 17 players. By the time the Mets reached the All-Star Break, they had already used a total of 51 players. 

The Mets called up some of the most random names in their minor leagues to fill the gaps, and for some reason, this worked. Names on the roster this year included OF Mason Williams, C Patrick Mazeika, and LF Billy McKinney. The Mets had not only a winning record during this period but also led the NL East. 

Rat vs Racoon 

(AP Photo / John Michello)

Back in May, you may have remembered a game in which the catcher Patrick Mazeika, who only had 2 career at-bats prior, won the game in a walk-off 10th inning RBI for the Mets. That alone could be a crazy event for this list. But in that same game came the screaming match between 2B Jeff McNeil and SS Francisco Lindor. 

During the 7th inning, the SNY broadcast caught multiple Mets players rushing into the dugout, looking slightly concerned. McNeil and Lindor were both there reportedly screaming at each other. I remember even reading on Twitter during the game that fans thought McNeil walked out of the dugout with a black eye. Regardless, the event overshadowed the win, and when Lindor was asked about it after the game, he said they argued over whether or not they had seen a rat or a raccoon in the dugout. What? 

It was an interesting story to spin to reporters after the game but many were not quick to jump on board with that narrative. I genuinely think this is the most Mets thing to happen this year, especially with how everything got covered up. Honestly, we probably will never know what exactly went down, but one thing’s for sure: there is no way a raccoon was in the dugout.

Steve Cohen Raffle

(AP Photo / Mary Altaffer)

Once again, the Mets entered back into headlines — not for their poor performance or anything on the field, but in typical Mets fashion, because of the front office. Recently in a New York Post article, Mets beat writer Mike Puma called out Steve Cohen, the new Mets owner, on his Twitter presence. Puma detailed how Cohen’s willingness to interact with fans on Twitter may become a detriment in their search for a new general manager.

Puma used an insider source for the article who commented on Cohen’s inability to manage the team, and quickly sparked a Twitter uprising after Cohen himself tweeted about the article. Cohen responded with, “ ‘Insightful’ source in Mike Puma’s article in the New York Post today. The person who can guess the source correctly will have the opportunity to sit with me in my suite at Citi Field. First one right wins.” 

As fans sent in their guesses, Cohen later revealed the insider source to be David Samson. If you have never heard of the guy, he was the former president of the Miami Marlins but was recently fired by new CEO/part-owner Derek Jeter. Of course, Samson and Puma denied the former’s involvement with the article, but Cohen still seems dead set that it was him.

I gotta be honest, I like Steve Cohen way more than I ever liked the former owners Fred and Jeff Wilpon. But this Twitter confrontation was the last thing I was expecting to see. On the bright side, at least three lucky fans might get the experience of a lifetime…? 

Thumbs-Down-Gate

(USA Today Sports / Wendell Cruz)

Every player knows what it is like to be booed, especially on the road at a rival team’s stadium. It is practically expected by now, and as a player, you are taught how to stay in the zone when this occurs. But what happens when the fans that boo you are your own? Well, that is exactly what happened this season with 2B Javier Baez and Francisco Lindor. The two stars, as well as many others on the Mets, entered a slump in August as the Mets lost their long-held lead atop the NL East. Fans proceeded to boo the two at home games after numerous strikeouts, which did not sit too well with them.

In a show of defiance, Baez and Lindor began to throw a thumbs-down signal to the dugout upon reaching base safely. Their reasoning was “Just the boos that we get,” said Baez in a post-game conference after the Mets 9-4 win against the Washington Nationals back in August, “We’re not machines, we’re going to struggle. We’re going to struggle seven times out of 10. It just feels bad when I strike out and I get booed — it doesn’t really get to me, but I want to let them know that when we’re a success, we’re going to do the same thing, to let them know how it feels.”

Not surprisingly, fans didn’t react as graciously as the players hoped. Twitter exploded that night, with fans calling the players ungrateful and ridiculous. The next day, Mets players took to Twitter to issue apologies to the fans, as if they got in trouble in school. The players have since switched up what they do upon reaching base, but honestly, I thought the thumbs-down was hilarious. I can understand being upset as a fan if your team goes through an awful slump, but let’s be real, baseball is a tough sport. 

I think the whole ordeal, especially with the Twitter apologies that followed was hilarious and just a strange incident as a whole this year.

Zack Scott’s DWI

(Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke)

Not even a week following the Thumbs-Down-gate, Mets General Manager Zack Scott was arrested in White Plains on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Scott then failed a sobriety test by the police. Interestingly enough, Scott attended a fundraiser at Steve Cohen’s house the night before. As a result, Scott got placed on administrative leave and has since left his duties in the hands of Team President Sandy Alderson. I swear the Mets’ GM position must be cursed or something after the recent scandals almost all of their GMs in the past 20 years have had. 

Honestly, this might be the tamest incident on the list because of how normal it has become for Mets GMs to be in the news for something illegal.  It isn’t even the worst from a Mets GM this year, since Jared Porter was fired for sexual harassment a month after being hired.

Overall, this season was a rollercoaster ride I finally am getting off of, now that our playoff chances are next to zero. So here’s to the playoffs for everyone else and hopefully a better chance for us in 2022!