These Mets Won’t Fight

As I begin this post at precisely 9:55 a.m. on Sunday, March 31, it’s possible – though extraordinarily unlikely given the history – that by the time many of you read it after this afternoon’s Mets-Brewers game scheduled to start at 1:40 p.m., the Mets will finally have stood up for themselves and begun to shed the well-earned reputation as a flaccid laughingstock.

In the first two games of the 2024 season, the Mets are already justifying the widespread perception throughout baseball that they can easily be pushed around and will meekly and perfunctorily stand up for themselves without actions to back up their talk. This is not a recent phenomenon.

Jeff McNeil’s complaint about Rhys Hoskins’s slide was not without merit. The circumstances muddy the waters in determining who’s at fault. Hoskins did slide late and collapsed McNeil’s knee. McNeil seemed to have lost his flow for the attempted double play when he tried to transfer the ball from his glove to hand. The screaming match that followed was indicative of what the Mets have become and why the rest of MLB mocks and humiliates them at every opportunity. 

Hoskins was perplexed and dismissive of McNeil’s complaints. It was not a Chase Utley dirty play. For Hoskins, a player who lost his entire 2023 season when he blew out his knee, it’s highly unlikely he was doing anything but trying to break up the double play. Still, if McNeil was mad enough to fight, then fight. Instead, he shouted and gestured, both benches and bullpens emptied and nothing happened.

In the aftermath, the keyboard warriors thundered on X, Facebook and in blog posts as to how the Mets “had” to respond. The ancient “it’s time to retire” scribes retreated to the team’s glory days as to what this team should do in response. These are the same people who’ve never been in a fight in their lives and are staring into their bathroom mirrors playing “baseball brawl guy.” 

“Drill Hoskins!”

“The Mets need to stand up for themselves!”

“Enough of this!”

“Ray Knight would’ve…”

And of course, as if it was preordained, the Mets yapping resulted in Hoskins shoving it completely up their asses by going 3 for 4 with a home run, 4 RBI and more emasculating right in their faces. Only late in the game did Mets pitcher Yohan Ramirez throw behind Hoskins sparking more screaming and accusations, but no fisticuffs. 

Big deal. 

In the years since the Mets’ late-1980s badassery when anyone who looked at them wrong would wind up on the wrong side of a Ray Knight punch or a Kevin Mitchell chokehold, the organization has desperately tried to get back to that two-fisted “mess with one of us, you mess with all of us” attitude that had them feared and hated throughout baseball. That entire roster was not just filled with gamers who wanted dirt on their uniforms and would do literally anything they needed to do to win, but it was filled with guys who could legitimately fight. In addition to Knight and Mitchell, Darryl Strawberry was one of baseball’s most intimidating figures. Even mild-mannered types like Tim Teufel and Gary Carter wouldn’t hesitate to drop the gloves when challenged. The first base coach/batting instructor Bill Robinson essentially took on the entire Pirates roster and started a brawl after accusing Pirates starter Rick Rhoden of cheating.

This filtered down from manager Davey Johnson, through the coaches, to the team leaders Keith Hernandez and Carter down to the last guy on the roster. “We are not your buddy and we want you to hate us because we’re gonna kick your asses on the field. If you got a problem with it, we’ll kick your asses in general.” 

This team?

Pete Alonso is built like a truck but the one time the Mets finally fought back after getting drilled and buzzed repeatedly, he got thrown to the ground by Cardinals first base coach Stubby Clapp who’s about half the size of Alonso.

He got thrown to the ground by a guy named “Stubby.” 

It’s ironic that the Mets are wearing a memorial patch to the late Bud Harrelson when their behavior as a team is diametrically opposed to what Harrelson would have done and did when, in the 1973 National League Championship Series against the Reds, he challenged Pete Rose when Rose slid hard into him. Rose outweighed Harrelson by about 35 pounds. A massive and extended brawl ensued with players throwing punches instead of barking at each other, issuing limp threats and making crying gestures.  

McNeil railed at Hoskins and…did nothing.

The benches and bullpens emptied…and nothing happened.

The Mets asked for a review of the slide to see if it should have been called a double play for violating the slide rule…and lost.

They then complained to the league. 

Terrifying. 

This is not a singular experience. The Mets’ reputation throughout baseball is that they’re soft. They were constantly thrown at in 2022-23 and did next-to-nothing to retaliate or to charge the mound and make clear that it would either stop or there would be consequences. 

The Braves laugh at them. The entire league ridicules them. And they asked for it. Apart from a few random years under Terry Collins and Dallas Green, the Mets – particularly during the Bobby Valentine years – were known for not showing a willingness to fight when necessary. Former manager Buck Showalter adheres to old-school values and presumably would not have minded if a player took the initiative and charged the mound during his two years at the helm. Carlos Mendoza? His first spring training and start to the year indicate he’s another empty uniform automaton who’s going to do what he’s told by the front office and is unsure of how to respond to these direct challenges to his club’s manhood. 

Many in the media, the blogosphere and on social media are bellowing from the rooftops that the Mets just need to start a fight. For them, there’s a lack of understanding as to what built those mid-1980s teams in the first place. For the most part, they were young and reacted emotionally; they grew up together and had a bond that was crafted through the minors and making the innocent climb to championship contention; they were akin to a street gang in a close-knit neighborhood where outsiders were ill-advised to venture wittingly or otherwise. 

It’s certainly possible that Saturday, March 30^th was the day the Mets finally decided enough was enough. It’s also possible that aliens will land at Citi Field at 3 p.m. and kidnap Mr. Met to be their new deity.

Considering the team’s history, nothing is going to happen. If it does, it will be for show and not as a show of force. Until they bring in people who have that intense competitiveness within them and are willing to stand up for each other, they’ll continue to be the joke they are and teams will repeatedly shove them around with impunity. 

Russell Wilson, Sean Payton and the Broncos – the Objective Truth

Amid the mockery of the Broncos cutting Russell Wilson and absorbing the $85 million salary cap hit, several factors are being glossed over:

·      The current team ownership did not own the team when the trade was made

·      The current head coach and de facto GM was not the head coach and de facto GM when the trade was made

·      Retaining him for financial purposes or to save face only makes matters worse

·      The money is gone regardless of whether he’s there or not

You can find the gory details of the trade itself anywhere, but the Denver Post tallied up the draft capital the Broncos surrendered to the Seahawks to acquire Wilson here.

While it’s easy and cheap to tear into the trade as a horrific gaffe – which it was – the details are conveniently shunted to the side. The Broncos franchise had only just gone on the market in February 2022. Wilson was acquired on March 16, 2022. The team was officially sold to Walmart heir Rob Walton in August 2022. They inherited Wilson much like they inherited the money to buy the team. They also inherited coach Nathaniel Hackett and the football operations staff.   

The timing played a large role in the decision to cut Wilson. Once Walton took over, the 2022 team was largely set. This is not unusual when there is a new ownership in place and there was little they could do to make substantive changes immediately. They needed to live with what they had and hope for the best as they looked forward.

As the Broncos’ 2022 season unraveled almost immediately with Hackett’s ineptitude and Wilson’s seeming indifference, it was clear that the owners were going big game hunting with their new head coach. That was Sean Payton.  

Payton is ostensibly functioning as its football czar. Nothing football related is going to happen without his imprimatur or he wouldn’t have taken the job. Had the Broncos told him that he needed to make it work with Wilson because of the negative implications of cutting him and swallowing the money and ridicule, the odds are that a coach in as heavy demand as Payton would have politely declined and waited out the Cowboys, the Chargers or some other more appealing job where he’d get the power he felt he needed and the money and contract security to do what he felt was right.

Historically, Wilson is not ideal for Payton’s offense. In his heyday with the Seahawks, Wilson relied on a brutal and punishing smashmouth running game, primarily with Marshawn Lynch. He used his legs to improvise and took deep shots down the field. They had a punishing defense.

None of this is indicative of Payton’s history. Drew Brees, Payton’s quarterback with the Saints, stayed in the pocket and stuck to the game plan because he and Payton were aligned in what they wanted to do and what Brees could efficiently execute. His running backs were of the Reggie Bush, Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara ilk who are just as dangerous catching the ball as they are running it.

The difference between what Wilson did with the Seahawks and what Payton did with the Saints are not only divergent playbooks, but they’re not on the same planet. What was the team supposed to do? Just continue forward by ordering Payton to keep Wilson and figure it out? That’s not fair to Wilson or Payton.

This past season was indicative of how the forced marriage was going to proceed. After a 1-5 start, Payton patched it together but keeping games close, constraining Wilson from his usual freelancing and limiting the number of throws he made, pulling games out late. They rallied to 8-9 and were in the playoff race until late in the season – truly a remarkable coaching job.

Toward the end of the season, Wilson was benched. According to the club, it was a football decision. According to Wilson, it was because he refused to renegotiate his contract by removing the injury guarantee that would pay him $37 million in 2025. Wilson would have been a fool to do so. Payton and the Broncos are insulting the intelligence of any reasonable person by saying they felt they would get a “spark” offensively from journeyman Jarrett Stidham.

The reality is that they were cutting Wilson and they wanted to save as much money and limit their exposure when they did. The alternative was to continue down the road with a quarterback the football boss didn’t want and didn’t suit his offense while compelling a new owner to pay for past mistakes and ignore what their handpicked football boss wanted.

It’s become trendy for sports franchises to be viewed in business terms. In that context, the Wilson contract was a sunk cost. They did as much as they could to mitigate what they needed to pay him by benching him and did what everyone with a brain knew they were going to do when they cut him. Payton will find a quarterback he wants whether that’s Trey Lance, Justin Fields, someone from the draft or a name no one has considered but has caught the coach’s eye. Wilson can still play and will get a new team among the Steelers, Falcons, Raiders or Vikings and have the offense tailored to his strengths. The ridicule ignores these facts out of convenience, ignorance or both.