The Slide Comes For Us All

There are a couple of ways to look at the trade with Cincinnati yesterday that brought Jay Bruce to the Mets. One is that the move was made to make back page headlines. Sure, it’s neat that Bruce leads the league in RBIs, but he’s done so while hitting after a guy posting a 144 OPS+? You don’t say.

Another take is that this is a hedge against Yoenis Cespedes leaving during free agency this offseason, which is a thing that will almost assuredly happen. But it also — both for now and for next season, when the Mets control a certain-to-be-exercised $13 million team option—clogs up an already crowded outfield, thereby stunting the development of Michael Conforto, Brandon Nimmo, or both. And in acquiring Bruce, they traded away one of their few infield prospects (Dilson Herrera) that could be major league-ready soon. And boy, do the Mets need infielders bad these days.

But what you can’t say is that the move will help the Mets win anything of consequence this season. These moves—the Bruce trade plus the reacquisition of pitcher Jon Niese, which we shan’t speak of again—are not the kinds of roster changes that do anything to counter the claim that the Mets are, by most any objective measure, in a pretty bad state right now. On Sunday afternoon, they were a late Neil Walker three-run dinger away from securing a third-straight losing month. Because of the 6-4 win over Colorado, they finished July with a 13-13 mark, so it doesn’t seem quite so bad. But the sole reason they’re over .500 at the moment is because of that 15-7 record in April, when they outscored opponents by 41 runs. There was so much hope then, so much optimism. It feels like forever ago.

Now, the Mets are holding on by a thread, and it’s all because of that dreadfully mediocre July. MLB’s playoff projection had the Mets at 69 percent back on July 7. Entering play on Sunday, they had flopped to 25 percent. This was the same day Terry Collins let Noah Syndergaard throw 118 pitches, even as his month-by-month velocity chart has resembled that of a tech stock in late 2000. It’s indicative of not only what’s poking around inside Syndergaard’s right elbow but of the Mets season in general—a slow, steady dive toward disappointment.

It happens almost every year. At some point, you can feel the season inexorably slipping away. In the good years, it doesn’t happen until after the All-Star break, but it’s always unmistakeable. You win games you really shouldn’t, while losing games in ways that leave you agape. The breadth of all the injuries starts tallying up past a manageable point. And more than anything, you start to lose ground in the standings when you can least afford it. First the division leader gets further from view, then someone from below leapfrogs you, and then there’s nothing left to do but ride out the season and start resting up for next spring training.

The Mets appear to have reached this point, the slide downward to inevitability. It was a frustrating series against the Rockies, a team that shouldn’t really give the Mets such fits. Jeurys Familia finally looked human, which should be the worst kind of omen for this team. It now looks like Asdrubal Cabrera is out for some time, putting him squarely alongside David Wright and Matt Harvey. Sandy Alderson failed to cobble together a reasonable trade package for Milwaukee’s Jonathan Lucroy, and at this point, why would they even bother? To what end would such a move help this increasingly lost year?

Sure, the Mets ended July with the exact same record they had last year through 104 games (54-50). The thing is, this year’s team is not going to go 36-22 the rest of the way like they did in 2015. They didn’t acquire a bat at this trading deadline as good as Cespedes a year ago. They don’t have the health and depth of pitching like they depended on a year ago. And unlike last season, Conforto’s confidence has been pulverized this year by Collins’ needless lineup tinkering. Maybe most critical of all, Washington isn’t laboring through a season-long implosion the way it did last year.

The slide is here. The slide is happening. You almost never return from the slide.

This is fine. To have a great season, a whole mess of things have to go right. This certainly has not been that kind of season for the Mets, but they are still set up in a way that 2017 could be the year 2016 was meant to be. Make sure Zack Wheeler gets healthy. Same for Harvey and Syndergaard and Steven Matz, who should also be under serious consideration for a shutdown.  Piece together a functioning infield and hope injuries don’t then decimate it. And commit to Conforto’s place in the outfield already.

This season, it seems, was made for the Cubs and Nats and Giants (their recent slide notwithstanding?) and one of those three is almost certainly going to represent the National League in the World Series. If you told me the collective odds on that outcome was on the order of 98 percent, I’d believe it without hesitation. Counting on yourself to sneak in on that extra 2 percent? That’s a sucker’s bet, friend.

The margins on this are always so slim and often maddening in origin. Case in point: Sunday’s win over Colorado was the Mets’ first win over the Rockies this season in seven tries. They’re now 1-6 against the Rockies. Flip that record around—a far-from-inconceivable reality—and the Mets are only two games behind the Nats and in real position to be hosting the NL wild card game come early October. Often a season comes down to whether you beat the Rockies when you were supposed to. We can tell ourselves all sorts of stories, but not beating the teams you should beat will always come back to get you.

There are two months left in the Mets’ 2016 season, and there’s much that can and should be learned about this roster over that time. If anything, the Mets should play looser and more carefree over that time with the players they do have because, in some warped way, once the slide happens, the pressure comes off. Yes, play for your roster spot next season, play for your offseason contract, play to remind yourself that baseball can and should, at all times, be fun.

But just know that you’re no longer playing for anything greater in this season. The sooner you recognize that, those late, game-winning three-run taters might even feel a little more fun.

Photo Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports