Sports fans know the feelings of defeat and despair when their team fails to meet positive projections for the season. This season for New York Yankees and New York Mets fans was miserable.
Both teams were clinging to World Series expectations, but now even the opportunity to reach the playoffs is lost. Both the Yankees and the Mets find themselves looking from the outside in during the postseason. The two teams have found themselves towards the bottom of their respective divisions as the season comes to a close.
At the time this is written, the Yankees find themselves 76-74, and the Mets sit at 69- 80. Both projected outlooks point to their disappointing and strange seasons in 2023.
This year, the Mets started the new season under owner Steven Cohen, who has a reputation for lavishly spending all of his money. This season, he lived up to his name, having a record payroll of $346 million.
The Mets financial situation has never been great in the past, but this year, in addition to a losing season, the Mets will be paying a penalty to Major League Baseball for exceeding the tax threshold of $293 million.
The Mets are also still paying the contracts of pitchers Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer despite trading the two at the August deadline.
But what exactly went wrong with the Mets? The team has been struggling slowly with attendance rates and activeness with fans. With the competitiveness of the team dwindling, game performance has gone down. The Mets have been playing from behind far too often.
Their pitching has been sub-par, and at the plate, the team is only hitting .238. The Mets have also struggled to score along with the low batting average. However, they have no problem with home runs, thanks to first baseman Pete Alonso. Alonso is second in baseball with 45 home runs this season. For the most part, the rest of their hitters are all aging out and falling behind.
If the Mets want to change their game and score more runs, they need to rely on changing up the batters to get more action. Before next season, the team needs to bring in younger players to change their outcomes. Otherwise, next season will be a washout, and they will be left in the dust.
With the Yankees, we have a different situation.
This season, the Yankees have had a great turnout of 2,820,168 total fans in attendance, placing them second to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
But what are the Yankees doing wrong? If you watch the games or go to the stadium, you can see that hitting is not their strong suit. The Yankees have struggled with hitting this year and are only above one team in batting average, the last place Oakland A’s.
The best hitter on the team, Aaron Judge, who hit a record 62 home runs last season, has missed time with injury and has only been present in 73 games. His absence on the team is shown in the average, along with only notable players being out from injuries throughout the whole season.
Scoring runs has also been an issue this season, with their 538 runs this season being 23rd in the league.
If the Yankees want to change themselves around and make their expectations a reality, they need to upgrade their lineup. The Yankees need to sign more hitters in free agency and get younger players they can rely on. Relying on an older set of players, such as Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton, to set the team’s tone is not wise and will cause more seasons like this one.
Both teams have some serious work for their roster to happen in the off-season. Bolstering their offense and pitching should improve team performance and make the expectations a reality.
This season has fans of both teams at a loss, and there is no guarantee of next season turning around. We will just have to wait and see what they decide to do or fix.
rbleich@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of @Yankees, X
