This is the fifth annual article on this topic.

Links to previous editions: 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017

The story so far…

The Mets breathed hope into a long-suffering fan base with their late charge in 2015, a World Series run that had pundits questioning whether the 2016 Mets rotation would be among the best ever. Did the Nationals even have a realistic shot at the team that had so thoroughly pummeled them in the previous year’s pennant race?

Then Matt Harvey fell apart, Steven Matz got hurt, Zack Wheeler endured setbacks, and only a clutch rally by plans C, D, E and F propelled the Mets to the 2016 wild card game, where they unfortunately got Bumgarnered.

Coming into 2017, most expectations of Met dominance were gone, but many still expected the Mets to be one of the better teams in the game and not too far behind the Nats. Their young aces were expected to rebound, at least somewhat, and many prognosticators foresaw better contributions from Lucas Duda (injured in 2016), Michael Conforto (awful in 2016), or Travis d’Arnaud (injured and awful in 2016). Yoenis Cespedes was expected to contribute more in the field and on the bases, having recovered from the leg injuries he played through in 2016.

Most of those hopes didn’t survive April.

Duda and Conforto did improve, but the pitching completely fell apart in 2017, en route to the second-worst ERA in franchise history.

The Mets’ pitching staffs of 2015-2016 did not walk people. They all threw strikes, from the dominators like Jacob deGrom to the fringe guys like Sean Gilmartin. In 2016, the Mets issued 439 free passes, best in the National League.

In 2017, that number jumped to 593, the third worst total in the N.L.

I have heard no theories as to why this happened, so here’s mine: it was the departure of Bartolo Colon. With his unimpressive velocity and physique, Colon spent 2014-2016 relentlessly throwing strike after strike, never perturbed when a hitter would square one up. That confidence had to inspire his young, chiseled, rocket-armed teammates, didn’t it? Or at least make them ashamed to nibble?

Alas, the Mets let Bart sign with the Braves for 2017, and that didn’t end well for anyone — not for the Mets’ suddenly-skittish pitchers, nor for Bartolo in the Braves’ new launching pad stadium.

Bad pitching wasn’t the 2017 Mets’ only major problem, though. The infield defense was awful, by far the worst in baseball according to the Defensive Runs Saved metric. The Mets’ lack of speed meant they couldn’t manufacture runs, and often relied solely on the homerun. Many of the team’s injury-prone players got injured again, leading players and management alike to lament the season’s run of bad luck.

By early June, the Mets seemed out of the hunt, with the Nationals well on their way to winning 97 games (despite major injuries of their own). By July, the Mets were in full-on sell mode, waving goodbye to Lucas Duda, Neil Walker, Addison Reed, Jay Bruce and Curtis Granderson, in exchange for a big bag of nothing. I mean relief prospects. No, wait, I already said that.

After the trade deadline, the Mets went 22-37; the top prospects brought up to provide excitement and improvement did neither; and reports surfaced of “the inmates running the asylum” and the players being “all miserable”.

After concluding their 70-92 season, the Mets said goodbye to longtime manager Terry Collins, bringing on first-time skipper Mickey Callaway. Callaway and new pitching coach Dave Eiland immediately gushed about the talented arms in the Mets rotation, continuing the long-running story that this is a team built on starting pitching.

What now?

A lot went wrong in 2017. A few things also went right. Let’s give it all a thorough look-over, and see if we can make sense of what it means for 2018.

Stock Up, Stock Down

Catcher

Travis d’Arnaud – stock: unchanged
2017 was largely an awful year for d’Arnaud. Blessed with better health than in past seasons, he hit and threw so poorly in the early going that when the Mets really needed a win, scrap-heap pickup Rene Rivera took the field. Coming off a 2016 season in which he rated as below replacement level, Travis did little to raise his stock in 2017, unless you find meaning in a September power surge after the Mets were far removed from contention. Bringing d’Arnaud back in 2018 (while watching the A’s sign Jonathan Lucroy for $6.5M) is a big gamble on a playoff-hopeful team.

Kevin Plawecki – stock: up