2024 New York Mets

2024 New York Mets / Franchise: New York Mets / BR Team Page

Record: 89-73, Finished 2nd (t) in NL Eastern Division (2024 NL) Wild Card

Managed by Carlos Mendoza

Coaches: Danny Barnes, Jeremy Barnes, Eric Chavez, John Gibbons, Jeremy Hefner, Antoan Richardson, Jose Rosado, Mike Sarbaugh and Glenn Sherlock

Ballpark: Citi Field

History, Comments, Contributions

The 2024 New York Mets were coming into the season after having been a major disappointment in 2023, when a huge payroll did not translate into a winning record, their fourth-place finish convincing veteran manager Buck Showalter that it was time to enjoy retirement. In his place came rookie manager Carlos Mendoza, who had never played or managed in the big leagues, but still had plenty of experience as the long-time bench coach for the rival New York Yankees under manager Aaron Boone.

Doubtless, Mendoza would have liked a smoother introduction to his new job, as in addition to a number of injuries during spring training, the most important to All-Star starting pitcher Kodai Senga, the Mets had not really been very active in adding talent, so that they fielded an underwhelming - but still very expensive - team on Opening Day. Even before spring training started, the Mets had lost their top prospect, IF Ronny Mauricio, for the season due to a torn ACL suffered in winter league ball.

Opening Day was rained out and pushed back to March 29th, at which point the visiting Milwaukee Brewers started a three-game sweep. Next to hit town were the Detroit Tigers, and they handed the Mets two more losses, both in extra innings before Mendoza could finally savor his maiden win on April 4th, in the second game of a doubleheader necessitated by another rainout. That game also went to the limit, as the Mets were trailing, 1-0, entering the bottom of the 9th, before Pete Alonso tied the score with a lead-off solo homer off Alex Faedo and Tyrone Taylor hit a walk-off single to score Brett Baty three batters later. One small consolation during that rough stretch was that the team's patched-together starting rotation had held up well, with new acquisitions Sean Manaea and Adrian Houser both making excellent starts even if they were not rewarded with wins, and reliever Edwin Díaz showing no ill effects from the knee injury that had cost him the entire previous season, even if he was still looking for a first save opportunity. In their first win, it was unheralded José Butto, making just his 9th career start, who had got things started with six strong innings.

The rough start meant that the Mets were never in first place in their division, but they quickly turned things around, as they had made it to one game above .500 by the end of April. But just when it looked like things had settled, they had a truly awful month of May, going 9-19, falling to 15 1/2 games out of first place by the end of that month. It did not help that the New York Yankees, playing across town, had got off to a good start, and by then most observers were ready to write off the season as another total loss from which they needed to move on. However, after losing their first two games in June and falling a full 11 games below .500, the Mets started to turn things around as their hitters suddenly began to click. In team lore, the turnaround was attributed to "Grimace", the purple mascot from the fast food chain McDonalds, who threw the ceremonial first pitch at Citi Field on June 12th; his presence became a meme in the stands, and players like Alonso soon adopted purple cleats to pay homage to the character who was clearly bringing the team some good luck. Another good luck charm was the song "O.M.G." composed and released as a single by infielder José Iglesias under his stage name "Candelita"; it became the unofficial team song when Iglesias went on a hot streak after joining the team. He even performed the song at a special post-game concert at the height of the streak as the song became a hit on the Billboard Latin music charts.

From June 3-28, they went 16-4, and while they were still miles behind the first-place Philadelphia Phillies, they were back at the .500 mark, and followed that with another strong month in July, going 17-10, and suddenly, talk of a postseason run was no longer out of place. By then, SS Francisco Lindor was having a season in which he would have been touted as the putative MVP were it not for Shohei Ohtani having an Ohtani-like season full of unprecedented achievements for the Los Angeles Dodgers. 1B Pete Alonso, whose future with the team had been the main talking point for reporters for the first two months of the season as he was in the final year of his contract, was not only not sent away at the trading deadline, but was supplying his customary power in the middle of the line-up. 3B Mark Vientos was having a break-out season and ageless J.D. Martinez still had the ability to drive in plenty of runners from the DH slot. The patched-together starting rotation was holding up, with Luis Severino, a Yankee reject, pitching his best ball in years, and while Edwin Diaz had had his ups and downs, he was managing to hold the fort in the 9th inning most days.

The month of August proved to be tougher, as the bunched-up group of teams looking for the three wild card spots in the National League began to beat on one another, and the Mets were just two games over .500 in the month at 15-13, although no team was running away from the pack. The hottest team in the league was the Arizona Diamondbacks, and they, like the Mets earlier in the season, had to use their hot streak just to get back in the postseason picture after a poor first half. New York did finish the month of August with three straight wins, and then won their first six games in September with a 4-0 shutout of the Cincinnati Reds on September 7th, behind the pitching of another reclamation project in José Quintana. That placed them ahead of the Atlanta Braves for the first time that season, and in a wild card spot had the season ended that day. Now, they just had to hold on for three more weeks. On September 17-19, they put on a remarkable three-game streak in which they scored at least ten runs in each game, something that had never been done in franchise history. This resulted in wins of 10-1 and 10-0 over the Washington Nationals, and 10-6 over the Phillies. Moreover, they hit at least four homers in each of the three games. And they managed this in the absence of Lindor, who had missed the last four games with lower-back tightness.

The Mets were playing the Braves in a three-game series in Atlanta in the season's final week, with both teams playing a game of musical chairs also involving the Diamondbacks for the two remaining postseason slots. However, Hurricane Helene wiped out two of the games, and as a result, the Mets had to return to Atlanta on the day after the end of the season, September 30th, to play a make-up doubleheader. If they won either game, they would move on to the postseason, while the D-Backs were hoping for a sweep by either team, the only way for them to continue. Game 1 was an absolute thriller, but the Mets prevailed, thanks to a two-run homer by Lindor off Pierce Johnson in the 9th inning that turned a 7-6 deficit into an 8-7 win. That punched their ticket to the postseason, although they still had to play the second game to confirm who they would play in the Wild Card Series, and who would be the final wild card team.

Awards and Honors

• All-Star: Pete Alonso

Further Reading

• Jessica Camerato: "From Grimace to The Playoff Pumpkin, Mets' good luck charms explained", mlb.com, October 4, 2024. [1]
• Anthony DiComo: "Mets beat Braves in all-time classic Game 1 to clinch WC berth", mlb.com, September 30, 2024. [2]
• Bill Ladson: "Mets blast 4 HRs, plate 10 for franchise record 3rd straight game", mlb.com, September 19, 2024. [3]
• Matthew Ritchie: "Bader's HR, Quintana's milestone spark Mets' 9th straight win", mlb.com, September 7, 2024. [4]

2024 MLB season by team