The Mets are in no-man’s land. They won’t absorb the pain of a rebuild but the hierarchy seems to acknowledge they can’t buy a championship, either.
This is a mess of the Met$’ own making, with neither Fred nor Jeff Wilpon to blame.
Nevertheless, it seemed for all the world that Billy Eppler was channeling the senior Wilpon’s objective of “playing meaningful games in September,” when the general manager said, “We’re going to have a competitive team [in 2024],” minutes after the Max Scherzer trade to Texas became official on Sunday.
That is quite the humbling internal assessment of where the organization stands 57 games away from the finish line that was supposed to be represented by a ride through the Canyon of Heroes in November.
The Steve Cohen ownership tried to shortcut the championship process through the might of the checkbook — and it failed.
Eppler insisted the Mets, who had traded closer David Robertson for a pair of prospects before dealing Scherzer, are not engaged in, “a fire sale.”
“I do want to be clear that it’s not a rebuild, it’s not a fire sale, it’s not a liquidation,” Eppler said before Justin Verlander gained his 250th career victory in a 5-2 triumph over the Nationals at Citi Field. “Generally, with clubs that are going to go through a rebuild, you have to endure five, six, seven years of losing, and we don’t have the appetite for that.
“We’re not going to do that. What we want to do is use Steve’s investment and enhance the farm system and get us to our larger goal. That doesn’t mean we’re punting 2024, OK? We’re going to have a competitive team.
“Like I said, we just don’t want to endure long stretches of being bad. That’s not going to be satisfying to anybody.
