Who is most to blame for the New York Mets’ slide?

The New York Mets' collective funk since June 13th has put their playoff chances in jeopardy, but who is most to blame for their poor play?

Sep 10, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; New York Mets pitcher Clay Holmes (35) throws a pitch against the Philadelphia Phillies during the third inning at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images | Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

The math says the New York Mets are still in a strong position to make the postseason, but anyone who has watched them play since the middle of June would have a hard time believing the Mets are a playoff team.

Last night's loss to the Philadelphia Phillies was the Mets' fifth in a row and sixth in seven games, seeing their playoff odds drop from almost 96% at this time last week to a shade under 84% entering Thursday.

The Mets' lead in the NL Wild Card race is now two games

They hold the tiebreaker with the Giants, but not with the Reds pic.twitter.com/XVGYhTnh7u

— SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) September 11, 2025

The turning point in the Mets' season is clearly June 13th, the day that Kodai Senga first went on the injured list with a strained hamstring. The Mets entered a weekend series with the Tampa Bay Rays a season-high 21 games above .500 and holding a 5.5 game lead in the National League East, but now are only six above .500 and have lost 15 games in the standings to the Phillies in three months.

pic.twitter.com/N7juwb06nL

— SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) September 11, 2025

Entering last night's game, the Mets had gone 31-45 since June 13th, which was the fourth-worst record in the majors since that day. The other teams with the worst records since that date are second-division clubs, making the Mets' poor performance extremely alarming for a team with one of the highest payrolls in baseball.

The Mets have been among the worst teams in baseball over the last nearly three months pic.twitter.com/mO36je9m2a

— SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) September 10, 2025

The Mets' strong start has allowed them to absorb a lot of bad play, but SNY's Gary Cohen correctly pointed out during last night's broadcast that the Mets have to win games at some point or else someone in the Wild Card hunt will catch them. The fact that things have gotten this bad for the Mets is remarkable and raises the natural question of who to blame for the current state of affairs.

The Case For David Stearns

A lot of the Mets' fan base has thrown blame at David Stearns, especially as his offseason moves outside of the obvious ones (signing Juan Soto and retaining Pete Alonso) have largely flopped. The most egregious miss remains signing Frankie Montas, who missed most of the first half due to injury, pitched to a 6.28 ERA in nine appearances, and suffered an elbow injury in August that requires Tommy John surgery.

The decision to convert Clay Holmes to the rotation looked like a genius call early on, but he has clearly hit a wall and has been much less effective in the second half. Griffin Canning also looked like a value pickup and was a key contributor for the Mets' rotation in the first half before blowing out his Achilles tendon in June, costing the team a valuable depth piece.

Injuries have been a common theme for Stearns' offseason adds, as A.J. Minter and Jesse Winker were essentially lost for the season in May while Sean Manaea missed 3+ months due to his own injury woes. Even depth pieces like Nick Madrigal and Jose Siri missed significant time, which is hard to blame Stearns for.

The Mets did a good job actively shuffling fresh pitchers through their bullpen throughout the season, and Stearns' reputation of finding key usable arms saw players like Rico Garcia, Chris Devenski, Austin Warren and Justin Hagenman pick up key outs over the course of the year. The problem was that Stearns and the front office were content to simply shuffle pieces for a while instead of actively addressing their problems, particularly as the starting rotation unraveled due to injury in mid-June.

While Stearns does deserve credit for promoting his top pitching prospects (Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong and Brandon Sproat) to help the Mets' rotation over the past month, it is fair to question why McLean and Sproat weren't a consideration in late June when the team was routinely running out bullpen days or doing illogical things like asking Paul Blackburn to return to the mound after a one-hour rain delay in Pittsburgh.

Those decisions were essentially punts of games, which looked manageable at the time when it looked as if Manaea and Senga were going to stabilize the rotation. The problem with giving away games like that, however, is that it shrunk the Mets' cushion in the standings unnecessarily.

Stearns' trade deadline decisions are also getting heat since Cedric Mullins and Ryan Helsley have flopped as Mets, but it is hard to blame the process here. The moves the Mets made addressed their needs and allowed Stearns to protect his top prospects, and he can't be blamed for failing to add a starting pitcher since the young pitchers have performed and no big name of note was moved prior to the deadline.

The Case For Carlos Mendoza

While Stearns set the big picture philosophy for the Mets, manager Carlos Mendoza has had his own issues during the second half of the season. After a year in which it seemed like every move Mendoza made was the right one, the tables have turned dramatically in year two as Mendoza has struggled to find the right combination of pieces to get the most out of his roster.

Read More: Carlos Mendoza gets honest about the Mets' current skid

As the Mets have become more analytically savvy, they have relied heavily on the platoon advantage, which has led to the team having sub-optimal lineup construction due to the belief that handedness matters against certain pitchers. Last night's game was a perfect example of this, as Mendoza hit Starling Marte (who entered the day in a 4-for-32 slump) fifth while benching Jeff McNeil for Luisangel Acuña against Phillies' starter Christopher Sanchez.

Relying on the platoon advantage is a risk since it can put better players either lower in the order or out of the lineup entirely if they draw a pitcher from the same side. To build on last night's example, Marte was hitting higher in the batting order than Brandon Nimmo, who entered the night hitting over .300 against Sanchez in 19 career at-bats.

The Mets have also not done a good job of late balancing playing time for their collection of young infielders, with one of Ronny Mauricio or Mark Vientos often getting moth-balled for weeks at a time. There are roster mechanics behind those two, plus Brett Baty and Acuña, being on the big league club together but a lack of logical reasoning behind the playing time distribution has hurt all of them.

Mendoza has also done much worse at utilizing his players in situations that allow them to succeed, such as pinch hitting Acuña for Mullins in the eighth inning on Monday, leaving him unavailable to pinch run for Pete Alonso as the tying run in the ninth. Mauricio got asked to pinch run instead and got a bad read on a double off the bat of Mark Vientos, ending up at third instead of scoring. Jhoan Duran closed out the save with consecutive strikeouts and set the tone for the whole series.

Ronny Mauricio had a bad read on Mark Vientos’ double in the 9th, which cost him any chance of scoring.

The next two hitters struck out. pic.twitter.com/rlsbLCJSSg

— Just Mets (@just_mets) September 9, 2025

The other big issue is that Mendoza has often managed for tomorrow with regards to his pitching staff, trying to squeeze an extra inning out of a struggling starter or going to a struggling reliever in a tight spot to try and get them going. Those moves have often backfired, either putting the Mets in bigger holes or giving back any gains the offense has made in coming back from late inning deficits.

It is also fair to wonder whether Mendoza is too loyal to certain veterans, giving guys like Mullins, Helsley, and struggling starters plenty of chances to turn things around when it has come at the cost of team performance. While there is definitely a financial component to some of these roster decisions, allowing struggling players to get too much rope has added losses to New York's ledger.

The Case For The Players

While it is easy to blame some of Stearns' roster decisions or Mendoza's in-game moves, the bottom line is that the players as a whole have not performed up to their caliber. As much as Mendoza talks about the talent in the room and how the team is too talented to be playing like this, their record since June 13th says otherwise.

The lineup as a whole has been wildly inconsistent, scoring like gangbusters for weeks at a time and then looking like they've never hit a baseball before for other stretches. A big indicator for the Mets' offensive success has been the play of Francisco Lindor, whose numbers in wins (.326 batting average, 19 home runs, 60 RBI and a .968 OPS) and losses (.193/7/17 with a .590 OPS) have been so extreme that New York's chances of winning often hinge on whether he performs well or not. Lindor has gotten cold at the start of September, collecting just five hits in 41 at-bats as the Mets have fallen into a funk.

There has also been plenty of underperformance from players with track records, including two of Stearns' big trade deadline acquisitions in Mullins and Helsley, which has short-circuited the team's plans to fill their roster holes. The biggest issue has been a lack of consistency from the Mets' starting pitchers, particularly Manaea (1-3 with a 5.76 ERA in 11 appearances, including 10 starts) and Senga (0-3 with a 6.56 ERA in eight second half starts before accepting an optional assignment to Triple-A Syracuse to work on his mechanics).

The failure of the starters to provide consistent length and/or put the Mets in early holes has a tremendous trickle-down effect on the rest of the roster, overtaxing the bullpen and forcing the lineup to adjust their approach at the plate to try and chase down a deficit. While these struggles would be more understandable if the rookies were the ones failing to get deep, the fact that the trio of McLean, Tong and Sproat have outperformed three highly paid veterans (Manaea, Senga and Holmes) for a month is alarming.

The Mets were counting on their veterans to deliver and they largely haven't. No matter how many roster decisions Stearns makes or game day calls Mendoza has to decide on, they aren't the ones throwing pitches or hitting baseballs.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, there is no one clear point of failure for the 2025 Mets' performance over the past three months. Stearns, Mendoza and the players (along with some really bad injury luck) have all contributed to the Mets' status as one of the five worst teams in baseball for the past three months.

There are still 16 games left for the Mets to right the ship and still sneak into the playoffs, where all it takes is getting hot at the right time to win the whole thing. If the Mets do miss the postseason, however, it will be a collective failure of everyone involved along with a perfect storm of bad circumstances that sunk the season.