Not that you’d necessarily want to, but you can’t buy a ticket to a Mets game this year. Well you can buy packages of 20 or 40 or 81 games, but the old-school a la cart single-game ticket window hasn’t opened yet, and they’re not saying when.
Speaking as someone accustomed to creating my own season ticket one game at a time, that’s unusual. Individual tickets went up for sale in the first week of December last year, and several years before that. The last time I can remember tickets going on sale this late in the year, they were playing at Shea Stadium, and we lined up by Gate D on a frigid Sunday morning. Tim Teufel was there to make it all worth it.
It’s almost as if they knew that surrendering their most popular players through trades and free agency was going to do something to demand, and now, they must hustle to make it up.
I like Bo Bichette and happy the Mets got him and not Tucker. Right handed hitter, a batting champion candidate, hits lots of doubles. I’m not entirely okay with yanking third base out from under Baty when he’d finally had a decent year, but he hits well enough to play left.
The Mets still need a pitcher. There are the top-shelf free agents like Framber Valdez but I kinda like the under-the-radar guys too. He struggled early last year with an injury but Zac Gallen has been pretty good for years. I’m also not afraid to bring in Justin Verlander or Max Scherzer again. I think the young staff could use the right veteran, a la Orel Hershiser in 1999. Besides I’ve never even heard of our pitching coach, Justin Willard. They don’t even have a mugshot of him on the official site.
As noted in the comments it will be interesting to see what number they issue to Bichette, having assigned his No. 11 already to a different incoming free agent, Jorge Polanco. I feel like the Mets are too deferential to numerical identities formed on other teams. Neither the Rangers nor Orioles nor Dodgers replicated the respective jersey numbers of Alonso, Nimmo and Diaz, though it seems like they let them pick (To be fair, Frank Robinson and Roy Campanella may have something to with it, but I digress–I’d be happy to see Bo Bichette take up something new).
Diaz by the way is tempting the baseball gods by choosing No. 3. All relievers stop being effective at some point.
The problem with all this in-season wheeling and dealing is we’re left with a club that can’t beat the Royals. Thanks the the depletions of Tommy Pham and Mark Canha we’re running out palookas like Rafael Ortega (30) and Jonathan Arauz (19). We have new dudes in the bullpen I’ve hardly ever heard of like Reed Garrett (75) and Phil Bickford (50).
As uninspiring his outings have tended to be, losing Carlos Carrasco to elbow problems is not what the Mets needed right now, seeing as they’ve already got two dudes in the rotation who might not have been in the blueprint, since Jose Quintana and Justin Verlander have yet to appear. Is Joey Lucchesi the next to appear? I’m not sure.
Last night (I didn’t stay up to watch) Jeff Brigham made his first Met appearance and struck out the only two guys he faced. Brigham came over in a small offseason trade with the Marlins and has some experience with them. He’s the immediate solution for Carrasco till his turn in the rotation comes up.
Also with the big club now are Edwin Uceta, who came up along with Brett Baty, when Tim Locastro went onto the disabled list. Uceta, whom the Mets acquired on a waiver claim from Pittsburgh, has been issued No. 64.