The work ahead for the Mets is daunting, and they must get it all right

Also - Juan Soto was one of the few highlights for the National League in the All-Star Game

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

• The American League beat the National League 4-0 in the 2026 MLB All-Star Game, issuing the first Midsummer shutout in 13 years (box)

• Juan Soto started in left field for the NL, going 1-for-2 with a single and a strikeout

• The NL mustered a mere three hits and struck out 15 times against a formidable AL staff; Soto was one of AL starter Dylan Cease’s three first-inning strikeout victims

• The season resumes tomorrow against the Phillies; per Tankathon, the Mets have the hardest remaining schedule in MLB

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Roster Moves 📰

• RHP Dan Hammer outrighted to Triple-A Syracuse

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Play of the Game ⚾️

Textbook. 👍

After working a quick 2-1 count on AL righty Joe Ryan, Juan Soto smacked a middle-middle fastball right back up the middle in his second and final at-bat of the game.

This wasn’t the most important moment of the evening, but it feels relevant that a Met recorded one of the National League’s three total hits last night.

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In a new special edition of the Just Mets Podcast, Rich is joined by Mets prospect guru Ernest Dove of the Dove Report to discuss the current state of the Mets and what the farm system’s updated roadmap looks like.

SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

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Down on the Farm 🌾

All Mets minor league affiliates are off and will resume action on Friday night.

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Today’s Game 🗓

The Mets are off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The season resumes on Thursday, when the Mets take on the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

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Thoughts on what the Mets need to get back at the trade deadline, organization and reputation building ✍️

Imagn Images

by Michael Baron

Alright. The All-Star Game is over. Juan Soto was probably the highlight for the National League with his single up the middle mid-game as they got blanked by the American League in Philadelphia on Tuesday.

Soto doesn’t have to go far when the Mets resume their season on Thursday. They’ll be playing the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park tomorrow night in an awkward start to the second half. They play Thursday, are off Friday because of the World Cup, and then resume a normal cadence on the schedule starting Saturday.

It’s hard to really see anything to look forward to. The Mets are unfathomably 17 games under .500 and look every bit the part. The only thing we have to watch, in all probability, is who gets shipped out over the next 2-3 weeks. Then of course the Mets will officially shift into 2027 and beyond mode when they call up some of their prospects and fill the rest of their gaps with journeymen from the minor leagues.

The goal with those who stay, such as with Soto, Francisco Lindor, Nolan McLean, AJ Ewing, Carson Benge, Jonah Tong, Jonathan Santucci, Jack Wenninger, and the rest of their top prospects will be to simply keep them healthy, whether they’re here or not, and see if those prospects specifically can emerge as meaningful pieces into next year.

As for the immediate term, as in over the next week or two, the Mets have some interesting decisions to consider.

It is trade season, as most everyone knows at this point. The Mets are going to be sellers; most everyone is going to be on the table, but aside from the entirety of their bullpen and both Clay Holmes and Freddy Peralta, there isn’t a lot of trade value on this Mets roster. They also have two underperforming veterans who are close to returning: Luis Robert Jr. and Marcus Semien. They also have Jorge Polanco back, but he just seems like such a limited player and a square peg in a round hole on this roster.

NY Post

The problem with those three veterans is they’re owed over $100 million combined and don’t have a lot of on-field value. It’s easier for the Mets to slot Semien back in than any of the rest since the Mets need a competent defensive second baseman, and while Semien is also now showing signs of diminishment at that position, a case can at least be made to plug him back in every day if his hip is good to go.

The rest will be hard to justify playing if the Mets are moving into evaluation mode. There is no reason at all for either Robert or Polanco to be taking away playing time and/or at-bats from any one prospect now, and you know that’s going to happen in some way, shape, or form when they return.

I worry they’re going to try and sell playing Robert over Ewing by saying they’re protecting Ewing from left-handed pitching, for instance. For better or for worse, that should not happen - Ewing needs to get every possible at-bat over the next 2 1/2 months, especially over a fragile, non-productive, and overpaid veteran.

They can always use Robert strictly as a right-handed designated hitter and Polanco as a left-handed designated hitter and see if they can extract some kind of value from them with that permutation. That’s what I want to see, anyway.

In at least one transaction the Mets make this summer, I’d like to see the Mets get a first baseman. I don’t necessarily think they need to get a near-ready product, but they need to start to create options in the pipeline there which are beyond the swing-and-miss Ryan Clifford. One of the biggest problems this organization has had, pretty much since they graduated Pete Alonso to the big leagues in 2019, is they have not successfully cultivated premium position players from their minor leagues. Hopefully, Benge and Ewing are changing that narrative, but even so, they need more than that and to do that more than once every seven years.

Generally speaking, the Mets need to reel in as many infield prospects as they can and just see what they can do with them over the next few years. Holmes and Peralta offer the best chance at such a return, although I don’t expect the Mets to get a 1-5 type for either. But at this point, stocking up on quantity and creating options in the medium and long-term is better than nothing right now.

But then, August will come, and boy will things get stale around here. We as a group have to figure out how to stomach what’s about to unfold over the season’s final two months with a shell of a roster and what could be a bottom-five finish in the game with one of the game’s most expensive teams proving to be one of the greatest busts in the history of sports.

Just when you thought 1992 and 2003 couldn’t get any worse, 2026 proved that it can always be worse. Hell, 2027 can be worse than this too.

Let’s hope that’s not the case.

NY Post

There’s a lot of work for David Stearns and Steve Cohen to do to undo these past two years, which have been nothing short of terrible. This is a big trade deadline for this front office; they have to get it right, and regardless of who they get back, the practices with this organization, from player acquisition and player development right on up to the culture of the major league team, have to change for the better immediately. Nobody in that room can sit there and say they’ve done one thing well since the end of the 2024 NLCS, regardless of what they say about the progress of the organization. We can probably count on one hand the number of moves Stearns and his front office have gotten right over the last two years, so with that said, they must now get most every move right between now and next February if they are going to right the Mets ship.

All of the money in the world, all of the investments in the world, all of the rhetoric in the world matter not when the team is 17 games under .500 97 games into a season. The record defines their reputation, as does the way they operate internally. They have to fix all of that.

So, change comes starting today. It’s going to take a while, but if they can accept their own faults and mistakes now, better times will come sooner rather than later.

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Around the League 🚩

• There are complications that both MLB and the MLBPA need to sort out before there’s an agreement on player participation in the 2028 Olympics (ESPN)

• Shohei Ohtani - who sat out the All-Star Game with knee soreness - is expected to be active against the Yankees this weekend

• The Padres will use the next couple of weeks to determine if they’re buyers or sellers at the trade deadline (SD Union Tribune)