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A few years from now, when the New York Mets have become the powerhouse they’re bound to be, they will look back on the 2024 season as where it all started. Something special happened in Queens this year. And the fact that it ended in disappointing fashion, with the Los Angeles Dodgers dispatching them from the National League Championship Series on Sunday night with a 10-5 victory in Game 6, in no way lessens what the Mets achieved.
As much as this year was outwardly about Grimace and OMG and a lucky pumpkin, more important were the dramatic, substantive changes arriving in an organization that for far too long had operated less like a leviathan and more like a mid-market team cosplaying as a big-market spender. The internal transformation, delivered by owner Steve Cohen hiring David Stearns as president of baseball operations and Carlos Mendoza as manager, brought to the organization a pair of leaders who immediately flipped a culture long known for its brokenness. Nothing in baseball fosters success like the marriage of money and stability — a Dodgers vs. Yankees World Series matchup suggests as much — and after decades of unserious ownership and early-tenure stumbles by Cohen, the Mets were positioned to assert themselves overnight.
That all of it came to fruition this postseason, against the backdrop of the Mets carrying themselves as the ultimate meme team, provided for a delightful contrast. As the organization began to grow up, it experienced on the field and in the clubhouse a simultaneous glow-up.
“The culture that we live in and that we’re building,” infielder Jose Iglesias said, “is going the right way.”
To a fan base that fell in love with these Mets after their 0-5 and 24-35 starts gave way to comeback after dramatic comeback, this season will be remembered less for its disappointments than the…
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