Pretty much from February through the end of October I am thinking about baseball and/or the Mets.

That’s a lot of time for me to gather some thoughts…and I think I’ve turned them into something of a Mets season preview for you here.

I thought about doing a post a day leading up to the season opener, but then I realized there was basically a positive and a negative to all of the big topics I was bringing up. Anyone who knows me knows I tend to take an undeservedly positive view of most things Mets, so it is really a stretch for me to take the opposing view in this post.

Here are some of my thoughts on the 2024 Mets from an optimistic and a pessimistic view.

(Sunday Paper readers will remember the image I used to use to break up the intro and body text there. I am very proud of this new banner I just spent too much time creating from my extensive collection of Citi Field pictures that I will use for these posts this year. OK. On with the preview.)

Pessimist: The Mets don’t have an ace with Kodai Senga hurt to start the year.

Optimist: I think the Mets are in better shape with their starting staff this year than last year. Here’s the deal: Even with Kodai Senga healthy, I don’t think he’s an ace ace. And I don’t think that’s a problem. Senga is a solid pitcher. But so is the rest of the staff. (I think.) (I hope.)

Last season the Mets starters were never good, really. They were a bottom five in the league pitching staff in some of the big categories. This is one of the big things I want to see if I can find numbers on and write about this year, and it seems like a hard stat to research without going through box scores myself - but Mets starters barely made it five innings a lot of the time. And even when they did, they never seemed to be easy innings. As much as everyone raved about quicker games last year, Mets games never seemed to go fast. They were throwing soooo many pitches and the games seemed to drag.

So. It stinks they don’t have a Justin Verlander type at the top of the rotation. But it’s great that this year they won’t drag out Carlos Carrasco every fifth day and get a terrible start. I think we’re going to see quality starts from the likes of Jose Quintana (who, when he came back later in the year after his injury, joined Senga as a bright spot in the otherwise dismal Mets rotation last year), Luis Severino, Sean Manaea, and Adrian Houser. That fifth spot is kind of a question mark for me because Tylor Megill was one of the offenders last year of getting to a point where he just needed one more out to have a good start….and then never getting that out to get out of a trouble spot. So maybe he can live up to the potential we’ve seen in him and this can be a solid one through five.

Two quick last notes here because I am going on way too long about the rotation (but I think it’s well deserved because I think it’s the biggest difference-maker from last year to this one): First of all, the length from the starters will help the bullpen. The Mets already had to deviate from their bullpen plan last year because of the Edwin Diaz injury and guys were forced out of 7th and 8th inning roles to fill 8th and 9th inning roles and then there was constantly a need for guys earlier than expected because the starters were eating it early. So a quality rotation will really pay off all around, and make an improved bullpen even better this year.

Lastly on the rotation, I think the Mets were smart with how they spent their money this off-season. They needed three starters, and the Cardinals needed three starters. The Cardinals added Lance Lynn, Sonny Gray, and Kyle Gibson. I think it will be interesting to see at the end of the year what Lynn/Gray/Gibson vs. Severino/Manaea/Houser looks like. I think the Mets got good value with their adds.

Pessimist: But aren't some of these guys just going to be turned around and traded at the July deadline?

Optimist: I think it’s very possible the Mets are more sellers than buyers come the trade deadline. They’ve made no secret about gearing up for 2025 and giving the young guys a chance to play in 2024. But I also think there’s every possibility they are competing in 2024 and can still sell and have young guys play and stay competitive. For the first time in a long time they have exciting young players who could be Major League-ready by then…and I’ve seen primarily young teams make a run before.

Also, if they’re selling, that means these guys have had value and are good and maybe that means the team is in a good spot. I guess you could make the argument that last year the players had value and the team was not good…but I am probably in the minority of people who believe that if the Mets had kept that team together last year past the deadline they would have made a wild card run.

Pessimist: Fine. The Mets can play winning baseball with a young team. I’ll give you that. But does it matter if they play in the same division as the Braves and the Phillies?

Optimist: It is hard to be an optimist when the Mets seem to have gone back to the days when they couldn’t beat Atlanta. But I’ve been saying this since late 2022…it is hard to play consistent winning baseball in the major leagues and both Atlanta and Philadelphia have done that the past couple of seasons to an almost ridiculous extent. With a couple of deep playoff runs for the Phillies (Atlanta doesn’t quite have that same problem), those are long seasons.

For pitchers, that’s a lot of innings to throw. And I don’t wish injury on anyone - that’s bad karma and not a nice thing to do - but the state of the game is such that right now pitchers are always getting hurt. One of the reasons Atlanta and Philadelphia have been so successful is their big guns have stayed healthy. Maybe that changes based on the volume of innings thrown by both teams when it comes to regular season plus playoffs the last couple of years. And Atlanta’s hitters have been going full throttle for a season and a half now. They play every day. One would think that is going to catch up to them at some point besides early October.

All that said: it would be nice to see the Mets help themselves in this category by beating those division rivals on the field and handling a lot of it themselves.

Pessimist: And that’s pretty tough to do if they’re not driving home runs like last year.

Optimist: Yeah, that was one of the more disappointing aspects of last season. They just could not pick up a clutch hit - there were so many times early in the season they loaded the bases and couldn’t capitalize. The optimist in me believes the hitters are too good to have another down season. Francisco Lindor didn’t hit enough early, Pete Alonso didn’t hit enough besides the homers, and Jeff McNeil didn’t hit as well as he usually does. So I’d expect them all to be better…which in Lindor’s case could be a monster 2024 because he finished with a respectable 2023.

But if you want less than a gut feeling I’ll give you this: The offense never seemed to get in sync last year because Starling Marte didn’t feel like he was ever in sync…and it turned out he was hurt. According to all reports from the winter and spring, Marte is back to full health and back to his old self. I think that really makes the offense go. I have to be honest…I’m not entirely sure Brett Baty and Mark Vientos turn into good Major Leaguers (and I have less confidence in Vientos than Baty - at least Baty can field), but Francisco Alvarez has the Mets set at catcher for as long as he’s here, so I think there’s enough in the lineup (Marte, Nimmo, Lindor, Alonso, McNeil, Alvarez) to see improvement.

Pessimist: I’m not sure I’m convinced. A season-ending injury to Ronny Mauricio in the off-season, the intended Opening Day starter out with an arm injury, management talking about next season….it feels like old times, meaning that it feels like another down year for the Mets.

Optimist: Well, maybe I’m not the best person to address this, because I always tend to see the best in a team until they start playing and prove me wrong - that’s the best part of the beginning of a new season! And I’ll grant you, the Ronny Mauricio news was devastating. He was so exciting to watch play when he came up last season. But as I noted, the Mets should be able to get by without Senga, as long as he’s able to come back healthy at some point.

I hate that he’s not here anymore, because I liked him as a manager, but let’s not forget that for some reason that I don’t know we’ll ever get an explanation for, teams tend to play better the year after Buck Showalter leaves as manager…so there’s that.

The Mets finished 75-87 last year. I think it’s a sure bet they’ll win more games this year. They are a deeper team than they were. How well will they do?

Well, last year 84 wins was enough to get a National League wild card spot. Both the Marlins and the Diamondbacks finished with 84 wins, and the D-Backs made it all the way to the World Series. I see no reason why the Mets can’t be in that hunt, if not better this year. (Pessimist: I see lots of reasons.) Optimist: Stop it. The Marlins will not be a playoff team this year, so that’s at least one spot open. The Padres are better, the Giants are better…but the NL West is shaping up to be as tough as the NL East. So who knows. Maybe a team we expect to be good isn’t good. I thought about this back in February - if someone said would you pick the Dodgers/Braves OR The Field (any other National League team) to win the NL in 2024, which would you go with? And I think I’d go with the field. Baseball is a crazy game. As Mets fans know well, the players with the big contracts don’t always mean winning baseball. It’ll be fun to see how 2024 plays out. In summary, pitching should be better, hitting should be better. The team should be better.

Bring on the season. Let’s hope, for the Mets, it lasts into October.