Nobody outspends the Mets and loses like the Mets in 2026. This is a team with the second-highest payroll in the sport sitting well below.500 at the midpoint, and the vibes have curdled into full-blown organizational panic. Steve Cohen's front office spent big on names like Freddy Peralta, Luis Robert Jr., Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette to erase the sting of 2025. Instead, the Mets are staring at a sell-off.
Jon Heyman didn't waste time diagnosing the mess. He put out a 10-point plan for how the Mets crawl back from this, the kind of piece that only gets written when a big-market team has completely lost the plot.
Jon Heyman laid out his 10-point roadmap for pulling the Mets out of the tailspin.
https://t.co/pkuHus82i6 My 10-point plan to put the Mets on the road to recovery
It's not just the record. The way the Mets have been losing is the story — routine plays turning into extra bases, defense that looks unrecognizable from a team built to contend. Jomboy Media put together a clip package on just how bad it's gotten in the field, and it's the kind of thing that gets passed around a fanbase mid-collapse.
Jomboy Media documented how shaky the Mets' defense has looked in the middle of this lost season.
That defensive rot ties directly into the names Heyman keeps circling back to. Francisco Alvarez has been floated in trade rumblings all month, Clay Holmes has been out since May with a fractured fibula and was only getting rolling on a rehab assignment, and Luke Weaver's status assuming he's ready has been part of the same conversation about which arms and bats the Mets could actually move. All of it feeds the bigger question hanging over Queens: does this front office blow it up or patch it and hope 2027 looks different.
Francisco Lindor is the one name everyone wants an answer on, and so far the answer from ownership has been no. Cohen has reportedly told reporters he doesn't see his franchise shortstop leaving, even as the Mets stay open to listening on almost everyone else. That puts Lindor in a strange spot — the untouchable face of a team that's otherwise being picked apart.
Heyman followed up with a column zeroing in on what the Mets should actually do with Lindor, Weaver, Holmes and Alvarez.
https://t.co/pkuHus82i6 Column: What the Mets should do with Lindor, Weaver, Holmes, Alvarez and much more about how they can best undo this alltime mess
None of this gets fixed by the trade deadline alone. A 10-point plan is a nice headline, but the Mets' issues run from the bullpen to the infield to a defense that's been an actual liability, not just an unlucky stretch. What happens over the next couple weeks — who gets shopped, who Cohen refuses to move, whether Holmes and Weaver even factor into it health-wise — will tell you a lot about whether this front office believes 2026 is a blip or the start of something uglier.