If the Mets want to be the best, they have to beat the best.
Professional sports leagues are all copycat leagues, meaning teams copy one another in hopes of replicating success in certain areas, or replicating the success that led the last team standing to a championship.
The playoffs are where the trends are set, with the World Series providing an inflection point for the game. With the League Championship Series in full swing, the Mets (and others) would be wise to learn from the teams battling it out to be the last standing in their respective leagues.
Here are some insights the team can glean from what has so far been an exciting postseason.
CONTACT HITTING
In the regular season, you might face a back-end starter with a penchant for walks or a wild reliever with regularity, but in the playoffs, hitters are seeing the best pitchers on each team, with off-days allowing teams to optimize their pitching plans.
The pitching has been sensational this October, with guys painting 104 MPH on the corners. Pitchers are throwing harder, and some of those high-velocity offerings have incredible movement profiles. The pitching might be harder than ever, which is making it harder to hit than ever. Still, there are more variables on a ball in play than on a strikeout.
The Toronto Blue Jays and Milwaukee Brewers reached the ALCS and the NLCS with their bat-to-ball skills. The Blue Jays have some big swingers, like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer, but they don’t strike out nearly as much as other power threats. Only Springer (111) and Addison Barger (121) struck out more than 100 times this season for Toronto, while the Mets had six hitters with 100 or more strikeouts.
The Brewers, owners of the best regular-season record in the league, reached the penultimate round without a lineup that hits a ton of home runs. The Seattle Mariners might have hit a lot of them in the regular season — the third-most in baseball — but they aren’t swinging for the fences in the postseason.
It would undoubtedly benefit the Mets to have a more patient approach, and a more contact-heavy approach to get the ball in the air would help put pressure on opposing defenses and create more opportunities to score runs.
GOOD FUNDIES
Orion Kerkering’s mistake in Game 5 of the NLDS underscored the importance of fundamentals.
Late in the season, manager Carlos Mendoza lamented the mistakes the Mets were making, many of which were on fundamental defensive plays. Run suppression was something president of baseball operations David Steans mentioned several times during his end-of-season media availability.
Pitcher’s fielding practice, bunts, cutting down runners with strong, accurate throws, and running the bases well offensively — these things will always matter in baseball. Yet at times, it seemed as if the Mets forgot how important they are to execute. They seemed to understand how costly their mental mistakes and defensive miscues were by the end of the season, but by then, there was little they could do.
They have to learn from their own mistakes, and the mistakes that have been both made and prevented in the playoffs.
ACE-FREE ISN’T THE WAY TO BE
True aces are a fading breed, which could be why the four teams left in the postseason don’t really have one. Tarik Skubal and the Detroit Tigers were knocked out in the ALDS. Garrett Crochet and the Boston Red Sox were knocked out a round before that, and the Yankees advanced without Gerrit Cole.
However, the Mets shouldn’t be fooled into thinking they don’t need one themselves. This is where they should build for their own needs.
The team understands that depth is key, but their failure to make significant investments in the starting pitching staff last year hurt them in the end. The rotation mostly consisted of a group of project pitchers, back-end starters and struggling veterans whose sum of all parts was not greater than the whole.
Kodai Senga might have been a first-half ace, but his second-half struggles hurt the team’s playoff prospects. After two years of injuries and inconsistencies, Stearns and the Mets aren’t even sure what they can expect from him at this point. David Peterson faded down the stretch, Sean Manaea never found his stride and Clay Holmes, a former reliever, was good, and will likely be great next season as a starter, but there was a learning curve.
The good news is that Nolan McLean looks like a rising ace, and Jonah Tong could be at some point too. But not now. The Mets can’t count on inexperienced rookies to carry the staff.
They need a much bigger pitching punch in 2026, and they can get that from some big guns at the front of the rotation.
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