Carroll’s Column: Mets Looking Ahead To 2026

Image Credit: Al Pereira/Latino Sports

NEW YORK, NY — As the Cubs, Brewers, Dodgers, Phillies, Tigers, Mariners, Blue Jays and Yankees, are the eight teams left standing in MLB’s 2025 postseason picture, there are other franchises already preparing for their 2026 campaign. 

The Mets began their mea culpas for a shockingly disappointing season last Monday, the first day of their unplanned offseason. 

Mets owner Steve Cohen crafted a public apology to the Flushing faithful for the team’s failures in 2025. Cohen had complained vociferously in the past about Mets fans failing to attend games despite the millions of dollars in player personnel payroll he had committed. Cohen thanked the nearly 3.2 million fans who did purchase tickets for Mets games in 2025. He stated that the fans did their part, but the team failed to live up to expectations, and that was unacceptable. 

Mets President of Baseball Operations, David Stearns, held a press conference Monday afternoon. While he took responsibility for the team’s dreary performance from mid-June until the end of September, he studiously avoided giving any specifics except repeating some mumbo-jumbo about needing to be more “proactive.” 

He should have tipped his hat to his counterpart 100 miles southwest of Queens, Phillies president Dave Dombrowski. At age 69, Dombrowski is the oldest baseball executive working today, and he outmaneuvered the Boy Wonder of Queens at the July 31 trade deadline. Whereas Dombrowski’s pickups helped the Phillies clinch the National League East title a full two weeks before the end of the 2025 regular season, Stearns admitted in the final week of it that his deals badly backfired. 

The one piece of concrete information Stearns revealed in his Monday presser was that while manager Carlos Mendoza would be returning for 2026, his coaching staff would be undergoing evaluation. 

He made it clear the ax would be falling on most of Mendoza’s staff, and on Friday, the favored day of the week when it comes to companies delivering bad news, the Mets announced that bench coach John Gibbons, hitting coaches Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes, and pitching coach Jeremy Hefner had all been given pink slips. 

While Pete Alonso, Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor, and Brandon Nimmo, all posted impressive stats this past season, the team badly struggled with runners in scoring position. The fact that the Mets were the only team in baseball to never win a game when trailing in the eighth inning (they had an unfathomable 0-70 record) sealed the fates of Chavez and Barnes. 

Jeremy Hefner was the Mets’ answer to the late USSR politician Andrei Gromyko. Just as Gromyko held positions of power from Stalin to Gorbachev, Hefner served under a trio of Mets managers: Luis Rojas, Buck Showalter, and Carlos Mendoza. 

He did not have it easy in 2025 because of pitching staff injuries, along with difficult assignments such as converting reliever Clay Holmes into a starter, which was successful. However, Frankie Montas and Kodai Senga were disasters, as was David Peterson’s marked second-half drop-off.

Hefner is highly regarded and should be hired soon by another team. 

Mets’ SNY Crew blasts Marlins for celebrating after Game 162

The Mets SNY broadcasting team of Flushing native Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez were livid that the Miami Marlins reveled on the field as if they won the World Series following the last game of the season. Many Mets fans were also upset. My take will not be popular here, but I have no problem with the Marlins’ exuberance.

I remember a reporter asking Bill Parcells, when he was the head coach of the Jets in the late 1990s, what he thought of the Philadelphia Eagles celebrating on the sidelines during a preseason game with his team. “Is everyone’s microphone off? Good. Fellas, I don’t give a bleep about what the Eagles were doing. I only care about what we were doing!” If the Mets have a problem with the way the Marlins celebrated their demise, then they should play better to make sure it never gets repeated.

ESPN’s CEO Jimmy Pitaro chimes in on MLB’s Postseason Picture at the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame ceremony

The person who had the best reason to be angry at the Mets’ failure to reach the playoffs was a very enthusiastic Yankees fan. I asked ESPN CEO Jimmy Pitaro, who was being inducted at the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame ceremony, his thoughts about not having a wildcard playoff between the Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers. “The lost ratings!” was all Pitaro could say as he shook his head, acknowledging the small-market Cincinnati Reds could never deliver the Nielsens that the Mets could.

He could at least console himself with the fact that the Red Sox and the Yankees delivered record wildcard series ratings for the Worldwide Leader in Sports. 

More from the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame Ceremony

Mark Lazarus, the former CEO of NBC Sports, and now the CEO of Comcast’s spinoff Versant cable network, was thrilled to talk about the USA Network landing an eleven-year rights deal to televise WNBA games starting in 2026. “I told you we would be in the sports business!” Lazarus said to me at the B&C event. 

Spectrum Reach president David Kline was also one of the inductees. He told me that cord-cutters are returning as Spectrum customers because many packages now include complimentary subscriptions to popular streaming services such as ESPN Unlimited, Disney Plus, Hulu, Peacock, HBO Max, Paramount Plus, Fox One, and AMC Plus. 

I asked him if the executives at these streaming services were reluctant to work with a cable provider since the conventional wisdom was that cable companies and streamers were adversaries. “I think they realized we can greatly improve their reach,” he said. The odds are these streaming companies, which are all part of legacy media, are battling new giant media behemoths as Netflix, Prime Video, and Apple TV Plus. 

Cooperstown Hall of Famer and Dominican pitching icon Pedro Martiez signs long-term contract to remain a baseball studio analyst for TNT Sports

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher, and former Mets ace, Pedro Martinez last week signed a long-term contract to remain as a baseball studio analyst for TNT Sports.

Pedro is also one of the many former players and executives who provides commentary on an upcoming Netflix documentary, “Who Killed the Montreal Expos?” The Expos left Montreal 21 years ago when they relocated to Washington, DC and changed their name to the Nationals. “Who Killed the Montreal Expos?” debuts October 21. 

A successful turnout for The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis’ 40th Annual Sports Legends Dinner at New York Hilton

The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis held its 40th anniversary Great Sports Legends Dinner at the New York Hilton last Monday evening. Among the sports notables who were honored this year were Albert Pujols, Warren Moon, Apollo Ohno, Dominique Wilkins, Dwight Howard, Thurman Thomas, and Kurt Busch. The emcees were singer Gloria Estefan and sportscaster extraordinaire, and Astoria native, Bob Costas. 

The late Pro Football Hall of Famer Nick Buoniconti started this important nonprofit after his son, Marc, was paralyzed playing football at the Citadel. The Buoniconti Fund, along with its research arm, the Miami Project, have made remarkable breakthroughs when it comes to getting people to walk after spinal injuries. They have expanded their work to seek cures in other neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, Multiple Sclerosis, and strokes. 

“Chad Powers” available now on Hulu

Hulu has released “Chad Powers” which stars Glen Powell as a former fictional University of Oregon QB Russ Holliday who drops the football before crossing the goal line at a Rose Bowl game turning a dramatic victory into a devastating loss. Things immediately deteriorate for Russ. 

Eight years later, he learns a Georgia college is in desperate need of a QB. He dons a prosthetic disguise and reinvents himself as Chad Powers in the hopes of finally making the NFL. 

Glen Powell is believable and compelling as the anti-hero lead. The writers have some fun with Russ/Chad being a conspiracy theorist with subversive jokes about COVID-19 vaccines, 9/11 being an “inside job.” and Hillary’s emails sprinkled throughout the dialog.

PBS set to present new music documentary, “King of Them All” this Friday, October 10th

This Friday (October 10), PBS will present a terrific music documentary, “King of Them All,” which looks at the 25-year history (1943-1968) of Cincinnati-based King Records, a label which has undeservedly been forgotten by the passage of time.

King was formed by a ninth-grade dropout named Syd Nathan who believed the big record labels failed to pay attention to both rural and urban artists. It was home to country & western artists such as Grandpa Jones, Merle Travis, and the Stanley Brothers, as well as R&B legends as exemplified by Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, Little Willie John, and the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. 

Nathan may have been a savvy businessman, but he did not possess golden ears. He failed to understand how catchy Hank Ballard’s “The Twist” was, Dick Clark swooped in and had his protegee, Chubby Checker record it. The rest, as they say, is history. Nathan also had a screaming match with James Brown in the recording studio over the commercial viability of “Please, Please, Please.”

“Everybody Loves Raymond: A 30th Anniversary Reunion” to be televised on TBS on Monday, November 24th

CBS will televise “Everybody Loves Raymond: A 30th Anniversary Reunion” on Monday, November 24. The show will reunite the surviving cast members, pay tribute to the late Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, and show never-seen-before outtakes. The show will be co-hosted by its co-creators, Flushing native Phil Rosenthal, and its star, the pride of Forest Hills, Ray Romano.

You can read more of Lloyd Carroll’s columns posted weekly on The Queens Chronicle.