What Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor needed to say about Mets’ huge sell-off

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The remaining Mets may not have seen the overhaul coming, however a minimum of publicly weren’t displaying any animus Tuesday.

Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, David Robertson, Mark Canha, Tommy Pham and Dominic Leone all departed in trades over the past week, leaving the Mets as a shell of the group that opened the season with a $364 million payroll and excessive World Sequence title aspirations.

“It’s a repositioning of gamers and belongings within the group, and we’re making an attempt to construct a sustainable system,” Francisco Lindor stated earlier than the Mets’ 7-6, 10-inning loss to the Royals. “It’s, I’ll name it … relocating the belongings that we’ve — shifting some gamers and making an attempt to allocate some gamers which might be going to assist us possibly late this yr, subsequent yr and within the years to return.”

Lindor, whose contract runs by means of 2031, stated he’s onboard with the philosophical shift and he stays optimistic concerning the close to future.

Pete Alonso, who can head to free company after the 2024 season, stated he’s making an attempt to win each sport no matter who’s on the roster.

“My job is to go on the market and carry out each single night time,” Alonso stated. “I can’t essentially fear concerning the group philosophy as a result of it’s simply in my DNA as a participant, each time I’m written within the lineup I’m doing every part I can to win the sport.”

Name it what you need, however the Mets are within the midst of a rebuild.

In a textual content to The Put up’s Steve Cohen, the proprietor admitted the Mets are trying past subsequent season.

“We might be aggressive in ’24, however I feel ’25-’26 is when our younger expertise makes an impression,” Cohen wrote. “Plenty of pitching in free company in ’24. Extra payroll flexibility in ’25. Acquired plenty of lifeless cash in ’24.”

Scherzer underscored that plan Tuesday when he advised The Athletic he was knowledgeable by basic supervisor Billy Eppler that the group doesn’t intend to pursue high free brokers this offseason and reload for 2024. As an alternative, the Mets are trying towards 2025 and extra seemingly ’26. That info prompted the 39-year-old Scherzer to waive his no-trade clause final weekend and settle for a commerce to the Rangers.

Eppler declined to deal with Scherzer’s feedback however stated he expects the Mets to compete subsequent season.

“Going into 2024, we don’t see ourselves as having the identical odds as we did in 2022 and 2023,” Eppler stated, reiterating feedback from final week. “However we’ll area a aggressive group in 2024, so now’s a time we begin to consider what sort of alternatives will exist within the wintertime, what sort of sources we could have at our disposal and put our greatest foot ahead. However to get to the sustainability we all the time discuss we have been going to have to do this organically.”

Eppler stated tanking to acquire higher draft positioning isn’t an choice.

“We received’t have the identical [World Series] odds in 2024, however we’ll put collectively a aggressive group,” Eppler stated.