Culture
Mets shouldn't be buyers. They should be aggressive buyers at the deadline
NEW YORK — On Wednesday, in discussing how his bullpen plans shift moment to moment over a nine-inning game, Carlos Mendoza chuckled at the idea of forming a pregame plan and sticking to it.
“I don’t know that there’s ever a time you come up with a game plan and stick to it,” the Mets manager said. “Every time you make an adjustment because the game unfolds. … You have an idea, but then you have to make adjustments.”
Perhaps Mendoza’s boss, David Stearns, should take that advice when it comes to this season.
The Mets entered 2024 with a clear, consistent plan from ownership down to the clubhouse. While they did not possess the high expectations of previous spring trainings, they thought they could be legitimate contenders for the postseason while preserving a sustained window of contention in the future. And here they are, days ahead of the trade deadline, as legitimate contenders for the postseason who have preserved a sustained window of contention in the future.
But after another memorable win Thursday night, a walk-off 3-2 victory over Atlanta that felt like the inverse of so many nightmarish nights at Turner Field, maybe it’s time for Stearns and the New York front office to get a little greedy about 2024. Yes, the Mets are going to be buyers at the trade deadline. But let’s make a case for the Mets to do more than add a reliever in the next week, a case for the Mets to be aggressive buyers like they last were en route to an unexpected pennant in 2015.
The Mets are good enough
Let’s do some blind resumes for teams on the morning of July 26 over the years.
Blind resumes
Team
|
W
|
L
|
Pct.
|
RD
|
NL Rank
|
GB of Playoffs
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A |
56 |
46 |
0.549 |
85 |
5 |
— |
B |
55 |
47 |
0.539 |
9 |
T5 |
— |
C |
55 |
47 |
0.539 |
49 |
T3 |
— |
D |
54 |
48 |
0.529 |
23 |
5 |
— |
E |
50 |
46 |
0.521 |
46 |
7 |
0.5 |
F |
48 |
51 |
0.485 |
36 |
10 |
6 |
OK, blindfolds off! What do those pretty similar teams all have in common? They all won the pennant.
NL pennant-winners (plus the Mets)
Team
|
W
|
L
|
Pct.
|
RD
|
NL Rank
|
GB of Playoffs
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
56 |
46 |
0.549 |
85 |
5 |
— |
|
55 |
47 |
0.539 |
9 |
T5 |
— |
|
55 |
47 |
0.539 |
49 |
T3 |
— |
|
54 |
48 |
0.529 |
23 |
5 |
— |
|
50 |
46 |
0.521 |
46 |
7 |
0.5 |
|
48 |
51 |
0.485 |
36 |
10 |
6 |
They were also pretty aggressive at the trade deadline. I classified the 2018 Dodgers (Manny Machado) and 2022 Phillies (David Robertson, Brandon Marsh and Noah Syndergaard) as All-in Buyers — teams that surrendered significant prospect capital for the present. The 2019 Nationals added three relievers, including the guy who would record the final out of the World Series. In 2021, Atlanta brought in four outfielders, including the NLCS and World Series MVPs. In 2023, Arizona dealt for a closer to better position itself for the postseason.
(For what it’s worth, the 2015 Mets, another All-in Buyer, were 50-48 with a negative-seven run differential on July 26.)
No, the Mets lack the kind of rotation and bullpen you generally rely on to carry you in October. However, New York possesses an offense that appears built for the postseason. As evidenced by its bashing of Gerrit Cole twice in the last month, the Mets’ lineup can go deep with the best of them. Only Baltimore has hit more homers since the Mets’ hot streak started May 30, and they’re tied for fourth in the majors in homers on the season — ahead of everyone but the Dodgers in the National League. On Thursday, New York was in the game against a dominant Chris Sale because Francisco Lindor turned one Sale mistake into two Mets runs.
Homers carry offenses come October. The similarly productive but differently constituted offense in 2022 tied for 15th in the league in home runs, then watched Atlanta and San Diego outhomer it in the biggest games of the season. This Mets offense can swing a short series with its power.
The National League is open
Here’s an important caveat: If I covered the Pirates or the Reds or the Padres or the Diamondbacks, I’d probably be making the exact same case. Because the National League is as open as it’s been in years.
Los Angeles and Atlanta have been the two best teams in the senior circuit for the last several seasons. Both are enduring more turbulent regular seasons than they’re accustomed to. The Dodgers continue to have health questions about their rotation, a dynamic that doomed them last October. Atlanta’s best hitter and best pitcher are out for the season. Its lineup looks like a shell of what the Mets are used to confronting.
While the Phillies have taken the mantle of the NL’s team to beat, they’re a team the Mets are pretty good at beating. They memorably went 14-5 against Philadelphia in 2022, and even during a down 2023 went 6-7 against it. This year, the Mets are 2-4 against the Phillies. And remarkably, since the start of the 2022 season, New York is 10-3 when facing either Aaron Nola or Zack Wheeler.
The timing actually clicks
It’s really tempting for teams to try manipulating their window of contention — to be cautious this year to put more eggs in a basket down the line. In doing so, however, they often miss the year to win.
The 2015 Mets could have been more cautious: Syndergaard and Steven Matz were rookies, Wheeler was hurt, the NL had several very good teams — surely the Mets’ best chance to advance in October would be down the road? As it turns out, that young rotation was never as healthy or as dominant as it was right then and there, and the Mets’ aggressiveness paid off in a pennant.
(Contrast that with the 2013-2015 Pirates, who never made the big move to push a very good team over the top. They still haven’t won a postseason series since 1979.)
For the Mets, it’s also fair to ask: What year, specifically, are they waiting for? Injuries to some key prospects this year mean New York won’t head into spring training 2025 planning to give an everyday spot to a talented rookie. The full incorporation of guys like Jett Williams, Drew Gilbert, Luisangel Acuña and Ryan Clifford won’t happen until 2026 — by which point Lindor will be 32 and Brandon Nimmo 33, on the outskirts of their primes.
The goal is to open a sustained window of contention and pounce on legitimate opportunities to win divisions, pennants and championships. The Mets are there. The two players they have signed long-term are having career-best years. Their cornerstone first baseman might not be here next year.
The window of contention is already open.
What does this mean?
Let’s be honest: This is where most columns like this end. There’s all that reasoning for going for it, now it’s Stearns’ job to turn that into something.
But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the current shape of the deadline market makes it difficult to go for it. Teams like the Pirates and Reds and Padres and Diamondbacks are all still in it in the National League, and the number of sellers is tinier than usual. The best starter likely to be traded may not be able to start much more this season. The best reliever likely to be traded has a walk rate you wouldn’t comfortably hit on in blackjack.
It’s harder to provide the kind of blueprint for the deadline that I do for the offseason because acquisition costs in trades are so much more difficult to project than open-market salaries. So I’ll settle for suggestions that would fit more of an all-in approach.
1. Engage the White Sox on Garrett Crochet with the understanding you’d be acquiring him to pitch out of the bullpen in 2024. The Athletic reported Thursday that Crochet would prefer to stay on a starter’s schedule (albeit with limited innings) down the stretch of this season unless an acquiring team signs him to a contract extension.
As I outlined Thursday morning, the Mets could use a long-term ace. Here’s a 25-year-old left-handed All-Star who leads the league in strikeouts and is interested in a long-term extension. Those all feel like good things. (Like Wheeler, Crochet’s likely arbitration salaries for the next two seasons will be suppressed by his lack of availability up to this point in his career. Thus, a long-term extension would cost less against the luxury tax than it might otherwise.)
Trade for Crochet, extend him and make him a multi-inning reliever with scheduled appearances the rest of the way. Imagine him coming in behind your right-handed starters in the postseason and serving as a one-man bridge to Edwin Díaz. Put him back in the rotation in 2025 and beyond. That might be worth the significant package of prospects it would require, as it would mean the Mets wouldn’t have to dive into the deep end of the starting pitching market this winter for a free agent already in his 30s.
2. If Crochet proves too much, combine a rotation upgrade — chiefly, a pitcher who misses more bats than the current starters — with two additions in the pen and one to the bench.
In the rotation, Detroit’s Jack Flaherty and Toronto’s Yusei Kikuchi come to mind. Flaherty will cost a good amount, but he too could become a viable option to re-sign.
For the bullpen, one high-leverage lefty should be the priority. Scroll past Tanner Scott to his teammate Andrew Nardi or to The Athletic’s years-long target Andrew Chafin of the Tigers. Another multi-inning arm could help keep the group fresh, as well. Cincinnati’s Buck Farmer or Detroit’s Alex Faedo could work there.
The final piece would be a versatile bench contributor who could protect the Mets against regression or injury at a few different positions. Detroit’s Andy Ibañez, Tampa Bay’s Amed Rosario, Toronto’s Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Oakland’s Abraham Toro could fit that role.
(Photo of José Buttó: Adam Hunger / Getty Images)
Culture
Emma Raducanu’s turning point and the fairness of tennis wildcards
Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.
This week, Emma Raducanu made her plans for 2025, the off-season, well, happened and the Australian Open dealt out some not-so-wild wildcards.
If you’d like to follow our fantastic tennis coverage, click here.
How will Emma Raducanu handle her rise back up the rankings?
Raducanu started 2024 ranked world No. 301 after an injury-ravaged 2023. Thanks to her ‘special’ ranking — the WTA term for a protected ranking — and the occasional wildcards that come the way of a Grand Slam champion, she could compete at most of the events she wanted to while taking breaks when necessary. Her ranking now stands at No. 57.
“One thing with the WTA is we’re pretty much made to play the events when we’re in a certain ranking. Where my ranking was and is at, I didn’t have to play every single event,” she told reporters at London’s National Tennis Centre this month.
Raducanu added that “having to play every single tournament” is a major burden not just physically, but also in producing a balanced schedule. “Having a mulligan to not play a tournament would be a really good addition,” she said.
One of the big discussion points this year has been the demands placed on players by the WTA’s increased number of mandatory events, which includes all Grand Slams, all WTA 1000 events and six 500-level tournaments for those ranked high enough for automatic entry (designed to bolster those events just below the majors and to give the 250-level events just below them more of a regional focus). The world No. 2, Iga Swiatek, lost the top spot to Aryna Sabalenka in October after not playing enough 500-level events.
“It’s not going to end well, and it makes tennis less fun for us, let’s just say,” Swiatek said in a news conference at the Cincinnati Open in August. “I don’t think it should be like that because we deserve to rest a little more.”
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Raducanu, who missed the Asian hard-court swing with a foot injury in September after organizing her season around that block of tournaments, said that the time away helped outside of physical recovery. She went to see her grandmother in China, which “was a bit of a turning point”.
“I was playing the piano, painting. Exploring my artistic side a bit. It just got me thinking. That final foot injury just had me saying, ‘I want to stay healthy next year’.
“That was probably a big moment where I wanted to spend more time and energy on my fitness.”
Raducanu, who subsequently brought on fitness coach Yutaka Nakamura for the 2025 season, wants to plan her events “holistically” after feeling her scheduling was too short-sighted. She wants to ask herself, “What is the best for me this year? What is the main objective? How are we going to build the schedule around the main objective for this year?”
Whatever she decides, Raducanu says that in 2025: “Everything I want to do is match a philosophy. I don’t want to be doing things that are bitty. Every decision I make, I want it to link to a deeper reason. Not just, ‘OK, it’s spontaneous, I’m going to do this’. Everything has to link together.”
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Charlie Eccleshare
Once again, how wild is a wildcard?
With prize money for just making the first round of a Grand Slam approaching $100,000 (£80,000), the countries that host them may want to consider adjusting their process of handing out wildcard entries.
It’s always been reasonably unfair to young players from countries other than Australia, France, Great Britain and the United States that they basically have no shot at receiving the free pass that host countries hand out to their own. With the windfall it now brings, it seems increasingly out of whack.
Tennis Australia released its wildcards for next month’s Australian Open on Friday.
Stan Wawrinka got one. He’s 39, a three-time Grand Slam champion who won the tournament in 2014. He also got whipped in the first round of the U.S. Open by Italy’s Mattia Bellucci. He’s ranked world No. 161 right now.
Other than the entries they swap with other Grand Slam hosts and the champion of an Asia-Pacific playoff, the Aussies kept the rest for themselves. The other men:
- Tristan Schoolkate, 23, 1-3 in 2024 on the ATP Tour, ranked 168.
- Li Tu, 28, 0-4 on the ATP Tour in 2024, ranked 174. He did take a set off Carlos Alcaraz at the U.S. Open.
- James McCabe, 0-4 on the ATP Tour in 2024, ranked 256.
On the women’s side, Daria Saville, No. 108, and Ajla Tomljanovic, No. 109, are defensible. They’ve battled injuries in recent years, have been inside the top 50 and are right on the cusp of a main draw spot. They may very well get in on ranking once withdrawals begin.
Maya Joint, 18, isn’t far behind at No. 116, but she’s just 1-2 at the tour level. Emerson Jones is 16 and ranked No. 375. Talia Gibson is 20 and ranked No. 140 but is yet to win a tour-level match.
Grand Slams rightly market themselves as the pinnacle of tennis. That may be true, but they’re not nearly as tough as they could be with fewer home-country free passes into their main draws.
Matt Futterman
And how long is a piece of string (or a tennis off-season)?
Do you want to know why players complain so often about the off-season? Because there isn’t one. Not really.
Ben Shelton took four days off.
Carlos Alcaraz didn’t touch his rackets for 10 days, which might sound like a lot.
Players competing in the United Cup have to be in Australia on Christmas Eve, a mere eight days away. It takes two days just to get there from much of the world. A handful of top players, including Taylor Fritz, are heading to Abu Dhabi for the World Tennis League exhibition that runs December 19-22. Many of them use it as part of their pre-season prep.
Fritz played his last 2024 match at the Davis Cup on November 20. Between then and landing in Abu Dhabi, he will have squeezed in a 10-day fitness block in Florida and a 10-day on-court camp in L.A. Factor in intercontinental travel and you can count the off-days on just about one hand.
That’s not an off-season. That’s a long weekend.
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Recommended reading:
🏆 The winners of the week
🎾 WTA:
🏆 Viktorija Golubic (No. 7 seed) def. Celine Naef 7-5, 6-4 to win the Limoges Open (125) in Limoges, France. It is her fourth WTA 125 title.
📅 Coming up
🎾 ATP
📍Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: ATP Next Gen Finals featuring Arthur Fils, Alex Michelsen, Jakub Mensik, Learner Tien.
🎾 Exhibition
📍Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: World Tennis League featuring Iga Swiatek, Daniil Medvedev, Aryna Sabalenka, Nick Kyrgios.
Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men’s and women’s tours continue.
(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
Culture
Joao Lucas Reis da Silva, the first out gay active professional male tennis player, was just posting a selfie
Saturday, December 7, Joao Lucas Reis da Silva, a 24-year-old professional tennis player, did about the most normal thing anyone does these days. He posted a couple selfie on Instagram.
It was his partner’s birthday, so he posted a sweet carousel of them posing by the water in Rio de Janeiro. “I love you so much,” he wrote. The post made him a trailblazer — the first out gay active professional male tennis player — but he was just wishing his partner a happy birthday.
“I didn’t think about it… I just wanted to post a picture with him,” Reis da Silva told The Athletic Sunday from São Paolo, in his first international interview since he inadvertently made himself a part of tennis history.
About an hour earlier, he had won a tournament for the first time in four years, defeating Daniel Dutra da Silva 7-5, 1-6, 6-4 to lift the Procopio Cup and earn a spot in the qualifying at the Rio Open, the ATP 500 event he has played the past two years. Not a bad few days for the world No. 367.
“It’s been a crazy week but in the end it was perfect,” he said. After two long injury layoffs, the 24-year-old said he has played the best tennis of his life of late, reaching the semifinals of a tournament in Chile before this run to the title in São Paulo. Even as he felt the tennis world watching him in a way it never had before.
“I didn’t feel pressure,” he said. “I was happy. I had my boyfriend here with me. He was supporting me. My whole team was here.”
The women’s tennis tour has had numerous out gay players, including all-time greats Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova, who won 98 Grand Slam titles between them across singles and doubles.
Men’s tennis has not been this way. Bill Tilden, the American star who dominated tennis in the 1920s, never publicly discussed his sexuality outside of his 1948 book, “My Story: A Champion’s Memoirs.” Brian Vahaly, who played in the 2000s and reached a career-high of world No. 57, and Bobby Blair, on tour in the 1980s, came out after they had retired from professional tennis.
Reis da Silva said Sunday that he told his family and friends that he was gay five years ago. “Before that, it was tough,” he explained.
“I couldn’t say too much about myself to my coaches, to my friends. When I tried to love myself, that was something different. It changed my life, changed everything, the relationship with my parents, with my coaches.”
Over a year ago, Reis da Silva fell in love with Gui Sampaio Ricardo, a Brazilian actor and model. Then Ricardo’s birthday rolled around for 2024, and Reis da Silva did what 24-year-olds do.
“I was like, ‘Oh my god, it’s my boyfriend’s birthday. Like happy birthday. I love you.’ And then, boom!
“It was so normal for me that I didn’t think about it.”
Messages and support from big names inside and outside the tennis world began to roll in. Lulu Santos, a massive music star in Brazil, sent him a message. Thiago Monteiro, Brazil’s current No. 1, added heart emojis to the post. He got a like from Diego Hypolito, a gay Brazilian gymnast who won a silver medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
Just like that, this largely unknown player from Recife, a coastal city in Brazil’s northeast corner, had become a sports and cultural icon. He said he expected to receive some negative reactions, but the responses have been “99.9 percent positive.”
“I’m really happy that people respect me, that people look at me, admire me maybe,” he said.
Speaking in an interview with The Telegraph in 2018, Vahaly said that he heard homophobic comments from other players in the locker room, describing it as “part of the culture.” He added that he hoped for a time when “we can say, ‘Congratulations,’ and then quickly move on. For people to be defined by their sexuality is what we need to get past.”
Reis da Silva, who said he was aware of Vahaly being honored by the U.S. Open (he will be USTA president beginning in 2025), remembers being 18 and hearing someone saying something offensive in the gym.
“In the locker rooms and at tournaments I used to hear some things that kind of bothered me,” he said.
“But when I started to tell everyone that I’m gay and these people knew about it, they stopped saying these things. It’s like when they have someone close to them that is gay, they respect them more. They stop doing sh**** comments,” Reis da Silva said.
“Maybe that’s a big thing to stop it — if people see someone in the top that is gay, things can change. People might stop saying things they shouldn’t that hurt people.”
Alison Van Uytvanck, the recently retired former world No. 37 who is married to physio Emilie Vermeiren, said that she never received any negative comments in the locker room. In an interview earlier this year, Van Uytvanck told The Athletic that “it is kind of surprising“ that the ATP Tour was yet to have an out, active male player.
“If only one player, like a top 100 player, would be open about it, it would be easier for others to open up.”
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Reis da Silva said seeing a role model in the sport would have made a huge difference to him.
“When I was 16, 15, I had problems accepting myself.
“Maybe if I had had someone playing saying, ‘I’m gay, I’m here, I’m competing for the big tournaments,’ it would have been easier for me to accept myself and to love myself. People have told me that. People told me that they admire me. That I inspire people. So it’s a big deal for me and them.
“I don’t have a problem with being remembered as the great gay tennis player,” he said, “but I don’t want to talk about that every time, you know?
“I know there will be a lot of attention on me.”
Born into a tennis-playing family, Reis da Silva said he began hitting balls when he was three. He followed in the footsteps of his brother, who is six years older and who competed at the junior level. As a little boy, Reis da Silva was so obsessed with tennis that he would cry when his father told him it was time to go home.
He began to compete nationally at 10, leaving home at 13 for São Paulo, where he lived and trained for seven years before he moved to Rio de Janeiro. Reis da Silva prefers to battle from the baseline, rather than rush the net, and he rates his service return and his backhand as his biggest weapons.
“I love to break serves,” he said. “I like to stay there in the point and be aggressive in my forehand and play big rallies.”
He has competed throughout the U.S., Europe and Australia in addition to South America, playing the Grand Slams as a junior. After the win in São Paulo, he plans to take a week off, including a few days of holiday with his boyfriend in Porto de Galinhas, the beach town known for its natural pools and white sand. He will then spend Christmas with his boyfriend’s family in Goiania, a small city in the center of the country near the capital, Brasilia.
After that, he will return to Rio to begin preparations for some Challenger tournaments (one rung below the ATP Tour) that lead into the South American ATP Tour swing in February and the Rio Open. His big goal for 2025 is to play in the qualifying tournament for Roland Garros — and to build the tennis life he wants.
“It’s an individual sport, so you can be whatever you want,” he said hopefully. “Everybody will accept you.”
(Top photo: Joao Pires / Photojump)
Culture
Can You Identify These London Locations in the Books of Charles Dickens?
A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself — and in the works of Charles Dickens, that character was 19th-century London. This week’s literary geography quiz highlights locations or landmarks around the city that are mentioned in five of Dickens’s books, and each question offers a London-themed hint to help jog your memory. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. Links to the books will be listed at the end of the quiz if you’d like to do further reading.
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