One Quarter Into 2026 Season, Where Do Mets Go After Historically Poor Start?

There were a lot of expectations for the New York Mets as they headed into the 2026 campaign. Last season was a disaster that Mets fans were eager to erase from their memories, leading to the most aggressive offseason in baseball from New York’s front office.

Now that we are a quarter into the 2026 season, we have a clearer picture of how that aggressiveness has played out and what this Mets team could look like by the end of the year.

It’s been far from an ideal start for the Mets. Up until very recently, the Mets had the fewest wins in baseball. They’ve now won three in a row and six of their last seven, but they still sit at a 21-26 record as of Tuesday morning.

With the third-highest payroll in baseball, sitting four games below five hundred a quarter into the year is simply unacceptable. They brought in multiple stars during the offseason to turn things around for a Mets team that collapsed in 2025, but so far, it’s only brought more scrutiny to the Mets.

Injuries have ravaged the Mets’ lineup to start the year, with the core of Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor, Bo Bichette, and Jorge Polanco only starting five games together this season. To make things worse, 2.39 ERA right-hander Clay Holmes suffered a fibula fracture during the weekend that’ll only make the Mets’ pursuit back to the top more difficult.

New York is already 10.5 games back in the National League East after the Atlanta Braves’ scorching start to the year. If the last-place Mets want to turn things around and make the postseason, they’ll likely have to settle for a Wild Card spot.

It’s a huge disappointment for a club that went out and shook things up enough not only to make up for their offseason departures, but enough to genuinely land in the top-five rankings. Still sitting in last place after a quarter of the year, however, not only are the Mets clearly not a top-five club, but they’ll have to yet again wait to win the division for the first time since 2015.

The Athletic’s Jim Bowden predicts New York to be a seller at the deadline after their nightmare start to the season. Citing an unlikely chance to catch the Braves or even the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East, Bowden expects to see the Mets set up for next season instead. Star offseason acquisition Freddy Peralta will be a free agent this winter and is the No. 1 trade candidate if the Mets choose to go in that direction.

There is much more baseball to be played in 2026, but we are officially a quarter of the way into the season, and the Mets’ outlook is far from optimal. It’s either going to play out as one of the greatest bounce back stories in baseball, or one of the most embarrassing seasons in franchise history. Let’s hope it won’t be the latter.