My 2025 Predictions, Revisited
I sometimes get things right
Well ... that didn’t go the way we thought it would.
You know the story: from 45-24 to 83-79, from OMG to Oy Vey. The 2025 Mets fell apart more spectacularly and comprehensively than one of those Vegas hotels, the ones that one second are standing there bright and shining, reflecting the fireworks in the sky, and the next, have vanished from the face of the earth, leaving nothing but a view of mountains on the horizon. No one predicted it. At least, I didn’t.
I did, however, make some other predictions. And in the name of accountability and fun, it’s time to take a look back at them.
Clay Holmes will dominate
Ok, let’s talk semantics.
By ordinary plain meaning, Holmes didn’t “dominate” in any sense of the word. But he was really good! He went 12-8 with a 3.53 ERA, and what’s more, he showed flashes of the domination on which my prediction was based. At the end of June, he was 8-4 with a 2.97 ERA. A rough stretch in July and August threw some bumps into that otherwise smooth ride, but he closed out the season with three straight scoreless outings, including six scoreless innings against the Marlins in a must-win game on the penultimate day of the season.
Based on the indefatigable eye test, Holmes started strong, got tired as he reached a career high in innings, then pulled it back together near the end.
Do you know who that reminds me of? Seth Lugo with the Padres in 2023, who, in his first full season as a starter, had a 3.59 ERA at the end of June, saw it rise to 4.19 in early August, and then went on a strong stretch to pull it back down to 3.57 by season’s end. The following season, of course, Lugo went 16-9 with an even 3.00 ERA and finished second in the Cy Young voting.
Will Holmes finish second in the NL Cy Young voting in 2026? I really can’t say, but yes.
By September, there will be mutterings about calling up Jett Williams and Jonah Tong
For Tong, obviously; he got called up. For Williams, not exactly — but the situation is a bit more complicated.
Williams, I would say, had proven himself at Double-A Binghamton by the end of May, when — in 43 games — he was batting .280/.379/.467 with 16 stolen bases. He had certainly proven himself by the end of June, when — in 67 games — he was batting .290/.405/.492 with 24 stolen bases. He didn’t let up in July. But the Mets left him at Double-A until August 10, when he finally moved up to Syracuse, and as one does, he struggled to open his stint at the higher level, with a .718 OPS in 34 games.
If Williams had moved up on June 10 instead of August 10, what might his season have looked like? Given another two months of work at Triple-A, a late-season callup could have been entirely plausible. Indeed, we’ve seen Williams make this kind of adjustment before; in his first tastes of Double-A in 2023 and an injury-plagued 2024, he hadn’t figured things out yet, but after making the jump full-time this season, he thrived.
He’ll play the entire 2026 season at age 22, and he’ll presumably start the year at Triple-A. Given that he can play both middle infield positions and center field, if he starts strong, a callup can’t possibly be far off.
I will regret not making a prediction about Brett Baty
Not really — but kind of.
In each of the previous two seasons, I’d made the same prediction about Baty: He’ll either bat .280, hit 20 home runs, or both. This year, I got cautious and backed off. Sure enough, he didn’t do either of those — but he did hit 18 home runs in 130 games, and certainly would have hit 20 had he spent the entire season as the full-time third baseman.
So guess what? Next year, the prediction is coming back.
The Mets will have three players hit 30 home runs
History predicted, history made! Vientos disappointed, but Soto (43), Alonso (38), and Lindor (31) came up big, and the Mets did something they’d never done before. Let’s do it again next year.
Jeff McNeil will bat .300
No he will not.
One of these David Stearns specials will work out splendidly
I was specifically thinking about Griffin Canning, and I guess the answer is kind of.
Canning started the year at a level that was almost surreal — he was 5-1 with a 2.50 ERA after his first start of May — but then seemed to be falling back to earth as the month ended. But then he went six scoreless innings against the Dodgers — the Dodgers! — in his first start of June. A few tough outings followed, but he was looking sharp again on June 26, when all of a sudden, a ruptured Achilles ended his season.
Long story short, he worked out splendidly when he was pitching — but by the end of June, he wasn’t pitching anymore. Which is to say, kind of.
Ronny Mauricio will lead the Mets in maximum exit velocity
This did seem like the kind of thing he would do, but he didn’t do it.
In fact, Mauricio’s hardest-hit ball of the season, a 111.3-mph single against the Pirates on June 27, ranked 70th among Mets balls in play in exit velocity. Had he hit a ball 117.3 mph, as he did in 2023, that would have topped the Mets’ leaderboard; that honor ended up belonging to Alonso, who mashed a ball at 115.9 mph on September 28. It was caught, ending the inning with the bases loaded and more or less ending the season.
Mauricio’s .226 average and .663 OPS in 184 plate appearances weren’t ideal, and with Baty seemingly holding down third, Lindor at short, McNeil on the roster, Williams in the pipeline, and Vientos and Acuña also in the mix, it’s increasingly hard to see where exactly Mauricio fits in. But he’s ridiculously strong and not far removed from being a top prospect, so the Mets should at least give him another year to try to figure things out.
So ... that’s where we are. No playoffs. No Gold Gloves. A lot of cold, dark weather before baseball comes back.
My God, I miss the 2025 Mets.