Now that the first half of the baseball season has ceremoniously ended with the American League beating the National League in the All Star Game, it is time to see what the second half of the season looks like for the Mets.

At the moment, the Mets currently sit at fourth place in the National League East with a 39-47 record.  They are 12 games behind the Nationals in the Division, and they are 10.5 games behind the Colorado Rockies for the second Wild Card.  In addition to the Rockies, the Mets also trail the Cubs, Cardinals, Braves, Pirates, and Marlins.

In the second half of the season, the Mets have 68 games remaining with them split-up evenly between the home and road.  At home, the Mets opponents have a combined .511 winning percentage.  Their road opponents have a .499 winning percentage.  The combined winning percentage of all of their opponents is .505.

The respective winning percentages are skewed by the Mets having a home series against the Dodgers and the Mets having a road series against the Astros.  Taking those two series out of the equation, the respective winning percentages fall to .494 at home, .481 on the road, and .488 combined.  More to the point, if the Mets can just hold their own in those six games, the Mets have a slate of winnable games in front of them.

The question is whether the Mets will have enough to win those winnable games.  At the moment, the Mets are planning to sell.  If there are takers, the Mets will likely part ways with Jay Bruce, Asdrubal Cabrera, Lucas Duda, Curtis Granderson, and Addison Reed.  If any one of these players are moved, the Mets chances of winning games will likely take a hit.  That goes double for Reed, who right now is the only reliable arm in the bullpen.

But maybe the Mets don’t sell.

Right out of the break, the Mets host the Rockies and the Cardinals.  The Rockies are in the middle of a stretch that has seen them lost 13 of their last 17 games.  It’s not exactly like the Rockies lost just against the best teams in baseball either.  They were swept by the Giants, and they split a series with the Reds.

The Mets did just play a close series against the Cardinals.  There is a legitimate reason to believe that with a different setting in Citi Field, the Mets could flip the script.  That becomes more feasible when you consider the Cardinals are a dismal road team.

After that, Mets get to face the Athletics and Padres who are two of the worst teams in baseball.  At that point, it is certainly possible the Mets could be in a different position come trade deadline time. Maybe the Mets will be in a position to add to the bullpen rather than decimate it with a Reed trade.  As we see, they certainly have some pieces to trade to do that.

Ultimately, that has been the frustrating part of this season.  The door has been open the whole time, and the Mets have yet to truly enter into a race for the postseason.  The good news is there are about two weeks until the trade deadline.  At that point, the Mets will have a clear direction.

They will be either gearing up for another improbable run to the postseason, or they will have a youth movement with the Mets finally giving a chance to Amed Rosario, Dominic Smith, and Gavin Cecchini.

To that end, no matter what happens over the next couple of weeks, the fans will have reason to watch in August and September.  You will either have a team racing for the postseason supplemented by players coming back from injury, or they will have some young players beginning to make their mark on the league.