After getting swept by the Athletics of indecipherable geographic origin, the New York Mets have fallen under .500. There are people who want to pretend this is reason for grave concern so as to fit an anti-Mets narrative.

However, if you want to be fair and logical (most don’t), this wasn’t completely unexpected. While we can dig through small sample size data, tbd truth is the Mets were partially designed this way making this somewhat expected leaving real hope for the rest of the season.

On that note, here are reasons why the Mets are struggling.

1. Juan Soto, their best hitter, is on the IL.
2. Unless you’ve missed the past five seasons, Francisco Lindor is a slow starter who takes off in the second half.
3. Lindor had hamate bone surgery, which usually robs a player of power for months after the surgery.
4. Bo Bichette is a slow starter. He has a career .693 OPS in March/April only to see his numbers jump in May and beyond.
5. Bichette is a slow starter who is playing for a new team on a large contract while learning a new position.
6. Marcus Semien is a slow starter. He has a career ..691 OPS in March/April, and typically his OPS increases each month of the season.
7. Jorge Polanco is a second half player.
8. Polanco is playing through an Achilles injury.
9. Mark Vientos is a slow starter (sensing a theme here), who usually takes off around Memorial Day (for those that tracked him as a minor leaguer).
10. Carson Benge is a rookie bouncing between center and right.
11. Brett Baty has a career 86 wRC+, and most of the hope around him centered on an excellent August that buoyed his stats.
12. The first month of the season is usually the first or second worst for Kodai Senga.
13. Senga is coming off an injury plagued year and is finally being asked to adapt to a five man rotation.
14. The first and last month of the season are historically the two worst for David Peterson.
15. They’re biding time in the bullpen until A.J. Minter can return.
16. It’s a completely new staff and revamped roster around the embattled Carlos Mendoza.
17. It needs to be restated that Soto is hurt, and Lindor is a slow starter coming off hamate bone surgery.
18. For the returning position players, there is still more undoing of the Eric Chavez nonsense that needs to be done. That can’t all just happen after a few weeks of the season.
19. Weird stuff usually happens in the first month of the season in World Baseball Classic seasons.
20. It’s only April, and things have to unfold. It was awful in 2024, and that team went to the NLCS. It was great in 2025, and we had one of the most disappointing seasons in Mets history.

Yes, there are reasons for concern. Ljndor does seem off, and the Mets not carrying a back-up shortstop to give him a day seems like failed roster management.

All that said, this was a roster built with players who typically start slow, and that’s before we look at new homes and positions. Soto being hurt just makes everything seem worse.

Right now, Mets fans just have to suffer through it and wait for better baseball ahead. Trust me, it’s coming.