Isaac Gramse ‘26
EE Sports Columnist

Things have been horrible in New York in terms of baseball. While I have already made an article about the disappointing Yankees, the Mets have also been struggling this year (more than they typically do). Going into the season, both teams were projected to be unstoppable forces in their respective league. And that’s understandable when you look at what both teams did in the offseason. 

The Mets signed future Hall of Famer and 2022 World Series Champion, Justin Verlander, with a two-year, 86.6 Million dollar contract, re-signed Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Diaz, and Daniel Vogelbach, and signed Japanese pitcher Kodai Senga for 5 years, 75 million dollars.

The Yankees went for a smaller approach, and didn’t indulge too much with all the free agents, they re-signed Aaron Judge to a 9 year, 360 million dollar contract. And re-signed Anthony Rizzo to a 2 year 40 million dollar contract. While also signing free agent Carlos Rodon for 6 years and 162 million dollars.

With both teams making important acquisitions, you would expect them to be World Series contenders, or a rematch of the 2000 fall classic, right? Wrong.

Edwin Diaz was out for the entirety if the 2023 season thanks to the World Baseball Classic, Justin Verlander is back in Houston after a horrible start in New York, Max Scherzer is now on the Texas Rangers, and it seems that the Mets have forgotten how to hit, pitch, or play defense.

On the Yankees side of things, Judge was out for most of the season after his collision at Dodger Stadium; Rizzo has hit rock bottom at the plate and it turns out he was playing the entire season with a concussion after colliding with Fernando Tatis Jr on a pickoff attempt earlier in the season (how the trainers didn’t find that out until recently bewilders me); Carlos Rodon has stunk; Luis Severino has too; Domingo German is on the restricted list because of substance abuse and alleged domestic abuse; and worst of all, after the team did nothing in the first half of the season, they made zero (yes, zero!) useful trades.

It is evident that both teams are clearly doing the opposite of what was expected of them and none of their players are showing any heart. It seems like we will have to wait a little while longer until we see both of these teams in the fall once again. My October prediction: Orioles-Reds World Series. Reds over Orioles in six games.