Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen finally addressed the media Friday afternoon before the team begins the second half of its season against the Marlins in Miami. There were no chairs thrown this time around.
Van Wagenen discussed a multitude of topics, but the quote of the day probably was "They came and got us" when asked about his "come get us" line to the NL East before the season. The Mets are 13½ games back in the division.
He then joined WFAN's Mike Francesa Friday to discuss the team's 40-50 first half. He opened by giving a state of the union of the Mets right now.
"We're not very good and we're disappointed with it and we are in the standings is not something we're happy about," Van Wagenen told Francesa. "We're sorry to our fans that they haven't been able to see us win more games. We know we want to do better. We got to figure out a way to do better. We had a pretty ambitious offseason. Not everything we did to address the bullpen or our run production or anything else for that matter has gone according to plan. We're not going to quit. We got to be opportunistic and try and find ways to put us in a better position."
With the Mets seven games back of the second Wild Card spot, their playoff hopes shrink by the day. With the trade deadline looming on July 31, there's a strong chance this team sells off players that have expiring contracts.
"As it relates to the trade deadline, we do have to face the reality that it's going to be a tall climb for us to get back in this thing and be in contention," Van Wagenen said. "Hopefully we're able to do so and we can adjust accordingly whether we buy while we're also looking to explore opportunities to move forward with some new players. I would anticipate us being ears wide open for opportunities."
Most people don't expect this team to go anywhere this season.
"I think we're the underdogs now," the first-year GM said. "We have got a long way to go. We have been written off by a lot of people. We continue to evaluate our coaching staff. We would anticipate a little bit better health and in doing so, we should surprise some people."
Is Van Wagenen pleased with the job second-year manager Mickey Callaway has done?
"Mickey has had a tough job. We haven't made it easy on him in any way, shape or form," Van Wagenen said. "I'm looking forward to him continuing to bring his energy and passion out to the ballpark with the belief we can win. He truly believes we can win and I think he's translating that to the players every day. We'll keep supporting him in that effort."
The GM had to be asked about his chair-throwing incident, where he reportedly threw a chair after a loss in a meeting with Callaway.
"I threw it in a moment of frustration. I was mad that we weren't winning games," Van Wagenen told Francesa Friday. "As a group, we wanted to distress and leave my message in that room was to stress to try things different. Try to shake it up. Try and do things different than the way we have been doing it in hopes to get a different result. We need to do the little things better. When the players don't execute fundamentals, we can throw up our hands at them or we can try to do new drills and create a stronger emphasis on it. I think the coaches are committed to doing that here in the second half. We had guys out here doing early work today, working on fundamentals. We're not going to lose if we're not trying. We're going to put everything into it and ultimately we'll take our chances if we double double on doing the little things right and try to go beat the other team we're facing every night."
Many people believe that the Wilpons are the reason Callaway still has a job. Is there truth to that?
"This idea that anything is dictated by ownership or any part of the organization is just not true," the agent-turned GM replied. "I think we work together. As a baseball operations department, come to a consensus on recommendations. We then have those discussions with ownership. From jump street, ownership has been supportive of us as baseball ops and I have no reason to expect anything different."
Also, in injury news, Jed Lowrie had yet another setback. He had been building up his left side, but now has a strained right calf. He isn't playing baseball.
You can hear the entire conversation with Francesa and the Mets GM in the audio player above.
Listen to Mets games this season on the team's new flagship station -- our sister station -- WCBS 880 AM.
