Moments after Francisco Lindor bounced into a season-ending double play to allow the mediocre Reds to claim the final spot in the National League playoffs, Mets play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen pointed to the parallels of Sunday’s loss and notable collapses of seasons past.
Cohen, while SNY cameras showed a somber Mets dugout slowly thin out and disappear into the clubhouse for the winter, pointed to the dreadful unravelings of 2007 and 2008, where the Mets were bounced on the final day of the season after losing to the non-competitive Marlins. In 2007, 2008, and now 2025, New York picked up huge wins against the Marlins in game 161 behind brilliant pitching performances, only to lose game 162 to finish on the outside looking in of a playoff appearance.
But the similarities stop there. This modern Mets undoing is unlike any the team has endured before, and is far, far worse.
Sure, there are some eerie similarities, from the final opponent of the regular season to the nature of how the last two games of the season played out. There were leads in the standings that many felt were bulletproof. They all ended without a postseason berth. But the 2025 collapse was worse than any before. The 2007 team was coming off an NLCS appearance and lost a seven-game lead with 17 to play, culminating in an absolute dud from Tom Glavine on the final day of the regular season. The 2025 club was also coming off a spirited NLCS run. The difference? This group followed it up by signing one of the game’s biggest stars in Juan Soto to the richest contract in the history of professional sports, while also bringing back key contributors in Pete Alonso and Sean Manaea to big paydays. The Mets’ astronomical payroll brought astronomical expectations, and they failed to crack the top six in the National League, finishing with just 83 wins after being the best team in baseball for two and a half months.
Not only did the 2025 Mets carry bonafide championship expectations, they had a chance to waltz into the postseason, even if they were floundering over the summer. In the expanded postseason, a team with as much talent as these Mets had to do a lot wrong to miss out on one of the three Wild Card spots, especially when the teams chasing them struggled to keep their heads above the .500 mark. A team stacked with as much top-end talent as New York, with the level of financial commitment from ownership, missing the playoffs in the expanded playoff era is unfathomable.
What also separates this Mets collapse from the rest is the nature of the opponent that eventually chased them down.
In 2007, the Phillies posted a 17-11 record in September and went 13-4 in their last 17 games. Yes, the Mets collapsed, but the Phillies also caught fire to take the division on the final day of the season. The 2025 Mets watched as the Reds play just one game over .500 for the final three months of the season, lose a crucial penultimate series to the putrid Pirates, and drop the final game of the season, yet still could not hold them off. This was not a case of an opponent going on a run and seizing a playoff spot. The Mets simply watched Cincinnati slowly coast by them in the standings, gaining ground in slow motion over a period of months before allowing the Reds to back into the postseason on Sunday afternoon.
Had the 2007 season occurred in 2025, they still would have comfortably made the playoffs as the third Wild Card. Focus that to 2008, and they would have comfortably been the second Wild Card team. In that light, the 2025 team not making a return to the postseason is difficult to comprehend. A team with Soto eclipsing 40 home runs and 30 stolen bases, with Francisco Lindor posting another 30/30 campaign, with Alonso having a major bounceback year, and Edwin Diaz looking like his prime self once again, couldn’t crack the playoff field with THREE Wild Cards? It’s tough to imagine, and makes it difficult to put this collapse on the same plane as the other painful failures that came before.
David Stearns will speak Monday, and then these stained Mets will disappear into the winter and likely take a hard look at what changes need to be made to avoid another atrocity such as the one that concluded on Sunday. Rightfully so. A season can’t end like this without consequences, and debating what changes are best for the organization is a topic for another day. For now, in the immediate aftermath, there is simply the realization that this second half choke is in a tier of its own, even when there are several other candidates to choose from.