Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?
-
Jorge Castillo
When New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns attempted to assemble the best possible roster for the 2025 season this winter, the top priority was signing outfielder Juan Soto. Next was the need to replenish the starting rotation and bolster the bullpen. Then, days before pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, the lineup received one final significant reinforcement when first baseman Pete Alonso re-signed.
Acquiring a player with a singing career on the side didn’t make the cut.
“No, that is not on the list,” Stearns said with a smile.
Stearns’ decision not to re-sign Jose Iglesias, the infielder behind the mic for the viral 2024 Mets anthem “OMG,” was attributed to creating more roster flexibility. But it also hammered home a reality: The scrappy 2024 Mets, authors of a magical summer in Queens, are a thing of the past. The 2025 Mets, who will report to Citi Field for their home opener Friday, have much of the same core but also some prominent new faces — and the new, outsized expectations that come with falling two wins short of the World Series, then signing Soto to the richest contract in professional sports history.
But there’s a question surrounding this year’s team that you can’t put a price tag on: Can these Mets rekindle the magic — the vibes, the memes, the feel-good underdog story — that seemed to come out of nowhere to help carry them to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series last season?
“Last year the culture was created,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “It’s a matter of continuing it.”
For all the success Stearns has engineered — his small-market Milwaukee Brewers teams reached the postseason five times in eight seasons after he became the youngest general manager in history in 2015 — the 40-year-old Harvard grad, like the rest of his front office peers knows there’s no precise recipe for clubhouse chemistry. There is no culture projection system. No Vibes Above Replacement.
“Culture is very important,” Stearns said last weekend in the visiting dugout at Daikin Park before his club completed an opening-weekend series against the Houston Astros. “Culture is also very difficult to predict.”
Still, it seems the Mets’ 2024 season will be all but impossible to recreate.
There was Grimace, the purple McDonald’s blob who spontaneously became the franchise’s unofficial mascot after throwing out a first pitch in June. “OMG,” performed under Iglesias’ stage name, Candelita, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Digital Songs chart, before a remix featuring Pitbull was released in October. Citi Field became a karaoke bar whenever Lindor stepped into the batter’s box with The Temptations’ “My Girl” as his walk-up song. Alonso unveiled a lucky pumpkin in October. They were gimmicks that might have felt forced if they hadn’t felt so right.
“I don’t know if what we did last year could be replicated because it was such a chaos-filled group,” Mets reliever Ryne Stanek said. “I don’t know if that’s replicable because there’s just too many things going on. I don’t know if that’s a sustainable model. But I think the expectation of winning is really important. I think establishing what we did last year and coming into this year where people are like, ‘Oh, no, that’s what we’re expecting to do,’ makes it different. It’s always a different vibe whenever you feel like you’re the hunter versus being the hunted.”
For the first two months last season, the Mets were terrible hunters. Lindor was relentlessly booed at Citi Field during another slow start. The bullpen got crushed. The losses piled up. The Mets began the season 0-5 and sunk to rock bottom on May 29 when reliever Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands during a 10-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers that dropped the team to 22-33.
That night, the Mets held a players-only meeting. From there, perhaps coincidentally, everything changed. The Mets won the next day, and 67 of their final 107 games.
This year, to avoid an early malaise and to better incorporate new faces like Soto and Opening Day starter Clay Holmes, players made it a point to hold meetings during spring training to lay a strong foundation.
“At the end of the day, we know who we are and that’s the beauty of our club,” Alonso said. “Not just who we are talent-wise, but who each individual is as a man and a personality. For us, our major, major strength is our collective identity as a unit.”
Organizationally, the Mets are attempting a dual-track makeover: Becoming perennial World Series contenders while not taking themselves too seriously.
The commemorative purple Grimace seat installed at Citi Field in September — Section 302, Row 6, Seat 12 in right field — remains there as part of a two-year contract. Last week, the franchise announced it will feature a New York-city themed “Five Borough” race at every home game — with a different mascot competing to represent each borough. For a third straight season, USA Today readers voted Citi Field — home of the rainbow cookie egg roll, among many other innovative treats — as having the best ballpark food in baseball.
In the clubhouse, their identity is evolving.
“I’m very much in the camp that you can’t force things,” Mets starter Sean Manaea said. “I mean, you can, but you don’t really end up with good results. And if you wait for things to happen organically, then sometimes it can take too long. So, there’s like a nudging of sorts. It’s like, ‘Let’s kind of come up with something, but not force it.’ So there’s a fine balance there and you just got to wait and see what happens.”
Stearns believes it starts with what the Mets can control: bringing positive energy every day and fostering a family atmosphere. It’s hard to quantify, but vibes undoubtedly helped fuel the Mets’ 2024 success. It’ll be a tough act to follow.
“It’s fluid,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I like where guys are at as far as the team chemistry goes and things like that and the connections and the relationships. But it’ll continue to take some time. And winning helps, clearly.”
-
Eli Lederman
BYU landed the program’s highest-ranked pledge since at least 2006 on Monday when four-star tight end Brock Harris, ESPN’s No. 33 overall recruit and the No. 1 player in the state of Utah, announced his commitment to coach Kalani Sitake and the Cougars.
Harris, a 6-foot-7, 240-pound prospect from Saint George, Utah, is ESPN’s fourth-ranked tight end in the 2026 class. He chose BYU over Michigan, Georgia, Miami, Oregon and Utah following multiple trips to all six schools over the past year prior to Harris’ announcement at Pine View (Utah) High School on Monday afternoon. He lands with the Cougars as the lone ESPN 300 pledge among five prospects currently committed to the program’s 2026 class.
The son of a former BYU baseball player, Harris attracted heavy Power 4 interest and took an extensive number of visits throughout his process — most recently to Michigan in late March — before opting to remain in his home state with BYU.
Harris previously told ESPN that his connection with the program’s coaching staff began after he first attended a BYU prospect camp in the eighth grade. Those ties were ultimately strong enough for the Cougars to fend off national powers like Georgia, Oregon and Michigan for the coveted tight end recruit who grew up roughly 260 miles southwest of campus.
A standout route runner for his size, Harris projects to be a versatile hybrid tight end at the college level, equipped with sharp blocking ability but also elite pass-catching traits that could allow him to become a dangerous downfield target. Harris, who has hauled in 118 passes for 1,678 yards and 21 touchdowns across three varsity seasons, will join a thin and unseasoned BYU tight ends room in 2026 with Cougars tight ends Carsen Ryan and Ethan Erickson both out of eligibility following the 2025 season.
Harris will become BYU’s highest-ranked high school addition in the ESPN recruiting era (since 2006) and only the program’s seventh top 300 pledge in that span if he signs with the Cougars later this year. He joins three-star tight Ty Goettsche, cornerback Justice Brathwaite and a pair of in-state prospects in quarterback Kaneal Sweetwyne and outside linebacker Penisimani Takitaki among the early commits to BYU’s upcoming recruiting class.
Harris is now the second pledge among the eight tight ends ranked inside ESPN’s top 150 prospect in 2026, joining five-star Oregon pledge Kendre’ Harrison (No. 11 in the ESPN 300), who committed to the Ducks this past November.
After missing out on Harris, Georgia remains heavily involved in the recruitments of five-star tight end Kaiden Prothro (No. 19) and Mark Bowman (No. 24). Oregon is another program in the mix for Bowman, who reclassified from the 2027 cycle earlier this year, and could still rejoin the race for Ian Premer (No. 60). Former Texas A&M pledge Xavier Tiller (No. 83) is set for official visits later this spring with Alabama, Auburn, Florida State and USC. Four-star tight end Mack Sutter (No. 138) has narrowed his recruitment to Alabama, Illinois, Ohio State, Ole Miss and Penn State and will take officials with each program from April 11 to June 20.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway