PORT ST. LUCIE — The Mets have aced the cocktail hour.
Seriously, has a team ever drummed up more excitement in the buildup to its initial full-squad workout? From Yoenis Cespedes’ tricked-out stuff that comes out of his garage to the midseason stuff of Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard in bullpen sessions, the Mets’ momentum keeps climbing like Donald Trump’s poll numbers.
Now comes the rest of the party, which is longer, far less predictable and replete with unanticipated land mines.
The Mets, who launched the next phase of their championship campaign Friday with that first full-squad workout at Tradition Field, possess the talent to win the party. Honoring that talent is as much about the boring stuff as the fun stuff, and that ultimately will determine this quest’s fate.
“We certainly realize that there’s going to be a lot of people after us. We get that,” manager Terry Collins said following the workout. “I’m of the mind to embrace it, as opposed to ignore it. … I think we’ve got to embrace it and worry about getting ready. We’ve got to get better in some areas that I talked to them about this morning.
“But I like our chances. I like our chances to go out and complete. It’s going to be fun to watch them get ready this spring.”
Those areas for potential improvement, Collins divulged, include running the bases more aggressively and, on the other side, faring better in limiting opponents’ efforts to steal bases.
Three National League teams qualified for the five playoff spots in both 2014 and 2015, and let’s face it: At the outset, clubs have faced tougher assignments than these 2016 Mets. You reasonably can eliminate six teams (Atlanta, Cincinnati, Colorado, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and San Diego) from the playoff conversation right now. Which means nine NL entries will be competing for those five invitations to October.
It’s a harsh month, October. While the Mets should take pride in coming so close to the title last year, they also should recall how close they came to losing to the Dodgers in the NL Division Series. The Mets’ new second baseman, Neil Walker, played for a Pirates team last year that won 98 games — eight more than the Mets in the regular season — only to end its season with a one-and-done wild-card game loss to the Cubs and Jake Arrieta.
Walker’s Pirates made the playoffs three straight years, after more than two decades of franchise agony, yet didn’t advance even to the NL Championship Series, let alone to the World Series. The veteran knows dangling such a far-reaching carrot of improving upon one’s postseason showing, one that can’t be accomplished before checking other boxes, isn’t necessarily pragmatic.
“It’s cliché, but the thought process is what it is. It’s day to day,” Walker said. “It’s series to series. You go into a three-game series, you win two of three, that’s a success. You win three of four, even better. The thought process stays the same, to not get too high, not get too low. Find some way to stay in the middle.”
The late January return of Cespedes made both the Mets and their fans ebullient, a rare sensation for the latter group. Cespedes’ car collection made the Mets the week’s darlings of social media and the MLB Network. Jacob deGrom already seems over his minor groin condition, and he and his fellow starting pitchers are ready to give this team a star on the mound every night, to steal the expression of Mets general manager Sandy Alderson.
Harvey, the lead dog of that rotation, said, “We’ve got to understand it’s still February 26.” More than a month remains before the Mets can exact some short-term revenge against the Royals in their April 3 Opening Night, World Series rematch.
So they head to work. To tweak those under-the-radar skills that can win more games. To condition. To shift the public’s attention from the player parking lot to the stadium.
Cocktail hour is more fun on a per-minute basis. But the main event is what people remember. Time to make the most of it.