Mets Keep Mendoza Despite MLB's Worst Record — And the Offense Numbers Are a Betting Red Flag

Per MLB.com, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns went on record Friday saying the organization has no plans to fire manager Carlos Mendoza, even as the club sits at 10-21 — the worst record in baseball — after losing 17 of their last 20 games. 'We don't view this as a manager problem and we don't intend to make a change,' Stearns said. That's a front office publicly accepting the current state of operations. For bettors, that acceptance is a signal, not a comfort.

The numbers underneath this Mets roster are genuinely alarming. New York is scoring 3.42 runs per game, second fewest in the majors, and their team OPS+ sits at 79 — dead last in baseball. That's not a cold streak. That's a structural offensive failure. Injuries to Francisco Lindor (hamate, calf), Jorge Polanco (wrist), and Juan Soto (calf) have stripped the lineup of its three most dangerous bats, and there's no credible timeline suggesting all three return healthy and in sync within the next few weeks. The club just posted the fourth-worst April in franchise history, a list that starts with the 1962 expansion Mets.

The organizational framing here matters. Stearns essentially drew a line around Mendoza and redirected accountability toward roster construction — which is accurate, but it also signals no dramatic internal reset is coming. No managerial shakeup, no emergency lineup overhaul. Meanwhile, Boston and Philadelphia both made dugout changes in the past week and have gone a combined 5-2 since. The Mets are boarding a nine-game West Coast trip without that kind of institutional jolt, and without their best hitters healthy.

For team total purposes, the Mets offense is the most exploitable number in the daily MLB slate right now. At 3.42 runs per game with Lindor, Soto, and Polanco all compromised, New York is consistently failing to clear even modest team total lines. Fade the Mets' run production aggressively on this road trip — particularly in games where they face mid-rotation starters who can induce weak contact, because this lineup has a 79 OPS+ that isn't hiding anything. The Angels open the series Friday, and while Los Angeles isn't exactly a rotation juggernaut, they don't need to be to exploit a lineup this undermanned. Mets team totals set at 3.5 or above deserve serious under consideration every night until at least two of those three injured bats are back in the order and producing.

The broader angle: Stearns' public commitment to Mendoza removes the one wildcard that could have sparked a short-term behavioral shift in the clubhouse. New managers generate 1-2 weeks of statistical noise that can temporarily inflate run scoring and energy — the Phillies' 3-0 start under Mattingly is a live example. The Mets won't get that bump. What you have is a $400 million roster playing like an expansion team, a front office that has explicitly opted for continuity, and a West Coast schedule against pitching staffs that will not hand them runs. The under on this team's nightly output is one of the cleaner fades on the board.