The world’s most expensive losers: the New York Mets are very rich … and very, very bad

No other Met has hit seriously in any significant sample size. Outfield prospect Carson Benge has been a little better in recent weeks but is yet to figure out big league pitching. Catcher Francisco Alvarez is the least of the team’s problems but has slumped hard after a scorching start. A wide variety of pricey veteran acquisitions have so far failed to launch: Third baseman Bo Bichette, second baseman Marcus Semien, and injured first baseman Jorge Polanco are earning a combined $85m. Not one of them has an on-base percentage north of .275. Franchise shortstop Francisco Lindor had started to heat up after a mediocre start before he went down with injury.

A Mets fan wears a paper bag over his head before Thursday’s game against the Nationals. Photograph: Gordon Donovan/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Every one of these hitters should improve, but they also show the limits of a “throw money at it” strategy of roster-building. That approach can work – just look at the baseball god Soto, who is still only 27 and playing on the largest contract ever signed – but most elite talents don’t reach free agency or get traded away until they’re exiting their prime. Semien is 35 and Polanco is about to turn 33 – ages at which players decline rather than get better. Bichette is 28 but with a lot of recent injury history. The Mets will not get the best versions of most of these hitters. The younger bats they expected to be good – in particular Benge, Mark Vientos and Brett Baty, all in their early to mid-20s – have not picked up the slack. Hence, the Mets have scored MLB’s second-fewest runs.

Mets fans have given the franchise a lot of grace over many decades of Metsiness, some even saw their failing as part of their charm. But the team cannot be an affable second fiddle to the cross-city Yankees when they are a financial heavyweight that enters spring training each year gunning for a pennant with a roster that, on paper, could do it.

At some point, though who could guess when, accountability would fall to general manager David Stearns, who put together the plan for this season that is already on the verge of doom. Stearns, the type of Ivy-educated geek-genius who has become prized in baseball front offices, was welcomed by fans when he joined the team from the Milwaukee Brewers, who he had made a serial contender on a small budget. But some have wondered if his approach works at a franchise with larger resources, and more pressure. Many of his signings – many of them former Brewers – have wilted in the crucible of New York. Some of the start is bad luck, but some of it is a calculated plan going poorly in ways that lots of people could have predicted: For example, center fielder Luis Robert, who has hit and fielded his position decently, just hit the injured list for the 10th time in seven big league seasons. That’s less misfortune for the Mets than what you’d expect if you sign an injury-prone player.

Not everything is a disaster. The Mets’ farm system is well-regarded, Soto is still Soto, and rookie pitcher Nolan McLean is a genuine revelation who looks primed to win a Cy Young Award in his career. (He could even be in the mix this season, if the Mets don’t severely tamp down his innings count.) Benge is a smooth outfielder who will eventually be able to hit his way out of a paper bag. Almost nobody who’s struggled in this lineup will stay this bad for another month, let alone another five. But the losses the Mets have already banked have moved them from a 90-win team to one that will scrap to finish .500 and would need a real surge to reach October. It’s all compounded by the fact that being a losing team in the snakepit of New York sports is the opposite of fun. And they no longer have the shield of claiming poverty compared to the Yankees.

No team in baseball is delivering a lesser return on investment. Cohen won’t tolerate that for long. He could fire Mendoza, who has made some poor decisions but isn’t responsible for the players he’s given. He could fire Stearns, but that would mean disrupting the long-term plan the two have in place as they attempt to build a talent pipeline to produce young talent that can complement highly paid superstars, a method the Dodgers have perfected. Cohen needs to think of something different though because he’s learned the hard way that throwing money at a problem doesn’t always work.