When you spend $340 million, you expect something great, but the New York Mets delivered a disaster. The team’s painful 2025 season finally ended Sunday in Miami after losing 4-0 to the Marlins at LoanDepot Park, and the team built for a World Series won’t even see the playoffs. After such collapses, the usual scapegoat becomes the manager. And that question remains.

The final day was a special kind of heartbreak for the Queens because they needed just one win against the Marlins to go to October, and destiny was completely in their hands, especially after the Reds lost to the Brewers 4-2. But they couldn’t deliver, once again thanks to the starting pitching crisis, as Manager Carlos Mendoza had to remove Sean Manaea after only  1 ²/₃ innings, who later saw his team fall into a four-run deficit in the fourth inning, and from there they couldn’t recover. And they even left 10 runners on base for the whole game.

Now, after such a monumental failure, what’s next for the Manager Carlos Mendoza? Owner Steve Cohen can easily point the finger at his manager, but will it suffice? According to SNY’s Andy Martino, manager Carlos Mendoza’s job is safe. Martino tweeted, “The Mets have absolutely no plans to fire Carlos Mendoza off this collapse. As they shouldn’t. Beyond that it gets interesting. Will write something this evening.” 

So, if the manager is safe, who is responsible?

The collapse points directly to starting pitching. The Mets’ rotation was decent through July with a 3.44 ERA that ranked fifth overall. From August onward, the staff’s ERA ballooned to 5.40, which was a miserable 24th in the big league. Reason? The ace Kodai Senga started the year like a Cy Young, where he had a 1.39 ERA before a hamstring injury in June. Since returning, he was winless with a 6.56 ERA and was sent to the minors, where he spent most of the Mets’ final months for recovery.

Down the line, David Peterson and Clay Holmes were solid in the earlier months, but faded badly in the season’s second half. Plus, injuries ended the seasons for free-agent bust Frankie Montas, Griffin Canning, and Tylor Megill. That left the rotation in complete shambles.

Even the final game was a perfect summary of the season-wide problem

Sean Manaea, who almost missed half of the season while rehabbing from an oblique strain, had further complications in his pitching elbow and struggled with a 5.64 ERA in 15 appearances after returning, starting the “bullpen game.” He was pulled after just 1.2 innings when he allowed consecutive walks to Connor Norby and Eric Wagaman. But Mendoza’s “bullpen game” strategy backfired in the fourth inning as Ryne Stanek and Tyler Rogers were tagged for four runs that decided the game.

But the bullpen alone wasn’t the issue.

In the do-or-die finale, the Mets managed just five hits and couldn’t buy a hit with runners on base, finishing the day 0-for-8 in those critical situations. The team’s best chance came and went in an instant when Pete Alonso smashed the hardest ball any Mets player has hit this season, a line drive to left at 115.9 mph with the bases loaded. But Javier Sanoja caught it for the final out.

Yet, there’s a silver lining to all these.

The best thing that happened to this team from the rotation’s wreckage was a trio of rookies—Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong, and Brandon Sproat. They were forced to start 12 of the team’s final 20 high-stakes games. And they did very well. The 24-year-old McLean posted a 2.06 ERA in his eight starts. Jonah Tong, just 22, was good too. Brandon Sproat is considered to have the highest upside of the three.

Of course, major questions remain for the franchise. The offensive core of Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor, and Brandon Nimmo remains under contract. But the team will surely face a huge decision with first baseman Pete Alonso, who has decided to opt out to go for free agency.

Manager Carlos Mendoza took full responsibility for the team’s failure. “I take responsibility. I’m the manager. It starts with me… This is unacceptable.” Right now, it feels like Broadcaster Gary Cohen perfectly summed it up as an “agonizing, three-and-a-half-month, slow-motion collapse is complete.”