Can money buy you happiness? // Rafael Padilla, Staff Writer
Dec. 8, 2024. 15 years. $765 million. The generational talent, Juan Soto, was officially a Metropolitan. The New York Mets had unequivocally won the offseason.
The win came before the Mets would re-sign Pete Alonso, who this season became the Mets’ all-time home run leader. The Mets re-signed Alonso for two years and $54 million, as well as brought back fan favorites from the 2024 season in Jesse Winker and Sean Menaea.
The Mets entered the 2025 season with the second-largest payroll in the league and near the top of the Power Rankings. The only question mark around the team was the pitching.
Then, to start the season, every Mets pitcher, from the starters to the closers, made all those fans regret ever doubting them. And the Mets’ offense stumbled its way to the best record in MLB by June.
The team was happy, the fans were happy and I was happy. You ask a Mets fan in June if money can buy you happiness, and it was the same answer as December — that money could indeed buy you happiness.
To say I didn’t see the collapse coming wouldn’t be true. After cheering for the Mets for your whole life, the team’s collapse post-All-Star break becomes commonplace. But to say I didn’t believe this team could overcome it was also false. The ultimate reason for collapse is debatable — an injury here, a bad move at the deadline, coaching, the culture. It really doesn’t matter at this point — it just happened.
Pirates fans tell me, “welcome to the club,” and I can only take solace in the fact that it took until the last game to get knocked out. The chirping from Yankee fans is nothing new, and I will never care about the opinion of a Phillies fan. The real hurt is the hope.
They say it’s the hope that kills you. A statement has never felt truer when you see the red flags and decide to try anyway. When you know it’s gonna fail, but you give it your all regardless. It’s even worse when you don’t have a choice. I knew our pitching staff was awful, and I had no choice but to believe. I knew Vientos was due for a down year, but I had to believe.
The New York Mets’ motto is, “You gotta believe,” and I’ve lived 20 years of my life with those three words. And I believe with all my heart that 2026 is the New York Mets’ year. So, can money buy you happiness? No. But it can buy you hope. And hope is exactly $765 million.
Can money buy you happiness? // Sean McQuillan, Staff Writer
I am sick of it. Thank you to Rafael for having some composure, because I am yelling out loud while I write this.
I suffer enough as a New York fan.
The Mets? A travesty. The Jets? The worst team in the NFL — literally the only team without a win this season. The Islanders? No one cares. The Knicks? They are our only hope, but they have not won a championship since 1970.
By the final weeks of the season, I should’ve known better. I kept telling myself there was no way — no way — the New York Mets, with their bloated $340 million payroll and enough star power to light up Citi Field, would actually miss the playoffs. Not this team. Not after everything we spent, everything we were promised.
But then came the slow, familiar collapse. The Mets had series losses to teams we were supposed to crush and lineups that looked flat and lifeless — like they’d already packed for the offseason. And yet, I kept watching, kept hoping. Because that’s what Mets fans do — we squint at the wreckage and imagine it’ll turn around.
It didn’t.
When Francisco Lindor grounded into that final double play on the last day of the season, it wasn’t just an ending. It was the perfect punchline. The richest team in baseball had bought itself another heartbreak. Turns out, money can buy you stars, headlines and expectations — but not happiness — especially not in Queens.
The only other worst collapse in MLB history — you guessed it — The New York Mets of 2007. That team blew a seven-game lead with 17 games remaining in that season.
On June 13, the Mets looked like they were a lock to capture the first overall seed in the National League, with baseball’s best record of 45-24. All was well in Queens. Kodai Senga was having a Cy Young campaign, Pete Alonso was the MVP favorite and the duo of Lindor and Soto were capturing the hearts of every fan that bled blue and orange at every game, even though prices had skyrocketed.
Then, that very day, it all began. Senga goes down, the bullpen starts to turn for the worse and just before July, the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates swept the Mets.
The season from there on stinks, and the more I think about it, the more I want to curl up in a ball and cry to my mother.
What’s next, you may ask? Well, Pete Alonso is hitting the market, Edwin Díaz has the choice to opt out and my mental well-being will continuously get worse.
Money couldn’t buy happiness, to start. Now, it will become the Mets’ worst enemy when they will not have enough money to retain the morals of their own players, just as much as their fanbase. Time for the Jets, Giants, Islanders, Rangers or Knicks to save us all.
New York, we will get through this together. We are the best sports city in America, and we are “The Big Apple.” The Mets will have priority soon enough, but for now, let’s enjoy postseason baseball — the greatest sport in the world — and say to ourselves, “There’s something romantic about baseball.”
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