WATCH: Mets fire Carlos Mendoza while their mascot danced behind Steve Gelbs as he delivered the news on the broadcast

The New York Mets fired Carlos Mendoza on Friday afternoon while sitting at 34-47 in the middle of a six-game losing streak after getting swept by the Cubs in four games, and while Steve Gelbs was delivering the news on the SNY broadcast with the gravity that a managerial firing deserves, Mr. Met was dancing in the background like he was attending a Pride Parade in Queens.

Apparently nobody in the Mets’ production department thought to check whether the team’s mascot was doing a dance routine in the background of the broadcast while the network was reporting that the manager had been terminated was a good idea?

Mr. Met dancing during Carlos Mendoza firing…

Oh my god this clip is all-time 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/c9WpWhHXOe

— AT (@BaseballWRLD_) June 26, 2026

The clip went viral immediately which makes sense. It’s the most perfect visual summary of what the 2026 New York Mets have become, which is a franchise that spent a billion dollars trying to build a championship contender and ended up as a punchline dancing behind its own funeral.

Steve Cohen Spent a Fortune and Got a Dumpster Fire

The Mets’ offseason was supposed to be transformative because David Stearns, with Cohen’s unlimited checkbook behind him, completely rebuilt the roster around Soto and Lindor after the 2025 collapse.

They traded Nimmo and McNeil, let Alonso and Diaz walk in free agency, acquired Marcus Semien from the Rangers, Luis Robert Jr. from the White Sox, Freddy Peralta and Tobias Myers from the Brewers, signed Bo Bichette to play third base, added Jorge Polanco at first, and brought in Devin Williams and Luke Weaver to anchor the bullpen.

By Spring Training the Mets had undergone a nearly complete makeover from the coaching staff down to the 26th man on the roster with World Series expectations attached to every move.

The whole thing has backfired spectacularly because injuries and underperformance have turned the most expensive roster construction project in baseball into a team that can’t stay healthy, can’t pitch, and can’t hit at the same time for more than a week without something catastrophic happening.

Soto missed time with a calf strain in April and Lindor went down with his own calf strain the same night Soto came back, meaning the franchise’s two cornerstones have played just 10 games together all season.

Polanco has been on the IL since April 18 with an Achilles injury and might not come back at all. Robert landed on the IL with a back injury after playing 24 games. Semien was hitting .214 with a .613 OPS before going down with a hip flexor strain on Thursday.

Bichette was getting booed at Citi Field during the opening series and had a .583 OPS through May. Peralta has a 4.53 ERA for a rotation that collapsed after Clay Holmes broke his fibula in mid-May.

Kodai Senga was moved to the bullpen this week after posting a 10.08 ERA in seven starts. David Peterson was traded to the Cubs on Thursday after recording a 6.09 ERA.

The Mets’ 6.35 ERA in June is the worst in all of baseball and they just got swept by the Cubs at home before firing their manager while their mascot danced behind the reporter delivering the news.

You could write this as a comedy script and a producer would reject it for being too unrealistic and the Mets are living it in real time on national television with Mr. Met providing the choreography.

The Phillies Made the Same Move Two Months Ago and It Actually Worked

The Mets firing Mendoza at 34-47 is a direct parallel to the Phillies firing Thomson at 9-19, except the Phillies’ version of the story has a happy ending and the Mets’ version is a franchise desperately searching for one with 81 games left and a roster that looks broken beyond repair.

The Phillies replaced Thomson with Mattingly and have gone 37-17 since the change to climb from the worst team in the National League to a season-high 10 games over .500 at 46-36 with a run differential that went from minus-54 to plus-4 because Mattingly changed the culture, the lineup construction, and the in-game management from the day he walked into the dugout.

The Mets replaced Mendoza with Andy Green and are hoping for even a fraction of the same turnaround, but the difference between the two situations is that the Phillies had the talent on the roster to support a managerial change because Sanchez, Wheeler, Luzardo, Harper, Schwarber, and Marsh were all healthy and performing while the Phillies’ problems were largely about culture and decision-making rather than personnel.

The Mets’ problems are personnel because half their roster is on the injured list and the half that’s healthy isn’t producing at a level that justifies the money Cohen spent to acquire them. You can change the manager but you can’t change the fact that Soto and Lindor have played 10 games together, your starting rotation has a 6.35 ERA in June, and the third baseman you signed to play a new position was getting booed at home in April.

A new manager isn’t going to fix a broken fibula or a torn Achilles or a back injury or a hip flexor strain, and the Mets’ issues go so far beyond who is filling out the lineup card that firing Mendoza feels more like a symbolic gesture designed to show the fanbase that somebody is being held accountable rather than a genuine strategic move designed to change the team’s trajectory.

Green is inheriting a 34-47 mess with a 5.2 percent playoff probability and a roster that was built to win 95 games and is on pace to lose 90, and the only thing that’s going to fix the 2026 Mets is either a miraculous run of health that gets all the injured players back on the field at the same time or the calendar flipping to October when Cohen can start writing checks for the 2027 version of the same experiment.

The Mets have now fired two managers in three seasons and are on their third skipper since 2024, which is the kind of organizational instability that makes it harder to attract quality coaching candidates in the future because every manager in baseball is watching what happened to Mendoza and thinking “why would I take that job if the owner is going to fire me the second things go wrong regardless of whether the roster he built is the actual problem?”

Mr. Met Dancing Behind the Firing Announcement Was Perfect

The clip of Mr. Met dancing behind Steve Gelbs while the network reported Mendoza’s firing is going to be the defining image of the 2026 Mets season because it perfectly captures the disconnect between the franchise’s self-image and reality.

The Mets think they’re a serious organization that belongs in the championship conversation because they have the richest owner in baseball and a roster full of big names on big contracts.

The reality is that they’re 34-47 with their mascot doing a jig behind the reporter delivering the news that the manager was just fired, and the rest of baseball is laughing at them while they burn through another season that was supposed to be different and ended up being the same.

I will never get tired of Mets misery because watching the franchise with the biggest payroll and the loudest offseason implode in real time while the Phillies climb from 9-19 to 46-36 under a manager who actually knows what he’s doing is the kind of karmic justice that makes you believe the baseball gods have a sense of humor and a clear preference for Philadelphia.

The Mets spent more money than the Phillies, made more moves than the Phillies, generated more offseason hype than the Phillies, and are 12 games worse in the standings because spending money doesn’t win baseball games and the Phillies have something the Mets don’t, which is a team that actually likes playing together and a manager who knows how to get the most out of the roster he’s given.

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