📰 NEWS FLASH: Alonso, Díaz, Nimmo are gone… but Mets fans won’t stop watching them like unfinished business ⚡.DD

Welcome to February — the month where winter refuses to let go, every tiny cut somehow bleeds forever, and baseball fans begin pretending they’re fine again because spring training is almost here.

Mar 19, 2024; Port St. Lucie, Florida, USA; New York Mets third baseman Brett Baty (22) catches a fly ball against the St. Louis Cardinals during the fifth inning at Clover Park. Mandatory Credit: Rich Storry-Imagn Images | Rich Storry-Imagn Images

For New York Mets fans, this year’s camp doesn’t feel like a simple warm-up. It feels like a soft reboot. A roster that’s been shaken, reshaped, and stripped of familiar pillars is about to take the field in Port St. Lucie, and even the “meaningless” exhibition games are going to feel loaded with meaning.

The Mets didn’t just change around the edges this offseason.

They changed the story.

And now spring training becomes the first real test of whether the new version makes sense — or whether it’s about to get messy fast.

Here are five Mets spring training storylines that will have everyone watching, arguing, and overreacting.

1) Carson Benge and the most dangerous decision of the spring

No storyline has more power to reshape the Mets’ Opening Day roster than Carson Benge.

If Benge forces his way onto the team, the lineup suddenly looks different — and much harder to predict. It would also mean the Mets are willing to speed up a timeline that, in most organizations, would be handled carefully.

Benge only had a small taste of Triple-A late last year. The conservative path is obvious: start him in Triple-A, let him get consistent reps, then bring him up when he’s truly ready.

But spring training has a way of tempting teams into believing the best-case version of a player too early.

And the biggest mistake the Mets can make isn’t being aggressive.

It’s being prematurely convinced.

Because once you hand a prospect an Opening Day role, the pressure doesn’t just land on him — it lands on the entire roster construction around him.

2) The surprise names who force their way into the conversation

Benge won’t be the only young player drawing attention.

The Mets will have plenty of prospects in camp who aren’t realistically making the team, but spring training always creates moments — a double off a veteran reliever, a smooth defensive play, a fastball that looks different than expected — and suddenly fans start saying, “Why not him?”

Among the prospects, Dylan Ross has the clearest path to making noise. Nick Morabito is another name to watch, especially since he’s already on the 40-man roster and could see major league time sooner than people think.

And then there’s the category that always gets the loudest reactions: the non-roster veterans.

Because no matter how many times fans say spring stats don’t matter, if Craig Kimbrel comes out throwing well, the conversation is inevitable:

Is he washed… or is he about to become one of those annoying late-offseason steals?

3) The Mets’ defensive experiment: Bichette, Polanco, and Baty in new roles

If Mets spring training had a “can’t look away” storyline, this might be it.

Bo Bichette at third base.

Jorge Polanco at first base.

Brett Baty in left field.

That’s not a minor adjustment — that’s a defensive experiment being run in real time, with real consequences.

Spring training will be the first look at whether these moves are viable or whether they’re going to turn routine plays into tense moments. And the reality is, it probably won’t be clean.

A fair prediction? One of them will look surprisingly natural. One will look uncomfortable. And the third will have a random highlight that makes everyone wonder why he wasn’t there years ago.

The Mets don’t just need these moves to “work.”

They need them to not break the team early.

4) The quiet war for roster spots 25 and 26

Every spring training has its main characters.

But the real fights happen at the bottom of the roster.

The Mets’ final two spots — typically roster spots 25 and 26 — could turn into the most competitive battles of camp. These decisions often come down to uncomfortable questions:

Do you keep the bench bat with speed and defensive versatility, or the one with power and limited flexibility?

Do you take a chance on a reliever with upside… or protect a non-optional arm because you can’t afford to lose him for nothing?

These aren’t glamorous choices.

But they can decide April.

And April can decide everything.

5) The ex-Mets storyline that won’t go away

This isn’t just a 2026 storyline.

It’s a multi-year obsession.

Pete Alonso. Edwin Díaz. Brandon Nimmo. Jeff McNeil.

Even though they’re gone, Mets fans will track them like unfinished business. Not because it’s healthy — because it’s inevitable.

If Alonso homers twice in a spring game, Mets Twitter will explode.

If Díaz looks dominant, it’ll feel personal.

If Nimmo starts hot, it’ll trigger a wave of “we never should’ve…”

And if McNeil hits .400 in March? Fans will absolutely act like it’s proof of something, even though everyone knows spring training numbers are basically lipstick on a pig for established veterans.

But fans don’t watch spring training for truth.

They watch it for emotion.

And this Mets spring is going to be full of it — because the roster has changed, the expectations are shifting, and the team is walking into camp with one question hanging over everything:

Is this the start of something better… or just the beginning of a new kind of chaos? ⚡