#Brodie Van Wagenen tones down talk as Mets brace for NL East gauntlet

Season 2 of Brodie Van Wagenen’s regime as Mets general manager is set to begin with far less bluster than his debut.

The “come get us” Van Wagenen who anointed the Mets as the team to beat in the NL East in 2019, only to watch them crash before surging to relevance late in the season, was presented an opportunity Thursday to place his club as the hunted. Based on his response, he learned from a rookie mistake.

“We are going to go wire-to-wire here and not quit,” Van Wagenen said, when asked if the Mets were the team to beat in the NL East. “There is so much unpredictable or there are going to be so many variables that are going to dictate success or failure in the season. We have already seen the challenges and adversity.”

The Mets have missed the playoffs the last three seasons, bringing a flurry of changes that has included a front-office overhaul and three new managers — if you include Carlos Beltran, who departed only 77 days into the job last offseason after he was named in MLB’s report on the Astros’ illegal sign-stealing scheme. The last of those hired managers, Luis Rojas, will finally get to make his major league managerial debut Friday, some 121 days after the season was scheduled to begin and delayed by the coronavirus outbreak.

Van Wagenen tweaked last year’s roster with relatively small offseason acquisitions such as Rick Porcello, Michael Wacha, Dellin Betances and Jake Marisnick. Van Wagenen rolled the dice that the Mets were close after last season’s 86 victories. Will the season be a failure, the GM was asked, if the Mets again miss the playoffs? After that question was posed, the playoff bar was lowered, as MLB and the MLBPA worked toward finalizing an agreement that would expand the postseason from five teams in each league to eight.

“I am not going to define success or failure by any one definition,” Van Wagenen said. “Our mission is to win now and win in the future and that hasn’t changed. We won 86 games last year. We want to make the playoffs this year. We want to win a lot more games than we lose this year and we want to do that every year.”

The 60-game sprint will begin Friday at Citi Field against the Braves, with two-time defending Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom on the mound against last year’s NL Rookie of the Year runner-up, Mike Soroka.

Already in place are thousands of cardboard cutouts in the seats that will be giving the Mets the silent treatment, win or lose. It will make for the strangest opener in the 59 seasons of the franchise, but then this entire season — or at least what exists of it — will seem like a “Twilight Zone” marathon of sorts.

The Mets were into the world of fan-empty ballparks over the weekend, with two exhibition games against the Yankees. For Pete Alonso, it evoked memories of playing in the minor leagues.

“You can probably count how many fans are in the stands on both your hands during aFlorida State League game,” Alonso said. “It was pretty close to that [last weekend] and also having the fan noise is a little weird, especially when you don’t see faces in the seats, but also I know that it helps the [television] broadcast. I’m indifferent about the fan noise, but I love they are bumping the music and creating an environment the best they can.”

The “adversity” of which Van Wagenen spoke included losing Noah Syndergaard in the first spring training to Tommy John surgery and Marcus Stroman in recent days to a left calf tear. But starting with Alonso (who smashed a MLB rookie record 53 homers last season), Yoenis Cespedes and Jeff McNeil, the Mets have a lineup that can possibly compensate for pitching question marks.

Are the Mets the team to beat in the NL East?

“I believe so,” Alonso said. “We have an extremely dynamic lineup. We also have a great pitching staff. I think we have the pieces to do it.”