The trade deadline has come and gone and 87,3% of the experts were completely wrong. Of course there will be fewer mea culpas than bags of Cracker Jacks eaten at Wrigley tonight.

As I’ve been discussing with friends lately, it seems there were fewer quality major leaguers being swapped. The majority of trades were decent player for minor leaguer(s) and not necessarily the top players in the system. People may disagree and think the Mets won the trades with the Astros and Rangers. I’ll hold off on ranking that one.

From the outside looking in, several teams made moves to improve themselves today and thus indicated they are in it to win it. Doing so and thinking it are two different things. If your team made moves to win in 2023 you’re probably happy. Those moves may backfire and sink the ship for the future. Fans of sellers have to convince themselves that their GM’s have a clue. For some of us, that’s really a stretch.

I’m pretty sure at the start of the season I dabbled in a little hyperbole when it came to the gazillions that Mets owner Steve Cohen spent on two old men. At the time it seemed foolish, but if I were a fan of the Mets, I would have loved that my owner spent his money that wildly. Editor’s note: I think every fan wants his team to overpay because they are all bleeding money.

The Mets pushed all their chips into the center of the table and declared all in. And for the first time in my life I miss the trio of Gary Cohen, Keith Rodriguez, and Ron Darling. Not only do these homers entertain and inform me during a broadcast, they over legit insight into the psyche of Mets fans, players and the front office. As the season was going downhill, I would have loved to get their very personal take on the downfall. And right now I’d love to know how the fans feel about giving up on the season and trading away Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer.

You know it, I know it and the Mets know it was an epic failure. They didn’t spend $86 million+ for it to end this way. I’ll leave it to the beat reporters to figure out how much each guy got paid per win/IP etc.

Not only were they hired to win the World Series, but they were also supposed to win games and add value to the clubhouse. I have no idea if they were positive contributors to the pitching staff or team culture-beyond taking the team out for Mr. Softee’s. The positive spin that the mlb.com writers will share in coming days, won’t reflect Met fans’ ire.

It’s so much more fun if we see positive, immediate results from the trades. When so many teams are making trades, it’s confusing when teams like the Reds and Twins don’t do anything meaningful when they are in the hunt for division titles in “winnable” divisions.