It was the best of times. It was the worst of times, it was the age of youngsters thriving, it was the age of prospects falling, it was the epoch of doubt, it was the epoch of belief, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the summer of despair.

The 2026 Mets have offered a tale of two farm systems. One that has provided pretty much the most optimistic major league results amid a dreadful season, notably Carson Benge, A.J. Ewing, Nolan McLean, Zac Thornton, plus Christian Scott returning after Tommy John surgery. And yet the upper-level prospects who have not graduated have been so bad that Steve Cohen admitted recently on “The Show with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman” that he is “extremely worried” about the near future.

In a quirk fitting the dichotomy of this Mets season, their farm director is now their interim manager, leaving Andy Green as a foremost authority of where the system stands:

“Last year, I warred with the general concept that we were being rated publicly as one of the best, if not the best, farm systems in baseball, and we hadn’t delivered anything to the major league club at that point in time. Nolan was just showing up when these ratings were coming out, and I said to most people we work with, we’re not good until we impact the major league club. Not just through trade, because over the last few years we’ve traded 20-plus players away from that farm system.