The Yankees and Mets are now figuring out how their seasons went awry.

The minimum expectations for the Yankees and Mets were that they would be spending the Monday after the end of the regular season at some kind of workout where they would prepare for a wild-card series by engaging in a workout on the field and conducting meetings about a postseason roster, a lineup, pitching plans and general scouting about their opposition.

Instead the Yankees are preparing to meet at their Tampa headquarters and start an audit that likely does not cost Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone their jobs. While those high level meetings are unfolding, the Mets are moving forward with a new president of baseball operations in David Stearns, whose first move was to tell highly respected manager Buck Showalter that the Mets were seeking a new manager.

These unexpected circumstances occur when one team begins the season with the highest payroll of all-time and barely avoids 90 losses by finishing with 74 wins and spending every day after June 6 with a losing record. That’s what happens when another high payroll team gets numerous underperformances and barely extends a streak of winning seasons to 31 by finishing with an 82-80 record that represents their worst record since going 76-86 in 1992.

In reality a significant portion of this may have been foreshadowed early.

The first sign for the Yankees may have been the moment Carlos Rodon injured his forearm. Signed to a six-year, $162 million contract in December (the dollar amount as Freddie Freeman) during press conference week in New York, Rodon went down with a forearm injury March 8, suffered a setback along with the way due to a back injury and did not appear until July 7.

And when he pitched, other than a few good starts, notably against the Mets in July, Rodon endured arguably the worst debut season of any New York free agent signee, notably when he turned his back on pitching coach Matt Blake and could not get an out Friday to finish with an unsightly 6.85 ERA – the highest by a Yankee with at least 10 starts since David Cone posted a 6.91 ERA and made 29 starts in 2000 but that was at the end of his career following three World Series titles and before he got the biggest out of Game 4 of the World Series by relieving Denny Neagle and retiring Mike Piazza.

About a week after Rodon’s initial injury, Edwin Diaz closed out Puerto Rico’s win over the Dominican Republic. In the ensuing celebration, he injured his right knee and a day later, the Mets announced a torn patellar tendon that would cost him the season and eventually expose their plan of a building a bullpen with “optionable arms” beyond the trio of David Robertson, Adam Ottavino and Brooks Raley and that was evidenced by the 26 players to make at least one relief appearance.

Diaz’s injury led to questions about the depth on the mound, especially since Jose Quintana fractured a rib that delayed his debut until July 20 while Taijuan Walker and Chris Bassitt were fully healthy with playoff teams and won a combined 31 games while pitching 371 innings.

Opening day was a routine day for the Yankees. They avoided the awkwardness of watching Aaron Judge lining up on the visiting baseline with the Giants, introduced a new shortstop in Anthony Volpe, who drew the comparisons to Derek Jeter mostly for the reason of his age and growing up in the New York area as a Yankee fan.

While the Yankees were getting a win everyone wanted to see with a homer by Judge and a good performance by Gerrit Cole, the Mets were starting the season in Miami and realizing Justin Verlander’s season would be delayed for a month due to a shoulder injury.

Even without Verlander, the Mets began respectfully by winning 14 of their first 21 games. The Yankees started a respectable 13-8 but while it took them 21 games to reach 13 wins, the Rays needed only 13 games to win that same amount, creating a scenario where other than opening day, the Yankees would never be in first place.

Then in perhaps a first real sign of a season gone awry, the Yankees lost two of three in Minnesota and combined with their split in the Bronx, it marked the first time since 2001 they actually lost the series to the Twins. The struggles in Minnesota and Judge’s brief absence due to a hip injury led to a .500 record and a Cashman dugout press conference where he described things in this way: “It’s a championship-caliber operation from that perspective, but we’re not currently flying at the level that we would have expected, because we’re missing some pretty important pieces.”

Among those being referenced besides Judge was Giancarlo Stanton, who was a month into a two-month absence from a hamstring issue sustained getting a double April 15. In a lesser vein it also was about Josh Donaldson, whose poor showing often got defended as being a product of “bad luck”.

Soon after this presser, the Yankees seemingly righted themselves by winning 12 of 15 and 18 of 28. The latter stretch saw the two major injuries that would define this season emerge.

On May 28 against San Diego, Anthony Rizzo caught a pickoff throw and collided with Fernando Tatis Jr. At first it was believed to be a neck injury and something that might cause Rizzo to miss a series but he struggled significantly thereafter until the Yankees realized the cause was actually a concussion in August.

On June 3 in Dodger Stadium, J.D. Martinez hit a fly ball to deep right. Judge raced back and crashed into the concrete wall that was unpadded and wound up with a torn ligament in his right toe and an injury that cost him 42 games and saw the Yankees lose 23 of them.

Coincidentally the day after Judge crashed into the wall, the Yankees hit their high point going 11 games over .500. They also reached ten games over on July 4 but immediately after started the massive crash that sank their season by going 12-27 in a 39-game span that resulted in hitting coach Dillon Lawson being fired, Judge’s return and the first nine-game skid since 1982.

The great Bronx crash of 2023 occurred soon after the steep plummet in Queens. The Mets seemingly righted themselves by winning nine of 13 to get to 30-27 following a win over the Phillies on June 1 but followed it up with a seven-game skid as part of a 6-19 slide that led to owner Steve Cohen talk about subtracting pieces for a better future.

A month later Cohen’s words became reality when the Mets traded Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander and were willing to pay sizable amounts of the remaining contract to get better prospects. Scherzer’s trade occurred a day after he sought a meeting with management and Verlander’s trade occurred two days after his 250th career win was overshadowed by trade speculation.

As for the Yankee approach at the deadline, it was more about adding really small around the margins. Not willing to delete a prospect from their minor league system and not willing to pare a pending free agent, the Yankee made a transaction so small that it was not even asked about until approximately 10 minutes into Cashman’s press conference and only for the purpose of filling a quote for a wire service story.

August confirmed New York baseball was a road to nowhere with football preseason dominating the talk shows and headlines. And while the Mets played slightly better and the Yankees ended the season decently with things like Jasson Dominguez’s four homers in eight games before fracturing his elbow, the combined 156-167 was hardly anything worth remembering which is why neither team is holding meetings pertaining to the scouting of a postseason opponent.