The key is sustenance.
That’s also been the trick.
Since 1962, the Mets have qualified for the playoffs in back-to-back years just twice: 2015’s World Series appearance backed by 2016’s one-game stay as a wild-card play-in loser; and also 1999’s NLCS participant backed by 2000’s World Series runner-up.
They’ve qualified twice in three years just twice: the 1986 World Series champions backed by the 1988 team, which won 100 games in the regular season but just three in the postseason in being ousted by the Dodgers in a seven-game NLCS disappointment. And the 2022 team that won 101 games but couldn’t survive the play-in round with the Padres, backed by this unlikely 2024 run for the roses.
And that’s it.
And that’s the trick for Steve Cohen and David Stearns now. One of the things about the best teams of recent vintage — the Dodgers, Braves, Astros, even Brewers — is that they take a legit shot every year. And the more shots you take, eventually you hope to unlock the key to lifting the Commissioner’s Trophy.
Let’s look at it another way: Since the Yankees started making the playoffs again in 1995, the most impressive thing is that they have added five championships to their total. But what’s just as incredible is that since ’95 they’ve made the playoffs 19 other times that didn’t yield the ultimate fruit — and make that 20 if you include this year, with its undetermined outcome.
That’s 20 times in 30 seasons that didn’t produce a title. The Mets have been to the postseason just 11 times total going back to 1962, including this year. And, as we’ve already pointed out, prosperity has always seemed fleeting, mostly because success has always been fleeting.
The culprits have been many. So have the excuses.
The Mets did follow their initial breakthrough in 1969 with a pennant four years later. But by then Gil Hodges had died, the single-most devastating thing that ever happened to the franchise. M. Donald Grant seized power, the Mets turned into grotesque penny-pinchers, and from 1974-84 there wasn’t one season that even included a long-shot pennant race, let alone a real one.
The late-’80s era is the one that’s most inexcusable. The Mets not only had the best major league operation, as evidenced by the 1986 championship trophy, they had the best minor league operation, too. But one by one the Mets cast aside the characters that had made them so appealing, and with them most of the ballplayers who’d been so dominant. Within seven short years, the Mets lost 103 games. It’s hard to be that incompetent.
By the time the Mets reached those heights again, they found a way again. After going back-to-back in 1999 and 2000, and nearly pulling off a miracle in 2001, things started going south. And instead of firing the man responsible for assembling an aging, awful roster — GM Steve Phillips — Fred Wilpon axed Bobby Valentine, hired Art Howe, and … well, you know what happened then.
But by 2006, it seemed the Mets had finally figured it out. They had a young core. They’d started to attract bright-light names (Tom Glavine, Pedro Martinez, Carlos Beltran), and they won the East by as much as Secretariat. But one heartbreak (the NLCS) was followed by another (the 2007 collapse) and another (the 2008 encore collapse), and before long Willie Randolph was gone, Omar Minaya was gone, and so were the good vibes and good times.
The 2015-16 double always felt like it was built on shifting sand, and that was before all of the big arms around which those teams were built blew up. In ’15 the Mets took full advantage of a rare down season by the Nationals. In ’16 they made the wild card because the Cardinals and Giants stopped pushing them. From there … welp.
Now we have this. We have the 2022 heartbreakers and the 2024 heart-warmers, and for the first time since 1969 (Joan Payson, Johnny Murphy, Hodges) there seems to be collaborative and smart leadership at the top in Cohen, Stearns and Carlos Mendoza. There is a plan in place. And what we’ve seen of that plan seems promising.
We’ll only know if it is in the next four or five years. We shall see.
Vac’s Whacks
Note to Fireman Ed: You aren’t a part of the team. You have never been a part of the team. Now either yell and shout and cheer for the Jets, just like everyone else, or go back to rooting for the Dolphins.
I knew I was going to miss Jersey Guy Greg Olsen anyway, because he’s the best analyst in football, and by a lot. But replacing him with Tom Brady has been like replacing Brady the quarterback with Mac Jones.
If you have as good a time reading this newspaper as we have writing for it, you’ll eat up every word of “Paper of Wreckage: The Rogues, Renegades, Wiseguys, Wankers, and Relentless Reporters Who Redefined American Media,” by Susan Mulcahy and Frank DiGiacomo. It’s a rollicking read.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a quarterback who has more often found guys open down the field as they’re scrambling out of bounds than Josh Allen. It’s an amazing superpower.
Whack Back at Vac
Matt Deakin: It’s hard to find anything good to say about the Jets game against the Bills last Monday, but their old uniforms sure looked good.
Vac: There’s so much slop muddying the Jets right now, maybe going and sticking with those unis could be a good place to plant a flag of competence.
Neil Ptashnik: Is Davante Adams to Aaron Rodgers what Rob Gronkowski was to Tom Brady? As a disgusted 50-plus-year Jets fan, I sure hope so!
Vac: Let’s hope that reunion works better than say … picking out of a hat here …. Rodgers-Nathaniel Hackett.
@DariusPSmith: You were incorrect on one thing: as of Friday morning it was It’s 17,690 days since New York last won a basketball title. On May 13, 1976, the New York Nets defeated the Nuggets in the last game of the ABA at Nassau Coliseum.
@MikeVacc: I was there for that game and worshipped Dr. J & Super John. But that was overwhelmingly a Long Island team. I’m not sure how many city folks ever knew the Nets existed, let alone cared about them. I’m happy to be wrong.
Joe Nicoletti: How was a lesser-talented Giants team so much better than today? Oh, right. That team had Saquon Barkley.
Vac: Sunday. One o’clock. Can’t wait.