Mike Freire - Well, It Was Fun While It Lasted

I am writing this article on the morning of 09/25/19, so the Mets haven't TECHNICALLY been eliminated from the Wild Card chase, but the buzzards are circling the soon to be carcass that is the Mets' 2019 season.  

Their unexpected second half surge put them in the playoff conversation for most of September, so that was entertaining.  However, they were ultimately undone by a shaky bullpen and an inability to beat teams like the Braves and Cubs down the stretch.

Here are the up to date NL Wild Card standings with five games left to be played:

**Washington     88-69   +1
Milwaukee          87-70   ---

New York           82-75     5
Chicago              82-75     5

**Clinched a Wild Card berth

As stated above, the Nationals are safely in the playoff picture and are now focused on holding off the Brewers so they can maintain home field advantage for the Wild Card match up.  

The Brewers who have inexplicably been RED HOT since the loss of their best player (Yelich), are right on the Nationals heels. Regardless of who gets to host the game, you can bet the Nationals are not comfortable facing the current edition of the Brewers in a "winner take all" format.

Because of the success of the Nationals and the Brewers, the remaining "contenders" have slowly been dropping off the radar like the Phillies and "mega-star" Bryce Harper who is still searching for "his ring". Unfortunately, this elimination trend will soon envelop the Cubs and our very own Mets as both teams have a "tragic number" of one, meaning one more loss by either club OR one more win by the Brewers and both teams are eliminated.  

I don't see the Mets running the table, while the Brewers lose the rest of their games, so I am officially shifting my Mets' focus to the offseason and what needs to be done to get better in 2020.

But, that is an article for another day.

I wanted to share a few interesting tidbits with you, now that the season is winding down.

1.  The 2019 preseason "MLB Over/Under" figure for wins, provided by our friends in Las Vegas, pegged the Mets at 83.5, which isn't far off from where they will likely finish.  If we could go back in time "Back To The Future" style and bet on the "over" we would all be rich!  Kidding aside, it is pretty amazing how accurate the folks in Vegas are, isn' it?

2.  If you look at the Mets' 2019 run differential, you can calculate an expected win total using a formula called the Pythagorean Win Theorem.  Or, you can just look it up on any website that shows MLB standings, which is much easier.  With that being said, the team is only playing one game worse then their projected record to date, so maybe they are just a better then average team, but not quite good enough this year to make the playoffs?

3.  On the topic, the Mets' bullpen gets a lot of heat for the teams' lack of playoff baseball and it is rightly so.  They have 27 blown saves (26th in MLB), along with a save percentage of only 57.14% (20th in MLB), which look hideous on paper.  But, what is interesting is that the Nationals are basically right there with the Mets in both categories, yet they somehow figured out a way to win a few more games along the way.  In any event, the bullpen is priority number one going into the "hot stove" season, along with figuring out a way to sign Anthony Rendon to play Third Base.

Lastly, some "bonus material" on this fine Wednesday morning.

Don't lose sight of what is going on in the AL Wild Card race, because it is truly wild......get it?

Here are the AL Wild Card Standings with only a handful of games left to be played;

Oakland         94-63    +0.5
Tampa Bay    94-64      ----

Cleveland      93-64      0.5

Yep, no one has clinched a spot in the Wild Card round (yet) with less then a week to go.  As a matter of fact, you have three teams within one game of each other and there are only two spots to be had.  One of the the three teams in this race will be left out with well over 90 wins, while the two NL Wild Card Teams might reach the 90 win plateau, which is crazy.

I will update the entire playoff picture once things fall into place.