Tom Brennan - Mets' Franchise Troughs and Peaks - and in 2022, Baseball is Meant to be Played

 

No one likes a crummy trough - especially long-suffering, diehard Mets fans

BEFORE MY ARTICLE:

BASEBALL IS MEANT TO BE PLAYED. NOT REMINISCED ABOUT.

The Moo Goo Gai Pandemic is over, a miserable war in Ukraine is raging, gas and groceries are soaring, and folks here just want to return to normal, which is a springtime of baseball and sunshine.  Those idiots sure know how to muck things up, huh?

The Post reported that "Opening Day has been pushed back to April 14 at the earliest, but a league official did not rule out the possibility of a 162-game schedule."

IDIOTS, MORONS, AND IMBECILES.

JUST SETTLE IT - I DON'T CARE HOW.

Anyway, as any investor will know from experience, the stock market has troughs, when the market flounders, and has peaks, when it soars.

Some investors spend more time flailing in the troughs than others, and less at the peaks than others.

The Mets, IMO, have had too many troughs and too few peaks.

Trough #1 - the Birthing Trough.

 - In 1962-68, the Mets went 394-737, a whopping 343 games under .500.

Peak #1 - One World Series Win, One World Series Loss

- In 1969-1976, the Mets had just one losing season, and won it all in 1969 behind Tom Seaver against an Orioles juggernaut and almost won in 1973 against baseball's two powerhouse teams, defeating the Reds but barely losing to the As.  They went 670-619 (.520) in those 8 seasons.  Mediocre, except for 100-62 in 1969.

Only the two World Series appearances made this a low peak stretch as the Mets disappointingly were only a mediocre 13 games over .500 in the 7 years after the 1969 Miracle. 

Trough #2 - the post-Seaver hangover period.

The Mets were an abysmal 434-641 from 1977-1983.  Lovable Losers Return.  The only thing that saved them in this period was the 1981 strike year that wiped out 59 games, holding them down to 62 losses that year, but still 21 games below .500.  

This trough period was so bad, during the 6 full seasons in that stretch, the Mets never won more than 68 games.  Seaver returned later in that period, but even a prime-time Seaver, which he no longer was by then, could not have saved this woeful bunch of offensively challenged teams.

Peak #2 - the swagger years of 1984-1990.

One incredibly hard World Series win in 1986, matched with an incredibly painful NL Championship Series loss in 1988.  Loaded with incredible talent starting in 1984, the failure of management/ownership to make this a more enduring elite group  kept what many thought would be a decade-long, or longer, dynastic period to just 7 seasons of relatively modest success.

The near-dynasty, considering the talent on the team, was also thwarted by 2 other factors: 

1) incredible pitching performances by opponents in 1984 (16-1Cub acquiree Sutcliffe), 1985 (20-1 Tudor just after Memorial weekend), 1987 (Tudor part 2), and 1988 (unhittable Hersheiser), and 

2) self-destructive partying - where was no-nonsense Gil Hodges when you needed him?  He would have left shoe polish stains from boots in the derriere on a bunch of players.

This incredible period, though, included great Mets pitcher win-loss seasons from Doc (24-4), Cone (20-3), and Ojeda (18-5).  

666 wins, 466 losses.  So many fine players, incredibly hard to believe that 7-year stretch did not yield more post-season activity.

Trough #3 - the 6-year morass of 1991-96.

A trough epitomized in my mind by the Mets' BB problem - passing on superstar Barry Bonds, but signing the lesser Bobby Bonilla. 

348-443 = 7 years of yuck, although a few great performances individually over short periods by the likes of Lance Johnson and Bernard Gilkey.  No playoffs, lots of misery, plenty of villains.  Especially painful, considering the crosstown Yanks were beginning their long reign of success, relevance, and dominance, and their collection of jewelry and trophies.

Peak #3 - 1997-2001 - a solid 5 year stretch at 449-362.

Two playoff appearances, winning 3 rounds, but not reaching the World Series in 1999 and then losing it to the Clemens batting-hurling Yankees in 2000.  This was a brief and modest peak period with 2 strong seasons and 3 mediocre ones, tainted by remaining the # 2 team in town.

Trough #4 - 2002-05 - 295-351.

Not a steep trough, and it ended relatively quickly due to the emergence of two arriving young Mets studs, Wright and Reyes.  But no playoff trips - while, crosstown, the post-season party just kept rolling.

Peak #4 - 2006-08 - 274-212.  

A disappointing success period, with one playoff round win in 2006, when the 97 Mets wins were widely regarded as having a real shot at winning it all.  The late collapses of 2007 and 2008 were painful - don't make me re-live those.  It made many of us puke in a trough.  

The Mets' unwillingness to bust the cap always kept the Mets short of the promised land.  The Bronx team spent with little regard to busting through the cap.  They won a lot more, didn't they?

Trough #5 - 2009-2014 - 453-522. 

Malaise - enough talent to win between 70 and 79 games over each of those 6 years - while the Yanks continued to rub it in crosstown.   Towards the end, Reyes was gone, Wright was deteriorating, and (with hope) the Mets' pitching studs were arriving.  

Ownership was financially strapped and failed to adequately invest in this team, and the results showed it. Teams with 70-79 wins do not reach the playoffs.

Peak #5 - 2015-2016 - 177-147.

A skinny peak, one that started improbably in mid-2015 with the sudden ascendancy of Murphy, Cespedes, Harvey and others in the middle of that season, but ended in a painful World Series loss to the underdog Royals.  Update: Duda's errant throw home just sailed past Saturn and is expected to leave the solar system in 2 years.  

Then the Wilpons snuffed their team's chances of a longer peak run by allowing the mercurial Murphy to leave the Mets to join (of all teams) the arch-rival Bats.  

2016 was an unlikely Murphy-less surge to the playoffs spurred by the strong, late-season play of TJ Rivera, Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman, after the latter 2 had been pounded all season in AAA.  A one game snuffing by a bum named Bumgarner over a brilliant Syndergaard, and the Mets' were out of the playoffs just...like...that, playing their last playoff game to date.

Trough #6 - 2017-21 - 336-372.

Despite two Cy Young winning seasons from Jacob deGrom, the Mets were 36 games below .500 over the past 5 seasons, as the malaise returned, despite a remarkable 2019 hitting season from the tandem  Alonso and McNeil.  

The Wilpons (boo!) never did enough to make this team a winner. Too strapped to bust the cap to do what was necessary?  Or just needed the bucks for a new arena.

This period included the first year of the Steve Cohen ownership period.  It (2021) was plagued with massive levels of injuries.  

The sense of many, though, is a new peak period is right around the corner, now that the organization is done with Wilpon incompetence and frugality.  Of course, that requires games to be played, because climbing a peak occurs one step at a time.

So, overall, 6 trough periods and 5 peak periods.  The trough periods totaled 35 years, while the peak periods totaled just 25 years.  

Just 5 World Series appearances - painful.  Had anyone told you there would be just 4 more World Series appearances, and just one more World Series win, in the 52 years after 1969, I think many of you would have decided to be fans of something else. 

The Braves will be tough adversaries, if and when 2022's season starts, but the time to right the S.S. Mets' Ship, and sail it to the next peak, is now.  

Right Now, in fact.

No half-stepping, no cutting corners.  Mets fans understand this game is a game of twists and turns, but to overcome those twists and turns, it helps greatly to strenuously avoid incompetence and frugality (I & F).  Competence and open checkbook are keys.

After all, Mets fans have seen where "I & F" have gotten the Mets, as they have spent well above a billion less in salary than the Yankees over the past 25 seasons.  The Wilpons kept cheaping out, relatively speaking, on managers, on GMs, on the farm system, and on the Mets' roster, and the results speak of themselves.

What is most relevant to Mets' fans is what has happened more recently.  Over the past 31 seasons, just 10 peak seasons and 21 trough seasons.  

Enough, quite frankly, is enough.  Not only is it time to live amongst the peaks, it's beyond time for the Mets to spend a sustained period of seasons residing on higher peaks than those found in the Bronx.

Enough is enough. 

We want peaks!  Nuttin' but peaks!