Recently, we ran a poll on the site which asked who was going to win the NL East. Not surprisingly, coming from a site dedicated to the Mets, 74% of the respondents picked the team from Queens. Their odds of winning the division likely aren’t that good but some of that probably is clawed back with having a good enough record to claim a Wild Card spot. FanGraphs currently thinks that once you add in the Wild Card, that the Mets have a 79.4% chance to make the playoffs.
We don’t want to be satisfied making the playoffs, we want to win the World Series. But you can’t win the championship without making the playoffs, so that’s a pretty important bench mark. With that out of the way, I came across something on Facebook a few days ago that interested me. It was a compilation of how man playoff wins each MLB franchise has had since 1998, when the league expanded to 30 teams. Here are the numbers:
116 Yankees
86 Dodgers
77 Astros
69 Red Sox, Cardinals
50 Giants
49 Braves
48 Phillies
36 Guardians
35 Mets
33 Tigers, Rangers
29 Cubs
28 Diamondbacks, Rays
25 Royals
21 Padres, Angels
20 Blue Jays
19 Nationals
18 Athletics
17 Mariners, Brewers
14 White Sox
13 Marlins
9 Twins, Rockies
6 Orioles
3 Pirates
2 Reds
It’s easy for Mets fans to get bogged down in how many sub-.500 teams they’ve had in this span – 14 losing records in 28 years – and forget that twice in this stretch they made the World Series and three additional times they made the NLCS. There are a lot of franchises that would love to have the success the Mets have experienced since 1998. If they had won the World Series at least once in the period, my take is that fans would have a different view of things.
The only team above them in playoff wins not to win a World Series in the time frame is the Guardians, who haven’t won it all since 1948. On the flip side, the D’Backs, Angels, Marlins, White Sox, Royals, Cubs, Nationals and Rangers have all won the Series.
Would you rather be a fan of the Marlins, who have that 2003 World Series win against the Yankees, but who’ve had a losing record 21 times in that span, including four times when they lost 100 games? And one of those seven years where they were above .500 came during the Covid year when they were 31-29. The season before that, the Marlins lost 105 games and the year afterwards they lost 95.
We all want to see another championship team. But are you willing to go down to the crossroads and sell your soul to make it happen?
My hope is that in the next 28 years that the Mets have more playoff wins than 35 and that somewhere in that stretch is a World Series winner. But the regular season means a lot to me. I still count the 2022 season as a very good year, even though the Mets flamed out in the playoffs. There’s no way I’d want to be like the Marlins, able to point to World Series titles but mostly playing bad baseball throughout their existence.
Yet there’s no right way to be a fan. Many of you are in the “flags fly forever” camp and that’s okay. Maybe that’s where you’d find me if 1986 didn’t happen. I want the Mets to win it all again before the lights go out for me. But assuming there’s 28 years left before that happens, give me 20 years with a bite at the apple, not three.
I believe the best way to look at this analysis is to look at the Houston Astros. While they are significantly up on this list, they got 30 of their playoff wins in the last five years or so. What the Mets have not had is a sustained presence in the playoffs, quite honestly, ever. We hoped for a big run in the ‘80’s that fizzled. They were strong again before the turn of the century for a blink, the 2005-2007 teams had great potential, 2015 added several playoff wins, as did 2024. The hope in building a consistent winner is that they get into the playoffs where anything can happen. The quest should be to build a consistently competitive team that can pick up playoff wins each year. During the span when the Yankees won 14 out of 15 division titles, they could not help but add a significant number of playoff wins. Late season crashes, and they’ve had lots of those, have robbed them of the chance to do so. Let’s hope the kids are ready to play.
I’m with Brian in that I am a fan all season and appreciate a great regular season. There’s no chance to win a WS title if you don’t make the playoffs and anything can happen then. No one thought we’d get past the Phillies and Milwaukee in 24. I’m sure everyone knew Alonso would strike out instead of hitting a 3 run bomb off Williams, and that game 6 in ‘86 was over when Carter stepped to the plate. But those worked out. Sometimes shit happens. Sometimes great stuff happens.
I get frustrated at times as much as anyone, but appreciate when my team gives me some excitement and something to hope for.