Talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words. That’s a phrase many of us have heard throughout our lives at various junctures. While this motto can apply to a plethora of situations, this is very apropos for the New York Mets as they begin their 2016 season, vying to head back to the World Series.
Fans are abuzz over the current status the Mets enter the 2016 season with. The defending National League Champions, the best starting five in the game, a talented nucleus of offensive talent. All positive attributes and ones that make the Mets not only the talk of New York, but of baseball.
As fans know, it’s hard to simmer expectations, especially coming off the miraculous second half run the Mets had last season. However, while I am all for positive thinking and playing with a sense of cockiness and swagger, I appreciated what David Wright said in Port St. Lucie this week, when he spoke on last season’s success.
“My message would be don’t let last year be the pinnacle of what this team is able to accomplish,” Wright said. “Let’s take it one step further, then we can really celebrate.”
Essentially Wright is urging his teammates to strive further, to finish the job they started. Learn from the postseason, use that as an advantage. They’ve had a taste of success, but now they want the whole meal.
This message is big coming from the captain. In 2006, at the young age of 23, Wright and his Mets team had made it to Game 7 of the NLCS. While the end result was disappointing, surely Wright and Mets fans alike all felt that this team would be in contention for the next several years. They would be the perennial contender that fans from post 1986 thought that Mets squad should’ve been.
One main advantage for this Mets team compared to 2006 is clearly their hard-throwing starting rotation, and their age. Remember who the Mets had on the mound in ’06, a 40 year-old Tom Glavine, 35 year-old Steve Trachsel, 34 year-old Pedro Martinez who only appeared in 23 games and made no starts in the postseason, and a second half of 40 year-old Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez. To make us all feel even older, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler, and Steven Matz were all in high school. Noah Syndergaard was in middle school. But I digress.
Wright’s message is all about how this team needs to focus on continuing the task this year. Yes, use 2015 as a big step forward, but not the complete mile. In order for the Mets to continue their rise, staying humble and hungry is what they need to do in 2016. Wright knows more than anyone on this current Mets roster how relying on past success doesn’t guarantee future triumph.
“I can serve as a cautionary tale,” Wright said. “The same thing happened in 2006 and 2007. The expectations were so high and everybody knows what happened, so I think I can speak from experience: Don’t let this be another cautionary tale. The biggest thing is stay hungry.”
The Kansas City Royals are a team that can serve as a beacon for these Mets. They made it to Game 7 of the World Series in 2014 against the San Francisco Giants, and lost at home. The Mets lost at home in five last year, but hope that keeping their core nucleus of players together, as the Royals had done heading into 2015, will serve as a strength for 2016. Wright acknowledged that the Royals model can serve as motivation.
“They made it so close in 2014 and then came back even more hungry the next year and won the World Series,” Wright said. “That can prove to be our plan.”
As the Mets progress into the spring, I hope they heed Wright’s word of advice. Early predictions, and vowing “we’re the team to beat” can be fun rhetoric and slow news day fodder. However, actions and results are the only things that really matter once the real games begin. Nobody doubts the Mets have all the pieces in place to get back to the postseason, now it’s up to them to show the physical and mental makeup of finishing the job in 2016.
