Maybe it’s an East-Coast bias or the fact that we view everything with an orange and blue tint, but despite a pitching staff considered one of the best in the league there are as many pundits picking the Mets to repeat as division champs as there are picking them to miss the postseason.
USA Today’s Gage Lacques has the defending National League champions finishing a game out of the final wildcard spot behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. Big League Stew’s Mike Oz says Fangraphs estimates they’ll be in a three-way tie for that final playoff spot with the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates.
Bleacher Report’s Danny Knobler takes it one step further, predicting the Mets will miss the playoffs entirely because the Miami Marlins will do what many observers thought they would achieve last year and make the postseason.
This would clearly throw cold water on the budding Nats-Mets rivalry, one that I think is a media-driven creation – somewhat similar to the Mets-Phillies rivalry that doesn’t exist. I hate the Phillies, like most Met fans, but there’s no real reason for that hate.
Any Met fan has good reason to hate the Marlins. Just go back a decade to 2007 when Tom Glavine took the mound with a chance to return to the postseason. Adam Rubin, then with the Daily News, reported how the left-hander was rocked in the first inning to complete an epic collapse that saw them slip from first after owning a seven game lead with 17 games left.
Yes, the Phillies won the division that year. Yes, they won their last seven games against the Mets that year. But if the Mets win Game 162, they’re in the playoffs and the Marlins made sure they weren’t. They followed up the following year, closing Shea Stadium and knocking the Mets out of the playoffs again.
Those are the roots of a true rivalry, one that has history behind it. Despite only being in existence since 1993, the Mets have never been that much better than the Fish. Since 2005, the Amazins’ have a 106-96 advantage with a 31-26 record in September. So despite the fact the team from Florida during that time has only finished over .500 just three times and the closest they’ve sniffed the playoffs was a 2nd place finish six game back in 2009, the team we root for hasn’t been dominant against a bottom-feeder.
I haven’t even mentioned the return of Jose Fernandez for a full season, a healthy Giancarlo Stanton joining Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna in the outfield and last year’s batting average champion Dee Gordon at the top of the lineup.
Wei-Yin Chen has a career 3.72 ERA, a career WHIP of 1.252 and finished 2015 with a 3.8 WAR. Tom Koehler is a solid No. 3 starter and A.J. Ramos saved 32 games last year with a 2.30 ERA.
Point is, while both the Phillies and the Braves are ‘rebuilding’, the Marlins plan to be competitive. The Mets have often labored against them, the two teams always play tough against each other. We will end August and start September hosting the Fish. They’ll also end the season with a six-game road trip that starts with three in Miami.
IMO, the Mets will need to dominate the bottom of the division and consistently take two of three from the Nationals since they’re more than likely to play even with the Fish. And since history isn’t on their side, let’s hope there’s not too much at stake when they board the plane to MIA this September.
