We all come to this website for the same reason; we all love the Mets. While we all love the Mets, we may not all love what has been going on with our team. We may disagree about the owners, the manager, the coaches and whom they trot out there, but one thing we cannot disagree on is this…
Baseball is a special game because any team can beat any team on any given day.
We as fans cannot control who controls our team. We can whine as much as we want about owners, coaches and players, but none of us have any control over the Mets as a franchise.
With or without the Wilpons the Mets will take the field with the opportunity to win. With or without Terry Collins, the Mets will be afforded the occasion to score more runs than the other team. With this current roster of players, the Mets will have 162 chances to be victorious. Enthusiasm and hope are on the rise again, and even Mets ticket sales are up a reported 20 percent according to Newsday, you can order your tickets here.
There is a time for negativity, especially as a Mets fan. Right now just isn’t that time. With each new season comes a clean slate. The year 2015 is no different. The Mets will start the year with a 0-0 record.
This goes not only for the Mets but also for every team. All baseball fans should be optimistic in April. The Mets and 28 other teams had to “wait ‘til next year”. We are not alone, but the fact remains that each and every game is winnable.
It doesn’t matter what you or I think will happen, what matters is what actually happens. While the common fan and “expert analysts” may make predictions on which teams will play meaningful games come September, they are seldom correct. It’s easy to say which teams will and will not make the playoffs but the fact remains that each year there are surprises and disappointments with those predictions.
People like to point out which teams spent the most or acquired the most but that, again, does not always equal a playoff spot. Sometimes low payroll teams win and sometimes high payroll teams lose. Nobody is ever a shoe-in. This applies especially in the game of baseball. Not with 162 games to play. Not with a three round playoff system and a sudden death wild card round. Not when the winner isn’t decided in a one game winner takes all championship. A baseball season is not a sprint; it is a marathon, slow and steady wins the race.
It’s easy to fall victim to negativity as a Mets fan. Without much to celebrate since 2006, we must, as Mets fans, look at this coming season in a positive light. Every season should be approached with optimism, but I will plead my case for 2015 in particular.
Last year, we won 79 games. That roster has not changed much, besides the addition of Matt Harvey, a full year of Jacob deGrom, Michael Cuddyer and Wilmer Flores’ bat at short. They lost 30 games by one run or in extra innings. That’s 109 winnable games out of 162. The Mets roster in comparison to last year has not gotten worse with those additions. It may not be substantially better but it is certainly not worse. The Mets are not getting destroyed; they are “in” almost every game. Only 33% of the time in those losses, was the game out of a home run’s reach in the last inning.
For those who predict an exact or roundabout number of wins for an entire season, you are missing out. You are missing out on the beauty of what a baseball season is made of. You are forgetting that each series, game, inning, out and pitch is its own entity. You are negating each hit, bloop, blast and bobble to a mere unrelated number. You are omitting everything that makes the game of baseball beautiful and have failed to remember that as of April 6th 2015, the Mets are not out of the playoffs yet.
I invite all who predict to remove themselves from their crystal ball and remember that each time the Mets wear any of their many combinations of blue and orange – there is a chance they will win. I challenge you to look at each game as its own small jigsaw of a 162-piece puzzle.
Let’s keep the playoffs and a championship on the back burner and focus on each game as its own being.
Ask yourself on April 6th, “Can the Mets win today?”, the answer is yes. The answer to that question will be yes for another 161 games as well.
Series breakdown
I offer to you, my fellow met fans, a new way to look at a season. It involves no prediction and it allows time for optimism until the team tells you otherwise.
I wrote an article recapping the Mets season series record a while back. In it I mentioned that my coach in college would say, “you don’t have to win every game, you just have to win the series.” before we embarked on a weekend 3 game set.
I have since developed a system to tell me if I should be negative or not.
The season is separated into 54 individual 3 game series’. Download the attached link to get your own print out of my season series breakdown. Following the season with this formula lets you know when its time to be negative.
The goal is to win 2 out of every three games (108 wins). Obviously, even the best teams do not do this (unless you’re the 1986 Mets), so each team will end up with a negative number. The average playoff team finishes with a season total no worse than -18.
Each series the Mets can sweep (+1), get swept (-2) win two out of three (0) or lose 2 out of 3 (-1).
Looking at the season this way gives each game meaning up until that breaking point. Even at that breaking point there is a chance to sweep or win a series to stay afloat.
Final Thoughts
As a side note, when I take my nephews to games (my daughter will go to her first game this year), they don’t complain about the Wilpons. They don’t argue over Sandy’s decisions and they have no say about the lineup Terry put together. They just love the Mets and know when they get to the ballpark; there is a chance for them to win that day. It’s pure unbridled optimism. As adults, we too often over-analyze and scrutinize things out of our control. Lets try something different this year; let’s watch the game and the team we love like we used to when we were kids. At least until they get to -18 with my formula. Last year, that happened 84 games into the season. I hope you guys enjoy and Lets Go Mets!
