Even though making the playoffs officially won’t be happening for the New York Mets this year, they have accomplished some cool things as a team along the way, especially when looking at the rest of this decade (2010-19) as it comes to a close.

They’ve not only set a new franchise record for team home runs (like nearly every other big-league team), but they’ll also be finishing the regular season with a winning record for the third time this decade, including three times in the last five years. We also know most of the general things about New York’s 2019 performance by just taking a glance at the statistics. For instance, the offense has been more potent with guys like Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, and Michael Conforto healthy and productive for most of the year, the rotation has mostly been a strength again, and the bullpen — outside of a second-half resurgence — was mostly a thorn in manager Mickey Callaway‘s side.

There are still a few games left to play before this decade of Mets baseball is in the books, but 2019’s season-long team statistics aren’t going to be moving a whole lot at this point in the year anyways, so why not see how various parts of the roster performed when they’re compared to the last nine seasons in Flushing. Instead of breaking out position-by-position like I did earlier this week, this will be a little simpler, looking at production from position players, the starting rotation, and the bullpen.

First, let’s take a look at how the offense has fared when comparing it to the rest of the decade:

The above table is sorted by wRC+, but I wanted to add in team fWAR for good measure and to get a fuller picture of this area of the roster’s performance. As we can see, this year’s Mets are on the verge of finishing with the best team wRC+ of the 2010s. That’s a far cry from how the decade began, and it’s at least been a mostly upward trend since 2015.

It helps that New York currently boasts seven different hitters with a wRC+ of at least 100: Alonso (144), McNeil (143), Conforto (128), Amed Rosario (100), Todd Frazier (102), J.D. Davis (134), and Wilson Ramos (105). Having this influx of offense is helpful because advanced metrics still haven’t been kind to the Mets’ defense. Their team defense has been worth -92 Defensive Runs Saved, which is easily the worst this decade. In fact, each of the last three years have all landed at the bottom of the list (-72 in ’17, -77 in ’18).

Before we continue discussing not-so-great performances, let’s flip back to some of the good stuff by taking a peek at the starting rotation’s on a yearly basis throughout the decade:

Looking at this on a macro level, it’s pretty interesting that from the standpoint of run prevention, the Mets’ rotation has mostly been solid. It’s also interesting that after New York’s starting staff produced its worst results of the decade in ERA and fWAR in 2017, they’ve finished off this period of time with two of the best performances.

Having Cy Young-caliber years in both 2018 and 2019 from Jacob deGrom certainly doesn’t hurt as a foundation in each of those seasons. Similar to 2018, though, the rotation production has been awfully top-heavy with deGrom, Zack Wheeler, and Noah Syndergaard taking up the majority of that number.

This once again makes Wheeler’s impending free agency an intriguing case to follow for New York. Yes, having a full year of Marcus Stroman would hopefully make up for this loss if the Mets don’t re-sign the right-hander, but there would still be a significant void in the rotation that one would think needs to be filled externally in some way.

OK, let’s finish with a bang by looking at the bullpen, shall we? All I can say about this is that at least they’re not the worst:

Is it any surprise that this decade’s two most successful Mets bullpens when looking at fWAR came in the two years they reached the playoffs? Probably not. Similar to what we talked about earlier in the week, the two main culprits that torpedoed New York’s overall bullpen production were Jeurys Familia and Edwin Diaz.

Diaz has already spoken about his desire to erase this horrific campaign upon climbing back onto the mound in 2020. While there’s nothing he can do now to erase his season-long statistics, the best thing he can do is what’s currently happening — finishing the year strong and at least heading into the winter with a string of good outings as his last memories.

This decade of Mets baseball didn’t end in the way we hoped when thinking about it back in January, February, and March. But when compared to the rest of the teams New York has produced during this period of time, there should be some optimism moving forward. Now we’ll just have to hope for solid execution from the front office and some occasional good fortune on the field for the stars to hopefully align. Especially since there were a number of “win-now” moves made last that makes the margin for error in the future quite slim.