This offseason, we’ll look at the Mets history with free agency — the best uses of their money and the worst. We’ll start positive with someone who unlike so many on these lists joined the team in complete obscurity but became a reliable pitcher during one of the franchise’s best eras. Even by today’s standards, when free-agent signings garner more attention and...
The 2000 New York Mets qualified for the postseason as the National League’s wildcard team, in the time when there was only one wildcard entrant per league. Their first round opponent was the San Francisco Giants, who had the best regular season record in all of baseball at 97-65. The best-of-five series began in San Francisco, where the two teams split the first two games. In Game Two,...
Cue the Baha Men. The Mets embraced this one-hit wonder musical group’s top track during the postseason, as most of the country did in the summer. They even allowed them to alter “Who Let the Dogs Out?” with a Mets theme. And speaking of things that were confined to the year 2000, Mike Hampton in New York had already been considered a success by the time October arrived. He was...
Six up with six to play. Not even the Mets, well-accustomed to late-season collapses in recent years, could possibly succumb to such a freefall. Fortunately, either a New York win or a loss by the Los Angeles Dodgers would ensure a second consecutive trip to the postseason. But the Mets — specifically their general manager — had no interest in settling for a wild card berth, even if...
It’s generally a bad idea to give good teams any extra chances to win. The Mets, who came into the middle of August as arguably the hottest team in baseball, took full advantage of their opponents’ occasional generosity while repressing their own self-inflicted mistakes. The end result was five wins in eight games that week, giving them 21 victories over their previous 27 games. A...
The surging Mets took a brief respite from their breakneck pace — falling to the Cincinnati Reds, 6-0, on July 31. It was a hiccup during what was the team’s best stretch of baseball. After the Reds loss, New York went on to take 10 of their next 12 and narrow the gap between them and the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves to only 1.5 games. The key in this run of success was their...
A full week after their 18-hour flight from halfway around the world, the Mets still showed symptoms of jet lag. They dropped two of three to the Padres and only managed to scrape together two hits in the opener against Los Angeles. The Mets actually won that night in spite of their anemic offense — and have Rick Reed to thank for it. Reed augmented his solid start in Japan with 7.2...
