Steve Cohen, David Stearns appear ready to meet Mets playoff challenge they still face
The key is sustenance.That’s also been the trick.Since 1962, the Mets have qualified for the playoffs in back-to-back years just twice: 2015’s World Series appearance backed by 2016’s one-game stay as a wild-card play-in loser; and also 1999’s NLCS participant backed by 2000’s World Series runner-up.They’ve qualified twice in three years just twice: the 1986 World Series champions backed by the 1988 team, which won 100 games in the regular season but just three in the postseason in being ousted by the Dodgers in a seven-game NLCS disappointment.And the 2022 team that won 101 games but couldn’t survive the play-in round with the Padres, backed by this unlikely 2024 run for the roses.And that’s it.And that’s the trick for Steve Cohen and David Stearns now.
One of the things about the best teams of recent vintage — the Dodgers, Braves, Astros, even Brewers — is that they take a legit shot every year.And the more shots you take, eventually you hope to unlock the key to lifting the Commissioner’s Trophy.Let’s look at it another way: Since the Yankees started making the playoffs again in 1995, the most impressive thing is that they have added five championships to their total.
But what’s just as incredible is that since ’95 they’ve made the playoffs 19 other times that didn’t yield the ultimate fruit — and make that 20 if you include this year, with its undetermined outcome.That’s 20 times in 30 seasons that didn’t produce a title.The Mets have been to the postseason just 11 times total going back to 1962, including this year.
And, as we’ve already pointed out, prosperity has always seemed fleeting, mostly because success has always been fleeting.The culprits have been many.So have the excuses.The Mets did follow their initial breakthrough in 1969 with a pennant four years later.
But by then Gil Hodges had died, the single-most devastating thing that ever happened to the franchise.M.
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