The Mets Return To Glory in the National League

The New York Mets are far removed from their glorious cinderella run to the 1986 World Series Championship. They have not won a championship and have only been to one since (in which they lost to the yanks in 5 games). This year however may be the year that they once again return to the World Series. The Mets in the last few years have not been a winning team; they’ve spent a lot of money and put non-competitive teams on the field. They’ve made disastrous front office decisions, including trading Scott Kazmir and signing for Mo Vaughn. And these decisions have come back to haunt them. This year however the Mets have an amazing opportunity. They have all but secured the division title, and they can rest their two great pitchers Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine until the playoffs. And as we have seen through the years, having two big time pitchers is what you need to get deep into the playoffs.

The Mets road to the World Series appears at this point to be very easy. The National League has been bad this year, and it appears that only the Cardinals can challenge the Mets. Teams like the Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Padres just can’t compete with the Mets. The Mets are better offensively and they have better pitching. The Cardinals will be the only team that stands in their way. The Cardinals however have no pitching, and after Chris Carpenter it they have no one else. The Mets have Pedro Martinez, Orlando Hernandez, and Tom Glavine. The Mets rotation is clearly better. The Cardinals offense is very good but so is the Mets offense. The Mets have an elite lineup just like the Cardinals which include guys like David Wright, Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran all of which are all-star caliber players and in the case of Wright and Beltran MVP caliber players. If you consider all facets of the game, I think you could make a case and a very strong one at that the Mets are in fact the better team.

Winning the World Series for the Mets however seems to be quite a different story. The teams in the American League are much better than those in the national league. In inter-league play the Mets were embarrassed by the Red Sox. They played non completive baseball. They lost 2 out of the 3 to the struggling Orioles and they also lost 2 out of 3 to the yanks. There is an argument to be made that if they Mets were in the American League, that they would be battling for the honor of being the 6th best team. The Red Sox, Tigers, White Sox, and Yankees are clearly better. The Blue Jays are also a comparable team to the Mets. Based on their poor record in inter-league play it is not unreasonable to say that even though they probably will make it to the World Series that they have very little chance of winning a 7 game series against an American League team.