Sustained Success

[Centerfield]

Was talking with a friend yesterday about why I am so down on the Mets and why I feel like there is no hope. He pointed out that even with the Wilpons and a modest budget, the Mets were a few breaks away from winning the World Series in 2015. I realize that yes, a World Series title is obviously the ultimate goal, but just as important to me is a period of sustained success. I would love to reach a point in my fandom where I feel like the Mets have put themselves in a place where they can realistically compete for a championship for several years. He said to me, "Well then you just want them to be the Yankees."

I don't think that's true. Sure, the Yankees are a good example of sustained success, but I think what I am asking for is not outlandish. So I started digging. Let's assume that sustained success is a 5 or 6 year period. I would say making the playoffs three of those years would qualify for sustained success. We already know that the Mets have never done this in their history. They have never made the playoffs more than 2 times in any decade. So I started checking to see how many teams would meet this criteria. For the purposes of this exercise, I looked up teams that made the playoffs 3 times over any 6 year period. And I figured we should limit this to recent success, so my look-back period is 2000 to today.

During that time, 19 teams have had sustained success under the criteria I outlined (in fact, all of these qualified with at least 3 appearances in 5 years). Specifically:

1. Washington Nationals
2. Atlanta Braves
3. Philadelphia Phillies
4. Chicago Cubs
5. Cincinnati Reds
6. Pittsburgh Pirates
7. St. Louis Cardinals
8. LA Dodgers
9. SF Giants
10. Boston Red Sox
11. NY Yankees
12. Baltimore Orioles
13. Tampa Rays
14. Minnesota Twins
15. Texas Rangers
16. Detroit Tigers
17. Cleveland Indians
18. LA Angels
19. Oakland A's

The strong teams blow my criteria out of the water, and have streaks of several year, or stretches where making the playoffs is the norm, with a few blips. But even some small market teams are able to squeak out periods of competitiveness where they find the postseason three times with the same core.

That leaves 11 teams that have failed. Along with the Mets:

1. Royals
2. White Sox
3. Rockies
4. Marlins
5. Houston
6. Brewers
7. Arizona
8. Padres
9. Mariners
10. Blue Jays

So in the end, I don't think I'm asking for too much. I'm basically asking the Mets, a big market team, to not be in the bottom third of success in MLB. They, along with the White Sox, are the only big market club to fall into this category. It really is just not acceptable.

[Ceetar]

But like, they make it in 2019 or 2020 and that qualifies right?

[Benjamin Grimm]

It really is just not acceptable.

I agree.

For the record, the narrowest span over which the Mets had three postseason appearances is eight years: 1999, 2000, 2006.

The narrowest span for four postseason appearances is fifteen years! (1986, 1988, 1999, 2000)

There have been times when it looked like the Mets might be on the cusp of this kind of sustained success, like in early September of 2007. Starting with that collapse, the Phillies won, what, five straight division titles? That seems unthinkable that the Mets would ever do that, but it shouldn't be.

[Edgy MD]

I'm OK with the notion that they are in the midst of three playoff appearances in five years.

I'm really down on Barwis though. And not so up on Mickey.

[Benjamin Grimm]

If I believed it, I'd be upset with this recent buzz that Mickey is safe until at least next year's All-Star break. If the Mets pick a GM from outside the organization I expect Mickey will be gone. And he may be gone even if they don't.

[Centerfield]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Starting with that collapse, the Phillies won, what, five straight division titles? That seems unthinkable that the Mets would ever do that, but it shouldn't be.

And that's the thing. It really shouldn't be. The Braves won the first 6 titles on this millenium. The Mets won once. Then it started the Phillies run of five. Since then the Nationals have won 4 of the last 6. The only team we have been more successful than is the Marlins. And they, despite actively tanking more often then not, can still boast about the World Series title they won in 2003.

It's so frustrating. You almost have to try to be this bad.

[Vic Sage]

i've taken CF's analysis even further. I went back to 1969, the first year of divisional play (and the first year of Mets in the post-season). Then, I defined "sustained success" as post-season appearances in 3/6yrs, or 4/8yrs, or 5/10 yrs. The teams are ranked by the number of periods of sustained success from 1969 - 2017:

4 Los Angeles Dodgers
4 Oakland Athletics
3 Boston Red Sox
3 New York Yankees
3 St. Louis Cardinals
2 Atlanta Braves
2 Baltimore Orioles
2 Chicago Cubs
2 Cincinnati Reds
2 Cleveland Indians
2 Houston Astros
2 Minnesota Twins
2 Philadelphia Phillies
2 Pittsburgh Pirates
2 San Francisco Giants
2 Texas Rangers
1 Arizona Diamondbacks
1 Detroit Tigers
1 Kansas City Royals
1 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
1 Seattle Mariners
1 Tampa Bay Rays
1 Toronto Blue Jays
1 Washington Nationals/Montreal

Of the remaining teams, if you expand the definition to include teams that won 2 WS within 10 years, or had 3 post-season appearances with at least 1 WS within 10 years (since that's the ultimate goal, and a WS win earns a franchise more time), then that would include:
x Chicago White Sox
x Miami Marlins

The only teams without a period of sustained success are:
x New York Mets
x Colorado Rockies
x Milwaukee Brewers
x San Diego Padres

But Colorado has only existed since 1993, so they have that excuse. Only the Mets, Milwaukee and San Diego go all the way back to 1969, so they've been unsuccessful longer. At least the Mets have 2 WS titles; Colorado, Milwaukee and SD have none.

So by this measure, only Milwaukee and SD, in all of major league baseball, have been as consistently unsuccessful over as long a period as our Mets. So I think this graphically displays the objectively awful load of crap that Mets fans have had to put up with for nearly 50 years, without even counting our first 7 years of losing that was so unprecedented (including the record for losses that we still hold) as to render those teams lovably comical.

At what point does a rational person stop hitting himself in the head with a hammer?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I'm beginning to feel like I should stop doing that for a while.

Went to two games last week for social reasons and barely looked at the action on the field.

[Centerfield]

Terrific work.

Thoroughly depresssing. But terrific work.

When you factor in the built in advantage of playing in NY, this is almost unthinkable.

[HahnSolo]

Centerfield wrote: That leaves 11 teams that have failed. Along with the Mets: 1. Royals 2. White Sox 3. Rockies 4. Marlins 5. Houston 6. Brewers 7. Arizona 8. Padres 9. Mariners 10. Blue Jays

This is all rather depressing as a Met fan. The one thing I would say about your criteria (and this doesn't affect the Mets) is that I don't think the Royals, White Sox, and Astros would trade their championships for the results of say the Reds and Pirates. I would add the Marlins to this but f&$k the Marlins.

[Vic Sage]

This is all rather depressing as a Met fan. The one thing I would say about your criteria (and this doesn't affect the Mets) is that I don't think the Royals, White Sox, and Astros would trade their championships for the results of say the Reds and Pirates. I would add the Marlins to this but f&$k the Marlins.

That depends on the context you apply to the comparisons.

The Reds had 2 different periods of sustained success since 1969: 1970-79 (with 6 playoffs and 2 WS wins in a 10-year period) and 1997-03 (with 3 playoffs in 4 years), with another WS title in 1990 and a playoff in 95. That's 11 years worth of playoffs and 3 WS championships since 1970.

As a fan, I'd take that in a heartbeat over the Sox's 5 post-season games (1 WS) during the same period, with no periods of sustained success, unless you count the 3 post-seasons (with 1 WS) in the 9 years from 2000-08. That's 8 post-seasons +2WS.

As for the Pirates, like the Reds, they too had 2 strong periods of success: 1970-79 (with 7 playoffs and 3 WS wins over 10 years) and later, 2013-15, with 3 straight playoffs, and 2 other playoff years in between (91-92), for a total of 12 playoff years and 3 titles, surpassing both the Reds and the Sox.

As for the Royals, they had a great run from 1976-85 (7 playoffs, 1 WS, over 10 years), but they couldn't sustain success in 2013-14 (2 playoffs, 1 WS), for a total of 9 playoffs and 2 WS.

Houston has had 2 (maybe 3) successful periods, from 1980-86 (3 playoffs over 6 years), 1997-05 (6 playoffs on 9 years), and their current streak since 2015, which (if you include this year) will be 3 playoffs in 4 years (1 WS). Their total is 12 playoffs and 1 WS, but they're in the middle of a run so who knows how long that will go?

Florida has the 2 WS titles (1997, 2003), but no sustained periods of success, and those have been their only post-seasons in the 25 years of their existence. I would trade that track record for any of the other teams.

[Vic Sage]

Okay, so i've calculated a "misery factor" for the fans in each city. I've taken the number of years each team has had without a playoff appearance since 1969 (or its inception, if later) and divided it by the number of years the team has existed (because teams have been in their current locations for different periods since 1969, its important to do this as percentage). I've adjusted the raw numbers to give extra credit to teams that have periods of "sustained success" (as i've defined it) and extra extra credit for WS titles, since these things are important factors in reducing fan misery.

The Mets had the 10th highest misery factor (better than i thought, even though in the bottom 3rd of the league). The Yankees (of course) the lowest. Brewers fans have had to drink alot of beer and eat alot of cheese to swallow their team's league leading misery factor.

Teams MISERY FACTOR
Milwaukee Brewers 91.67%
San Diego Padres 89.80%
Seattle Mariners 85.37%
Texas Rangers 84.78%
Colorado Rockies 84.00%
Chicago White Sox 83.67%
Detroit Tigers 73.47%
Cleveland Indians 71.43%
Los Angeles Angels (Anaheim) 69.39%
New York Mets 69.39%
Miami Marlins 68.00%
Chicago Cubs 65.31%
Kansas City Royals 65.31%
Tampa Bay Rays 65.00%
Houston Astros 63.27%
Toronto Blue Jays 60.98%
Minnesota Twins 57.14%
Baltimore Orioles 55.10%
Philadelphia Phillies 55.10%
Cincinnati Reds 51.02%
Washington Nationals 50.00%
Pittsburgh Pirates 48.98%
San Francisco Giants 48.98%
Atlanta Braves 46.94%
Arizona Diamondbacks 45.00%
Los Angeles Dodgers 40.82%
Boston Red Sox 38.78%
Saint (St.) Louis Cardinals 36.73%
Oakland Athletics 22.45%
New York Yankees 4.08%

[Vic Sage]

Now that i think about it, misery factors for teams in the same city should be adjusted. If you're a team in the bottom 10 in the same city as a team in the top 10, your misery should be multiplied. Based on these numbers, this includes only the Mets and Angels. After a slight adjustment (pushing the bad years up by 10%), The Mets jump to #7. That feels more right to me.

[Vic Sage]

Final adjustment. The average cost to attend a ballpark for a couple. Higher cost, higher misery, small adjustment.

Under this scenario, the Brewers have risen to a full 100% misery factor. The Mets are at #6, with a bullet.

[u:26iog1h8]75%-100% miserable:[/u:26iog1h8]
Milwaukee Brewers 100.00%
San Diego Padres 96.51%
Colorado Rockies 95.86%
Seattle Mariners 94.48%
Chicago White Sox 90.66%
New York Mets 87.16%
Miami Marlins 81.19%
Los Angeles Angels (Anaheim) 80.16%
Texas Rangers 78.87%
Detroit Tigers 78.63%
Washington Nationals 77.46%
Tampa Bay Rays 77.28%

[u:26iog1h8]50%-75% miserable:[/u:26iog1h8]
Cleveland Indians 75.14%
Chicago Cubs 73.07%
Kansas City Royals 72.39%
Toronto Blue Jays 71.88%
Houston Astros 65.94%
Philadelphia Phillies 59.44%
Minnesota Twins 59.22%
Baltimore Orioles 57.72%
San Francisco Giants 56.21%
Arizona Diamondbacks 54.48%
Cincinnati Reds 53.19%
Pittsburgh Pirates 51.27%

[u:26iog1h8]less than 50% miserable:[/u:26iog1h8]
Atlanta Braves 49.52%
Boston Red Sox 48.67%
St. Louis Cardinals 38.91%
Los Angeles Dodgers 38.28%
Oakland Athletics 20.79%
New York Yankees 9.12%

Edited July 19, 2018 by Guest

[HahnSolo]

Vic Sage wrote: This is all rather depressing as a Met fan. The one thing I would say about your criteria (and this doesn't affect the Mets) is that I don't think the Royals, White Sox, and Astros would trade their championships for the results of say the Reds and Pirates. I would add the Marlins to this but f&$k the Marlins. That depends on the context you apply to the comparisons. The Reds had 2 different periods of sustained success since 1969: 1970-79 (with 6 playoffs and 2 WS wins in a 10-year period) and 1997-03 (with 3 playoffs in 4 years), with another WS title in 1990 and a playoff in 95. That's 11 years worth of playoffs and 3 WS championships since 1970. As a fan, I'd take that in a heartbeat over the Sox's 5 post-season games (1 WS) during the same period, with no periods of sustained success, unless you count the 3 post-seasons (with 1 WS) in the 9 years from 2000-08. That's 8 post-seasons +2WS. As for the Pirates, like the Reds, they too had 2 strong periods of success: 1970-79 (with 7 playoffs and 3 WS wins over 10 years) and later, 2013-15, with 3 straight playoffs, and 2 other playoff years in between (91-92), for a total of 12 playoff years and 3 titles, surpassing both the Reds and the Sox. As for the Royals, they had a great run from 1976-85 (7 playoffs, 1 WS, over 10 years), but they couldn't sustain success in 2013-14 (2 playoffs, 1 WS), for a total of 9 playoffs and 2 WS. Houston has had 2 (maybe 3) successful periods, from 1980-86 (3 playoffs over 6 years), 1997-05 (6 playoffs on 9 years), and their current streak since 2015, which (if you include this year) will be 3 playoffs in 4 years (1 WS). Their total is 12 playoffs and 1 WS, but they're in the middle of a run so who knows how long that will go? Florida has the 2 WS titles (1997, 2003), but no sustained periods of success, and those have been their only post-seasons in the 25 years of their existence. I would trade that track record for any of the other teams.

To be clear, my comment on the Royals, CWS, and Astros was based on Centerfield's original parameters of 2000-2017. I do realize that I forgot about the Reds championship from 1990.

[Centerfield]

Now that the Mets have been eliminated from the NL East race, batmags' contention of 2 division titles in the last 30 years has come to pass.

In this thread, it's well established that the Mets have been one of the most unsuccessful teams by several measures of sustained success. Now we can add another to the list. By pure chance, the Mets should win a 5 team division 6 times in a 30 year span. (Since the NL East was 6 teams at the beginning of this run, the number is slightly less but I don't know how to do that math)

That's before you factor in:

1. They've shared this division with the Marlins, who have been actively tanking for long stretches, and have been one of the worst teams in baseball.
2. They used to share this division with the Expos, who tanked even worse than the Marlins, and eventually had to move to Washington
3. We play in NY, the country's largest market.

So all of this begs the question. Why?

How is it possible to be this bad? I mean, I have my theories. I think it's a combination of many factors, but I can clearly identify a few key ones.

What say you? Why have the Mets been so bad, and what can be done to fix that?

[seawolf17]

Centerfield wrote: Why have the Mets been so bad, and what can be done to fix that?

[Centerfield]

Lol. I tend to agree. And all the things that stem from them. Budget, incompetence, meddling, short-sightedness, hiring dumb people. A fair amount of bad luck too.

But others disagree. Curious what people attribute this to.

I also wonder what the Mets attribute this failure to. You can't address a problem until you identify it. I doubt the Wilpons have identified themselves.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Sustained Success.

What's that?*



*Response of typical Mets fan.

[metsmarathon]

your list is wrong. all yankee fans are miserable.

[Gwreck]

I’d think we’d have to start with scouting and player development, right? This is the one place you can get new players just for the cost of signing them.

It might be ownership being cheap (not being aggressive enough in the international FA market; refusing to sign players for over-slot; not investing in scouting sufficiently) or it could be poor drafting, poor scouting, and poor luck.

Quick, name the five best position players that the Mets either drafted or signed as undrafted/int’l free agents in the last 25 years. Wright and Reyes, sure. Murphy. And, um...Carlos Gomez? Duda? Jay Payton? There’s not a whole lot there.

[Benjamin Grimm]

How about Conforto and Nimmo. Not sure if Alfonso was more than 25 years ago...

[Edgy MD]

Jason Bay? Todd Hundley? Fernando Vina? Justin Turner? Preston Wilson? Brian Cole? Jeff McNeil?

I don't know. But 25 years means you're looking at several scouting and/or development regimes.

[Gwreck]

Edgy MD wrote: But 25 years means you're looking at several scouting and/or development regimes.

Exactly. This has been a weakness for quite a long time and is a big reason why the Mets haven’t had sustained success.

I think that suggests inadequate funding of that portion of operations but it could also be poor choices in who’s been doing the work.

—
Trainspotting: Neither Turner nor Bay were drafted/originally signed by the Mets.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Another way of looking at this is, why did things go so badly so suddenly after 1999/2000 and 2015/2016?

One thing I remember noticing was that the 2015 team was young, exciting, and mostly homegrown. The team that played that Wild Card Game in 2016 were a bunch of veteran players from other organizations. It's almost as if the Mets made a conscious decision to get old in a hurry. I know a lot of it was reactions to injuries, but the team did seem to turn over in a hurry.

[Edgy MD]

Gwreck wrote: Edgy MD wrote: But 25 years means you're looking at several scouting and/or development regimes. Exactly. This has been a weakness for quite a long time and is a big reason why the Mets haven’t had sustained success. I think that suggests inadequate funding of that portion of operations but it could also be poor choices in who’s been doing the work.

I disagree that it's been a weakness for a long time. There have certainly been periods of success and periods of failure, with more success coming on the pitching side. I don't think we should look at 25 years as a monolith.

[Gwreck]

By the time of the wildcard game in 2016, Duda, Wright, Lagares (homegrown) were all out for the season, as were D’Arnaud and Walker. That’s a lot of injuries.

The Mets seem to plan very poorly for injuries, however. James Loney, Jose Reyes, TJ Rivera and Rene Rivera all started in that game.

[seawolf17]

Gwreck wrote: The Mets seem to plan very poorly for injuries, however.

Goodness, yes.

[HahnSolo]

Gwreck wrote: By the time of the wildcard game in 2016, Duda, Wright, Lagares (homegrown) were all out for the season, as were D’Arnaud and Walker. That’s a lot of injuries. The Mets seem to plan very poorly for injuries, however. James Loney, Jose Reyes, TJ Rivera and Rene Rivera all started in that game.

Duda was back, but Terry started James Loney in the wild card game, who by then was a statue at first base and had about 3 extra base hits in two months.

[Edgy MD]

Gwreck wrote: Trainspotting: Neither Turner nor Bay were drafted/originally signed by the Mets.

Good point, but I really just mis-spelled "Ty Wigginton" and "Angel Pagan."