Mets Team of the Noughties - Best Season

[G-Fafif]

Choose between your postseason clubs, 2000 and 2006, as Mets Season of the Decade.

[Guest themetfairy]

Bobby's boys in 2000 showed more heart than the 2006 team.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

True enough, but 2006 saw a yearlong coming-out party for our young stars, the joyousness of "Jose Jose Jose Jose" before it got stale and a six-month bliss ride.

As much as I dug 2000, I'll opt for the one that didn't end with a 4-1 series that should have been a lot closer-- at the very least-- and a MFY championship.

[smg58]

If the 2006 team won one more game, this wouldn't even be close.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The 2006 team had a 1986 kind of feel to it and was a lot of fun. They ultimately fell short, of course, but it was still a fun ride.

The 2000 team got further than the 1999 team, but wasn't as good. The season itself had less giddiness than the 2006 team, but did feature, arguably, the best post-season series that the Mets have played in the last 22 years. (I'm referring to the NLDS against the Giants. Three very memorable wins, and one easily forgettable loss.)

I voted 2006.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

2000 would have been the best if Timo ran hard, but he didn't.

2006 was fun. In a way I enjoyed 2005 just as much, even if it was a frustrating kind of season bobbing around 500 all year, because you sort of knew with this team that its best days were still ahead of it. Maybe I'm too sensitive but by September of 2006 I already had the feeling that team had reached its peak. They were tired and banged up, and required an awful series in every way from LA to advance, then couldn't beat a shitty Cardinals team. It was like '07 had already begun.

[metirish]

2006 for me.....coupled with 05 it was a fun time to be a Mets fan...the future seemed bright ...dare I say the Mets were media darlings and all things seemed possible.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Best thig about that Cardinal series is Omar looked pretty smart having grabbed Maine and Perez along the way. Worst thing --- apart from the ultimate result --- was having to rely on a stupid (but stupid hot) Guillermo Mota, only to see him cool at the worst time.

Willie caught way too much shit he didn't deserve over pinch-hitting Floyd. I think part of that shit turned him into the prickly guy he was growing into and cut into his CAHN.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Best thig about that Cardinal series is Omar looked pretty smart having grabbed Maine and Perez along the way. Worst thing --- apart from the ultimate result --- was having to rely on a stupid (but stupid hot) Guillermo Mota, only to see him cool at the worst time.

Willie caught way too much shit he didn't deserve over pinch-hitting Floyd. I think part of that shit turned him into the prickly guy he was growing into and cut into his CAHN.[/quote:1581te2b]

I agree. The low point of that game for me was Valentin striking out with the bases loaded in the 6th. It was just a signal that doom was en route.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Did I ever tell anyobody here how much I hated Willie Randolph? Because I hated Willie Randolph. Let me tell you. Like from about the second or third Met game he ever managed. I hated that idiot so much that his presence in a Met uniform alone, detracted from my ability to enjoy the 2006 season. If the 2006 Mets won 97 regular season, then it was despite of, and not because of Willie Randolph. If there was such a thing as WAR for managers, Willie gets a negative seven or ten. When the 2006 Mets were running away with the division '86 style, all I could think of is that now it's gonna take at least another year and a half to get rid of Willie Randolph. Because I hated Willie Randolph.

I vote 2000, even with Timo Perez not running and Rickey's .400+ OBP gone and Zeile on first because Olerud was in Seattle and the MFY's, in the end, celebrating another one of their WS coronations on the Shea Stadium infield. Because of Willie Randolph.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

So let me get this straight: you hate Randolph, granted. But you hate him more than bag o' dicks Clemens pulling what he pulled, AND getting the win/ring?

[HahnSolo]

Maybe it's time, but the only things I remember from the 2000 regular season are:

- the 10-run inning to beat the Braves
- Clemens-Piazza, round 1

the postseason was great for two rounds, then ended quite badly.

I have loads of great memories of 2006, though, despite the ending. A loss to a lesser Cardinals team was still not as bad as thinking all the What-Ifs after the MFY series.

[batmagadanleadoff]

So let me get this straight: you hate Randolph, granted. But you hate him more than bag o' dicks Clemens pulling what he pulled, AND getting the win/ring?[/quote:ua6mz1uw]

Clemens' despicable antics only serve to strenghten, rather than diminish, my fondness for the 2000 team. I did consider the doubly awful 2000 season result in which the Mets not only lost the WS, but lost it to the MFY's. But on a personal level, I was truly rooting for an event that would cause the Mets to fire Randolph since about May of 2005 and straight on through until that fateful night game in Anaheim when Willie finally, finally, finally, managed his last Mets game. The Mets success in 2006 was a wrench in my hopes for a Randolph firing. This dream didn't come true for me in 2006. Coincidentally, my perpetual hope that Ordonez would break a leg or something because it appeared that nothing merit-wise was going to get him out of the lineup
did come true for me in 2000. So there's also that. Did I ever tell you that I hated Ordonez more than I hated Randolph?
By the way, Mets fans might get the last laugh in the Clemens/Piazza wars. Both players, now forever linked ever since Clemens first concussed Piazza and then months later during the 2000 WS, tried to gouge out the Met catcher's stomach with the sharp end of a broken bat, retired in 2007 and will be eligible for HOF induction beginning with the class of 2013. So far, only one of the two is thought to have taken illegal performance enhancing drugs to the point of possible HOF exclusion. So far (I said).