NY Mets: 1 major award you didn’t realize the team has never won

There has never been an MVP winner in New York Mets history. You probably knew that already. It’s one of the biggest droughts in franchise history, possibly all of baseball. There have been a couple of close calls but no one has yet to come away with the title as the league’s best player.

This isn’t the only major award that has escaped everyone to put on a Mets uniform. There’s one other end-of-season honor no one in the history of the franchise has ever been able to place on their mantel.

Can you guess what it is?

No Mets skipper has ever won Manager of the Year

Manager of the Year isn’t the most prestigious award in sports. It’s a bit more subjective. Who is to say which managers are great and which aren’t?

There have certainly been candidates who could have won the honor. Gil Hodges would have been a clear winner if the award was around during his time. Unfortunately, Manager of the Year didn’t get handed out until 1983.

Around those early days of the award, Davey Johnson would have been a logical winner. Instead, during the heyday of the 1980s Mets, other National League managers ended up with the honor.

In 1986, when you might think Johnson had the best shot at it because of the Mets’ first place finish, Houston Astros manager Hal Lanier won it. Two years later, when the Mets captured the NL East again, Tommy Lasorda of the Los Angeles Dodgers received the honor. Both were managers of first place teams but in the NL West.

Johnson would later win the award with the Baltimore Orioles in 1997 and Washington Nationals in 2012.

Aside from Johnson, you might have expected Bobby Valentine or maybe even Terry Collins to come away from the winner at some point. Again, they came up short in favor of other top managers at the time.

There doesn’t seem to be any exact theme as to which managers are more or less likely to win. Some years, the winner is a captain from a team that overachieved expectations. Other times it’s a guy who gains a good reputation for a winning ball club.

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Through the end of the 2021 season, the Mets are one of only two teams to never have a Manager of the Year. The other, the Milwaukee Brewers, have Craig Counsell to potentially end the drought at some point. Meanwhile, the Mets’ search for a replacement for Luis Rojas is underway and the losing streak continues.