3 reasons why this Mets team is similar to their past World Series teams

The New York Mets have played like a championship-caliber team all season long, and longtime fans can look to this team and compare it well with their two championship teams of 1969 and 1986. The Mets have several ingredients required to be a champion this year, with great starting pitching, an elite offense, and a shutdown closer in Edwin Diaz.

But what allows this Mets team, the one with the second best record in baseball this season, to be compared to those teams? Three reasons help explain that feel.

1) The Mets starting pitching is deep, elite, and mostly stayed healthy. 

Doesn’t every championship team begin with starting pitching? We think so, but the Mets are a team that has always thrived on its starting pitching. This year is no different, as the Mets employ an elite rotation and elite depth pitchers this season, with Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt, Carlos Carrasco, and Taijuan Walker as a pretty darn good quintet of a rotation. The Mets depth was good enough to survive the injuries to deGrom and Scherzer this season, and the other three have stepped up. 

The Mets had something similar to that in their two World Series winning teams. The Mets had Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman headline a remarkable rotation in 1969, in which both pitchers threw for more than 240 innings and a 2.30 ERA or less. Seaver and Koosman pitched four of the five World Series games, in which they went 3-1 with a 2.48 ERA in the World Series against the mighty Baltimore Orioles. Koosman went the full nine in the clincher in Game 5 at Shea Stadium.

Then, in 1986, the Mets had the No. 1 staff ERA in the majors, led by their top four starters in Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling, Bobby Ojeda, and Sid Fernandez. They all tossed more than 200 innings that year in 30 starts or more, and all but one had an ERA under 3.00. And it was the starting pitching led by Ojeda and Darling that allowed the Mets the recipe to win the World Series despite losing the first two games of the series at Shea Stadium. 

The Mets have the starting pitching recipe to win it all because more often than not, the Mets’ starting pitcher will be better than the opposing starting pitcher. 

2) The manager effectively used everyone to their strengths, and this brings something similar to the 1969 Mets. 

Some baseball historians will argue Gil Hodges’ greatest achievement was his skillful managing of the 1969 Mets to a championship after the franchise spent its first seven seasons at or near the cellar of baseball, which was good enough for the Mets to retire his number in 1973, the year after his tragic death.  

Hodges effectively used platoons throughout the season to keep his players fresh for the pennant race and the World Series. For example, he platooned Art Shamsky and Ron Swoboda in right field. Swoboda had 70 starts there in 1969, Shamsky 61. The same thing was true at third base. Wayne Garrett started 63 times in the hot corner that season while Ed Charles started there 45 times. That allowed everyone to be fresh, and it allowed the Mets to win 38 of their last 49 games. The Braves and Orioles teams they faced in the postseason were tired. 

We are seeing the same thing with Buck Showalter and the 2022 team. We see that at second base, and recently at third base in left field. The Mets have used mostly Jeff McNeil and Luis Guillorme at second base, with McNeil outstarting Guillorme there 58-49. Since July 24, the Mets used Guillorme 10 times at third, while Eduardo Escobar has gotten eight starts there. Notice how that platoon coincided with the Mets’ hot streak starting. And since July 30 in left field, Mark Canha has seven starts there while Tyler Naquin has six.  

Now, you will see a DH platoon the rest of the way, with Daniel Vogelbach starting against the righties and Darin Ruf against the southpaws.