This can't be a dream because I'm wide awake

As soon as the Mets finished off their NLCS sweep of the Cubs, I headed to Modell's to pick up some new shirts.  I arrived only a few minutes after the last out, around midnight, to find a line of a few hundred like-minded had already formed.  An hour later, I was back home, still too wired to even think of going to bed.  Instead, I started on Facebook what I thought would be a short post.  But when you are a combination of giddy, punch drunk, and sleep deprived (I was at 3 of the 4 Citifield playoff games, missing only Game 1 of the LCS for my brother-in-law's wedding), short posts turn into this...

I'm not even sure what to say at this point. As passionate a Mets fan as I have been over the years, I don't think I've ever been more emotionally invested in a team than this year's group. The 23 games I went to in the regular season could've easily been 33,43,53. 1986 is a distant memory. I was a senior in HS. The team was a collection of arrogant SOBs, and by early summer it was almost a foregone conclusion that we would win the World Series. Sure they made us sweat t out, but that only made their win all that much sweeter. Then there was the heartbreak of 1988, being 1 out away from going up 3-1 on the Dodgers in the NLCS only to see Mike Scioscia hit a game-tying HR off Doc Gooden and eventually losing in 7 games. 1999 and 2000 brought life back into the fan base and the franchise, and to this day Mets fan swear if Benetiez hadn't blown the save in Game 1 of the Subway Series, we would've beat the Yanks. But these are the Mets, a franchise that can never sustain excellence, so once again we had to endure a few years of futility. A few years of Art Howe. 2006. Time for us to rise again. Runaway with the NL East. Not quite 1986, but pretty damn good. Steam roll the Dodgers in the LDS. Home field advantage in the LCS against a rather mediocre Cardinals team. Game 7. The Endy Chavez catch that had me so excited I turned and gave Joe Roccaro a big kiss on his cheek. Fate. Destiny. A sign from the gods that we would once again be going to the WS. Only baseball is a cruel game. As former commissioner Bart Giamatti once said, "It's a game designed to break your heart." 1 Adam Wainwright curveball later and mine and 55,000+ other hearts at Shea Stadium were broken that night. Ok, we'll get'em next year. This team is no one-hit wonder. 2007. 7 game lead with 17 to play. No one has ever blown a lead like that. But again...it's a game designed to break your heart. 2008. Not quite the same September lead, but a lead nonetheless. Once again gone. Need a win the last day of the season. The last regular season game to be played at Shea Stadium. No way this building closes like this. No way we shut the doors on our beloved Shea (don't you call it a dump, only those of us who bleed orange and blue have earned the right to call it a dump, and only in the most loving way possible) with a loss. We can't possibly have our hearts broken for a 3rd year in a row, right? The game's not that cruel, right Bart? Then 6 years of futility. 6 years of Mets fans wishing for a September collapse because at least it meant we had a shot at something. The phrase "meaningful games" in September becomes a running joke, only it's not so funny. And each year our beautiful new park sees fewer and fewer people. But we are still there. The ones who know what Mike Bordick and Bubba Trammell did in back to back Mets games. The ones who know the players the Mets got when they traded away the Franchise. The ones who know why the sound of a cowbell puts a smile on so many faces. The ones who know names like Nino Espinosa, and Bruce Boisclair, and Gil Flores. And then one glorious night, the 2013 All-Star Game, we take center stage. And the man who can lead us back to the promised land, the Dark Knight, takes his place on the mound. And while we know 2013 isn't quite our time yet, it soon will be. Wait, Bart, did you say something? No, baseball isn't THAT cruel. Harvey can't be hurt. He's Gotham's Dark Knight. And so 2014 is over before it even starts and it becomes much like 2013, and 2012, and 2011, and on and on. We are a joke. A laughingstock. Lovable losers? Sorry, the Cubs have laid claim to that title. We're just losers. But spring is a season of rebirth, a time when every baseball fan thinks, "This is the year for my team." 11 wins in a row in April? Maybe this year is different. Maybe it's not. Why is it taking Wright so long to come back from a hamstring injury? What? He's got spinal what? Who are we batting clean-up? John Mayberry Jr? Didn't we sign him to be a 4th OF and pinch hitter. What's his average? WHAT??????? A post softball game meal at Croxsley's. Hey guys, Mets made a deal. Wow, Carlos Gomez! That's not a bad trade. Sorry to see Wheeler go, and Flores. Wait, is Flores crying? No, why would you have a guy who's crying out in the field. Holy s#$t, he is crying! The trade's off? Are you kidding me??? Just when you think this franchise can't become anymore of a joke, it does. Another lost season. Maybe we'll play .500 ball. What's that you say? They made a few trades? Kelly Johnson, Juan Uribe, Tyler Clippard. Nice supporting pieces, but not the kind of guys to put us over the top. No, we need someone big, and it seems like the New York Mets don't pull off big trades anymore. But they pull off perhaps the most important trade in franchise history. Cespedes and the pitching staff put the team on their collective backs, and we have perhaps the most amazing 2 months of regular season games in our history. And suddenly what seemed improbable becomes possible. 2015 NL East Champs!! Bring on the Dodgers. 2 possible Cy Young Award winners? We don't care. We'll beat them both. Have a game stolen from us by a dirty slide and an even worse call by the umps? So what. ‪#‎WinforReuben‬. Those lovable losers, the Cubs? Guess what? They stand between us and the WS. No problem. See, not only do we have of the best young pitchers in all of baseball, we have a 2nd baseman named Daniel Murphy? Murphy? Yeah, I've heard of him. Decent player. Gets a fair amount of hits. Makes contact. Plays with a lot of heart. Makes some bonehead plays from time to time. Isn't he the one who missed Opening Day to be at his son's birth? Not much of a power hitter though is he? But remember, baseball is a cruel game. Only this time, it's not we Mets fans saying that. For 9 glorious games so far, Murphy has become an answer to a trivia question. The kind of player that someday my boys will say to their kids, "I remember what Murphy did in the 2015 playoffs" which brings us to where we are now....4 wins away from what would be one of the sweetest World Series victories ever. It's okay Mets fans. Dare to dream. ‪#‎LGM‬

Playoffs, here we come!!!!

So  I blogged exactly once this season.  If you want to get technical, I actually never blogged this season since my one post came before the season started.  I ended that post like this:

If I were a betting man, and I am, I would bet the over in a heartbeat on an 83 win season.  I think the Mets will win 88 games this year and earn a wild card, and wouldn't be surprised if they hit that magic number of 90.  It's time to believe again!

Turns out I was a pretty good prognosticator when it came to wins, but way off on the wild card thing.  In fact, 88 wins wasn't nearly enough to get a wild card this year as the Pirates and Cubs won 98 and 97 games respectively. So Mets fans should be extremely grateful that the Nationals had such an underwhelming year.

Getting into specifics of my preseason predictions, I was much more on target with how I thought our starting pitching would fare.  I was looking for 60 wins from the top 5 starters based on game starts, and I had predicted 12 wins for Colon, 12 for de Grom, 15 for Harvey, 11 for Niese, and 10 for Gee.  In the end, our top 5 starters ended up being Colon (31 GS, 14 wins), de Grom (30 GS, 14 wins), Harvey (29 GS, 13 wins), Niese (29 GS, 9 wins), and Syndergaard (24 GS, 9 wins), who combined for 59 wins.

On the offensive side of the ball, I had said we won 79 games with only one key player, Duda, having a career year, and 2 key players, Wright and Granderson, having sub-par years.  Well if you look at this year's lineup, no one had a career year (except maybe Flores, but then again, he never really played a full season, so it's hard to say 2015 was a career year for him).  Granderson had a very good year, but not a career year.  Duda had decent numbers, but not like last year.  I thought Cuddyer would be an upgrade in the lineup, and he wasn't.  Given another year of maturity and experience, I looked for Lagares to put up better numbers.  He didn't.  With d'Arnaud being out for large chunks of time, we once again didn't get much from our catchers.  And given how little he played, I'm not sure it's even fair to rate the Captain's season, but needless to say, third base didn't produce much for us this year.  So for much of 2015, our offense was quite offensive, hitting it's nadir when Campbell and Mayberry, Jr batted 3rd and 4th (or 4th and 5th, I can't recall) while both sporting sub-.200 averages.  But then July 31st rolled around, and the Mets made a trade deadline move, after NOT making a deal a few days earlier, that all future Mets trade deadline moves will be compared to, the move that transformed the team from a .500 team treading water to the eventual NL East champs.  We got Cespedes, and our anemic offense became a thing of the past.  The regulars started hitting, the other pieces we picked up (Johnson, Uribe) contributed big hits, and Conforto showed he belongs in the big leagues.  Yes, the lineup did disappear again the last week of the season, and that has to be a major concern heading into the NLDS, but for most of August and September, there were few lineups that could match what the Mets were doing on a daily basis.  

I was in Vegas in mid-August and was going to place a bet on the Mets winning the World Series, but my wife said, "Just enjoy the ride."  Instead, I placed bets on the Giants and Jets winning the Super Bowl.  In the spirit of "enjoying the ride", I'm not going to make a playoff prediction.  I will say this.  The pitching has been there all year.  There's no reason to believe it won't show up in the playoffs.  If the Mets are going to go anywhere, they'll need their August to mid-September offense to show up as well.