The New York Mets were born in 1962 to heal a broken city — the National League's answer to the Dodgers and Giants abandoning New York — and they began as the worst team in modern baseball history, losing 120 games under Casey Stengel. Seven years later, they pulled off the most improbable championship in the sport's history. The 1969 Miracle Mets, Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman and Gil Hodges' steady hand, beat the mighty Orioles in five games. "The Franchise" — Seaver, number 41 retired — turned a joke into a religion in less than a decade.
The 1986 Mets might be the most talented and most chaotic team ever assembled: Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Lenny Dykstra, Ray Knight — a superteam that won 108 games and then survived Game 6 of the World Series against Boston, the ball through Bill Buckner's legs, one of the ten most famous innings ever played. They won Game 7 the next night. It remains the franchise's last championship, which tells you plenty about the decades since.
The Mets' modern history is a pendulum between hope and heartbreak: the 2000 Subway Series loss to the Yankees, the 2006 and 2007 collapses, the 2015 pennant that ended against Kansas City, the move from Shea Stadium to Citi Field in 2009. Mr. Met remains the game's great mascot; the fan base remains the game's great long-suffering love affair. The Steve Cohen era, beginning in 2020, brought big-market spending and bigger expectations to Queens.
What defines the Mets is the beautiful agony of being New York's other team — the lovable, maddening, never-boring counterweight to the Bronx. Two championships, in 1969 and 1986, both utterly unforgettable. The retired numbers — Seaver's 41, Piazza's 31, Hernandez's 17, Gooden's 16, Strawberry's 18 — are monuments to what this franchise can be when the stars align over Queens.
The 2026 season was the worst of the Steve Cohen era — and one of the most dispiriting in franchise history. The Mets finished 74-88, last in the National League East for the first time in a full season since 2003, and were eliminated from playoff contention on September 14. They never recovered from a catastrophic start: a 12-game losing streak in April, injuries to Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor, and a roster that president of baseball operations David Stearns later admitted was built with “an uncapped downside scenario” and too little flexibility to adjust when the underperformance came. Carlos Mendoza paid for it first, fired on June 26 with the club at 34-47.
The summer belonged to the kids — and to the man who replaced Mendoza. Andy Green took over on an interim basis, steadied the clubhouse, and was elevated to full-time manager, while Derek Falvey was added to the front office and Kris Gross was promoted. The second half (34-31 after the All-Star break) offered the first real foundation in years: Carson Benge became the first rookie in Mets history to post a 20-homer, 20-steal season (20 home runs, 22 stolen bases); Jonah Tong struck out a career-high nine in a late-September gem; Ronny Mauricio launched two homers in the season’s final weekend; and A.J. Ewing and Francisco Alvarez showed they belong. “The disappointment of this season is very true and real,” Stearns said at his end-of-season press conference. “There is also the real foundation here for the level of success and competitiveness that we expect to have, and that is also real.”
The finale at Washington on September 28 gave the season one indelible image: Francisco Lindor, entering the day on 299 career home runs, crushed a 409-foot solo shot for No. 300 — becoming just the fifth player to reach 300 homers while playing at least half his career games at shortstop, and the 11th switch-hitter to reach the milestone. It was a bright moment in a season that also closed a broadcasting era: Howie Rose, the Mets’ radio voice since 1995 and affiliated with the club since 1987, called his final season. On the other side of the ledger, Jorge Polanco — signed to add a dependable veteran bat — instead became a symbol of the expensive underperformance that defined the year, on a roster that scored the 11th-fewest runs in baseball despite one of the game’s largest payrolls.
What’s happening now is an offseason with no more excuses. The Mets’ winter checklist: settle the coaching staff (Green got an extended look at everyone down the stretch), decide who stays among a veteran core that produced far less than it cost, and build the roster flexibility Stearns says New York demands — because, in his words, “change in New York is probably different than change in other markets.” The 2024 NLCS run feels a lifetime ago; the 2025 collapse on the season’s final day now looks like a warning. But Queens has seen this before — 1962 to 1969 took seven years, and the Miracle Mets were born from the worst team in modern history. The young core of 2026 is the first real reason to believe since. Whether it becomes the next one is the entire winter’s work.
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