If Mets And Yankees Both Finish Last, It Would Be The First Time

Since the New York Mets joined the baseball world as a National League expansion team in 1962, they had more than their share of embarrassing moments – including numerous last-place finishes.

But never in their history have the Mets and New York Yankees finished last in the same season. That may be about to change.

Although the Mets lead all 30 clubs in payroll and the Yanks rank second, the two New York teams are living proof that money can’t buy happiness – or pennants.

When the 2023 season opened, a plethora of pundits predicted the first Subway Series since 2000.

The Yankees, with more pennants (40) and world championships (27) than any other team, had signed veteran left-handed starter Carlos Rodon (six years, $162 million) while the Mets had convinced Justin Verlander to join Max Scherzer – both three-time Cy Young Award winners – with a matching haul of $43.3 million per annum.

Because of their advanced athletic age, however, giving them the highest annual paydays in baseball history paid few dividends. Coupled with the free-agent defection of Jacob deGrom, who signed with Texas, and the season-long loss of closer Edwin Diaz, the game’s best-paid closer ($102 million over five years), the Mets quickly realized they had no chance to duplicate their 101-win season of 2022.

As the Aug. 1 trade deadline approached and his team’s fortunes faded, owner Steve Cohen pared players and payroll, sending Scherzer to Texas, Verlander to Houston, David Robertson to Miami, Eduardo Escobar to the Angels, and Mark Canha to Milwaukee. He was left with five promising prospects, including the brother of MVP contender Ronald Acuna, Jr.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Cohen also agreed to pay the Rangers and Astros up to $88 million to defray the salary obligations of Scherzer and Verlander.

When the smoke cleared, Cot’s Baseball Contracts reported that the Mets still led the majors with a 40-man competitive balance tax payroll of $376.4 million, while the Yankees stood second at $299.3 million.

Neither team led their leagues in anything else.

Entering play Wednesday, the Mets were fourth in the five-team NL East with a 54-66 record that left them 23½ games behind the front-running Atlanta Braves and eight-and-a-half games in the race for one of three wild-card spots.

If that trend continues, the 2023 Mets will become the fourth team to post a losing record in a full season immediately after winning 100+ games.

The Yankees had a better record (60-60) but worse position, last in the American League East, 14 games behind the first-place Baltimore Orioles and six-a-half games out in their bid for a wild-card berth.

Playing in the game’s biggest market demands better but the Mets haven’t won a World Series since 1986 or reached the final round since 2015. The Yankees last won in 2009, the year the new Yankee Stadium opened, and haven’t won a pennant since.

What happened?

Age overtook the Mets overnight, with eight regulars (six of them on the wrong side of 30) having worse years, including 2022 National League batting champion Jeff McNeil. The others in that ignominious group are Starling Marte, Daniel Vogelbach, Brando Nimmo, Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Canha, and Escobar.

The pitching staff also got old, with nine pitchers aged 34 or more, led by Verlander, 40, and Scherzer, pushing 39. Throw in an error-prone defense (the Mets rank 25th among the 30 teams in defensive runs saved) and there’s an obvious formula for failure.

Injuries interfered too, with Diaz (right patellar tendon tear during the World Baseball Classic on March 16) the most serious but free-agent signee Jose Quintana, a left-handed starter, also out half the year after March surgery to treat a lesion on his ribs.

Alonso, Marte, Verlander, and Scherzer also missed significant chunks of time.

The Yankees ran into injuries too, including a toe injury incurred by star slugger Aaron Judge when he smashed into a concrete curb at the base of the Dodger Stadium outfield wall.

The reigning American League MVP, who hit an AL-record 62 home runs in 2022, missed nearly two months, then wasn’t the same when he returned to the lineup.

Coupled with a concussion suffered in May by Anthony Rizzo and Josh Donaldson’s calf injury, the team lost three of its most important hitters for extended periods.

Rodón (forearm strain, hamstring) has hardly pitched since signing a six-year, $162 million contract as a free agent and fellow lefty Nestor Cortés (left rotator cuff strain) missed most of the season after posting a 1.95 earned run average at Yankee Stadium last season.

In addition, two arms acquired last year from the Athletics, Frankie Montas and Lou Trevino, couldn’t pitch at all; Domingo Germán landed on the restricted list (alleged violation of MLB’s domestic abuse policies) a month after pitching a perfect game; and erstwhile ace Luis Severino, when he wasn’t injured, never came close to his former All-Star form.

Although both New York teams imported promising young players – notably shortstop Anthony Volpe of the Yankees and catcher Francisco Álvarez of the Mets – that hardly masked the overwhelming problems in both the Bronx and Flushing.

When the Yankees lost a one-hit, 5-0 verdict in Atlanta Tuesday night, their 60-60 record produced their latest .500 winning percentage since 1995.

The team has not finished below .500 since 1992, the same year the Mets were bashed in a book called “The Worst Team Money Could Buy.”

Burned at the trade deadline last year, the Yankees basically stood pat this year – passing on the chance to obtain desperately-needed starting pitching.

For a few hours last weekend, the Mets actually trailed the Washington Nationals – out of contention since winning a world championship as a wild-card winner in 2019 – by percentage points. But then the Mets rallied to beat the Braves, 7-6, and retain their tenuous grip on fourth place.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Mets and Yankees had sole possession of the cellar after Aug. 1 for only one day in their history: Aug. 5, 1967. Two days later, the Yankees were still there but tied with the old Kansas City Athletics.

That’s not a bad track record for teams that have shared the city for nearly 22,500 days. But records – even dubious ones – are made to be broken.