I hate starting the day off with feistiness, but I think @howardmegdal has a silly premise here, and some mornings even though I just want to sleep in, I’m forced to saddle up my horse and put on the tin star.
But it is unclear that anything other than hope for the future separates the 2012 team from the 1977 team, which, for those who may not remember, went on to become a 66-96 1978 team and a 63-99 1979 team, before the Mets were sold to a new owner.
via For the Mets, it’s like the late ’70s all over again | Capital New York.
Stop. I mean just stop. Just write an article called “Man I really really really really can’t wait until the Wilpons sell” and cut to the chase.
We already did a winter of “the Mets are awful and will lose 130 games and the Wilpons are stupid evil masterminds that are bankrupt and stupid except when being masterminds of financial mainuplation” or whatever the hell the narrative was.
Then they won some games!
Then the team was stupid for not trying to win the wild card (you remember three weeks ago, right?) and now they suck worse than 1979. No. No. No. No. Stop.
If you’re old enough to remember the Mets of the late 1970s, the 2012 Mets might be ringing a bell for you.
No.
As Khan said, “I know something of those years.”
Let me know when the Promenade Level is completely closed off for games and we can entertain that notion.
The 2012 Mets are playing at a 77-win pace, whereas their 1977 counterparts finished 64-98.
What’s 13 games among friends?
The 2012 team has David Wright. There was no David Wright on the late 70’s Mets.
the 2012 Mets have three with at least one WAR….The 1977 Mets had three as well
This is when I know you’re on a fishing expedition. Nobody sits around thinking about the 1977 Mets’ WAR. Nobody. And let’s not forget that WAR compares pitchers to hypothetical replacements. It’s not a statistic it’s a made up guess and the worst of the “advanced’ stats (I also like the one where you guys add two numbers together to get a bigger number.)
The 2012-13 Mets have Johan Santana, who even diminished, with a suspect shoulder, shaky ankle, blindfolded and on two hours sleep would be Superman on the late 70’s Mets.
It has R.A. Dickey having a career year. That didn’t happen in the 70’s. Mets didn’t have career years. They didn’t even have careers. Take anyone you want off the 1978 Mets except Koosman and show me a career. Go ahead, pick someone.
No Met was considered to start the All Star Game on the mound. Or at any position.
The Mets would have one player in the All Star Game. Lee Mazzilli. John Stearns. And that would only be because the rules made the NL invite a Met. Oh and don’t forget 1978’s All Star appearance by nobody.
The 2012 team has lost two starting pitchers. We may never see Mike Pelfrey again but like James Bond, Dillon Gee will return. You’re starting 2013 with Santana, Dickey, Niese, Gee and Harvey. 1979 would sign the Salt II treaty to get that rotation.
The late 70’s Mets drew a million, then a million again post-Seaver and then 788k in 1979 – back when they counted only fannies in the seats. I’ll let you argue either way you want – you can say that’s all the tickets they sold, or you can say that 50% of the tickets sold were never used. Either way, they weren’t selling 2.3 million tickets.
The 1979 Mets did not play in a new stadium. They did not have their own television channel. Nobody invited my dad over for a free steak sandwich. We paid our $2 and we sat in the mezzanine (because the upper deck was closed.)
David Wright and Lenny Randle cannot be compared. There is no sentence you can write with Wright and Randle in it that isn’t gibberish. It cannot be done. You might as well compare David Wright to me.
while young, talented Pat Zachary and Craig Swan (0.7 and 0.5, respectively), stood ready to play the parts of Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler.
With a combined three major league starts by Wheeler and Harvey you cannot compare them to Zachry and Swan. I’m going to just as arbitrarily compare them to Glavine and Maddux. I’m gonna declare right now that Wheeler will win 355 major league games and four Cy Youngs. Since careers are pre-destined let’s be optimistic. Look me up in 2028 and we’ll see how this argument is going. (By the way, Bonilla will still have 17 years left on his deal but that’s a whole other argument.)
You know why the Mets were sold after the 70’s? Because the person who wanted to own the Mets was dead. Her family wasn’t interested in owning the team. That ain’t gonna happen with Jeff Wilpon. He’s interested. You may not like him, you may not like it, but that doesn’t make this 1979.
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For those of you who found this at all interesting I anticipate twitter will be interesting starting a little after 8am. I’m @metspolice