The Wessex Wire

The Student News Site of West Essex Regional High School

The Wessex Wire

The Wessex Wire

The Dark Knight and the Mets take back baseball from the Bronx Bombers

By Kirk Geller ’16

 

As they watched The Kansas City Royals run on to their field in Queens, N.Y., to celebrate their second World Series championship in 35 years back in November, the New York Mets walked into their dugout with their heads low, but their outlook for the future high. While the Mets were competing in their fifth World series in franchise history, the Yankees were at home or playing golf, looking back on what could have been before a 3-0 loss to the Houston Astros almost a month before.

“It will be interesting to see how New York baseball fans respond to that turn of events, and the apparent seismic shift in the balance of power from the once-mighty Yankees to the kid-brother Mets,” said reporter Wallace Matthews of ESPN in an observational piece about the growing Mets in January.

The Mets and Yankees have shifted positions this offseason, with the Mets increasing their payroll to $134 million from a disrespectful $109 million at the start of 2015.  Fred Wilpon, owner of the Mets, promised an increase in payroll if the Mets attendance went up from the past year. Before signing Cuban star Yoenis Cespedes, who came over during the 2015 MLB trade deadline, Wilpon looked like a liar, and was once again a mark of hatred for Mets fans.

The Mets have had to watch the Yankees celebrate a World Series championship in 2009 and countless playoff appearances in that timeframe. Yet, while the Yankees were slowly becoming older and losing traction in recent years, the Mets were gearing themselves for a future that has erupted into the current squad seen today.

“The Mets definitely have a better starting rotation than us but overall I still believe the Yankees have a better chance at winning because they have their own young talent also like Aaron Judge and Greg Bird,” said senior and Yankees fan Andreas Georgiou.

The Mets now have a pitching staff made up of what could be future all-stars and elite pitchers of the game. Steven Matz, Matt Harvey, Jacob DeGrom, Zack Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard headline what has the potential to be one of the better pitching rotations in recent history. The entire group have shown flashes of brilliance in their time with the club, especially Harvey, deGrom and Syndergaard.

“The Mets pitchers are all home-grown and brought along by Mets coaching, though Syndergaard was trade for, but the Yankees have either bought their pitchers or have been unable to mold them into an elite pitching staff,” said junior and longtime Mets fan Ethan Wolf.

What’s even more amazing about this group of potential elite aces is that they are all under team control for the next few seasons. Harvey is not a free agent until after the 2018 season, Wheeler and deGrom after 2020 and Syndergaard along with Matz in the beginning of the 2022 season. Harvey, deGrom and Syndergaard have all expressed interest in signing a long term extension with the team.

The Yankees current pitching staff consists of Masahiro Tanaka, Michael Pineda and Nathan Eovaldi. The other two spots will most likely be filled by CC Sabathia, who is being paid

$23 million to attend AA (alcoholics anonymous) meetings during this offseason after announcing his addiction, and Luis Severino, who had a somewhat impressive rookie campaign but did not show the same flashes of brilliance as the Mets staff has been able to.

“(The Mets) are the ones, not the Yankees, who are rolling the dice on 2016 and are built to win now,” Matthews said further into his investigation.

While the Yankees still held a better attendance record for the past season, the Mets increased their average game attendance by over 5000, while the Yankees’ lowered by over 2500. The Yankees are built around aging and injury-prone veterans such as Mark Teixeira, Brian McCann and the always controversial Alex Rodriguez. Meanwhile in Flushing, the Mets recently re-signed their Cuban Superman Yoenis Cespedes, who is surrounded by young hitters like outfielder Michael Conforto and catcher Travis d’Arnaud.

As many fans believe, the 27 championships the Yankees own are amazing and a feat that most teams may never reach, but the chances of the Mets to win the 2016 World Series have never been higher. While the Yankees  have continued to, over the past half-decade, fail on meeting expectations, the Mets have never been this close nor talented since 2006, and they plan on climbing back to the mountaintop this year.

“I haven’t been this upbeat about a team in a long time and I think that is exciting,” general manager of the Mets Sandy Alderson said. “It’s exciting for us, exciting for the players and I think the fans as well.”

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