Mets 86’d

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Now that the Giants and Jets NFL seasons have mercifully ended, the Mets and Yankees move back to top billing in New York, along with the Knicks—who also have mastered the art on not winning a championship.

It’s safe to say that no baseball team in 2026 has as much pressure on it as the Mets. And it’s all deserved.

In a strange way I appreciate David Stearns’ approach that your feelings do not matter one-bit Mets fans. I am in charge, and you are not.

You love homegrown home run hitter Pete Alonso? Gone to Baltimore.

You love homegrown Mr. Smile Brandon Nimmo? Gone to Texas.

You love the Squirrel Jeff McNeil? Gone to the A’s.

You love Timmy Trumpet closer Edwin Diaz? Gone. Not only gone but gone to the back-to-back World Champion Dodgers.

These are bold changes for a team that had the highest payroll in MLB under owner Casino Cohen and yet the Mets could not manage to be one of 12 teams to make the watered-down postseason in 2025.

All of this is important to remember because this coming season marks the 40th anniversary of the Mets last World Series title. Yes, 40 years.

The Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years.

The Yankees are also in a World Series slump – for them – having last won a World Series in 2009, so that is going on 17 years for Hal Steinbrenner’s team.

I just wanted to write a sentence where I could say it is going on 57 combined World Series winless years for Mets and Yankees. That is quite the achievement of New York baseball ineptitude.

Having a little fun with math, that is a combined 57 years for the Yankees and Mets. I know some of the years overlap; I just wanted to write a sentence where I could say it is going on 57 combined World Series winless years for Mets and Yankees. That is quite the achievement of New York baseball ineptitude.

Cleveland says hold my beer. The Cleveland team that hilariously calls itself the Guardians – Guardians of what I ask – last won a World Series in 1948 back when they were proudly called the Indians, 78 years ago.

It has been so long since the Mets last won a World Series that the top show on television that year was The Cosby Show. Top Gun was the top movie and I’m still waiting for Tom Cruise to age. In 1986, IBM introduced its Personal System/2 line and that became the first laptop computer.

Today’s army of Baseball Nerds thank IBM, where would the game be today without all those Nerds and their toadies toting around their laptops, telling us what is important and what is not important. Hard to believe there was baseball before laptops.

Another fun fact about 1986 is that the Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela threw 20 complete games that season. There were three pitchers who tied for the MLB CG lead last year, each with two complete games.

In came the laptop, out went the complete games.

I want to mention one other momentous moment in 1986, and this is serious and a sad one. I mention it because this week I took a post-Christmas trip with four of the grandkids to the Kennedy Space Center. That year, 1986, was the year of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and at the Kennedy Space Center they have a tremendous exhibit called Forever Remembered; it is a must-see tribute to the crews of the Challenger and Columbia that memorializes the 14 brave astronauts who perished during the loss of orbiters Challenger and Columbia.

Included are personal items from each astronaut, dating back to their youth that shows their inspired paths to become space explorers. Those items add personality to the names. There also is the Challenger’s recovered left fuselage with the American flag on it and the framework of Columbia’s cockpit.

This is all worth seeing, especially for young people, who know only of TikTok life. I also recommend sauntering over to the Atlantis exhibit, and there is the craft that transported astronauts to space and back for 30 years, only 10 years shy of the Mets’ last World Series title.

That 1986 season was the year Roger Clemens won 24 games for the Red Sox. In Erik Sherman’s wonderful book Two Sides of Glory about the 1986 Red Sox in their own words, Clemens offers his mindset of pitching inside, an art that has been lost in this age of heave-ho pitching, soon to be even more in jeopardy because of the ABS Challenge System.

Can’t wait.

Just a gut feeling, but I don’t think the hitters and pitchers are going to like the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System as much as they think they are going to like it, but we’ll see.

Anyway, Clemens told Erik Sherman: “Why learn to pitch inside? I had to. I had to make a 17-inch plate into a 24-inch plate. That’s not throwing at or hitting guys. You’re just trying to keep both sides of the plate open. It’s your job as a pitcher. You want the hitter to feel uncomfortable – like the way Nolan Ryan and (Bob) Gibson did. When I faced the likes of Dave Kingman, Greg Luzinski, and Carlton Fisk, I knew they could hurt me really bad if I wasn’t able to command the inside of the strike zone.’’

In my many conversations with Clemens during his years with the Yankees I would hear a variation of that conversation. Clemens also dropped this dandy on Sherman about the time as a young pitcher when Don Drysdale interviewed him and when the recorder was turned off, Drysdale offered: “Kid, you know what my best pitch of the game was?”

“No sir, I don’t,’’ Clemens said.

“It was my second damn knock-down pitch,’’ Drysdale said sternly. “You know why kid? That way the hitter knew the first one wasn’t a damn mistake.’’

There you go. Straight from Big D’s mouth. The intimidation factor was huge.

As an aside, Sherman gave this tidbit from 1986 Mets manager Davey Johnson, who once told him that as outstanding as his staff was in the ‘80s, Johnson wished they all induced more fear in hitters like Clemens did.

Back in the day it was a much different spin rate for pitchers, they would sometimes spin hitters like a top to gain an advantage.

In 1986, 10 of Clemens’ 24 wins were complete games. Over his career, Clemens struck out 4,672 batters, third all-time, trailing only Nolan Ryan with 5,714 Ks and Randy Johnson with 4,875 strikeouts.

Still, the Mets found an incredible way to win the World Series against Clemens and the Red Sox in 1986.

I believe the 2026 Mets will be under the gun all season because of the drastic changes made by Stearns. I said last year the Mets made some key mistakes, including Stearns’ understanding of how a clubhouse runs.

At the time I said they would miss utility OMG Met Jose Iglesias because of his ability to bring a clubhouse together. Too often the modern POBO, president of baseball operations, does not take into consideration the importance of clubhouse chemistry because their decisions are heavily based on analytics.

The Mets were a fractured clubhouse last season, and I got the feeling all year they were a too cool for school team. They thought they were better than they were and melted in pressure spots. In June they were on top of baseball but folded the rest of the way – and somehow showed no ability to come back by going 0-70 when trailing after eight innings.

Juan Soto has the crazy 15-year, $765 million contract, but, to me, no Met has more pressure on him in 2026 than $341 million shortstop Francisco Lindor. The Mets need to get their clubhouse pulling in the right direction and that is on Lindor.

Here is another baseball truth the Mets learned the hard way last season. The clubhouse pulls together when the pitching staff is successful.

The Mets were 28th in walks allowed last season with 324. That is abysmal. Their pitchers could not get the ball over the plate and that is deflating for a team. Overall, the Mets were 18th in ERA at 4.03, certainly no day at the beach either.

But here is the Big Number, if I’m thinking along the lines of David (RP) Stearns. The RP stands for Run Prevention, which is Stearns’ white whale in a Herman Melville Moby Dick kind of way. This past season the Mets were 18th in runs allowed with 715. That is why he is trying to make the Mets more athletic and a better defensive team. To that end the big experiment is having new Met Jorge Polanco, who was given a two-year $40 million contract, learn how to play first base.

I looked back to the last time the Mets won the World Series, long ago in 1986, and saw the Mets were second in MLB in runs allowed with 578. The Astros, a team the Mets had to squeak by in the NLCS, were No. 1 with 569 runs allowed.

The best weapon for run prevention is 60 feet six inches from home plate.

In that glorious 1986 season the Mets were No. 1 in ERA at 3.11. The Astros were next at 3.15. Run prevention begins on the mound. Just for fun I took a look at 1969, the only other time the Mets won a World Series. The Mets had the third-best ERA in baseball at 2.99 with their World Series opponents the Orioles No. 1 at a stunning 2.83. The Mets were third in runs allowed with 541. The Orioles were tops at 517. But not that World Series. The Mets scored 15 runs and allowed only nine.

Yes, to understand the true value of Run Prevention just go back 40 years to the last time the Mets were World Champions.