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It’s hard to determine who had a greater impact on the Met’s 2011 season: Sandy Alderson, the newly-hired general manager, or Irving H. Picard, the trustee appointed by a federal judge to recoup money lost by victims of Bernard Madoff’s financial fraud.                That’s because overshadowing whatever Alderson accomplished or tried to accomplish with the Mets on the field – changing the culture, changing the players – was the Sword of Damocles lawsuit seeking $1 billion f

If you tried to list the elements of a quintessential Mets season they would probably include: a splashy offseason free agent signing who would likely disappoint, spring training optimism, a fast start that raises hope that this might be the year , injuries (not all of them on the field) that dash that optimism, a midseason swoon and a late rally that creates hope but ends up breaking fans’ hearts.                2010 was a quintessential Mets season.                That it e

The Mets were trying to put the disappointing finishes of the previous two seasons at Shea Stadium behind them as they approached the 2009 season with new hope and a new ballpark. The season would be defined by the new venue (3rd in franchise history) and a mind boggling spate of devastating injuries. General Manager Omar Minaya made some changes during the off season to improve the bullpen. With Billy Wagner undergoing Tommy John surgery in September, 2008, Minaya signed fre

The Mets began 2008 with Willie Randolph on the hot seat, but by midseason, Jerry Manuel would be warming the manager’s chair. And no matter who was at the helm, the ending would be the same as 2007: a September collapse (although not of 2007’s magnitude) leading to a win-or-go-home final game that ended with the resurgent Florida Marlins breaking Mets’ fan’s hearts.                General manager Omar Minaya had once again put together a veteran team in win-now mode. While,

Much could be written about the first five months of the 2007 baseball season:                About how the Mets were determined to erase the bad taste they left in fans’ mouths when Carlos Beltran took a called third strike to end game seven of the 2006 NLCS with the winning runs on base;                About how the team once again was built to win, with a veteran squad that, while having its question marks involving the health and quality of the bullpen and the rotation, h

The Mets took a step forward in 2005 but General Manager Omar Minaya knew he needed to make changes if they expected to take the next step for the 2006 season. Minaya overhauled the roster for a second consecutive time and put together a team that went on to win the NL East but came up short of a World Series appearance in heart breaking fashion. The Mets were moving on from 37-year old and future Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza, who became a free agent so Minaya engineered

Rescued from the purgatory of running a team in baseball receivership working its way out of Montreal and into Washington, Omar Minaya hit the ground running after being hired as the Mets’ director of baseball operations at the end of the 2004 season.                He overhauled the coaching staff and the roster, making splashes on both counts and letting it be known that his Mets were intent on doing what needed to be done to turn around a franchise that had put up three co

The 2004 season was eventful for the New York Mets, not all of it in a good way.                The season saw the arrival of a pitching guru whose self-confidence would, in the end, hurt the team; the major league debut of an iconic third baseman who would make it to the Mets’ (if not MLB’s) Hall of Fame; a flurry of deadline deals, including one that would haunt the team for years; and a Mets-signature second half collapse that would cost both the manager and the general ma

Fred and Jeff Wilpon tried mightily to erase the sting of the awful 2002 season by bringing in new personnel, but all they ended up with was a repeat in 2003: a team of high-paid underachievers led by a manager who, if you listened to the pundits at the time he was hired, was not up to the task, and a general manager who would finally pay the price for moves that did not work.                The end result: another last-place finish, nine games worse  than 2002.              

The 2002 Mets were yet another example of the maxim that winning the offseason does not translate into winning the pennant.                Determined to avoid a repeat of the 2001 debacle, when the Mets limped to a 77-84 fifth place finish, general manager Steve Phillips worked feverishly to overhaul the roster, jettisoning some longtime Mets and bringing in some well-known replacements. And most media members and baseball insiders commented at the time that Phillips absolute

For the fourth time in franchise history, the Mets entered the 2001 season as a defending champion (1970 and 1987 at defending World Champions, 1974 and 2001 as defending National League Champions). A sluggish start put the Mets season in an early hole but they battled back and nearly made a miraculous run to what would’ve been a third consecutive post season berth. The Mets opened the season on April 3rd, with a ten inning, 6-4 win over the Braves in Atlanta. Robin Ventura h

The 2000 baseball season gave New York baseball fans something they wanted, if not the rest of the country: a true Subway Series, one played in October with a World Championship at stake. And while it didn’t end the way Mets fans would have liked, it did cap a year that by any other measure could be considered a success.                Along the way, the team would play the first regular season series outside North America and the first Subway Day-Night doubleheader in 97 yea

Following a second consecutive 88-74 record without a playoff berth, the Mets hierarchy felt some drastic changes needed to be made if they were to get back to October baseball for the first time in 11 years. Carlos Baerga and Todd Hundley departed via free agency and Mel Rojas was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for a second stint of Bobby Bonilla. The Mets used free agency to add gold glove winning third baseman Robin Ventura, future Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson and for

The way the Mets began 1998, it looked like they would be playing a long season. They ended it much shorter than they hoped.                In-between, they made some key acquisitions – including perhaps the biggest acquisition in their history (the jury remains out on Juan Soto, long-term) –won 88 games, the same as in 1997 – and fell a single game short of what would have been a three-way tie for what was then the only wild card spot.                The first key acquisitio

Despite coming off a disastrous 1996 season where they finished 71-91 and were 25 games out of first place and 19 games out of a wild card spot, the Mets became one of the surprise teams and challenged for a playoff spot in 1997. Manager Bobby Valentine replaced Dallas Green and was heading into his first full season as the “dugout general.” During the off season, the Mets made a very shrewd trade when they sent pitcher Robert Person to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for f

The Mets began 1996 with great anticipation. They ended it with another year of disappointment.                In-between saw one of their players hit for the cycle, another break the record for home runs by a catcher and a managerial change that probably came too late.                “We expect to be there,” general manager Joe McIlvaine said when asked about the postseason, just as spring training was about to begin.                “I’d be disappointed if we didn’t do well,

The 1995 baseball season began with a hangover from 1994: the labor dispute that cut short that season and carried over into the next, prompting major league owners to begin spring training with replacement players – a move the owners hoped would bring the “real” major leaguers back to the bargaining table and result in a settlement.                It only made things messier. The players’ union said it wouldn’t settle the strike if replacement players were used in regular se

If the 1994 Mets were a metaphor, they’d be a white Ford Bronco lumbering down the Long Island Expressway with the hazards on. Everyone in New York knew it wasn’t going to end well — but we couldn’t stop watching. While O.J. Simpson’s real-life slow-speed chase captivated the country that summer, the Mets were running their own version in Queens: a low-drama, low-speed pursuit of competence that ended in surrender long before the season did. You could almost hear the crowd at

If 1992 was “The Worst Team Money Could Buy,” then 1993 was the Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice. a straight-to-video disaster that made Toe Blake spin in his grave and the Hanson Brothers beg for a line change. This was supposed to be a bounce-back year, the baseball version of a redemption tour. A new shortstop (Tony Fernández), a few veteran arms, and the faint hope that all that expensive talent might actually act like, well, talent. Instead, what we got was 59 wins, 103 los

If you were a Mets fan in 1992, you probably remember two things: You had to blow into your Super Nintendo cartridge to make Super Mario Cart work, and you had to do the same thing to your TV remote just to get through a Mets game. This was supposed to be a bounce back year for the Mets’ as we added A Few Good Men . But instead we got The Crying Game  .When the big reveal came, we couldn’t handle the truth and much like The Crying Game,  we were left blinking in disbelief, a