Theatre of the Absurd: The Mets (Could) Win The NL East

Right now, the Mets are in the heat of the National League Wild Card race against the Giants and Cardinals, who have kindly allowed them to stay in this race. The Nationals have not been so generous with the NL East, and it’s all but assured that the Mets will be unable to defend their crown. It’s “do-or-die” Wild Card game or bust.

Or is it?

Technically, the Mets are still alive despite being eight and a half games behind the Nationals entering play on September 7. According to the Baseball Prospectus playoff odds, at that time, they had a 0.4% chance to win the division. So in one out of every 250 scenarios, the Mets somehow win the NL East.

It’s a beautiful idea, and it’s fun to think about how this farfetched run could even happen. Sam Miller pondered the same in spring 2014 about the Astros’ longshot playoff dreams, and I did a similar exercise for the Yankees’ slim AL East odds at Pinstripe Alley. The obvious possibilities for a Mets title are there—Mets win 26 in a row, Nationals lose out, and Eric Campbell is named CEO of Iams.

Three Mets NL East champion scenarios in particular are pretty terrific though. For reference, these were all created before the results of Wednesday’s games.

1. Win a series, lose a series

In this simulation, the Mets simply win every series after the most recent sweep of the Reds, while also sweeping the one Nationals three-game set that they encounter. To allow the Mets back in it, the Nationals fail to win a single series from this point forward. They embarrassingly drop a series to the cellar-dweller Braves and can only tie the two four-game sets they come across against the dismal Phillies and Diamondbacks. So they finish the month with a dismal 11-18 record compared to the Mets’ 21-8

That all puts the Mets one game behind entering the last weekend of the season, when the Mets take two out of three from the Phillies while the Nationals drop their set against the Marlins and Mark Melancon tries to choke Daniel Murphy. That’s kind of how it worked in 2015, anyway, so why not again?

2. Feasting on the weak

The Mets blew it. They were riding an eight-game winning streak into their pivotal series against the Nationals, five games behind and vaguely threatening to make it a race again when … Washington promptly swept them out of town. It was all over, or so they thought.

At the very least, the Mets had the fortune to play some very weak opponents in September. They feasted on the light competition, going a combined 19-0 against the Braves, Phillies, Reds, and the Twins. It was an absurd request, and yet the Mets did it. Meanwhile, the Nationals followed the non-sweep pattern of the first scenario by losing or tying every series, finishing the month at 14-15.

So even though they swept the Mets, the Nationals dropped the season finale against the Marlins to force one-game playoff for the NL East crown on October 3. Given one more chance against their rivals, the Mets took advantage, beating the Nats to secure an improbable division title.

3. An amazin’ run

The scariest part about this final scenario is that you can almost squint and see it. It would require some superhuman play by the Mets, but taken on a series-by-series basis, it’s vaguely plausible.

The Mets might play the Phillies and Braves a combined 13 times, but they probably aren’t to go undefeated against them. They probably won’t sweep that very good Nationals team, either. So one loss has been granted against each of them. Although it will still be a tall order to go 11-2 against the Phillies and Braves despite their incompetence, they are very bad and it is more reasonable than 13-0. They will have to sweep that Twins series too, but they are the worst team in the AL for a reason.

Meanwhile, those same Phillies and Braves likely won’t be coming up big against the Nationals, so no series victories or even ties for them. The free-falling Pirates and Marlins will need series victories, though, but their true talent level probably isn’t what they are showing right now. Similarly, the Diamondbacks aren’t really a .420 ballclub and have only been a few games under .500 since the beginning of August; perhaps they have a split in them.

As the 2007 Mets brutally proved, even seven-game leads in mid-September aren’t always safe. If the NL East deficit is cut to seven or lower by September 12, then Mets fans will know from all-too-recent memory that it’s possible for the Nationals to collapse.

So it will come down to the final series of the season, when the Mets must sweep the Phillies (or allocate their one loss to them there) and the Marlins must take two out of three from the Nationals to force a one-game playoff. It would have to be at Nationals Park since even before this exercise, Washington clinched the season series, but anything could happen there.

Imagine Bartolo Colon throwing seven innings of one-run ball while Yoenis Cespedes puts the Mets ahead on a late two-run homer. Bryce Harper swings over a pitch from Jeurys Familia and the team storms the field.

Yes, that image is too good to be true. This just isn’t happening.

But dream the dream.

Photo Credit: David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports