FanPost

The Mets 2016 Schedule: No One Month Stands Out

In 2015 the schedule showed how the Mets season would play out. The team faced a hard road in July, plus the last few games in June and the first few in August, a month-plus period stacked with top teams. If they survived that, they had an easy schedule the rest of the way. In the turning point of the season the Mets managed to win more than they lost during that July from hell, thanks to a sweep against the Nationals in its early August culmination, and then rolled through the rest of August against bad teams on the way to the playoffs.

This year the schedule seems to be balanced. I’ll use the Sports Illustrated prediction of team’s records, because they predict the Mets will win 95 and so do I. The other winning NL teams according to this source will be the Cubs, Dodgers, Cardinals, Giants, Pirates, and Nationals, with the Diamondbacks predicted at .500. Winning AL teams on the Mets schedule are the Royals, Indians and Yankees.

In 2016, every series or two against these top teams is followed by a series or two against teams from the second division, right from the start of the year. The marquee start against the Royals is followed by series with the Phillies and Marlins. After a series with Cleveland, it’s those Phillies again and then the Braves. The Giants are followed by the Braves again, and then the Padres. Etc.

And while there are exceptions, and the occasional good player on a bad team – Giancarlo Stanton and Freddie Freeman for example – I get the feeling that the good teams are really good, and the bad teams really bad, this year. As front offices seem to be shifting between "go for it" and "tank and rebuild" mode. The three top teams in baseball, according to SI, are the Cubs, Astros and Mets in that order, three teams that rebuilt during down years. The Mets made the biggest effort to be respectable during those years, and now are ranked behind the teams that really lost big.

For the Mets, the toughest stretch in 2016 may be the four series before the All Star Break, which includes two series with the Nationals and the Mets home series against the Cubs. That may be the part of the year to circle on the calendar. Even that stretch, however, also includes three games with the Marlins.

The easiest part of the schedule begins August 26th and runs through the end of the year, thanks to the Mets weak division. The only out-of-division series will be against the Twins, and the only series with contenders will be the two with the Nationals. Following the last game with the Nationals on September 14th, the Mets finish with 15 games against teams expected to have losing records.

Sometimes those bad teams can bite you. The offense-oriented mid-2000s Mets often played to the quality of their opponent, and were eliminated twice not so much by the rival Phillies but by the Nationals and Marlins, both of whom stunk at the time. This pitching-oriented Mets team, however, seems to perform more as expected, struggling against the top teams but feasting mercilessly on those at the bottom.

Teams always become better or worse as the years go along. Rebuilding teams can become better as the year progresses due to impact rookies, as was the case with the Mets last year. Contending teams can become worse due to injuries and, if they fall out of the hunt, deadline trades.

The Marlins, Phillies and Braves could be better in September than they are in April. Or they could just give up and turn the last two weeks of the season into spring training. It is difficult to imagine the Mets becomming much better than they will be on opening day, as the only expected impact arrivals this year are Wheeler and, perhaps, Dilson Herrara. Then again, if the Mets take care of business through August their late September pitchers could very well include Logan Verrett, Sean Gilmartin, and Rafael Montero, rather than just the Fab Five and the Ageless Wonder.

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