Yankees/Mets: Breaking Down Their Remaining Schedule

A glance at the remaining schedule of the New York Yankees and New York Mets shows that, albeit for different reasons, they both have a chance to remain alive in the race for the final Wild Card spot.

Beginning first with the obvious, both the New York Yankees and New York Mets need to keep winning games and series from here on in to remain vital in the race for the final Wild Card spot in their respective leagues. The usual mantra we can expect to hear from players and managers will go something like this, “We can’t be worrying about what the other teams are doing. We just need to go out there every day and win games for ourselves. The rest will take care of itself”.

Well maybe the rest will take care of itself, but you can’t be sure of that if the teams in front of you keep winning too. Still, the basic idea is sound. Just keep winning as many games as you can. Along with that though, it matters a lot who you are playing those games against. So here’s the remaining schedule for the Yankees and Mets. Now, let’s see if you agree or disagree with the following breakdown for each team.

It seems to me that head-to-head play with your immediate competition, which in the case of both the Yankees and Mets mean the teams ahead of them, is always the surest and fastest way to move closer to the prize. When, for example, the Yankees play Toronto or the Mets play Miami, the result is a two-game swing in the standings as opposed to when the Yankees play Tampa Bay or the Mets play Philadelphia (teams behind them) where they can only gain one game in the standings.

This can be seen recently, for instance, when the Mets won their game against the Phillies but gained no ground because all of the teams in front of them won too.

It’s sort of like the three-point field goal in basketball or scoring a touchdown instead of a field goal in football. You get extra “points” in baseball when you score against the teams ahead of you while winning against a team behind is dependent on the teams ahead of you losing the same night in order for you to gain ground.

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So with that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the remaining schedule of the Yankees and Mets. The first thing you might notice is that the Mets have a more favorable schedule in the sense that they have a bunch of games left with weaker teams (always on paper though, right?) like the Phillies, Braves, and even three against the Reds, while the Yankees finish up also mainly in their division.. But except for seven remaining games with Tampa Bay, all of their remaining games are against strong contending teams (including 3 with the Dodgers) and teams ahead of them in the Wild Card standings.

So it comes down to this. Which would you rather have, the Yankees schedule (more difficult but more rewarding in terms of gaining ground ) or the Mets schedule (easier but more dependent on the teams in front of them losing in order to gain ground)?

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I suppose if you’re the kind of person who wants to be in control of your own destiny, you’d pick the Yankees even though the competition is stiffer. But you’d pick the Mets if you want to rack up a bunch of wins and hope for the best at the end of the day.

Interesting………..

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