Remembering The 1986 Mets’ All-In Offseason

The 1985 season ended in disappointment for the New York Mets. A 98-win season was not good enough to make the four-team playoffs, leaving a loaded roster on the outside looking in. General manager Frank Cashen entered the offseason determined to push his team over the top after coming so close in 1985, capitalizing on the opportunity by assembling one of the best teams of the 1980s. 

In all fairness, Cashen did not need to make sweeping changes to create a championship-caliber roster. The 1985 Mets were loaded, largely thanks to his success in previous drafts. Left fielder Darryl Strawberry and starting pitcher Dwight Gooden were homegrown prospects and among the best in MLB at their respective positions. Strawberry hit .277 with 29 home runs in 1985, while Gooden maintained a remarkable 1.53 ERA over 35 starts. 

A few high-profile trades also helped define New York's roster.  In 1983, Cashen fleeced the St. Louis Cardinals by sending pitchers Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey in exchange for first baseman Keith Hernandez. In one of the most celebrated trades in Mets history, New York acquired a five-time All-Star, an MVP winner, and an 11-time Gold Glove winner. The two pitchers the Mets dealt away each failed to make an impact in their big-league career, making an already good trade a fantastic one.

Catcher Gary Carter was acquired a year after Hernandez, with the Mets shipping off four players in order to bring in the all-world catcher. Carte also had a loaded resume, with six straight All-Star appearances and four Gold Glove awards with the Montreal Expos. This was another coup for the Mets, as Carter would go on to become a critical part of New York's success throughout the decade.

Even with these four players leading the charge, the Mets narrowly missed the postseason, finishing three games behind the Cardinals in the NL East. A few more improvements were needed to claim that top spot and make a run at the Fall Classic.

The first order of business was to find another reliable partner for Gooden. Cashen accomplished this by orchestrating a trade for left-handed starter Bob Ojeda. The Mets dealt another four players to acquire the southpaw, adding much-needed balance to a pitching staff that only featured two other lefties. 

Another move strengthened the middle infield. Tim Teufel arrived from the Minnesota Twins, allowing manager Davey Johnson to rotate him with fellow second baseman Wally Backman. Outfielder Billy Beane was the most notable of the three players sent in exchange for Teufel, but his fame as a draft bust and later as a baseball executive illustrated how little New York sacrificed to grab him. 

Improving on a 98-win season is no easy task, but it seemed that everyone in the Mets organization believed it would happen. Manager Davey Johnson infamously claimed that his team would not only win, but would "dominate" its opponents in the NL East. With the roster that Cashen assembled, dominating was indeed the only result that would fulfill the expectations of the New York faithful. 

The regular season went exactly as predicted. The Mets sent Carter, Hernandez, Strawberry, Gooden, and pitcher Sid Fernandez to the All-Star Game, more than any other team in MLB. By August, the NL East race was essentially over. The Mets finished the year with a 21.5-game lead over the next-closest team, the Philadelphia Phillies. A 108-54 record allowed New York to coast into the postseason, while putting up a record that still stands as the Mets' best season of all time.

Postseason baseball is always a dangerous dance, even for a 108-win powerhouse team. The NL Championship series against the Houston Astros only went to six games, but four of them were determined by a single run, and three  extended to extra innings. New York scraped by to face the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, with a chance to claim the second title in franchise history.

If fans thought the NLCS was a nail-biter, they were in for an even more nerve-wracking World Series watch. It took seven games for the Mets to pull things out of the fire against Boston, overcoming two straight losses at home to rebound in one of the most entertaining championship series of all time. 

New York's title run was no Cinderella story. Despite a comeback in the World Series, the team had expected to at least make the Fall Classic ever since the acquisitions of Ojeda and Teufel. Anything less than that would have equated to disappointment. Cashen's fantastic maneuvering over multiple offseasons helped assemble one of the great rosters of the decade, one that finally brought the Mets a banner 17 years after their first one.