Yankees Best Chance At October Subway Series Is 2017?

Yankees fans will recall that Subway Series is a term that once held more weight than any other rivalry in sports. There was a time when New York City had three great baseball teams all within the boroughs.

Are classic New York Subway Series a thing of the past or is there another October meeting on the horizon?

Yankees fans probably know that during a 45-year period from 1921 to 1965, New York City baseball fans saw 13 Subway Series with a World Series trophy on the line. Including 2016, the next 64-year period since that run, New York fans have seen a total of one.

Two franchises left Brooklyn and upper Manhattan without professional baseball teams, but only one series in 64 years? A town with a rich baseball tradition like New York only has the year 2000 to reflect upon for an actual city championship? Well, it’s sad but true.

Only the 2000 season saw the stars align for both the cross-town Mets and “home-town” Yankees. Both fan bases have been praying to the baseball gods for years, and both thought their prayers were answered in 2006.

2006 may have been the best opportunity for an October city championship, but both teams choreographed a synchronized choke.

Not only did both the Mets and Yankees win 97 games each, but each had the best record in their respective leagues. The table was set for a rematch of 2000, and most Met fans assumed their team had the upper hand.

One thing you need to understand right off the bat is Subway Series are like that old famous saying, “it takes two to Tango.” 2006 may have been the best opportunity for an October city championship, but both teams choreographed a synchronized choke. The Bombers would lose the opening ALDS to the Detroit Tigers, and the Mets would lose in the NLCS to the St Louis Cardinals.

Not Much of a Decade for Yankees and Mets

Since 2007 the flushing squad has won the NL East exactly one time, their World Series runner-up season of 2015. That season the team earned one of the two wildcards after they were incorporated into the MLB Postseason, adding yet another chance for a possible Subway Series.

Again, however, the Yankees and Mets could not find the success the Yankees-Dodgers and Giants of the past seemed to fortuitously find regularly. The Bronx Bombers would be eliminated by the Houston Astros early, but the Mets would hold up their end of the deal making it to the World Series only to lose in 5 games to Kansas City.

Since 2007, the boys from the Bronx have won the AL East three times and have earned playoff appearances in six of the nine years. There’s no Subway Series without the playoffs, and it should be obvious, but currently and historically you can’t have one without the Yankees (New York’s only AL team).

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2017 may not have the best odds for the Subway Series the city has been waiting for, but it’s the best chance in over a decade.

The Yankees front office and youth movement have set the franchise up for success or at very minimum lifted the financial restraints for future flexibility.

The Mets, on the other hand, have made the playoff’s back to back years for the first time since the 1999 and 2000 seasons.

The Yankees and Mets both have some of baseball’s scariest lineups in 2017. The Mets have the definitive edge when it comes to pitching, but the Yankees arguably have the better bullpen and have a much higher ceiling of potential. Bronx Bombers have 20 home run possibility from 75 percent of their batting order, whereas the Mets look for contact hitting coupled with dominant starting pitchers.

If the Yankees can get out to early leads with their big power hitters and hold them with the potent bullpen, the sky is the limit. If the Mets can score just enough runs each game while shutting out the opponent’s lineup and clinging to short leads with a shaky bullpen, October is not unrealistic.

Yankees: Four (More) Takeaways From Spring Training

The Yankees are moving rapidly to the close of Spring Training. Many questions about the team have been answered, but these four remain.

Those are some big “if’s,” but should the question marks for each franchise pan out, NY baseball fans would love to see the Mets starting rotation vs. the Yankees stacked lineup in some balmy World Series games.