The MY FAVORITE SEASONS, FROM LEAST FAVORITE TO MOST FAVORITE, 1969-PRESENT series is predicated on the notion that, essentially, every season is your old apartment. You moved in when the year began. Your lease was up when the year ended. You moved out and moved on. You carry with you the life you lived through that season. You leave; the feeling remains. How much and how deep determines how you divvy up the space you devote to it in your Metsian memory and how hallowed each segment of that space shall be.
I began the countdown of the seasons of my baseball life two Decembers ago, starting at No. 55 and eventually working my way up to No. 3 this past March. By then, because thinking and writing took me longer than I suspected when I started all this, I still wasn’t done, meaning a 56th entry needed to be inserted for the season that had most recently ended at that point. As of this moment, No. 2 is swinging in the on-deck circle, and No. 1 is taking the measure of the pitcher while waiting in the hole, and when those two get their turns at bat (soon, I swear), this particular game will be complete.
But I can’t overlook that a 57th season in my baseball life has transpired during the extended MY FAVORITE process, specifically the season we moved out of at 5:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time on September 28, 2025. On Saturday, December 27, 2025, at 4:35 AM Eastern Standard Time, we will reach the Baseball Equinox, that delicious instant when we stand equidistant between last season and next season (first pitch scheduled for Thursday, March 26, 2026, at 3:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time). Next season hasn’t asked for its security deposit yet. Last season still has a box or two over there in the corner we need to hoist the heck out of here before we return the keys, thus we still have a couple of minutes for closing books and long last looks.
What kind of apartment has it been?
33-B. 2025
In the spirit of fitting 2024 into the countdown at No. 13½ so as not to completely disrupt the established numbering that had already taken place, we’ll affix 2025’s ranking with a qualifier. Except it won’t be with something whimsical like a “½” sign, because this wasn’t 2024, famous in Metsopotamian circles for its air of humor, whimsy, and joy. Something legalistic like 33(b) might be more like it, but I’ve never seen an apartment addressed quite that way.
In practical terms, 2025’s ranking at No. 33-B — really 35th among 57 — slots it just above the tier I identified as the group whose clouds didn’t altogether obscure their silver linings, and just beneath those I judged, based on my lived experience, as middling. Remember, these are FAVORITES, and therefore subjective. There have been, since I commenced calling myself a Mets fan, 22 seasons I liked living in less than 2025, and 34 seasons I preferred to its company.
Perhaps it shows a ton of restraint to say anything other than “2025 was the worst!” following the route from 45-24 to 83-79 via the 38-55 turnoff. Recency bias would allow it, but I have here in my hand a list that includes, from the bottom up, 1977, 2003, 2002, and so on. The worst of the worst, about which I strove to say something nice rather than reflexively spew the usual venom, I categorized as lousy seasons that encompassed redeeming features. That crew sailed on rough waters. The good ship 2025 may have brought on a bout of seasickness, especially toward the end of its journey, but it had its moments when it felt as if fair winds would guide us where we needed to be…and this exercise is as much about feelings as it is results.
In specific countdown terms, I’ve wedged 2025 between No. 34 1971 and No. 33 2007. Two-Thousand Seven is infamous for introducing to us the concept of Worst Collapse Ever, though before it all went to thud, I was having a pretty fun time. I was in my mid-forties, going to lots of games with people I liked, and the Mets held first place for most of the year. Had I gotten up and left before the final seventeen games were played, and displayed zero curiosity regarding what I missed, I’d have just assumed everything had gone according to plan. Maybe I should have tried something like that in 2025.
Nineteen Seventy-One doesn’t maintain an outsize historical profile in the Twenty-First Century, and I’ll admit my memories are painted mostly in the broad strokes that stay with me from the season I was eight. I didn’t go to any games in 1971. I watched on TV and listened on the radio, not necessarily every day and night. I definitely followed the standings, where the Mets sunk from contention before summer was halfway over. Not going all the way, as in 1969, or not staying in the race close to the end, as in 1970, diminished some of my childhood fervor. Eight years old and I was showing signs of cynicism. Yet I had players I liked a lot, they forged a winning record, and the whole Mets thing, which I was still learning about, continued to appeal to me. It all looked like such fun.
Take the best of what I retain about 2007 and 1971; understand that I understand there was plenty that was not best about either season; and contextualize it for contemporary concerns, and that’s how 2025 landed amid their part of the building. We know it could have been a whole lot better this past year. It actually could have been somewhat worse, though “not as bad as it could have been” was hardly the goal at its outset. Nevertheless, in 2025, I had players I liked a lot, they forged a winning record, and the whole Mets thing, which I’m always learning about, continues to appeal to me. Plus there was time in first place, more time in playoff position, nothing but time in pursuit of a playoff spot (never underestimate staying in contention), and I got to go to games with people I liked. The fun was in the eye of the beholder, and you had to squint while covering the other eye, but it still looked like fun if I allowed myself to see the Mets in my early sixties the way I did when I was in single-digits.
Yeah, it definitely could have been worse.
And it definitely could have better.
Had it been better, maybe more of the players I liked a lot or at least a good bit would still be Mets as the Equinox approaches. Instead, the offseason that has transpired in 2025’s wake has racked up a body count, with Jeff McNeil thrown atop the outgoing pile just this week. Jeff McNeil played a whole bunch of positions competently and occasionally delivered enormous hits. He was twice an All-Star and once a batting champion. Had you just told me the Mets had acquired a Jeff McNeil type, I’d be excited. We had the Jeff McNeil type, and his time as a Met was deemed up. His extraction from the organization after eight seasons as one of our stalwarts was less surprising than those of Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Diaz, and Pete Alonso — David Stearns basically put him on craigslist before finding a taker in West Sacramento — yet the initial word that he was going might have hit me harder than the news of all of those who preceded him out the door. We’re really doing this, huh? We’re getting rid of everybody.
That’s not supposed to be part of the whole Mets thing that you grow enamored of when you’re eight, but I suppose it’s always been included in the package. Goodbye to this one, hello to that one, where should we put the couch? There’s a reason we move from season to season. It’s probably more of a shock that we had Nimmo, Diaz, Alonso, and McNeil forming a core for as long as they did than that none of them will be here in 2026. Heading into 1971, I was a little thrown off that the Mets traded Ron Swoboda. Had they also decided all at once that they no longer needed, say, Cleon Jones, Bud Harrelson, and Tug McGraw, I have no idea how I would handled it. Here’s to the fiftieth anniversary of free agency becoming the law of the baseball land and players having a say in where they play, but I think getting in on the final few years of the reserve clause helped me get my footing as a fan. In offseasons like this one, I hear Jed Bartlet in the flashback that shows how his campaign team (later his White House staff) came together in The West Wing, complaining to eventual chief of staff Leo McGarry:
“You got rid of all the people I know!”
Leo, as if presaging David Stearns’s tenure in Flushing, replies, “Yeah. Have a good night.”
There are always new people to get to know. In 2025, we got to know a few who figure to be back in 2026 and maybe stick around in the seasons to follow. Then I’ll get attached to them. Then they’ll be sent away or leave of their own volition. And I’ll be thrown off anew. Then I’ll calculate how many days we’re closer to next season than last season. That, too, is part of the whole Mets thing.
PREVIOUS ‘MY FAVORITE SEASONS’ INSTALLMENTS
Nos. 55-44: Lousy Seasons, Redeeming Features
Nos. 43-34: Lookin’ for the Lights (That Silver Lining)
Nos. 33-23: In the Middling Years
Nos. 22-21: Affection in Anonymity
No. 20: No Shirt, Sherlock
No. 19: Not So Heavy Next Time
No. 18: Honorably Discharged
No. 17: Taken Down in Paradise City
No. 16: Thin Degree of Separation
No. 15: We Good?
No. 14: This Thing Is On
No. 13½: Making New History
No. 13: One of Those Teams
No. 12: (Weird) Dream Season
No. 11: Hold On for One More Year
No. 10: Retrospectively Happy Days
No. 9: The September of My Youth
No. 8: First Taste
Nos. 7-5: Three of a Kind
No. 4: Pound for Pound
No. 3: Won and Still Not Done
