5 New Year's Resolutions for Mets in 2015

The calendar has turned to 2015 and this means the Mets' upcoming season is that much closer to beginning.

The Mets are hoping to break their eight-year postseason drought and reach the playoffs for the first time since 2006. The team is moving in a good direction for the future, and hopefully this will be the year the Mets take the next step forward.

Here are five resolutions for the Mets for the new year.

1. Stay Healthy

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Some of the Mets' top players have had trouble staying healthy recently. Matt Harvey missed all of 2014 after undergoing Tommy John surgery and David Wright played part of last season with a bad shoulder.

Injuries happen to every team every season, but if they don't happen too often to the Mets, it could definitely help them maintain success over the entire season.

2. Hit More

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Last season, the Mets' offense was in the middle of pack of the National League in both runs scored and home runs. But in order to keep with the lineups of teams like the Nationals, Pirates, Cardinals and Dodgers, among other teams, the Mets' lineup will need to produce more than it did last year.

Lucas Duda will need to put together another 25-30-home run season, while the veteran bats of David Wright and Curtis Granderson will need to bounce back after both having down years in 2014. Daniel Murphy will need to continue to hit well after being a 2014 All-Star and new addition Michael Cuddyer will need to bring the right-handed power the Mets were lacking last season.

But it's the continued development of Juan Lagares, Travis d'Arnaud and Wilmer Flores that will be very critical to the Mets' success. All three of these young hitters have a lot of potential and showed signs of it last season. More consistency and simply more run production from them would help tremendously.

3. Steal More Bases

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The Mets were seventh in the National League last season in stolen bases, but 30 of those steals came from the now-departed Eric Young Jr. Daniel Murphy and Juan Lagares each contributed 13 steals as well, but there was not much base stealing from anyone else on the team.

Lagares is a prime candidate to be the Mets' leadoff hitter this season and in order to be a very good leadoff hitter, he will need to get on base regularly and steal a lot of bases. Murphy stole 23 bases in 2013, so if he could steal some more bases himself this season, it would help the Mets' offense a lot.

The Mets need to do what they can to move runners over and score more runs. Stealing more bases could definitely help the cause, and hopefully the Mets will be more active on the bases this season.

4. Beat the Nationals More Often

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One big reason why the Mets did not have a winning season in 2014 was their performance against the division champion Washington Nationals.

The Mets were 4-15 against the Nationals last season and were outscored 95-52 for the season. The Nationals simply dominated and outplayed the Mets consistently and the Mets cannot let this happen again to the team many will probably predict to repeat as division champions.

If the Mets want to win the NL East, they will have to play very well against their main competition, which will probably be the Nationals once again.

5. Get Back to the Postseason

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The greatest resolution the Mets could make would be to simply get back to the postseason. The Mets have not seen the postseason since they lost to the Cardinals in the 2006 NLCS. Since then, they suffered the consecutive collapses in 2007 and 2008, a completely lost season in 2009 and another underachieving season in 2010 before embarking on a rebuild from 2011-2014.

Now, the Mets have rebuilt their farm system and have a lot of young talent to work with. It's about time all the young talent translates into better results and more success.

The Mets are simply due to get back to the playoffs, and especially now with the existence of the second Wild Card spot, the Mets need to do everything they can to get into the playoffs. Anything can happen once a team gets to the playoffs. The Royals and Giants were both Wild Card teams last season and got to the World Series.

All in all, great pitching, improved hitting, more base stealing, staying healthy and playing well against the main competition should all help the Mets be a lot more successful in 2015.

All statistics shown are courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.