New York Mets’ Biggest Rival?: Yankees, Braves, or Phillies

With the first half of 2008’s Subway Series beginning on Friday, it is time to discuss who really is the Mets’ biggest rival.

Why?

For starters, over the last few seasons, every time interleague play rolls around the so-called “experts” debate the idea/necessity of having these interleague games.  Many argue that the inclusion of the interleague games, including the home and home series against a team’s “natural” rival, takes away from previously established intra-league rivalries.

For instance, this season, the Mets will take on the Yankees, the Rangers, the Angels, and the Mariners.  Sure, the Yankees are struggling like the Mets, but are typically a good measuring stick to see what the Mets’ chances may be against a playoff-caliber team.  The Angels series should also be interesting, but playing the currently 16-26 Mariners (as of 5/15) seems less than mouth-watering.

If the Mets played less of these interleague games, they would have more chances to play against teams they have done battle with in the past like the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs.  The Mets play the Cubs and Cardinals more or less the same number of times that they do the Yankees in a given year.

Major League Baseball will tell the doubters of interleague play that attendance keeps going up for these series and that the fan interest is tremendous.  Even the 16-26 Mariners will bring Ichiro along with them to Shea for the Flushing Faithful to enjoy.

The interleague question aside, it’s time to choose the Mets’ three biggest rivals in no particular order.

New York Yankees

The Yankees are an easy place to start.  The Mets compete with the Yankees mostly for media attention and fan base.  Many New York fans love to debate which team is better, which fans are better, which team’s announcers are better, and any other detail one could imagine.

The Mets used to run a more financially conservative operation, but have gone the route of the Yankees in recent years and have begun to sign high-priced players and trade away prospects with little concern for the consequences.  The Mets even “one-upped” the Yankees this off-season by trading four prospects for Johan Santana, while the Yankees chose to hold on to their prized youngsters.  The “My team does more with less argument” can be thrown out the window.

Of course, the main argument that precludes the Yankees from being the Mets’ biggest rival is that they are not in the same league and only have begun to play each other six times per year over the last decade.  There is no historical rivalry and the in-season rivalry is of little consequence other than bragging rights. 

The teams have only played other once in the World Series (2000), which featured a dominant Yankee team at the tail end of its dynasty versus a strong but somewhat overachieving Met team.  Many Met fans were aware of the reality going into the series that the Yankees were the better team and the series could have generated more buzz than it did.

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