Mets snapping NL East title drought matters for both 2025 and beyond

PORT ST. LUCIE — Win the division.

The Mets are due. They are on about a once-a-decade clock, having last won the NL East in 2015, and before that 2006 as part of a history where — let’s be frank — they are much more familiar with last than first.

Those past two NL East titles are all the Mets have secured since previously winning in 1988, and if you think that is bad, consider:

• The Pirates have three in the same time frame and haven’t played in the NL East since 1993.
• The Nationals have had four since they stopped being the Montreal Expos and moved to Washington in 2005.
• The Marlins, who joined the division in 1993, have none, so it is not exactly like they have gotten in their way. Yet, the Mets trail the others in their division since 1993: the Braves have 18 division crowns, the Phillies seven, the Nationals four (five if you want to count the Expos leading the NL East in 1994 at the time of the season-ending strike), the Mets just those two.
• Brandon Nimmo is the longest-active current Met, arriving in 2016. So — like, for example, Edgardo Alfonzo, Al Leiter and Mike Piazza — he has never been on a Mets division winner. He said, “It’s definitely something that I want to try and accomplish. It’s something that’s eluded teams that I’ve been on. What do I make of it? We have been in a pretty dang good division and we just haven’t quite been the top dog yet.”

And why should there be urgency in 2025 to be NL East best in show?