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The Mets are back, and they want to show they're the best team in New York

Baseball is better when the New York Mets are good, when they're winning 11 straight games and sporting the best record in the major leagues and giving the Subway Series the sort of juice it warrants. Meaningful April baseball is a tried-and-true oxymoron, and yet here we are, with baseball's biggest, baddest franchise ready to play host to the little brother that may well be its superior.

Not since 2008 have the New York Yankees and Mets faced off during a season in which both teams were playoff contenders, a drought attributable to the Mets and Mets alone. Rebuilding carries a particularly palpable stench, and it affixed itself to the Mets for far too long. Exactly zero Mets on the active roster played in that last Subway Series of consequence. The only Yankees are Alex Rodriguez and Brett Gardner.

Their divergence since is stark, and it speaks to the care with which the Mets have constructed themselves. Forget the winning streak, which is dotted with mediocre opposing starters. Look more at the health of the franchise, and this much is clear: The Mets are in a far better position than the Yankees, now and for the foreseeable future.

While the Yankees skew old and find their payroll bloated with the aged or question marked, the Mets have done just about everything right in reconstructing themselves from the ashes of two straight September collapses. Smart trades. Excellent drafting. Savvy intentional free agency. The only criticism of the Mets is they haven't spent money in free agency because ownership is too cheap, and their keen player development mitigated that.

Jeurys Familia and the Mets have won 11 consecutive games heading into their series with the Yankees. (AP)
Jeurys Familia and the Mets have won 11 consecutive games heading into their series with the Yankees. (AP)

One glance at the active rosters for these games shows the difference. Of the Mets' 25 players, 16 came through the organization through drafting or international free agency. The grand total for the Yankees: four. And while the draft-and-develop paradigm is neither the only way to win nor any sort of a guarantee, when it's executed with the aplomb the Mets have, it builds not just a contender now but one that's sustainable.

"We're all excited for the '15 season because we felt like it was hopefully going to be the beginning of something," said Paul DePodesta, the Mets' vice president of scouting and player development. "It was hard to say exactly when it's going to kick in. Even after 11 in a row, it's awfully early. It's not like we've arrived. What we're excited about is it shouldn't just be one year. We feel like we're hopefully just embarking on a multi-year run of being very competitive. And hopefully it starts now."

Actually, it started a decade ago, with a seventh-round draft pick named Jon Niese. With David Wright – another homegrown Met – on the disabled list, Niese is the earliest remnant of these new Mets, followed a year later by Daniel Murphy (13th round), two years after that by Lucas Duda (seventh) and Dillon Gee (21st), and after that by Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Eric Campbell, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Erik Goeddel. Add in international signings Ruben Tejada, Juan Lagares, Jeurys Familia, Wilmer Flores and Hansel Robles, and there are 14 current Mets drafted or signed during the tenure of former general manager Omar Minaya. The 2010 draft in particular, which gifted the team Harvey and deGrom, has the chance to be among the best classes in the last decade on the power of two arms alone.

What the current Mets brass of GM Sandy Alderson, assistant GM John Ricco and DePodesta has done is develop the talent and fortify it with even more. With deGrom, the Mets weathered his Tommy John surgery, didn't push him because he was transitioning from playing shortstop in college and tinkered a tiny bit with his mechanics. Once he made a small adjustment to his stride, deGrom's velocity leveled off instead of spitting out charts that looked like polygraphs. His pitches came out crisper, and the difference was tangible: Now he could take advantage of the superior extension he got not just on his fastball but his breaking ball, which pitchers generally don't release as far in front of them as deGrom.

An even keener decision was keeping Duda over Ike Davis. One of the rationales previously explained – Duda's ball-off-bat exit velocity impressed the Mets – is indeed true, though Davis' was by no means poor. It was more simple: Davis had a chance to excel during his 1,741 plate appearances with the Mets and hadn't, while the Mets wanted to see what Duda could do in a full-time job.

Curtis Granderson and the Mets have had plenty of reasons to celebrate recently. (Getty Images)
Curtis Granderson and the Mets have had plenty of reasons to celebrate recently. (Getty Images)

Giving those sorts of opportunities is key to the Mets' success so far, whether it's with the surging Duda or even Flores, whose fielding mediocrity the Mets are swallowing in exchange for the superior bat he provides. Moving him in and out of the lineup, they figure, does him no good. It takes a special kind of forbearance – the sort cultivated over six years of bad baseball forging minimal expectations.

"We need to remember how beneficial it was to be patient with these other guys," DePodesta said. "I really admire what the Braves were able to do during that 15-year run. It was pretty remarkable. But one of the things in particular was they found a way with very high expectations to incorporate at least one young player into that everyday club or rotation every single year. Even though they were counting on winning 95 games and going to the playoffs, they found a way to put each guy in a place to succeed."

While the Yankees' farm system is as healthy as it's been in years, it pales compared to the Mets'. And that's what edifies the organization the most. That Travis d'Arnaud can go down with a freak injury on a hit-by-pitch and be replaced by Kevin Plawecki, a top catching prospect. Or that Dilson Herrera, stolen from Pittsburgh in a deadline trade, can replace Murphy at second base should he depart this offseason. Or the pitching depth at Triple-A with future big league starters Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz and Rafael Montero, all the way down to High-A, with Marcos Molina. Or their corner outfielders of the future, Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo, both legitimate top 100 prospects. Even the depth if Flores were to fail, with Matt Reynolds at Triple-A and arguably the best prospect in the organization, Amed Rosario, at High-A, shows the Mets are far from three-week wonders.

Doing this without Zack Wheeler, d'Arnaud and Wright makes the future all the more enticing, though the optimism is cautious. Harvey, deGrom, Wheeler and Matz all have blown out their elbows. Nothing is keeping them from doing it again. Another couple months will prove if the second-highest-scoring offense in the National League thus far has staying power. These are the Mets, after all. Nice things don't happen to them.

So for now, enjoy this. A Subway Series that's everything a New York baseball junkie could want. The Bronx beckoning. Eleven straight victories. DeGrom on Friday, Harvey on Saturday, Niese on Sunday. A chance to remind everyone baseball wasn't dead in Queens. It was waiting for the right time to rise.

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