The Best New York Mets Seasons and Every October Run

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 9 min read

The best regular seasons in New York Mets history and all 22 postseason series from 1969 to 2024, from the 1962 expansion year at 40-120 to two World Series titles, three Series losses and the near-misses between.

The New York Mets began with one of the worst records of the modern era and, seven years later, won the World Series. That jump, from 40-120 in 1962 to a championship in 1969, is the founding legend of the franchise, and it set the tone for everything after: a club that is rarely in the middle, that has had dreadful years and dazzling ones, and that has reached October 11 times in 64 seasons. Five of those trips ended in a pennant, and two of the five ended in a title.

This article goes through the club's best regular seasons by record and every postseason series it has played, in order, using the historical record through the 2025 season. It sticks to results that can be checked, and where a famous moment is part of the story it is described only as far as the record supports.

The shape of 64 seasons

From 1962 through 2025 the Mets have a regular-season record of 4,899 wins and 5,227 losses, a .484 winning percentage. That sub-.500 total is dragged down by the early years and by a handful of bad seasons, and it understates how good the best teams have been. The strongest records cluster in 1985 to 1988 and 1999 to 2006, with the 1969 and 2022 teams standing alone.

Over its history the club has played 22 postseason series and won 13 of them. It has won the National League Championship Series five times, and lost it four times (1988, 1999, 2006 and 2024). It has reached five World Series and won two. The club did not make the postseason at all until its eighth season, and it has never won the division in two consecutive years.

Forty-and-120: how the club started

The Mets entered the National League in 1962 along with the Houston Colt .45s. Casey Stengel managed them from 1962 to 1965 and compiled a 175-404 record. They played at the Polo Grounds for two seasons and moved into Shea Stadium in 1964, the park that stood through 2008.

The worst seasons by winning percentage are all from the early years, plus one from the 1990s:

The 1962 team's 40 wins remain the club's lowest total, and 120 losses is among the largest totals in modern major-league history. Four straight last-place finishes followed. The fans came anyway: the 1965 club, a 50-112 team, drew 1,768,389 to Shea Stadium. The club was still ninth in 1968.

1969: the jump from 73 to 100 wins

The 1969 season is the biggest one-year improvement in the history of the franchise. In 1968 the Mets went 73-89, ninth in the ten-team National League. In 1969, with Gil Hodges managing, they went 100-62 and won the first National League East title. The runs figures show where it came from: the 1968 team scored 473 runs and allowed 499, a margin of minus 26, and the 1969 team scored 632 and allowed 541, a margin of plus 91. That is a swing of 117 runs, all of it on offence, in a year when the whole league scored more after the pitcher's mound was lowered.

Tom Seaver won the Cy Young Award that year, the first of three he would win for the club (1969, 1973, 1975). Seaver's club career spans 1967 to 1983 and still leads the franchise in wins (198) and shutouts (44), and in strikeouts with 2,541.

The 1969 postseason was the first with a league championship series. The Mets swept the Atlanta Braves three games to none, then beat the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series four games to one.

1973 and the thinnest pennant

The team that followed was not as good, and yet it got further than it had any right to. In 1973 the Mets won the East at 82-79, a record that would not make the postseason in most years but was enough in that division. They beat the Cincinnati Reds in the NLCS three games to two and then took Oakland to a seventh game in the World Series, losing it three games to four. Yogi Berra managed the club from 1972 to 1975.

The 1970s were otherwise a decade of drift. The club finished third in 1970, 1971 and 1972 with 83 wins each year, and by 1977 and 1979 it was 64-98 and 63-99. The turn at the gate is stark: 2,697,479 fans in 1970, 788,905 in 1979. A team that had been the toast of the city lost most of its audience in nine years.

1984 to 1990: the great teams

The next peak was built from the draft and a handful of trades, and managed by Davey Johnson, whose 595-417 record with the club (1984 to 1990) is the best of any Mets manager with 1,000 or more games. The sequence of records tells the story of the era:

1. 1985: 98-64, second in the East. The club won 98 games and missed the playoffs.
2. 1986: 108-54, first, the best record in club history (.667).
3. 1987: 92-70, second.
4. 1988: 100-60, first, with the second-best winning percentage the club has had (.625).
5. 1990: 91-71, second.

Dwight Gooden won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1984 and the Cy Young Award in 1985. Darryl Strawberry, who was the Rookie of the Year in 1983, hit 252 home runs for the club between 1983 and 1990, which is second in the club's history behind Pete Alonso's 264.

The 1986 postseason is among the most discussed in the sport. The Mets beat the Houston Astros in the NLCS, four games to two, and the series included a 16-inning Game 6 that the Mets won to avoid a seventh game. They then met the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. Trailing three games to two, they won Game 6 in extra innings and came from behind again in Game 7 to take the Series four games to three. Boston was close to the title in Game 6, and the details of how it slipped away are well documented.

The 1988 club went 100-60 and lost the NLCS to the Los Angeles Dodgers, three games to four. By winning percentage it is the best Mets team ever to lose a series, a hair ahead of the 2022 club.

Rebuilding and the Piazza years, 1991 to 2001

From 1991 to 1998, the Mets did not reach the postseason once. The nadir was 1993, 59-103, when 1,873,183 still came to Shea.

The drought ended soon after Mike Piazza arrived in 1998. He played eight years for the club (1998 to 2005) and hit 220 home runs while batting .296, tied with David Wright for the second-best average among Mets with 3,000 at-bats, behind Keith Hernandez's .297. He is one of the Hall of Fame players with four or more seasons for the club, along with Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Jeff Kent, Tom Glavine, Gary Carter, Billy Wagner and Pedro Martinez. Bobby Valentine managed the club from 1996 to 2002 and won 536 games.

In 1999 the Mets went 97-66 on the historical count, which includes a one-game playoff at Cincinnati that they won to secure the wild card. They beat Arizona in the division series, three games to one, and lost the NLCS to Atlanta, four games to two. Game 6 of that series, which Atlanta won in 11 innings on a bases-loaded walk, is one of the club's best-known losses.

The 2000 pennant and the Subway Series

The next year the Mets went 94-68 and took the wild card again. They beat the San Francisco Giants in the division series (three games to one) and the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS (four games to one) and met the New York Yankees in the World Series, the first all-New York Series since 1956. The Mets lost it four games to one. Every game was decided by two runs or fewer, and the series is remembered for the Game 2 incident in which Roger Clemens threw a broken bat toward Piazza, an episode that is documented even if its meaning is still argued.

2006 to 2008: three near-misses

The 2006 Mets won the division at 97-65, the best record in the National League. They swept the Dodgers in the division series, three games to none, and then lost the NLCS to St. Louis in seven games, three to four. The seventh game is one of the best remembered in franchise history; it ended with the bases loaded and a called third strike, and the Cardinals moved on to win the World Series.

The 2007 club finished second at 88-74 and the 2008 club finished second at 89-73. Neither reached the postseason, and both seasons are remembered for late-season collapses. Shea Stadium closed in 2008 after hosting 4,042,045 fans that year, the highest single-season attendance in club history. David Wright had been the face of the club through all three seasons; he finished his career with the franchise records for hits (1,777), RBI (970), runs (949) and walks (762).

2015: the pitching staff takes over

Citi Field opened in 2009, and the club did not reach the postseason there until 2015. The 2015 Mets went 90-72, won the division, and beat the Dodgers in the division series, three games to two. Then they swept the Chicago Cubs in the NLCS, four games to none, and lost the World Series to the Kansas City Royals, four games to one. The staff was built around young starters, and the club's career ERA list for pitchers with 1,000 innings has Jacob deGrom (2.52) first and Seaver (2.57) second.

A decade of wild cards: 2016 to 2025

The wild-card era brought a different kind of October. In 2016 the club went 87-75 and lost the one-game wild-card round to the San Francisco Giants, 0-1. In 2022 it went 101-61, the same record as Atlanta, and finished second because the Braves won the tiebreaker. The Mets then lost the best-of-three wild-card series to San Diego, one game to two. The 2022 team is the second-best by wins in franchise history and has no division title to show for it.

The 2024 club went 89-73, finished third in the East, and still won two rounds. It beat Milwaukee in the wild-card series (two games to one), Philadelphia in the division series (three games to one), and lost the NLCS to the Dodgers, two games to four. In 2025 the club finished 83-79 and second in the East, and did not return to October. Pete Alonso, the 2019 Rookie of the Year, ends the 2025 season as the club's career home-run leader with 264.

Every series, in one table

Two patterns stand out. The club has never lost a division series, going 5-0 in them (1999, 2000, 2006, 2015 and 2024), and it is 5-4 in championship series, 2-3 in World Series and 1-2 in wild-card rounds. Both titles came against American League clubs, Baltimore in 1969 and Boston in 1986, while the three Series losses were a seventh game in 1973 and two five-game defeats, in 2000 and 2015, in each of which the Mets won once.

Common questions

What was the Mets' best regular season? The 1986 team's 108-54 is the best by wins and by winning percentage (.667). The 1988 club's 100-60 (.625), the 2022 club's 101-61 (.623) and the 1969 club's 100-62 (.617) follow.

Have good Mets teams missed the postseason? Several. The 1985 team won 98 games, the 1987 team 92 and the 1990 team 91, and each finished second in the East at a time when only division winners advanced.

How many times have the Mets lost a World Series? Three: 1973, 2000 and 2015.

Who are the club's career leaders? Alonso hit the most home runs (264), Wright had the most hits (1,777), Seaver won the most games (198) and John Franco saved the most (276), according to the historical record.

Does the historical record include playoffs in a team's win-loss total? Only one-game tiebreakers, as in 1999, which is why that season shows 97-66.

Where to go next

The full story of the franchise is in the history of the New York Mets, and the players behind these teams are covered in the best Mets by position. For the park they have played in since 2009, see the Citi Field guide. The other National League East clubs whose paths cross this ledger are in the Braves' history, the Marlins' history and the Phillies' history, and the Series that opens many of these chapters is explained in the history of the World Series. For today's club, visit the Mets team page, the Citi Field page and the Mets topic page.