The MMI does not measure how bad a Mets team was. It measures how thoroughly that team embodied the specific, documented, historically consistent pattern of being the Mets. Losing 120 games in 1962 scores relatively low. Losing the final game of the season to the Marlins for the third time in eighteen years while possessing the second-highest payroll in baseball scores much higher. The distinction is important: the 1962 Mets were simply bad. The curse-era Mets are something richer, stranger, and more statistically improbable than mere badness.
Component 01: Expectation Gap (0–20)
Predicted wins based on Opening Day payroll percentile, preseason WAR, and run differential projections, minus actual wins. Higher gap = more Mets. A team that was expected to be bad and was bad scores low. A team that was expected to contend and missed the playoffs scores high. The 2025 Mets — second-highest payroll, projected 95 wins, actual 83 — score the maximum 20.
Component 02: Collapse Quotient (0–20)
Peak in-season playoff probability minus final playoff probability. Weighted by how late in the season the peak occurred. Collapsing from 99.8% in September scores higher than collapsing from 60% in July. The 2007 Mets score the theoretical maximum: 99.8% to eliminated, with the peak occurring on September 12 — seventeen games from the end.
Component 03: Opponent Specificity (0���20)
Were they eliminated by the Marlins? Add points. Were they eliminated by the Marlins for the third time? Maximum points. Was the eliminating loss on the final day of the season? Bonus multiplier. Did they hit a 116 mph laser for the final out? The score goes off the chart.
The Opponent Specificity Score captures what the data calls the Marlins Constant: the statistically improbable frequency with which the Florida/Miami Marlins appear as the eliminating opponent in Mets season-ending failures.
Component 04: Dollar Damage (0–20)
Payroll percentile at time of collapse. The 2025 Mets collapsed with the second-highest payroll in baseball and the largest individual contract in professional sports history. The 1962 Mets had the excuse of being an expansion team. The curse-era Mets had no such excuse. Higher payroll at time of failure = more Mets.
Component 05: Historical Rhyme (0–20)
Does this collapse echo a previous Mets collapse structurally? Does the game-by-game win probability chart match a prior collapse? Is the opponent the same? Is the timing the same? The more this failure resembles a previous failure, the more Mets it is. Because a truly Mets thing is not just failing — it is failing in exactly the same way you failed before.
The 2008 Mets score the only perfect 20/20 on Historical Rhyme: same opponent, same timing, same collapse structure, consecutive seasons. The 2025 Mets score 19/20: identical shape to both 2007 and 2008, but not consecutive.
"A score of 100 would require: a team with the highest payroll in baseball, with a 99.8% playoff probability in September, eliminated by the Marlins on the final day, via a line drive caught in foul territory, in a pattern identical to a previous September collapse."
What a perfect 100 requires
No Mets team has scored 100. The 2025 Mets came closest at 98. The two missing points: they had the second-highest payroll (not the highest), and the 116 mph laser was caught in left field (not foul territory). A perfect 100 requires perfection across all five dimensions simultaneously. It requires not just failure, but the most expensive, most improbable, most historically resonant, most opponent-specific failure possible.
The fact that no team has achieved it is itself a kind of achievement. They keep getting close. They will continue to get close. The platform will be here when they arrive.