Which NYC team will break the Big Apple title drought?

[Spider2024]

It's been a New York minute since any of the 8 major-pro-sport Metropolitan teams took home a championship.

We'll acknowledge NYCFC winning the MLS Cup in 2021, but otherwise, no chips since February of 2012.

So who will be next? Let's try to predict it in poll form.

[horsemen4ever]

No love for the Liberty?

[fw91]

No idea.
We will see how the off-season goes for the Knicks. One superstar definitely puts them in the front of the conversation.

The Rangers are currently the best team, but they have a habit of heart attack playoff hockey and burning out never finishing the job.

Islanders don't have a window yet.

Devils were supposed to make that jump this year, but what a disapointment this season has been.

Yankees have added Soto and he should be deadly with Judge, but Idk if they have the pitching beyond Cole. And their infield doesn't scare me.

Mets are rebuilding without admitting it. They aren't trying even though you'd think they can have their cake and eat it too with Uncle Steve.

Giants- Will be interesting how they approach the draft. I'm somewhat optimistic but they aren't there yet.

Jets- Don't think they can compete with other teams in the AFC even though I think they can make the playoffs with a healthy Rodgers.

[UN PLOMBIER NIGHTMARE #blm]

Rangers with the Yankees behind because you never know

[Renslayer]

None of the above. The Liberty are the NYC team closest to winning a championship

[Cyno]

The Islanders aren't a NYC team. They're like the Devils where they play in the metro, but don't actually represent the City (unlike the Giants and Jets who play in NJ but DO represent NYC). In the Isles' case, they proudly represent Long Island except for the few seasons they played in Brooklyn. And we don't talk about those.

Granted, the Isles' new arena is literally NYC-adjacent, but still outside of city limits technically.

[BRV]

Where’s the “Good lord hopefully none of them” option?

[Push R Truth]

Mar 7, 2024 18:29:47 GMT -5 BRV said:

Where’s the “Good lord hopefully none of them” option?

Seeing New Yorkers cry about not winning and I'm sitting here as a fan of Minnesota sports.

Get bent ya bitches.

[Heart of fools gold]

Mar 7, 2024 20:02:53 GMT -5 Push R Truth said:

Mar 7, 2024 18:29:47 GMT -5 BRV said:

Where’s the “Good lord hopefully none of them” option?

Seeing New Yorkers cry about not winning and I'm sitting here as a fan of Minnesota sports.

Get bent ya bitches.

look I get it but also remove the Yankees and Giants and the last title NY got would be the rangers 94 cup win, followed by the 87 Mets, Knicks 73, and Jets 69. NY has been hard carried by the Yankees for decades

[Cyno]

Mar 7, 2024 23:52:08 GMT -5 Heart of fools gold said:

Mar 7, 2024 20:02:53 GMT -5 Push R Truth said:

Seeing New Yorkers cry about not winning and I'm sitting here as a fan of Minnesota sports.

Get bent ya bitches.

look I get it but also remove the Yankees and Giants and the last title NY got would be the rangers 94 cup win, followed by the 87 Mets, Knicks 73, and Jets 69. NY has been hard carried by the Yankees for decades

Exactly. If you're a Yankees, Giants, Knicks, and Rangers or Devils fan, you've seen your fair share of championship wins and are pretty spoiled for success (especially the Yankees). If you're a Mets, Jets, Nets, and Isles fan, you haven't seen shit since 1986. A lot of people currently posting here were small children when that happened, maybe not even alive. And when the crosstown rivals win, that's extra salt in the wound. It's not like we come together as a city and metro area and celebrate the win. We're happy for friends and family who are fans of those teams, but also f*** you for your team winning and not mine.

[S-Chrome]

None is the correct answer. But speaking as one of those poor, unfortunate souls who still lives within the five boroughs, I'll lay it out from most to least likely.

Rangers: Yes, they're in it to win it. But much like the Knicks, they're known for being perennial playoff no-shows. I say they get buried in the second round of the SCP.

Yankees: Just because they're second on the list doesn't make them any less of a disappointment. They have the financial strength to go toe-to-toe with the Dodgers, but refuse to do so. Their core players are starting to age, and their GM is a bald, stubborn piece of shit who swears to the top of the mountain that he's the smartest GM that ever smarted. Soto was a necessary acquisition considering how much the Yankees sucked offensively, but they needed a front-line starter in the offseason to go along with it, on top of unloading Gleyber Torres. I think the right package could've landed them Jesus Luzardo and Luis Arraez from Miami, which really would've put them in the position of favorite in the AL, but alas... Cashman doesn't see the vision and hugs prospects until they get to The Show, and then badmouths them when said prospects underperform. (See: Frazier, Clint and Sanchez, Gary). All in all, Cashman's negligence keeps the Yankees from winning championships. Whether it's his attitude, prospect hugging, and over-reliance on an ineffective offensive strategy (HOME RUNS OR BUST!!!111), Cashman's is at the center of it all. Dude should've been fired years ago. /BrokenRecord.

Knicks: Good team with dare I say, potential for growth. Since Boston is running away with the Eastern Conference, and the Knicks are not exactly the picture of health, it'd take everybody back and a bevy of luck to get them to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they will likely meet Boston and get crushed. They're a decently constructed team, but not on the level of championship caliber. They need a superstar to go along with Brunson and lousy Julius Randle.

Jets: Having Aaron Rodgers healthy will solve a lot of problems. Zach Wilson not being in a green uniform would help matters quite a bit also. Since Rodgers might collapse at any given time, they need to invest in a backup QB, and an offensive line worth a damn. Wilson (Garrett) and Hall are diamonds in the rough, as is the Jets defense. But it means very little when your O-Line keeps you from sustaining drives. A healthy Rodgers will get the Jets to the postseason. It's just unlikely that Rodgers can stay upright during the season.

Mets: They'll rise up higher in the conversation once they finishing poaching Soto from the Yankees next offseason, but they're a ways-away even with the backpage-grabbing, Yankee-crushing acquisition they get. They should score some runs, but the pitching is going to absolutely suffer. They need to start the clock on developing some young pitching in a major way.

Islanders: I used to get a kick out of the fact that whenever a playoff game took place in Brooklyn a few years back, the LIRR would be jam-packed with Islander fans going to Atlantic Terminal... usually to end up disappointed. Though they're right on the outskirts of the city nowadays, it's no different with the makeup of what the Islanders are. The Islanders are on seemingly an endless-loop of being no-hopers and then rising no higher than that of a pretender. This year they're pretenders, and they likely will rise no higher than that. Making the playoffs will be their ceiling during this current regime.

Giants: The Giants have been the NFL's worst team for the last eight years or so. Now, they're in the unenviable position of sucking, paying a QB who sucks and is oft-injured, not in a position to get a QB prospect this April without crippling their future draft prospects, about to see two of their most productive players walk in free agency, and not having a significant amount of cap room to remedy the problems they have. They may not finish dead last this upcoming season, but the playoffs are a pipe dream with what they're going to be running out there. I'd strongly suggest that if they don't aggressively go after a QB in the draft, they move to strengthen their defense anyway it can, because that offense without Barkley is going to reach a new level of suck that we haven't seen in decades, and if the Giants D can't hold up while the offense is as bad as it is, then Daboll and Schoen are probably looking for jobs next offseason.

Nets: My brother is a Nets fan... even back in the Jersey days. How he though that they were going to sniff playoff contention after the Durant/Harden/Irving trades is an exercise for the biggest homer sports fan. Either way, they got some decent young pieces like Mikal Bridges and Cam Thomas, but are the Nets going to have the patience to develop them instead of trading for the next superstar who demands a trade? I mean, the last two damn tries didn't work (Garnett/Pierce/Johnson, Durant/Harden/Irving)

[The Barber]

Mar 7, 2024 18:29:47 GMT -5 BRV said:

Where’s the “Good lord hopefully none of them” option?

Reality.

[HMARK Center]

I'm gonna be a homer, here, and actually pick my Mets.

This year? Yeah, no, not likely. But the root problem of NYC sports in the big four leagues has been horrid ownership: the Wilpons, the Dolans, Charles Wang, the times when Steinbrenner was at his worst (seriously, the 90s dynasty only happened because George was banned from MLB for awhile), Woody Johnson, etc. We can yell about bad GMs or whatever, but the owners are the ones who allow this stuff to go on, end of the day.

The Mets actually have an owner now who seems like he has a clue; Cohen came into an organization in partial shambles thanks to the buffoonery of the Wilpons, saw there were at least some core players to work around, and spent the first couple years of his reign trying to buy a title. Hey, it nearly worked in 2021! But once they got to last year and saw how little they could rely on pricey veterans to stay healthy, Cohen bit the bullet and OK'd what needed to be done: unloading a number of players for good prospects, revamping the front office, and, most importantly, continuing what he'd started doing after buying the team and really investing in infrastructure up and down the Mets as an organization - money for player health and injury prevention, investments in foreign markets and international scouting, a stronger analytics department, better minor league facilities, biometrics, domestic scouting, etc. He said his goal was to make the Mets a sort of "Dodgers East", and this is how you get to even attempt that.

Can't say how quickly it'll result in something big, but hey, the Mets' Pythagorean W-L projection last year was actually better than their overall record: a healthier pitching staff this year might get them up toward what they were projected to be, which would put them in a similar spot to where Arizona was in 2023. But the key this year will be to keep developing young talent and to keep investing in the organization's infrastructure, and it will pay dividends, even if it takes a couple of years...especially when Cohen has the money to augment whatever Stearns puts together with the potential to sign someone like Juan Soto next offseason.

Currently, however, it's got to be the Rangers, loathe as I am to say it...but I don't see them pulling it off with this core as it is right now. Good team, for sure, but I'm never comfortable picking a team to win it all when they have to ride their goaltending pretty hard to get that far. The Rangers aren't just the Sheshterkin Show, to their credit, but I still feel they overall lack depth at both center and at the blue line; their top line/pairing players at both are stars who can carry them for awhile, but Cup wins usually require more.

The Knicks are rising up the list; I don't pay enough attention to the NBA, granted, but the New York NBA team now being decent bodes well for potentially luring in a superstar free agent, which could change the game considerably given how that can influence title odds in that league.

Yankees are always a threat given how frequently they make the playoffs, but after the Cole news yesterday...guess we'll see.

Giants, Jets, Nets? Nah.

Get the Devils a goalie and beef up the left side of the defense and they can likely get back on track next year, but that'd be *our* Cup over here in Jersey, thank you very much.

[karl100589]

Mar 7, 2024 20:02:53 GMT -5 Push R Truth said:

Mar 7, 2024 18:29:47 GMT -5 BRV said:

Where’s the “Good lord hopefully none of them” option?

Seeing New Yorkers cry about not winning and I'm sitting here as a fan of Minnesota sports.

Get bent ya bitches.

Try being a Newcastle fan. 97 years since we last won the league. 55 years since winning anything of note.

[Sam Punk]

Mar 6, 2024 21:19:28 GMT -5 horsemen4ever said:

No love for the Liberty?

Not a major sport.

[XIII]

Always bet on the Yankees on stuff like this.