All-Time Team: New York Mets (pitchers)

Continuing my most recent entry, here is the Mets' all-time rotation.  Don't worry, fans of the other 29 teams, your team's time will come one day.

SP: Tom Seaver, 1967-1977: 75.8 WAR/136 ERA+/198-124

Well of course.  Seaver is one of the best pitchers of all-time, and is both the only Met in the Hall of Fame and the only Mets player to have his number retired by the team (though that should change soon with Piazza's #31).  His resume: 1967 Rookie of the Year; 1969, 1973, and 1975 Cy Young Awards; the gaudy stats in this heading; and other notable Mets career statistics, such as a 1.076 WHIP, 2541 strikeouts, and 44 shutouts.  This entry will be very brief because there's not much to say.  Seaver was awesome and won't ever be usurped from his position at the top of the Mets all-time rotation.

SP: Dwight Gooden, 1984-1994: 41.2 WAR/116 ERA+/157-85

Gooden could have overtaken Seaver, but drugs and a mid-career decline ensured that it was not to be.  Much like with Darryl Strawberry (see yesterday's post), however, that doesn't mean that Gooden's accomplishments should be diminished (though they sometimes are, unfortunately).  From 1984-1988, his first five seasons in the majors, he averaged 18 wins a season with a 2.62 ERA and 213 strikeouts.  With 91 wins and 1067 strikeouts under his belt by the age of 23 (I know; crazy, right?) Gooden had already earned himself a place at the top of pantheon of Mets starters.  His next six years were fine (with 1990 and 1993 probably his best years), but nothing close to his earlier success.  While most people will always ask "what could have been?" I am content with what was.  Gooden helped lead the Mets to a World Series title, and racked up the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards along the way.  For that, he could be deserving of a #1 spot, but I assume he'd be all right playing second fiddle to Seaver.

SP: Jerry Koosman, 1967-1978: 41.8 WAR/113 ERA+/140-137

Koosman almost made the cut for my article on players who should be in the Hall of Fame, but barely missed it.  He would have been on my top twenty list for sure.  Anyway, despite being overshadowed by Tom Seaver, Koosman was very good as the Mets #2 pitcher from 1968-1978.  Over those eleven seasons he averaged a 13-12 record with a 3.07 ERA (114 ERA+), 163 strikeouts, and a 3.8 WAR.  Not Hall of Fame numbers, but they're very solid nonetheless.  Koosman thrived by being very above average for a very long period of time, though he did have moments of greatness.  He had four seasons with a WAR greater than 5 (defined as "All-Star level") and finished second in the Cy Young voting in 1976.  He was never particularly flashy or exciting, but he was a key cog in two World Series rotations (one victorious, one unfortunately not) and is still one of the best Mets pitchers of all-time.

SP: Al Leiter, 1998-2004: 26.3 WAR/124 ERA+/95-67

The pitcher of my childhood, Leiter actually managed to get four Hall of Fame votes this year.  I won't claim to think that Leiter was a Hall of Fame-caliber pitcher--he emphatically wasn't--but he was more than serviceable as the Mets' sometimes ace from 1998-2004.  Although he was twice usurped from the (un)official title of "ace," first by Mike Hampton and then by Tom Glavine, Leiter was better and lasted longer than either of those pitchers.  In his first year with the Mets, Leiter won 17 games with a 2.47 ERA and was one of the best pitchers in the league.  In 1999 his production fell a bit, but he will always be remembered for pitching the Mets over the Reds and into the postseason in the 163rd game of the season.  In 2000 he was slotted behind Hampton in the rotation, but pitched at basically the same level (Leiter actually had a .1 higher WAR).  From 2001-2004 the Mets weren't very good, but Leiter still averaged a 12-10 record with a 3.50 ERA (119 ERA+) over those four years.  In his last year, his seventh with the Mets (at age 38), he went 10-8 with a 3.21 ERA and a 4.2 WAR.  It was probably time to let him go--he was old, the Mets were trying to completely remodel the franchise--but that didn't stop me from agonizing over the Mets' decision to not tender him a contract for 2005, even if I knew it was the correct one.  Back when he was pitching, Leiter was acknowledged as a very good pitcher, but that seems to have faded since he basically left our consciousness. It's undeserved, though.  He was one of the very best the Mets have had.

SP: Jon Matlack, 1971-1977: 27.0 WAR/115 ERA+/82-81

It's a really close race for the fifth spot in this rotation between Matlack and Sid Fernandez.  While the two had fairly comparable statistics, Fernandez got his by being above average for a long period of time.  Matlack, on the other hand, had two great seasons and four adequate years.  It's those two seasons--and the fact that, had the Mets been better during Matlack's tenure with the team, he would have racked up many more wins than he actually registered--that force me to pick Matlack.  His rookie season, for which he won the 1972 Rookie of the Year award, was quite incredible (15-10, 2.32 ERA, 6.7 WAR), as was his 1974 (13-15, 2.41 ERA, 8.6 WAR).  Matlack actually only had one bad season, and in the other three (that I previously categorized as "adequate") he averaged sixteen wins and a 3.17 ERA (a surprisingly low 109 ERA+).  The Mets were a very average team in the first half of the 1970s, and the fact that he lost 81 games while pitching to a 3.03 ERA suggests that a lot of Matlack's losses are due to bad luck.  He petered out at the end of his Mets career, and didn't regain his magic during six mostly average years with the Rangers.  His 1972-1976, were some of the best pitching seasons in Mets history, and I feel compelled to give him the final spot in this rotation.

CL: John Franco, 1990-2004: 12.8 WAR/132 ERA+/276 SV

I've already argued for John Franco's induction into the Hall of Fame (a moot point now), so it makes sense that he would be my pick for the best Mets closer of all-time.  Although he was shaky at times (a blown saves  percentage of 19% is not good news), Franco's seven years with an ERA+ over 150 and Mets-record 276 saves speak to both his longevity and general dominance.  He was forced out of his role by the next entry in this list, but continued to serve as a more than functional reliever.  (He even gave up his treasured #31 to Mike Piazza.)  For a more extensive analysis of Franco's career, see my article on this year's Hall of Fame ballot (linked to at the beginning of this paragraph).  As a Met, though, he was one of the best closers in the game, and the best the Mets ever had.

RP: Armando Benitez, 1999-2003: 10.6 WAR/159 ERA+/160 SV

When Benitez was on, he was on.  He holds three of the top seven spots for Mets closer seasons, sorted by WAR.  In 1999, his first year with the team, he pitched to a 1.85 ERA (241 ERA+) with 22 saves (he more or less shared the role with Franco).  However, while he remained solid for the next four seasons, he would soon come to be remembered for something less-than-ideal: blown saves.  He coughed up game one of the 2000 World Series and let the Braves make a heartaching comeback to basically end the Mets' late September surge in 2001 (fun fact: that was the last time I cried about the result of a baseball game).  Halfway through the dismal 2003 season, despite the fact that he was still one of the most dominant closers in the game, the Mets got tired of Benitez and traded him to the Yankees.  I won't ever forgive him for either of his notable blown saves, but as I am more rational now than I was in 2001 I can see Benitez for what he really was: one of the best Mets closers of all-time.

RP: Jesse Orosco, 1979-1987: 12.2 WAR/133 ERA+/107 SV
Orosco actually has better statistics than most people probably remember.  Over his six (was it really that few?) full seasons with the Mets, Orosco had an ERA+ above 128 five times.  While Darryl Strawberry gets all the attention for his performance during the 1983 season, Orosco had a 1.47 ERA (248 ERA+) with 17 saves (not so bad when you consider that the league leader had 29 and that the Mets only won 68 games all year).  Orosco is also most notable for being on the mound to close out both the 1986 NLCS and World Series (the former of which he almost blew).  Orosco never overpowered, save for his 1983, but managed to find his way onto this list due to a combination of his solid and steady play, and the weakness of the other closers in Mets' history.  The two next best closers, after Orosco, are Billy Wagner and Tug McGraw.  The former didn't play for long enough, though, and the latter has compelling statistics, but they're just slightly worse than Orosco's.  It's close, but Orosco wins out.  (Also, this photo is still awesome.)

All-Time Team: New York Mets (position players)

Here's a fun (and easy) one: the best player by position for my favorite team!  I'll try to do this for every team over the course of this blog, and it seemed like a good idea to start with the team I know best.

• Note 1: I set a player's positional qualifying as having played 40% of his games at his position.  Even if he played more games at one position than another, what position he qualified was up to me.  (For a more coherent explanation of this, see the entry for second base.)
• Note 2: I didn't have enough room to put all of the tags in for a combined post, so I'm doing the position players today and the pitchers tomorrow.

C: Mike Piazza, 1998-2005: 24.6 WAR/136 OPS+/220 HR
From 1991-1996 the Mets were just terrible.  There were quite a few reasons for this prolonged struggle, but one of the main reasons was that the Mets weren't able to find a true star hitter since Darryl Strawberry's acrimonious departure in 1990.  Enter Piazza.  Over the next seven and a half seasons Piazza carried the Mets to two deep playoff appearances and hit quite a few memorable home runs (including, most notably, his post-9/11 game winner against the Braves) along the way.  He ranks at the top of many all-time Met leaderboards (home runs, 2nd; hits, 8th; WAR, 7th; OPS, 2nd).  While you may be tempted to think that Gary Carter or Jerry Grote could threaten for this position, it's not even close.  Piazza beats every other Mets catcher on home runs, hits, OPS, OPS+, WAR, and basically any other offensive category you can think of.  While he tailed off a bit at the end of Mets career, his accomplishments over his first five and a half seasons were quite incredible.  He is, without a doubt, the best Mets catcher of all-time.

1B: Keith Hernandez, 1983-1989: 26.5 WAR/129 OPS+/52 FV
Another position where the sentimental fan favorite also happens to be the deserving winner, Hernandez ably manned the Mets first base for six and a half seasons, leading the team to a World Series in 1986.  The best defensive first baseman of all-time was excellent for his first four and a half seasons.  He finished in the top ten of MVP voting three times, won four Gold Gloves, and was elected to three All-Star Games.  If John Olerud had played for the Mets for more than three seasons he might have beaten Hernandez here (to say nothing of the WS titles that would have resulted from having The Best Infield Ever together for more than one season).  As it is, Hernandez' dominance and leadership in the 1980s makes him the solid and clear choice.

2B: Edgardo Alfonzo, 1995-2002: 29.1 WAR/113 OPS+/1136 H
Although he actually played more games as a third baseman for the Mets, I'll allow Alfonzo's body of work as a Met to qualify at second base.  His three full seasons as a second baseman coincide with the Mets' three most exciting seasons of the Bobby Valentine era (1999-2001), and his two best seasons fall in this period (1999 and 2000).  With this qualification in mind, I'll be examining Alfonzo's career Mets stats, not just his stats during his 2B seasons (see the notes section).  After looking at his numbers, it's easy to conclude that Alfonzo isn't just the best Mets second baseman, but one of the best Mets of all-time.  He ranks third all-time for WAR and fourth for hits.  He was an essential cog of every Mets lineup in which he featured, and is criminally underrated by both Mets fans and baseball fans alike.  After his Mets years he went to San Francisco, where he actually fared all right for three years, but was out of the majors by the end of 2006, at the age of 32.  It's a shame that Fonzie was never able to harness his talent and establish himself as one of the great baseball players of his era.  His Mets years will have to stand alone as a testament to his greatness--not a terribly difficult feat, considering how good those seasons were.

3B: David Wright, 2004-Pres.: 31.1 WAR/135 OPS+/.305 AVG
Despite the Mets' supposedly legendary weakness at the hot corner, they've had some pretty solid third basemen.  While I acknowledge the greatness of Howard Johnson, Edgardo Alfonzo (who resides at second base for the purpose of this post), and Robin Ventura's 1999, nobody can touch David Wright's still-young Mets career.  Even though he's been a staple of the Mets' lineup for seven years now, he still feels recent to me.  It's easy to forget that he played alongside Mike Piazza, Al Leiter, and John Franco.  He is the bridge from the Mets of yore to the Mets of today (and tomorrow).  What's most incredible is that he hasn't yet had a bad season.  People like to rag on his 2009 for its lack of power, but he still hit .307 with an OPS+ of 124. A down year for David Wright is well above average for everybody else.  On the Mets all-time leaderboard, he's first for batting average, second for WAR, second for RBI, third for hits, fourth for home runs, and fourth for OPS+.   He's started the All-Star Game four out of the last five years and has finished in the top-ten of MVP voting three times.  It almost goes without saying that he's the best Mets third baseman of all-time.  By the time he's done, he could be one of the best third basemen all-time, regardless of team.

SS: Jose Reyes, 2003-Pres.: 23.3 WAR/101 OPS+/331 SB
Did you know that Reyes is the only Mets shortstop with over 100 games and an OPS+ above 100?  He's also only one of two shortstops with a WAR above 10.  The lack of real competition puts Reyes over the top (almost by default), but even with some good competition he'd still probably be an easy pick.  Like with Wright, I can't believe that Reyes has been around for so long (even longer than David, though Reyes wasn't a great player until after Wright had already established himself).  Still, there's a nagging feeling that he's never quite played up to his potential.  He's only had five seasons with more than 100 games, and has only hit .300 or above twice (once in his rookie season, in which he only played in 69 games).  His speed, however, is undeniable--he way in first place on the Mets all-time stolen bases list--and his quality presence is key to the Mets' success.  2011 might be his last season in a Mets uniform, but he'll be the Mets' best shortstop of all-time for a long while.

LF: Kevin McReynolds, 1987-1991: 17.0 WAR/120 OPS+/122 HR
This one surprised me.  I originally gave it to Cleon Jones, but after comparing their two careers I had to switch to McReynolds.  He had the unfortunate luck of not being Kevin Mitchell (for whom he was traded in an oft-maligned deal), but McReynolds could hit, even if he never put much emotion into it.  For five straight years he gave the Mets solid, almost identical seasons in which played in over 140 games, hit his fair share of home runs, and put up good OPS+.  McReynolds was not an all-time great, and he certainly benefits from weak competition, but let's examine how he stacks up to his closest competitor (Jones, a fan favorite).  McReynolds beats Jones in OPS+ (120 to 111), home runs (122 to 93), OPS (.790 to .746), and WPA (12 to 8).  Jones wins out in durability categories, such as hits and WAR, but the fact that McReynolds only loses WAR by .6, despite playing in 400 fewer games than Jones, is important.  McReynolds was a most unheralded player, but I am comfortable giving him the left field slot on my all-time team.

CF: Carlos Beltran, 2005-Pres.: 28.4 WAR/126 OPS+/42 FV
It frustrates me to no end when (supposed) fans rip Beltran.  What more could he have done since arriving here in 2005?  From 2006-2008 he put up one of the best stretches in Mets history, and was one of the best players in baseball (averaging a 6.7 WAR, 34 home runs, and 113 RBI per year, with a 134 OPS+ and three gold gloves).  His other years, while less amazing, have still been above average.  It is really a shame that Beltran doesn't get his due.  Is it because he didn't swing at Adam Wainwright's devastating curveball?  Because he's getting paid a lot of money?  Because the Mets haven't performed up to their potential?  Because he's Hispanic?  It's probably a combination of those four.  Still, while the Mets have had a number of worthy center fielders (Mookie Wilson, Lenny Dykstra, and Lee Mazzilli) none ever dominated their game as much as Beltran did, nor exhibited all five tools at such a high level.  Hopefully some day Beltran will receive his deserved praise as one of the best Mets of all-time.  In the meanwhile, however, he'll have to deal with ignorant fans booing him for no reason.

RF: Darryl Strawberry, 1983-1990: 37.7 WAR/145 OPS+/252 HR
And here we go.   Straw should have coasted into the Hall of Fame proudly wearing the interlocking NY on his cap.  He didn't, of course, but that shouldn't stop us from recognizing him as the best right fielder (to say nothing of position player) in Mets history.  And it isn't even close.  He has more than four times the WAR of the second place right fielder in that category (Joel Youngblood) and more home runs than the second through fourth place right fielders in that category combined.  Straw's Mets career OPS+ of 145 is ten points higher than David Wright, who is next on that leaderboard.  Besides WAR and OPS+, Strawberry is also the Mets' all-time leader in home runs, RBI, and WPA.  His all-too public rift with the Mets, combined with his drug troubles, has given Strawberry something of a "what coulda been" aura among Mets fans.  He deserves to be remembered not for his foibles, however, but rather for the offensive monster that he was.  He's in the Mets Hall of Fame, and that's good enough for me.