The All Messed Mets Team
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by Dan Lewis
Inspired by a year-old post from The Baseball Crank comes this interestingly cynical idea: The All-Frustrating Team. Specifically, this team is made up of the 25 Mets who, over the course of my now twenty-plus years of Mets fandom, have pissed me off. That is, a team of my least favorite Mets of all time. Except that for me, "all-time" only extends to the early-to-mid 1980s.
Here are the rules:
- I'm not going on stats alone.
- To the extent possible, I'm going to match positions -- a 3B at 3B, a RF in RF, etc. But because it's really hard to dislike a utility guy, and because of similar issues, I can't keep this one guaranteed.
That's it. Easy rules.
Let's start with the bullpen first.
Relief Pitchers
Armando Benitez makes the team as a closer, mostly by default. The only other choices are Jesse Orosco, Roger McDowell, Randy Myers, John Franco, Braden Looper, and Billy Wagner. I don't really blame Looper for sucking -- we knew what we were getting when we got him. On the other hand, my brothers and I were seriously considering going to Kinkos, getting a HUGE banner that read "ARMANDO BENITEZ FAN CLUB: POPULATION ZERO", buying some upper-deck tickets, and "leaving" it just inside the left field foul pole.
Doug Sisk is, probably, the easiest person to put on the list. I have no idea why, but he is. From what I can gather, numbers-wise, he wasn't so bad. But I hear his name and my stomach turns into a knot, as if the first time I ever watched a Mets game, he came in, blew a save, took an axe to Keith Hernandez, and gave Doc Gooden his first line of coke. It's visceral, really.
Guillermo Mota makes the list for three reasons: one, for that stupid fight with Mike Piazza; two, for using steroids; and three, for sucking. Repetitively. If I have to pick a scapegoat for the 2007 disaster, I'm picking Mota six days a week and twice on Sundays.
Mel Rojas was Mota before there was Mota. One game, in Toronto, the Mets and Jays were locked in an epic battle, back and forth trading runs. In the top of the 8th, the Mets break through and grab an 8 to 7 lead. Rojas comes into the game in the bottom of the 8th. He faces five batters. The first three score on a three run shot; Rojas then walks one and hits the other guy (Shawn Green!) before he's pulled for John Hudek. He's traded a month or so later for Bobby Bonilla -- a swap of bad salaries, basically.
Jason Middlebrook, because there's really never any reason whatsoever to trade for a 27 year old pitcher with a career ERA over 5.00 in roughly 55 innings of work. I mean, he's going to be a spart part at best, and AA-fodder at worst. Over the course of two seasons with the Mets -- his last two in the bigs -- Middlebrook posted a predictable 5.86 ERA in 23 IP. The Mets never gave him a chance, but that's fine, because he never deserved one. He was a junky player and the trade was a junky one, regardless of who the Mets gave up in the deal.
Wally Whitehurst made 32 starts for the Mets from 1991 to 1992. He appeared in 80 games, total. The schizophrenic use of a 28 year old pitcher drove me insane, and apparently, still does.
Starting Rotation
Pete Harnisch ... man Let's start from the beginning. Due to some weird labor rules coming out of the 1994-1995 strike, some 1994 free agents were "restricted" free agents, with the guy's old team having the right to match the new team's contract offer. The New York Times explains. Well, in November of 1994, the Mets traded two nothings to the Houston Astros for the rights to Harnisch, and then they had to sign him anyway. They didn't sign him until April 7, 1995 (due in part to the strike), and he was coming off arm troubles anyway. Harnisch-as-ace never panned out, as he fell into chewing tobacco withdrawal-induced depression, which set off a very public fight between Harnisch and the team. I've tried to blot out the Harnisch era from my memory.
Frank Tanana was, for all intents and purposes, brought in to replace Whitehurst and some others. He was 39 years old when the Mets signed him to a one year, $1.5 million contract. The Mets finished 59-103. Tanana went 7-15. Not his fault, of course, but let's face it, he's a symbol of the problem. When you sign a contract, at age 39, with a team that just finished second-to-last in the division, the team writing your check is not very smart.
Shawn Estes, I have one question for you: How hard is it to hit a batter? In his 23 games as a Met, Estes hit five guys. None of them were Roger Clemens. Two redeeming factors: He did take Clemens yard and we traded him for Pedro Feliciano. Gave up Brady Clark in the deal, though.
Steve Trachsel ... thanks for that game in St. Louis, man. 'preciate the effort.
Tom Glavine killed me twice. Once during his first start as a Met, in freezing conditions, where he managed to give up seventy-five runs. I was too cold to boo. I'll not mention the second time.
Starting Lineup
Catcher: Jason Phillips. Easy. Really easy. The Mets have a strange inability to recognize that maybe -- just maybe -- when a 26 year old rookie hits .298/.373/.442 -- it might just be a fluke. Prudency suggests giving it another year -- not moving your franchise catcher to 1B in a hellacious experiment, only to find that Phillips sucked and Piazza couldn't play first. And then they traded him for Kaz Ishii.
First Base: Todd Zeile replaced John Olerud, and wasn't really a first baseman, and was a boondoggle on the basepaths, and lead the Mets to trade for Mo Vaughn, and then came back again (!#@$%^&*) a few years later. At one point during his second tour of duty, he -- originally a catcher -- was at 3B; Mike Piazza -- originally a catcher -- was at 1B; and Jason Phillips, originally a 1B was at catcher. What the heck!?
Second Base: Kaz Matsui really should have panned out. I mean, really. Unless they use aluminum bats in Japan, or something.
Shortstop: Rafael Santana. It took me a while to put him here. I was leaning toward Mike Bordick, but it then learned that in 1984 -- the year before the limp-bat, C+ glove Santana took over, Jose Oquendo was the Mets shortstop. Oquendo has long been one of my favorite players -- slick fielding with a solid OPS at a defensively significant position. If he were white, you'd call him "scrappy". He was traded to the Cardinals for Angel Salazar. Salazar never played for the Mets. Santana, on the other hand, is one of the few players who keeps the 1986 Mets from being one of the greatest in baseball history.
Third Base: David Wright. Just kidding! But before there was Wonderboy, there was Wonderboy Senior, a/k/a Gregg Jefferies. Look, it's simple. When the entire franchise is counting on you to be a superstar, it's entirely unacceptable to have the highlight of your professional career be being named a Topps Future Star. The dude kills me.
Right Field: George Foster. Calling the Mets racist for replacing him with Kevin Mitchell and Mookie Wilson. Smart man, George.
Center Field: Juan Samuel. With both Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter aging rapidly, the Mets panicked during the 1989 stretch run, and traded Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell for Samuel. In 86 games, he struck out 75 times -- and collected 76 hits. His pathetic .300 SLG only looked good next to his .299 OBP.
Left Field: Vince Coleman. As a young, impressionable kid, having Coleman on my team was heart-wrenching. It wasn't the firecracker episode that did me in but rather unrequited promise of Cardinals-style baseball. In both 1985 and 1987, my Mets fell short to the Whiteyball Cardinals, and to a large degree, Coleman was the sparkplug. He lead the league in stolen bases in each of his six years as a Cardinal, and then was second in the AL in his first year after the Mets traded him to the Royals, but never cracked the top 5 as a Met.
The Bench
Garry Templeton was acquired midway through the 1991 season to replace/platoon with Kevin Elster. He was a 35 year old shortstop who was coming four consecutive years of OBP in the .280 and eleven (!) straight years of fewer than 10 homers. He was putting up a .193/.203/.298 line when the Mets acquired him. The Mets gave him 219 at bats in which he put up a 59 OPS+ and a below league-average fielding percentage.
Joe Orsulak played three years for the Mets, but for the life of me, I can't get a mental image of him in a Mets uniform. He keep seeing him wearing a (now-retro) Orioles uniform. I have no idea why that's true, but it's the case. It's really not Orsulak's fault that he makes this list -- he was a fourth outfielder who was forced into a pseudo-starting role for no good reason.
Jermaine Allensworth, like Orsulak, is here unfairly, but as they say, life ain't fair. With the 1998 Mets in the midsts of a playoff run, their outfield of Bernard Gilkey, Brian McRae, and Butch Huskey wasn't cutting it. Gilkey, whose 1996 season was superlative, evaporated and was traded at the deadline. The Mets failed to replace him with anything appreciable, acquiring Tony Phillips to patrol the corners without much success. The solution was Allensworth, or something. Bah.
Pat Tabler was well known for being really good with the bases loaded. In a pinch-hit situation, of course, as you're not going to pull an actual starter for him. Great, that's useful what, five times a year? To be fair, he was good as a Met and cost basically nothing, but seriously, what's the point?
Kurt Abbott is from Zanesville, Ohio. So is Jay Payton. They were both members of the 2000 Mets -- you know, the NL champion 200 Mets. When you look back at that team, it's a miracle they were .500. Anyway, Abbott had nine plate appearances in the 2000 World Series. That is nine too many. Need proof? He had nine plate appearances for the rest of his career afterward -- and he was only 31 during the Series.
Charlie O'Brien was a pitch and catch guy, and I just don't like pitch and catch guys. I'm spoiled, I guess.
Guy in the Booth
Fran Healy. Every time someone fouled a pitch back, I was secretly hoping it'd hit Healy in the voice box.
You are welcome.
BTW - How can you leave Strawberry and Gooden off Team Facktard?