On Sunday, Mike Piazza doubled the number of players wearing Met caps on their Hall of Fame plaques. Congratulations to Piazza and to the Mets! I’m glad the team will devote all of next weekend to celebrating Piazza making it to Cooperstown, because the opportunity for the Mets and their fans to celebrate this honor does not come along often enough.
ESPN’s recent documentary on Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry only underscored what might have been. If anyone looked like a future Hall of Famer at the start of his career, it was Doctor K. In his first four seasons, he finished 2nd, 1st, 7th, and 5th in Cy Young voting. At the end of his fourth season, he was still only 22 years old. But Gooden never made an All-Star team after age 23 and never got another Cy Young vote after age 25. As frustrating as it is to Met fans that Gooden’s off-the-field troubles derailed his career, the documentary shows how Gooden himself struggles with the consequences of the choices he made. Gooden still regrets missing the 1986 ticker-tape parade.
Even with all his problems, Gooden still managed to win 194 games. Imagine what he could have accomplished. It’s certainly reasonable to assume that there would have been another Hall of Fame plaque with a Met cap on it.
Strawberry was an All-Star in each of his first nine seasons, four of which also featured votes for MVP. But that ninth season, his first with the Dodgers, was the last time Strawberry was an All-Star or received MVP votes. Strawberry was certainly on pace for a greater career than he ended up with, but whether it was Hall-worthy would have depended on his longevity. According to Baseball Reference, the players Strawberry was most similar to at the same age from 25 to 30 were Reggie Jackson and Jose Canseco. Even without his off-the-field issues, there’s no guarantee Strawberry would have been able to sustain a Hall of Fame career.
Speaking of longevity, Carlos Beltran making the All-Star team at the age of 39 underscores that his overall numbers have moved him into Hall of Fame consideration. If Beltran makes it into the Hall, he should arguably wear a Met cap. Beltran played into his seventh season with both the Mets and the Royals, but he had more success in New York. Beltran made five All-Star teams with the Mets vs. none with KC. (He made the All-Star team in 2004 with the Astros after being traded to them in June of that year.) According to Baseball Reference, Beltran had a 31.3 WAR with the Mets vs. 24.7 with the Royals.
But it’s hard to imagine Beltran wanting to wear a Met cap after his tumultuous time with the Mets. I always thought Beltran got a raw deal from the fans over his called strike three to end the 2006 NLCS, but for whatever reason, he was never the fan favorite he should have been. Then there were the squabbles over medical issues between Beltran’s agent, Scott Boras, and Mets management.
Which makes me think of another player who once looked like he could be at the start of a Hall of Fame career – Matt Harvey. But even when he was healthy, Harvey seemed unlikely to spend most of his career with the Mets. Now it’s more of a concern as to whether he can recapture his early success.
It’s way too early to start talking about Hall of Fame possibilities for Noah Syndergaard, but he seems to be the most likely candidate on the current roster. I’ll try not to think about Thor’s bone spur, or the twists and turns of two players whose prospects looked even brighter than Sydnergaard’s when they were his age – David Wright and Jose Reyes.
Squawker Lisa, it’s possible that Robinson Cano will one day be considered for the Hall of Fame. Through age 32, Baseball Reference has Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg as the second-closest comparison to Cano. (The first is Joe Torre and the third is Wright.) What cap do you think he would want to wear?
Finally, Lisa, while I still think they were too uncomfortable to wear in this heat, I want to apologize for cutting up the Squawker throwback jerseys.
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