Fan Shot: The Nolan Ryan All-Stars

My feeling is that he is the best remaining free agent out there and installing him at first in 2025 would not preclude the Mets from going after Vladimir Guerrero Jr. for 2026 and beyond. Is it such an awful thought to switch Pete to full-time DH in his age-31 and 32 seasons?

Truth is, I’m not going to believe he’s gone until it’s official.

So, while his potential/impending departure is the impetus for this column, it’s not a requiem for his Mets career. That still may be to come, but that day isn’t here…yet.

If Pete does leave, the parallels to Darryl Strawberry will be strong, both in terms of productivity and fan emotion. But as mad and sad as Mets fans were in 1990 when Straw signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and as painful as it is to admit it, the move wound up being a good thing for the team. Darryl had a pretty decent 1991 season with a .852 OPS and ninth-place MVP finish. But, he wouldn’t make another All-Star team the rest of his career and accrued negative WAR over the next eight (full and partial) seasons. Sure, watching him win two rings with the Yankees was…let’s go with disagreeable… but Straw leaving when he did was fortuitous timing.

I want Pete back. I want that to be clear. Uncle Stevie has billions and it’s not my money and I want not-my-money to go into Pete’s pocket.

AND!

I think that Pete’s best days, like Darryl in ’90, are behind him.

But who knows? Pete could sign with the Reds and hit 45 homers per year in their band-box stadium (just an FYI that Cincinnati didn’t have a first baseman with a positive WAR last year, and the ball flies out of that park) over the next three years. And THAT would hurt. A lot. If that’s the case, we will always think that Pete left “too early” instead of at “just the right time.” I truly hope that in 15 years we aren’t watching Pete’s induction ceremony in Cooperstown with a giant “C” on his cap. But if that is the case, he’ll be the starting first baseman on the (trademark pending) Nolan Ryan All-Stars.

Ryan was with the Mets for five seasons in which he went 29-38 with an ERA over 3.50 and a decent K/9 but terrible K/BB that was under 1.5. I think we all know what happened on his next three teams over 22 seasons. But in case you didn’t know, dude had the lowest WHIP and led the league in K/9 at the age of 44! He is the captain and talisman of the team of one-time Mets who did their best work after leaving.

What does the rest of that team look like?

Before we begin, two very simple rules: 1) the player must have played Major League games for the Mets before blossoming elsewhere. Yes, the Mets gave up on Scott Kazmir way too early for WAY too little. Yes, I get night sweats thinking about Kumar Rocker becoming an ace for Texas. Neither of them are eligible. 2) Preston Wilson will not be on this team. I am not going to look him up on Baseball Reference, I am not going to see how many All-Star teams he made, and I am not going to check if he got votes for league awards. He was traded for Mike Piazza and that trade was an unqualified win for the Mets, so he’s out.

Onward we go.

Starting Pitcher

Obviously, Ryan. Not much more needs to be said about him. So instead, let’s look at what the Mets got back for the all-time strikeout king. The Mets traded Ryan, plus two other guys, for Jim Fregosi, who had just seen a run of eight-straight seasons in which he was an All-Star and received MVP votes end. In 1970, Fregosi’s OPS was .812 with 22 home runs from the shortstop position. In 1970! But in ’71, his OPS was down to .643 and in the 146 games he played for the Mets, he managed to hit just five homers while the OPS stayed in the .640s. All I can say is “woof.”

WAR with Mets: 3.0

WAR after leaving Mets: 80.6

Relief Pitcher

Relievers, in general, are the most volatile. One year you’re Jeurys Familia, “nastiest pitcher in the world” and the next you’re Jeurys Familia, untrustworthy pariah. So it’s not a surprise there is a battle here for the closer role. You’ve got Heath Bell, Jeff Reardon and Jason Isringhausen all racking up All-Star appearances, Cy Young votes and even some down-ballot MVPs with non-Mets teams. Bell had three dominant years and then fell off a cliff, but those ’07 and ’08 collapses really could’ve used him in the bullpen.

Isringhausen probably stings the most because a) his pedigree as part of Generation K and b) that Oakland immediately moved him to the bullpen after acquiring him at the deadline and he was an All-Star the very next year. But Reardon has them beat both in terms of the duration and height of success. He didn’t come out of nowhere, as he finished No. 6 in Rookie of the Year voting while with the Mets, and I’m sure they thought they were getting value back in Ellis Valentine, a previous All-Star and Gold Glover who was only 26-years-old. However, Reardon really took off for Montreal and stayed consistent with both Minnesota and Boston, posting 11-consecutive seasons of 20+ saves, making four All-Star teams and receiving both MVP and Cy Young votes in multiple seasons.

WAR with Mets: 2.9

WAR after leaving Mets: 16.1

Catcher

When the Mets traded reigning Cy Young champ R.A. Dickey to the Toronto Blue Jays, Noah Syndergaard was not the lynchpin of the return. It was Travis d’Arnaud, who was among the top prospects in the game at the time. The Mets gave him every chance and he never put it together. He’d have a big hit here and there, but he couldn’t stay healthy and he COULD NOT throw out a base stealer to save his life. His success in Atlanta – including a Silver Slugger Award (2020), an All-Star appearance (2022) and some clutch hits against the Mets – has been frustrating because he was so uninspiring while in the orange and blue. The sting is worse because of the fact that he has done all this for the Atlanta Braves of all teams. The overall numbers aren’t stellar, but the emotional impact is strong.

WAR with Mets: 1.9

WAR after leaving Mets: 6.5 (and counting)

First Base

Turns out that, should Pete leave, he won’t have to do much to gain a spot on this team, and that is for three basic reasons: One is that the Mets’ history at first base is mostly with players that aren’t household names outside of the fan base with names like Ike Davis, Lucas Duda and John Milner appearing in the top-10 for games played. The other is that the good players they have had such as Ed Kranepool, Keith Hernandez and Carlos Delgado left when their careers were pretty much over. The last reason is because this position is filled with arrived-too-late All-Stars like Mo Vaughn, Eddie Murray, Adrian Gonzalez, Gil Hodges and (almost) Andres Galarraga.

I’d like to put John Olerud in this spot because of how much those 2000-2002 teams needed him. But his best years so clearly came before he was in New York and while he was with the club. Where does that leave us? Well, welcome to the team Mike (double checks spelling) Jorgensen. Mike was up-and-down with the Mets in 1968, 1970 and 1971 – oh so close to a ring, Mike – before getting traded for Rusty Staub. In his 5 1/2 seasons with the Expos, he was fairly productive with a Gold Glove and a very strong .931 OPS in 1974. He came back to the Mets for their ignominious early ’80s seasons before going over to the St. Louis Cardinals and getting to play in the 85 World Series. Good for you señor Jorgensen!

WAR with Mets (the first time): -0.6

WAR after leaving Mets: 9.6

Second Base

Here’s a no-brainer nearly on par with Ryan. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you MVP winner, four-time Silver Slugger, five-time All-Star and all-time leader in homers by a second baseman Jeff Kent. My biggest issue with Kent has always been the trades that both brought him AND sent him away. He was the return the Mets got for sending away David Cone – who would likely be in the starting rotation for this very team pitching behind Ryan – and then they got back Carlos Baerga when they traded Kent away right as he was starting to look like a real player with a 20-homer season in 95.  At the end of the day, trading Cone for the least productive years of Kent’s career and some putrid years of Baerga is vomit-inducing.

WAR with Mets: 8.4

WAR after leaving Mets: 47.0

Shortstop

I’m going to cheat a little bit here. My gut instinct was that Kevin Elster was going to be an obvious choice as someone who left too soon. I remembered his 1996 season with the Texas Rangers when he hit 24 homers and assumed the rest of his career played out similarly. Not so fast! Turns out that year was an EXTREME outlier. He only had two other double-digit homer seasons – one with the Mets in 1989 – and his WAR with New York is more than double what it was once he left. So my cheat is to go with Melvin Mora, who was mainly a shortstop with the Mets but then made his name in Baltimore at third base. I’ve written before about the pain of watching him turn into a three-time All-Star and cornerstone player for the 2000s Baltimore Orioles because it was a panic move to trade him when they did. The Mets really needed that bat in 2001.

WAR with Mets: 0.3

WAR after leaving Mets: 27.9

Third Base

Like d’Arnaud, we have another (technically) still-active player at the hot corner with Justin Turner. In the early ‘10s, Turner was the kind of player on the Mets that I couldn’t stand. A guy with no power (eight homers across three seasons) who always found himself in the lineup because of positional versatility. He was a utility-man and he was 28-years-old, so how the heck does he become a multiple-time All-Star with two top-10 MVP seasons? It makes NO sense. I was HAPPY when the Mets didn’t resign him after the 2013 season. Oh, I guess I’m the ***hole.

WAR with Mets: 0.7

WAR after leaving Mets: 37.8 (and counting if anyone picks him up)

Outfielder No. 1

The fact that the Mets traded Lenny Dykstra in the middle of his age-26 season AND Roger McDowell to a division rival for Juan Samuel is truly mind-boggling. Lenny was a fan favorite in Queens who immediately made an impact with the Philadelphia Phillies. In his first full season with them in 1990, he was an All-Star and finished top-10 in MVP voting. Then, in 1993, he led them to the World Series while leading the league in runs, hits and walks (twice as many free passes as strikeouts), stole 37 bases and finished runner-up in MVP to some guy named Barry Bonds. Maybe Vince Coleman doesn’t throw firecrackers at fans if they still have Lenny around to play center.

WAR with Mets: 16.5
WAR after leaving Mets: 25.9

Outfielder No. 2

Signing Juan Soto this offseason is the most excited I’ve been about an offseason move since the Johan Santana trade. Yes, that includes the Francisco Lindor deal. Philip Humber was the biggest piece to go back to Minnesota, but he was a bust despite his what-the-hell perfect game (that was not a swing). Carlos Gomez was the other part of that trade, and while he didn’t do much for the Twins, he had a pretty good few years in Milwaukee. Perhaps his best value to the Mets, though, was the nixed trade in 2015, which led them to swing for Yoenis Céspedes!

WAR with Mets: 0.1

WAR after leaving Mets: 24.3

Outfielder No. 3

The Mets have famously never had a player win MVP (Lindor/Soto 2025 FTW!). Two members of this team, though, have won an MVP AND done it while playing for the San Francisco Giants. Most recently was Kent and before that was Kevin Mitchell. Mitchell, in a part-time role for the ’86 champs, finished third in Rookie of the Year voting. His biggest moments, without a doubt, were a two-out single in the bottom of the 10th and scoring the tying run on Bob Stanley’s wild pitch in Game 6. The Mets went on to trade him after that year for established star Kevin McReynolds. To be fair, McReynolds played pretty well for the Mets from 1987 to 1991. Unfortunately, Mitchell played better. He won the 1989 MVP after bashing 47 homers and got more MVP votes in 1990. He wasn’t done yet, however, as he had a revival in 1994, finishing ninth in MVP voting after hitting 30 homers in the strike-shortened season for Cincinnati.

WAR with Mets: 2.3

WAR after leaving Mets: 26.8 (despite -1.3 WAR over his final 3 seasons)

SP: Nolan Ryan

C: Travis d’Arnaud

1B: Mike Jorgensen

2B: Jeff Kent

SS: Melvin Mora

3B: Justin Turner

OF1: Lenny Dykstra

OF2: Carlos Gomez

OF3: Kevin Mitchell

Closer: Jeff Reardon

I hope it’s not too painful to see that lineup. The Mets have signed some real disasters in their time, so I’m a little relieved, honestly, that it isn’t worse.

Now the only question is whether Pete will one day be there, or will he be more like Darryl and Jose Reyes, two homegrown All-Stars that couldn’t replicate their success elsewhere? Or is he gonna sign a short-term deal and stay in Queens? We shall see.

This MMO Fan Shot was contributed by Brian Wertkin. Have something you want to say? Share your opinions with the best and most diverse Mets community on the web! Send your Fan Shot to michael.mayer4@gmail.com