Fan Shot: Mets Team of the Decade

This is a fan shot written by Brian Wertkin

Let me start by clarifying what I mean by “Team of the Decade.” This is not going to be the best Mets team of the last ten years, nor will it be a listing of the best players from the last ten years. The rules here are simple: build a team of 10 – one for each position player, plus a starter and a reliever – where you can only choose one player from each of the past 10 seasons.

A couple of caveats here: first is that I’ve removed from consideration the Small Sample Size COVID Season (SSSCS) of 2020. There’s way too much noise in there and it’s too difficult to make sense of what was actually a good season and what was just a hot streak. Second, there’s no DH position. Because it’s still a relatively new position on NL clubs, the options are too limited.

That leaves us with our 10 slots coming from the 2025-2021 and 2019-2015 seasons.

First thing I did was check to see team leaders per year. I wanted to see if there were any individual seasons that stood out as far and away better than anyone else’s and therefore couldn’t be ignored. My initial takeaway was to be surprised that, by WAR, Lindor was just behind Soto in 2025. My second takeaway was “HOLY CRAP…how did those 2015 and 2016 teams make the playoffs??” I always think of Asdrubal Cabrera for two things: his walk-off vs. the Phillies with the best/worst bat flip ever, and for taking OTHER players’ helmets off after THEY hit home runs. Turns out he was also the most valuable (by WAR) batter on the 2016 wild card winning squad, who knew?

But I digress. There were three outliers who had seasons that just blew everyone else’s away, and those are 2024 Lindor at SS, 2019 Pete at 1B and 2018 deGrom at SP.

After his underwhelming first season in Flushing, Lindor steadily climbed back to elite in 22 and 23. But he reached his peak as the most valuable position player in the NL in 2024, losing the MVP award to full-time DH Ohtani in still the highest Mets finish since Straw was robbed in 1988 (side note: Gibson wasn’t even the MVP of his own team that year, but that’s another argument for another day). It doesn’t hurt Lindor’s case when you remember that Lindor he was batting under .200 as late as May 21st of that season AND he missed 11 games in September and was STILL just a steal away from 30-30 at a premium position. Thing is, he could take this spot for just three of his swings that season: top 9 game 161, grand slam game 4 vs Philly and top 1 game 2 NLCS vs the Dodgers.

Pete’s 53 homers in 2019 were both a rookie record and the only time a Met has ever led all of MLB in homers. Considering he’s up against a couple of Lucas Duda seasons and a few years of Wilmer Flores and James Loney (yup, 2016 team leader in games played at 1B), this was another no-brainer. As a bonus bit of info, with all the guff he’s getting as a fielder, he was actually one run ABOVE average in defensive runs saved in 2019 (for context, he was rated nine runs below average for this past season.

Going into this thought exercise, I predicted that choosing between deGrom’s two Cy Young seasons was going to be tough. But as good as Jake was in 2019, the previous season was clearly better. He had more Ks and a lower ERA and WHIP in more innings pitched. He had a higher WAR and led the league in ERA+ and FIP. Dude only went 10-9 and still got 29 of 30 first-place Cy votes. I think it’s safe to say that we have our starter and we feel good about it.

Great! 3 down, 7 to go. Where to next?

We are coming up on the one-year anniversary of the biggest free agent signing in Mets history. We still have more than a decade before we will know how this all ends, but the early results are prettay prettayyy good. Still not even in his age 27 season, Juan Soto just had his SIXTH top 10 MVP finish. In what was considered a down year for him, he still managed to lead the NL in walks and OBP, tie for the league lead in steals (wha?) and set a career high in homers. As amazing as this sounds following a nearly 40-40 season, I feel like if I ever look to build this team again there will be even better Soto years to choose from.

The Mets have only had 2 players win a batting crown (and both sat out the final game of the season to make sure they didn’t drop in the rankings, the less we talk about this the better). The first was Jose Reyes in 2011, and the second was our Team of the Decade, starting 2B Jeff McNeil from 2022. This was a 101-win team with 5 players receiving MVP votes, but McNeil led them in WAR. He wasn’t exclusively a 2B, but that’s where he played the most games, so he’s taking that spot.

There’s no way this team can be complete without an appearance from Yoenis. His 2015 stretch puts him into the conversation for the greatest trade deadline acquisition in history. What was surprising was that his 2016 follow-up wasn’t too shabby, either. He slowed towards the end and was overmatched by Bumgarner’s high heat in the WC loss, but still finished the season with over 30 homers, an all-star appearance, a silver slugger, and a few down-ballot MVP votes.

So far, I’m feeling pretty good about this team with three positions to go. We are now looking for a catcher, third baseman and center fielder with the years 2023, 2021 and 2017 to choose from. These are an ugly bunch of seasons where the Mets didn’t manage to break 80 wins, so it’s a safe assumption that they didn’t have historic performances. But maybe we can find some diamonds in the rough?

Luckily, we have support from the team’s longest-tenured player (editor’s note: this piece was submitted before the trade), Brandon Nimmo. Their first round pick in 2011, Nimmo had a slow start to his career before a breakout 2018 campaign where he set career highs in OBP and total bases – thanks in no small part to leading the league in times being hit by a pitch. A solid SSSCS was sandwiched between two injury-plagued years in 19 and 21, so there was concern that he couldn’t stay on the field until he started a very impressive current run of 4 straight years with 150+ games played. 2022 was his best year in terms of WAR, but someone really needs to explain that stat to me because in 2023 he had more hits, more homers and a higher OPS. It was also his last year playing primarily center, so that’s where he slots for us.

Down to two positions/years.

Mets catchers have been a long line of disappointments since Paul Lo Duca’s all-star 2006 season. Prime seasons from Gary Carter, Mike Piazza and that one 41-homer campaign from Todd Hundley spoiled us (I didn’t say anything about Mackey Sasser, did you say anything about Mackey Sasser?). We thought we had our new savior at the position when the Mets traded reigning Cy Young Winner R.A. Dickey for, among others, Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud. At the time of the trade, Baseball America had d’Arnaud as the #17 overall prospect in the league and the prime piece for the Mets. When he clanged one off the apple in 2015, I had dreams of a bright future. He never did put it all together. Even his one Silver Slugger year with the Braves is due to an insanely out-of-nowhere BABIP tha’ts more than .100 better than any other season of his career. Luckily for our team, his 2017 was a perfectly respectable one with 16 homers, a .735 OPS and 1.4 WAR.

Which leaves 2021 and third base. Quick trivia question: who played the most games at third base for the Mets in 2021? If you guessed Eduardo Escobar or J.D. Davis….you’re wrong. The correct answer is Jonathan Villar of the Villar-Pillars. And he was….not terrible! 18 homers, 14 steals and a .738 OPS in 142 games. Hey, it could’ve been worse.

That makes our Mets Team of the Decade:

Batting 1st: 2024 Lindor at SS

Batting 2nd: 2025 Soto at RF

Batting 3rd: 2016 Cespedes at LF

Batting 4th: 2019 Pete at 1B

Batting 5th: 2022 McNeil at 2B

Batting 6th: 2023 Nimmo at CF

Batting 7th: 2017 d’Arnaud at C

Batting 8th: 2021 Villar at 3B

SP: 2018 deGrom

Closer: 2015 Familia

Think you can make a better team? Be my guest.

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.

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