Mets Sad History of One-Team Players
One of the many disappointments of Jose Reyes leaving the Mets is that he is yet another homegrown player who will not play his entire career with the team. I decided to take a look at players who did play only with the Mets, and it turns out the team comes up very short in this category.
First on the list, of course, is Ed Kranepool, who was an original Met and spent 18 seasons with the team. Kranepool is a beloved Met who is in the team’s Hall of Fame, but let’s face it, he was never a great player. He is among the leaders in virtually every offense category, but that’s only because he was there for so long.
Next is, amazingly, Ron Hodges, who was the definition of a backup catcher. Hodges played in 100 or more games just once in his 12 years in Flushing, and that was in his second to last season.
Pedro Feliciano played eight seasons with the Mets, but there is a huge asterisk next to this because he signed with the Yankees prior to the 2011 season. Injury kept him out for the entire season and likely 2012 as well. So far he has yet to throw a pitch for another team, so technically he belongs on the list, but not really.
David Wright has played eight seasons with the Mets, and he is the last hope for a while of a great player staying with the team his whole career. But will Sandy Alderson send him packing? Let’s hope not.
The rest of the list is less than inspiring. Here are the guys who played five years or more:
— Jeff Innis: seven
— Mike Pelfrey: six
— Bruce Boisclair: five
— Bob Apodaca: five
— Ron Gardenhire: five
Not a great track record. In a perfect world the list would have included Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Bud Harrelson and Mookie Wilson, but the Mets found it necessary to trade these guys for one reason or another. It would have been nice if Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden were there, too, but their departures were not the fault of the Mets.
For this reason alone it would be nice for Wright to spend his entire career with the Mets. But given the history, the odds are he won’t.
While it may be “nice” to have another player on that list, I woudln’t stay up nights worrying about it. A team is much better off getting the best value for its players at the time and not worrying about populating a list of “one-team” Mets. If you had asked me to list players who had the longest tenure with the Mets as their only team, I never would have come up with Ron Hodges or Jeff Innis (who I barely even remember at all). This was a nice trip down memory lane, but if they can get a huge haul for Wright, it would do the team a great disservice to turn it down.
And Bruce Boisclair — ugh, those late ’70s Mets were AWFUL!