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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Greg Prince on 1 April 2026 1:35 pm Editor’s Note: Today marks the beginning of a revolutionary new chapter for Faith and Fear in Flushing, as we unveil our innovative artificial intelligence tool fAfIf. As the season progresses, we will increasingly rely on fAfIf to report on select New York Mets contests, with an eye on increasing fAfIf’s ability to eventually achieve optimal blog efficiency. Right now, fAfIf is in beta test mode, but we are confident that a blog post composed by fAfIf will serve the reader as well as any written by our current staff of existing human bloggers. Please enjoy the first wholly fAfIf-composed post below.
When the New York Mets prepared to play the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, it was more than the fulfillment of a date on the Major League Baseball schedule.
It was an experience in the making.
The New York Mets represented an attitude. Cool. Sophisticated. The knowing nod of the Eastern establishment. The St. Louis Cardinals represented a tone. Loyal. Traditional. The hardscrabble assuredness of Midwestern values.
This wasn’t just a baseball game — it was an iconic clash of cultures.
The setting of Busch Stadium was more than a ballpark. It was a symbol of all things St. Louis Cardinals. The history. The success. The runs that had streamed across home plate like the nearby Mississippi River since the days of Pepper “Wild Horse of the Osage” Martin, Leo “The Lip” Durocher, and Joe “Ducky” Medwick. St. Louis Cardinals supporters who closed their eyes could almost hear the homespun dialect of Jay Hanna “Dizzy” Dean as he fired baseballs to his catcher Virgil Lawrence “Spud” Davis in a Redbird patois only the Missouri faithful understood.
The St. Louis Cardinals who took the field at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, weren’t just a baseball team — they were the extension of an emotion that dated back decades.
The name Busch Stadium wasn’t just an appellation. It was the manifestation of a familial connection generations of St. Louis rooters felt with their beer and their ballclub. Busch manufactured can after can of Budweiser and Budweiser Light, much as the St. Louis Cardinals offense hoped to produce run after run versus the New York Mets pitching staff.
The brands of beer weren’t just a product — they were a carbonated metaphor.
The Gateway Arch that overlooked Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, wasn’t just a nationally recognized monument. It was a portal into the soul of St. Louis Cardinals baseball. Stan “The Man” Musial. Bob “Hoot” Gibson. Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky. Under the geometric structure that stood erect along the shores of the Mississippi River, the Gateway Arch symbolized something more than a Gateway to the West.
The Gateway Arch wasn’t just an arch — it was a suggestion of a baseball game yet to come.
The starting pitcher for the New York Mets at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, was to be Freddy “Fastball Freddy” Peralta. He was more than a pitcher. He was a moundsman. Peralta approached his pitching rubber with a certain swagger, an approach born of confidence and genuine belief in his abilities.
The starting pitcher for the New York Mets wasn’t just someone who would attempt to throw a baseball past St. Louis Cardinals batters — he was a weapon for his manager Carlos “Mendy” Mendoza to aim squarely at the opposition.
The scheduled game time for the baseball game between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, was 12:15 PM Central Daylight Time. It was a time for anticipation as much as it was a time for reflection. The sun was meant to appear in the sky over the ballpark.
The sun wasn’t intended to just shine — it was invited to beam.
The weather that greeted the scheduled game time for the baseball game between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, contained clouds and rain. Baseball is a game played in many conditions, with clouds and rain sometimes a part of them.
The clouds and rain that appeared over Busch Stadium weren’t just an indicator of climate activity — they were an impediment to a prompt first pitch.
The rain delay that occurred at what was supposed to be the beginning of the scheduled baseball game between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 1, 2026, would not dampen the enthusiasm of those who gathered from near and far to witness it. The waiting and the wetness combined to create more intrigue within what was already a heated rivalry that seemed to foreshadow a close encounter of the athletic kind.
The rain delay wasn’t just a rain delay — it was a delay wrought by rain. The baseball fans who endured it could only hope to be distracted in the interim period spanning the delay and the game by a smattering of utter foolishness.
The utter foolishness was a human construct — it would not compute on any date that wasn’t April 1.
by Jason Fry on 1 April 2026 6:27 am It happens every spring: A Mets loss arrives and then departs eliciting no reaction beyond a vaguely affronted shrug. A loss — striking in a new season where you still remember every twist of every game, but soon to fade into anonymity, becoming part of the blur of series and road trips and homestands and the season’s ebb and flow.
Happens every summer and fall too, come to think of it.
Kodai Senga looked good against the Cardinals, and if you want to be positive (always recommended), put that summation in your pocket and be done with Tuesday evening. The ghost fork wasn’t always as spectral as one would have wished, but the fastball sizzled and Senga had nothing but good things to say about his mechanics, in-game tactics and other factors that have sometimes come as affronts to his mildly prickly perfectionism. It’s easy to forget what a presence Senga was not so very long ago; Tuesday was a good sign he could be one again.
The Mets’ defense faltered at what turned out to be a key moment, though it wasn’t because Jorge Polanco or Bo Bichette or Brett Baty had been asked to play out of position; rather, the missteps came from Luis Robert Jr., normally reliable in center field.
Those missteps helped put the Mets in a 2-0 hole, one that got half again as deep when Richard Lovelady gave up a home run. Poor Lovelady: It’s no secret that his roster spot will go to A.J. Minter once that more accomplished lefty is ready, and it sure looks like the Mets will find some other warm body before then, once they conclude Lovelady has been battered and bruised beyond even what current negligence will allow.
(Cue Lovelady turning to a postgame interlocutor who’s gently asked about the possibility of finding another line of work: “What, and give up showbiz?”)
A couple of defensive lapses, a late bit of non-relief: None of it might have mattered if the Mets had done anything at all with the bats. Instead they offered us a trio of hits, a quartet of walks and exactly one runner making the acquaintance of third base.
That’ll happen too. Every spring, even. Though one devoutly hopes it doesn’t happen very often.
by Jason Fry on 31 March 2026 12:10 am Bo Bichette knows baseball pretty well, having played a lot of it — and seeing a bunch more before he did that professionally, what with being the child of a fairly renowned big leaguer. So he knows perfectly well that baseball is unpredictable, maddening and shot through with ironies big and small.
Like my blog partner, I was bothered by the Mets’ muffed finale against the Pirates more than seemed reasonable given a series win, the inevitability of losses, the season being a marathon and not a sprint, and all the other perfectly obvious reasons not to get irked about a frustrating though relatively humdrum loss. But Bichette’s candor after the game was refreshing — down to the “too” with which he adorned “I think my at-bats have been terrible too.” And that was even more refreshing when contrasted with Carlos Mendoza‘s omerta about Tim Leiper’s bad send.
(No need to make a federal case out of that last part. Mendy knows it was a bad send and so — one hopes — does Leiper. I’m sure there was a conversation to that effect on the flight to St. Louis or at some other away-from-the-cameras moment. At least for now, let’s move on.)
Baseball being baseball, there was Bichette in the middle of everything against the Cardinals as the Mets began a road trip on which they’ll start accumulating a startling number of frequent flyer miles. (Seriously, every time we blink in 2026 it will be to find the Mets oddly far out west.)
There Bichette was in the first, trying to bring in Francisco Lindor from third after Juan Soto couldn’t do so. He smacked a grounder to hotshot rookie JJ Wetherholt at second and Lindor went on contact — which made me think “oh God not again” until Wetherholt couldn’t get the ball out of his glove and the run scored. Bichette grounded into a double play in the third, but in the fifth he came up with the game knotted at one-all, Carson Benge on third and two out.
The Cards’ Kyle Leahy (pretty good until the tank hit E) left a fastball middle-middle and Bichette whacked it into the outfield for what may have been the most awkward RBI-producing single I’ve ever seen: His follow-through spun him like a top and he wound up sitting on home plate looking a little startled — though fortunately with plenty of time to collect himself and get to first. His next AB was a line shot to the outfield, which Jordan Walker converted into an out but was still much more what we wanted to see.
That’s baseball, isn’t it? You finally get that hit that’s proved so elusive and even then you wind up on your fanny, ready to announce to the world, “You’re probably wondering how I got here.”
Bichette’s mini-saga was the center of a pretty satisfying little game, one refreshingly free of angst and needless drama. Clay Holmes — the only starter who didn’t spit the bit in last year’s disaster — looked solid in his first outing of the year, backed up by near-spotless relief from Tobias Myers, Brooks Raley and Devin Williams. Raley was particularly fun to watch — he has the impassive mien every setup man acquires eventually, going about his business like a grizzled gunfighter who’s walked the deserted street of too many lawless towns, and whose only goal is “not today.”
If I can be petty, it was also satisfying to watch the Mets right their ship against the Cardinals. St. Louis wouldn’t make my list of 100 or even 200 favorite towns: The “best fans in baseball” shtick is self-satisfied and grating, new Busch is surrounded by generic light-beer malls, and the town is a dull place one escapes from rather than aspires to. Nothing sums St. Louis up better than being inside the Gateway Arch: The interior looks like a basement rec room in the suburbs, and when you peer out of it you realize there’s exactly one thing worth seeing in St. Louis and you’re in the one place where you can’t see it. (The only thing I have to recommend in St. Louis is the boozy shake at Baileys’ Range, but even they’ve shuttered their downtown location.)
The Cardinals are bad right now, probably headed for consecutive losing seasons for the first time since the Eisenhower administration. That’s a standard of excellence that even this committed Cardinals despiser has to respect — and it comes with the uneasy feeling that the Cardinals will be tormenting us again before we know it, re-engineered by Chaim Bloom to be a killing machine as per usual. All too soon their fans will be looking smug, SNY will be serving up fawning shots of that useless stupid arch, and the bile will rise in my throat as it has year-in and year-out since I was a kid.
We’ll be back on our butts in St. Louis all too soon, but this time with nary an RBI to show for it. Until then, well, here’s a boozy shake raised in salute to the idea that things change and annoyance can’t last forever.
by Greg Prince on 30 March 2026 2:11 pm When watching television, I sit on the audience-left side of our living room sectional, which means it’s my right arm that flexes out at the end of a particularly frustrating Mets loss, and the side of my right fist that instinctively punches the nearest cushion. Disgust thus manifested, I can move along to my cooling-off period before getting over one lousy ballgame in a lifetime littered by them. Yet Sunday, when the Mets came up one bleeping run short of the Pirates, 4-3, in ten innings, the cushion punch wasn’t enough. Thus, without thinking about it, I stood up, took a couple of steps, and kicked at air. My podiatrist would be glad to know no damage was incurred by my stockinged right foot. The doctor preaches prevention, and I learned long ago from Pat Zachry never to get mad near steps constructed from cement.
I punched. I kicked. I cursed. I muttered. But the irritation associated with this particular loss wouldn’t simmer down. I knew it was Just One Game. I knew it was only the season’s first loss, which I understood was going to show up eventually. Usually, I almost welcome a year’s inaugural defeat (when it’s not on Opening Day), because it represents a quiet victory for withstanding adversity. There’s no getting the game out of the ‘L’ column, but tomorrow comes, we’re still here, let’s go get ’em.
Here it is, tomorrow, and I’m still as annoyed by this loss as I was when it ended. I try not to toss the word “annoyed” around too much because if I let it fly too freely, I will never reel it in. Yet, wow, what an annoying game, and what an annoying end to such an annoying game.
Self-preservation suggests treading lightly over the most damning of details, so I’ll confine myself to the tying run that didn’t score in the tenth, the one Francisco Lindor carried to within inches of home plate from first base on Juan Soto’s double to deep left with nobody out and the Mets down by two. It was clearly enough to score unearned runner Francisco Alvarez from second, which was good, because Alvarez had to chug to make it the required 180 feet. But he did. Lindor I expected to be shadowing Alvarez, because Lindor can be as slick on the basepaths as Alvarez can be sludgy. The faster of our Franciscos whisked to third on a non-obvious triple earlier. I expected Lindor to be sent and I expected Lindor to score.
He was, but he didn’t. The Pirates made the plays they had to make, and even with an offline throw, they nailed Lindor at the plate. One out. Tying the game would have to wait. Soto, who’d landed on second, boldly took third on Bo Bichette’s ensuing grounder to short. Two out. Tying the game would have to continue to wait. Jorge Polanco then unleashed a blast to deep right, but not deep enough. It was caught in front of the wall. Three out.
No tie. No win. A lot of being annoyed, with the punching and the kicking and the cursing and the muttering indicating the level of annoyance. I would have liked to have seen an isolated replay of Lindor taking off from first, but the revamped SNY truck didn’t fire one up, so I don’t know if my confidence in the trail runner and new third base coach Tim Leiper was misplaced. I felt OK enough about the new three-hole hitter and his reputation for clutchitude perhaps picking up for whatever didn’t go right on Soto’s double, but that guy is having his own adjustment issues. Fans in Flushing were booing Bo once his nascent season line descended to 1-for-14 in the tenth. The third baseman acknowledged the reaction and empathized. “If anything,” he said of the impatient reception, “I thought it took too long.”
The new cleanup hitter, Polanco, did what he could do to effect a Luis Robert, Jr.-style ending from the day before, but it was the next day, and good ol’ baseball is the box of chocolates chock full of daily mysteries. Prevail in extras on a big swing from one of your fancy imports on Saturday, fall short in extras when the big swing from one of your fancy imports dies a little shy of glory on Sunday. You couldn’t blame Polanco. You could get miffed at Bichette if you wanted. You could dissect the decision to send Lindor. You could take apart bullpen tactics, too. It was one loss, which a person can mostly accept, certainly in March.
So why the hell was I so mad? Maybe the one-run nature of it was a bit much so soon for me. In August and September of last year, the Mets lost twelve one-run games, six of them at home. Every one of those Citi sags ended, to some extent, the way Sunday’s did. Just one more hit here. Just get the runner home. Just get a rally started. Just do something to avoid losing this very winnable game. But it never happened and 2025 couldn’t have wound down as any more frustrating or any more annoying. It’s 2026, and two exhilarating wins have been followed by a one-run loss that’s had me using the a-word for going on 24 hours.
It’s never really the couch cushion’s fault.
by Jason Fry on 28 March 2026 11:33 pm Opening Day brought balmy temperatures, runs a-plenty and good vibes. Most of Game 2, which arrived separated from Game 1 by the usual “rainouts happen” off-day, was the opposite: It was freezing, big hits were conspicuous in their absence, and the vibes were meh with a side of muttery.
David Peterson was very David Peterson: mostly good except when he lost the strike zone, as he tends to do, but he wiggled free of harm and departed in the sixth with no harm having been suffered. But Mitch Keller — the same Mitch Keller whose breakout has kept not quite arriving for the Pirates, like the bedroom door in Poltergeist — was just as good quantitatively and a little better qualitatively, not that the latter counts.
The Mets were no doubt glad to see Keller depart, but couldn’t break through against Justin Lawrence, last seen getting ambushed by Carson Benge and Francisco Alvarez on Opening Day. Nor could they do anything against Gregory Soto, who as a Met specialized in letting inherited runners score and not paying attention to baserunners and of course is now far more effective while getting paid by someone else. (Seriously, I fucking hate Gregory Soto.) And while we’re being muttery, so far every play Jorge Polanco is involved in at first base is improv. Polanco will get better, but until he does I’d buckle up.
The game was scoreless after nine, meaning it was time for another delightful round of Calvinball Presented by Rob Manfred. Luis Garcia (ha there are three of them so Baseball Reference can’t figure out how to do the link) allowed a Pirate run in the 10th, but we’re getting used to the idea that that’s barely a failure in Calvinball, let alone a fatality. The Mets immediately tied the game and had the bases loaded and nobody out against young Hunter Barco, which was when things took a left-hand swerve into bonkers territory.
Francisco Lindor hit a bouncer to second, a near-carbon copy of the play in which Isiah Kiner-Falefa and the Blue Jays failed to win the World Series. Brandon Lowe threw home as Marcus Semien slid home, but Henry Davis managed to keep a toe on the bag and the Mets’ first shot at a win had gone by the boards.
Up came Juan Soto, who hit a little excuse-me swinging bunt that Barco had to scramble off the mound to field. A lot can go wrong on a play like that — ask poor Orion Kerkering — but Barco made a nifty bare-handed grab and a perfect shovel toss to Davis to force Jared Young at home. Oh for two, and when Bo Bichette flied out the chance was gone.
Enter the peripatetic Richard Lovelady, who got two quick outs and looked like he was going to pull off a Calvinball near-miracle and keep the Manfred Man from scoring. (Do we have a name for this feat yet?) But with former Mets farmhand Jake Mangum on third, luck stopped being a lady, a development I doubt Richard greeted with much love. Bryan Reynolds sent a Lovelady sweeper ambling up the third-base line, a ball clearly destined to spin foul up until the moment that it didn’t and instead became a Mazeika Special that gave the Pirates the lead again. A lead they arguably should have padded when Marcell Ozuna lined a ball inside the right-field line, except Young played it well and the Pirates held Reynolds up at third rather than force the Mets to execute a perfect play.
(It’s just two games, but the Pirates look more than a little off-kilter: defensive lapses, strange bullpen and baserunning decisions, and players who don’t seem quite prepared for their duties, whether those include wearing sunglasses beneath a high sky or making sure the pitcher can get all his warm-up throws in.)
Anyway it was 2-1 Pirates, Barco was back out there for the 11th, and it was time for the Mets to climb that hill again in front of a chilly crowd that was fervently urging on a happy ending, if only to stay warm. Barco walked Polanco and started Luis Robert Jr. off with a bait changeup, which Robert ignored. Robert spent a good chunk of the spring on the back fields in Port St. Lucie, trying to rewire his batting eye to seek deeper counts — an laudable goal that’s awfully hard for hitters to make a reality, though the early returns from the first two games have been promising.
Barco’s second pitch was a slider at the bottom of the zone — another one to spit on, probably, but Robert found it to his liking. He connected and drove the ball toward left-center. A hit? Certainly. Up the gap? Quite possibly. Over the fence for a walkoff three-run homer? Indeed it was. Which maybe felt like the hard way, after the grinding frustration of the early innings and the surrealism of the late frames, but certainly got us to the outcome we wanted.
by Greg Prince on 27 March 2026 1:00 pm Did I hear him correctly? Did I hear Carson Benge, in the wake of his smashing major league debut at Citi Field, tell a friendly interlocutor that ”I want to keep playing here forever”? Don’t toy with us, kid. Because if you’re serious, we’re in the smitten state of mind to take you up on it.
Almost nobody who has indicated he was planning to play here forever plays here forever. It’s certainly not right to hold the freshest-faced of youngsters to such a sentiment. After all, there has been only one Wright in our lives. Proof of the transitory nature of unexpiring attachment to our environs and what they promise as permanent on a sunny, warm, and resoundingly successful Opening Day could be found in the box scores and bullpens of teams decidedly not rooted in Flushing. Did ya see who led off for Texas in Philadelphia? Who batted third for the Orioles at Camden Yards? Who didn’t need to get loose as the Dodgers pulled away from the Diamondbacks? Alas, as we learned anew amid the scalding flame of the Hot Stove, readjusting the parameters of “forever” is intrinsic to the business of baseball, and business was likely the last thing the 23-year-old right fielder of the New York Mets was thinking about in the minutes after he’d completed his very first game in front of an appreciative throng he could right then and there picture hitting home runs in front of for eternity.
Why wouldn’t Carson want to spend his career with us? He homered for us and was reciprocated a curtain call. He did a little of everything and was applauded heartily. He had Metsopotamia leaning forward with him, anticipating more homers, more walks, more steals, more hustle, more talent, more confidence, more of everything that marked our first taste of him and his of us. The fact that forever is a mighty long time escapes an interested party on Opening Day.
Let’s go crazy. Let’s funnel an Opening Day like Thursday’s into a nearby 3-D printer and crank out 161 copies. The weather sent winter to an undisclosed location. The lineup, with one Met entering our consciousness after another, was bountiful in its production. Eleven runs. Eleven hits. Ten bases on balls. A harmless hit by pitch. Nearly 200 pitches elicited from the hapless hurlers representing Pittsburgh. The Mets could leave double-digit runners on and we didn’t have to stress. The visiting Pirates could place one of the sport’s elite pitchers to the hill and we didn’t have to withstand his appearance for as long an inning. Granted, it was a long two-thirds of an inning. Paul Skenes, the Cy Young winner who was probably the reason NBC wanted this game to reactivate its association with baseball, threw 37 pitches to nine Mets. He recorded two outs. The Mets made him work, then made him go away. His center fielder, a converted shortstop of notable height, didn’t help his cause, but our guys — they are all our guys now — put patience in their approach, bats to balls, and Skenes in the dugout.
Erstwhile outlanders Bo Bichette, Jorge Polanco, Luis Robert, Jr., and Marcus Semien meshed marvelously with the holdovers Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Brett Baty, and powerhouse catcher Francisco Alvarez. Benge was the cherry on top of this beautifully blended sundae, evidenced most tantalizingly by his sixth-inning liner over the right-center field fence. If you’re serious about sticking around, Carson, you’re 263 off the franchise career record. But maybe we’ll savor your potential one swing at a time.
The new ace pitcher, Freddy Peralta, hung in for five innings. He was nicked here and there, but he was supported handsomely (including by ABS), so therefore we’ll call his first start splendid. Tobias Myers, the next ex-Brewer up, was leaned on for three frames, and he quashed any notion that the slugfest in progress might get a little too mutually sluggy. Luis Garcia finished up looking more like the kind of veteran Met reliever we’re used to picking up on the open market, giving up a pair of shaky runs out of the gate, but that’s what six-run ninth-inning leads for. The 11-7 final functioned as a satisfying down payment on the days and months ahead.. Results such as this one can’t be easily replicated, but if we could, we’d invite them to keep playing forever.
They probably won’t, but after an Opening Day like 2026’s, you can dream that we will forever pass this way again.
by Greg Prince on 16 March 2026 7:14 pm Once the Oscars have finished doing what they do, the curtain goes up on Faith and Fear in Flushing’s salute to the Mets who have left us — in the baseball sense — over the past year. This is the twentieth annual edition of our tribute to those stars, characters, and bit players who have moved on from the organization. Or twenty-first if you include the montage FAFIF originally screened in 1978.
Like the 2025 Mets, let us start strong…
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BRANDON TATE NIMMO
Outfielder
June 26, 2016 – September 28, 2025
Brandon Nimmo is more than just happy to be here, but make no mistake: he’s happy to be here. Look at the smile that accompanied him around the bases after he bopped the first home run of his career, the one that elevated the Mets to a 7-1 lead en route to a soggy 10-2 drubbing of the presumed invincible Cubs Friday night. That’s a happy person. I’d include a picture, but I assume Nimmo’s grin is still visible everywhere there is sky. It lit up the atmosphere at Citi Field, it brightened the broadcast wherever you were watching or listening, it took over the league lead in OPS+ — Outstanding Player Smile. The plus is for how contagious Nimmo’s enthusiasm is to the rest of us. That’s a commodity not to be curbed.
—July 2, 2016
(Traded to Rangers, 11/23/2025)
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JEFFREY TODD “Jeff” McNEIL
Infielder-Outfielder
July 24, 2018 – September 28, 2025
Thursday night in Pittsburgh, I rooted for […] Jeff McNeil to continue to get acclimated to big league surroundings…which will doubtlessly take a little more doing (witness Rosario’s stubbornly incremental progress to date). McNeil started at third for the first time in a Mets career that commenced Tuesday. The first ball hit toward him eluded him completely. The first time he was on second, he raced to third despite Jose Bautista having very recently slid into it and not showing any intention of leaving it. Rookies, even the 26-year-old late bloomers who were tearing up every level of the minors, will be rookies. Jeff didn’t have jitters with the bat, though. The relatively young man singled once, walked once, was intentionally passed once and Nimmo’d once (a.k.a. was pinged by a pitch). He’s not a flop. He’s not a star. He’s Jeff McNeil, New York Met, and he just got here. May he have plenty of opportunity to let us discover what he’s all about.
—July 27, 2018
(Traded to Athletics, 12/22/2025)
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PETER MORGAN “Pete” ALONSO
First Baseman
March 28, 2019 – September 28, 2025
Though it wasn’t the definitive turning point of the evening, no moment resonated as more milestone than Pete Alonso’s eighth-inning swing for the fences, and by fences, I mean the fences at LaGuardia’s Delta terminal. Oh, that baseball he connected with was soaring, all right — it flew high enough to slice Venus, never mind the space above the left field pole — but of more concern was the angle his breathtaking launch was taking. Fair? Foul? Somewhere in between somehow? I paused, as I imagine we all did, to gauge its flight pattern. I hoped it was fair, I thought it was foul, I heard silence, I looked around. Was that Pete going into a trot? Was that a roar rising from the modestly sized crowd? Was that the Apple accurately elevating? Hey! It’s a home run! A Pete Alonso late & clutch home run at Citi Field! And I am there, Walter! Being in proximity to a Met doing a superb Met thing doesn’t usually strike me as overly noteworthy, but as I mentioned, I’d not been to a game yet this season, and this season has been the dawn of the Pete Alonso Era at Citi Field, so this was also the first time Pete and I linked our fates in the same facility. Yes, Pete Alonso gets his own era capitalized. We are all in his Polar Bear Club.
—May 22, 2019
(Free agent, 11/4/2025; signed with Orioles, 12/10/2025)
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EDWIN ORLANDO DIAZ
Relief Pitcher
March 28, 2019 – September 28, 2025
We’re not even claiming Edwin Diaz is dependable. We are genetically incapable of telling our closer, “You got this.” In our heart of hearts, we don’t think you do, but we’re willing to fake enthusiasm if it helps. And tap along a toe or two to the trumpet routine that heralds Edwin’s emergence from the pen — the only loud noise transmitted over the ballpark’s overwrought PA system that qualified as a somewhat welcome sound Sunday. Mark and I agreed that if Diaz comes in to pitch in the playoffs at Citi Field with a one-run edge and his music blasting, it, like our team by then, will be awesome. We were actually talking playoffs in July, with Edwin Diaz approaching the pitching rubber to face the dangerous Blue Jays. We may have used sunscreen, but you’re welcome to assume we were experiencing heat stroke. Diaz went about his business in a manner resembling cool, calm and collected. He struck out George Springer, which satisfied the many who howled at the moon (BOOOOOOOO!!!!!) every time the shamed champion Astro showed his face. He walked Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., but a base on balls is the better part of valor when facing a hitter whose slugging percentage of .663 leaps from the scoreboard and knocks your eyes’ socks off while simultaneously taking their breath away. Guerrero is a metaphor-crusher. Don’t let him be a Met-crusher, too. Walk him, just don’t let him get anywhere. Edwin did, but only ninety feet on a wild pitch. Edwin struck out Marcus Semien on three pitches in the interim. It was while facing Bo Bichette that Vlad the Younger moved to second. It was also while facing Bichette that Diaz worked the count full. At three-and-two, James McCann trotted to the mound for a word with his pitcher. From 515, one could only imagine what the word was. It was probably more family-friendly than the words we in the stands had holstered in case the worst was about to occur. We’ll save that variant of our vocabulary for another day, maybe another year. Diaz struck out Bichette to end the game, 5-4 in the Mets’ favor.
—July 25, 2021
(Free agent, 11/4/2025; signed with Dodgers, 12/9/2025)
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Now, like the 2025 Mets, let us proceed mostly with whoever happened to be passing through…
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JOSE MIGUEL UREÑA (Rodriguez)
Relief Pitcher
April 28, 2025
In the ninth, Jose Ureña proved himself worthy of inclusion in any exploration of the Unicorn Score oeuvre. He gave up a walk with one out, but nothing more, and when he fanned Dylan Crews, the Unicorn came galloping onto the field at Nationals Park, visible to anybody seeking a sighting. Mets win, 19-5, the 23rd Unicorn Score in Mets history, the first in two years, the sixth in the past decade, which is as long as I’ve been tracking them.
—April 29, 2025
(Free agent, 5/1/2025; signed with Blue Jays, 5/3/2025)
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JOHN TYLER ZUBER
Relief Pitcher
June 22, 2025
The Mets have brought up Tyler Zuber! Other than Tyler Zuber’s family, I don’t know if anybody else is bringing an exclamation point to bear over this news, but it’s big news to me. Once Zuber gets in a game, he becomes […] the alphabetical last Met in franchise history, bumping Don Zimmer to next-to-last. This has been a development more than 63 years in the making
—June 22, 2025
(Claimed off waivers by Marlins, 7/9/2025)
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BRYCE MONTES DE OCA
Relief Pitcher
September 3, 2022 – September 10, 2022
A pitcher who totaled fewer than four innings but features a name that comes in four parts…
—December 29, 2022
(Free agent, 11/6/2025; signed with Nationals, 1/23/2026)
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DOMINIC AVERY “Dom” HAMEL
Relief Pitcher
September 17, 2025
Congratulations to Hamel on escaping ectoplasm as a Mets ghost — and for becoming the Mets’ MLB-record 46th pitcher used this year. I’ll contain my excitement about the record, though, because cycling arms on and off the roster is the new normal and you can bet someone will use 47 pitchers next year.
—September 17, 2025
(Claimed off waivers by Orioles, 9/20/2025)
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GENESIS CABRERA
Relief Pitcher
May 1, 2025 – May 23, 2025
The Mets weren’t much for rallies all afternoon, and none among Kodai Senga, Genesis Cabrera, Max Kranick and Reed Garrett was at his absolute stingiest. Cabrera, a lefty, is here because neither A.J. Minter nor Danny Young is any longer available. Genesis joined Ty Adcock in supplementing a staff that is running a lot of reliever roulette of late. Brandon Waddell and Chris Devenski are already back at Syracuse. Jose Ureña is a free agent. Wait, these sound like challenges or difficulties or, heaven forefend, problems. Even first-place ballclubs are entitled to sing the blues as applicable. We are the NL East-leading, ten-above-.500 New York Mets, yet we are dealing with injuries, bullpen overuse, starting pitching that doesn’t go particularly long, a spotty offense in clutch situations, and, worst when ranking sins, not winning them all. This season has reminded me that when you’re close to winning them all, your craw gets stuck with the residue of not actually doing that.
—May 2, 2025
(Free agent, 5/27/2025; signed with Cubs, 5/27/2025)
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JOSE ENRIQUE AZOCAR
Outfielder
April 19, 2025 – May 23, 2025
Jose Azocar played in Soto’s stead. Jose Azocar almost never plays, unless it’s to run for a less speedy Met. I don’t think this upfront substitution was entirely the reason the Mets didn’t win one game on one rainy night in May, but I wouldn’t do this again if I could help it. Nothing against Azocar. Good teams need pinch-runners, and pinch-runners oughta test the rest of their skill sets against live competition so they stay fresh for when called on to be complete players. Someday, you might need Azocar to do something besides stretch his legs. Maybe do it in left or center field next time, though.
—May 15, 2025
(Free agent, 5/28/2025; signed with Braves, 5/20/2025)
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ZACHERY MICHAEL “Zach” POP
Relief Pitcher
July 6, 2025
After the Mets made their nightly flurry of moves besides the injured list additions (Hagenman and Rico Garcia are up; Blade Tidwell is down; Austin Warren, designated 27th Man on Wednesday, sticks around), it was reported the Mets signed to a major league deal reliever Zach Pop. My reaction was, “I’ve never heard of Zach Pop.” I’d also never heard of most of the additions the Mets have made to their bullpen these past few months, even though most of them could claim anywhere from a smidgen to a modicum of MLB experience. Zach Pop has more than that; since 2021, he’s pitched in 162 games, a full season’s worth, despite my failing to notice a very noticeable name clearly destined to join our roster of very noticeable, if preternaturally obscure names. My childhood devotion to absorbing the names and faces on baseball cards notwithstanding, I’m coming to believe that just because somebody is a professional big league pitcher, it doesn’t automatically qualify him as famous.
—July 4, 2025
(Free agent, 7/10/2025; signed with Cubs, 7/23/2025)
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JOSHUA RICO GARCIA 1.0
Relief Pitcher
July 6, 2025 – July 10, 2025
Another dribble of activity, in the top of the fifth, culminated in Alonso leaving runners on first and second. Hagenman, in his second inning of work, gave up two runs. In the sixth, Justin, Dicky Lovelady, and Rico Garcia — unplanned relievers are a given with this team — combined to allow two more. The Mets stopped bothering Sugano by the sixth, and the rest of the Oriole bullpen didn’t have to sweat a whole lot en route to Baltimore’s 7-3 win.
—July 11, 2025
(Claimed off waivers by Yankees, 7/14/2025)
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JOSHUA RICO GARCIA 2.0
Relief Pitcher
July 22, 2025 – August 2, 2025
Clay Holmes is gutting out five effective if not efficient innings, which is OK, because we have Rapidly Recidivizing Rico Garcia back, following the ten minutes when he’d inexplicably wandered away from the organization…
—July 26, 2025
(Claimed off waivers by Orioles, 8/5/2025)
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GRANT ALEXANDER HARTWIG
Relief Pitcher
June 19, 2023 – May 19, 2024
Did I see the Marlins beat the Mets? We were likely getting close to that eventuality, what with the Marlins usurping that thin 1-0 lead of the Mets and transforming it into a 2-1 edge of their own in the top of the ninth off noted closers Grant Hartwig and Anthony Kay. Hey, it’s only a game with an impact on the entire postseason picture. Might as well try whoever you have out in the pen to finish off a contender.
—September 29, 2023
(Released, 6/27/2025; signed with Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball, 7/14/2025)
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JUSTIN CHARLES GARZA
Relief Pitcher
June 10, 2025 – June 20, 2025
You may have noticed amid the general miasma of the weekend that the Mets actually used the same pitcher one day and then the next. Justin Garza, a recent pickup from the Giants, went two innings on Friday night and an inning Saturday. He gave up no runs on either occasion. Handy guy to have around. Barring some injury we sure as hell prefer not happen, don’t look for a hand from Garza in Atlanta this week, as he was optioned to Syracuse Sunday in favor of Ty Adcock. Was Adcock a better bet than Garza for the long haul? Or was Adcock’s arm “fresh”? You know the answer. You always know the answer these days. The Mets seem to plan their bullpen usage meticulously, but when the real world of baseball intrudes, everything teeters on the brink of hell.
—June 16, 2025
(Free agent, 9/9/2025; currently unsigned)
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TRAVIS PAUL JANKOWSKI
Recidivist Outfielder
June 26, 2025 – July 8, 2025
So the Mets had another team meeting…and things got worse. Worse as in 12-1, worse as in out of it by the top of the second, worse as in Travis Jankowski finished up on the mound (before seeing a 2025 Mets AB, no less).
—June 30, 2025
(Free agent, 7/13/2025; currently unsigned)
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JANZEN BLADE TIDWELL
Pitcher
May 4, 2025 – July 2, 2025
It’s the top of the sixth at Citizens Bank Park on Friday night. Blade Tidwell, a rookie pitcher carrying a parcel of promise along with a name one can picture Carnac the Magnificent working into one of his curses after an audience doesn’t respond as he wishes to one of his prognostications (“may your Blade Tidwell turn Blade Tidrotten”), is no longer in the game. But he has given the Mets about as much as could have been hoped for, considering he wasn’t so much on their immediate depth chart as he was in somebody’s phone’s address book. The kid who was sitting in Syracuse looking forward only to playing video games the night before looked capable for three-and-two-thirds innings, giving up only two runs during his emergency start. Every Met start is an emergency these days.
—June 21, 2025
(Traded to Cardinals, 7/30/2025)
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PAUL CADY BLACKBURN
Pitcher
August 2, 2024 – August 13, 2025
Except for the top of the sixth inning, Friday night at Citi Field was a pretty good game. The Mets scored five runs versus the Tampa Bay Rays and received five solid innings from Clay Holmes. Gotta like things of that nature occurring. It’s a shame the top of the sixth, when Paul Blackburn and Max Kranick gave up the six runs that negated the 5-1 lead the Mets had built and essentially undid Holmes’s splendid limited-by-design start, had to happen. Otherwise, though, good game. Well, maybe the bottom of the seventh inning lacked whatever makes a game good, as the bottom of the seventh wasn’t much of a half-inning from a Mets perspective.
—June 14, 2025
(Released, 8/19/2025; signed with Yankees, 8/12/2025)
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TYLER NATHAN McKENZIE “Ty” ADCOCK
Relief Pitcher
June 29, 2024 – June 18, 2025
Adcock would get his chance to know the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela in the bottom of the eighth, as three different Pirates sent three of Ty’s pitches toward the mighty Ohio. Three homers for Three Rivers, thrusting Pittsburgh ahead, 14-2, or ten runs better than it was barely an inning before. The last of the dingers, bashed by Rowdy Tellez, was the Bucs’ second grand slam of the game, not to mention the seventh of their franchise record-tying home runs. Worse, somehow, was that amid all the cannon blasts (PNC literally ran out of fireworks), Adcock couldn’t mix in a third out.
—July 6, 2024
(Free agent, 11/6/2025; signed with Padres, 12/4/2025)
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JOSE GREGORIO CASTILLO
Relief Pitcher
May 19, 2025 – August 29, 2025
I sure as hell didn’t know that in the visitors’ fifth, Bohm would have problems with a parabolic microphone’s positioning, tucked as it was in the lower right corner of the center field batter’s eye…or, to be honest, that the thing that looks like a miniature satellite dish is called a parabolic microphone. The umps ordered the item moved, a process that required fourteen minutes, all so the next batter, Marsh, could have an unobstructed line of sight to ground out on the very next pitch Jose Castillo was finally permitted to throw. Castillo became the pitcher of record once the Mets took a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the fifth. The pouring on of Met runs assured he’d be credited with his first major league win in seven years, a wait that I suppose made fourteen minutes of standing around and staying warm tolerable.
—August 26, 2025
(Claimed off waivers by Mariners, 9/3/2025)
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CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL “Chris” DEVENSKI
Relief Pitcher
April 30, 2025 – September 19, 2025
Chris Devenski, who by dint of being recalled on July 4 and not being sent down since, may be the second-longest tenured Met reliever of all time (I’ll have to check) gave up a run in the seventh, but the game was still within reach at 5-2.
—July 22, 2025
(Free agent, 10/1/2025; signed with Pirates, 1/8/2026)
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FRANCELIS “Frankie” MONTAS (Luna)
Starting Pitcher
June 24, 2025 – August 15, 2025
Before the game started, SNY’s cameras spotted Frankie Montas in something of a prayer circle with his family, our starter at the railing, his kin in the stands. It was a very touching tableau, and maybe the congregating with loved ones helped Frankie on the mound. He withstood trouble in the second and third pretty well and put down the Pads on seven pitches in the fourth. But in the fifth, “where’s your God now?” felt a reasonable question to wonder.
—July 29, 2025
(Released, 11/19/2025; currently unsigned)
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GREGORY SOTO
Relief Pitcher
July 27, 2025 – September 28, 2025
In the bottom of the fifth, nothing good happened, except it ended. The season may have ended, too, but that will require hindsight. Give it a day or two. We will know soon enough. Sproat was hit hard.
Alonso did not make a makeable play.
Gregory Soto was hit hard.
Gregory Soto did not pay enough attention to what was happening on the basepaths.
Ronny Mauricio did not pay attention in general. I could go into details, but by the time six runs scored to transform a game a Mets fan could see as a continuation of progress into a game that confirmed every Mets fan doubt, details were almost beside the point.
—September 27, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Pirates, 12/9/2025)
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TYLER SCOTT ROGERS
Relief Pitcher
August 2, 2025 – September 28, 2025
Soto’s blast made it Mets 2 Rangers 0. The best efforts of Tyler Rogers and Edwin Diaz, combined with some not great moments from others stationed away from the mound, didn’t prevent making it Rangers 3 Mets 2 by the bottom of the ninth.
—September 14, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Blue Jays, 12/12/2025)
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BOYCE CEDRIC MULLINS
Outfielder
August 1, 2025 – September 28, 2025
[H]ad I been informed in advance that […] Cedric Mullins would get on base because the previous day’s designated dasher of destiny Daylen Lile would not hold onto a ball Mullins hit, yet Mullins would not advance while on base, because he had no clue at all what was going on (the ball was loose and Lile was down), and that Mullins, stuck at first rather than advanced to second, would get himself doubled off imminently (had he only been on second, he could have gotten himself doubled off there) […] well, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but I wouldn’t have stayed away.
—September 22, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Rays, 12/3/2025)
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RYAN DALTON HELSLEY
Relief Pitcher
August 1, 2025 – September 28, 2025
“Until you’ve been beside a man,” Detroit’s own Bob Seger wailed mournfully, “you don’t know what he wants.” And until you have a high-profile reliever on your team, you don’t know what he is. For the Cardinals, Ryan Helsley was lights out. For the Mets, he turns them off on his own team. Had Helsley done his job perfectly Wednesday afternoon and nothing else about the game he entered at Comerica Park had been different from what it was, the Mets would have still lost, albeit by fewer runs. But Helsley did not do his job perfectly. He came into the seventh inning of a one-run game — Tigers 3 Mets 2 — and proceeded to give up a leadoff single, a walk, then a three-run homer to Kerry Carpenter. The one-run game became a four-run game. Even a little less imperfect keeps the Mets conceivably close. The Helsleyfied margin effectively put the game out of reach. Cue Mr. Seger and “Shame On The Moon” again: When nothing comes easy, old nightmares are real. Newish nightmares, too. Ryan Helsley has been pitching for the Mets since August 1. Many bad dreams. No light at the end of his tunnel.
—September 4, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Orioles, 11/29/2025)
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JOSE ALEXANDER SIRI
Outfielder
March 29, 2025 – September 23, 2025
While Passover isn’t specifically a commemoration of repeated Met failures to pass over home plate more than once thousands of miles from their ancestral home, we are reminded that an unleavened offense can be a sign of eternal struggle. Yet where the veritable children sat, youthful Mets Brett Baty and Mark Vientos surely wondered aloud how the same bad things continue to happen to new generations of faithful people. “We are Mets, we seek to bring joy to millions, yet we continue to hit directly to rival fielders or often not at all. And why must Jose Siri endure such pain from a simple foul ball?” This is where the rabbinical wisdom of a Carlos Mendoza can come to bear. Mendy teaches in his low-key manner the importance of patience and practice, going out and getting them tomorrow. There have been many tomorrows across Met history. This one finds them again wandering the West…West Sacramento, specifically.
—April 13, 2025
(Free agent, 9/29/2025; signed with Angels, 2/1/2026)
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BRANDON CARL SPROAT
Starting Pitcher
September 7, 2025 – September 26, 2025
We now know Sproat as well as we can know any pitcher after six innings. Hey, remember when throwing six innings was something only one Met starting pitcher ever did? Our transformed gang suddenly contains a trio of guys who do it like it’s no big deal, and none of them was with us even one month ago. Brandon, who debuted in Cincinnati Sunday, had a little trouble with control, none with giving up hits for an extended period, and ran into the bad luck of having his teammates come up against a masterful pitching performance from the other side.
—September 8, 2025
(Traded to Brewers, 1/21/2026)
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DANIEL ALEXANDER “Danny” YOUNG
Relief Pitcher
May 2, 2024 – April 26, 2025
We declare that, although we maintain the contracts of many higher-profile relief pitchers, if we have to ring the bullpen, lately we most hope Dedniel Nuñez or Danny Young answers the phone…or even Adrian Houser!
—June 6, 2024
(Free agent, 11/21/2025; signed with Braves, 12/2/2025)
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GRIFFIN ALEXANDER CANNING
Starting Pitcher
March 29, 2025 – June 26, 2025
Who could or would be happy that the Mets beat the Yankees in the Bronx on Saturday? Us, obviously. The Mets beating the Yankees is a thing for us. We’re Mets fans. We like when the Mets beat anybody. We especially like the Mets beating the Yankees. We like Griffin Canning, he of the 2.47 ERA, continuing to start games the Mets win; it’s probably not a coincidence that that happens. Griffin gave up only two solo home runs (one that could have been featured in one of those SNY salutes to local little leagues) over five-and-a-third.
—May 18, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Padres, 2/14/2026)
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MAX JOSEPH KRANICK
Relief Pitcher
March 29, 2025 – June 15, 2025
We didn’t remain on the victory track in the sixth without Kranick continuing to set aside major league hitters. Maybe some other pitcher takes care of the Jays in that situation, but then depth gets tested. Kranick was the depth there. So was Senger, whose walk from the nine-hole commenced the Mets’ lone inning of scoring, the third. Hayden’s base on balls preceded his more famous teammates’ contributions to the cause. Juan Soto walked. Pete Alonso singled to score Senger and send Soto to third. Brandon Nimmo lifted a deep fly to score Soto. Those were the two runs off Bowden Francis that put Peterson in position to be the winning pitcher, if not for his stomach issue. Those instead became the two runs that allowed Kranick to earn his first Met win, and the club its fourth in a row, including all three from Toronto.
—April 7, 2025
(Free agent, 11/21/2025; currently unsigned)
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RYNE THOMAS STANEK
Relief Pitcher
July 28, 2024 – September 28, 2025
We could pretend through the tops of the seventh and eighth that maybe we could string a couple of hits together and grab our lead back, but we were only borrowing the lead to begin with. And, to string hits together, you’d have to start with one. In the bottom of the eighth, Ryne Stanek , who’s maintained Syndergaardian flow beneath his cap if not vintage Thor command around the plate, comes in to, among other items, shake James Wood out of his deep slump. Wood’s three-run homer thrusts the Nats ahead, 9-3, and ensures any hits the Mets suddenly collect in the ninth will make only for sumptuous box score window dressing (window dressing for Low-Leverage Barbie’s Dream House sold separately).
—August 22, 2025
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Cardinals, 1/9/2026)
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JOSE ALEJANDRO BUTTO
Pitcher
August 21, 2022 – July 29, 2025
On the cusp of 60, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that Doc Gooden showed up Sunday as the old pro, as polished as a Seaver or a Mays in elder statesmanship, but we still reflexively think of him as being 20 winning 20. He seems to be winning his days nowadays. Those are the victories that count most going forward. After the ceremonies and a 46-minute rain delay, the sun came out and the Mets won a game that you figure can’t but help them going forward. It certainly couldn’t hurt. You couldn’t miss Jose Butto paying proper homage to Dr. K with no runs and nine strikeouts in six innings.
—April 15, 2024
(Traded to Giants, 7/30/2025)
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SEAN IAN REID-FOLEY
Relief Pitcher
April 22, 2021 – June 19, 2024
When Reyes departed with one out and one on, England Dan and Sean Reid-Foley entered. The Rangers really loved to see him last night. Sean proceeded to walk the ballpark. It’s no exaggeration. The paid attendance of 23,849 each received a base on balls, courtesy of SR-F. Of more use to the visitors, so did Corey Seager, Nathaniel Lowe and Adolis Garcia, all on full counts, all in a row. That’ll manufacture a run. It was 3-2, the bags were juiced and you knew what was going to happen next. No, you didn’t. The Texas Rangers certainly didn’t. Despite Reid-Foley pitching like nights were forever with him, he struck out Mitch Garver and then Jonah Heim, the latter at the end of his fourth full count and second nine-pitch battle of the inning. Sean threw 35 pitches to five batters. Sixteen were balls. Somehow the Mets were still ahead and the Rangers were still behind.
—August 31, 2023
(Released, 5/23/2025; signed with Diamondbacks, 5/30/2025)
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JESSE WINKER
Outfielder
July 28, 2024 – July 10, 2025
Mister Secretary, no delegation at this convention is more enthusiastic to have a presence here, no delegation is happier to come off the bench when needed, and no delegation has waited longer to have these words said on its behalf: IT’S OUTTA HERE! Mister Secretary, the great state of Winker not only casts a pinch-hit walkoff home run to defeat the Baltimore Orioles, four to three, but casts aside its batting helmet and inhibitions in quest of the most memorable trip around the bases Winker has ever known! Mister Secretary, Winker votes for a Mets win today, Wednesday, and hopes it will be the first of many in the nights ahead.
—August 21, 2024
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; currently unsigned)
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LUISANGEL JOSE ACUÑA
Infielder
September 14, 2024 – September 27, 2025
The ‘X’ factor among the ‘A’ team was Luisangel Acuña, whose game is allegedly more about slashing and speed. For Syracuse this year, he homered seven times. In no minor league campaign had he exceeded a dozen longballs. Well, in his fourth major league game, he blasted his first home run, which represents a pace of awesome. After going 3-for-4, including delivering the double that carried his first ribbie, Luisangel’s batting .455. That would certainly be a pace to keep up.
—September 18, 2024
(Traded to White Sox, 1/20/2026)
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ANDREW DAVID “Drew” SMITH
Relief Pitcher
June 23, 2018 – June 23, 2024
Enough with Garrett, onto Drew Smith, forever the reliever I forget is on the roster. Bryce Harper recognized Drew and singled to right the first pitch he saw. Smith’s delivery was addressed with such authority that the Phillie runners already on first and second couldn’t advance more than one base, and Harper didn’t have time to make like Jamie Tartt and perform a soccer-style celebration. A modicum of Phillie exultation would have its chance five pitches later, when Smith completed a bases-loaded walk to Bohm. It was now 6-5, Mets. The bases were still philled with Phillies. There was still only one out. Genuine power threat Nick Castellanos was still due up. Drew Smith was still Drew Smith. I neglected to check the Win Probability calculations, but counting on the Mets getting out of this jam rated as folly. But if you were feeling lucky, perhaps you wished to wager a quid or two on the Mets’ good fortune. It’s only some other country’s money, right?
—June 10, 2024
(Free agent, 11/4/2025; signed with Nationals, 2/16/2026)
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STARLING JAVIER MARTE
Outfielder
April 7, 2022 – September 27, 2025
Value in various quantities was palpable up and down the roster. And yet, it’s Starling Marte who felt most like the measurable difference between the 2021 Mets who evaporated by August and the 2022 Mets who couldn’t quite bring it home in September and October but had absolutely reached the plateau where we knew they could make our dreams come true. Starling Marte had or was that certain something. When the Mets had it, they had you convinced they were the best team from coast to coast. When the Mets didn’t have it, they drifted off course.
—December 20, 2022
(Free agent, 11/2/2025; signed with Royals, 2/28/2026)
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Finally, unlike the 2025 Mets, let us finish with a little extra oomph…
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JEFFREY TODD “Jeff” McNEIL
The Batting Champ
July 24, 2018 – September 28, 2025
Jeff McNeil was himself and then some on Friday. Jeff McNeil hit the lead-taking homer, made the lead-preserving play, and earned himself a piece of above-the-marquee Subway Series history. You know The Dave Mlicki Game. You know The Matt Franco Game. You know The Mister Koo Game. You’ve just met The Jeff McNeil Game. It’s not like you haven’t met Jeff McNeil before, but it’s always nice to remind ourselves who he can be.
—July 5, 2025
(Traded to Athletics, 12/22/2025)
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BRANDON TATE NIMMO
The Dean
June 26, 2016 – September 28, 2025
Brandon, the rare Met who we’ve watched come of age gradually and therefore not necessarily wondered where the time went, connected for a long and high fly to right. Would it be so long and so high to negotiate the wind and avert the grasp of a leaping Castellanos? It would. Just barely. But it counted. Mets 2 Phillies 1 after six.
—September 23, 2024
(Traded to Rangers, 11/23/2025)
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EDWIN ORLANDO DIAZ
The Closer
March 28, 2019 – September 28, 2025
Mendoza would be turning a tenuous one-run lead over to…you’re kidding. Diaz is going out there for the ninth. He threw, I’m estimating, a million pitches in the eighth. His psyche has to be scarred like he just saw the ghost of Kurt Suzuki. And he didn’t get off the mound when that was paramount. Diaz? Cripes, just get Benitez loose. They showed Ryne Stanek warming up in the bullpen. I can’t say I would trust my baseball life with Ryne Stanek and a one-run lead in the ninth inning in Atlanta with everything on the line, but I can tell you I wasn’t using my one phone call to keep Edwin Diaz in the game. Which may be why they don’t give me access to the bullpen phone. It was ride or die with Diaz. Is that too much hyperbole or not enough? There was little opportunity to mull the question during Matt Olson’s leadoff at-bat, because it was over in one pitch — one effective pitch that Olson popped to Lindor for the first out. OK, maybe this wasn’t a disaster in the making. White singled, then stole second. OK, maybe this is a disaster in the making. Laureano, with three hits on the day, struck out. Two outs, leaving it all up to d’Arnaud. I was 70% leaning toward doom, 30% thinking it was too obvious. And it was. The latter, that is. Old Friend™ Travis did the right neighborly thing and grounded to Lindor, who threw to Alonso for the third out, and Oh My God, the New York Mets defeated the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta in September to make the playoffs. We were in.
—October 1, 2024
(Free agent, 11/4/2025; signed with Dodgers, 12/9/2025)
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PETER MORGAN “Pete” ALONSO
The Franchise Home Run King
March 28, 2019 – September 28, 2025
Pitching, however, could not be the theme of the night when Pete Alonso was crashing and remaking history. When he swung off Spencer Strider — now there’s a swing-off that means something — and the result was laser-tagged until it landed in the visitors’ bullpen, it dawned on those of us fortunate enough to be in attendance what we just saw. We saw seven seasons of Alonso culminate where we projected he’d land as soon as we got a load of what he could do as a rookie. We saw the Straw Man wave him into the top spot on the Met home run chart. Darryl hit career home run No. 155 on May 3, 1988, to take the all-time Met lead from Dave Kingman. It was noteworthy, to be sure, but the lead story from Shea that evening was David Cone making his first start of the year and bulling his way into the rotation to stay, shutting out the Braves (them again), 8-0. Pitching was the theme of that night. Pitching was often the theme while Darryl was adding 97 more home runs to his record between 1988 and 1990. Pitching has been the theme of the Mets most of their life. Darryl’s 252nd home run, off Greg Maddux of the Cubs on September 23, 1990, supported eight winning innings from Dwight Gooden. When you’re hitting home runs and your pitchers are the likes of Cone building a 20-win season and Gooden heading for 19-7, your home runs are only part of the story. Pete Alonso won the Rookie of the Year award in 2019, the same year Jacob deGrom earned his second consecutive Cy Young. From there, it seems the paths of Met hitters and Met pitchers have diverged. Pitching is something we never have enough of in the 2020s. Hitting (recent trends notwithstanding) is more the Met signature in this generation. It is, after all, the Polar Generation. Drink it in, drink it in, drink it in.
—August 13, 2025
(Free agent, 11/4/2025; signed with Orioles, 12/10/2025)
by Jason Fry on 15 March 2026 5:53 pm By the time 2026 rolled around I had a long-established relationship with spring training: I’d put the first televised game on my calendar, watch the initial 20 minutes with avid interest, watch the next 20 with vague attention, and then either be looking at my phone or asleep. And after that I’d wait for the actual season to arrive.
That was the plan going into this spring too, albeit with a side of perplexity about the 2026 Mets.
The Mets talked about improving their defense and then decided the way to do that was to ask Bo Bichette and Jorge Polanco to learn new positions.
They talked about building for long-term success and then imported a bunch of mercenaries and question marks: a guy they aren’t going to want when they’re still paying him (Marcus Semien), a guy who won’t be here in a year (Bichette), a guy who’s talked like he wants to stay but hasn’t inked anything to that effect (Freddy Peralta), and a guy who’s gone from prospect to suspect before everyone’s eyes (Luis Robert Jr.)
They touted homegrown talent and then blocked Brett Baty and Mark Vientos before what are shaping up to be their make-or-break seasons, making vague noises that they’ll get enough ABs here and there and putting them on positional carousels of their own.
I think I know what David Stearns is up to and also why he doesn’t want to talk about it. I think the Mets are caught in between: confident in their next batches of position and pitching prospects but aware those guys are a year or two away. And so they’re trying to cover the gap with spackle, spit and hope.
And the thing is … it might work! The Phillies are older and the Braves are already riddled with injuries again. The mercenaries have large error bars — it’s not crazy to think Polanco, Robert and Semien all turn in good years. Nor is it crazy to imagine that Peralta decides to stay, that Bichette is Bichette (and maybe even likes New York), or that some of the prospects arrive a little early.
But it hasn’t been an inspiring place to be; I’ve spent more of the winter sighing and rolling my eyes than I have imagining good outcomes.
You know what should be the perfect antidote to all this purse-mouthed gloom? Going to spring training.
Over the winter, that plan went from “might be fun” to “OK let’s do it,” thanks to Emily’s reminders that she’d never been to spring training and would like that to change. (I’ve been ribbed more than once that I’m the rare male who was bullied into going to spring training by his wife.)
Once the plan took shape, I was a bit startled to realize I hadn’t been to a Mets spring training game since 1987.
Part of my surprise was understandable: I lived in St. Petersburg during the last four years of the Mets’ tenure there, when they shared Al Lang Stadium with the Cardinals. Back then I’d go pretty much as often as I could, getting my parents to drive me downtown, drop me off by the park and pick me up an hour after the game.
Spring training was a much more casual affair then. You could chat with visiting pitchers in the bullpen through a chain-link fence, an encounter that didn’t even require buying a ticket. Stan Musial was a near-constant presence in the stands, leathery and cheerful in a variety of hideous sportcoats. Players crossed the sidewalk to and from the team bus in full game gear while on various errands. (I once slammed to a halt because I was dumbstruck by the arrival of Wally Backman and so got spiked.)
Port St. Lucie? It was across a fair-sized state and may as well have been on the moon. It was also pretty much nowhere — in the late 1980s St. Petersburg was still derided as “God’s waiting room,” but it was the Left Bank compared with Port St. Lucie.
Once the Mets vamoosed, spring training became a TV pastime for me. It was also true that I was no longer enchanted by Grapefruit League baseball, partially because it was becoming big and expensive and brassy but mostly because I’d come to understand it didn’t really matter.
So you see why coming back took me a while. And yet there Emily and I were, at the midpoint of a wraparound weekend trip that took us from Jacksonville down to St. Augustine and on to St. Lucie and Clover Park.
 I was right about Port St. Lucie — it’s sprawl hacked out of scrub and swamp, a vague place in between other vague places — but wrong about Clover Park. It’s a tidy little stadium, well run and put together with admirable attention to Mets history.
At Clover Park the members of the Mets Hall of Fame get banners — and not just the likes of Tom Seaver and Gary Carter but also Johnny Murphy and George Weiss. Seaver and Mike Piazza and other beloved legends adorn the stadium walls. The exterior of Clover Field even pays homage to the confetti-like squares of long-ago Shea; I don’t miss Shea at all but still found this gesture genuinely touching.
 This is also the home of the St. Lucie Mets, and they have a terrific Road to the Show wall with little plaques denoted every St. Lucie Met’s matriculation as a big leaguer, whether that came as a Met or not — a feature I’m begging the Brooklyn Cyclones to filch for inside their own park.
There’s a lot of staff at Clover Park, and they’re genuinely friendly and helpful, whether supervising parking or helping direct visitors to seats or amenities — Emily brought in a pillow without having to endure a Talmudic dispute about its admissibility, and we surprised more than one staffer by asking permission to do various innocent things, which is what Citi Field does to a Mets fan. The food’s fine, and concessions are run with more cheer and efficiency than in Queens.
 And while the weather forecast was dire, game time arrived and there were actual Mets and Blue Jays down there on the field, including Francisco Lindor making his spring-training debut. The Mets went out and lashed the Blue Jays, with Lindor looking fine at the plate and in the field, Semien crashing a long home run and balls coming off Francisco Alvarez‘s bat with a sound that made me think, Hmm, could be a big year. Toronto’s Grant Rogers wound up getting pulled from the game twice, an only-in-spring-training humiliation; it was bad but would have been a lot worse if not for multiple excellent plays in center by Daulton Varsho.
The weather limited itself to gloom and growls for an hour and a half or so, but then the meteorological gloves came off. We ate some ice cream out of a helmet while standing under cover, they called the game without much fuss or delay, and the Clover Park staff got us pointed out of the parking lot with brisk and admirable aplomb.
Not a full game, but it’s March and none of this matters anyway. In his postgame presser Lindor talked about checking all the boxes, and that’s the way I felt too: I sat in the sunshine, ate a hot dog and ice cream, drank a beer, and saw some baseball up close and personal.
My eyebrows are still raised about the Mets’ plan and whether that’s giving it too grand a name, but it was a day well spent.
by Greg Prince on 6 March 2026 1:16 pm It’s the time of the year meant for looking ahead. To Carson Benge not being Don Bosch. To Vidal Bruján and Mike Tauchman potentially making themselves more useful than Bill Pecota. To Nolan McLean overcoming vertigo-like symptoms so he can pitch in the WBC, then not getting hurt in the WBC (which goes for all Mets in the WBC). To the holdover veteran pitchers turning around their second-half miseries from last summer. To the winter imports tasked with manning corner infield positions learning where to stand and when to bend. Some of the advice Bo Bichette told SNY’s Michelle Margaux that he received from accomplished third basemen like Matt Chapman and Nolan Arenado included, “Make it your own. Get low. Don’t make it too complicated. Just be an athlete.”
For us, the perennial advice isn’t too complicated, either. Just be a fan, especially come March. It’s the time of the year when we prefer to get high. On baseball. On hope. On history, despite the need to look forward, because why would we be here, looking ahead, if we weren’t so informed by what’s piled up behind us?
Piling up in Flushing last year, according to Newsday’s perusal of a “recent final disclosure filed by the club,” was more than $300 million in ballpark revenue. I didn’t think I’d bought that many pretzels, but they were on discount most every Tuesday. I wasn’t alone in getting my five bucks’ worth. Record Citi Field attendance filled the ballpark to be let down by the baseball in 2025, if happily distracted by the chance to get away from life. More than $150 million in ticket sales. More than $50 million in ad revenue. Close to $40 million worth of concessions. Plus a whole lot in suites and such, along with plenty for parking. I wouldn’t know about the last one since I take the train. I also wouldn’t know if the reported total of $311.4 million is a lot relative to what it normally is, but Newsday says it really is — 19.4% greater than what the Mets took in during 2024. The 2025 bottom line reaped the rewards of the excitement generated in 2024. Any circumspection that infiltrates our aspirations to be high on baseball hope in 2026 may be a byproduct of not being thrilled by how 2025 came apart. One way or another, history is always driving us.
The Mets issued a statement to Newsday that “the organization remains focused first and foremost on delivering he best fan experience in baseball, continually looking for ways, from food and beverage to retail, in-game entertainment and beyond to ensure a top-tier experience at Citi Field.” It doesn’t mention better play on the field, but we’ll take that as a baked-in goal of every year. We’ll also acknowledge that the entire package, whether it’s improving on an 83-win campaign or continuing the largesse of $5 Tuesdays, ensuring that once a week pretzels and a few other staples will remain only marginally rather than comically overpriced, represents a better state of affairs to what Jack Lang reported in the Daily News 47 years ago this month:
“The prospects of the Mets having a financially successful season in 1979 are remote. Because they do not have a team to sell, Mets’ ticket sales are down. Even radio-TV sponsors are tough to come by. Already the number of TV games has been cut by about 20 games this year and there is a chance some games will not heard over the radio. All of this adds up to another financially disastrous season…one which could result in the Payson family selling the club by October, the end of the corporation’s fiscal year.”
Which, besides Lee Mazzilli’s quest to keep his average above .300, became our primary rooting interest as that year unfolded.
One of the losses that touched a historical nerve during this past Mets’ offseason was the passing in October of Lorinda de Roulet, who ran the organization for one season, perhaps its roughest season ever, 1979. As anybody who constituted any fraction of the 788,905 fans who passed through Shea Stadium’s turnstiles as a paying customer in 1979 will attest, the happiest day of the de Roulet stewardship — itself the end result of the lack of an effective succession plan following the death of her mother Joan Payson in 1975 — was when it ended. Linda, as those who knew he called her during her 95 years on the planet, may have truly wanted the best for the Mets when she succeeded the reviled M. Donald Grant as board chairman, but the resources simply weren’t there. Linda’s father Charles was not a baseball fan the way Joan was (and was said to pull for the Red Sox when he rooted at all), but he did control a vast majority of Mets stock. Lang informed us in the News during the Spring his daughter took charge that Charles had “already tightened the purse strings by refusing to pour any more of family money into a losing operation. […] At the age of 80, he sees no future in it.”
Thus, when the club was sold to the group headed by Nelson Doubleday and Fred Wilpon in January 1980 (much as was the case when the club was sold by the Wilpons to Steve Cohen in November 2020), a world of conceivable possibilities opened up. After three straight seasons of last-place finishes witnessed in person by ever fewer Metsochists, there was finally a future to all this, soon, if not immediately. Whereas the de Roulet ownership couldn’t spend, the new regime loomed as a legitimate contender to sign free agents in the years ahead. The years ahead represented a reasonable timeline, as new chief operating officer Wilpon promised to spend “whatever is necessary to see a World Series flag flying over Shea Stadium in the ’80s.” The year ahead singular would be a tougher task to make better, as most of the plum free agent names were already off the market by the time the sale of the team went through. Then again, two-time National League MVP Joe Morgan, one of the all-time great second basemen, coming off his eighth consecutive All-Star selection, remained available.
While the Mets were now able to go after a player of Morgan’s stature, it didn’t mean they would take a late-career flyer on the surefire Hall of Famer. Manager Joe Torre told Bill Madden in the Daily News, “The future of this ballclub is Taveras and Flynn. I know Joe Morgan can hit, but unless he could play third base or somewhere else for us, I don’t know if he could help us.”
A statement of such a definitive nature regarding the Metsian future indicates it might not have been de Roulet’s leadership that was the problem with those Mets, but in the context of the moment, Torre’s take wasn’t as ludicrous as the intervening decades make it sound. Second baseman Doug Flynn was a terrific fielder who somehow drove in 61 runs while batting eighth every day for a cellar-dweller in 1979, while shortstop Frank Taveras came over from the Pirates in April and proceeded to shatter the Mets’ single-season stolen base mark, swiping 42 bags. From the perspective of building a ballclub during that era, you could view your middle infield as a foundational block, add the ability to spend to shore up other positions, and, presto chango, the future of the Mets fan imagination, à la Taveras runs wild!
The actual future? It saw Frank Cashen hired as general manager in February of 1980, and, once the 1981 season ended, Cashen ridding himself of Torre, Flynn, and Taveras before the throngs in Times Square could count down to 1982. “You’ve heard about incentive clauses for ballplayers, but here’s a new twist,” Jack Lang wrote in The Sporting News during Christmas week. “Cashen offered a pair of Gucci loafers to whichever one of his aides managed to complete a deal for Frank Taveras. The winner has not been announced, but Taveras is gone.”
Perspectives in baseball change, just like calendars change, and it can happen quicker than you’d suspect. For example, it’s suddenly March, not just for baseball, but for everything. How did it get to be March? In baseball terms, how is every player who needs to be somewhere not yet somewhere? With not quite three weeks to go before Opening Day, it’s getting late early within the leagues of grapefruits and cacti, though one supposes it’s not too late until it is. A mere two years ago, J.D. Martinez waited until there was about a week to go to come to terms with the New York Mets. He wasn’t available to play until late April, but there was time enough to do a deal and make an impact.
Still, better to get on a team before teams make other plans. Many are, even if took them well into February to get somewhere. Like free agent Starling Marte, who has signed on with the Royals. Maybe we won’t miss Starling in the sense that he’s going to be as productive for Kansas City as he was for us circa 2022, but he was an endearing Met for four seasons, and you always miss that. Like Old Friend™ Michael Conforto, who has signed on with the Cubs. We’ve had a bunch of years to stop missing Michael, and I’ve rarely thought how much better off the post-2021 Mets lineup would be with his bat within it, but I see his name and I think of a hot Met prospect who came up to herald a pennant drive in 2015 and caught fire to spark a playoff push (albeit one that fell short) in 2019. I watch him occasionally go deep on a Mets Classic and wonder how he never quite became what we projected he would. Good for Michael catching on somewhere, even, as with Starling in K.C., if it’s with a team we’re historically predisposed to not like. Since we need old enemies to balance out our Old Friends, it’s perversely reassuring to know Rhys Hoskins found a deal in Cleveland. He’s not Chase Utley in the bottom of the barrel of our esteem, but he’s the closest thing I can think of in terms of active major leaguers I could fall out of bed in the dead of winter and instinctively start booing, mostly from that episode of him feigning boo-hooing at Citi Field two years ago.
Juan Lagares announced his retirement in February. I saw Juan Lagares play in last season’s Mets Alumni Classic, a pretty good indicator that he was not otherwise occupied by the rigors of a baseball playing schedule from late March to late September. Relatively few players seem to come right out and say “I’m done playing” the moment they’ve registered their final statistic on Baseball-Reference’s overview page. Only the elite inspire retirement tours. Only the supremely self-assured know immediately when one part of their life is ready to give way to another. Everybody else presumably needs time to weigh opportunities or the lack thereof. For example, the aforementioned J.D. Martinez hasn’t swung a bat for the record since Game Four of the 2024 NLCS, a postseason when he shared designated hitter duties with the currently unsigned Jesse Winker. Said he planned to play in 2025 last Spring, but apparently had no takers. Competed in something called a Celebrity Pickleball Showdown in the fall (implying he can still hit some). He’s played no baseball that we know of, but J.D., 38, isn’t retired from the game until he says he is, whether or not the game has decided it has moved on from him.
J.D. the DH never did anything with a glove when he was a Met. Conversely, Juan did wonders with one from 2013 into 2020. He then took his equipment to the L.A. Angels for a couple of years, the last of them in 2022. Every winter since then, the keeper of the glove where extra-base hits went to die plied his craft for the Aguilas Cibaeñas in the Dominican. Our most recent Gold Glove winner (2014, back when run prevention was simply called defense) decided to wait until his 37th birthday approached to make it official that he was done for all seasons.
Winter ball, we on the mainland might want to remind ourselves, is some kind of ball. I’ve been reading How Life Imitates the World Series by Tom Boswell, the Washington Post’s legendary baseball columnist (back when the Post covered sports), and one of the stops Boz makes along his long-ago journey is Puerto Rico’s winter league, where the author finds Ruben Gomez winding down his pitching career. If you’re like me, you might recognize Gomez from the New York Giants of the 1950s, a key component of the rotation that shut down the Indians in the 1954 World Series. What I didn’t know anything about was the length of Ruben’s career between major league calendars. Per his SABR bio, Gomez pitched in the Puerto Rican Winter League for 29 seasons. By the late 1970s, when he wasn’t engaged in his passion of building cars “from the frame up, selling some, renting others, but always keeping the fastest for himself,” he was, in the neighborhood of 50 years old, pitching for Vaqueros de Bayamon, or the Bayamon Cowboys. The experienced righty didn’t concern himself too much with numbers, evidenced by his predilection for disregarding speed limits.
“Toward sundown,” Boswell wrote in his 1982 collection, “he heads for the ballpark, negotiating the deserted beachside highway at 120 miles per hour. […] If the police stop him, Gomez simply blurts, ‘I am hurrying to my wife.’ Only once did a policia dare to tell the island’s venerable celebrity, ‘Señor Gomez, all of Puerto Rico knows that your wife died seven years ago.’
“‘In that case,’ said Gomez, switching to his changeup, ‘I’m going to the cemetery.’”
Still revealing a pulse of sorts seventeen years since it was torn down is the very same facility few were paying to enter amid the reign of Linda de Roulet. Once the American League champion Toronto Blue Jays and 41-year-old Max Scherzer agreed to continue their professional relationship, it guaranteed (good health willing) that the 2026 Major League Baseball season will include a player who played at Shea Stadium. Without dismissing any of his 42 regular-season starts as a Met, including the one that clinched us a playoff spot in 2022, this may turn out to be Scherzer’s defining Met legacy. Three others who earned Shea stripes pitched during 2025, but each of them — Clayton Kershaw, David Robertson, and Rich Hill — has confirmed some version of retirement from baseball. Kershaw is with Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, but is otherwise inactive. Scherzer, like Kershaw, first came up in Shea’s last year, 2008. He got into a game there that June when he was a Diamondback (a helluva game it was). Max went a long way from there. Shea didn’t, but now it gets to maintain a glimmer of existence, as Scherzer nails down his status as this generation’s Pete Rose. In 1986, Rose became the last active player who could say he played at the Polo Grounds, outlasting Rusty Staub, whose last game was in 1985, and Joe Morgan, whose baseball-playing future reached its limit in 1984 (two years beyond Taveras’s, if a year shy of Flynn’s).
Even as the WBC supplants MLB on Spring’s center stage for a spell, a couple of other acronyms deserve a moment in the March sun. One is HBP, which should never happen to anybody, unless it’s the gentlest of sleeve-brushing hit-by-pitches taken for the team with the bases loaded. HBPs can be sore subjects in more ways than one. Yes, Ruben Gomez was an icon of winter ball longevity, and he surely went seven-and-a-third in defeating Cleveland in Game Three of the ’54 Fall Classic, but if his name rings a resonant bell at all, it’s likely from his encounter with Joe Adcock of the Milwaukee Braves in 1956. An Associated Press account detailed the incident:
“A howling crowd of 33,239 saw one of baseball’s wildest scenes last night as the Giants’ Ruben Gomez hit Joe Adcock twice with a ball — once as Adcock charged the mound — and then bolted like a gunshy rabbit for his dugout, the fiery angry Braves’ slugger in hot pursuit.”
An inside pitch had nicked Adcock’s right wrist. Words were exchanged as the batter headed to first before Adcock redirected his route toward the mound. “Gomez, who by this time had a new ball,” the AP reported, “flung it at the onrushing Adcock about 25 feet way, and hit Joe on the left thigh. The 175-pound pitcher then turned tail and raced for all he was worth — his back hunched over as if he expected the worst — for the Giant dugout. The 210-pound Adcock was right behind.” Umpires and police officers got involved. Both players were “escorted from the game”. Joe had endured his share of injuries from being hit, which might explain some of the action and reaction. It may not have been a good look for Ruben to evade the batter, but survival skills clearly served the righty well. Remember, this is a man who was still pitching somewhere more than twenty years later.
“What would you have done with that big coming at you?” reasoned Giants manager Bill Rigney. “Probably run, too.”
A Mets fan who has witnessed one too many HBPs in recent years might have emotionally sided with Adcock. We’ve been on the wrong end of a lot of hit-by-pitches going back a while. We lost Marte for the balance of September on a hit-by-pitch as we fought to hold on to the 2022 division title that slipped away. Starling wasn’t the only one to collect bruises in recent Met lineups. From 2018 through 2025, there’s been at least one Met to finish in the Top Ten of the National League’s hit-by-pitch leaders. For that matter, the three longest-tenured position players the Mets traded or let leave as the Hot Stove burned — Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, and Jeff McNeil — are Nos. 1, 2, and 3 on the franchise’s all-time HBP leaderboard. Francisco Lindor suddenly takes over as the active team leader, with 55, many bruises from Pete’s 100, Brandon’s 87, and Jeff’s 85.
I’d say that’s not a record meant to be broken, but if that was true, Ron Hunt, whose 41 HBPs were the Met standard from the 1960s until the 2010s (and remains lodged within the Top Ten), would still have it.
One acronymic distinction that appears bound to change hands in 2026, particularly as March marches on, is that of LAMSA. Unlike HBP, you won’t find LAMSA listed on BB-Ref. LAMSA is a FAFIF exclusive, denoting Longest Ago Met Still Active. We’ve been tracking LAMSA matters so long that when Faith and Fear in Flushing began thinking about it, we were just realizing the LAMSA crown sat on the head of a very much active Jeff Kent, the same Jeff Kent who will be going into the Hall of Fame this summer alongside Carlos Beltran, who will be going into the Hall of Fame this summer with a Mets cap if no trace of a LAMSA crown on his head.
Beltran, a Met for the first time in 2005, played for ages, until 2017. But that never won him LAMSA status, nor its companion honor, Last Met Standing. Whereas LAMSA tells us what onetime New York Met has lasted the longest in the majors from his Metropolitan start date forward at any given moment, Last Met Standing speaks to a player being the last of his chronological breed to still be playing. The last 1962 Met? Ed Kranepool. The last 1963 Met? Ed Kranepool. The last 1964 Met? Ed Kranepool. It’s easy enough to monitor, even when the answer stops being Ed Kranepool. (Ed’s 1965 Mets teammate Tug McGraw outlasted him in the majors by five years.)
We haven’t had to open the LAMSA or Last Met Standing books since Spring Training in 2023, which was when one title was shifted and another was confirmed. Joe Smith, the last of the Shea Mets, from 2008, pitched his last. So did Darren O’Day. O’Day came to the Mets in 2009 and went almost as quickly, but no Met from the first Citi season outlasted him on the MLB scene, and boy did he stick around elsewhere. Once Smith’s and O’Days respective careers lacked any trace of adhesion, that left Justin Turner, a Met from 2010 to 2013, as the Longest Ago Met Still Active overall, and the Last Met Standing from 2010, 2011, and 2012.
Justin Turner, through 2025, had been around forever. From a utilityman for us to his star years with the Dodgers, spanning 2014 through 2022, to his veteran pickup incarnation. The Red Sox signed him. The Blue Jays traded for him. The Mariners signed him. The Cubs signed him. That kept him going in 2023, 2024, and 2025. It’s 2026. It’s March. He’s 41. Justin Turner is unsigned.
Meaning? Well, from a LAMSA standpoint, the Longest Ago Met Still Active when the 2026 season begins projects to be Phillie ace Zack Wheeler, though with something of an asterisk, as Wheeler — Met debut June 18, 2013 — is sitting on the injured list until at least a couple of weeks past Opening Day. That counts as active if not totally active, but it’s enough to satisfy LAMSA’s parameters…though, if we’re being picky, the next longest-ago Met who is slated to being the season on a major league roster is Angels catcher Travis d’Arnaud, the quintessential Old Friend™ whose Met debut came on August 17, 2013, two months after Zack’s and eleven days after that of Wilmer Flores, who is in the same boat as Justin Turner, Jesse Winker and anybody else stranded aboard the S.S. Currently Unsigned. The upside of free agency is you can sign anywhere you like. The downside is you have to like the deal you’re being offered, assuming you’re being offered one. Flores has received feelers of the minor league variety. He’s been a major leaguer since his 22nd birthday, August 6, 2013, and would prefer a guarantee of something at that level. The erstwhile Giant recently declared to the San Francisco Chronicle, “I’m not done playing. I’m just waiting.”
And we’re just waiting to find out who the Last Met Standing from 2013 will be. Could be Wheeler. Could be d’Arnaud. Could still be Flores, because who are we to not believe Wilmer? They were all Mets in 2014 as well, as were active major leaguers Rafael Montero and Jacob deGrom. Wheeler was on what then known as the DL in 2015, but all among Flores, d’Arnaud, Montero, deGrom, Steven Matz, and hot prospect Michael Conforto played as Mets then, that NL championship season which now sits more than a decade in the past. Weren’t they all pretty young together not so long ago?
Like Carly Simon right around the same time the Mets last won a world championship, we know nothing stays the same. But we’re willing to play the game. Baseball is coming around again. Comfort from the familiar. Anticipation for what’s unknown. Carly mentioned anticipation, too, along the way, and she used to get rides to Ebbets Field from her Stamford neighbor Jackie Robinson. That must have been something to look forward to, huh?
LONGEST AGO MET STILL ACTIVE: Chronology
• Felix Mantilla, debuted as a Met, 4/11/1962; last game in the major leagues, 10/2/1966
• Al Jackson, 4/14/1962; 9/26/1969
• Chris Cannizzaro, 4/14/1962*; 9/28/1974
• Ed Kranepool, 9/22/1962; 9/30/1979
• Tug McGraw, 4/18/1965; 9/25/1984
• Nolan Ryan, 9/11/1966; 9/22/1993
• Jesse Orosco, 4/5/1979; 9/27/2003
• John Franco, 4/11/1990; 7/1/2005
• Jeff Kent, 8/28/1992; 9/27/2008
• Jason Isringhausen**, 7/17/1995; 9/19/2012
• Octavio Dotel, 6/26/1999; 4/19/2013
• Bruce Chen, 8/1/2001; 5/15/2015
• Jose Reyes, 6/10/2003; 9/30/2018
• Oliver Perez***, 8/26/2006; 4/24/2022
• Joe Smith*** 4/1/2007; 8/2/2022
• Justin Turner 7/16/2010; 10/6/2025 (41 and currently unsigned)
• Zack Wheeler 6/18/2013; still active (will start 2026 on IL)
*Cannizzaro was Jackson’s catcher on April 14, 1962, at the Polo Grounds, so for LAMSA purposes, he debuted as a Met after his pitcher.
**During Isringhausen’s extensive injury rehabilitation period between 6/13/2009 and 4/11/2011, Paul Byrd (debuted as a Met on 7/28/1995); Jay Payton (9/1/1998); and Melvin Mora (5/30/1999) could each temporarily lay claim to LAMSA status, but Izzy ultimately outlasted them all.
*** Perez appeared to have finished his MLB career on 4/22/2021, leaving Joe Smith — whose Met debut was 4/1/2007 — as the LAMSA for the rest of the 2021 season. Perez returned to the majors on 4/7/2022, resuming his LAMSA reign, ultimately rendering Smith’s initial LAMSA status as interim.
LAST MET STANDING: 1962-2012
1962-1964: Ed Kranepool (final MLB game: 9/30/1979)
1965: Tug McGraw (9/25/1984)
1966: Nolan Ryan (9/22/1993)
1967: Tom Seaver (9/19/1986)
1968-1971: Nolan Ryan (9/22/1993)
1972-1974: Tom Seaver (9/19/1986)
1975: Dave Kingman (10/5/1986)
1976-1977: Lee Mazzilli (10/7/1989)
1978: Alex Treviño (9/30/1990)
1979: Jesse Orosco (9/27/2003)
1980: Hubie Brooks (7/2/1994)
1981-1987: Jesse Orosco (9/27/2003)
1988-1989: David Cone (5/28/2003)
1990-1991: John Franco (7/1/2005)
1992-1994: Jeff Kent (9/27/2008)
1995-1997: Jason Isringhausen (9/19/2012)
1998: Jay Payton (10/3/2010)
1999: Octavio Dotel (4/19/2013)
2000: Melvin Mora (6/29/2011)
2001-2002: Bruce Chen (5/15/2015)
2003-2005: Jose Reyes (9/30/2018)
2006: Oliver Perez (4/24/2022)
2007-2008: Joe Smith (8/2/2022)
2009: Darren O’Day (7/11/2022)
2010-2012: Justin Turner (10/6/2025; 41 and currently unsigned)
As of Spring Training 2026, two 2013 Mets — Zack Wheeler and Travis d’Arnaud — remain active, while a third, Wilmer Flores, seeks his next contract)
by Greg Prince on 24 February 2026 12:43 pm “Say, the new baseball season is coming.”
“Yeah, I guess it is. I’m not quite the diehard I used to be, but I’d like to catch up with what’s going with my favorite baseball team, the New York Mets.”
“In that case, I think it’s important that we establish some fundamentals about the Mets.”
“Fundamentals? Like what?”
“For example, every ballplayer on a ballclub has a very specific job, something the ballclub understands the ballplayer is best suited for.”
“Every ballplayer?”
“Every ballplayer. Even on the Mets.”
“Even on the Mets?”
“That’s right, even on the Mets.”
“So if I ask you about a ballplayer on the Mets, you can tell me who he is and what he does?”
 A modest explainer, already in progress. “That’s correct. Go ahead and try me.”
“Who’s on first?”
“Polanco.”
“So Polanco’s a first baseman?”
“Not yet.”
“Who’s on third?”
“Bichette.”
“So Bichette’s a third baseman?”
“Not yet.”
“Who’s in left?”
“Soto.”
“So Soto’s a left fielder?”
“He has been. More recently he was in right.”
“I see, I think. Well, who’s in right?”
“I dunno.”
“I dunno is a peculiar name for a ballplayer, even on the Mets.”
“No, I’m telling you I dunno yet who’s gonna be the Mets’ right fielder.”
“Then how can you be so sure about the other positions I asked about?”
“Because they told me.”
“Who told you?”
“The Mets.”
“The Mets told you Polanco’s gonna be on first even though he’s not a first baseman, Bichette’s gonna be on third even though he’s not a third baseman, and Soto’s gonna be in left even though he’s not a left fielder.”
“But he has been.”
“Not lately, though?”
“No, Soto was a right fielder.”
“Soto was a right fielder?”
“Practically every day last year.”
“Soto was in right?”
“Right.”
“Wasn’t he on third?”
“That was a while back. Wright’s not around anymore.”
“So who was on third when Soto was in right?”
“Baty was on third, mostly. And sometime Vientos.”
“But Baty and Vientos aren’t on third now?”
“Nope.”
“So is it right to say they’re not around anymore?”
“No, they’re around.”
“Baty and Vientos are around?”
“Correct.”
“So what do they do if they’re not on third?”
“I dunno.”
“I thought you said I dunno is in right.”
“What I said is I dunno who’s in right.”
“Which means it’s not Soto.”
“Right.”
“Right as in correct?”
“Right.”
“So, just to make sure, you say Soto is now in left?”
“Right.”
“Please just say correct.”
“Correct.”
“And when I asked you who’s in right for the Mets, you said I dunno?”
“That’s what I said.”
“So they still have Soto?”
“For a long time. Unless he opts out.”
“Doesn’t Soto have a contract?”
“Every ballplayer has a contract.”
“Doesn’t the contract say Soto will be a Met for the length of the contract?”
“Correct. It’s a very lengthy contract. Fifteen years.”
“That is a long time.”
“Correct. But he can opt out after the fifth year if certain adjustments aren’t made to his satisfaction.”
“Then it’s not a fifteen-year contract.”
“It is. It just might last not last longer than five years.”
“But he’s a Met right now?”
“Correct.”
“And he was the Mets’ right fielder last year.”
“Correct.”
“So why isn’t Soto still in right?”
“So they can put somebody else out there.”
“And who would that be?”
“I dunno.”
“Which you say is not a peculiar name for a ballplayer, even on the Mets.”
“It’s still a peculiar name, but it’s not the name of the Mets’ right fielder.”
“So who is the Mets’ right fielder?”
“I dunno.”
“When will the identity of the Mets’ right fielder become clear?”
“Later.”
“How much later?”
“Later this Spring.”
“That’s a long way away.”
“Not really. Spring has already started.”
“No it hasn’t. There’s like two feet of snow on the ground.”
“Not where the Mets play.”
“But the Mets play in New York.”
“The Mets don’t play in New York in the Spring.”
“Which this isn’t.”
“But it is. The Mets have already played several ballgames this Spring.”
“Did they win them?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter? How could it not matter whether the Mets win or lose if we’re fans of the New York Mets?”
“Because it’s Spring.”
“It’s not spring — it’s February!”
“Spring starts in February in baseball.”
“You’re telling me that in the dead of winter, when there’s snow covering everything in New York, including the Mets’ home ballpark, that it’s actually spring, and that the Mets are playing baseball, which is something that as Mets fans we really care about, yet it doesn’t matter if they win or lose?”
“Correct.”
“What happens when it’s actually spring?”
“It’s Spring right now in baseball.”
“I mean when it’s spring everywhere.”
“When it’s spring everywhere, the Mets will be in New York.”
“When will that be?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Late March.”
“It’s still cold in late March.”
“It’s baseball season in late March.”
“But I thought baseball was the summer game.”
“It says here that baseball starts in New York in late March.”
“Where does it say that?”
“Here. On the official schedule.”
“Can you hand me the official schedule the Mets print?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t print it anymore.”
“So what are you looking at?”
“My phone.”
“They don’t have a schedule that fits in your pocket?”
“They put it on phones. They figure there’s one in everybody’s pocket.”
“I see. So I have to look on my phone if I want to see when the Mets play?”
“Correct.”
“OK, I’m looking on my phone, and I see that like you said the Mets play in New York in late March.”
“Correct.”
“And that on the first day they play in their home ballpark, they’ll be giving out schedules.”
“Correct.”
“But you said they don’t print them anymore.”
“They don’t. Except on magnets.”
“So I can just pick up a magnet that has the schedule on it?”
“Only if you go to the game on the first day. Everybody gets one.”
“What if I can’t go to the game on the first day? What if I go on the second day?”
“On the second day they’re giving out replica 1986 world championship rings.”
“That sounds great! Maybe I’ll go to that game.”
“If you want a ring, you have to be one of the first 15,000 fans.”
“One of the first 15,000 fans to what?”
“One of the first 15,000 fans to go to that game.”
“How many people might go to that game?”
“Maybe 40,000.”
“Aren’t all 40,000 going at the same time?”
“They’re all going to the same game, but they each enter the ballpark at different times.”
“And only 15,000 get replica 1986 world championship rings?”
“Only the first 15,000.”
“So if I’m holding a ticket, how would I know if I’m gonna be one of the first 15,000?”
“You won’t be holding a ticket.”
“What if buy a ticket?”
“You can buy a ticket, but you can’t hold a ticket.”
“Don’t the Mets sell tickets to their ballgames?”
“They do. Look on your phone.”
“I see. Whoa, get a load of those prices.”
“Oh, they’ll take your money in exchange for a ticket. But the ticket goes on your phone.”
“So my phone has to be one of the first 15,000 phones inside the Mets’ ballpark?”
“Only if it has a ticket on it.”
“Yet there are no guarantees I’ll get a ring?”
 Start bundling and lining up now. “Your best bet to get one is to line up early outside the Mets’ ballpark.”
“That will assure me a replica 1986 world championship ring?”
“Only if 15,000 people didn’t line up before you.”
“So I have to line up really early?”
“Correct.”
“Outside?”
“Correct.”
“In late March in New York?”
“Correct.”
“Where there’ll likely still be some of this snow on the ground?”
“Correct.”
“To go to a thing that I already paid for?”
“Correct.”
“To get a thing I might not get if 15,000 other people decided they wanted to line up even earlier?”
“Correct.”
“And if I don’t get the ring, I get what?”
“You get to see the game.”
“Because I have a ticket.”
“Not technically. But it’s on your phone.”
“OK, let’s say I’ve bought a ticket after looking at the schedule on my phone, and the ticket is on my phone, and I’ve decided to stand outside in late March in New York really early to get my replica 1986 world championship ring, which will be given to only the first 15,000 people…by the way, why don’t they hand one to everybody?”
“Because it says on the schedule they don’t.”
“Can you hand me the schedule where it says that?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s on your phone.”
“Right….”
“He won’t be playing. He’s not around anymore.”
“Don’t confuse me about that again. I just want to know that if I go on the second day the Mets are home, I might not get a ring, but I will see a ballgame.”
“If it doesn’t snow. It’s going to be in late March.”
“But if it doesn’t snow, the Mets will play a ballgame.”
“Correct.”
“And who will be on first?”
“Polanco.”
“Who’s not a first baseman.”
“Correct.”
“And who will be on third?”
“Bichette.”
“Who’s not a third baseman.”
“Correct.”
“And who will be in left?”
“Soto.”
“Who wasn’t a left fielder last year, but he has been.”
“And will be for a long time probably.”
“Probably?”
“If he doesn’t opt out. And even if he doesn’t opt out, after a while, he might become the designated hitter.”
“Where on the field will I see the designated hitter?”
“Nowhere.”
“So it’s not a real position?”
“Not really, but it is in the ballgame.”
“Who’s the Mets’ designated hitter?”
“I dunno.”
“I thought you said I dunno is in right.”
“By late March we’ll know who’s in right.”
“Who will it be?”
“Maybe Benge.”
“Maybe Benge?”
“Maybe Benge.”
“You’re suggesting I watching a whole bunch of ballgames at once like I would watch a whole bunch of episodes of a TV show I really like to find out who’s in right for the New York Mets?”
“You asked me who’s in right, so I’m telling you, maybe Benge.”
“Do they have doubleheaders for that so I can get multiple games watched at once?”
“Probably not.”
“Well, can you hand me the Mets schedule so I can check?”
“They don’t print schedules.”
“Except on a magnet.”
“Except on a magnet.”
“Which they give to everybody at the first ballgame in New York in late March.”
“Correct.”
“But they don’t print anywhere else.”
“Correct.”
“And they give out other things at other games.”
“Correct.”
“But only to the first 15,000.”
“Sometimes to the first 18,000.”
“To games that might draw more than 40,000.”
“Correct.”
“All to watch a team with somebody who’s not a first baseman on first, somebody who’s not a third baseman on third, last year’s right fielder in left, and in right…”
“Maybe Benge.”
“Benge? At the prices they charge, maybe I can go every now and then, but I’ll probably wait until the weather warms up.”
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