Let us not move into this final week before the All-Star break without acknowledging we have three All-Stars. Congratulations to Pete Alonso, Edwin Diaz and, most of all, Francisco Lindor [1]. We extend most-of-allness to Francisco because this is his first time he’ll go to an All-Star Game as a New York Met — as the NL’s starting shortstop, no less.
It took the selection process long enough, right?
Of course right. Of course there were a couple of years back there when Lindor could have represented the Mets. He had a shaky start as one of us in 2021 in terms of persona, and some slow starts in terms of performance, but numbers games have done him in too often. You know numbers games. More than a few shortstops are tearing it up. More than a few bottom-dwellers require representation. What’s the solution? Annually, it’s been let’s leave Francisco Lindor off the National League All-Star team.
Not the case this year, as the fans made sure he’d start. His smile figures to light up Atlanta. He has a recent history of lighting up Atlanta.
Realizing it took five Met seasons for Francisco to regain the status he held with Cleveland, I wondered if Lindor had waited longer than any Met in terms of Met seasons to make it to the Midsummer Classic. So I broke out the all-time All-Star Met roster and broke it down to satisfy my curiosity.
The answer is no, Francisco has not waited longer than any other Met, but he is in the upper echelon of those who’ve waited.
METS WHO FIRST MADE THE ALL-STAR TEAM AS METS IN THEIR FIRST SEASON AS METS
At the risk of having glossed over Pete Alonso’s fifth career selection, way to go Polar Bear on making it again! This is delightfully old hat for Pete. He was an All-Star as a rookie in 2019. That was an exciting season for him and, eventually, us.
Three other Mets have made the ASG ASAP as pure rookies. Tom Seaver served notice the Mets were good for more than laughs in 1967; Dwight Gooden hung out his shingle to industrywide notice in 1984; and Kodai Senga, an experienced pitcher in another land, immediately made what was considered his neophyte mark in 2023.
Two Mets barely waited to become All-Stars as Mets, as they were traded to us in May and were starring in July. Willie Mays in 1972 had been showing up at All-Star Games since 1954, so no surprise he carried the habit forward from San Francisco to New York, just as he done when he took it from New York to San Francisco. Mike Piazza had been an All-Star every season since his first full campaign in 1993, thus little wonder he glided onto the NL team in 1998, within two months of his Shea arrival. Plus, Piazza set such a good example of erstwhile Dodger/Marlin catchers remaining stellar at Shea, that Paul Lo Duca — who’d been an All-Star for L.A. once and Florida once — made it for us in his first Met season of 2006.
Richie Ashburn had the good sense to be the very first Mets All-Star representative, in 1962, the Mets’ first year, ensuring he’d chronologically lead off this category. When the man known as Whitey retired, Duke Snider came over to take on the status of Future Hall of Famer on a Godawful Team Still in its Infancy in 1963 and therefore gets credit for turning Ashburn’s solo project into a budding band.
Big off-season trades sometimes pay off in the first half of a first season as a Met. Witness Gary Carter in 1985, voted in as NL catcher the way he so often had been in Montreal. Witness as well John Franco, whose All-Star résumé from Cincinnati got burnished in New York in 1990. Free agency, forever a mixed bag, also has been known to yield occasional All-Star gold in a first Met season. The Mets made a big push to attract both Carlos Beltran and Pedro Martinez in 2005, and both made the All-Star team in 2005. Similar out-of-the-luxury-item-box success came packaged with Francisco Rodriguez in 2009 and Starling Marte in 2022. (Juan Soto in 2025? You might have thought so, but powers that be decided differently.)
Two relatively unassuming acquisitions, which is to say players who had never made an All-Star team before becoming Mets, immediately ascended to another level as Mets: Lance Johnson in 1996 and Taijuan Walker in 2021. Johnson, who played through 2000, never made another such squad, and Walker, still active, hasn’t had had his summer vacation interrupted again.
METS WHO FIRST MADE THE ALL-STAR TEAM AS METS IN THEIR SECOND SEASON AS METS
This grouping deserves asterisks and denotations, given that we’re identifying first seasons as Mets as whichever season the player first appeared as a Met, even if that means he came over in a second half; or was called up in September; or didn’t stick throughout what would have been his official rookie campaign. For simplicity’s sake, a second season as a Met is a second season as a Met.
That means that when Jerry Koosman made the All-Star team in 1968 as a rookie, we are taking into account that he also pitched in nine games in 1967. Either way, Kooz was on his way to going 19-12 in his first full season and clearly deserved his All-Star selection in The Year of the Pitcher, when competition was implicitly stiff. Jerry wound up the Rookie of the Year runner-up in ’68 to some guy on the Reds (Bench something). Similar silver-medalist honors went to Ron Hunt in 1963 when he finished behind another guy on the Reds (Rose something). Ron was rewarded fully in his second big league year by starting for the NL at second base in the 1964 All-Star Game, played at new and beautiful Shea Stadium.
A recent Rookie of the Year who’d been swapped for a previous Rookie of the Year — though we never think of the Tom Seaver trade that way — represented the Mets as an All-Star in his second Met season, his first full Met season. That mystery guest, who was just another guy on the Reds until he wound up here, was Pat Zachry, having his best Met year in 1978.
The first time fans got a gander at the name Darryl Strawberry on an All-Star ballot, in 1984, they couldn’t help themselves from electing him, having met the Met when he turned his May 1983 callup into the NL Rookie of the Year award. Darryl was joined at Candlestick that summer by somebody he became a teammate of in June 1983, Keith Hernandez.
Dave Kingman slugged his way into the hearts of Mets-lovers in 1975, but it took until 1976 for him to speak softly and carry his big stick to the All-Star Game. Another couple of belters would pick up an ASG designation in their second Met seasons as well: Bobby Bonilla in “we’ve gotta take someone” 1993 and Yoenis Cespedes in 2016. Bobby Bo’s first Met year of 1992 imploded. Yo’s, in 2015, exploded, but didn’t start at Citi until August 1. Another August debuter, rookie Jeff McNeil, began making enough of a splash in 2018 to earn his league’s attention and win selection in 2019.
David Cone was a stealth steal in 1987, an All-Star in 1988. Frank Viola was a trade-deadline get in 1989, an All-Star in 1990. Nobody saw Rick Reed coming in 1997. His arc continued to All-Star status in 1998. T#m Gl@vine grew comfortable enough to resemble his old Brave self in his second Met season of 2004. Another free agent lefty, one T#m can chat up at Cooperstown later this month, got into the All-Star groove in 2007 as a Met. Welcome to the Hall of Fame now and your first All-Star berth that was of interest to us then, Billy Wagner.
Here’s to a few pitchers you wouldn’t have bet against making the Hall when they were making their first Met All-Star teams in their second Met seasons. Johan Santana was recognized as ASG material in 2009, having been so designated three times prior for Minnesota. (Shame on BBWAA voters’ shortsightedness in not deliberating more than one winter on Johan.) Matt Harvey held the world in his right hand after his tantalizing 2012 debut and built on that momentum through the first half of 2013, all the way to the mound at Citi Field where started Queens’ second-ever All-Star Game. Noah Syndergaard had wrested ace responsibilities on the Mets in his second season in 2016, his first full season after a pretty promising 2015 break-in.
And speaking of promise, how about 2014 National League Rookie of the Year Jacob deGrom serving as the only the representative from 2015’s NL pennant-winners? DeGrom has been named to his fifth All-Star Game, his first as something other than a Met. Based on how he’s pitching in 2025, the Hall of Fame isn’t out of the question for Jake’s future. (Racking up a few more wins would be helpful to his cause but that’s not our problem anymore.)
METS WHO FIRST MADE THE ALL-STAR TEAM AS METS IN THEIR THIRD SEASON AS METS
The Mets stole a young defensive gem of a catcher from the Astros ahead of 1966. By 1968, that backstop, Jerry Grote was an All-Star. In 1975, Grote’s heir apparent would make his first appearances behind the Met plate. Come 1977, John Stearns would be another All-Star Met catcher. Ron Darling grew from exciting September 1983 callup to July 1985 National League All-Star, just as Sid Fernandez needed a little less than a two-year span to leap from callup (July 1984) to All-Star (July 1986). Man, we’ve had some pretty good catching and pitching.
Bret Saberhagen had problems staying healthy as a Met when he arrived from Kansas City for the 1992 season. All that stopped him in 1994 was the strike. Fortunately, the All-Star Game, with him named to it, came before ball ceased being played. Al Leiter was on his way to an All-Star pick in 1998 when a DL stint derailed his selection. He got what had been coming to him all along in 2000. Inevitability was always on the side of 2004 callup David Wright; it had its day when David made his first of myriad All-Star teams in 2006.
No Met story ever carried more element of surprise than that of R.A. Dickey, who journeyed to us as a journeyman in 2010 and made the trip to Kansas City as an All-Star for us in 2012. No Met’s story seemed to get more embellished than that of an ageless stalwart turned absolute legend named Bartolo Colon. Being a Met in 2014 made being Bartolo something else altogether, including being an All-Star in 2016. Few Met stories got off to a more portentous start than the one we thought was being written by Michael Conforto. Up in 2015 one year after he was our first-round draft pick, he was in the World Series within a few months and on the NL All-Star team in his third season, 2017. Things haven’t quite clicked for Scooter since leaving New York, but being a Dodger isn’t a bad consolation prize.
METS WHO FIRST MADE THE ALL-STAR TEAM AS METS IN THEIR FOURTH SEASON AS METS
Among those Mets who made their first All-Star teams as Mets in their fourth Met season is someone who is making his second All-Star team as a Met this season, Edwin Diaz. It’s so nice to see him back where he belongs. Only eight Met relievers have ever been named All-Stars, and only three have been named All-Stars as Mets twice. In that little cohort, Diaz has gone longest between selections. True, it’s only three years since his initial Met selection in 2022, but after he missed 2023 and groped for his form in 2024, it feels even longer.
Ed Kranepool’s first Met season consisted of three September games in 1962, but that sprinkling meant we’d forever refer to Ed as someone who was a part of the Mets from practically the beginning and forever. Hell, he was only 17 when he came up. In what therefore qualifies as his fourth season, 1965, Ed fulfilled the prognostications of stardom — or All-Stardom — that surrounded a kid who rose to the majors when he was so incredibly young. Hell, he was only 20 when he made the All-Stars. Another youngster, a 19-year-old named Jose Reyes, bowed as a Met in 2003. He had to persevere until a month past his 23rd birthday to make his first All-Star team as a Met, in 2006. (He’d make three more.)
Jon Matlack got some innings in amid the middle of 1971; won the NL Rookie of the Year award in 1972; excelled during the postseason of 1973; and got noticed in Midsummer Classic fashion for the first time in 1974 (he’d be noticed the next two Julys as well). Lee Mazzilli ousted Dave Parker’s Pirates from the NL East pennant race when Mazz was a September callup in 1976. Parker got his revenge by nabbing the All-Star Game MVP in 1979 despite Lee making a valuable case for himself that night in Seattle (game-tying homer; tiebreaking RBI walk). The bigger point is Lee Mazzilli made the All-Star team alongside the likes of Parker in a year when there was little stellar about the Mets.
Another young Met who was on the sad Shea scene in ’79, only to spend the next season in the minors, made it back to the majors to stay in 1981…and stuck around the bigs through 2003. But Jesse Orosco was at his best in his fourth Met/MLB season, making his first of two All-Star teams, not to mention finishing third in the NL’s Cy Young balloting. After 1984, Jesse would go about his business without any outsize honors. Somehow he survived.
METS WHO FIRST MADE THE ALL-STAR TEAM AS METS IN THEIR FIFTH SEASON AS METS
We don’t know if they bestow Mets Five-Timers Club smoking jackets when a player plays in his fifth season as a Met, but we do know six Mets had to wait until their fifth season as Mets to make an All-Star team as a Met. We’ve already Met Francisco Lindor in this regard. Now it’s time to meet his five predecessors.
In the wake of the Midnight Massacre of June 15, 1977, when we were trying to sort out the damage of having traded nine-time Met All-Star Tom Seaver and his 1976 All-Star teammate Dave Kingman, we may not taken stock of the infielder-outfielder we’d acquired in the evening’s quietest trade. From St. Louis came Joel Youngblood. Youngblood would play for the Mets the rest of 1977; all of 1978; all of 1979; and all of 1980. In 1981, he’d play like an All-Star and get recognized for it, right after the strike that pushed the Midsummer Classic into August. When you’ve waited five seasons, what’s another month?
Howard Johnson played like an All-Star in 1987, but the defending world champions, despite their troubles, were loaded with names bigger (if not more colorful) than HoJo’s, so Johnson, who’d been a big bat for the Mets since 1985, had to wait until 1989 to be called an All-Star. He was also called the NL All-Star starting third baseman, in deference to both his gaudy first-half numbers and the fact that perennial electee Mike Schmidt had just retired.
Fresno always could be counted on to produce All-Star Met pitchers. Well, there was Tom Seaver, which should be enough for any Mets fan’s lifetime, but then there was Bobby Jones. Seaver comparisons may stretch the limits of geographical commonality, but Jones, who made his Met debut in August 1993, steadily worked his way toward acedom by 1997, when a spectacular couple of months catapulted him onto his first (and only) All-Star staff.
You know who could be really unhittable? The same pitcher you learned also had a way of missing the strike zone, or leaving the ball over a little too much the plate. Still, when he was on, Armando Benitez absolutely had All-Star stuff. In the middle of 2003, nobody else on the Mets was showing much of that (which is to say Piazza was injured), so Armando, who’d been striking out batters and giving up enormous hits at prodigious rates since 1999, made his first All-Star team. The Mets were so impressed with his status that they traded him before the break was over.
A Met closer who also displayed a degree of feast-or-famine was in feast mode come 2016, his fifth season as a Met. Jeurys Familia earned his way onto his first All-Star team that year, and with his manager at the helm of the NL squad, no way he wouldn’t get to pitch in baseball’s showcase event. Except Terry Collins didn’t use Familia, or, for various reasons, any of the other Mets — Syndergaard, Cespedes, Colon — named that summer. No, I’m not still incredibly ticked off about that.
METS WHO FIRST MADE THE ALL-STAR TEAM AS METS IN THEIR SIXTH SEASON AS METS
Cleon Jones sipped from the last pot of coffee ever brewed at the Polo Grounds in 1963; went back to the minors for all of 1964; set foot in Shea’s outfield for the first time in 1965; settled in as a starter in 1966; and grew into an All-Star in 1969, his sixth season wearing a Mets uniform. From time to time on social media, I’ll see a photo of that year’s NL All-Star starters lined up. Hank Aaron is there. Willie McCovey is there. Johnny Bench is there. And my reaction is always the same: “Cleon Jones and others.”
Another youngster who’d begin getting reps in the mid-1960s — 1965, in his case — would begin proving Casey Stengel had been a prophet when he touted that the perpetually downtrodden Mets would one day rise on the wings of the Youth of America. That day would be 1969. The year after, that youngster who’d been around since ’65, Bud Harrelson would make the 1970 NL All-Star team. In 1971, Buddy would be its starting shortstop.
Another infielder who knew what he was doing needed six season to ascertain that everybody outside New York knew what he was up to. Edgardo Alfonzo was a part-timer upon his 1995 debut. He was a full-timer by 1997 and, if we’re being truthful, a star-level third baseman. Yet it took until 2000, and a switch to second base, for Fonzie to gain the recognition we knew he deserved. Like Lindor, Edgardo would tip his cap as a Met All-Star in Atlanta.
Then there’s Murph. Daniel Murphy didn’t have a position, per se, when he broke in as a 2008 Met. He didn’t have much luck in 2010, getting injured in spring (and again while rehabbing in the minors) and missing the entire season. In 2011, he came back and began to work out at second base. He soon took over the job. Murph hit more than he fielded, but he fielded enough to keep on hitting. By 2014, he was a good enough hitter on a ballclub where nobody else was particularly excelling (deGrom was just getting going), that he became that season’s lone Met All-Star. Daniel’s boldest Met mark would be made in 2015, particularly its postseason, but let the record show that Murph was a Met All-Star, six seasons in the making.
METS WHO FIRST MADE THE ALL-STAR TEAM AS METS IN THEIR SEVENTH SEASON AS METS
Two Mets waited longer than any Mets to be named All-Stars. One was All-Star caliber previous to attaining his nod, but his position didn’t usually inspire managers when it came to filling out rosters. The other slogged along before bursting through. Together, they compose the battery of Mets who waited the longest to be Met All-Stars.
Tug McGraw first came up in 1965. He beat Sandy Koufax in August. There wasn’t a lot else to be excited about in terms of results that year, not for the Mets and not for the ebullient lefty. Starting wasn’t going to be his bag, so, after spending 1968 in the minors, Gil Hodges judged him a late-innings specialist. Beginning in 1969, Tug was really good at it. Come 1972, the impact firemen like McGraw were making couldn’t be any longer ignored, and he was named to his first All-Star team and was the game’s winning pitcher.
Todd Hundley was up for a bit in 1990, didn’t stick until 1991, and didn’t maintain undisputed hold of the starting catcher’s role until 1993. He began to hit for power in 1994 and average in 1995. In 1996, Todd put everything together and earned his first All-Star berth, backing up Mike Piazza in Piazza’s hometown of Philadelphia. Mike won MVP honors at that year’s All-Star Game, but Mets fans hardly noticed him when we had Hundley to swoon over. Had we been told how we’d view the world just two years later, we wouldn’t have believed it.
Situations can change quickly or slowly. Sometimes it takes two months for a Met to become an All-Star, sometimes it takes a seventh season. But once someone is named a Met All-Star, you always get to say, “hey, that guy was an All-Star for us.” With Lindor making this year’s team, that can now be said of 63 Met players across 64 Met seasons. Some of those fellas made it multiple times, but there’s no time like the first time, however long that first time takes.