What a spectacular top of the first inning in Philadelphia Thursday night! And what a moving eight innings of respectful silence in the top halves of each frame that followed.
That was pretty much that where the current Mets were concerned in their sixth consecutive loss [1]. Thus, let us turn our attention to Mets of yore. As Saturday at Citi Field will feature the Alumni Classic (a mini-Old Timers Day), it seems a fine time to issue our wholly arbitrary Mets Alumni Power Rankings.
1. Harrison Bader
I’ve only paid close attention to Harrison Bader when he was a Met in 2024 and when he’s played against the Mets in 2025. When he played for the Mets in 2024, Bader was an endearing character and a spry defensive asset. Also, he showed himself the speediest of Jewish Mets ever, certainly the most productive on the basepaths. Bader stole 17 bases in 2024, his one and only year among us. Every other Met with some “Chosen People” pedigree (14, including pitchers) combined to grab 25 bags in toto. This was one of those things I tracked out of a certain degree of cultural pride; I was a pretty plodding Jew when I attempted to run from first to second in my youth, and it gave me nachas to see someone who wasn’t. As 2024 wore on, however, Bader stopped stealing many bases because he stopped reaching base. Tyrone Taylor took over center field on a full-time basis, elbowing Bader to enthusiastic benchwarmer, and when he moved on to Minnesota in the offseason, I don’t recall a rending of orange and blue garments. In 2025, in April as a benign Twin and this month as a vengeful Phillie, Bader slashed .528/.564/.778 over nine games. Bader transcends Met-kiiler Old Friend™ status. He’s Travis d’Arnaud times Daniel Murphy to the power of that time Wayne Garrett took Tom Seaver deep [2]. Kyle Schwarber may have hit 50 home runs this season and Jesus Luzardo may have proven himself capable of mowing down 22 batters in a row (I forget against which team), but given how the Phillies have surged since acquiring Bader, I can’t imagine Harrison isn’t their MVP. Honestly, I don’t want to imagine a whole lot about the Phillies, as I’ve seen them enough in real life. On the plus side, Bader attempted three stolen bases against the Mets this season and was successful only once.
2. Jacob deGrom
Tucked away in Texas, Jacob deGrom wasn’t likely going to come back to haunt us unless we crossed paths with him in the World Series…is what I would have guessed when he bolted Flushing for Arlington in December 2022. Silly me, I forgot (or try to forget) about Interleague play, but even with that pox on our schedule, what were the odds we’d face the most accomplished Met pitcher of the past quarter-century in the September of his renaissance season with a whole lot on the line? Cash in your ticket if you said they were viable. Jake, who takes on one of the future versions of himself in Jonah Tong tonight, has thrown 155.2 innings, more than in any year since 2019, and carries an ERA of 2.78, which is absurdly high compared to what he was doing for us at the peak of his deGreatness (1.94 from ’18 through ’21), but good enough for fourth in the AL. Yeah, Jake is back in every sense of the word. We’ll see if the Mets have figured out how to score when he’s on the Citi Field mound.
3. Jim Marshall
Jim Marshall [3] was the oldest living Met ever until he passed away last Sunday at 94 years and a few months old. He drew a bit of attention as his final birthday approached in May, with the Mets joining with the Diamondbacks to present Jim with a jersey prior to one of their games at Chase Field, which the Arizona resident was fortunately able to attend. Jim made a Met jersey game-used on April 11, 1962, and lived longer thereafter than anybody else on the visitors’ side of the box score to tell about it, which is to say nobody is left from that inaugural contest in franchise history — and only six 1962 Mets are still with us. Marshall never betrayed any bitterness over the Mets letting him go early amid the remarkable story they were writing, trading him within a month of the team’s debut. Nor did he shy from sharing with a smile his status as the first Met ever booed by the home crowd (folks trekking to the Polo Grounds for the Manhattan opener were not pleased to find him rather than Gil Hodges in the starting lineup, Hodges’s balky knee not being their problem). In June, when Howie Kussoy of the Post caught up with the handful of Original and Original-ish Mets he could track down, Jim had this to say for the likes of us: “It was a special place, a special time. It was unlike anywhere else I had ever been. They treated us great. Everyone was so enthusiastic. I could never forget all that.”
[4]4. Jim Bethke
Sometimes word about an old Met leaving us doesn’t seep out for a few months or even a few years. In the case of Jim Bethke [5], word of his death in June made the rounds only this past week. To call the 1946-born Bethke an “old” Met is counterintuitive, as he remains and almost surely will remain the youngest pitcher in Mets history. (The next pitcher after him to debut for the Mets: their oldest, Warren Spahn.) The first Baby Boomer to play as a Met made the team out of Spring Training in 1965 less than six months after his 18th birthday and pitched the final inning on Opening Day. Jim had two wins and no losses in front of him in ’65, his only year in the bigs. Roster machinations landed him in the minors (sound familiar?) and he never made it back. Eventually, Bethke’s life proceeded on a different track. He hooked up with Union Pacific and, according to his obituary [6], worked “diligently” as an engineer.
5. Ed Kranepool
Bethke may have been the youngest of Met pitchers, but only Ed Kranepool could have claimed to have played for the Mets as a 17-year-old. Only Ed Kranepool could have claimed a lot of things Metwise, and they all would have been accurate. We just passed the one-year anniversary of Ed’s death, and I realized, as I was putting Bethke’s youth into Met-historical context, that it felt good to think about Ed Kranepool again, if only for a minute. Ed was so much a part of the larger Met narrative, that during the 45 years he lived as a Met alumnus, he leaped to mind as a matter of course, just as he was regularly interviewed for his reflections on 1962 or 1969 or any number of Met themes. Even in those years when he engaged in a cold war with previous ownership, he was always around the ballpark or making appearances in the area, never not, in his way, the Met among Mets. I miss that presence.
6. Art Shamsky
For as long as he’s making himself available, I appreciate Art Shamsky’s presence. Art didn’t come up as a Met, didn’t wind down his career as a Met, and was a member of the Mets for only four seasons, yet he has emerged over time as the face of the 1969 Mets. Art lives in New York, understands the media (having worked in it himself) and clearly relishes his role as primary griot for the Miracle of Miracles. SNY aired a documentary about Canyon of Heroes parades the other night, one I clicked off after the processions of 1969 and 1986 were dutifully covered. Bearing witness to all of that confetti from 56 years before were three Mets who knew what it felt like to have it fall on their heads: Art, Ron Swoboda, and Duffy Dyer. Dyer was a surprise, Swoboda less so, Shamsky not at all. He’s always out front, reminding the generation who experienced it how wonderful it all was and convincing the generations who didn’t see it that it was really something. His latest book [7], Mets Stories I Only Tell My Friends, co-authored by my friend Matthew Silverman, serves a similar purpose. This volume, unlike his previous two, isn’t completely focused on 1969, but it’s obviously the center of the action. Though the title hints at a certain salaciousness, it’s all good, clean fun, with nothing racier than the night Art and Ken Boswell broke curfew and hoped Gil Hodges wouldn’t find out about it. The book follows Art into broadcasting as well as his foray into managing in the quickly defunct Israel Baseball League; in case you’re wondering, Art stole four bases in his four years as a Met.
[8]7. Ike Davis
Also in case you’re wondering, the holder of the Jewish Met stolen base record prior to Harrison Bader was noted non-speedster Ike Davis, with seven between 2010 and 2014. I seem to recall Keith Hernandez referring to his heir at first base as a truck horse, but stick around long enough, you’ll get your opportunities to run. Ike surpassed Elliott Maddox, who swiped six, as he eclipsed Shamsky’s four. Kevin Pillar got on the board with four bags in 2021. David Newhan had two in 2007. Norm Sherry, Shawn Green, and Josh Satin each had one. Ike and Josh will be among those back for the Alumni Classic, which is beautiful, as it is knowing so many from the 2010s and 2000s will be on hand despite many of them not being parts of teams that ring bells the way 1969 does when Art Shamsky brings up that singular season. Heck, I don’t even mind that what we’ll call the Ike Davis Era is now distant enough to qualify as quite a while ago. Time has unmatched speed from first to home.
8. Todd Zeile
Several Mets alumni who were here in September 2001 were at a firehouse in September 2025. If it’s late summer, there are Mets or former Mets visiting firefighters, letting them know the Mets as an organization will never lose sight of their devotion to their city. This week, it was Todd Zeile, Al Leiter, John Franco, and their manager Bobby Valentine doing the honors. It’s been 24 years since the attacks of September 11th. The memory of those who were lost, especially those who were lost trying to keep others from being lost, can’t be honored enough. The Mets continually make good on their pledge to Never Forget [9]. Zeile sticks out among his similarly dedicated teammates to me because, à la Shamsky, he wasn’t really a Met for that long. We had him in 2000 and 2001 and got him back in 2004. He famously played for seemingly everybody in his sixteen-season career. He came up with the Cardinals. But he has made himself a Met beyond all else, whether it’s as go-to spokesman for the Subway Series Mets or someone who will always share, when asked, what it was like to be a Met in those tragic weeks of September 2001. It helps that he landed at SNY as the lead postgame analyst, where I think he’s made himself essential to the Met-viewing experience. He’s as honest as he can be within reason in criticizing the Mets when they deserve it (he came pretty close to cursing after they lost their sixth in a row) and he wears his Metsiness pretty close to his sleeve when they win, which is something they need to do more of. As a Met and a Met broadcaster, Todd as persuaded me he is more than someone who just passed through. He’s one of us.
[10]9. Benny Agbayani
Benny Agbayani will be among the returning Mets alumni this weekend. Like Al Leiter, he has a son playing professional baseball. Bruin Agbayani is in the Twins organization after being drafted just this year. Maybe because Al was on the major league scene long before Benny, or because nearly everybody in his family has made a name in baseball, the fact the team the Mets will be playing this weekend includes somebody named Jack Leiter doesn’t faze me. Yet the idea that Benny Agbayani’s kid is working his way up the minors seems shocking. Didn’t Benny just show up here late in the 1990s and exhibit legendary amounts of Hawaiian punch? Weren’t we just serenading him as Be-NEE? Wasn’t that…holy crap, that was more than 25 years ago. Anyway, you can catch the doings of Benny and Bruin and, for that matter, Bobby V via Tim Britton in The Athletic here [11]. But try not to toss the article to a fan in the stands as soon you catch it.
Power rankings should probably contain ten entries, but given what the Mets have been doing lately, coming up short seems appropriate.
[12]If you find yourself in the vicinity of Levittown on Long Island this Monday, September 15, at noon, drop on by the Levittown Public Library for some Mets talk with yours truly. Information here [13].