25 for 25: Mets
by Solanus on Jul 29, 2010 11:30 PM EDT
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PrintI am actually a St. Louis Cardinals fan, but over the past few months I've been working on a roster for each franchise in the National League, composed of players over the last 25 years. The way this works is that I pick one player from each season and I have to fill out an entire roster (2 catchers, 2 infielders at each position, 6 total outfielders, 5 starting pitchers, 4 relievers). I can't take more than one player for each year, I have to take one player each season even in the bad years, and I can't use the same player for multiple positions. If a player played the majority of his games at one position, I can't use that season for another position even if he's played it before. And I used basically minimums of 60 innings or 250 PA's (prorated for strike seasons).
The interesting part with this are the decisions that have to be made, whether it is, "Dang there are some really nice outfielder seasons to choose from, who gets left out?", or, "Does this team even have two decent catchers in a 25-year span?", or, "This guy had so many great years - which one do I choose?" Sometimes a great year gets left out, sometimes a fluke, partial season gets tabbed for the team.
I actually posted the entire National League East on the SB Nation site Viva El Birdos (I will post the other divisions later), as well as an extended version for the Cardinals from 1910 to 1934 and (eventually) a post just like this at all of the other NL sites. You're welcome to pick apart my choices and make suggestions of your own. I'm looking forward to hearing from everybody.
C – Gary Carter (1986), Mike Piazza (2001)
1B – Keith Hernandez (1987), John Olerud (1998)
2B – Edgardo Alfonzo (2000), Luis Castillo (2009)
3B – Howard Johnson (1989), David Wright (2007)
SS – Jose Vizcaino (1995), Jose Reyes (2008)
OF – Darryl Strawberry (1988), Bobby Bonilla (1993), Bernard Gilkey (1996), Roger Cedeno (1999), Cliff Floyd (2005), Carlos Beltran (2006)
SP – Dwight Gooden (1985), Frank Viola (1990), David Cone (1991), Sid Fernandez (1992), Bret Saberhagen (1994)
RP – John Franco (1997), Armando Benitez (2002), David Weathers (2003), Braden Looper (2004)
Notable exceptions: Todd Hundley (1996), Dave Magadan (1990), Jose Valentin (2006), Kevin Elster (1989), Lenny Dykstra (1986), Kevin McReynolds (1988), Lance Johnson (1996), Al Leiter (1998), Mike Hampton (2000), Tom Glavine (2004), Pedro Martinez (2005), Johan Santana (2008), Jesse Orosco (1986), Randy Myers (1988)
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As far as I'm concerned, 2009 never existed.
2010: Year of the Grission
In My World, There Is No Such Thing As Off-Topic!
Criticisms from the fan perspective.
C – Nailed it.
1B – Good job again, no comment.
2B – Just get rid of Castillo. Srsly. Just get rid of him. No one is going to argue this with me. Maybe Valentin, especially because he was on fire before an injury killed his effort.
SS- Right again.
3B – In terms of stats you are probably correct, but Ray Knight in 86 was more that a 3d baseman. He kicked Eric Davis’ ass, for one thing, and in his own weird way defined the team.
OF – Bonilla is on here. Nails (86) is not. Bonilla is hated by Mets fans for a reason. The fact that I would let my sister date modern-day Lenny notwithstanding his financial collapse is telling.
P – Oddly, I have few complaints, but the exclusion of Leiter and Pedro at their peaks surprised me. I believe it might have to do with the artificially low W totals for each due to era, style of management, and plain old bad luck.
RP – Good, but the combination of Jesse Orosco and Roger McDowell in 86 was greater than the sum of its parts. In the Eric Davis game referenced above so many Mets were ejected due to the brawl that Roger and Jesse platooned between the mound and RF.
All in all I think the list is well-researched and thought out, and usually correct, but there are some nuances that only long-term die-hard fans can understand (i.e. Bonilla).
by MookieTheCat on Jul 30, 2010 1:25 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
How many guys are you going to have for the '86 team?
You can only have one, so if you want Dykstra, you end pulling Carter in favor of Hundley and you drop Gilkey – that might work, but you lose Carter. Or unless you want to drop HoJo or Wright, you can’t have Knight. And relievers are mostly there to fill in gaps (although I did look out for Franco, who had many good seasons).
As for Castillo and Bonilla, they are there to complete the roster because somebody needed to be there for those seasons. Other than being a great Pirate, the best thing Bobby Bo ever did was get hurt so the Cardinals could play Pujols, but he was the best player on a bad ’93 team.
The pitchers were chosen based more around WARP1 and ERA+. I barely even looked at wins.
I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man's destruction of forests. Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. - Calvin, Scientific Progress Goes "Boink", Watterson
Oh sorry about that...
Didn’t realize it had to be one guy from each year (“I always miss some kind of mundane detail”). Seems kind of a strange methodology to me, but if that’s the rules I guess I can go with your choices, except get rid of Bonilla and just pick anyone else from that team. Frankly, I think that rule turns it into more of an LSAT problem than player analysis.
Um well only one player from each year is real tough
Can’t really complain because by only picking one player per year what else can you do, hard to see if you made the right picks because changing one player needs multiple corresponding moves. I think you should have done this by allowing multiple picks per season, interesting stuff though.
That kinda defeats the purpose of the exercise
If you want to come up with a best of the last 25 years sort of thing, go for it. But the 25 for 25 exercise is sort of like the All-Star game – everybody gets represented, no matter how bad they are. (Not that I want to start up a free-for-all about the ASG.)
I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man's destruction of forests. Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. - Calvin, Scientific Progress Goes "Boink", Watterson
This is a really interesting idea
And, without looking in depth into the yearly stats, I’d say you pretty much nailed it. Carter’s ‘86 was not as good as his ’85 or Hundley’s ‘96 or ’97, but there’s no way you can not take Gooden from ‘85, and Gilkey was flat-out awesome in ’96. I might have taken Hundley’s ‘97 instead of Franco, and then a reliever from ’86, but from a sentimental point of view it would be tough to justify leaving Franco off the team, and taking a reliever from the only championship team would be pretty bad, so I think ultimately your choice is the best (and besides, with Piazza you’re not gonna need that backup catcher too often).
The problem for a team like the Mets is how many of their good players/seasons are bunched up in the mid-80’s, late-90’s, and ‘06-’08, with a lot of crap in between. I’m definitely gonna check out some of your other teams too, to see how they compare.
2009 Did Not Happen
Exactly right.
The Mets tend to have short-term solid teams interspersed with long periods of cycling of crappy players into even crapper combinations. This makes this hard.
I would replace Bobby Bo 1993
with Kent 1993, then get Santana in that 2009 spot even though he got hurt that year, I would switch looper for cameron in 2004, then take out saberhagen and replace him with Franco.
I looked more at total career with the Mets then how well they did in those years specifically.
Saberhagen was fantastic in '94
He was 14-4 with a 5.4 WARP1 in 24 starts (compared to Johan at 13-9 & 4.9 WARP1 in 25 starts).
Jeff Kent had a WARP1 of 0.6 (due to being 19 runs below averaged defensively); Castillo was at 2.1.
Cameron was decent, roughly equal to Bonilla, but you’re using him to replace Looper for 2004, whose roster spot will in turn be filled by Franco, who is already on the team.
It’s good that you put some thought into it & this whole process does allow you to get rid of three guys (Bonilla, Looper, Castillo) that don’t have a lot of fans on this site, but you’re ultimately making the team worse, even before you figure out what to do with Franco.
I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man's destruction of forests. Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. - Calvin, Scientific Progress Goes "Boink", Watterson
I was using more career WAR with the mets more then individual seasons
Kent is about 7 while Castillo is more like 3.5. I got WAR from fangraphs. Same for Santana/saberhagen after this season they will likely have equal career WAR with the Mets 11.5ish. 94 saberhagen was sick.
I’ll try again by your rules.
I’ll take Jeff Kent ‘95 3.0 WAR over Vizcano .7 WAR.
I’ll take 2009 Feliciano .6 WAR over Castillo 1.5 WAR.
Then put 1999 Rey Ordonez 3.3 WAR over Roger Cedeno 1.8 WAR
Finally add 2004 Cameron 3.5 WAR over 2004 Looper 1.7 WAR
The only position that we downgraded was relief pitching.
How did you take Vizcano over Kent form that 95 team?
Vizcaino came out as a 4.9 WARP1
According to BP, with Kent at 2.9. Baseball-Reference has Vizcaino at 1.0 for WAR that year, with the big difference being fielding numbers. Looks like you’re using the numbers off Fangraphs as they have him at 0.7 WAR.
I guess Baseball Prospectus values things differently, causing the discrepancy you see here. I’m sure if you look at this roster throught the prism of Fangraphs you’ll find a few more disagreements. It might make more sense to pull up these three variants for my research for the AL teams yet to go. Good catch.
I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man's destruction of forests. Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. - Calvin, Scientific Progress Goes "Boink", Watterson
I was looking on BP
and there are some big defensive differences from fangraphs and BR. Do you know how they calculate the FRAP on BP. On BP they have David Wright as the best defensive player on the Mets, while on both FG and BR they have Pagan. FG uses UZR, baseball reference used total zone, those are similar metrics for calculating defense. Does BP use +/-?
I am guessing you had to choose someone from 2009
and there was slim pickings, so I understand why you ended up with Luis, but, I hate that guy.
I like Ike, I hate Jerry
And just think
Jerry would still only manage this team to third place…
Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose : it's how drunk you get.
off the top of my head without looking at stats
drop Castillo for Backman
drop Vizciano for Elster
drop Cedeno for Johnson
drop Viola for Leiter
Drop Armando for Orosco
by Rickfansince76 on Jul 31, 2010 11:48 AM EDT reply actions
I did this a while back
C: Piazza 99 Hundley 97
1B Murray 93 Olerud 98
2b: Alfonzo 99 Backman 86
SS: Reyes 06,
3B: Wright 07 Bonilla 94 HoJo 91
OF: Beltran 09, Gilkey 96, Darryl 87
SP: Santana 08, Cone 88, Gooden 85, Hampton 00, Fernandez 92
RP: Franco 90, Weathers 03, Stanton 04, Aguilera 89, Benitez 02
Yes, I ended up starting Eddie Murray and couldn’t really come up with anyone for 95. I guess young Everett or something.
Wooh boy....
I’m glad you qualified the Eddie Murray choice at the end. I had my eyes crossed when I read that choice. He was great in his prime for the O’s but turrible in 93.
not bad I pretty much agree with Willn's list except:
my team would look like:
C: Piazza 99, Hundley (97) or hundley 96, what a year he had!*
1b: Murray 93, Olreud 98
2b: Alfonzo (00), Backman 86
Ss: Reyes (07), Jose Vizcaino (95) only because I have to
3b: Wright (09), Hojo (91)
OF: Beltran (06), Gilkey (96), Straw (87)
SP: Santana (08), Pedro Martinez (05), Gooden (85), Cone (88), El Sid (92)
RP: Franco (90), Weathers (03), Stanton (04), Aguilera (89), Dennis Cook (98).
- I took Wright’s 09 season mainly because I really think Pedro’s 05 season should be acknowledged!
I love Keith Hernandez, but I despise Luis Castillo more, and Wally Backman was awesome.
I was so tempted to take Randy Myers’ kick butt season in 1988, but I just can’t ignore one my favorite all-time Mets (David Cone) and his spectacular year! :)
.
"Fantasy, reality, science Fiction. Which is which? Who can tell?"
Wright '09?
"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"
Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.
by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Jul 31, 2010 10:51 PM EDT up reply actions
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