In celebration of the inane hogwashery that is today's Hall of Fame voting at the jittery hands of the BBWAA, Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index is free for everyone this week, registered user or nay. Of course, as a loyal paying customer I expect that my 2% refund for this free week will be arriving in my mailbox any day now.

The possibilities of the Play Index are virtually limitless, with its applications ranging from rudimentary to esoteric. For example, you can get a list of the most homeruns in a season for a Met:

Player	HR	Year
Carlos Beltran	41	2006
Todd Hundley	41	1996
Mike Piazza	49	1999
Darryl Strawberry	39	1988
Darryl Strawberry	39	1987

Or, the most times on base in a season:

Player	TOB	Year
John Olerud	309	1999
John Olerud	297	1998
David Wright	296	2007
Edgardo Alfonzo	279	1999
Edgardo Alfonzo	276	2000

Is it any wonder that Olerud is my favorite all-time Met? The guy was simply an on-base machine. His 125 walks in 1999 are a Met record by a mile:

Player	BB	Year
John Olerud	125	1999
Darryl Strawberry	97	1987
Keith Hernandez	97	1984
John Olerud	96	1998
Carlos Beltran	95	2006

Those are easy ones. What if we wanted to know all of the Mets who have accrued 30 homeruns, doubles and steals in a season. Well, PI can tell us:

Player	HR	2B	SB	Year
Darryl Strawberry	39	32	36	1987
Howard Johnson	38	34	30	1991
Howard Johnson	36	34	41	1989
David Wright	30	42	34	2007

David Wright joined some pretty Elite (for the Mets) company last year, as it turns out. I guess we kind of already knew that, but now we have more evidence to that point.

In addition to its seasonal tools, PI also lets you search for individual games given specific criteria. Let's say you wanted to know how many Mets have ever clocked three homeruns in a game:

Player	Date	Opp
Jose Reyes	8/15/2006	@PHI
Edgardo Alfonzo	8/30/1999	@HOU
Gary Carter	9/3/1985	@SDP
Darryl Strawberry	8/5/1985	@CHC
Claudell Washington	6/22/1980	@LAD
Dave Kingman	6/4/1976	@LAD
Jim Hickman	9/3/1965	@STL

Only seven Mets have ever accomplished the feat, the most recent being Jose Reyes at CBP two years ago. Interestingly, none of the seven games were played at Shea, and (not so surprisingly) the Mets won six of the seven.

We can also use PI to find batting streaks, such as the most consecutive games safely reaching base:

Player	# Games	Year(s)
John Olerud	47	1998-1999
David Wright	35	2006-2007
Jose Vizcaino	32	1995-1996
Darryl Strawberry	32	1987
Keith Hernandez	32	1983

Jose Vizcaino is the only surprising name here, and it's no shock to see Olerud's name atop this list as well.

This is just a small sample of the things you can do with PI. There are similar tools for pitchers, which I will dive into later on.

Player	G	Sv	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	HBP	WP	ERA	K9	BB9	HR9
John Maine	2	0	9.1	17	11	11	2	4	15	0	0	10.61	14.46	3.86	1.93
Oliver Perez	1	0	8.0	6	2	1	0	0	8	0	0	1.12	9.00	0.00	0.00
Michael Pelfrey	1	0	5.0	9	3	3	0	3	4	0	1	5.40	7.20	5.40	0.00
Tom Glavine	1	0	5.0	11	4	4	1	1	3	0	0	7.20	5.40	1.80	1.80
Pedro Martinez	1	0	5.0	8	4	3	0	2	7	0	0	5.40	12.60	3.60	0.00
Aaron Heilman	5	0	5.0	4	2	2	0	2	2	1	0	3.60	3.60	3.60	0.00
Guillermo Mota	4	0	4.1	3	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0.00	4.15	0.00	0.00
Jorge Sosa	4	0	4.1	6	4	4	0	2	2	0	0	8.31	4.15	4.15	0.00
Scott Schoeneweis	5	2	4.0	2	4	3	1	1	4	0	0	6.75	9.00	2.25	2.25
Brian Lawrence	1	0	3.1	6	4	4	0	1	3	0	0	10.80	8.10	2.70	0.00
Joe Smith	4	0	3.1	4	2	2	1	1	4	0	0	5.40	10.80	2.70	2.70
Pedro Feliciano	4	0	2.0	4	3	3	0	2	3	0	0	13.50	13.50	9.00	0.00
Billy Wagner	2	0	2.0	3	2	1	1	0	3	0	1	4.50	13.50	0.00	4.50
Aaron Sele	2	0	2.0	3	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	4.50	0.00	4.50	0.00

Pitcher of the week: Oliver Perez. Just one start, but it was a beauty. He was the only starting pitcher with an ERA below 5.00 for the week.

John Maine had an interesting week. He was the only Met pitcher to make two starts so it's not surprising that he leads in most of the counting stats (both good and bad). His ERA is terrible but his strikeout rate is outstanding.

Aaron Heilman and Guillermo Mota were the only relievers with ERAs under 4.50 for the week; a lot of these guys were just plan awful (I'm looking at you, Pedro Feliciano. And you, Jorge Sosa. And you, Scott Schoeneweis). Mota actually pitched four and one-third innings without allowing a walk or a run.

Player	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	HBP	K	SB	CS	SH	SF	GDP	AVG	OBP	SLG
David Wright	31	7	14	5	0	0	7	2	0	1	2	3	0	0	1	1	0.452	0.486	0.613
Jose Reyes	31	7	6	3	0	0	2	5	0	0	3	0	0	1	0	0	0.194	0.306	0.290
Moises Alou	29	4	12	2	0	0	5	2	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.414	0.469	0.483
Carlos Beltran	28	6	6	0	0	1	6	2	1	0	9	0	0	0	0	0	0.214	0.267	0.321
Luis Castillo	26	5	6	0	1	0	4	3	0	0	2	0	1	1	1	0	0.231	0.300	0.308
Paul Lo Duca	22	3	10	4	0	1	6	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	3	0	0.455	0.400	0.773
Lastings Milledge	15	4	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	3	0	0	1	0	1	0.067	0.176	0.067
Carlos Delgado	14	2	3	0	0	2	5	1	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0.214	0.267	0.643
Shawn Green	14	6	8	0	0	2	2	4	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	0.571	0.684	1.000
Jeff Conine	9	0	4	1	0	0	1	2	0	0	4	0	0	1	0	0	0.444	0.545	0.556

Player of the week: David Wright. Davey finished just a point shy of an 1.100 OPS for the week. The Mets just finished their most important week of the season to date and their MVP hit like you would expect. No homeruns but a .452 average and the most runs batted in of anyone on the team. There isn't much you can say about him that hasn't already been said. If he keeps it up for another week and the Mets ultimately win the NL East then he will likely be the league's most valuable player.

Jose Reyes looked a lot better in the second half of the week and actually led the club in walks, but his overall line for the past seven days is cringe-tastic.

Carlos Delgado came back with a bang. Well, he sort of came back with a bang. He didn't do a terribly impressive job of getting on base since his return from inactivity, but he clubbed two massive homeruns and drove in five key runs, performing about as well as could be expected after missing so much time.

Lastings Milledge - he cold! 1-for-15 this week. *shudders*

Oddity of the week: Paul Lo Duca with a .455 batting average and .400 on-base percentage by virtue of four sacrifices (one bunt, three flies).

Player	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	HBP	K	SB	CS	SH	SF	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG
Carlos Beltran	23	4	8	1	0	2	7	2	0	0	4	1	0	0	1	0	0.348	0.385	0.652
Jose Reyes	22	2	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	1	1	0	0	0.091	0.091	0.182
Moises Alou	19	7	9	4	0	2	4	1	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0.474	0.500	1.000
Shawn Green	19	5	7	4	0	0	4	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	0.368	0.368	0.579
David Wright	19	4	5	1	0	2	4	4	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.263	0.391	0.632
Luis Castillo	17	6	6	3	0	0	2	5	0	0	3	1	0	0	0	0	0.353	0.500	0.529
Paul Lo Duca	17	2	6	1	0	2	10	1	0	1	2	0	0	0	2	0	0.353	0.381	0.765
Endy Chavez	12	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.083	0.083	0.083
Ruben Gotay	11	1	3	1	0	0	1	4	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.273	0.467	0.364
Lastings Milledge	10	1	3	0	0	1	3	3	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.300	0.500	0.600

Player of the week: Moises Alou, who flat out raked this week. Just one walk, but when you're hitting .474 and slugging a cool 1.000 the walks can wait.

Everyone on the team had a good-to-great week with the exception of Jose Reyes and Endy Chavez, the latter of which has some excuse since he just came off a prolonged stint on the disabled list. Reyes reached base just twice this week and was erased once on a caught stealing, so his net contribution to the offense is a single time on base.

Surprise of the week? Three doubles by Luis Castillo. He can usually be counted on to reach base with some proficiency but power just isn't his thing. Paul Lo Duca hit about two months' worth of homeruns in one game, clubbing two longballs and knocking in seven runs in a game against the Reds.

The title could really be "Leadoff Man is Really Important", but since Reyes has hit leadoff in virtually every game the Mets have played this season I am going to focus on him for a minute.

This blog (as well as many others) has long espoused the importance of getting on base, whether it be via a base hit, walk, or HBP. Many have also recognized that in order for Reyes to make the most of his immense talent he needs to make as few outs as possible. I'm sure a lot of you have noticed that during the Mets' recent losing streak -- much of which came in the four-game debacle in Philadelphia -- Reyes contributed very little to the offense.

So how important has Reyes been to the Mets' success this year? Using Baseball-Reference.com's glorious Play Index tool I was able to very quickly determine how the Mets fared when Reyes was at his best.

In the 120 games that were completed within nine innings (i.e. non-extra inning games), the Mets were remarkably successful when Reyes was as well. Reyes has reached base safely at least twice in a game 71 times this year. In those games the Mets have gone 47-24, a .662 winning percentage. In the 49 games in which Reyes has reach base fewer than two times the Mets are 19-30, a .388 winning percentage. The difference is dramatic to say the least.

Here are how the Mets' principal offensive players have done:

Player	W+	L+	WL+%	W-	L-	WL-%	%Diff
Reyes	47	24	.662	19	30	.388	.274
Wright	51	31	.621	21	28	.429	.192
Delgado	35	20	.636	31	38	.449	.189
Beltran	36	23	.610	26	26	.500	.110

Key
W+ = Team wins when player reaches base two or more times
L+ = Team losses when player reaches base two or more times
WL+% = Team winning percentage when player reaches base two or more times
W- = Team wins when player reaches base fewer than two times
L- = Team losses when player reaches base fewer than two times
WL-% = Team winning percentage when player reaches base fewer than two times
%Diff = Difference between WL+% and WL-%

Obviously, intuition tells us that the more times any player reaches base the greater the likelihood that his team will score runs and ultimately win the ballgame. It's interesting to see the relative impact that Reyes, Wright, Delgado and Beltran reaching base numerous times in a game has on the result of said game.

I would expect Reyes's contributions to correlate with team victories slightly more often than those of other players because he does come to the plate slightly more often than the rest of these guys, but the influence of his success on that of the team relative to his teammates is pretty staggering. I haven't done enough research to know if this is unusual for a leadoff hitter or even for Reyes himself, but it is instructive at some level and corroborates what we thought we already knew: As Reyes goes, so go the Mets.

Player	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	HBP	K	SB	CS	SH	SF	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG
Luis Castillo	28	7	9	0	0	1	4	3	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0.321	0.387	0.429
David Wright	26	6	11	4	0	0	5	2	0	1	2	0	1	0	0	0	0.423	0.483	0.577
Jose Reyes	25	6	5	1	0	0	1	5	0	0	1	7	0	1	0	1	0.200	0.333	0.240
Carlos Beltran	24	8	9	3	0	4	10	4	2	0	3	1	0	0	1	1	0.375	0.448	1.000
Moises Alou	23	4	8	1	0	2	7	1	0	0	2	1	0	0	0	0	0.348	0.375	0.652
Mike DiFelice	20	0	5	2	1	0	5	0	0	2	3	0	0	0	1	2	0.250	0.304	0.450
Shawn Green	15	5	5	0	0	0	2	5	0	1	5	0	0	0	0	0	0.333	0.524	0.333
Lastings Milledge	14	2	4	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	4	1	0	0	0	1	0.286	0.286	0.357
Marlon Anderson	10	0	4	2	0	0	2	1	1	0	1	1	0	0	0	1	0.400	0.455	0.600

Player of the week: Carlos Beltran had a ridiculous week at the plate, knocking seven of his nine hits for extra bases including four homeruns. His cartoonish 1.000 slugging percentage speaks to his recent power surge, though the real test will be when the Mets return to Shea as Beltran has been far better on the road since signing with the team three offseasons ago.

The Mets definitely had their hitting shoes on this week. David Wright continues to impress with the bat and after a slow start has hit .335/.420/.585 since May 8.

Moises Alou had another great week and has hit .312/.372/.623 since returning from the disabled list on July 27. If you don't count his first three games back he is hitting a robust .348/.413/.697.

Jose Reyes had a pretty crummy week at the plate but managed to contribute in some way by drawing five walks and swiping seven bases.

Shawn Green led the team in on-base percentage this week, collecting five hits in 15 at-bats and drawing five walks. He had nary an extra-base hit but it was nice to see him not embarrass himself for once.

Player	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	HBP	K	SB	CS	SH	SF	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG
Moises Alou	25	4	8	0	0	3	6	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	2	0.320	0.320	0.680
Jose Reyes	25	7	9	1	0	1	2	3	0	0	1	3	1	0	0	0	0.360	0.429	0.520
Carlos Delgado	23	2	5	0	0	1	3	2	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0.217	0.280	0.348
David Wright	21	6	7	0	0	3	7	4	0	0	5	0	0	0	1	1	0.333	0.423	0.762
Luis Castillo	18	3	6	0	0	0	5	3	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	1	0.333	0.429	0.333
Shawn Green	18	1	6	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	3	0	0	0	0	0	0.333	0.400	0.333
Lastings Milledge	15	3	5	1	0	0	2	0	0	0	5	0	0	0	0	0	0.333	0.333	0.400
Paul Lo Duca	13	0	3	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	0.231	0.286	0.231
Carlos Beltran	10	1	1	0	0	1	3	1	0	0	6	0	0	0	0	0	0.100	0.182	0.400

Player of the week: It's close, but I'm giving it to David Wright, who led the team in walks and slugging.

Despite zero walks Moises Alou had a nice week and his hitting .296/.371/.611 since returning from the disabled list.

The only thing Carlos Beltran did right this week was that three-run homerun against the Marlins which was eventually nullified by his fielding goof in the ninth inning.

Luis Castillo had a nice week for himself. No extra-base hits, but nobody can say they're surprised by that. His .429 OBP for the week was mighty fine.

Here is what the Metsies have done offensively over the past week against the Brewers and Cubs:

Player	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	HBP	K	SB	CS	SH	SF	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG
Jose Reyes	31	4	10	1	1	1	4	2	1	0	4	4	0	0	0	0	0.323	0.364	0.516
Luis Castillo	25	3	8	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2	0	1	0	1	0.320	0.320	0.400
Ramon Castro	23	3	3	0	0	2	4	0	0	1	8	0	0	0	0	0	0.130	0.167	0.391
David Wright	22	7	9	1	0	1	2	9	1	0	2	2	0	0	0	0	0.409	0.581	0.591
Carlos Delgado	22	5	6	4	0	0	6	7	1	1	7	1	0	0	1	1	0.273	0.452	0.455
Lastings Milledge	19	3	7	2	0	0	2	1	0	0	4	1	0	0	0	0	0.368	0.400	0.474
Moises Alou	18	4	7	1	0	2	4	6	2	1	3	1	0	0	1	1	0.389	0.538	0.778
Shawn Green	17	2	4	3	0	1	3	1	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0.235	0.278	0.588
Damion Easley	13	2	4	0	0	1	2	0	0	0	4	0	0	0	0	0	0.308	0.308	0.538
Marlon Anderson	13	3	4	1	0	1	7	0	0	0	4	0	0	0	0	0	0.308	0.308	0.615

This week's MVP: It's a toss-up between Alou and Wright, but I'll give the nod to Moises for the better power numbers. Alou looked terrible when he came off the disabled list but has been terrific over the past seven days, even drawing a good number of walks.

David Wright with eight unintentional walks? Loving it. Note the correlation between his team-leading on-base precentage and his team-leading runs scored for the week: This isn't a coincidence.

Ramon Castro finally gets some regular playing time thanks to Paul Lo Duca's injury and he spits the bit. A week of poor play isn't significant enough to make a sweeping judgment, but Hippo certainly didn't do himself any favors.

The only thing saving Shawn Green from yet another weak of offensive ineptitude was a surge in the extra base department. A few doubles and a homerun aren't enough to offset that .278 OBP, though.

Carlos Delgado is in a groove.

Thanks to his four-hit game last night Luis Castillo's first week as a Met doesn't look completely horrendous.

L-Millz: Just play the man, Willie.

Easley and Anderson, getting it done.

Nice to see Jose Reyes nab four bases with nary a caught stealing.

Here is what the Metsies have done offensively over the past week:

Player	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	HBP	K	SB	CS	SH	SF	GDP	BA	OBP	SLG
Jose Reyes	30	6	8	4	0	1	1	1	1	0	2	2	1	0	0	0	0.267	0.290	0.500
Lastings Milledge	24	4	10	2	0	2	6	1	0	3	3	0	2	0	0	1	0.417	0.500	0.750
Carlos Delgado	23	4	6	0	0	1	4	4	0	0	4	0	0	0	0	0	0.261	0.370	0.391
Shawn Green	22	2	6	2	0	0	1	1	1	0	6	2	0	0	0	0	0.273	0.304	0.364
David Wright	20	4	6	2	0	0	5	5	0	0	3	1	0	0	2	0	0.300	0.407	0.400
Damion Easley	17	2	6	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0.353	0.353	0.353
Paul Lo Duca	16	3	6	3	0	0	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0.375	0.375	0.562
Ruben Gotay	16	5	7	2	0	0	3	2	1	0	3	0	0	0	1	0	0.438	0.474	0.562
Moises Alou	11	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	1	0.091	0.091	0.182
Ramon Castro	11	1	5	1	0	1	2	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0.455	0.455	0.818
Marlon Anderson	8	0	1	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	1	1	0	0	1	0	0.125	0.200	0.125

This week's MVP: Lastings Milledge

Milledge led the team in hits, homeruns, RBI, HBP and on-base percentage.

Moises Alou has had a rough go of it in his first few games back, managing just a double in eleven at-bats. He missed sixty-some-odd games, so rust is always going to be a factor.

Carlos Delgado didn't hit for much power, but he got on base frequently. Ditto David Wright.

Conversely, Jose Reyes hit for plenty of power but only reached base 29% of the time.

UPDATE [2:16pm]: I added javascript rollovers to the table, so you can hold your mouse cursor over any cell and it will highlight the whole row for that player. Awesome!

Games in which a Mets player was a single short of the cycle:

  Player            Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt PA AB  R  H 2B 3B HR RBI BB
 +-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+--+
  Gregg Jefferies   1989-07-22    NYM  ATL W  7-5   4  4  2  3  1  1  1   2  0
  Gregg Jefferies   1988-09-09    NYM @MON W  7-3   5  5  1  3  1  1  1   2  0
  Gregg Jefferies   1988-08-29    NYM  SDP W  6-0   4  4  2  3  1  1  1   2  0
  Darryl Strawberry 1987-08-16    NYM @CHC W 23-10  6  5  5  4  2  1  1   5  1
  Ron Swoboda       1967-06-06(2) NYM @PIT W  3-2   4  4  2  3  1  1  1   2  0
  Joe Christopher   1964-08-18    NYM  PIT W  7-3   5  5  2  4  1  2  1   3  0

Interesting that Gregg Jefferies charted three of the six games, all within the span of eleven months covering two seasons. The Mets won all six of these games. On two occasions, a Met collected the requisite four hits for a cycle, but substituted an extra-base hit for the single. In fact, in the 8/18/1964 game, Joe Christopher collected two triples to go along with the double and homerun, but nary a single.

245 times a Met has come up a triple short of a cycle.
69 times a Met has come up a homerun short of a cycle.
26 times a Met has come up a double short of a cycle.

Stats courtesy Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index.