2017 Mets Season Review: Curtis Granderson started slow, dominated for months before being traded

You’d be hard pressed to find a Mets fan who truly dislikes Curtis Granderson, and if you do, you might not want to take that person’s opinions on the sports too seriously. A stand-up person off the field, Granderson’s infectious personality on the field and in the clubhouse was a bonus over the nearly four full seasons that he spent with the Mets. The team’s best position player over the span of the entire 2015 season, Granderson had a pretty good year in 2016 and entered his age-36 season this year with expectations of being more or less the same player that he had been in his time with the Mets.

Having committed the deadly baseball sin of turning one year older, however, there were plenty of Granderson doubters when he finished the month of April with a .395 OPS. But things went much, much better once the calendar turned to May, and from the first day of that month through August 17—the day he was traded to the Dodgers—Granderson hit .263/.383/.570 with 18 home runs in 303 plate appearances. While that level of production didn’t quite look like it would be permanently sustainable, Granderson got his line up for the season up to .228/.334/.481 at that time.

Considering where he started, that was a pretty good accomplishment on its own. And while the Mets’ returns in their trades of veterans on expiring contracts might have underwhelmed Mets fans, that three-plus-month surge netted the Mets relief pitcher Jacob Rhame, who might or might not work out in the long run. But the production the team got from Granderson and any return in a trade would have shocked those who had Granderson’s career over in April.

Things didn’t go nearly as well for Granderson over the last month-and-a-half of the season once he got to the Dodgers. After struggling in the first two rounds of the postseason, he didn’t make the Dodgers’ World Series roster. Whether or not it would have actually been true, it’s fun to imagine an alternate timeline in which Granderson hit some big home runs for the Dodgers in that series, ultimately turning the series into a win for Los Angeles. It’s not that we’re Dodgers fans here by any stretch, but when you snub Curtis Granderson and lose, it’s hard to feel bad for you.