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We just spent the better part of three weeks reliving some horrific memories from our New York Mets fandom as we voted on the biggest villain in franchise history (congratulations again to Fred and Jeff Wilpon. It was a truly well-deserved win.) We got tired of dwelling on the bad, so we thought it was time to turn our attention to better memories. As a result, we brainstormed some ideas over at Amazin’ Avenue HQ on how to participate in something far more pleasant. The idea of doing a bracket for all-time Mets seemed pretty obvious but also a little bit played out, so we instead turned our sights to focusing on recent players.
Introducing the UltiMET of the Millennium Madness tournament! Over the next three weeks, we will see who really was the best player to don the orange and blue since the year 2000 began. We came up with 68 players who have left a mark (big and small) on the team, and we’ll have the Amazin’ Avenue community vote to see who moves on each time.
For simplicity and for neatness, we broke down the brackets into four five-year spans: 2000-2004, 2005-2009, 2010-2014, and 2015-2019. Conveniently, this translated roughly to the Mike Piazza era, the early David Wright era, the later David Wright/early Citi Field era, and the Jacob deGrom/2015 NL Champions era. As a general rule, we tried to focus on players whose impact was felt within those years, so if a player made their mark mostly in 1997-1999, you may not see them in the 2000 bracket. We tried to stick players within the time frame where they made the most impact, but took some liberties in places in order to ensure we didn’t leave off players we wanted to see in the tournament.
The Round of 32 featured some closer matches than the first round, along with some truly surprising results in key contests. In the 2000-2004 region, Mike Piazza, Edgardo Alfonzo, and Al Leiter unsurprisingly emerged victorious as the top three seeds. Piazza, after having just one vote against him in the first round, advanced with just four votes against him this time around. The big surprise came in the 4 vs. 5 match-up, as New York’s favorite son John Franco used the homefield advantage and his career longevity to top grand slam single-hitter Robin Ventura by 53% of the vote (147 to 128).
We weren’t met with any big surprises in the 2005-2009 region, aside from one single vote going against David Wright to deprive him of the unanimous win despite getting 100% of the vote (again, Steve Sommers, please track down the single Endy Chavez voter and invite him onto your show). Pedro Martinez pulled off a minor upset by blowing past hard-throwing closer Billy Wagner with 69% of the vote (191 to 87).
The 2010-2014 region saw the biggest surprise of the tournament to date, with Bartolo Colon taking down Matt Harvey with 58% of the vote (161 to 115). Perhaps it would be best to rename this round “The Sexy 16”. He’ll move on to face 2012 Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey in a battle of beloved pitchers. Johan Santana and the Good first baseman round out the rest of this region.
While fan favorite Wilmer Flores managed to garner 12 votes in the Round of 32, he unfortunately saw his time in the tournament come to an end after losing to Jacob deGrom. Yoenis Cespedes, despite being the catalyst to the team’s two most recent playoff runs, fell to Michael Conforto, who picked up 60% of the vote (166 to 109). After an early deficit, Noah Syndergaard recovered to defeat Jeff McNeil with 57% of the vote (156 to 118). Pete Alonso was the last entry into the Sweet 16 after picking up 77% of the vote (213 to 64) against Curtis Granderson.
Voting in the Sweet 16 is open until Thursday, April 23!
2000-2004
Poll
1 vs. 5: Mike Piazza vs. John Franco
Poll
2 vs. 3: Edgardo Alfonzo vs. Al Leiter
This poll is closed
-
84%
Edgardo Alfonzo
(238 votes) -
15%
Al Leiter
(44 votes)
2005-2009
Poll
1 vs. 5: David Wright vs. Pedro Martinez
This poll is closed
-
97%
David Wright
(281 votes) -
2%
Pedro Martinez
(6 votes)
Poll
2 vs. 3: Carlos Beltran vs. Jose Reyes
This poll is closed
-
59%
Carlos Beltran
(170 votes) -
40%
Jose Reyes
(115 votes)
2010-2014
Poll
1 vs. 4: Johan Santana vs. Lucas Duda
This poll is closed
-
85%
Johan Santana
(245 votes) -
14%
Lucas Duda
(41 votes)
Poll
2 vs. 6: R.A. Dickey vs. Bartolo Colon
This poll is closed
-
60%
R.A. Dickey
(172 votes) -
39%
Bartolo Colon
(114 votes)
2015-2019
Poll
1 vs. 5: Jacob deGrom vs. Michael Conforto
This poll is closed
-
96%
Jacob deGrom
(276 votes) -
3%
Michael Conforto
(10 votes)
Poll
2 vs. 3: Pete Alonso vs. Noah Syndergaard
This poll is closed
-
72%
Pete Alonso
(208 votes) -
27%
Noah Syndergaard
(77 votes)
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