Mythbusters

[Edgy MD]

What is the Mets' myth that you really want to crush?



I foolishly got into it with two guys over the notion that the Mets failed to win a championship after 1986 is because they didn't sign Ray Knight. Like President trump, the notion doesn't have a single virtue to recommend it, and yet its defenders are legion and they are passionate.

[G-Fafif]

The Mets are a counterfactual dynasty.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Gary Carter was the last piece to the puzzle.

[MFS62]

Don Hahn was the" next Willie Mays".*



Later



* = sorry, Hahn Solo

[Frayed Knot]

ARod would have signed with the Mets in 200/2001 for a deep discount (some opinions posited around half) compared to what he eventually got from Texas.

Much of this shit was based on his (slight) NYC roots (born there, grew up largely in the DR) and his self-proclaimed boyhood Keith Hernandez fandom which he'd conveniently drop in to conversations

whenever he wanted to stir the pot - as if those factors have ANY historical basis on why players make their FA choices. That he often spun the same tale about Dale Murphy (the Braves, via TBS, were

the only games he could watch from the DR, and it was the reason he wore #3 in his career) gets ignored as does his stated goal to not just maximize his contract but set records in doing so (the $252 mil

total was purposely chosen so as to be DOUBLE that of the recently signed Kevin Garnet in the NBA).







With Carter the argument is largely the shading between him being A final piece of the puzzle vs THE final piece.

That he was the final BIG move made in the winter of '84-'85 and went on to have two top-flight seasons while handling the young pitching staff as the team jumped from 90 regular season wins to 98 and then

108 makes a good argument for the 'The' side. That there are those who black out from their memories that what followed were three increasingly lame seasons after the championship doesn't change that.









The Knight argument, on the other hand, always bugged me; wasn't true then, isn't true now.

After being the backup more often than not in '85 (and not real well liked by fans) Ray had a nice season in '86 [12th best WAR on the team] and even that was largely based on a hot April & May

[1078 & 857 OPS'es vs 704, 577, 741, 801 the remaining months]. The WS MVP was an added bonus although that was more a case where there was no single outstanding player so his 9-for-23

(7 singles) was deemed the best candidate. Fine, no problem there.

But it's like it either never occurred to the Knight worshipers that Ray was: a) 34 y/o in '87; went on to have OPS+ seasons of 83 & 53; c) was out of the game after that, or that we had HoJo

manning his position [OPS+ of 133 & 124 in '87-'88] or they somehow believe that his decline would have magically been forestalled had he remained in NYC.



There's a more or less parallel Darryl Strawberry line of logic which ignores that he essentially had ONE good season as a full-time player after leaving the Mets. Hell, he only had one full-time season

post-NYM (his first LAD season was his only one to top 300 ABs). But it's always fun to pretend that the injuries, age, drug abuse, illnesses, attitude problems, and erratic behavior wouldn't have happened

if only he, like Knight, had had the good sense to 'stay home'.

[MFS62]

Does the "he wanted his own tent in Spring Training, so the Mets didn't sign him" story, count as part of the A-Rod myth?

Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

Don Hahn was the" next Willie Mays"

I don't recall anyone ever claiming this, let alone this having any kind of traction to qualify as "myth".



And if I'm wrong about this, well then this "myth" doesn't need any busting.

[MFS62]

That was what the Mets front office said when they got him. (As Casey Stengel used to say, "You could look it up")

My tongue was firmly in cheek.

Later

[kcmets]

Gregg Jefferies could hit baseballs under water.

[Guest 41Forever]

Pete Alonso would be brutally bad on defense.

[Ceetar]

=41Forever post_id=27497 time=1575468288 user_id=69]
Pete Alonso would be brutally bad on defense.

[Edgy MD]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=27478 time=1575443950 user_id=68]
Gary Carter was the last piece to the puzzle.

[stevejrogers]

I've usually seen Mitchell added with Knight in post-1986 myth. Ignoring that he was sent to SF during the year, and he still didn't put it all together until 1989 for his OYW MVP.

[Edgy MD]

The Myth of Mitchell has multiple volumes. Facts are there, but much of it is underpinned by a convoluted narrative that cannot find its way home to any documented account.

[stevejrogers]

Murphy is the Knight/Mitchell of the 2015 NL Champions.

[Centerfield]

Armando Benitez was a bad pitcher.

[Frayed Knot]

=stevejrogers post_id=27508 time=1575473326 user_id=57]
Murphy is the Knight/Mitchell of the 2015 NL Champions.

[Frayed Knot]

Does the "he wanted his own tent in Spring Training, so the Mets didn't sign him" story, count as part of the A-Rod myth?

That Arod/Boras wanted a whole separate marketing arm to go along with the contract has been confirmed over the years by multiple sources from other clubs who were in on various ARod negotiations

and also later on by Boras himself (to Francesa IIRC). And I think it's reasonable to assume that that was all A factor in them not signing him or at least in them getting out as early as they did, that they

realized that what it was going to take to sign him was more than they thought was wise to invest in 1/25th of your roster. And, as things turned out, the team that did sign him wanted out of it before the

contract was 1/3 of the way done and paid multi-millions more just to make it go away. The two teams that were most in on trade talks, even though the two richest in baseball, wanted multi-millions in

relief before they'd take on the remainder (you may recall that the BoSox wanted more relief than the MLBPA deemed was fair and so they dropped out). And the team that wound up with him had to then

re-buy him on the open market four years later when he opted-out of the deal.



Now one could argue that the '24-and-1' deal was a convenient excuse to get out of the negotiation they weren't up to in the first place. But when presented with all the facts of how the life of that deal went

down, the come-back argument that: 'Well he had Keith Hernandez footie pajamas as a kid so he would have signed with us for half as much' defies both logic and basic intelligence.

[Ceetar]

With A-Rod, i do think if the Mets had gone hot and heavy at him, right out of the gate, they probably can net him for a _little_ less than what he got.



also he was worth ~8 more wins than Rey Ordonez and the Mets finished 6 back in the division.

[kcmets]

Rey Ordoñez had a chronic gambling problem, bet against the Mets

and threw away countless AB's to help throw games on purpose for

financial gain. No, really!!

[Edgy MD]

=Centerfield post_id=27514 time=1575474812 user_id=65]
Armando Benitez was a bad pitcher.

[Edgy MD]

=Ceetar post_id=27520 time=1575476338 user_id=102]
With A-Rod, i do think if the Mets had gone hot and heavy at him, right out of the gate, they probably can net him for a _little_ less than what he got.

[Guest 41Forever]

That Clemens wasn't aiming at Mike Piazza with the broken bat.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

"Sandy Alderson was a tool of the Wilpons"



Granted this statement is made by only the most ignorant of fans but loudly and often enough to gain it some currency. Everyone forgets Sandy was foisted upon the Wilpons and that as soon as they got their alleged financial footing back they couldn't wait to throw him overboard.

[Centerfield]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: "Sandy Alderson was a tool of the Wilpons" Granted this statement is made by only the most ignorant of fans but loudly and often enough to gain it some currency. Everyone forgets Sandy was foisted upon the Wilpons and that as soon as they got their alleged financial footing back they couldn't wait to throw him overboard.

Correction. Throw him under the bus, then throw him overboard.

[Frayed Knot]

=Centerfield post_id=27514 time=1575474812 user_id=65]
Armando Benitez was a bad pitcher.

[Ceetar]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: "Sandy Alderson was a tool of the Wilpons" Granted this statement is made by only the most ignorant of fans but loudly and often enough to gain it some currency. Everyone forgets Sandy was foisted upon the Wilpons and that as soon as they got their alleged financial footing back they couldn't wait to throw him overboard.

That he was foisted on the Mets in the first place.

[Edgy MD]

Dueling myths!

[RealityChuck]

Don Hahn was the" next Willie Mays".* Later * = sorry, Hahn Solo

No, you're thinking of Don Bosch.

[MFS62]

Don Hahn was the" next Willie Mays".* Later * = sorry, Hahn Solo No, you're thinking of Don Bosch.

Yes. I stand corrected.

Hahn was a better player than Bosch by about 150 points of Mets OPS. Then again Hahn's grandma was probably better than Bosch.

Later