Have we ever made a team of 2-time Mets?

[roger_that]

Two (or more, I suppose, though I can't think of any at the moment) stints with the Mets, that is. Mets who have left the team (not merely been sent down to the minors, or ILed or DLed or things of that nature) but left the club, played in another organization, and then returned to the Mets.



I'll start with the more obvious choices of Seaver, Kingman, and Staub.

[Bob Alpacadaca]

Gotta have Al Jackson, Lee Mazzilli and Jose Reyes on there!

[Centerfield]

McReynolds. Bonilla. Burnitz. Zelle.



Izzy.

[DocTee]

Alex Trevino behind the dish.

[metirish]

David Cone

Roger Cedano

[batmagadanleadoff]

Mike Jorgensen, David Cone, Hubie Brooks, Pedro Feliciano, Jeurys Familia, Bob L. Miller, Mike Jacobs.



Do managers count? If so, Gil Hodges, Yogi Berra, Roy McMillan, Dallas Green (ugh!), Willie Randolph (double ugh!). But not Joe Torre, who never really "came back" to manage the Mets. Torre was already here when he was named player-manager.



[FIMG=223]https://deanscards.blob.core.windows.net/thirdparty/5441932f.jpg[/FIMG][FIMG=253]https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/a00AAOSwUPhnXHs8/s-l1200.jpg[/FIMG]

[stevejrogers]

Mike Jorgensen, David Cone, Hubie Brooks, Pedro Feliciano, Jeurys Familia, Bob L. Miller, Mike Jacobs. Do managers count? If so, Gil Hodges, Yogi Berra, Roy McMillan, Dallas Green (ugh!), Willie Randolph (double ugh!). But not Joe Torre, who never really "came back" to manage the Mets. Torre was already here when he was named player-manager. [FIMG=223]https://deanscards.blob.core.windows.net/thirdparty/5441932f.jpg[/FIMG][FIMG=253]https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/a00AAOSwUPhnXHs8/s-l1200.jpg[/FIMG]

If you don't count Torre for that reason, you have to take away Yogi. He came in as a player-coach, and never left until being fired as skipper.

[stevejrogers]

Bobby Valentine would also be a three tenured Met as all three times were broken up.

[MFS62]

Are you guys kidding?

The team would be named the (Harry) Chiti's.

Later

[Bob Alpacadaca]

I think Clint Hurdle? I think he was here in 1985, went away for the glory year of 1986 and came back the following year?

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

This is a good question, Roger!



Tim Foli had two stints!

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Pete Walker

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Juan Lagares



Carlos Gomez



Todd Frazier



Marlon Anderson



Lenny Harris

[Edgy MD]

What is interesting is how consistently poorly second tenures tended to go for people not named Staub.



Or, I guess, worse is the Jason Vargas pattern, where a guy is a Met who isn't really yet able to perform in the big leagues, moves on and becomes a successful big-leaguer to some degree, and returns to the Mets when he is no longer really able to perform in the big leagues.



I guess Carlos Gomez is another guy where his Mets tenures were two thin, stale, crusty pieces of bread holding together an otherwise robust sandwich.

[roger_that]

This is a good question, Roger! Tim Foli had two stints!

Thank you.



I've drawn a blank on some of these returning Mets. Maybe they just re-appeared here for a blip, at the tail ends of their careers, when I wasn't paying close attention, but I'm looking at a lot of famous Mets and wondering when exactly they popped up (or struck out, in some cases) a second time. Is anyone else surprised to see a few of these names here?



I do remember Bob Miller well--he was one of the few promising original Mets (before my time) who was young, performed well (with a terrible W-L record), loads of potential (which he fulfilled with the Dodgers), every reason in the world to hang onto him, and they swapped him out for a bunch of nothing. When they re-acquired him, after he had passed through most franchises in MLB, I remember thinking "A little late, doncha think?"

[kcmets]

I think we've run out of two-time Mets. The funny

thing is Ben Grimm could pound out some code and

answer this question in one minute.

[bLOCKQUOTE]Are you curious who the woman in my avatar is? She has nothing to do with the Mets but everything to do with this website.[/bLOCKQUOTE]

Has this been revealed yet? If so, I missed it...

[Edgy MD]

Greg McMichael is a rare Met who left the team and returned within the same season.



There is at least one other such animal — a back-end reliever who cycled through several teams in one season, continuing to get DFA'd and claimed on waivers. I'm thinking around 2008?

[roger_that]

[bLOCKQUOTE]Are you curious who the woman in my avatar is? She has nothing to do with the Mets but everything to do with this website.[/bLOCKQUOTE] Has this been revealed yet? If so, I missed it...

No, no one was curious.



the back story to my avatar is that I had myself the generic Mr. Met avatar for a long while, and wanted a different one, but every time I went to the "change avatar" page, the photo I selected (typically of some favorite obscure Met) was deemed too large to be acceptable, so I kept trying smaller and smaller photos but every time, the same result. My photos were all thousands of pixels by thousands of pixels, so I was missing not by a little but by a diameter-of-Jupiter amount, so I gave up, but last week I rearranged every photo on my hard drive by size and found her in my "Ancestry.com" work file and unlike most of my photos which were thousands of KB, hers was 4 KB or something like that, so I tried making her my avatar, and voila! it worked.



The funny part to me is that I have no idea who she is or was. She might be related to me, but more likely she's related to someone related to someone who's related to someone who's related to someone who's related to someone who's related to someone who's related to me. Maybe she was even a Mets fan--I don't know, but bless her, I don't have to look at Mr. Met anymore.

[roger_that]

Edgy MD wrote: What is interesting is how consistently poorly second tenures tended to go for people not named Staub.

And Rusty's second time was not really so impressive. He was beloved, and he was a great pinch-hitter, but he was a sliver of his former self (except in actual girth) on the ballfield. By the end, I kind of thought of him as a wasted roster space, a sentimental gesture towards team chemistry, and memories of him in his prime, and just plain affection for an excellent human being and restaurateur but I would have preferred a player who could, you know, field a little, and run the bases, slug a HR now and then, all that good stuff.

[roger_that]

The funny thing is Ben Grimm could pound out some code and answer this question in one minute.

OK, I challenge the Thing to do so, since it's so easy for him. I will take the "over"--I'm sure we must have forgotten someone.

[batmagadanleadoff]

=kcmets post_id=187275 time=1742052627 user_id=53]
I think we've run out of two-time Mets. The funny

thing is Ben Grimm could pound out some code and

answer this question in one minute.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Mike Jorgensen, David Cone, Hubie Brooks, Pedro Feliciano, Jeurys Familia, Bob L. Miller, Mike Jacobs. Do managers count? If so, Gil Hodges, Yogi Berra, Roy McMillan, Dallas Green (ugh!), Willie Randolph (double ugh!). But not Joe Torre, who never really "came back" to manage the Mets. Torre was already here when he was named player-manager. [FIMG=223]https://deanscards.blob.core.windows.net/thirdparty/5441932f.jpg[/FIMG][FIMG=253]https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/a00AAOSwUPhnXHs8/s-l1200.jpg[/FIMG] If you don't count Torre for that reason, you have to take away Yogi. He came in as a player-coach, and never left until being fired as skipper.

I included Yogi because he was a coach in between playing and managing. But yeah, he never left, either.

[kcmets]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=187283 time=1742060985 user_id=68]FAFIF has the whole list. He wrote about this. Recidivist Mets.

[Edgy MD]

Edgy MD wrote: What is interesting is how consistently poorly second tenures tended to go for people not named Staub. And Rusty's second time was not really so impressive. He was beloved, and he was a great pinch-hitter, but he was a sliver of his former self (except in actual girth) on the ballfield. By the end, I kind of thought of him as a wasted roster space, a sentimental gesture towards team chemistry, and memories of him in his prime, and just plain affection for an excellent human being and restaurateur but I would have preferred a player who could, you know, field a little, and run the bases, slug a HR now and then, all that good stuff.

Strange. He had .400 on-base percentage his last season, with a 126 OPS+.



We were lucky to have him.

[roger_that]

True, but (looking at his stats) only 45 at-bats all season long, and nearly every time he got on base, you needed to pinch run for him. 2 runs scored in 1985, and one of them was on his only HR.

[kcmets]

the back story to my avatar is that I had myself the generic Mr. Met avatar for a long while, and wanted a different one, but every time I went to the "change avatar" page, the photo I selected (typically of some favorite obscure Met) was deemed too large to be acceptable, so I kept trying smaller and smaller photos but every time, the same result.

If you'd like, send me a pic and I'll fix it for you.



kc@kcmets.net

[roger_that]

Thanks --I'll start looking through my photo files tonight. What is the problem, though? I'm pretty sure everyone doesn't have a lot of 4 KB photos hanging around.

[Edgy MD]

True, but (looking at his stats) only 45 at-bats all season long, and nearly every time he got on base, you needed to pinch run for him. 2 runs scored in 1985, and one of them was on his only HR.

Pinch-running for him was no big whoop. Sending an off-day starting pitcher in to run for a player/coach with .400 on-base percentage was a wonderful problem to have.*



Bench players tend to have their limitations. It doesn't discount their assets.



* It was a win-win. Some of us got to give Rusty one more round of applause as he came back into the dugout, and the rest of us got an eyeful of Ron Darling when it wasn't even his day to pitch.

[roger_that]

Not disagreeing with you vehemently--as I've noted here, I thought his presence on the 1985 roster was virtuous in several different ways, not all of them on the field--but you've got to wonder why teams that have players like Staub who are very limited but successful within those limitations often decide, with the players' assent sometimes, to put an end to his career, .400 OBP notwithstanding.



To get away from Staub, I'll give you the example of the Dodgers with Manny Mota at the end of his career. His last year I think Mota had a .400 BATTING AVERAGE, not OBP but BA, and they reached a decision that he was done anyway, because all he could do was hit singles in a pinch-hitting role, while occupying a roster spot. They decided that the roster spot should go to a less limited player, and I believe the Mets and Staub reached a similar conclusion.



But I was there cheering for Rusty when he was removed for a runner. I'm very fond of him, sometimes fonder than I am smart.



Edited to add: In an odd way, a better example than Mota might be Eddie Gaedel, who wouldn't even make a satisfying lunch for Rusty Staub but who makes an interesting comparison. Aside from being (ahem) discouraged by the AL President to remain on the Browns' roster, I don't think the Browns would have kept him on their roster despite his lifetime 1.000 OBP and the likely prospect of him getting on base every time up for the foreseeable future. He simply didn't warrant a roster spot, because all he could do was get on base.



An even sillier example would be a hypothetical pitcher who could throw 200 miles per hour with every pitch in the strike zone. The kicker would be that he could throw only three pitches per week, because after three 200-MPH pitches his arm would be sore (and I'll bet it would). So you could have this guy with a close to 100% K rate, but would you keep on your team for that one strikeout per week, or even less actually because you wouldn't necessarily want to use him every 7 days like clockwork--sometimes you'd go 10 days or two weeks between "must strikeout" situations.



Less silly, because it happens all the time, is someone who could make Rey Ordonez look like Rusty Staub--a fielder who can get to balls no one else can reach but who can't hit water from a boat. Good field, no-hit guys get cut all the time because that valuable skill of fielding better than anyone in MLB is insufficient to justify the roster space.



Essentially, Rusty would have had the same virtues as he had, but if he'd been slightly less effective with the bat, at what point would you hesitate to keep him on the team? Would you cut him with a .380 OBP? .350? .320? Odds are that one or two of his actual singles in 1985 just found a lucky hole, as some singles do, but if they hadn't, his OBP would have plummetted, which happens with 45 at-bats, and then there goes your argument about his wonderful OBP. There definitely comes a point where you need to reconsider keeping a guy whose skills are as limited as Rusty Staub's, beloved though he may be.

[Cowtipper]

Can't forget Gary Matthews, Jr. and Matt Den Dekker! Ruben Tejada departed and came back. Brady Clark did, too.



Kirk Nieuwenhuis left and came back ... in the same season.