Nomadland

With Spring Training having concluded Monday following a .500 result (3-3 vs. the Cardinals) and a .500 exhibition record (11-11-2), we offer a hearty Faith and Fear welcome to the all-but-official ten about-to-be new Mets of 2021, each of whom appears slated for inclusion on the Opening Day 26-man roster. Mind you, speaking conditionally is a symptom of living in uncertain times.

Jacob Barnes
Trevor May
James McCann
Francisco Lindor, ideally for years to come
Joey Lucchesi
Aaron Loup
Albert Almora, Jr.
Jonathan Villar, hamstring willing
Taijuan Walker
Kevin Pillar

Your blank slates beckon to be filled with Amazin’ accomplishments. We can’t wait to write about all the great things you’re about to do. Occasionally in black, even.

Looking forward? You betcha!
Looking behind? That, too.

This annual interval on the calendar when we get caught between the Spring and New York City provides us a golden orange & blue opportunity, per Academy tradition, to remember fondly or otherwise those Mets who have — in the baseball sense — left us in the past year.

Cue the montage…

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BRODIE VAN WAGENEN
Executive Vice President & General Manager
October 29, 2018 – November 6, 2020

But no. “Come get us.” I don’t know if front offices in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Washington reverberated with giggles or were too busy preparing their own rosters to notice the Brodie bluster, but if you’ll excuse a fan for thinking like a fan, somehow I’ll bet the Baseball Gods heard. You know their Karma Council took note. They’re worse than Joe Torre when it comes to handing out fines. Brodie, my man. We embrace confidence in winter. We appreciate positivity when it’s merited — and you were making moves that we could process as positive. But we didn’t need to be overly impressed when simply impressed would do, and we absolutely shudder at the thought of karma being disturbed. Think of it as the oral equivalent of Jacob Rhame throwing high and tight at Rhys Hoskins. Do it once, swell. Do it twice, you’re asking for a 900-foot home run in retaliation. Karma’s not known as a sweetheart.
—June 18, 2019
(Relieved of duties, 11/6/2020; joined Roc Nation Sports as chief operating officer, 1/27/2021)

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JED CARLSON LOWRIE
Pinch-Hitter
September 7, 2019 – September 29, 2019

Mr. L began our session by telling me he had “that dream again,” his very specific variation on the dream in which a person shows up for the final exam and realizes they haven’t been to class all semester. In Mr. L’s case, it’s what he calls “the baseball dream”. It’s not the first time Mr. L has discussed “the baseball dream” with me in therapy, but it had a different twist today. As usual, it starts with Mr. L wandering around in a mostly empty baseball stadium in winter. He says it’s sort of familiar to him, but not a place he knows intimately In the dream, he again refers to “an agent” who was supposed to be “my agent,” except in “the baseball dream,” the agent is now an authority figure inviting him to join a new baseball team. At first, Mr. L is happy for the invitation.
—September 8, 2019
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; signed with A’s, 2/10/2021)

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ARIEL BOLIVAR JURADO
Starting Pitcher
September 1, 2020
Perhaps someday I’ll find myself engaged in conversation with Ariel Jurado. We’ll likely talk about his baseball career; how it brought him to the Mets; and the challenges he endured, particularly that night in Baltimore in 2020 when, in the process of becoming the franchise’s 1,107th player overall and that season’s tenth Met starting pitcher 36 games into a 60-game campaign, he experienced what Wayne Randazzo termed a “bloodbath”: six hits allowed his first time through the Oriole order, punctuated by a three-run homer from Renato Nuñez. Or maybe we’ll gloss over that part and focus on his final two innings, for after giving up five runs in the first and second, Jurado gave up no runs in the third and fourth. True, it still calculated to an 11.25 ERA and the Mets were en route to a 9-5 defeat, their fifth consecutive loss, but I’d like to think that tact is the better part of discretion. Hopefully, in this hypothetical scenario, Ariel and I will find happier topics to talk about.
(Free agent, 12/2/2020; currently unsigned)

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RYAN THOMAS CORDELL
Outfielder
July 27, 2020 – September 27, 2020

Over and over we grow used to baseball that isn’t quite the baseball we are whetting our appetite for less than four weeks from today. It’s the baseball with possible stalemates instead of decisive outcomes. It’s the baseball whose broadcast availabilities are piecemeal depending on your subscription choices. It’s the baseball played predominantly under the sun rather than the lights. It’s getting the hang of things on Piazza Drive as prelude to life on Seaver Way. Mostly, it’s numbers and names. The names that we know will be the names we’ll summer with. For two innings, generally speaking, it’s McNeil, Alonso, Conforto, what have you. For the next seven (no extras), it’s vague familiarity that fills in with increased exposure to Mets who’ve never been Mets in the official sense, may never be Mets in the official sense, but are Mets in late February and, presumably, a while in March. I don’t much know them yet, so until they make a lasting impression, they are who I decide they are. They’re Quinn Brodey, a small-town New England operator with an accent to match in the latest Ben Affleck passion project. He can pahk his cah with the best of ’em and doesn’t even use Smaht Park. They’re Ryan Cordell, a cross between Rydell High from Grease and Cordell Hull from FDR’s cabinet. Ryan and the outfield go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong.
—February 28, 2020
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; currently unsigned)

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JAMES BRIAN DOZIER
Infielder
July 30, 2020 – August 14, 2020

In the eighth, the Mets began to rally a bit. Amed Rosario, shortstop of future past, doubled. Brian Dozier, a Met I will be trying to convince you was once a Met by 2022, was granted an iffy walk on a three-and-two count. Then Jeff McNeil comes up and lines a ball above the second baseman’s head, and… NO! IT WAS CAUGHT! DAMN IT! Nice play, though.
—August 8, 2020
(Released, 8/23/2020; retired, 2/18/2021)

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ANDREW WALKER LOCKETT
Pitcher
June 20, 2019 – August 28, 2020

I’d formed one impression of Walker Lockett during his 2019 cameo appearances — if Walker Lockett had been around when the annual baseball writers hot stove dinner included musical skits, Dick Young or Phil Pepe or somebody of that vintage would have penned this ditty, to the tune of “Love and Marriage”:
Walker Lockett
Walker Lockett
Every pitch he throws
Becomes a rocket
—September 30, 2019
(Selected off waivers by Mariners, 9/1/2020)

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TODD BRIAN FRAZIER
Third Baseman
March 29, 2018 – September 29, 2019
September 2, 2020 – September 27, 2020

There was a shadow over home plate not long after the 3:07 PM start in Buffalo on Sunday, but the minor league park there doesn’t have multiple tiers, so the effect of the shadow was negligible. As is the feeling that the Mets are still in it. Sometimes it seems the only commonality between the Mets of this September and last September is an overreliance on Todd Frazier.
—September 14, 2020
(Free agent 10/28/2020; signed with Pirates, 2/19/2021)

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ALI MIGUEL SANCHEZ
Catcher
August 10, 2020 – September 1, 2020

This, therefore, is what 2020 has come to. Seventeen games in, we’ve had a position player pitch, yet our National League franchise hasn’t had a pitcher hit. Guillorme’s catcher was Ali Sanchez, who came in to relieve subdued birthday celebrant Wilson Ramos when the score was a million to nothing or whatever it was by then. Sanchez became the fifteenth new Met of the year, which is almost as many runs as the Washingtonians walloped. We doff our mask to Met No. 1,106 for coming into our world under the bleakest of circumstances and presumably coming back for more.
—August 11, 2020
(Sold to Cardinals, 2/12/2021)

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HUNTER DREW STRICKLAND
Relief Pitcher
July 25, 2020 – August 31, 2020

Reliever Hunter Strickland was a Met (fourth club in three years) and, for all we know, might be again. His ERA in three appearances ballooned to 11.57, which will make you an ex-anything awfully quick. Strickland is currently off the 40-man roster but at the Alternate Site in Brooklyn. That’s where relievers with 11.57 ERAs are sent to consider the error of the their ways.
—August 9, 2020
(Free agent, 10/15/2020; signed with Rays, 2/8/2021)

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JACOB SHAWN “Jake” MARISNICK
Outfielder
July 24, 2020 – September 18, 2020

This is what they’re putting out there as a playoff contender of sorts in September? This is what gets somebody like Jake Marisnick, who helped the Houston Astros win Rob Manfred’s memorial piece of tin in 2017, to say, “this team’s too good to not make the playoffs”? He said that two nights ago, after the Mets were blitzed by the Orioles, 11-2, the day after the Mets coughed up a comeback to the Phillies, 9-8. The 2020 Mets remind me of what Whitey Herzog said about the Mets coming into 1986 off a pair of bridesmaid finishes: “They think they won the last two years, anyway.” The Mets haven’t lacked for outward displays of confidence. They’ve lacked for wins.
—September 10, 2020
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; signed with Cubs, 2/20/2021)

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TYLER MORRIS BASHLOR
Relief Pitcher
June 25, 2018 – September 29, 2019

So went the Mets’ chances to be unstoppable once Tyler Bashlor entered the proceedings. I guess Mickey Callaway wasn’t intent on winning that eighth game in a row. The Mets won nine in a row under Mickey Callaway at the outset of his managerial tenure and see where it got them. Bashlor has good stuff, I’m pretty sure, but it’s rarely been deployed in the service of getting outs in non-playoff chasing circumstances. It doesn’t accomplish much in potentially headier times, either. Tyler commenced his outing by giving up a long fly ball that PNC Park held; followed it up with two singles; and climaxed his appearance by releasing a gopher into the atmosphere. First it made contact with the bat of Starling Marte. Then it was never seen again.
—August 3, 2019
(Sold to Pirates, 8/1/2020)

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EDUARDO MICHELLE NUÑEZ
Infielder
July 25, 2020 – July 26, 2020

The Mets didn’t respond in kind. They, too, got to have an automatic runner on second, and he indeed scored, but nobody else did, which made the final 5-3 for not us. Hard to miss in the bottom of the tenth, amid a tease of a rally, was erstwhile pinch-runner Eduardo Nuñez serving as designated hitter after Luis Rojas had him take Yoenis Cespedes’s place on the basepaths in the eighth. The burst of speed seemed clever then. In the tenth, with the bases loaded and the situation Cespy-made, Yo’s bat was severely missed. Then again, the DH is an abomination, so maybe karma reaps what we sow.
—July 26, 2020
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; currently unsigned
UPDATE: Signed with Fubon Guardians of Chinese Professional Baseball League, 4/7/2021)

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JACOB ALAN RHAME
Relief Pitcher
September 2, 2017 – August 3, 2019

Rhame may just have residual vertigo from all the times he’s been down and up in 2018. Standard-issue option action aside, Jacob has three times out of five been the Mets’ choice for 26th man on those occasions when the roster temporarily expanded because of makeup doubleheaders and the like. In other words, when it’s Rhame, it’s poured.
—September 5, 2018
(Selected off waivers by Angels, 7/8/2020)

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BILLY R. HAMILTON
Outfielder
August 5, 2020 – September 3, 2020

For eight pitches, it mattered to me that Jeff McNeil reached base. On the eighth pitch, Jeff McNeil took ball four. At that instant, I was convinced the Mets would win. Before I could fully weigh the detrimental impact of my unspoken thoughts on the course of events in an athletic contest taking place on my television, Billy Hamilton came in to pinch-run for McNeil. Before Chapman could fully process the danger Hamilton’s two legs encompassed to the work of his left arm, Billy was off to second base. Because Chapman threw to first base as Hamilton ran, it can be said, technically, that the pitcher had the runner picked off first. But, no, not really, because Hamilton — whose already indefatigable speed seemed kicked up a notch by the presence of 42, twice Billy’s usual 21, on his back — was pretty easily safe. He was now a runner in scoring position. Most nights, having one of those doesn’t fill a Mets fan’s confidence coffers. But this night was different from most other nights.
—August 29, 2020
(Selected off waivers by Cubs, 9/7/2020; has since signed with White Sox)

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JUAN OSVALDO LAGARES
Center Fielder
April 23, 2013 – September 29, 2019
August 25, 2020 – August 26, 2020

In the top of the sixthish, the lone semi-convincing Met threat of the nightcap went awry when pinch-runner Juan Lagares — oh, Juan Lagares is back (and wearing No. 87) — was doubled off first base; Luis Guillorme’s sizzling liner was caught by Miami first baseman Lewin Diaz with Juan on his way to second. Diaz was much closer to first base by then, so, yeah, double play.
—August 26, 2020
(Free agent, 8/31/2020; signed with Angels, 2/6/2021)

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CHASEN DEAN SHREVE
Relief Pitcher
July 27, 2020 – September 27, 2020

Score one for dependability, predictability and well-ingrained habit. On Monday night, score seven for the Mets versus only four for the Red Sox, resulting in our second win of the thus far four-game season. Michael Conforto homered at Fenway Park. So did Pete Alonso. So did Dom Smith. Michael Wacha registered five innings’ worth of outs. Seth Lugo retired the final four batters. Chasen Shreve acquitted himself adequately in middle relief. Jeurys Familia did not, but little harm was done. Not bad for late July, eh?
—July 28, 2020
(Free agent, 12/2/2020; signed with Pirates, 2/7/2021)

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GUILLERMO HEREDIA (Molina)
Outfielder
September 21, 2020 – September 27, 2020

Guillermo Heredia played center for the Mets Monday, having been called up to replace Jake Marisnick, who has a tight hamstring, and then inserted for Conforto, who also has a tight hamstring. A good, loose hamstring goes a long way in getting a person into the Mets lineup these dwindling days of 2020.
—September 22, 2020
(Selected off waivers by Braves, 2/24/2021)

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ERASMO JOSE RAMIREZ
Relief Pitcher
September 7, 2020 – September 27, 2020

Each of the previous twenty-three Unicorn Scores in Mets history that has thus far gone uncloned was registered in a ballpark […] with an implied sense of MLB permanence. This one, at Sahlen Field, happened where the Mets will likely never play again after this series. And it included the first Met save credited for the questionably strenuous preservation of a lead of as many as 17 runs. Such a perfectly regulation save was assigned Friday to the ledger of the newest Met (No. 1,110), Erasmo Ramirez. Erasmo indeed came on in relief, indeed went the final three and indeed didn’t surrender the inflated advantage he was assigned to protect. That’s a save in any season, even if nobody ever conceived of a Met reliever saving that large a lead. Way to go, Erasmo — if you’re gonna make history, you might as well make it count like nothing that’s ever been counted before.
—September 13, 2020
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; signed with Tigers 1/19/2021)

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WILLIAM JARED HUGHES
Relief Pitcher
August 3, 2020 – September 27, 2020

It’s the middle of February at the beginning of July. We’re talking camp. We’re talking a veritable plethora of non-roster pickups. Now loosening limbs under the auspices of the Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York are several fellows who span the familiarity spectrum from very to vaguely: Melky Cabrera, Gordon Beckham, Hunter Strickland, Jared Hughes. If this were the middle of February, we’d know what to make of the odd veteran signing. Now we are assuming this bunch will add depth to our 60-player pool, a phrase that didn’t exist the last time baseball went camping.
—July 2, 2020
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; retired, 2/14/2021)

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ROBINSON DAVID CHIRINOS
Catcher
September 3, 2020 – September 27, 2020

Somewhere post-Hessman, I made my list. There were lists begun before it. There’ve been lists begun since. Every Mets game is an excuse to update at least a couple of them. Some baseball fans referred to the 2020 regular season as a distraction from worrying about the effects of the pandemic or facing up to existential threats to representative democracy. Me, I had the opportunity to note, among myriad other occurrences, that on September 23 — one night after Heredia took Curtiss deep and one night before Chirinos took Corbin deep — the Mets’ record landed at 25-31. And? And it was the FIRST time the Mets ever sported a record of 25-31 after 56 games…if one can be said to sport a record of 25-31. It’s more something an obsessive type types quickly, clicks close on and keeps mostly to himself. But then I opened it just now and shared it with you here on the remote chance you might find it interesting.
—September 28, 2020
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; signed with Yankees, 2/15/2021)

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MICHAEL JOSEPH WACHA
Starting Pitcher
July 27, 2020 – September 23, 2020

Thus, when Closing Night 2020 rolled around, it was just another game to watch at home. None of the emotions attendant to a final visit to the ballpark. None of that sense that this is the last time I’m getting on the LIRR to change at Jamaica for Woodside…this is the last time I’m getting on the 7 to Flushing…this is the last time I stop by my brick, the last time I get felt up by security, the last time somebody hands me a nick-nack, the last time… There were no last times like the last 25 times to be had. There were the Mets and Rays, in living color, courtesy of SNY and me paying my cable bill. There was Michael Wacha looking kind of promising for a while until the promise broke.
—September 24, 2020
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; signed with Rays, 12/18/2020)

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BRAD BRACH
Relief Pitcher
August 11, 2019 – September 27, 2020

The Nationals, like the Mets and every Wild Card wannabe, have their flaws, but between the genuine talent (Rendon, Soto), the certified Met-killing (Suzuki) and now Cabrera imagining the need to get even, they have enough of a critical mass to make a Mets fan antsy. Good thing, then, that Mickey Callaway was able to turn to a Mets fan who clearly recognized what was going on, namely his second reliever, Brad Brach. Brach is a Mets fan from way back. Not one of those locally sourced “I rooted for the New York teams as a kid” diplomatic-answerers who doesn’t want to piss off his new fans by admitting he didn’t care or preferred another nearby team, but somebody who, had he not been preoccupied getting outs for other staffs in recent years, would have recognized Kurt Suzuki kills us. Brad from Freehold put his Mets fan instinct to good use and flied out Brian Dozier to get us out of the sixth still tied.
—August 12, 2019
(Released, 2/16/2021; signed with Royals, 2/22/2021)

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RENÉ RIVERA
Catcher
April 30, 2016 – August 16, 2017
August 25, 2019 – July 29, 2020

Against the Rockies in the Mets’ series finale, Noah Syndergaard perhaps put too much faith in the powers of a personal catcher. Despite the residual simpatico Noah feels for René Rivera’s core skill set from their splendid 2016 together, the Syndergaard who faced Colorado wasn’t markedly better than the Syndergaard who faced Los Angeles five days earlier or the Syndergaard who took on Philadelphia five days before that, both times with Wilson Ramos behind the plate. Those previous starts loomed as dead-letter days in the history of the 2019 Mets, each of them among the myriad losses that buried us for good (with probably a couple more death blows in between). This Syndergaard start — 5.2 IP, 10 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 4 SB — was similarly grabbing the shovel from the garage and commencing to dig.
—September 19, 2019
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; currently unsigned
UPDATE: Signed with Cleveland, 4/14/2021)

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ANDRÉS ALFONSO GIMÉNEZ
Infielder
July 24, 2020 – September 26, 2020

Necessarily tossed overboard in the general direction of Lake Erie were two members in good standing of the SS Mets, two Mets SSes. One was the future not very long ago. One was the future literally last week. Today they are ex-Mets. You make this trade seven days out of every seven, Amed Rosario and Andrés Giménez plus minor leaguers Isaiah Green and Josh Wolf for Lindor and Carrasco, but you don’t do it without an ounce of sentimental regret. I’ll miss Rosario and Giménez like I missed Neil Allen, Hubie Brooks and the package of potential and heritage represented by Preston Wilson (Mookie’s lad). I felt bad that they were no longer Mets. I felt great that Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter and Mike Piazza arrived because they departed. Which is to say I got over their respective departures.
—January 11, 2021
(Traded to Cleveland, 1/7/2021)

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PAUL STANTON SEWALD
Relief Pitcher
April 8, 2017 – July 26, 2020

The two were about to leave the room, when a dazed Paul Sewald wandered in. He’d never seen this room before, but there were lots of things the third-year Met had never seen. After having been the losing pitcher fourteen times but never the opposite, not even once, since the Mets first promoted him in 2017, Paul was enjoying a new sensation of his own. By pitching a scoreless top of the eleventh, Sewald was in line to be the winning pitcher should the Mets score. Once Nimmo drew the bases-loaded walk that brought Amed Rosario home from third, Paul got the win. “Guys! Guys!” Sewald asked Wheeler and Horwitz excitedly. “Did ya see? I’m a winning pitcher — a winning pitcher at last. I’m one and fourteen, but I got one! I finally got one!” The starter and the alumni affairs chief smiled and nodded, telling the heretofore hapless reliever how happy they were for him. “I was beginning to think this would never happen,” Paul confided. “But it has. Finally.”
—September 25, 2019
(Free agent, 12/2/2020; signed with Mariners, 1/7/2021)

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JUSTIN JAMES WILSON
Relief Pitcher
March 30, 2019 – September 24, 2020

Teams build bullpens on the foundation of a core belief that starting pitchers can’t be pushed beyond so many total pitches and so many stressful innings. Well, teams try to build such bullpens. The Mets tried. I swear they did. What they wound up with instead was a coupla guys. The coupla guys, Justin Wilson and Seth Lugo, have held the bullpen together essentially by themselves for weeks, most recently the night before. On Saturday, it was deGrom for seven, Lugo for one, Wilson for one. It worked perfectly. Now Callaway would ask it — them — to work perfectly again on no nights’ rest. It didn’t work.
—September 16, 2019
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; signed with Yankees, 2/15/2021)

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FREDERICK ALFRED “Rick” PORCELLO
Starting Pitcher
July 26, 2020 – September 26, 2020

One night this abbreviated season, I got in the car after my weekly grocery-shopping trip, turned on the game, discovered it was another Porcello start going quickly awry, and muttered some pretty nasty thoughts aloud in the direction of a fella who couldn’t hear me. But on Saturday night, after the sweep in D.C. was complete and the Mets dangled one game above finishing in a last-place tie, Rick Porcello took it upon himself to basically apologize for how crummy he and the rest of Mets played in 2020. It was enough to almost make me take back my previous grumblings. “I’m sorry we couldn’t have done better for you, and given you something to watch during the postseason,” the righty said, noting that he was happy he could at least be a part of giving us folks at home a distraction from all that swirls about us. “I wish I could’ve done better for this ballclub. Unfortunately, we’re out of time. I gave it my all and it wasn’t good enough for us.” Rick concluded by adding, “I love the Mets, I’ve always loved the Mets since I was a kid.” It would figure that someone who realized a lifelong dream of playing for “a team I grew up cheering for” would know exactly what to say to us, a cohort that surely includes him.
—September 27, 2020
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; currently unsigned)

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WILSON ABRAHAM RAMOS
Catcher
March 29, 2019 – September 27, 2020

For a solid month of 2019 — August 3 to September 3 — Wilson Ramos played in 26 games for the Mets and hit in every one of them. The hitting streak was the best by any Met in the 2010s (second only to Moises Alou’s thirty in franchise annals), and it couldn’t have come at a better moment. The Mets were making a bid for the postseason, and their mostly everyday catcher was batting .430 and slugging .590 as they strove. That span included four games in which Wilson came off the bench to extend the streak or, more accurately, help his team maintain its momentum. You can also factor into his monumental achievement that by August, a catcher is bound to be physically run down at any age; Ramos turned 32 on August 10. Oh, and don’t overlook that not every pitcher appreciated this catcher’s defensive abilities, and by September word leaked that at least one batterymate (Noah Syndergaard) was asking for someone else to handle his workload. Another, however (Jacob deGrom), clinched a Cy Young Award by tossing three scoreless seven-inning starts, each with Wilson behind the plate. By 2019’s end, Ramos completed his first season as a Met with 141 games played and a .288 batting average. Catch that, why don’t you?
—December 11, 2019
(Free agent, 10/28/2020; signed with Tigers, 1/26/2021)

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GERMAN AMED ROSARIO
Shortstop
August 1, 2017 – September 27, 2020

We’ll leave that for the future, unknown though it may be, and concentrate in the present on the half-inning of our most recent past. The tenth inning. The one against the Indians. The one Amed Rosario, the shortstop who bloomed into a second-half superstar as soon as the ink was dry on the organizational plan to convert him into a last-ditch center fielder, led off with a double to center. Since the beginning of June, Rosario is a .500 hitter. Since August 1, Amed is batting a thousand. I could look up what the numbers actually are, but I’m comfortable with the hyperbole.
—August 22, 2019
(Traded to Cleveland, 1/7/2021)

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STEVEN JAKOB MATZ
Starting Pitcher
June 28, 2015 – September 27, 2020

He’s a happening. He’s a happening because he brought 130 friends and family from Suffolk County and because he’s been working his way back from Tommy John so long that the general manager who drafted him was Omar Minaya and because his favorite adolescent baseball memory involves Endy Chavez and he’s 24 yet looks 14 and he knows to professionally tip his cap when thunderously applauded and he lived up to every expectation we had for him and he built new expectations along the way and he exceeded those. We who were grumpy from a lack of offense even after Duda’s growth charts flapped victoriously roared without reservation for Steven Matz. We were holding out for a hero. We received a folk hero. He’s proof, as if we needed any more, that the designated hitter rule belongs on the ash heap of history. If, say, Cuddyer as hypothetical DH had gone 3-for-3, we might be curious what kind of hallucinogenics they were using at Blue Smoke, but we wouldn’t otherwise be terribly moved beyond vague approval. But Matz going 3-for-3? The pitcher? Never mind the Colon sideshow. This is a pitcher not just helping his own cause. This is a pitcher defining the cause. Let other pitchers pray for run support. Matz answered everybody’s prayers before they could be formulated.
—June 29, 2015
(Traded to Blue Jays, 1/27/2021)

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YOENIS CESPEDES (Milanes)
Outfielder
August 1, 2015 – August 2, 2020

Without Cespedes in the lineup, they kept winning and were plenty imposing. With Cespedes, where between one and eight in their standard lineup is the letup for the opposing pitcher? Mike Broadway picked a very bad night to be an understudy to Jake Peavy. Cespedes, though…what a star. In a ten-pitch span dating to the previous Friday in Atlanta, Cespedes came to the plate five times, took six swings, delivered four hits, totaled twelve bases and drove in eleven runs. And that was all while letting a debilitating bruise heal. Amid the twelve-run inning and eventual 13-1 win, Yoenis set two Met records of his own: most RBIs by one batter in one inning (six); and most consecutive games with at least one extra-base hit (nine). The Mets he surpassed in these respective realms were Butch Huskey and Ty Wigginton. I liked Butch Huskey and Ty Wigginton just fine in their day. The days Yoenis Cespedes and these Mets are giving us, though? Every day is Christmas. And every night is New Year’s Eve.
—April 30, 2016
(Placed on restricted list, 8/1/2020; free agent 10/28/2020; currently unsigned)

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FRED WILPON
Chairman of the Board & Chief Executive Officer
January 24, 1980 – November 6, 2020

[A]nother theme the self-inflicted media onslaught emphasized was the owner of the Mets loves being owner of the Mets. Take it from perennially reliable source Steve Phillips: “I know how important the team is to the Wilpon family.” Yet, for what little it’s worth in the big picture, I don’t necessarily equate that with loving the Mets. I’ve never gotten the feeling Fred Wilpon does, not in the way those of us who don’t get to shove blueprints at an architect and tell him to shut up and just rebuild Ebbets Field do. I’m sure he loves the Mets as a property, and that there’s more to the Mets to him than there is to this or that building in Manhattan, but I also get the feeling his acumen was most acute in tending to inanimate objects.
—May 25, 2011
(Sold franchise to Steve Cohen, 11/6/2020; retains 5% ownership share and serves as chairman emeritus)