Gottenheimer

Connoisseurs of the Academy Awards’ In Memoriam montage — the inspiration behind Faith and Fear’s annual salute to the Mets Who Have Left Us (in the baseball sense) — are inevitably miffed by the incompleteness of the televised salute, as there never fails to be some beloved contributor to the world of film who gets left out in deference to time constraints. To be fair to those who produce the montage, many people work in motion pictures, and it’s impossible to include everybody who might rate acknowledgement. Bruce Davis, a former Academy executive, recently shared with the Washington Post a story that illustrates the difficulties inherent in creating a tribute that is both well-meaning and all-encompassing.

Davis once received a call from an emotional stranger who said he was leaving Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where his father had just died. How could he submit his name to the In Memoriam segment?

“I had never heard his father’s name,” Davis says, “and I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable of who’s had a significant career in the industry.” So Davis looked him up. The man had three tiny nonspeaking roles in 1940s westerns.

“I’m thinking: This poor guy is going to be watching the show, waiting for his father’s name, maybe even a picture of him,” Davis says. “He has no concept of how many people would qualify.”

This blog is not nearly so selective. The baseline qualification for the FAFIF montage is twofold. A person had to have a) played for the Mets and b) left or been nudged from the organization between the previous year’s Oscars telecast and the one that just happened. We might also tip a cap to a non-player who moved on during the time period in question if that person’s inclusion is deemed appropriate. But the core policy we’ve followed since introducing this feature in 2007 has been we excerpt a passage exemplifying how every Met who has left us existed within the pages of Faith and Fear during his Met tenure…even the baseball equivalent of the actor whose IMDb credits are limited to three tiny nonspeaking roles in 1940s westerns.

We have quite a few of those this year. Of the 35 players (along with one other fellow of surpassing significance) we’re about to remember, 14 played in no more than 10 games as a New York Met. I’m confident in asserting that you’ve already forgotten several of them. There’s a decent chance you were never more than barely aware of a few of them. Modern-day roster manipulation tends to make some men Mets for a minute, yet nary a minute more.

Usually the Mets Who Left Us spotlight presents a final opportunity to say goodbye to the players we got to know pretty well, players who were part of our lives as fans, players we consciously or otherwise adopted as our own. Hopefully you’ll feel some of that here, but this edition will also likely have you saying something along the lines of “I’m sorry, did I know you?”

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TYSON MARCUS MILLER
Relief Pitcher
August 14, 2023

Miller to Coonrod to Bickford to Gott. Ortega and Araúz. Yep, just like we planned it.
—August 15, 2023
(Selected off waivers by Dodgers, 8/27/2023)

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EDWIN DANIEL UCETA
Relief Pitcher
April 22, 2023

Meanwhile, Edwin Uceta, who went on the IL in April following three innings of work in a single relief outing, was activated on Wednesday only to find himself simultaneously designated for assignment. “What do Santana, Butto, Miller, Reyes, Yacabonis and Curtiss got that I ain’t got?” Uceta might have been heard to think. Hard to build team morale when the team keeps becoming a slightly different team.
—August 16, 2023
(Selected off waivers by Cubs, 8/18/2023)

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DENNIS ANFERNEE SANTANA
Relief Pitcher
April 1, 2023 – August 18, 2023

Santana is a pitcher we got from the Twins. The last time we got a pitcher named Santana from the Twins, it was an enormous deal. It worked out well.
—March 29, 2023
(Free agent, 8/22/2023; signed with Yankees, 12/6/2023)

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ABRAHAM ALMONTE
Outfielder
August 8, 2023 – August 26, 2023

The Mets did a little threatening in the eighth — two on — and the ninth — Lindor leading off with a single. The threats proved idle. Alonso lined to deep right for the first out of the ninth, leaving Lindor on first and bringing up Daniel Vogelbach. Ryder and I had been moments earlier bemoaning the stubborn presence of Vogelbach on the 2023 Mets’ roster. In August of 2022, Vogey was the right hitter at the right time for a contender, even if he usually required a pinch-runner to complete his rounds. In August of 2023, we don’t celebrate his designated bat any longer. There’s no Terrance Gore, no Tim Locastro to steer his additional 270 feet from first to home should Vogelbach somehow accomplish the first 90 feet. There is Abraham Almonte, the 34-year-old callup we saw make his Met debut, but Almonte is no pinch-runner. For These Mets, Almonte was Tuesday’s starting right fielder.
—August 9, 2023
(Free agent, 10/4/2023; signed with Olmecas de Tabasco (Mexican League), 2/1/2024)

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SAMUEL TIMOTHY “Sam” COONROD
Relief Pitcher
August 14, 2023 – September 12, 2023

That last homer was particularly welcome, coming after Grant Hartwig and Sam Coonrod sandwiched a competent inning from Phil Bickford by doing what the bullpen does seemingly every night these days. Hartwig and Coonrod were nice stories for about five seconds earlier this season; now when you see either of those young men you consider hiding behind the couch before remembering that a) what the hell, the season’s already lost; and b) at least they’re not Trevor Gott or Drew Smith.
—September 13, 2023
(Free agent, 11/17/2023; currently unsigned)

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GARY SANCHEZ (Herrera)
Catcher
May 21, 2023 – May 23, 2023

Alvarez? He’s the starting catcher on the same team. Gary Sanchez, an idea that might have been worth trying out in a practical sense if there was no better option behind the plate or in the lineup, was designated for assignment Thursday. By the time he got a few reps in 2023, the position he played belonged to the much younger man.
—May 26, 2023
(Selected off waivers by Padres, 5/29/2023)

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ADAM JOHN KOLAREK
Relief Pitcher
August 20, 2023 – August 26, 2023

When the Mets began the sixth with Lindor’s double and Vogelbach’s eleventh home run of the season to cut Atlanta’s lead to 3-2, a game that played as frustrating for the New Yorkers turned to perhaps promising. Yet despite the continued effective relief pitching of Kolarek, Reed Garrett and Brooks Raley, a trio who combined for three-and-a-third scoreless innings, the Mets never could plate the tying run.
—August 23, 2023
(Free agent, 8/29/2023; signed with Braves, 8/31/2023)

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ZACHARY E. “Zach” MUCKENHIRN
Relief Pitcher
May 3, 2023 – June 9, 2023

Lefty reliever Zach Muckenhirn made his debut for us, and it didn’t go badly. Muckenhirn is the 1,197th Met overall and, barring who knows what before today’s first inning, will always have the pleasure of knowing he will always sit directly above prospective Met No. 1,198 Justin Verlander on the franchise’s all-time chronological roster.
—May 4, 2023
(Traded to Mariners, 7/3/2023)

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TIMOTHY JOHN “T.J.” McFARLAND
Relief Pitcher
June 28, 2023 – July 9, 2023

With the Mets scoring seven runs and the visiting Brewers scoring none entering the eighth inning, the stage should have been set for T.J. McFarland. “Pulsipher to McFarland,” it was said. Too good a throughline to interject, “Don’t forget Roger Mason and Rick Parker,” from when there’d been barely more than 500 Mets overall. All that was needed was the enormous lead to remain immense, and there’d be no reason to not bring in from the bullpen for the ninth inning the southpaw who would forever be the 1,205th Met overall and inch us closer to 700 Mets we could say we’ve shared across 29 years and counting of counting. Except Jeff Brigham gave up a couple of runs, and Buck Showalter, too nervous to screw around too much these days, turned to Dominic Leone to finish up, and we had to settle for the Mets breezing to a 7-2 win and staying stuck on 1,204 Mets overall. Still, a delightful evening like so many we’ve enjoyed in neighboring seats in so many seasons in a couple of different apple-laden ballparks. We got everything but T.J. McFarland for our Tuesday night troubles.
—June 28, 2023
(Free agent, 7/18/2023; signed with Orioles, 7/23/2022)

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ANTHONY BENJAMIN KAY
Relief Pitcher
September 24, 2023 – October 1, 2023

Hello to Long Island’s Own Anthony Kay, the 1,218th Met overall and a fellow who can be said to have waited longer than most Mets to become Mets. We drafted him in 2013 (didn’t sign). We drafted him anew in 2016 (he did sign). We traded him in 2019 (for Marcus Stroman, who had one of those eventful Met tenures that a couple of years later doesn’t seem like it actually happened). We grabbed LIOAK back on waivers recently and called him up to fortify the bullpen from the left side, which he did with a scoreless inning-and-a-third Sunday. Who says you can’t go home again for the first time?
—September 25, 2023
(Selected off waivers by A’s, 10/24/2023)

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KHALIL RASHAD LEE
Outfielder
May 17, 2021 – June 11, 2022

[I]t was Khalil Lee pinch-hitting for Drew Smith. Khalil Lee had the distinction of being both the last guy you’d think of to pinch-hit, considering he was 0-for-8 with eight strikeouts in his brief career, and the last guy you had who roughly answered to the description of “hitter” left on the bench. Lee therefore was distinct enough to get the chance to break his ohfer. And he did, doubling like he’d done it before, driving in Dom to give the Mets a 4-3 lead.
—May 22, 2021
(Released 5/8/2023; signed with Southern Maryland Crabs (Atlantic League), 6/1/2023)

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DOMINIC JOSEPH LEONE
Relief Pitcher
May 4, 2023 – July 29, 2023

Having generated such a thoughtful response from Buck pregame, I wondered if I could ask him a followup in the seventh: “What’s this debilitating fascination you have with Dominic Leone?” Leone, who hasn’t inspired an iota of confidence during his Met tenure to date, got bailed out by his defense in the sixth. He responded to his good fortune by loading the bases in the seventh.
—May 20, 2023
(Traded to Angels, 8/1/2023)

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MICHAEL VINCENT “Vinny” NITTOLI
Relief Pitcher
June 23, 2023 – August 19, 2023

The way they’ve been playing, they can get rid of everybody. The names of the pitchers received for Escobar are Coleman Crow and Landon Marceaux. At this juncture of their affiliation with the Mets, they are slightly less familiar to me than Vinny Nittoli, the journeyman reliever who made his Met debut in the 5-1 loss at Citizens Bank Park Friday. Nittoli pitched a scoreless inning once it became apparent that, in the scheme of the game he entered, it didn’t really matter what he did. In the scheme of the season in which the Mets’ 75th game was played, it has become apparent that no individual game really matters, either.
—June 24, 2023
(Free agent, 10/24/2023; signed with A’s, 10/27/2023)

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JOHN DICKENS CURTISS
Relief Pitcher
March 31, 2023 – August 4, 2023

I’d like to say I didn’t know the game was lost at 3-1, but that was just too many almosts for one half-inning when the opponent is the Braves. Maybe it would have been too many almosts for one half-inning when the opponent is anybody, but the Braves have been the Braves too much and too long, especially too recently, where the Mets are concerned. Almost-ing them isn’t gonna cut it, especially when they’re being definitive about increasing their lead off Mets starter Denyi Reyes. Reyes gives up a single to Michael Harris II and a homer to Kevin Pillar. Reyes is replaced by Syracuse recallee John Curtiss. Curtiss gives up a homer to Acuña. Instead of cutting into the Braves’ edge further or tying them or passing them, we fall further behind them. Arithmetically, allowing three hitters to become three runners who cross the plate can equal no more than three runs. It felt like more.
—May 2, 2023
(Free agent, 11/6/2023; signed with Rockies, 1/25/2024)

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TREVOR VAUGHAN GOTT
Relief Pitcher
July 6, 2023 – September 27, 2023

Buck told Trevor to do what Trevor does, and he responded. In retrospect, it was methodical, but in the moment, it wasn’t easy. Nothing about this game was easy. I watched it with a piercing sinus headache that didn’t get any better from the presence of Trevor Gott.
—September 20, 2023
(Free agent, 11/17/2023; signed with A’s, 12/15/2023)

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MICHAEL PEREZ
Catcher
August 15, 2022 – October 1, 2023

It became a 3-2 Mets loss despite recalled catcher Perez rapping out four hits from the nine-hole in his first game back from Triple-A, only the second time the Mets have ever lost a game with that kind of bottom-of-the-order production, and surely the first time they’d been held to a mere two runs with their last batter proving himself entirely unretirable.
—May 15, 2023
(Free agent, 10/24/2023; signed with Orioles, 12/30/2023)

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JAMES ALLIN “Jimmy” YACABONIS
Relief Pitcher
April 16, 2023 – August 11, 2023

Meanwhile, the post-Max pack, led for two-and-two-thirds by Jimmy the Yak, picked up the Scherzerless slack. A potential ace tour de force became a bullpen game, and for the last six innings, Jimmy Yacabonis plus Jeff Brigham, Drew Smith, David Robertson and Adam Ottavino did the best thing relief pitchers can do: they got the job done. […] Afterward, when Scherzer paused from claiming perfectly permissible “sweat and rosin” long enough to answer a question about how well Yacabonis pitched in his place on no notice, Max smiled and said the long reliever definitely deserved a steak dinner, presumably on him. That’s really nice, assuming Max washes his hands before passing the potatoes.
—April 20, 2023
(Free agent, 8/15/2023; signed with Long Island Ducks (Atlantic League), 9/5/2023)

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DANIEL “Danny” MENDICK
Utilityman
June 24, 2023 – September 30, 2023

The Mets lost by the typographically correct if competitively averse score of 21-3 in Saturday afternoon’s makeup game versus the Braves, the day portion of a split-admission doubleheader necessitated by an April rainout and cruelty. The Mets were losing only 13-3 when they were using pitchers; utilityman Danny Mendick allowed eight runs in the ninth, indicating his utility has its limits.
—August 12, 2023
(Free agent, 10/24/2023; signed with White Sox, 2/8/2024)

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JEFF JOHN BRIGHAM
Relief Pitcher
April 18, 2023 – September 21, 2023

Turning to rookie lefty Josh Walker to get outs with a three-run lead didn’t work out. At all. A walk. A single. A walk. An exit. The Mets still lead by three. The manager brings in Jeff Brigham, a veteran righty who was surprisingly consistent in earlier innings in earlier weeks of this season, a little less so has time has gone on. Still, Brigham bounces the first batter he faces, Bohm, to third base. That could very well be a double play ball. All the third baseman, Brett Baty has to do is field the ball cleanly and throw it quickly and accurately. But he doesn’t. He double clutches, he throws low to second, everybody is safe, every base is occupied and a run has scored. Brigham has been undermined by his defense but is still protecting a lead. He must face three batters in all. The second of them, Brandon Marsh, walks with the bases loaded. OK, not good, but the Mets still lead. Then Kody Clemens strikes out, which is much better. Hitting Kyle Schwarber…no, not very good at all. The game is tied. Then, upon Brigham’s fifth batter, Turner…another HBP. It is now Phillies 7 Mets 6. At last, Brigham is removed.
—June 26, 2023
(Free agent, 11/17/2023; signed with Twins, 2/13/2024)

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TIMOTHY DONALD “Tim” LOCASTRO
Outfielder
March 31, 2023 – October 1, 2023

Bottom of the sixth Sunday. Tim Locastro leads off versus Carson Spiers. Spiers is the nephew of 1995 Met Bill Spiers. Carson’s skipper is the grandson of 1962 Met right fielder Gus Bell. Locastro relates to Spiers by lofting a fly ball above short right field. It doesn’t fly that much, but it stays in the air a spell and it has its eye on No Red’s Land. It falls in. Tim, a burner, sees he can take advantage of the ball’s elusiveness and hustles. It’s a HUSTLE double! A BLOOP double! No such thing as a bloop homer, and you pretty much have to be Marlon Anderson and receive a lot of luck to Van McCoy your way into a home run if you didn’t clear the fence. Triples have to go far, too. Doubles don’t have to travel all day if the right fellow hits the ball in just the right spot. Alas, Locastro didn’t score, as nobody drove or wild-pitched him in. The Mets were leaving a few too many of their crew to fend for themselves on the bases as the day progressed.
—September 18, 2023
(Free agent, 11/6/2023; signed with Padres, 2/28/2024)

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DARIN CORTLAND RUF
Designated Hitter
August 5, 2022 – October 8, 2022

The transitory thrills were provided in the fifth by pinch-hitter Darin Ruf in his first Met plate appearance (two-run double to right) and pinch-hitter Eduardo Escobar (single to bring home Ruf). So much pinch-hitting produced so many pinch-ribbies that we were pinching ourselves, then convincing ourselves the tying run was coming to bat every inning. Maybe it was. Maybe we hallucinated. Wearing too much black in such hot weather can cause mirages.
—August 6, 2022
(Released, 4/3/2023; signed with Giants, 4/8/2023)

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DENYI REYES
Pitcher
April 4, 2023 – October 1, 2023

But if it were just Reyes shaking off his 15.88 ERA as a starter in 2023 — gathered over two outings that lasted fewer than six innings — and holding the Rangers in check for five-and-a-third, leaving the game with an unlikely two-run lead that set the Mets up for their victory…well, solid pitching from mysterious sources materializes from time to time. Plus, this was the first start in which Reyes’s first name was pronounced “Den-gee” by Mets announcers rather than the intuitive “Den-yee” or Americanized “Denny”. Perhaps this Reyes is somebody else altogether. Or perhaps he hired as his private pitching tutor former Met stalwart Dillon Gee and the lessons took.
—August 31, 2023
(Free agent, 11/6/2023; signed with Samsung Lions (Korean Baseball Organization), 1/4/2024)

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JONATHAN ALDAIR ARAÚZ
Infielder
August 2, 2023 – September 17, 2023

It’s easy to pick on guys we’ve never heard of when they suddenly appear in our uniform. I did it after Wednesday’s game when presented the likes of Jonathan Araúz as my starting second baseman. Is it the fault of a professional baseball player who entered 2023 with nearly 200 big league plate appearances that I don’t know him from a hole in the head? I apparently saw him play on television in 2020; it’s on his permanent record that he competed against the Mets in two games inside an empty Fenway right after the pandemic mini-slate got underway. In the fourth inning Thursday, Araúz grabbed a sinking liner and turned into a heady double play. All right, now Jonathan isn’t just a strange name. He’s done something. He’s a Met. Four innings later, Araúz undermined a 5-4 putout when he received a throw from Brett Baty in the neighborhood of second base. The baserunner he thought he’d forced was initially called out, but the Royals, using eyes, challenged and got it overturned (the umpire must have not been in the vicinity of the neighborhood). It wasn’t one of those plays they had to show from myriad angles to determine if the fielder’s foot was off the bag. The fielder’s foot might as well have been on the bus to Syracuse.
—August 4, 2023
(Free agent, 10/24/2023; signed with Dodgers, 12/15/2023)

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RAYMOND THOMAS “Tommy” HUNTER
Relief Pitcher
May 7, 2021 – June 9, 2023

When the Mets play their erstwhile National League expansionmates in matchup of first-place occupants in Houston, they will have Tommy Hunter ready to go as one-eighth of their formerly nine-man bullpen. Hunter returned to Met duty on Sunday after a detour to Tampa Bay in 2021 when, like [John] Paciorek, he had to deal with back problems, but — no irony intended — he is back. Hunter didn’t pitch for the Rays while he was gone, meaning we can categorize good ol’ Tommy not so much as a Recidivist Met (someone who played for the Mets; played for somebody else; then returned to play for the Mets some more) but as a Met Once Removed (someone who played for the Mets; left for another organization without logging any MLB action while away; then got his Met on again in an active player sense, thus precluding the necessity to include Chris Schwinden and his umpteen waiver claims from 2012). As defense attorney Jackie Chiles told his clients in the Seinfeld finale, “You people have a little pet name for everybody.”
—June 20, 2022
(Released 6/13/2023; retired, 12/13/2023)

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RAFAEL ANGEL ORTEGA
Outfielder
August 1, 2023 – October 1, 2023

Me, I had Rafael Ortega. And now I will always have Rafael Ortega, even if the Mets won’t after this season ends. Ortega ensured his sliver of Met immortality by sinking a fly ball along the edge of No Man’s Land, or at least not inside Renfroe’s zone of defensive comfort in right field. Hunter nearly made a stumbling catch that would have likely resulted in Locastro tagging up and scoring, because however strong the right fielder’s arm, his angle wasn’t optimal to make an effective throw.
—August 28, 2023
(Free agent, 10/24/2023; signed with White Sox, 1/5/2024)

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STEPHEN JAMES NOGOSEK
Relief Pitcher
June 19, 2019 – June 8, 2023

Stephen Nogosek
Picks up his glove in the pen
And he starts to get warm
Buck likes his form
Waiting since Sunday
Stretching in back with the pack
Of the arms seldom used
Tries to stay loose
—May 12, 2022
(Free agent, 6/14/2023; signed with Diamondbacks, 6/16/2023)

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THOMAS JAMES “Tommy” PHAM
Outfielder
March 30, 2023 – July 30, 2023

After the inning Canha moved to first, McNeil to right and Guillorme to second — none of which mattered, as Brooks Raley walked one and struck out three — Tommy Pham doubled with one out. He was the tying run on base, which was great. Pham doing something of an extra-base nature…I was wary. Pham seems to light it up most in Met losses. Coincidence, I’m sure, but you tend to infer what you begin to sense are trendlets. Another trip to Baseball-Reference is booked to ascertain if Pham the Met hits his best in games that become losses is something akin to a trend or just a figment of the selective imagination.
—June 12, 2023
(Traded to Diamondbacks, 8/1/2023)

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DAVID ALAN ROBERTSON
Relief Pitcher
March 30, 2023 – July 25, 2023

David Robertson was handed the ball for the bottom of the ninth. The bottom of the eighth didn’t work out so well for Robbie this past Friday, when Patrick Bailey, somebody else’s catching wunderkind, took him too deep with too many on. But that was in a month when no Met not named Tommy Pham could do right. This is a new month. By the bottom of the ninth, in New York at least, it was a new day. After midnight, David was protecting his third lead of July. The first two Arizonans were retired with ease. The third was Christian Walker, the slugger who had the curious and drowsy looking up Dillon Gee and Freddie Freeman. The count Walker worked was the same full version Alvarez constructed versus Chafin. These Snakes were one swing away from whacking an otherwise pleasing storyline. These Snakes this year have been one of the best teams in the league. These Mets…not so much. Robertson relied on his offspeed stuff and Walker flailed above it for strike three. The Mets, left for dead in the desert barely minutes before, had sprung ahead and stayed there, 2-1 winners.
—July 6, 2023
(Traded to Marlins, 7/27/2023)

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DANIEL TAYLOR VOGELBACH
Designated Hitter
July 24, 2022 – September 22, 2023

That brought Alonso home from second and then, perhaps not a matter of seconds later, Daniel Vogelbach home from first. Daniel Vogelbach is a player I can’t take my eyes off, and not just because he fills so much of my field of vision. You’ve probably seen silent movies in which the walking appears a little sped up, due to the technical limitations of the era. When Vogie takes a pitch (he takes a lot of them) and ambles away from the plate to collect himself, he may as well be Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin in motion. It’s not for comedic effect. He moves quickly if not exactly speedily. He knows everything he is doing out there. If he’s come to grips with his limitations, he’s just as determined to take advantage of his capabilities. One of them is running the bases. From what we’ve seen, he can turn it on when he has to. To score from first on Canha’s double to left-center, he had to. A little flub in the outfield aided his cause, but Joey Cora had no compunction against sending him. Vogelbach was so certain he’d score, he didn’t slide. Daniel doesn’t strike me as the kind of fellow who’d slide just for kicks.
—August 8, 2022
(Free agent, 11/17/2023; signed with Blue Jays, 2/16/2024)

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JUSTIN BROOKS VERLANDER
Starting Pitcher
May 4, 2023 – July 30, 2023

JV has continued to traverse his comeback from ordinary to extraordinary, definitely tilting in the desired direction Sunday. If five-and-a-third innings of one-run ball versus the one team in the division certifiably worse than yours isn’t a Cooperstown signifier, Verlander did that thing a person loves to see from a starting pitcher. He worked out of trouble in the first (one run) and got stronger as the day went on. The Mets hit Old Friend™ Trevor Williams enough to give Justin breathing room, and when Verlander left the mound in favor of David Peterson, most of us rose to applaud the starter. Maybe it was for the five-and-a-third; maybe it was for the 250th career win that three-and-two-thirds of adequate relief would secure; maybe it really was for a Justin-case fare-thee-well now that we were in an even better mood.
—July 31, 2023
(Traded to Astros, 8/1/2023)

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CARLOS LUIS CARRASCO
Starting Pitcher
July 30, 2021 – August 26, 2023

Heartiest congratulations go out to Carlos Carrasco, who used the occasion of the Mets’ 100th game of the season to notch the 100th regular-season win of his career. He was supported in his effort Saturday night at Miami by solo home runs from Jeff McNeil, Francisco Lindor and J.D. Davis and backed up by another solid relief stint from Seth Lugo, all chipping in to make the Mets’ fifth consecutive triumph possible, but this was Cookie’s party, and he pitched well enough to earn both the milestone W and a celebratory Cookie Puss if he so desires one. He went 7⅔, scattered four hits, walked only two, struck out seven, induced a parade of lazy flyouts and easy grounders, and allowed no runs to any Marlins. Neither did Lugo, making Carrasco’s hundredth, a 4-0 shutout, that much more festive.
—July 31, 2022
(Free agent, 11/2/2023; signed with Guardians, 1/27/2024)

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MARK DAVID CANHA
Outfielder
April 7, 2022 – July 30, 2023

When a Met starter pitches six or more innings in 2023, the Mets inevitably win. It’s a statistical fact until it’s not. It helps to score enough runs to shepherd the inevitability into reality. It helps to have Mark Canha in the lineup against the Phillies. Shooting the Phillies out of a Canha proves repeatedly effective for the Met offense. Canha homered twice on a wild Sunday at Citizens Bank Park last August, and the Mets won the damn thing. Canha homered on Wednesday night and the Mets won in calmer fashion. Canha homered on Thursday afternoon and the Mets won again. Starters going deep and Mark Canha going deep. As long as he wasn’t managing the Phillies, Earl Weaver might have approved.
—June 2, 2023
(Traded to Brewers, 7/31/2023)

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EDUARDO JOSE ESCOBAR
Third Baseman
April 7, 2022 – June 20, 2023

Has any Met looked any happier on a going basis than Eduardo Escobar? Maybe Brandon Nimmo, that wonderful Wyoming weirdo who came out of the womb grinning and hasn’t been told he can glower if the mood hits him. Escobar has looked a little glum from time to time, in sync with his performance the first five or so months of his Met career. If he wasn’t slumping, he was injured. Yet if given the slightest opening, we’d see him beam. He was on a first-place team, supporting his teammates and they, along with their manager, supported him. I don’t know if I’ve heard a Met as universally talked up by other Mets as I heard everybody vouch for Eduardo Escobar’s warm and winning ways as a human being. The implicit message from everybody was just wait — Eduardo’s a great guy and not at all a bad ballplayer.
—September 29, 2022
(Traded to Angels, 6/23/2023)

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LUIS MIGUEL GUILLORME
Infielder
May 11, 2018 – September 30, 2023

Luis Guillorme leapt to the shortstop side of second to touch off a balletic beauty of a 4-6-3 DP with Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso in the sixth. If they still printed tickets rather than doing ducats electronically, they’d have to put Luis’s face on them, for he and his glove are truly worth the price of admission.
—June 15, 2022
(Free agent, 11/17/2023; signed with Braves, 1/5/2024)

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MAXWELL MARTIN “Max” SCHERZER
Starting Pitcher
April 8, 2022 – July 28, 2023

My feeling on Scherzer isn’t that he’s a mercenary in the Gl@v!nian mode but something more akin to a visiting scholar. Has his tenure. Opted for a change of scenery (and more than a little pocket change). Likes our campus well enough. Visited the school book store. Bought a couple of sweatshirts. Figures to someday look back on his years in Flushing with a degree of fondness. But we’ll never be his alma mater. As best as I can frame it, Max Scherzer is the Professor Kingsfield of our pennant chase. Our younger and less-accomplished hurlers teach themselves the strike zone, but Scherzer, à la John Houseman’s indelible crusty mentor, trains their minds. They join the staff with a skull full of mush, they enter the rotation thinking like a pitcher. That’s pretty valuable if not wholly warm and fuzzy. Max is great to have on the Mets. I’m just not convinced he is a Met. Or maybe he’s going to help redefine what it means to be a Met despite me never shaking the notion that he’s almost an alien presence in our midst. I should add that I’m coming to terms with the idea that I’m dealing with abandonment issues where the previous Met ace is concerned, thus I imagine I’m a little wary about getting attached to any Met ace.
—March 31, 2023
(Traded to Rangers, 7/29/2023)

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WILLIAM NATHANIEL “Buck” SHOWALTER III
Manager
April 7, 2022 – October 1, 2023

The Diamondbacks decided Dom left third too soon, potentially negating McCann’s sac fly. That he didn’t, and almost nobody ever does, didn’t matter. They were gonna put the appeal play on. Ollie stepped off the rubber, and…he’s got J.D. stealing second to contend with. Except he doesn’t, because his job in that moment is to throw to third to theoretically retroactively nail Dom. Except he’s distracted by J.D., who Buck Showalter has sent to second precisely to completely distract Perez. Had Perez picked off J.D., he of the five career stolen bases in five major league seasons, so be it, figured Buck. It would have been the third out of the sixth, but the important thing was the appeal play was off the instant Ollie didn’t throw to third, and therefore Smith’s run would count regardless of J.D.’s fate. As it happened, Dom didn’t leave third too soon. Also as it happened, J.D. stole second. One more happening: Ollie got Luis Guillorme for the next out, stranding Davis, but the real happening at the end of an aggressively run inning was Buck made sure to protect that third run, the one Smith scored. That third run for a third out was a trade Buck would make in the time it took Frank Cashen to say yes to swapping Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey for Keith Hernandez. Got all that? Buck did. The Mets did. Ol’ pal Ollie was flustered. The twenty-year veteran and reigning LAMSA or Longest Ago Met Still Active didn’t seem to know what exactly was going on, which was OK, because a) nobody at first glance seemed to understand this baseball version of the tuck rule (something that can’t possibly seem right but is — call it the Buck rule); and b) Buck knew and made sure his players knew exactly what was going on. The Mets outsmarting the opposition. We could get used to that.
—April 17, 2022
(Relieved of duties, 10/1/2023)