On July 21, 2004, the Mets called up David Wright from Norfolk to play in their 94th game of the season. On July 21, 2009, David Wright played in the Mets’ 93rd game of this season. That means David Wright has been a big leaguer for precisely five seasons’ worth of Mets baseball.
Of a possible 810 games, he has participated in 795, starting all but a handful. Divide his five years as a Met into five seasons and you get, per season every season:
• 159 Games Played
• 186 Hits
• 78 Walks
• 27 Home Runs
• 42 Doubles
• 107 Runs Batted In
• 104 Runs Scored
• 23 Stolen Bases
• .310 Batting Average
• .391 On Base Percentage
• .523 Slugging Percentage
Throw in everything else that you have probably noticed since the first game five years ago yesterday through the most recent game last night and tell me: Is David Wright, after exactly five seasons’ worth of Mets baseball, the greatest everyday Met in club history?
Only once he grows a mustache. But then, yes.
Um, yeah. Pizza and Cleon and Darryl and Keith… none of them played long enough for the Mets…. so it's David Wright by default, the perfect sad symbol for the Mets — can't hit in the clutch, can't make the easy throw from third, but we still love him. RIP, pennant hopes.
By the end of this year, yes.
IMHO, right now, he's neck-and-neck with Darryl.
He's certainly headed there. Given the fact that I sincerely hope he's here for years to come, when all is said and done, he will have earned that honor.
Statistically, and adjusted for the era he played in, Darryl Strawberry remains the greatest everyday player in Mets history by a greater margin than I would have believed prior to looking it up.
Wright may someday surpass him (his numbers are currently very similar to Piazza's Met numbers) but Darryl is number 1.
Personally I always look first at the batting average and RBI's..In five full years he has met up to all the expectations- statistically – I just think in my heart that this kid wants to win desperately in this town of towns..
He is not, however, the greatest all time Mets position player..
Rich P
He probably has a couple more years to go to exceed Strawberry, and a dozen or two clutch homers to push Mike out of the picture. But yeah, he's certainly in the conversation already.
Wow: I was gonna say, shouldn't Beltran be, too? Especially considering his ridiculous, hard-to-quantify defensive contributions? But then I looked at the numbers (admitedly skewed by injuries, but that's part of the equation). David's got him beat on each one.
• 132 Games Played
• 140 Hits
• 70 Walks
• 25 Home Runs
• 33 Doubles
• 92 Runs Batted In
• 92 Runs Scored
• 19 Stolen Bases
• .281 Batting Average
• .368 On Base Percentage
• .507 Slugging Percentage
Imagine how good DW would be if he played outside of New York. Poor dude is so over his head with the off-the-field aspects of being a professional athlete in NYC.
No way, not until he's the best player on a team that makes a deep run into the playoffs. Normally when judging players I adhere very stictly to the statistics but on this kind of judgement call I have to go with something more subjective.
Sorry . . . how about a Catcher with a .963 OPS, back-to-back playoff appearances, reshaping a franchise, and 3 of the most important HRs in Mets history (oh and he averaged 132.4 in his first 5 seasons with the Mets). Retire 31 now and give us one reason to come to the park.
Does a .330 AVG (+.014 from Total) and an .893 OPS (+.042 from Total) with RISP equal can't hit in the clutch?
Oh yeah, he had that one at bat with Murphy on third against the Cubbies last year, so let's judge him on that instead.
1. the 9/21 Homer
2. the 10-Run Inning Homer
3. ???
Could be a number of things. The Wagner homer? The Hoffman homer? The Almanzar homer? The Clemens Slam? The Mendoza bomb? Game 6? I'm curious to see what your third was.