7.19.25 for Wright5

[Frayed Knot]

Let's just retire the numbers of everyone who spends at least five years with the team. It'll be so much easier that way.
I mean, sure, you'll run out of numbers after a while, but at least they'll have one, and sometimes more, ceremonies each season and isn't that what this is all about?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Yeah, I disagree on both Carter and Beltran. It's time to put a pause on retired numbers. Let's wait until we can get some perspective on deGrom, and if not him, we'll wait even longer to see what we think, in retrospect, of Lindor and Nimmo and Alonso.

[MFS62]

and if not him, we'll wait even longer to see what we think, in retrospect, of Lindor and Nimmo and Alonso.

I realize that if he finishes up his contract with the Mets he will have spent 14 years here. But it will take a lot of retrospection for me to think that Nimmo deserves number retirement. .260 hitters don't usually get that honor unless you're a MLB Hall of Famer like Ozzie Smith.
Brandon will have to tack on some serious numbers for the rest of his contract to earn that.

Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

Give me a fucking break with this outsized credit this guy gets for the Mets winning it all in '86. He wasn't even the third best player on that championship squad. That team was such a juggernaut that Whitey Herzog, the manager of its most competitive rival Cards, was making concession speeches to his team before the fourth of July weekend and those speeches weren't psychological ploys. The divisional race was effectively over before the Summer even started and everybody knew it. That squad would've won the NL East even if the Carter trade never happebned and Mike Fitzgerald was still catching. Probably Mike Fitzgerald's mother, too. The idea that one guy gets that much credit for that title is lunacy.

Let's just retire the numbers of everyone who spends at least five years with the team. It'll be so much easier that way.

Might as well if Carter's number is gonna be retired. And three year Mets who had twice the Mets career that Carter did. Like R.A. Dickey and John Olerud. It's a good thing that Carter was a five year Met. Those last two years, '88 and '89, when he was horseshit, are the essential years that should clinch his number retirement. Me, I'm not even convinced that Carter belongs in the Mets HOF.

[Frayed Knot]

This has become exactly what I long feared it would become, an exercise in retiring as many numbers as possible under the guise that any good NYM player without a retired number is being forgotten and/or insulted, or that team history isn't being "honored".
But each new player added doesn't 'fix' the problem in too many eyes or even slow down the process. Instead it speeds things up as, before the current nominee is even inducted, speculation immediately turns to 'Who's Next?'*. And 'Who' often isn't in the singular.

Some of the comments under that linked piece are even worse the the logic above it:
- Cleon hit .340 in 1969, so no WS without him ... PUT #21 UP NOW!!!! (someone immediately approved)
- Johnny Franco will be the only NYM Captain without a retired number (y'know, after we put Carter in) ... this is a wrong that needs to be righted!!
- Beltran, but only if he goes into the HoF as a Met

And once you start on the road to 'if-him-then-him-too' there are few he won't qualify
Cleon: 12 years, 4,730 PA; 93 HRs; 521 RBI; 111 OPS+
HoJo: 9 seasons: 4,591 PA; 192 HR; 629 RBI; 124 OPS+ ... and he has a Ring too!!
'I mean, How can we not?!?'

As if any reason that can be latched onto is not just a good enough reason but an unarguable one.
This isn't a lowering of standards, it's an erasure.


STOP!!! And maybe take a deep breath every once in a while.



* It makes me so mad I want to just go out and piss on a wall

[Centerfield]

Danny Abriano, the author of that article, has put out some of the dumbest things I've ever seen written about the Mets. Sometimes I'm shocked that someone so bad is the lead writer for SNY, then I remind myself who owns SNY.

Love this gem.

Carter's stint with the Mets (1985-1989) was relatively brief, but his impact might have been the greatest.

The greatest? The greatest of who? All time? Is this really something that a professional writer published? Mind boggling.

I'm on record in this thread of being against most of the numbers that have been retired. Even the ones that predated Cohen.

For the record, my wall would look like this.

41 31 5 48 15

[Edgy MD]

Officially retiring 48 and installing it on the roof while its bearer is still active is some bold stuff, but the overall restraint is laudable.

I think I need to apply to SNY again.

[Frayed Knot]

[Edgy MD]

If a guy gets a walkoff base hit with a runner on third, it goes down as a single, under the understanding that the game is over as soon as the winning run scores, and any extra bases the batter-runner takes are merely an after-the-fact burning of energy.

An exception to that rule is when the ball leaves the park, with the new understanding that, the winning run doesn't officially score until the umpire twirls his or her finger, indicating a homerun, implicitly granting the full four bases to the hitter. Over the wall is an automatic homer, assuming the batter can legally circle the bases.

So, under the thinking of that exception, does that mean that a once-bounce-over-the-wall game-winner with a runner on third counts as a double? Clearly, the runner scores from third with the winning run before the batter-runner reaches second, but does the one-bounce-over-the-wall automatic-two-bases-ness of the hit similarly grant him the right to take that second base, even after the winning run has been plated?

[Frayed Knot]

I thought the same thing about the GR Double when watching that clip, that it would count for the same reason the HR does.
Maybe it did and Gary just spoke too quickly.

Pre-1920 (?) rules did Not award the HR on walk-off HRs, only the amount of bases needed to get the winning run in even for balls leaving the yard.
When baseball records were first computerized (the original Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia came out in 1969) it was discovered that Ruth had
a 715th HR but it was ruled a single due to the winning run being on 3rd. A brief squabble ensued about whether the approaching Aaron would
need one more homer to tie/pass than we all thought before a ruling was made that contemporaneous rules should apply thus leaving Babe at 714.