Mets to Retire 16, 18 (merged with Oh Holy Hell, Retire #7 NOW!!!)

[whippoorwill]

😂😂

[kcmets]

*chortle* *chortle* You guys quack me.

Almost 6000 PA over 18 seasons or so with just one team?

[Fman99]

I think it's great. You're all nuts

[G-Fafif]

I think it's great. You're all nuts

Seconded.

[nymr83]

Hernandez has to get credit for his time in the booth, I'm fine with that number retirement.

Strawberry spent 8 years as a Met as one of the best players in MLB. At the end of the day, though, David Wright had a better Mets career. The only reason to say "Strawberry before Wright", in my mind, is that Wright is still a VERY recent retirement - they could retire him in 10 years and still have all the fans who grew up with him show up.

Gooden, on the other hand, had a good rookie years and a season for the ages in 1985. Then he was pretty average for 9 years. i'm not sure he should be retired, even with lower standards.

There seems to be some support for other unretired Mets from the 60's and 80's like Cleon Jones, Ed Kranepool, Mookie Wilson, etc - but to me none of these guys should be next on any list. David Wright should be. But after that, for me, its EDGARDO ALFONZO!

[Edgy MD]

I think it's great. You're all nuts

I think it's nuts, but you're all great.

[ashie62]

Cleon Grote Krane and Bud Harrelson

Now!

[metirish]

Strawberry has the club HR record and Doc second only to Seaver in wins , so there is that

[batmagadanleadoff]

Why would anyone wanna have some rigid rule requiring the player whose number is being retired to be a Hall of Famer enshrined in a Mets cap? If I owned the Mets, I'd never make a rule that might handcuff me like that. (Not that I can't ignore it anyways if I was the owner). Some of youse are saying, with that rule, that even if Keith Hernandez played his whole career as a Met -- rookie to retirement -- he still wouldn't deserve to have his number retired because he's not a HOFer? Or David Wright?

I never understood this "rule" stuff with retiring numbers. What rules? It's the owner's team and he's allowed to do whatever he feels like doing as far as retiring numbers go.

[whippoorwill]

Strawberry has the club HR record and Doc second only to Seaver in wins , so there is that

Indeed; I don’t understand the hate. Yes they screwed up but haven’t we all?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Strawberry has the club HR record and Doc second only to Seaver in wins , so there is that

Indeed; I don’t understand the hate. Yes they screwed up but haven’t we all?

Agreed. I think that whatever Straw or Gooden did is forgivable, especially thirty or forty years later. I mean, one could say, just the same, that Seaver demanded to be traded and then hold the whole Reds trade against Seaver to deny him a number retirement and then a statue.

[nymr83]

I don't think Gooden's Mets career, just by the numbers, is worthy of of jersey retirement . Nothing to do with Cocaine.

[Frayed Knot]

Cleon Grote Krane and Bud Harrelson

No, No, No, and No!
Your mileage may, of course, vary.

[Frayed Knot]

I don't want a set of rigid rules governing number retirement. But I'd like there to be some sort of guidelines and mine would look something like this:
1) a career NYM or at least a solid majority of his career as one
2) HoF inductee or at least pretty darn close to it
3) Was a member/citizen of good standing while a NYM

- Keith falls short on #1 & #2, although I understand this is as much about his announcing career as his playing one
- Cater checks off #2 though isn't close on #1
- Gooden and Strawberry are barely there on #1, not close on #2, and iffy as hell on #3
- Piazza checks #2 and is at least close on #1. I wouldn't have tabbed him, though I'm not going to go nuts on it.
- Mays obviously has #2 covered tho isn't close on #1, although I understand there are extenuating circumstances (promises) here.
- Koosman: #1 yes, #2 not close.
- Wright: #1 yes, #2 no. Probably gets the sympathy vote.
- Reyes - #1 yes, #2 not close
- Mookie, HoJo, Krane, Beltran, Cleon, etc.: Please stop.

Strawberry has the club HR record and Doc second only to Seaver in wins , so there is that

Indeed; I don’t understand the hate. Yes they screwed up but haven’t we all?

Saying that someone falls short of the ultimate team honor isn't "hate".
These guys are already in the NYM HoF. That should be considered a terrific honor but, by expanding the retired number roster, not only is
the team (read: Cohen) degrading the status of number retirement but he's also treating the HoF status as if it's almost a meaningless
gesture.

[Centerfield]

I still don’t understand 24.

Mays was a Giant. Not a Met.

[Edgy MD]

If Koosman was mediagenic or had a memorable nickname or something, there'd be an active movement to induct him and he'd at least have made a few veteran ballots by now.

More than one lesser starting pitcher is walking around with a Hall of Fame pin on his lapel.

Well, actually, most of those are dead, but still.

[Edgy MD]

Well, he was a Met. Beyond that, he transcended.

Mostly, though, he was loved by a generation of New Yorkers, including Mrs. Payson, whose vision for the team was in part to be a deposit of the New York legacies of the two National League teams that departed, and so she made Mays a promise, and this was the team's way of honoring that promise.

There's plenty of precedent. The Brewers retired Hank Aaron's number (pretty much upon his retirement in 1976, I think), and his legacy with them was pretty much as close to a perfect parallel with Mays' Mets legacy as there can be. You also have the Nets' retiring Julius Erving's number.

[Edgy MD]

Also, when I become the Mets' potentate or majordomo or whatever, I'm going to instruct the Mets archivists to position the team as the keepers of the legacy of the 19th Century New York Metropolitans.

Their manager Jim Mutrie had a .635 winning percentage with them and the Giants, and a display about him in the Mets museum wouldn't hurt nobody and would probably land him in the Hall of Fame, where he should have been enshrined long ago except nobody thinks about him.

[nymr83]

"There is someone arguably worse than him in the hall" is a really poor argument. there are at least 20 retired hitters more deserving than Tony Perez. maybe even 50. should we let them all in?

[Centerfield]

Every time I ask about Mays, all the answers are abstract. He transcended. Was beloved. You had to be there to understand what it meant to the city/fanbase/everyone/me.

And I get that. He made Mets fans really really happy. Especially those who had been Giant fans. But that's not a reason to put him in the Hall of Fame, much less retire his number. And I get that there is precedent. Like when they retired Boggs number in Tampa. I thought it was silly then, I think it's silly now.

It can't just be that this player made us really really happy. Todd Pratt did that. So did Cespedes. Daniel Murphy. Edgardo Alfonso is much more worthy of number retirement than Willie Mays. I worried that when you retired Koosman you opened the door to a lot of questionable guys. With Mays, you can retire literally anyone.

I have no issue with the HOF as a Met criteria. I have no issue with the HOF Met criteria that allows exceptions for a lifelong Met that falls just short of HOF criteria due to an unfortunate injury.

My criteria would be:

1. Did he dominate?
2. As a Met?
3. For a long time?

Mays hits none of that criteria. Koosman was a Met for a long time but was he dominant. I didn't see him play, so I'm left with stats. Those suggest 4 dominant seasons out of his 12. Maybe that, plus being a World Champion is enough.

And for what it's worth, I don't think I care all that much. But retiring 24 means we can't make fun of any Yankee numbers again.

[Edgy MD]

But then there's the (a) historical deposit of the legacy of the lost team, (b) the honor of Mrs. Payson's promise, and (c) historical precedent.

The very greatest player in the world was a New York National League centerfielder, and with that team gone, along with it went the institution who would presumably be tasked with honoring and preserving that legacy.

That's bad, and that legacy shouldn't die. The Mets don't have to be the institution that picks up that historical wrong and corrects it, but why not? It's a good thing that the echoes of Willie Mays' work as a New York Giant should resound somewhere in New York, and I feel a whole lot better and righter hearing it resound in Flushing, Queens than in The Bronx.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

And for what it's worth, I don't think I care all that much. But retiring 24 means we can't make fun of any Yankee numbers again.

We can always make fun of the Yankees.

The Mays with the Mets and Aaron with the Brewers arguments are similar and make sense to me. They have as much to do with their performance on teams in those cities that no longer exist. Plus, they are in the conversation for the best player of all time. Boggs in Tampa lacks both of those things.

But it's all harmless. I like it when teams celebrate their history.

[Edgy MD]

I didn't argue that he should be in.

Also, you're misquoting me.

[batmagadanleadoff]

But then there's the (a) historical deposit of the legacy of the lost team, and (b) the honor of Mrs. Payson's promise.

That's my point. If someone's gonna constantly make exceptions to the rule, then there really is no rule. Which, of course, there isn't. Once again: Where do these supposed rules come from?


The problem that Mets fans have is that the franchise doesn't have many of these inner circle no doubt about it Hall of Famers who played exclusively or practically exclusively for the Mets. The Mets don't have a stable of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, Ford, Dickey, et. al. So they have to make do with what they have. Or wait one or two lifetimes for the Babe Ruth of the Mets to arrive. If they're even playing baseball two lifetimes from now. Me, I doubt it, but that's for another thread. And besides, the Yankees also retired the numbers of players like Ron Guidry, Don Mattingly and Reggie Jackson, whose Yankee careers are more in line with the Mets careers of Hernandez, Strawberry and Gooden.

In fact, the Mets only have one of these guys - Tom Seaver - and even Seaver spent about 40% of his career with teams other than the Mets. Piazza and Hernandez, without doubt, have had careers worthy of having their numbers retired. But Piazza split his career about evenly between the Mets and other teams. And Keith spent the majority of his career with the Cardinals. I'm not even mention Gary Carter, a deserving Hall of Famer --- the almost entirety of his peak star years came as an Expo. Because if Carter, then Nolan Ryan. And if Ryan, then Rickey Henderson. And Warren Spahn.

This is the Mets history. The team's been around for more than 60 years and in that time, Doc and Darryl and Keith Hernandez and Jerry Koosman and Mike Piazza and David Wright are, along with Seaver, among the very best Mets ever. And there's no denying that.

[smg58]

In terms of WAR as a Met (going by Baseball Reference), Gooden is second among pitchers and Strawberry is second among hitters. And they contributed to a world champion. They're both quite a bit higher than Carter or Hernandez, and Piazza as well. So you can disagree on where the line should be drawn, but I would argue the line has already been drawn below them.