The Mets Police

Yesterday I explored some candidates for the best Met of the 1990’s.   There were some really poor candidates.   Bobby Jones?   Todd Hundley and his .240 average?   The despised Bobby Bonilla?

Nope.

The um “greatest” (cough) Met of the horrible 1990’s is…

John Franco!

Yes the ever not-so-reliable John Franco is the greatest Met of the 1990’s.  

You could always count on John to come in, walk two guys, get a double play, give up another hit to make it interesting, and then get the save.

The great John Franco who left the Reds just in time to let Randy Myers win a ring with the 1990 Reds.

The great John Franco who was so great he had to give up his number to another player.

Why John Franco?

268 Saves baby!

268 saves is the only stat accumulation of any kind for a Met during the 1990’s.   John was the only player to play ever season of the decade (and I believe joins Ed Kranepool as the only Met to play a full decade).

Todd Hundley’s 124 HRs and 397 RBI’s just aren’t enough – especially because he lasted about five more minutes as a Met once Piazza showed up.

Congratulations to John Franco and everyone in the Mets front office that made the 90’s such a rousing success!

Thanks again to Mets Walkoffs for crunching the numbers.

Rats. I was all excited that the Mets trotted out K-Rod and Putz in the almost traditional Mets pinstripes (I say almost because of the dopey black shading).

Unfortunately today's papers have an ad with Putz and Francisco (K-Rod is dumb and makes me think of certain people in the Bronx) and they are wearing the silly no-pins. At least the no-pins are white and not black.

Come on Mets, know your fans. We want the traditional uniforms. Why must you be difficult?

I re-offer the Mets Police compromise: wear pinstripes and blue hats at home, wear "1973" jerseys (with blue hats) on the road – no names on either – and on Sunday wear whatever you want to sell, market or just look awful in. If you want to have pink polka dot Sunday alternates fine.

Wear black, half black, green, white no-pins, Negro league throwbacks, Dodger uniforms, Citibank logos, whatever pleases you – but look like a baseball team the other 6 days.

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Among my fellow Mets Policeman we were debating who was the best Met of the 1990’s.   (This followed a discussion of “Best 1990s Yankee” which I’ll save for another day).

Some really awful names came up.

Maybe it was Todd Hundley?   Maybe Edgardo Alfonzo?   Piazza wasn’t there for long in the 90’s….

Could it possibly be Bobby Bonilla?   That would be like finding out Superman was evil.

So I asked the good folks over at the excellent Mets Walkoffs blog to help out – they always amaze me with the ability to pull up random stats…so a big thank you to Walkoffs for the numbers below.

People like the long-ball.  Let’s start there.

problem is hundley only hit .240 in the 1990s. bonilla hit .270. piazza hit .322, 2nd to lance johnson .326. olerud hit .315

Uh oh… 

piazza and olerud are 1-2 in OPS and its not close.

alfonzo led in runs created- 383

Whew.  So there’s no real case for a hitter.   Let’s take a look at the pitchers…again thanks to Walkoffs.

bobby jones 63-50, 4.00 era

gooden 57-46, 3.77

Well I wish we could pick Gooden, but he never turned out to be who we wanted…and 57 wins for a 10 year span seems a little week.    So we have our winner….

…..tomorrow!

SULLY BASEBALL: NEW YORK METS – ALL TIME HOME GROWN TEAM vs. ALL TIME ACQUIRED TEAM