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January 10, 2007
The Ten Best Mets’ Pitcher Seasons
Last time I contributed to Mets Geek, I wrote about the top five offensive seasons in Mets’ history, measured by Wins Above Replacement Level. It’s time to give the pitchers their due, although I want to use a different statistic to measure their effectiveness and production. Support Neutral Lineup-adjusted Value Above Replacement is one of my favorite measures of pitcher production, and I cannot normally use it for these discussions of “greatest all-time”. Thanks to the Mets franchise getting started in 1962, there is enough data for me to employ the stat. For those of you unfamiliar with the statistic, I had a write-up on SNLVAR back in August of this year. Since four of the top five seasons belong to Tom Seaver (and five of ten) I am going to discuss the production of the first ten names on the Mets’ single season SNLVAR list in reverse order. The years in parentheses are the years contained within the list; Rick Reed is the tenth different name to appear within the top Mets’ pitching seasons, but his best effort is actually ranked #21 among those seasons. Tom Seaver has 8 of those 21 seasons stamped with his name, and 10 of the top 25. 40 percent of the top 25 Mets’ pitching season all-time belong to one man. A pity I never was able to see him pitch, as he retired the same year I was born. #10: Rick Reed, 1997 Rick Reed’s 1998 may be the year most remember, thanks to his 16-11 record and his All-Star appearance, but 1997 was his best year as a Met. The difference is less than half-a-win above replacement, but it’s there. Reed was a very good pitcher for the Mets from 1997-1998 after a long struggle to stay in the majors with any sort of consistency. He was a replacement player and agreed to join the Reds in 1995, although he was released for pitching poorly before the year was out. Reed finished his career with an ERA+ of 105, making him a little better than league average. Looking at the way he was tossed around in the early goings of his career, I would assume this is not an outcome many people predicted. Reed is one of the most successful of the replacement players, if not the most successful. #9: Craig Swan, 1978 Eric Simon ranked Swan as #45 on the top 50 Mets list, and his 1978 season was a significant contributor to that ranking. He only went 9-6, but this was due to the Mets only scoring 3.79 runs per game in his starts, and the Mets run differential of -83. His league leading ERA of 2.43 was almost a full run better than the next lowest rotation member’s, although his ERA+ of 144 does not show that much separation from the average. Sadly, Swan would throw only one more full and effective season for the Mets, as he was plagued by injuries after signing a five-year contract. This was one of the first such deals given to a pitcher, and it turned out that it wasn’t that great of an idea. Looks like little has changed in 25 plus years. #8: Mike Hampton, 2000 The co-ace of the first Mets’ World Series team of the decade, along with Al Leiter. Hampton had signed a 3-year, $12 million deal with the Astros in 1998, and was then traded to the Mets following a 1999 season where he went 22-4 with an ERA+ of 150 and an SNLVAR of 8.9. Although he finished second in the Cy Young Award voting to one of Randy Johnson’s better seasons, that last season with the Astros was the most productive of his career. His follow-up season with the Mets was also very productive, and he helped the Mets reach the World Series. One thing Hampton should have thought of when he signed with the Rockies following the season was that he had pitched in the Astrodome and Shea Stadium during his entire career, two of the best pitcher’s paradises out there. Hampton is still earning money from that contract, although he has switched teams twice in the process and missed a full year to injury along the way. In a market where Jason Marquis makes $7 million a year to consistently suck, Hampton is still overpaid. #7: Al Leiter, 1998 In his first season with the Mets after winning a World Series in Florida, Al Leiter had the second most productive season of his career, posting an ERA 70 percent above the league average while going 17-6 for an 88-74 Mets team. Shea Stadium was actually fairly neutral in 1998 according to Baseball-Reference.com, meaning that Leiter’s success was a product of his own abilities. His batting average on balls in play was well below the league average at .277 (league average was .303 in 1998), whereas in 1999, he was right around the league average at .308. In 1996, Leiter’s most productive season by SNLVAR, he had a BABIP of .256, a flukishly-low rate. Many of you may remember that in his second to last season in Florida, Leiter posted the lowest BABIP among qualifying starters, and was beaten all over the following year when he regressed before his trade to the Yankees. According to SNLVAR, that fluke season was his fourth best; SNLVAR is fantastic for measuring value, but as this little lesson in BABIP shows, it isn’t exactly the most accurate predictor of future performance. Leiter had a fine career overall, with enough value to merit a spot in the Ray Lankford Wing of the Hall of Fame by squeaking in just in front of the last listed starter at present, Larry French. #6: Pedro Martinez, 2005 Pedro is my favorite pitcher ever. There is no discussing this or convincing me that anyone else was more fun to watch or better at what they did than Pedro at his peak. He had three devastating pitches: fastball, curveball, and one of the greatest changeups you will ever witness. In fact, Rob Neyer ranked Pedro’s circle change the fifth greatest all-time in the Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers, and Bill James rated his fastball as the third best from 1995-1999. Pedro’s best years were 1999 and 2000, where he was, without argument, the greatest pitcher in the majors. 1999 ranks #9 on the list of all-time ERA+, while his 2000 season ranks #2 behind Tim Keefe, who pitched only 105 innings in 12 games started in 1880. Pedro’s ERA+ ranks first all-time for career value, and his 285 from 2000 is the highest modern value. This is not the same Pedro that the Mets signed after the 2004 season though; this Pedro was craftier, relying on his wits and breaking stuff to get by as his fastball declined. 2005 was the first year of a long-term commitment that has already seen Pedro forfeit part of a season to injury, and he was excellent. His ERA+ was “only” 148, and he was worth 7.6 wins above replacement according to SNLVAR. Sadly, he did not finish the 2006 season due to injury, and will miss a significant chunk of 2007 as well. #5: Frank Viola, 1990 Viola was one of my favorite pitchers when I first started watching the Red Sox. After reading Kirby Puckett’s autobiography, which detailed the success and failures of early Twins’ teams, I appreciated Viola even more. His stay with the Mets was a mixed bag of average and excellent performances, with his half season of 1989 hovering around average, 1990 ending up as one of the top ten seasons by a Mets’ pitcher ever, and 1991 as an unsatisfying follow-up where his performance was once again average. His 1990 season was the most productive in a very successful career though, with 8.1 SNLVAR and an ERA over a full run below the league average. Viola pitched very well in 1992-1993 for Boston, but ran into trouble from 1994 to 1996 with injuries and ineffectiveness that derailed his career. It’s somewhat scary that Viola is only three years older than Randy Johnson. #4: Jon Matlack, 1974 Matlack’s third full season was his best as a Met, worth 8.2 SNLVAR, good for the eighth best single season total in Mets’ history. Matlack has some interesting history in his career: he gave up Roberto Clemente’s 3,000th and final hit. He was a recipient of the Jackie Robinson Award that same season. In 1973, his skull was fractured by a line drive, and he returned 11 days later to throw a two-hit, nine strikeout shutout in the National League Championship Series. He shared an All-Star MVP Award in 1975 with Bill Madlock, broke up George Brett’s 30-game hit streak as a Ranger, and was a piece of trade that involved Bert Blyleven and Al Oliver. He finished with 97 complete games ─ 30 of them shutouts ─ and would have had another if Ron Guidry had not matched zeroes with him for nine innings in a 1980 game that was won in extra innings by the Rangers. An intriguing career, but sadly he did not stick around long enough to merit inclusion in the aforementioned Ray Lankford Wing of the Hall of Fame. #3: Jerry Koosman, 1968, 1973 1968 was the southpaw’s first full year in the majors, but he threw 263.2 innings with an ERA+ of 145. He did not walk very many batters at all ─ only 6.5 percent ─ and had a K/BB of 2.60. He threw seven shutouts, tied for the NL rookie record. His ERA was almost a full run better than the league average, and he followed this year up with an even better (by ERA+ standards) season in 1969 before his inning totals started to drop due to arm problems. He rebounded healthy in 1973, and once again threw 263 innings with an ERA+ of 128 and an SNLVAR of 7.5, the 12th loftiest total in Mets’ history. Koosman was mostly a league average pitcher following, excepting 1976 and 1979, where he was comfortably above the league average, although not dominating. Koosman would return to the Mets’ organization following the 1985 season as a minor league pitching coach. #2: Tom Seaver, 1968-1973, 1975-1976 Seaver is one of the greatest pitchers ever, and I would not be surprised if he was the most valuable Met ever. With free agency an option, it would be tough to surpass his career value as a Met nowadays; not only would a player need to be loyal, but he would need to be one of the top players at his position for a significant portion of his career. Seaver passed 300 wins, finished with 3,640 strikeouts and an ERA+ of 127. In fact, in his final season, split between Boston and the Chicago White Sox, Seaver managed an ERA+ of 105, with 110 of that coming for the socks of the red variety. A knee injury in 1986 kept him from pitching in the World Series against the team that would eventually retire his number. He would return to the Mets following the season, but decided to retire after taking a beating in a Triple-A start for the Tidewater Tides. Not only is Seaver the only player in the Hall of Fame with a Mets cap on his plaque, but he also received the highest percentage of votes ever, passing Ty Cobb’s 98.23% with 98.84%. Seaver is the only pitcher to strike out 10 consecutive batters, and the only pitcher with 200 strikeouts in nine consecutive seasons; he was actually four strikeouts shy of 200 in 1977, which would have made 10 seasons, and in 1978 he struck out 226, which would have been 11. I saw a few quotes in regard to Tom Terrific while writing this piece, but my favorite is compliments of Reggie Jackson: “Blind people come to the park just to listen to him pitch.” #1: Dwight “Doc” Gooden, 1985 Gooden’s 1985 season was worth 5.3 more in SNLVAR than his second highest season. 12.7 is a stunning total; in fact, Gooden’s 1985 is the second most valuable season by SNLVAR ever recorded in a database going back to 1960, behind only Sandy Koufax’s 13.5 from 1966. His 226 ERA+ is tied for 12th all-time with Roger Clemens incredible 1997 season, which coincidentally is directly behind Gooden in the SNLVAR listings. Of course, it’s hard not to rack up this much value when you throw 276.2 innings in your second season in the majors; the damage Gooden sustained in his young arm can be seen in the declining inning totals and effectiveness from 1986 onward. After 1985, his highest ERA+ was only 124, with his highest SNLVAR coming the same year at less than half of the value his 1985 campaign had. Gooden’s Hall of Fame merit has been brushed aside by many who feel like he did not earn enough career value along with his excellent peak to merit inclusion into Cooperstown; I lean towards that position, but Gooden was a good enough pitcher to earn a spot in the Ray Lankford Wing of the Hall of Fame, like so many other valuable starters who were average more often than not. 30 Responses to “The Ten Best Mets’ Pitcher Seasons”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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Where is David Cone at the year he went like 20-3 ???? 1988. 231 inings pitched, 178 hits allowed, 213 strikouts, 80 walks, era of 2.22, whip of 1.11 ???? How does he not make #2 Sure Seaver was great over a lifetime as a Mets but can any of his seasons as a Met match Cone’s in 1988, and please don’t give me any of this adjusted ERA crap. Your ERA is what it is.
The Ray Lankford wing? C’mon, don’t insult the Good Doctor like that. How about the Dale Murphy wing? Or the Dave Justice wing? Someone at least a little better than Lankford. The man did win nearly 200 games, which is equivalent to, what, a 400 home run slugger today?
Good job on the article, though.
I’ve thought about changing the name a few times now, but I’ve stuck with the Ray Lankford Wing, since a comment of his in an old BP annual gave me the idea in the first place:
I can’t replace the inspiration like that, even if there are better fits, name wise. Maybe I’ll eventually change my tune, but I am a big Lankford fan.
Cone’s 1988 is ranked 28th on the list, and he’s the 12th different pitcher on the all-time list to appear, behind the ten profiled here as well as Ron Darling (1986). Seaver had ten seasons better than Cone’s best as a Met, and he was only in New York for 10 seasons and another 13 GS in year 11 before his trade to Cincinnati in 1977. He’s one of the greatest pitchers of all-time, so Cone’s going to have to do better than 1988 to pass him.
And your ERA is hardly just what it is; it’s mostly a product of the environment, which is why you adjust it. If everyone has an ERA in the 3’s, then 3.50 is not a sparkling ERA, it’s average. Measuring the percent above or below the average ERA helps put it into context. Not to mention Cone’s 2.22 ERA gave him an ERA+ of 145, which is pretty damn good. Offense was down that year though; the league average ERA was 3.21, so he was just shy of a full run below average.
with pitchers, any pitchers I look for the opposing BA against him, whip now a days, then ERA. If a pitcher has an opposing BA. of below .220 I think that pitcher is Dominant especially as a starter. Im not really a person who gets into Win/losses unless they go hand and hand with OBA/ and Whip which is clearly why in 1988 David Cone had an awesome year in comparsion to Steve Trashel who won 15 games and his numbers prove otherwise he was a below average pitcher.
I dont know if it was good enough to make this list but it was cool how saberhagen walked only 13 batters in 177 innings one year. I think it may have been a record at the time.
I agree that it is not totally reflective to put so much of an emphasis on ERA for this list. Surely, BAA and WHIP are two other aspects that should be taken into account here. I think most would argue that David Cone’s 1988 was definitely a better season than most of the seasons on this list, except Gooden, Seaver, and maybe Koosman. I was born in the mid 70’s, so I watched all the Mets games since the early 80’s and I can tell you right now that Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez, and Bob Ojeda all put up better seasons than Frank Viola’s 1990 or Rick Reed’s 1997, regardless of what the league average ERA was in that period.
I think the worst ranking of all is Jon Matlack at #4 in 1974. This is ridiculous. While I know wins and losses are heresy for a sabermatrician, but it is worth noting that Jon Matlack’s #4-ranked season produced just a 13-15 record. His WHIP that season was 1.12, which is good, but certainly not spectacular. Ojeda went 18-5 with a 2.57 ERA in 1986 with a WHIP of 1.09.
ERA+ is a nice stat to look at within a sphere of different stats, but to rank entire seasons solely on the basis of just that one stat, ERA+, is negligent, in my opinion. For one, ERA is a very arbitrary statistic, that is highly dependent on luck as BAA for balls hit in play would suggest, as per your analysis of Al Leiter. Rather, low WHIP and BAA usually tell the better story of how dominant a pitcher was, as well as hits allowed per 9 IP. Taken together with ERA+, that should be the basis of your rankings.
If I had to rank the top 5 Mets seasons, I’d probably show it Gooden, Seaver, Cone, Koosman, and Pedro, in that order.
Luckily for me, I strated watching baseball in 1984 and got to watch first-hand Dr. K’s amazing 1985 season.
That rising fastball, the Uncle Charlie curve — awesome. Too bad a Hall of Fame career was derailed by early overuse and of course, drugs.
Which is why I ranked the list according to SNLVAR, as I stated in the intro.
Well maybe you should have included an outro and reminded us.
I have no idea what SNLVAR means, or how it is calculated, but I can’t say I put much faith in its measurement if Cone’s season does not make this list. The guy finished second in the Cy Young balloting, and it only took one of the greatest seasons of all-time by Orel Hershiser (including a record 59-inning scoreless streak and NLCS and World Series MVP Awards) to beat him out for the honor. Rick Reed had a nice year in 1997, but he was not as good a pitcher as Ron Darling or Sid Fernandez, nor did he put together anything better than Cone’s 1988 or Ojeda’s 1986. Ojeda was the ace of the ‘86 staff, went 18-5, with a 2.57 ERA, and was money in the postseason.
One major problem with ERA+ is this - when run scoring is down, the base average is thus down, which makes it harder to be massive percentage points below average - the way the pitchers in the steroid era were. If you put up a 3.00 ERA in 1998, you might be 50% below league average, but when you put up a 2.50 in 1985, you’re maybe only 30% below league average. But that doesn’t mean the guy who threw a 3.00 in 1998 would necessarily throw a 2.00 in 1988!
And then there is expansion. You are essentially giving an unfair handicap to guys in the 80’s, who didn’t have to deal with 4 extra teams in the league, thus equalling about 50 new pitchers who wouldn’t have been good enough to even be in MLB prior to the Marlins, Rockies, D-Rays, or D-Backs existence. Just because those 50 extra pitchers in the league put up lousy ERAs and inflate the league average, it will thus help the ERA+ of the better pitchers.
Bottom line- this list is still very subjective based on the criteria you chose to look at. Soem of these seasons were good - but were nowhere near the overall caliber of Cone, Ojeda, or Darling’s best seasons in the 1980s. I’d add Fernandez to the list, as he was dominating, but never won to put up super-low ERAs.
“…..and I would not be surprised if [Seaver] was the most valuable Met ever.”
Much as I liked Ron Hodges, I’d have to agree with you.
ok - I read your definition of SNLVAR and I still don’t like it. Again, the quality of “replacement player” varies from year to year based on the numbers of teams in the league and quality of players. It is a good stat to measure across a given year, but not over different seasons.
As previously stated, there were less teams in the 80’s than in the 90’s due to the expansion of Florida, Colorado, Tampa, and Arizona. This thinned out the talent, especially in regards to pitching, quite a bit in the 90s and was regarded along with steroids, juiced balls, and smaller ballparks as a main reason for the offensive explosion. As a result, a good pitcher in 2000 was much more likely to have a higher ERA+ than a good pitcher in 1985, since the league was more watered down. I think this contributes to the unusually high rankings for Leiter, Hampton, and Reed on your list - for while they all had good seasons, there were many others that were truly better. Conversely, Cone, Ojeda, and Darling’s strong seasons in the 80’s were pulled down since the league had a lower ERA, thus making it harder to be the same percentage points above the mean without achieving a truly ridiculous figure - as Doc Gooden achieved in 1985.
Replacement level is re-calculated every year. There isn’t one replacement level for the entirety of baseball history. For Gooden’s 1985, his SNLVAR is based on the replacement level for that year. Likewise the rest of the guys.
I forgot about Viola and Swan
good work
Yes, but if you read my earlier post, you’d know that “replacement level” does change from year to year, which distorts this SNLVAR stat. Replacement level in 2007 probably sucks compared to replacement level in 1985, being that there were less roster spots and a greater talent level overall. If the average ERA in 1985 was 3.50 (I’m making it up, but it was probably in that zone) then you’d have to put up a 2.50 ERA just to make it to an ERA+ of 130. Conversely, if today’s average ERA is around 4.50, then you’d only have to compile an ERA of around 3.20 to reach the 130 plateau. I mean, John Maine had an ERA+ of 120 last year with a 3.60 ERA - the bar is just too low nowadays. You can say it is all matched against league average, but it gets harder and harder to lower your ERA as you get lower, I don’t care what era you are in. One bad pitch = 2 or 3-run HR in any time period.
I agree with the prior poster, this stat is all screwed up if David Cone’s 1988 is not on this list. I agree that ERA+ is a tough stat to base this on, as it is easier to top a league average when the league average is a low base, as it is currently in the age of 4.50-5.00 ERA pitchers getting $10 mm deals. If the league ERA is 3.50, you can’t just say a guy should throw a 2.20 ERA instead of a 2.50 ERA to achieve the same ERA+. Once you get down that low, an extra run here or there has a much greater effect and it is harder to maintain a low ERA. Cone’s 1988 season and Ojeda’s 1986 season are easily better than some of the seasons listed here - such as Reed and Hampton. And what about the fact that Pedro pitched 6 IP/start in 2005 while other pitchers consistently went 7-8 IP/start?
I don’t like this SNLVR stat it all, it is statistically flawed and not a good reference tool.
What??? This list is ridiculous. Jon Matlack’s 1974 was not the fourth best season ever- and where the hell is David Cone’s 1988??? ERA+ is good when you want to compare average pitchers, but it is thrown out the window when you look at elite pitchers. Heck, a 3.25 ERA this past year was good enough for a 140 ERA+, so how can you penalize Cone just because runs were down that year? So he’d have to throw a sub-2 ERA just to beat out Rick Reed’s 1997? That’s nuts. He went 20-3, that’s the bottom line - the team won with him on the mound. This whole ranking is garbage.
Marc, I’m sorry. I think you deserve some kind of ‘Pearls Before Swine’ award for this article and its completely hostile reception.
Seriously, I expected more from you geeks. It’s not complicated. If teams are scoring an average of four and a half runs a game, as they are today, then an ERA of 3.00 is outstanding. If teams are scoring an average of three runs a game, as they did in the late ’80s, than an ERA of 3.00 is middle-of-the-road and will not qualify as one of the greatest seasons of all time.
It’s not ‘nuts’, it’s logic and context. If someone threw an ERA of 2.22 today he’d be a candidate for MVP. When Cone did it in ‘88 he didn’t even lead the league! There were five guys in the NL alone who were at 2.39 or better: Magrane, Cone, Hershiser, Tudor, Rijo. I seriously doubt anyone in LA is raving about how Tudor should go into the Hall wearing a Dodger cap. Jesus.
It’s scientific, also known as the opposite of subjective. Subjective is saying “Hey I saw Sid Fernandez take a no-hitter into the 8th inning against the Expos, I think he should be on the list.” I guess you think the author is taking kickbacks from Matlack and Hampton to boost their reputation among bloggers and statheads. He’s in cahoots with Neyer and James and those guys in labcoats who think stem-cell research will cure diseases. Curse their logic, curse their research, damn them all to hell!
WITCH!
Where do you think Bret Saberhagen’s 1994 would have ranked (projecting for a whole season)?
Great post, but I too agree that Cone 88′ should be No. 3 on the list!I liked Rick Reed, but in addition to Cone I’d also put Ojeda, Darling and Stone ahead of him. Don’t forget George Stone in 73′ who was a throw in in the Felix Millian trade. In 1973, his only real good season with the Mets he went 12-3 with a 2.80 era helping the Met’s make it to the World Series. Keep your SNLVAR, if a pitcher goes 12-3, that’s 9 more wins than losses, when a team is 82-79 and wins their division by 1.5 games, that means a lot. OK, he might not make my top 10, but he’s in my top 15 and just before Reed.
Very much appreciated. I came here to finish answering comments, and you have already done so for me. Well done.
Pearls Before Swine is fantastic by the way, although I do like Get Fuzzy more.
Obviously, the purpose here is to use an objective measure, which is fine. But Cone in 1988 was by consensus the second best pitcher in the National League. Any system that rates eight guys who weren’t that ahead of him seems obviously flawed to me, and I think only Gooden and Seave had seasons that were that good compared to their contemporaries.
Glenn is a below-league-average commenter.
As mentioned before, the problem with ERA+ is that objectively, it still favors seasons in high ERA climates. Cone’s 2.22 in 1988 is admittedly not as good as a 2.22 in 2006. I admit that, and I agree to that. But you have to understand that it is incredibly harder to post an ERA 40% greater than league average 3.40 than it would be to post 40% greater than league average 4.50. In other words, it is not a linear progression, as Marc’s posts would lead you to believe. The curve gets harder and harder the lower your ERA gets. In any year, it’s much easier to lower your ERA from 4.00 to 3.00 than it would be to lower it from 3.00 to 2.00, the margin of error gets lower as your ERA gets better.
In Cone’s case, keep in mind that he was #2 in the Cy Young voting in 1988, while Rick Reed was nowhere near winning the Cy Young in 1997. That should give a little bit of a clue that Cone was a much more dominant pitcher relative to his year than Reed was, especially if the argument is that pitching, on the whole, was better in 1988 when Cone pitched.
I think this is where SNLVR misses the mark, and is so numerically “objective” that it is not entirely accurate in the scope of the real world. There has got to be a better way to rank these seasons.
I have to agree - ERA is not a linear progression where you can just say that if a player is 50% above average in 2006 than that is equivalent to 50% above average in 1986. If the league average ERA was much lower in the 80’s, then it would be harder to get your ERA low enough to hit a 150 ERA+. It gets harder to lower your ERA as it gets lower down, as there is less margin for error at that point.
A better way to look at it is where did the pitcher rank relative to the other pitchers in that year. Cone was probably the second best pitcher in baseball in 1988 after Hershiser, and this was admittedly a year where the pitching was very strong. Rick Reed, Al Leiter, and Mike Hampton (I don’t know enough about 1979 to speak of Swan) were all not among the elite pitchers in MLB those years, despite what their ERA+ says. Bob Ojeda and Ron Darling should both be on this list as well for the same reasons, all in all, they posted relative seasons as good as Leiter and Hampton, and much better than Reed.
SNLVR and ERA+ have always been wrongly used by sabermatricians for this very reason. You try to be too objective for your own good and distort the reality of the situation.
This list is ridiculous…..How does Craig Swan, Rick Reed and Frank Viola make the list and David Cone, Ron Darling and Bobby Ojeda not??
You could make a case for Viola….but how can you ignore Ojeda’s 18 wins in 86′ (on a World Champion team), Darling’s seasons in 85, 86 and 88, and Cone’s 20 win season in 87??
Reed never won more than 16 games and Swan won 9….(By the way….Swan was pitching in a pitchers ball park in the middle of the dead ball era….)
Sorry dude….bad list….
Oh man, LOL f’real. I’m glad I checked back here now.
To John, who said Pedro in ‘05 only went 6 innings per start- he actually averaged exactly 7 innings per start. In fact, he was one of only four pitchers in the majors that year to average at least 7 per start, and one of only two to average 7 innings with an ERA under 3. The other guy? Some schmoe named Johan Santana.
Pedro also happened to lead the -majors- that year with a .949 WHIP. With a stronger bullpen and better run support, he might have won a Cy Young award. His 2005 season deserves to be on the list.
As does Cone in ‘88, by the way. And what about Koosman in ‘76? He was second in Cy Young award voting that year.
Thanks for remembering Craig Swan! He blosssomed after Seaver was traded and had a real good year in ‘78 - especially given that the Mets were in a terrible state at that time.
But really, how could you not include David Cone in the top 10 while Frank Viola and Mike Hampton made the list? Viola may have managed to go 20-12 on a forgettable 1990 Mets squad in transition (w/out carter, hernandez). Statistically he had a fine year. But Hampton? Sorry - going 15-10 for the 2000 Mets was not remarkable. Leiter, Reed, and Bobby Jones were more rememberable.
Coney on the other hand won 20 games in his first full season in the majors and was dominating! He struck out over 200 batters and pitched with guts. He was reminscent of Seaver and at that time, more recently, Gooden.
I’ll also quibble about not ranking TOM SEAVER #1 rather than GOODEN. C’mon! Tom gave the Mets 8 shining seasons (69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75) and a few others that might have been better had the Mets had better offense, and didn’t endure an injury in ‘74. I have always wondered what Seaver might have been able to accomplish if he had pitched for the REDS his whole career; or ptiched for the METS with their mid 80’s offense. Seaver’s overall consistency ranks far and away ahead of Gooden’s brilliant Sophmore campaign