Milestones And The Mets Who Can Reach Them

As is common before the beginning of each season, many bloggers and reporters write about those Mets players who are approaching statistical milestones in their careers.  At Studious Metsimus, we enjoy our stats - sometimes a little too much - just like everyone else.  Therefore, we'd also like to contribute our list of players and personnel who are approaching career milestones.

But of course, this is Studious Metsimus, so why should you expect the typical milestones you can find anywhere else?  And why stop at just Mets players reaching milestones, when the entire Mets team is approaching a few milestones as well?

So sit back and enjoy.  And when one of the players (or the entire team) reaches a milestone, feel free to tweet about it before anyone else and watch as your dozens, hundreds or thousands of followers retweet you left and right or ask you if you got this from Studious Metsimus.  Claim ignorance if it's the latter.  That's what yours truly would do.


Individual Milestones Within Reach

David Wright won't wear a "C", but he does wear an "M" for Milestones.

David Wright:

• Needs 74 hits for 1,500 (or half of the magic 3,000 plateau)
• Needs 16 homers for 220 (would tie Mike Piazza for 2nd most in Mets history)
• An All-Star Game selection would be his 7th (would tie Darryl Strawberry and Piazza for 2nd most in club annals)
• Needs 1 sacrifice fly to knock Ed Kranepool off another perch (Wright and Kranepool are currently tied for the team lead with 58 sacrifice flies - tip of the Mets cap to Mark Simon for pointing this out, even if Kranepool himself would probably want this to stay on the down low)

Daniel Murphy:

• Needs 33 hits for 500 (nowhere near the magic 3,000 plateau)
• Needs 31 games for 500 (would become 41st Met to reach that mark)

Ike Davis:

• Needs 33 doubles for 100 (clearly he's still early in his career)
• Needs 42 homers for 100 (would also break the team's single-season HR record)

Ruben Tejada:

• Needs 1 homer for 3 (tying Rick Aguilera, Juan Samuel and Kelvin Chapman - and breaking a tie with Mike Nickeas)

Lucas Duda:

• Needs 8 runs for 100 (a total reached 19 times by a Met in a single season; this is Duda's fourth season in New York)
• Needs 1 strikeout for 200 (and a congratulatory boo from the Citi Field crowd)
• Needs 1 furniture mover to avoid another embarrassing off-season injury (duh!)

Terry Collins:

• Needs 24 wins to tie Casey Stengel for 9th most wins in team history
• Needs 53 wins to tie Jerry Manuel for 8th most wins in team history
• Needs 78 wins to tie Dallas Green for 7th most wins in team history
• Needs 109 wins and a World Series title to shut Greg Pomes up
• Needs 3 inches between his number and his his belt to stop dressing like Steve Urkel

Terry Collins prepares for "Family Matters Night" at Citi Field.

Bobby Parnell:

• Needs 44 saves to enter the Mets' all-time top ten in saves (and break Armando Benitez's single-season team record)
• Needs 5 saves to pass Anthony Young for most saves by a homegrown Met since 1990

Jonathon Niese:

• Needs 202 strikeouts to enter the Mets' all-time top ten in Ks
• Needs 23 strikeouts to match Nolan Ryan's totals as a Met (sigh...)
• Needs 16 starts and 12 wins to have more than Johan Santana had as a Met (double sigh...)

Johan Santana:

• Needs 1 start to make more starts than anyone expects him to make this year (triple sigh...)

"Oh, crap.  I'm missing another full season."

Team Milestones Within Reach

70,000 hits:

• Through 51 seasons, the Mets have collected 69,041 hits.  With 959 more hits, the Mets will reach the 70,000 mark.  The only years the Mets failed to reach 959 hits were in 1981 and 1994, both strike-shortened seasons.  As long as the Mets don't bring back Jason Bay, this milestone should be reached in late August or early September.  Plan your trip to Citi Field accordingly.

5,000 stolen bases:

• The Mets should have reached this milestone last year, but stole only 79 bases in 2012 - their lowest full-season total since 2003.  How much of a station-to-station team were the Mets in 2012?  They stole one more base than Jose Reyes stole by himself in 2007.  The Mets' non-pilfering tendencies caused the team to finish the 2012 season with 4,998 steals, leaving the team two thefts short of the magic 5,000 plateau.  They could reach that figure on Opening Day or it could take them an entire month.

50,000 strikeouts:

• If only this was 50,000 strikeouts by Mets pitchers.  But since the Mets traded all-time strikeout king Nolan Ryan before he became the Ryan Express, this 50,000 figure refers to the number of times Mets hitters have whiffed.  When the team strikes out for the 549th time this year (which should happen sometime in late June), they can thank several of their human windmills for helping this nightmare come true.  Without the likes of Dave Kingman, Jeromy Burnitz, Mo Vaughn and other futile flailers, this milestone would not have been possible by 2013.

The more Mo Vaughn struck out, the faster he could partake of the post-game spread.