Studious Metsimus Presents The Happy/Crappy Recap For 2016

We've reached that time of year, Mets fans.  No, I'm not talking about the time when teams overpay for a .230 hitter because his lifetime WAR is higher than his team owner's IQ.  It's time for this year's Happy/Crappy recap, where I share what made Mets fans incredibly happy but also save space for what was indelibly crappy.

When the 2016 season began, the Mets were the defending National League champions.  When the season ended, the team the Mets beat in 2015 to earn the title of N.L. champs became World Series champions for the first time since Scott Atchison read the story of Rip Van Winkle in study hall.

The Mets got to see the Cubs win it all from the comforts of their own homes because they couldn't knock off the Washington Nationals for the division title and had to settle for a do-or-die wild card game against postseason pitching extraordinaire Madison Bumgarner.  Or in other words, a loss.

But the Mets gave us plenty to hope for in the near future.  They got everyone hurt in 2016 so that only half of those players will be injured in 2017.  (I mean, Ray Ramirez can't kill them all again, right?)  They held Daniel Murphy to no home runs against them in six September games between the Mets and Nationals.  (Never mind that Murphy failed to go deep against everyone in September; that's not important right now!)  And most importantly, they allowed Eric Campbell to export his .173 batting average to Japan, where he will most likely become this generation's version of Tuffy Rhodes.

But in all seriousness, the Mets are built to remain contenders for longer than anyone thought they would be when Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins first came on the scene in 2011.  And after six years of 70-something wins per season, the Mets are poised to be far more happy than crappy well into the next decade.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's time for the 2016 Happy/Crappy recap.

Just like they did in 2015, the Mets got off to a quick start in 2016.  By mid-May, New York had a 21-12 record and was in first place in the NL East.  The pitching staff was once again responsible for the team's early success, allowing three runs or fewer in 24 of the first 33 games.  But the most important pitcher in the first few months of the season wasn't a starter.  Rather, it was closer Jeurys Familia, who for most of the season was on pace to break the all-time National League single-season saves record.  He finished four saves short of the N.L. mark held by Eric Gagne and Hall of Famer John Smoltz but still set a franchise record by recording 51 saves.

The new double play combo of Neil Walker and Asdrubal Cabrera was solid in the field and absolutely spectacular at the plate.  Even Cabrera's 0-for-34 stretch with runners in scoring position couldn't take away from how valuable an acquisition he was.  The new second baseman and shortstop became the first double play duo in team history to each reach 20 homers and produce an OPS over .800.  (Walker had an .823 OPS, while Cabrera's was .810; both players smacked 23 HR.)  And that's with Walker and Cabrera each spending time on the disabled list and combining to miss 70 games.  The Mets retained the services of the two steady middle infielders to ensure more pop and circumstance in 2017.

After no one thought the Mets could do it, they signed Yoenis Céspedes not once, but twice in 2016.  The first time, they allowed him to opt out of his three-year, $75 million deal after the first season was complete, which he did.  The second time, he re-signed with the team for four years and $110 million.  And this time, he's not going anywhere after year one is done.  Céspedes led the Mets in home runs, RBI, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, parakeets, horses, spring training vehicles, Lion King tributes, ... You name it, he led in it.  And he'll be trying to do the same through the 2020 campaign.

'Member Wilmer Flores?  He didn't cry on the field this year, but he did start to hit right-handed pitching better.  And even though he had 175 fewer plate appearances this year compared to his 2015 folk hero campaign, Flores still put up 16 HR and 49 RBI.  How rare is that production for a Mets player with fewer than 350 plate appearances?  Flores became just the fifth Met in club history with that many home runs in a sub-350 PA season and the fourth with that many RBI.  And to think he just turned 25 and posted career highs with a .788 OPS and 108 OPS+.  Before too long, people might totally forget about his obsession with the show "Friends" and will only remember him for being a fine hitter who makes excellent contact (165 strikeouts in 1,220 career plate appearances).

Last, but certainly not least is the legend of Noah Syndergaard, which went off the charts in 2016.  From his bromance with Yoenis Céspedes and Bartolo Colón to his hilarious Twitter account to sticking a microphone up Steve Gelbs' nose, Thor became a fan-favorite both on and off the field.  The 14-9 record, 2.60 ERA, 218 strikeouts and three homers as a batter were pretty cool, too.  As was his memorable effort against that Bum in the wild card game.  All from a guy who hadn't been born when Nirvana was at its peak.  Mets fans hope Thor can lead the team to baseball nirvana in the near future.

Noah Syndergaard clearly wanted to hear if Steve Gelbs was breathing heavily.  (SNY screen shot)

Not all was happy in the last season for the Mets.  In fact, some of the happy is intertwined with the crappy.  Time to unroll the orange and blue toilet paper and share what was crappy with 2016.

Once again, a quick start was followed by a mid-summer dry spell, especially with a lethargic offense that counted on players like James Loney, Alejandro De Aza and others of that ilk.  From May 12 to July 30, the Mets scored two runs or fewer in 35 of 70 games.  For all you kids out there, that's half the time not scoring more than a couple of runs.  That's not going to win a lot of ballgames.  (That would also explain why, by August 19, the Mets had gone 39-50 over their last 89 games to go from nine games over .500 to two games under.)

What happened to the vaunted starting rotation?  Matt Harvey went 4-10 with an ERA approaching 5.00 and a WHIP just under 1.50.  That's almost Mike Pelfrey in 2009 territory (Big Pelf had a 5.03 ERA and 1.51 WHIP in that sad, sad season).  And Jacob deGrom never found his fastball.  He must have left it wherever he left his winning record, as he went 7-8 with a career-high ERA and WHIP.  Let's not even talk about Steven Matz, who couldn't lose early on, then couldn't even get his grandpa to jump out of his seat during an 11-start stretch in which he posted a Harvey-esque 4.81 ERA and allowed opposing hitters to slash .303/.353/.472 against him.  The most consistent starter other than Syndergaard was Bartolo Colón, and now he's an Atlanta Brave.  Let's hope Zack Wheeler's unexpected two-year vacation has him ready to replace Big Sexy on the big stage.

As of this writing, the Mets still have Jay Bruce on their payroll.  He is a lefty-swinging outfielder with power.  They also have Curtis Granderson.  He also swings from the left side and patrols the outfield.  And you may have heard of this Michael Conforto guy.  Guess which side of the plate is his favorite and where he plays on the field?  Here's another thing about those guys.  They make outs.  Lots of them.  In fact, Granderson's .237 batting average was the highest among the three, with Conforto batting .220 and a late-season hot streak propelling Bruce all the way up to .219.  But hey, at least Granderson can draw a walk, and walks put fannies in the seats, right?

Jeurys Familia did a bad thing this off-season.  Something that was even worse than allowing that home run to Conor Gillaspie in the wild card game.  And because he couldn't control his temper off the field, he'll have to stay away from the field for a significant portion of the early 2017 campaign.  So either the Mets will have to score a ton of runs in April and early May or they'll have to depend on people not named Jeurys Familia to hold a slim lead when the starters are taken out of the game.  I hope the Mets paid their phone bill, because that bullpen phone is going to get quite a workout early on in 2017.

Finally, how does Ray Ramirez still have a job?  Sometimes it seems as if he spends more time on the field than the players do.  The disabled list welcomed a ton of Mets players in 2016, which has been par for the course since Ramirez became the head trainer.  Having him as the head trainer has become a head scratcher for most Mets fans.  Just don't scratch too hard while pondering why the players never seem to come back after injuries that began as day-to-day aches and pains turn into season-long nightmares.  Your head might end up in a walking boot if Ramirez finds out.

That's all she wrote, Mets fans.  You've just read what was happy and crappy about the 2016 season just in time to start thinking about what could possibly go wrong (and right) in 2017.  Can the 2017 top the two-season run the Mets have been on?  Will the offense finally hit in June?  And how will Noah Syndergaard antagonize Steve Gelbs next?

The answers will all be here in the coming year, as brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Studious Metsimus staff.  And if for some reason, the staff is on vacation or at an all-you-can-eat buffet when breaking Mets news hits, you can be sure that other members of the blogosphere - those who don't take vacations or eat - will be there to fill you in.  Blogs such as A Gal For All Seasons, Faith and Fear in Flushing, Mets Merized Online, MetsMinors.Net, Amazin' Avenue, Metstradamus, Remembering Shea, The Daily Stache, Mets360, Rising Apple, Mets Plus, Mets Police, MetSilverman, Converted Mets Fan and Mets Daddy, just to name a few (or 15, to be exact) always have compelling stories to share, day or night.  Check them out some time.  I'd say "tell 'em Ed sent you" but I'm not sure they all know who I am.

From all of us here at Studious Metsimus headquarters (which is basically just a desk that's equidistant from the kitchen and the bathroom), we'd like to wish you and yours a happy New Year.  And by "we", that's yours truly (Ed Leyro), our roving reporter/culinary expert (Joey Beartran) and queen of all social media (Taryn "The Coop" Cooper).

And remember, Mets fans, it's not how you play the game, it's how you managed to stay on the field when your head trainer is Ray Ramirez.

Thanks so much for your support!

The Studious Metsimus staff raises a glass to our readers!  (That guy on the top right needs to shave.)

Joey's Soapbox: My 2016 Somewhat Biased Wild Card Game Picks

O, Canada!  Not my home nor my native land!  But it is a place where playoff baseball is about to be played.

Hey, buddy.  This is playoff prognosticator Joey Beartran and this is what I'm talking aboot, eh.  It's time for America's pastime to begin its postseason in Canada, with division rivals Baltimore and Toronto playing a do-or-die wild card game at Rogers Centre on Tuesday.  There's also another game being played on Wednesday featuring some National League teams, I think.

As recently as five years ago, the Blue Jays and Orioles were perennially at the bottom of the A.L. East division standings.  In fact, from 2008 to 2011, Toronto was next-to-last in the division every season.  The team that kept them out of the A.L. East cellar each year was Baltimore.

The Orioles suffered through 14 consecutive losing seasons from 1998 to 2011, while the Blue Jays were kept behind the postseason velvet rope for over two decades from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s.  But much has changed for both teams in recent years, as Baltimore just completed its fifth consecutive season playing .500 ball or better, qualifying for the playoff party for the third time in those five years.  Meanwhile, Toronto is making its second straight trip to the postseason after finishing no higher than third place in the division in 20 of 21 seasons from 1994 to 2014.

Speaking of teams tasting success three times in five years and clubs making back-to-back playoff appearances, the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets will be squaring off for the right to be Cub food, if the "experts" are to be believed.

Who will spray champagne this week?  Who will go home and feel like they never made the playoffs at all?  And who will actually think I'd pick San Francisco when I wear a Mets hoodie 24-7?

You want some Wild Card game picks?  I've got your Wild Card game picks right here!


American League Wild Card Game


Baltimore Orioles vs. Toronto Blue Jays

The Orioles and Blue Jays were very evenly matched in the regular season, with Toronto winning the season series, 10-9.  Eleven of the 19 contests were decided by no more than two runs, including eight one-run affairs.  So basically, what I'm saying is that this Wild Card game is a toss-up.

Baltimore will be sending Chris Tillman to the mound.  On paper, Tillman's 16-6 regular season record and 3.77 ERA look fairly impressive, especially considering that no qualifying pitcher in the American League posted an ERA south of 3.00.  There's only one problem with Tillman.  He's not very durable, averaging barely over 5⅔ innings per start.  And not once did he make it past the sixth inning in any of his four starts versus Toronto this season.  However, Baltimore had just enough offense in each of those four games, winning every one of the Tillman's starts against the Blue Jays.

Toronto will answer with third-year pitcher Marcus Stroman, who was just mediocre in 2016, going 9-10 with a 4.37 ERA and 1.289 WHIP after combining to go 15-6 with a 3.31 ERA and 1.135 WHIP in his first two seasons.  Baltimore had its way with Stroman this season, scoring 18 runs (all earned) in 23 innings against him.

But the playoffs are a different animal, and as soon as either pitcher is in trouble, their respective managers will hop out of their dugouts, hooks in hand to remove them.  So Tillman may not even be allowed to reach his 5⅔-inning quota and Stroman won't come close to giving up a handful or two of runs, as he did during the regular season.

Baltimore may have a pitching edge, but their hitters are all-or-nothing.  The Orioles out-homered the Blue Jays, 253-221, but Toronto scored 15 more runs, walked 164 more times and struck out on 38 fewer occasions.

It looks like this game - just like during the regular season - will be a tight one.  So you'd think I'd have a tough time picking a winner, right?  Not at all.  You see, the winner of this game will play the Texas Rangers in the division series.  And I want to see a little more of this.

Sorry, Baltimore.  I love your city, but you're the undercard here.  I'm looking forward to the next round of heavyweight action between Texas and Toronto.

Prediction:  Toronto will advance to the ALDS.


National League Wild Card Game


San Francisco Giants vs. New York Mets

Madison Bumgarner is 5-0 in six career starts against the Mets.  He's also the owner of a 0.62 lifetime ERA in four starts at Citi Field.  And don't forget he's part of a Giants team that always wins championships in even-numbered years.

You also may have heard that Bumgarner's manager, Bruce Bochy, has led his respective teams to eight postseason appearances, six division titles, four pennants, three World Series titles and has more playoff victories than all but four skippers in baseball history.

Whatever.

Prediction:  New York will advance to the NLDS.

Rogers Centre poutine > AT&T Park garlic fries.  Therefore, Toronto will advance and San Francisco will not.

Curtis Granderson Has Become an RBI Machine

There have been plenty of happy moments for Curtis Granderson and the Mets in the month of September.  (AP Photo)

About a month ago, I wrote a piece entitled "Curtis Granderson Chases Unwanted History One RBI at a Time".  When the post was published, Granderson had 20 homers and just 34 RBI.  Each of his last 17 homers had been of the solo variety (that streak eventually reached 18).  Because of his inability to drive in runs without the ball leaving the park and his propensity for not doing anything positive when there were runners on base, I surmised that Granderson would set the record for fewest runs batted in per home run of any player who hit 20+ HR.

But just like former Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck's scoring guarantee in a playoff game against the Packers, I may have been a little premature with my prediction about Granderson.

After driving in a total of 16 runs in July and August, a two-month stretch in which he had 195 plate appearances, Granderson has notched a team-leading 17 RBI in the month of September in just 83 plate appearances - an average of one RBI every 4.88 PA.  Furthermore, Granderson has picked some huge moments in which to drive in those runs, and although he's still hitting plenty of homers (his seven homers in September are tied for the N.L. lead), he's finally found a way to drive in his teammates when they've been on base in front of him.

In Friday night's win over the Phillies, Granderson drove in the first run in the Mets' game-changing six-run rally in the fifth inning.  Last Saturday, he became the first Met to hit two home runs in extra innings, producing the tying home run in the 11th inning against the Twins and the game-winning blast an inning later.  Four days before that, Granderson's RBI triple gave the Mets the lead in a game they eventually won in extra innings.  On September 9, he crushed a two-run homer off Met killer Julio Teheran when the Mets were trailing the Braves by four runs in the sixth inning, then delivered a game-tying single in the eighth frame.  The Mets went on to win to complete the rally from a four-run deficit to win the game, 6-4.  And finally, On September 3, Granderson turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead with a two-run single off Nationals starter Tanner Roark in a game eventually won by the Mets, 3-1.

After hitting 18 consecutive solo homers earlier in the season, four of Granderson's last eight home runs have come with at least one man on base.  In addition, five of Granderson's last seven homers have either tied the game or given the Mets the lead.  It should be added that none of those home runs came with Granderson batting in the leadoff spot, where hitting a home run in the first inning would usually give the Mets an early lead.

On the morning of August 20, the Mets were 60-62 and Curtis Granderson had 20 HR and 34 RBI.  Since then, the Mets are 22-10 and Granderson has produced nine homers and 21 RBI.  His lack of run production was close to becoming historically bad in the annals of baseball.  Now his 55 RBI for the season have Granderson tied for second on the Mets behind only Yoenis Céspedes.  Simply stated, Granderson's RBI turnaround has been nothing short of Amazin'.

Maybe it was the acquisition of Reds' right fielder Jay Bruce that got Mets' right fielder Curtis Granderson to start driving in runs.  Or perhaps the Grandy Man has been drinking some of current Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson's "miracle water".  Whatever the reason, there's no denying the fact that not only has Granderson become an RBI machine for the Mets, he's driven in most of those runs in key moments of game, with many of those runs batted in contributing greatly to Mets victories.

Without question, Granderson's hunger for run production has certainly made all the critics (myself included) eat their words.

Pitching Wins Don't Matter ... Tell That to Bartolo Colón

It's been very difficult to cool down Bartolo Colón recently.  (Joe Robbins/Getty Images)

Decades ago, pitching victories were viewed as the standard by which to judge a pitcher's success.  If he won a lot of games, he was considered to be a good pitcher.  That was then, this is now.  And wins don't mean what they used to.  Just ask Seattle Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez, who won the American League Cy Young Award in 2010 despite finishing the season with a mediocre 13-12 won-loss record.

In the days of yore, the man known as King Felix wouldn't have been considered a candidate for the ultimate pitching honor with that record, but Hernandez led the American League during the 2010 campaign in innings pitched, ERA and fewest hits per nine innings, while also finishing high among the league leaders in the new stats of the day, like ERA+ (174; 2nd in A.L.), FIP (3.04; 4th in A.L.) and WAR for pitchers (7.1; 1st in A.L.).

Not only did Hernandez win the Cy Young over 19-game winner David Price and 21-game winner CC Sabathia, but the voting wasn't particularly close, as Hernandez earned 21 of the 28 first-place votes cast for the award in 2010.

Voters for regular season awards already know that there is more to determine the value of a pitcher than pitching wins.  But Mets pitcher Bartolo Colón doesn't have time for that talk.  He's too busy helping the Mets inch closer to an unlikely postseason berth by racking up win after win.  And in doing so, he finds himself just one victory away from joining an exclusive Mets pitching club.

Most of the time, when a player becomes "one of only so-and-so players to do something in club history", he's joined by a hodgepodge of players.  Some of these players are usually among the better players to suit up for the team, while others can sometimes be of the "what's he doing on this list?" variety.

For example, when you think of the top home run hitters in Mets history, your thoughts usually turn to guys like Darryl Strawberry, Mike Piazza and Dave Kingman - three guys who were known for their prodigious power.  But rounding out the top ten on the team's all-time home run list is Ed Kranepool, who never hit more than 16 home runs in any season and averaged a long ball every 50.8 plate appearances in his career.  Longevity had more to do with him appearing on this list than anything else.

Similarly, when one thinks of the top strikeout pitchers to put on the orange and blue, immediately visions of the Seavers, Koosmans and Goodens of the Mets universe come to mind.  No one would ever think of including a player like Jonathon Niese in the conversation, but there he is, sitting at No. 9 among the top strikeout pitchers in team history.  That's more a testament to how few great strikeout pitchers have managed to stick around with the Mets than it is of Niese's ability to throw strike three by an opposing batter.

That brings us back to Bartolo Colón, who currently sports a 13-7 won-loss record.  His excellent 2016 campaign comes on the heels of a 14-win season in 2015 and a 15-victory campaign in his inaugural season as a Met in 2014.  A win on Saturday against the Atlanta Braves would give him his third consecutive year with 14 or more victories and would put him on the short list of players who have accomplished that feat in a Mets uniform.  And believe me when I say that the players he'd be joining are not of the Ed Kranepool and Jonathon Niese ilk.

Steve Trachsel (Getty Images)

Entering 2016, a total of 27 pitchers (including Colón) had won 14 or more games for the Mets in a single season.  By accomplishing the feat in each of his first two seasons with the team, Colón had become one of ten Mets hurlers to post multiple seasons of 14+ victories.  However, one of the other nine was Steve Trachsel, which suggests that the company wasn't really that exclusive.  But should Colón win his 14th game of the season tonight or in any of his subsequent starts over the final three weeks of the season, he'd join pitchers like Jon Matlack, Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez and Al Leiter as three-time 14-game winners.  It's a slightly more impressive list, but none of those guys would ever appear on the Mount Rushmore of Mets starting pitchers.

Matlack, Darling, Fernandez and Leiter all had varying degrees of success with the Mets, but none of them put together at least three consecutive seasons of 14 or more victories while they were on the team.  Only four pitchers have ever done that.  You may have heard of them.  Those players are:

• Tom Seaver (1967-73)
• Jerry Koosman (1973-76)
• Dwight Gooden (1984-88)
• David Cone (1988-91)

If you were going to sculpt a Mets-style Mount Rushmore using the top four starting pitchers in Mets history, the noggins of those four players would more than likely be permanently chiseled in granite.  Basically, any positive pitching records in team history will feature most, if not all of those pitchers.  Their constant success from year to year made them aces or co-aces of the staffs they pitched for and resulted in lots of wins for the team and themselves.

And to think, Bartolo Colón is just one victory away from joining them.

Over the years, the importance of the pitching victory has been lessened.  A leaky pen can cost a starting pitcher a well-deserved win just as easily as an explosive offense can help a starter earn an ugly "W".  But a win is a win is a win, and pitchers still love getting them.  (Just ask Rick Porcello.)

Bartolo Colón has been in baseball long enough that he remembers when pitching victories were still used to determine how valuable a pitcher was.  But you don't have to tell anyone in this day and age just how valuable Colón has been to the Mets.  And should he earn a victory tonight over the Braves, his value as a winning pitcher will elevate him into the pantheon that includes the best starting pitchers in the history of the franchise.

Yeah, wins for pitchers don't matter as much as they used to.  But I don't think anyone is complaining  that Bartolo Colón is still racking up that "meaningless stat" for the Mets.

Wilmer Flores' Friends Want Him to Play Every Day

Wilmer Flores' new walk-up music is "I'll Be There For You", the theme to the long-running television show, "Friends".  That story seems to have taken over social media for the past 24 hours.  But the real story should be how Flores is making a push to be in the everyday lineup.

Flores had a fine season at the plate in 2015, collecting 22 doubles, 16 homers and 59 RBI to go with a .263 batting average and .408 slugging percentage.  He also made solid contact, striking out just 63 times in 510 plate appearances.  That made him the eighth-toughest person to strike out in the National League.

However, with the Mets' acquisition of Asdrubal Cabrera and the trade for Neil Walker, Flores was a man without a position at the start of the 2016 campaign, and his performance suffered as a result of his sporadic play.  On the morning of June 24, Flores was batting .226 with a .357 slugging percentage and a .648 OPS.  He had also started just 31 of the team's first 71 games, and most of those starts came as a result of David Wright's annual injury.  But something clicked as the summer got underway, and Flores has been one of the team's most productive hitters since then.

On June 24, Flores began a four-game stretch in which he reached base eight times and drove in four runs.  A week later, he became the second Met in team history to collect six hits in a game.  That Alfonzian effort kicked off an 11-game stretch in which Flores batted .412 with seven homers and 13 RBI.  And Flores hasn't stopped producing.

Since the middle of June, Flores has hit 14 homers and has 42 RBI.  That production has come in a mere 216 plate appearances.  To put that into perspective, that's more pop and run production than Yoenis Céspedes has had in the same time period with a similar number of plate appearances (Céspedes has 11 HR and 28 RBI in 205 PA).  And since June 24, Flores is batting .296 with a .536 slugging percentage and an .880 OPS.  Even more crazy is the fact that Flores has a .264 BABIP since mid-June and he's still become one of the team's top run producers.  Eventually that low BABIP (an average BABIP is around .300) will even itself out, which means the potential to drive in more runs exists for Flores.

One of the reasons why Flores wasn't starting many games early on was his inability to hit right-handed pitching.  He was mashing left-handed pitching to the tune of a .340 batting average but was struggling to get to the Mendoza Line against right-handed pitchers.  But that lack of success against RHP has begun to change.

In today's game against the Reds, Flores had three hits against Cincinnati right-handed starter Robert Stephenson.  This came less than 24 hours after Flores went 2-for-4 versus the Nationals, collecting a double off starting pitcher Reynaldo Lopez and a single off reliever Mat Latos, both of whom are right-handed.  Four days earlier, Flores turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead by clubbing a two-run homer off Marlins starter Jake Esch - also a right-handed pitcher.  The night before that, Flores picked up a double and an RBI single off Miami pitcher Tom Koehler.  And what do you know?  He throws with his right hand as well.

(Brad Penner/USA TODAY Sports)

In fact, Flores hasn't had a hit off a southpaw since August 26, when he hit a grand slam against Phillies starter Adam Morgan.  Since that salami, Flores has reached base 13 times (ten hits, three walks) in eight starts.  All 13 times he's gotten on base, a right-handed pitcher was on the mound.

With Neil Walker out for the season, Asdrubal Cabrera playing through an injury and James Loney struggling to the tune of a .174/.195/.187 slash line since August 9, Flores was bound to get more at-bats.  But even without the less-than-100% infield, Flores has 100% earned the opportunity to start every game for the Mets, regardless of whether the pitcher is a lefty or a righty.

His BABIP is low even with the high production.  His inability to hit right-handed pitchers appears to be a thing of the past.  And his teammates are dropping like flies.  The reason to sit Flores is gone.

Wilmer Flores wants everyone to know that his favorite TV show is "Friends".  Flores should know that he has his own friends in Mets fans who feel his bat should be in the lineup every day.  After all, Flores' bat has certainly been there for us since the beginning of summer.

Yoenis Céspedes vs. Other Mets in Their First 162 Games

Yoenis Cespedes's 162-game start gets a big thumbs up!  (Ed Leyro/Studious Metsimus)

Yoenis Céspedes has meant everything to the Mets since he was acquired at the trade deadline last July.  But because of nagging injuries and a trip to the disabled list earlier this season, Céspedes didn't get to play in his 162nd career game with the team until Wednesday, as he has missed 28 games during the 2016 campaign after resting for only two games with the Mets in 2015, both of which came after the team had clinched the division title.

Céspedes's numbers with the team in those 162 games are astounding, as he has produced 34 doubles, 44 homers, 112 RBI and has compiled a .583 slugging percentage and .941 OPS in a full season's worth of games.  Those five categories are traditionally recognized as categories in which sluggers generally excel, and Céspedes ranks favorably with the team's all-time greats in all five.

In doing research for hot starts by Mets players to see where Céspedes ranked, I found some interesting names that I did not expect to find among those franchise legends.  For every time Mike Piazza was in the top ten - he's the only player to be ranked in the top five in all five categories within his first 162 games with the team - there were a handful of "did they really have that type of start?" players.

Here are five lists, one each for doubles, home runs, runs batted in, slugging percentage and on-base plus slugging percentage, that show just how good Céspedes has been in his first 162 games with the Mets and how fortunate some other players were in their first full season's worth of contests with the club.


Doubles:

Bernard Gilkey

Mike Piazza - 46
Bernard Gilkey - 45
Paul Lo Duca - 44
David Wright - 41
Mike Cameron - 40
Rusty Staub - 39
Eddie Murray - 38
Robin Ventura - 38
Todd Zeile - 38
Ike Davis - 37



Home Runs:

Kevin McReynolds

Dave Kingman - 48
Yoenis Céspedes - 44
Carlos Delgado - 39
Mike Piazza - 38
Mike Cameron - 35
Gary Carter - 34
Frank Thomas - 34
Robin Ventura - 32
Cliff Floyd - 31
Bernard Gilkey - 31
Kevin McReynolds - 31
Darryl Strawberry - 31



Runs Batted In:

John Olerud

Carlos Delgado - 126
Bernard Gilkey - 124
Robin Ventura - 120
Mike Piazza - 119
Dave Kingman - 118
Gary Carter - 116
Yoenis Céspedes - 112
Donn Clendenon - 108
John Olerud - 107
Kevin McReynolds - 102




Slugging Percentage:

Mike Cameron

Mike Piazza - .604
Yoenis Céspedes - .583
Bernard Gilkey - .544
Rico Brogna - .529
Robin Ventura - .525
Cliff Floyd - .523
Carlos Delgado - .518
Donn Clendenon - .512
Dave Kingman - .511
Mike Cameron - .510



On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage:

Rico Brogna

Mike Piazza - 1.005
Yoenis Céspedes - .941
Bernard Gilkey - .930
Robin Ventura - .902
Cliff Floyd - .890
John Olerud - .889
Rico Brogna - .880
Carlos Delgado - .870
Benny Agbayani - .867
David Wright - .865



As you can see, there are several players whose names you would expect to see in multiple categories.  Power hitters such as Céspedes, Piazza, Carlos Delgado, Dave Kingman and others can be found in at least three of the five top-ten lists.  But did you really expect to see a guy like Rico Brogna appear on as many lists as David Wright?  What about Cliff Floyd and Mike Cameron showing up three times?  Or most surprisingly, what do you think of Bernard Gilkey and Robin Ventura joining Piazza as the only three players to rank in the top ten in all five categories?

Those unexpected players (Brogna, Floyd, Cameron, Gilkey, Ventura) all had sensational starts to their careers in Flushing, but they also suffered injuries (Brogna, Floyd and Cameron come to mind) or faded quickly (Gilkey and Ventura were both one-season wonders).

Meanwhile, a number of all-time team greats were absent from a number of these top-tens.  The late, great Gary Carter made it to the Hall of Fame and began a miraculous World Series rally that fueled the Mets to a championship.  But his excellent .490 slugging percentage and .861 OPS in his first 162 games with the team were both not high enough to appear on either category's respective top-ten list.  Darryl Strawberry may have won the National League Rookie of the Year award in 1983, but his only appearance on any of the above lists is a ninth-place tie in the homer department.  And Carlos Beltran may be the greatest free agent signing in Mets history, but a poor start to his career in New York kept him off every list.

It remains to be seen whether Céspedes will go down the road traveled by the great sluggers in Mets history or if the nagging injuries continue to increase and he will just be remembered for the incredible 162-game start to his Mets career, which included helping the team reach the 2015 World Series.

For now, Céspedes is one of only three Mets to have at least 30 doubles, 35 homers and 100 RBI in his first 162 games with the team, joining Carlos Delgado and Hall of Famer Mike Piazza.  Whether or not Céspedes joins Piazza in Cooperstown or even in the Mets Hall of Fame won't be known for years, but one thing's for certain.

Yoenis Céspedes has been gotten off to one of the best starts of any hitter in franchise history.  And there's nothing fluky about that.

Curtis Granderson Chases Unwanted History One RBI at a Time

On Friday, the Mets' leaky bullpen turned a 1-1 tie into an 8-1 blowout loss in a matter of minutes.  Gone was Seth Lugo's valiant effort , in which he allowed one run in six and two-thirds innings while he was in the game and two additional runs after he was taken out of the game, no thanks to Jerry Blevins' craptastic performance.

The sole run for the Mets came in the second inning, when Curtis Granderson bashed and splashed his 20th home run of the season into McCovey Cove.  Obviously, Grandy's tater came with no one on base, something Mets fans have become accustomed to, as it was the 17th consecutive solo homer for Granderson this season.  And for those who would say that Granderson has so many solo shots because he's been used mostly as a leadoff hitter this season, you should be reminded that the only time Granderson is guaranteed to bat with no one on base as a No. 1 hitter is in inning No. 1 and that last year, he was used mostly as a leadoff hitter and still managed to knock eight balls out of the park with men on base.  Oh, and last night's four-base hit came as the Mets' sixth-place hitter, as did his previous solo homer two nights before that.

For the season, Granderson has 20 home runs and just 34 RBI.  You read that correctly, kids.  Thirty-four runs batted in for a 20-homer hitter.  And it's because of the paltry RBI figure that Granderson is chasing unwanted history.

The forever-smiling Curtis Granderson finally has something to frown about.  (Photo by Paul J. Bereswill)

Curtis Granderson is on pace to hit 27 homers and drive in 45 runs this season.  Only nine players in big league history have hit 20 or more homers while producing no more than 45 RBI in the same season.  But none of the players hit more than 22 home runs, as Chris Duncan (22 HR, 43 RBI in 2006) and Mark Reynolds (22 HR, 45 RBI in 2014) are tied for the most homers in a 45-RBI-or-fewer campaign.  With Granderson on pace for 27 homers, he stands a good chance to have the fewest runs batted in of any player with that home run total.  In fact, he could have fewer RBI than any player who hit at least 23 HR.

Here is the list of the fewest RBI recorded by players who hit 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27 homers.

• 23 HR, 48 RBI - Ruben Rivera (1999)
• 24 HR, 51 RBI - Ken Phelps (1984)
• 25 HR, 56 RBI - Fred Lynn (1988), Marcus Thames (2008), Luis Valbuena (2015)
• 26 HR, 54 RBI - Ron Gant (2000), Joc Pederson (2015)
• 27 HR, 56 RBI - Mark Bellhorn (2002)

Ruben Rivera is the only player in baseball history to hit 23 or more homers who failed to drive in 50 runs in that campaign.  Granderson, who has driven in 34 runs in the Mets' first 122 games, stands to join Rivera in this exclusive club while hitting more homers than Rivera and driving in fewer runs.  It should be noted that Rivera drove in his 34th run in 1999 on July 19 in his team's 92nd game of the season, while Granderson collected RBI No. 34 exactly one full month and 30 games later in his team's schedule.

With 20 homers and 34 RBI, Granderson has fewer then two runs batted in for every home run he has hit, or more precisely, 1.7 RBI/HR.  Only two other players with 20+ homers in a single season had RBI totals that failed to be at least twice the number of their home run output.  That gruesome twosome is:

• Kevin Maas (1990) - 21 HR, 41 RBI
• Chris Duncan (2006) - 22 HR, 43 RBI

Unlike Granderson, both Maas and Duncan needed just one additional RBI to have twice as many runs batted in as they had home runs.  They averaged 1.95 RBI/HR, compared to Granderson's 1.7 RBI/HR ratio, which means Granderson is on pace to shatter the mark for fewest RBI per home run among those players who hit 20 or more home runs.  But what if the bar was lowered from 20 HR to just reaching double digits in homers?  Surely, there should be many players who averaged fewer than 1.7 RBI per home run when they didn't hit too many homers to begin with, right?

Wrong.

In fact, here is the complete list of players who hit ten or more homers and failed to drive in 1.7 runs for every homer they hit:

• Wayne Gross (1985) - 11 HR, 18 RBI (1.64 RBI/HR)
• Russell Branyan (2008) - 12 HR, 20 RBI (1.67 RBI/HR)

That's it.  I'm sure Curtis Granderson is pleased to be in their company.

So let's look at one last thing before you start the process of buying Granderson a one-way plane ticket out of town.  Let's review all the names we've mentioned above.  I'm talking about Chris Duncan, Matt Reynolds, Ruben Rivera, Ken Phelps, Fred Lynn, Marcus Thames, Luis Valbuena, Ron Gant, Joc Pederson, Mark Bellhorn, Kevin Maas, Wayne Gross and Russell Branyan, for those of you whose attention span is smaller than the difference between Granderson's home run and RBI totals.

Those 13 players averaged just 343 at-bats in their RBI-starved seasons, with Pederson (480 AB) being the only one to surpass 450 at-bats.  Therefore, it could be reasonably argued that because most of them didn't come up to the plate as often as an everyday player, they had fewer RBI opportunities.  Granderson already has 424 at-bats this season.  Barring injury or benching, he's on pace to rack up 563 at-bats.  And yet he's still not driving in runs.

It makes you wonder if that paltry .123 batting average with runners in scoring position (10-for-81) and that almost inconceivable .050 mark in two-out/RISP situations (2-for-40) has something to do with Granderson's low RBI total with all those home runs.  (Spoiler alert:  It does.)

When the Mets signed Curtis Granderson as a free agent prior to the 2014 campaign, they expected him to be a run-producer.  Instead, he became the team's leadoff hitter.  In 2015, Granderson produced 70 RBI, with 64 of those runs driven in from the leadoff spot.  This year, he's not even halfway to his 2015 RBI total even though the season is more than three-quarters complete.  And now, he's not even in the leadoff spot where he could use the excuse that No. 1 hitters aren't expected to drive in runs.

It's not unusual for a big-time free agent signing to make history.  It is unusual, however, for one to chase the kind of unwanted history Curtis Granderson is approaching - history he's about to make one well-spaced RBI at a time.

 

The Dog Days of Summer Seem to Only Affect the Mets

If you've been living in the New York metropolitan area the last few weeks, you know it's been a hot summer, especially recently when temperatures have been in the 90s with heat indices soaring into triple digits.  In between breaths of hot and sticky air, you've probably heard someone mention that we're in the dog days of summer.  But what exactly are those canine 24-hour periods?

The dictionary definition of dog days is as follows:

• The sultry part of the summer, supposed to occur during the period that Sirius, the Dog Star, rises at the same time as the sun: now often reckoned from July 3 to August 11.

• A period marked by lethargy, inactivity or indolence.

Clearly, the second definition was created with the 2016 New York Mets in mind.

Just a few days after the astrological beginning of the dog days of summer, the Mets' record stood at 47-38 and they held a firm grip on the National League's top wild card spot.  Since then, the Mets have gone 10-20 and their players have developed those dreaded summer allergies - the ones that make them allergic to winning streaks longer than one game.

Since July 7, when the Mets were three games ahead of the Cardinals and Marlins, New York has the worst record in baseball.  Don't believe me?  Here, see for yourself.  Can't find the Mets?  Just look all the way down in the lower right hand corner - the spot usually reserved for last place teams.

The dog days have affected other competitive teams as well, as the Marlins and Cardinals have only been one game above .500 since July 7.  The Pittsburgh Pirates, who had the eighth-best record in the National League on July 7, are also just one game over the break-even point since that date.  But even that's been good enough to put them ahead of the Mets on the morning of August 13.  It should be noted that the Mets had the fourth-best record in the Senior Circuit five weeks ago, which means the Pirates only needed to be barely better than mediocre to leapfrog over four teams on their way to passing the defending National League champions in the wild card race.

The Mets have done nothing but fall apart since Sirius started to rise at the same time as the sun.  I mean that figuratively and literally, as Matt Harvey, Yoenis Cespedes, Jose Reyes, Asdrubal Cabrera and probably some other players you never realized were on the team (Justin Ruggiano, anyone?) have all been felled by the injury bug.  Still, even with the plethora of boo-boos, no one could have expected that this team would ever be the worst out of 30 teams for a period of just over a month.

Summer doldrums have affected the Mets in the past as well.  Just six years ago, the Mets' record stood at 45-35 on the morning of July 3, the date in which the dog days of summer begin in the astrological sense.  The team had the wild card lead and was only two games behind the first-place Braves in the N.L. East and three games ahead of the eventual division champion Phillies.  Five weeks later, they were below .500, behind the Phillies, and on the outside of the playoff race looking in.

Do you remember the 2002 season, when general manager Steve Phillips brought in a bunch of former All-Stars in Mo Vaughn, Jeromy Burnitz and Roberto Alomar to help the team go for its sixth straight winning season and third playoff trip in four years?  That team was 53-49 in late July and within striking distance of the wild card-leading Dodgers.  Then ... KABOOM!  That's the sound a Flushing Free Fall makes when the team proceeds to go 8-25 in its next 33 games, which included a 12-game losing streak in mid-August and the loss of every home game in the entire month.  For all you kids out there, that's an 0-13 record in August.

And what about the 1992 Mets, also known as "The Worst Team Money Could Buy"?  That team was actually just four games out of first place on July 24 and appearing to be worth every penny invested in it.  But less than a month later, the team was 15 games off the pace in the division after losing 19 of 24 games.

The dog days of summer affect every major league team.  Players get tired over a long season and especially when the weather is hot and humid.  But over the years, those days have been particularly rough on the Mets.  This season has been no exception.

Last night's loss to the Padres was the Mets' 20th defeat in their last 30 games.  If you believe in astrological definitions, the dog days of summer ended two days ago.  Perhaps someone should tell the Mets that the Dog Star is no longer rising with the sun and hope that this information can help the team rise in the wild card standings.  The Mets could certainly use all the help they can get.

Jonathan Lucroy Isn't Yoenis Céspedes, Or Is He?

Jonathan Lucroy may not be Yoenis Cespedes, but he sure looks a lot like Daniel Murphy.  (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

No one is going to confuse Jonathan Lucroy with Yoenis Céspedes.  Céspedes is a slugger who has never hit fewer than 22 homers in any of his five seasons in the majors, averaging 31 homers and 103 RBI for every 162 games played, while Lucroy's career high in home runs is 18.  Céspedes is also a left fielder, while Lucroy squats behind the plate.

But despite the obvious differences, Lucroy has the potential to be an impact player just like Céspedes was last year for the Mets.  Allow me to explain.

The Mets have two problems.  When they're on offense, especially with runners in scoring position, they turn into a Mario Mendoza cover band.  And believe me, they've covered him very well, batting .202 (148-for-732) with runners in scoring position.

The team's other problem occurs when they're on defense.  They allow too many [expletive deleted] stolen bases!  New York has allowed 84 steals in 111 attempts, allowing opposing base runners to steal at a 76% success rate.  The average major league team has allowed just 52 stolen bases and a 71% success rate, so yeah, I'd call this a problem for the Mets.

So how do the Mets fix these two problems with just one player?  All they have to do is make a trade for Jonathan Lucroy.

For the season, Lucroy is batting .300 with 17 doubles, 13 homers and 50 RBI.  He also has a .360 on-base percentage and a .484 slugging percentage to give him an .844 OPS.  Now consider this.  Lucroy's .300 batting average and .844 OPS are both higher than the marks Céspedes was producing at the time the Mets acquired him last year.  (La Potencia was batting .293 and had an .829 OPS when he was traded to New York.)

It's true that Céspedes had driven in more runs at the time of the swap, as Yoenis had amassed 61 RBI before coming to the Mets, or 11 more than Lucroy has now.  But remember that Lucroy is a catcher and therefore did not have all the plate appearances that an outfielder like Céspedes would have.  Lucroy's 50 RBI in 324 at-bats this year (an RBI every 6.5 AB) is comparable to the 61 RBI produced by Céspedes last year in 403 at-bats prior to becoming a Met (an RBI every 6.6 AB).

Lucroy also excels at driving in runners in scoring position when there are two outs, batting .289 in those situations.  That would be a marked improvement over the paltry .164 batting average the Mets currently have under those circumstances, which includes the .308 mark put up by Céspedes.  (Take out Céspedes and the team would have a .152 batting average with two outs and runners in scoring position.  Yeah, it's really that bad.)  Imagine a lineup with two players hitting back-to-back who can produce when the team is down to its last out in an inning!  That's what Lucroy would bring to the Mets.

Now, as great as Céspedes was with the bat both last year and in 2016, there's nothing he can do about the plethora of stolen bases being registered against the Mets.  If you recall, earlier this week Céspedes hit a home run against the Cardinals that gave the Mets a late-inning lead.  However, a two-run rally by the Cardinals in the ninth inning, which included a stolen base by Jeremy Hazelbaker to set up the tie-breaking hit by Kolten Wong, caused a potential wonderful win by the Mets to turn into a devastating defeat.

Céspedes couldn't do it all in that game against St. Louis.  That's where Jonathan Lucroy comes in.

Do you know which catcher is leading the league in most base runners caught stealing?  That would be one Jonathan Charles Lucroy.  Lucroy has gunned down 32 would-be base stealers, or five more than Travis d'Arnaud, Rene Rivera and Kevin Plawecki have been able to throw out ... combined!  In addition, Lucroy has thrown out 40% of the runners trying to steal a base against him.  The National League average is just 28%.

So let's review.

Have bat, will travel - hopefully to New York.  (Rob Tringali/Getty Images)

Jonathan Lucroy has produced just as much with the bat this year with the Brewers as Céspedes did last year with the Tigers prior to Yoenis being traded to the Mets.  Lucroy is just as likely to drive in a run as Céspedes is.  It just doesn't show up in the cumulative numbers because Lucroy plays fewer games due to the fact that he is a catcher.

Lucroy is batting 125 points higher than the Mets are in two out/RISP situations, meaning that he is much more likely to collect the two-out hit needed to drive in a runner from second or third base than your typical Met is.  This would put an end to those frustrating innings when the Mets put multiple men on base but don't bring them home.

And finally, Lucroy would cause the running at will against Mets pitchers to slow down a bit once opposing base runners realize that he's actually quite adept at throwing them out.  That would thwart potential rallies and keep runs off the board.

When Rene Rivera is leading Mets catchers in home runs and RBI with four and 17, respectively, and there is the potential to acquire another catcher with a 13 and 50 in those categories, you know the Mets have to pull the trigger on this deal.

Jonathan Lucroy isn't the sexy name that Yoenis Céspedes was last year and he probably can't hit balls into the third deck at Citi Field like the Mets' outfielder has, but Lucroy can help the Mets in so many ways that even Céspedes can't.  And he could be the difference between the Mets playing meaningful games in October again or the Mets watching other teams doing the same.

Are the Mets Really a Second-Half Team? Not So Fast!

The Mets began the second half of the season on a positive note last night, defeating the Philadelphia Phillies by the final score of 5-3.  It was the kind of start needed by a team that expects to be in a heated race for the division crown or one of the wild card spots.

At the start of the midsummer break, a certain Norse god (and sometimes Mets pitcher) took to Twitter to remind Mets fans of what they should expect from the team during the second half of the season.

We are a 2nd half team

— Noah Syndergaard (@Noahsyndergaard) July 10, 2016

Well, Syndergaard's sole second half in the majors was in 2015, so his experience is one of a 43-30 record after the All-Star break after the team went just 47-42 during the season's first half - a first half that included an 11-game winning streak.

Sadly, Syndergaard did not consult me before sending out that tweet or else I would have given him a little history lesson.

Since the Mets moved to Citi Field in 2009, they had won just one second-half opener prior to last night's victory.  That win came in 2014 in San Diego.  The Mets were so busy celebrating their post-All-Star Game victory two seasons ago that they were in full hangover mode for the rest of the four-game series at Petco Park, dropping each of the next three games there.

In fact, since 2002, when David Wright and Jose Reyes were still pups in the minors and Bartolo Colon was still under 200 pounds, the Mets are a combined 35 games under .500 after the break, going 474-509.  That includes last year's team, which won nearly 60% of its games in the season's second half.  Compare that to what the Mets have done in the first half of each season since 2002, when the team gave us thoughts of October baseball on a regular basis, as they went 685-656, or 29 wins over the break-even point.

This can be taken back all the way to the early days of the franchise.  Since 1969, when the team posted its first winning season, the Mets have been above .500 at the All-Star break on 28 occasions in those 48 campaigns.  That's almost 60% of the time in just about half a century's worth of seasons.  However, the Mets have only been able to post winning records in the second half just 23 times since 1969, meaning they've had sub-.500 second-half records more than half the time going back nearly five decades.  And that includes the 1975 and 2014 seasons, when the Mets finished one game over .500 in each campaign's second half (39-38 and 34-33, respectively).  It also includes the 1994 season, when the Mets went 15-11 in the abbreviated second half, as a strike killed the season just one month after the All-Star Game was played.

As much as we, as Mets fans, would like to think that our beloved team has traditionally been a second-half team, the truth of the matter is that the team has usually played its best baseball during the first halves of each season.  Of course, last year's team was an exception, but that was because the Eric Campbells, Darrell Cecilianis and John Mayberrys of the first-half world were replaced by the Michael Confortos, Juan Uribes and Yoenis Cespedeses of half No. 2.

Sandy Alderson may just upgrade the team in the next few weeks leading up to the trade deadline on Aug. 1, but the more likely scenario is that the players currently on the team will have to find a way to get healthy, stay healthy and make sure their bats and arms are healthy as well.

A Yoenis Cespedes-like savior isn't going to walk through that door this year.  And if he does, he better make sure he doesn't trip, fall and end up on the disabled list as he passes through it.

If Cespedes keeps going down, so will the Mets' chances of returning to the postseason.  (Matt Slocum/Associated Press)

Sweepin' Ain't Easy ... Said No One at Citi Field This Weekend

After looking deflated and defeated in losing three games to their division rivals in Washington, the Mets came home for a four-game series this weekend against the Chicago Cubs, who have been the best team in baseball all season.  The series would mark the 58th time since 1962 that New York and Chicago had squared off for four consecutive games.  And in their first 57 four-game series, the Mets had taken all four games just one time.

But thanks to some timely hitting, effective pitching and a monster 6-for-6 game by Wilmer Flores, that is no longer a true statement.

New York completed a four-game sweep of the Cubs today, defeating the North Siders, 14-3.  They scored seven runs in the second inning to give Cubs starting pitcher Jon Lester his shortest outing in over 300 career starts just one day after he won the National League Pitcher of the Month award for the just-completed month of June.

The Mets won the four games by blowing out the Cubs twice (they also defeated the Cubs, 10-2, on Friday) and taking two nailbiters on Thursday and Saturday, both by a 4-3 score.  Basically, they continued their dominance over the Cubs that began last year during the four-game NLCS sweep.

But as great as the Mets have performed against the Cubs over the last eight months, they had only won every game of a four-game series from Chicago just once in 57 tries.  In 1985, during the first series between the two teams after their battle for division supremacy the previous year, the Mets brought out the brooms against the Cubs in a four-game set at Shea Stadium, allowing a total of just four runs in the series.

Screen shots or it didn't happen.  (Courtesy of Ultimate Mets Database)

The Mets went on to win all nine games they played versus Chicago at Shea Stadium in 1985, taking a three-game series in August and a two-game set in September.  But the four-game sweep marked the first and only time New York had won every game of a four-game series against the Cubs in the team's first 54 seasons.  Until now.

And if you want to say that it's very difficult for any team to win four consecutive games in the same series against the same team, perhaps you should know what the usually lowly Cubs have done against the Mets in four-game sets since their first one in 1962.

That first four-game series in June 1962 at the Polo Grounds resulted in four Cubs victories.  It should be noted that the Cubs finished that campaign with a 59-103 record, which was - and still is - the worst regular season record in Chicago's long history.  (The 1966 Cubs also went 59-103.)

A year later, the Cubs swept another four-game series from the Mets, this time at Wrigley Field.  Then in 1965, the Cubs added a third venue to the four-game sweep-a-thon, taking four straight from New York at Shea Stadium.

It then took nearly two decades for Chicago to win all four games of a four-game series against the Mets, but they finally repeated the feat in 1984, scoring 32 runs in the four August games at Wrigley Field.  The Cubs had previously pulled off four-game sweeps against three awful Mets teams in 1962, 1963 and 1965.  However, the 1984 Mets squad won 90 games.  It wasn't just pushover Mets clubs that were experiencing the wrath of the Cubs in four-game sets.

Let's now fast forward seven years later to 1991.  On August 9, the Mets went into Wrigley Field with a 57-50 record.  They were still very much alive in the race for the N.L. East title, entering the game just 5½ games behind the first place Pittsburgh Pirates.  But the Cubs, who were struggling and under .500 entering the series, took out their frustrations on the Mets, winning all four games.  The sweep was the beginning of a season-changing 11-game losing streak for the Mets.

It was déjà vu all over again for the Mets in 1992, as once again in August, the Mets were still in the race for the division crown - they were 7½ games out of first - but were swept four straight in Chicago.  That sweep was the beginning of a 21-35 stretch for the Mets to close out the season.

With the Cubs moving to the N.L. Central in 1994, the Mets and Cubs only played five four-game series from 1994 to 2014, with none of them resulting in sweeps for either team.  But in 2015, the Cubs pulled off a four-game sweep of the Mets at Wrigley Field in May.  Of course, we all know how that season turned out for the Mets.

So that means the Mets suffered four-game sweeps to the Cubs seven times from 1962 to 2015, returning the favor just once in 1985.  Once.  In fifty-four seasons.

But now that number has gone up to two, as the Mets have just completed a four-game sweep of the Cubs at Citi Field - the only venue in which the Cubs have yet to turn the trick against the Mets.

Sweeping a series of any length - particularly a four-game series - may not be easy, but don't tell that to the Mets.  They treated the series the way Cubs used to treat four-game series against the Mets.  And in doing so, fans got to witness something they hadn't seen the Mets do as a team since 1985.

The Cubs are the cleanest team in baseball after they just got swept by the Mets.

Broken News: Milestones Within Reach For Jose Reyes

Jose Reyes has experience at doing what he's not supposed to do.  Now we'll see if he's changed.  (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Welcome to yet another edition of Broken News, where someone else breaks the news and then we break some more.  Unless if you've been laying under a rock or beneath Bartolo Colon, you already know that the Mets have brought back Jose Reyes into the fold.  Obviously, his recent domestic violence issue is being discussed by anyone with an opinion.  That means all of us.

But that is not what we are intending to do with this blog post.  We'll leave that to people who know far more about the topic than we do.  Instead, we're going to stick to what we do best.  We're going to stuff numbers down your throat.  (Not to worry, some of them are tasty.  Some may even be gluten-free.)

When Jose Reyes left the final game of the 2011 season after dropping down a bunt in the first inning for the 1,300th hit of his career, we thought that would be it and he would never add to his numbers as a Met.  But once he ends his short stint in the minors, he will continue to make his way up the Mets' all-time offensive leader board.  He will also be approaching several career milestones.  Here is what he will be shooting for.

Mets Milestones Within Reach For Jose Reyes:

Reyes needs one triple to become the first Met to have 100 three-baggers.  Mookie Wilson is the only former Metropolitan who made it halfway to triple digit triples in his career, legging out 62.  Cleon Jones is third in Mets history with 45 three-base hits and he needed a dozen seasons to get there.

With 222 doubles as a Met, Reyes is currently fourth among all players who suited up for the team.  However, with four doubles, he would pass another former No. 7, Ed Kranepool, for third place.  Seven more two-baggers would put Reyes ahead of former teammate Daniel Murphy, who ended his Mets career with 228.  Reyes will probably have to settle to No. 2 all-time in doubles, as David Wright is well ahead of the pack with 390 two-base hits.

Jose Reyes currently sits at No. 3 in team history with 1,300 hits.  Since he is under contract through the 2017 season, it's reasonable to think that he will eventually pass Ed Kranepool at some point into second place.  Kranepool collected 1,418 hits in his Mets career.

During his first stint in New York, Reyes played in 1,050 games, good for 10th place on the club leader board.  Depending on when he is called up to the big leagues and how often Terry Collins decides to use him, Reyes could pass Edgardo Alfonzo (1,086 games), Darryl Strawberry (1,109 games) and Mookie Wilson (1,116 games) before the end of the 2016 season.  Playing time in 2017 for Reyes could cause Howard Johnson (1,201 games) and Jerry Grote (1,235 games) to move down a peg.

As a leadoff hitter, Reyes was supposed to get on base and score runs, but he was also quite adept at driving in his teammates when they were on base.  With 34 RBI, Reyes will pass Kevin McReynolds into 10th place in franchise history in runs batted in.  Reyes would need 46 RBI to move past Keith Hernandez into ninth place.

Career Milestones Within Reach For Jose Reyes:

Depending on when his second tour of duty with the Mets begins, Reyes has a chance to reach 2,000 career hits this season.  He currently stands at 1,906 hits, needing 94 safeties to reach the milestone.  Reyes just turned 33 a little over two weeks ago.  Only 81 players in history have reached 2,000 hits by their age-33 season.  Why is that important?  Because 23 of the 29 hitters who eventually made it to 3,000 hits had already reached 2,000 by their age-33 season.

Reyes needs 21 stolen bases to reach 500 for his career.  Should he make it this year, not only would he probably have more stolen bases than all of his new Mets teammates combined, but he'd be just the 24th player in the modern era (since 1901) to achieve that feat.

In the dead ball era (prior to 1930), triples were commonplace.  That's not the case anymore.  Reyes now has 117 career triples, making him one of the few modern players to surpass 100.  In fact, in the last 30 years, only the retired Steve Finley (124 triples) and the rarely-used Carl Crawford (123 triples) have legged out more three-base hits than Reyes.  Jose would need just eight triples to become the most prolific triples-hitter of the past three decades.

Unfortunately for him, Reyes might need more than triples to get fans back on his side.  (Getty Images)

Say what you will about Jose Reyes.  You may not like him as a person right now.  You may never like him the way you used to even if he helps the Mets reach great heights.  But what he accomplished on the field prior to what he did off it this past winter made him one of the most exciting players of our generation.

Boo the name on the back of his jersey.  Cheer the name on the front.  And bear witness to several franchise and career milestones that we never expected Reyes to approach in a Mets uniform.