Broken News: Curtis Granderson, The Underappreciated Met

Curtis Granderson smiles one last time in a Mets uniform.  (Elsa/Getty Images)

Welcome to another edition of Broken News, where someone else breaks the news and then we break it some more.  As most of you know, Curtis Granderson was traded on Friday to the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team that's currently one thousand games over .500 (give or take a couple of games) and planning its World Series parade in August.

The departure of the veteran Granderson to the Dodgers was a move that many people expected to happen for months.  However, one thing that wasn't expected was the outpouring of love for a player who heard a few boos earlier this year after a slow start to the season.  One particular fan on Twitter couldn't help but notice that Saturday's first post-Granderson game caused others to dust off their Granderson apparel to wear at Citi Field.

There are more Mets fans wearing @cgrand3 shirts and jerseys today than I've ever seen at Citi Field. That shows how much he'll be missed.

— Ed Leyro (@Studi_Metsimus) August 20, 2017

Curtis Granderson went through his share of slumps in nearly four years as a Met, as evidenced by his .239 career batting average with the team.  However, in his short tenure in Flushing, he earned every penny of the free agent contract he signed prior to the 2014 season and provided several moments that caused many a fan to get out of their seats and cheer.  He was also much more valuable than most people think.

For example, as much as people say Daniel Murphy was a postseason hero in 2015, and he was, at least in the NLDS and NLCS, did you know that it was Granderson who led the team in RBIs during that magical playoff run?

Murphy may have hit seven home runs in 14 playoff games in 2015, but that only led to 11 RBIs.  Granderson drove in a dozen runs batting out of the leadoff spot in the batting order.  The right fielder reached base 24 times in those fourteen October and November games, stole four bases and scored ten runs, all while striking out just seven times in 64 plate appearances.  Compare that to Murphy, who struck out seven times in the World Series alone when he forgot that the postseason didn't end after the Mets won the pennant.

In the Division Series, Murphy hit three of his seven postseason homers and almost single-handedly won Game Five.  But there may not have been a Game Five had the Mets not won the critical Game Three, and Granderson collected the series-turning hit in that contest.  After the Mets lost the second game of the series on Chase Utley's leg-breaking slide, the Dodgers took an early 3-0 lead in Game Three.  Not wanting to face elimination in Game Four with Clayton Kershaw on the mound, the Mets stormed back against starter Brett Anderson.  New York scored a run in the third and loaded the bases for Granderson, who promptly cleared them with a long double to center field.  With that blast, the Mets took a lead they would not relinquish and went on to win the series.

Granderson continued to give the Mets leads in the NLCS, driving in the go-ahead run in the fifth inning of Game One against the Cubs.  His two-out RBI single broke a 1-1 tie and the Mets would never trail in the series; a four-game sweep in which Granderson reached base five times, scored three runs and stole three bases.

Had the Mets defeated the Royals in the World Series - a Fall Classic Murphy famously didn't show up for - Granderson would have been the odds-on favorite to take home the World Series MVP trophy.  In the five-game series, Granderson hit three homers and scored six runs.  No one else on the team crossed the plate more than two times.  Each of Granderson's three homers gave the Mets a lead, but unfortunately, the Mets could not capitalize on Granderson's penchant for providing emotional lifts with the fly balls he lifted into the outfield seats.  New York coughed up all three leads Granderson gave them and lost a heartbreaking World Series.

Murphy got all the accolades (and the lucrative free agent contract) for what he did in the 2015 postseason, but Granderson was the most consistent player the Mets had during their October run.  His clutch hitting should not be buried behind Murphy's exploits.

So what else did Granderson do as a Met that went largely ignored by his detractors?  During his tenure with the Mets, no position player had a higher WAR than Granderson.  His 10.4 bWAR is higher than the runner-up in this category, Juan Lagares, who posted an 8.0 bWAR from 2014 to 2017.  Everyday players like Yoenis Céspedes (6.3 WAR) and Michael Conforto (5.9 WAR) didn't play for the Mets in 2014 and the first half of 2015, but Granderson's 5.1 bWAR in 2015 alone was higher than the combined WAR put up by Céspedes (2.3) and Conforto (2.1) in just over 400 plate appearances between the two.  To put Granderson's Mets career in perspective, the only player on the team with a higher WAR since 2014 is Jacob deGrom, who has a 15.5 bWAR since his Rookie of the Year award-winning 2014 campaign.

Finally, had Granderson stayed a Met for another few weeks, he would have joined some elusive company.  Granderson hit 19 HR in 2017 before being traded to the Dodgers.  In his first three seasons with the team, he clubbed 20, 26 and 30 home runs.  Had he hit one more homer before the trade, he would have become just the sixth Met to reach 20 home runs in four consecutive seasons.  The other five?  You may have heard of them.  Their names are Darryl Strawberry, Kevin McReynolds, Howard Johnson, Mike Piazza and David Wright.  Not a stinker in the bunch.

Granderson finished his Mets career needing five homers to reach 100 with the team.  Had he reached triple digits, the Mets would have been the third team for which he hit 100 homers, as he accomplished the feat with the Tigers (102 HR) and the Yankees (115 HR).  Only five men have ever homered at least 100 times for three different teams.  Four of the five are Hall of Famers and potential Hall of Famers (Reggie Jackson, Jim Thome, Alex Rodriguez, Adrian Beltre).  The other is Darrell Evans, who hit 414 HR in his career and won a World Series ring with the 1984 Tigers, something Granderson is now shooting for as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Perhaps most importantly, in this era when Mets trainer Ray Ramirez is Public Enemy No. 1 because of all the injuries that have befallen Granderson's former Mets teammates, it should be noted that Granderson played in 573 of a possible 606 games during his time as a Met.  He played in 150+ games in each of his three full seasons with the team and had played in 111 games this season before the trade, putting him on pace for another 150-game campaign.  To put that in layman's terms, Granderson never went on the disabled list as a member of the Mets.  The Hospital For Special Surgery - also known as the second home for many members of the Mets - only saw him during the 2015 off-season, when he went in for thumb surgery.  But I'm sure he made several appearances visiting patients while he was there.  Because that's the kind of guy Granderson is.

Curtis Granderson was loved by his teammates and by members of the community.  His charitable efforts and work with children and the needy earned him the Roberto Clemente Award in 2016.  His performance in the 2015 World Series could very well have brought him an MVP trophy had the Mets not surrendered the crown to the Royals.  His career numbers with the team in less than four full seasons are among the best in franchise history.  And lest we forget, his final hit as a Met was a grand slam against the Yankees.  Despite all this, Granderson was very much underappreciated by Mets fans.  Or so we thought.  The love on Twitter after his departure and the plethora of Granderson shirts and jerseys at Citi Field last night tell another story.

Granderson was actually very much appreciated by supporters of the Mets.  It's too bad it took his departure for most of them to realize his value to the team and the city he played in.

We tip our cap to Curtis Granderson, who walks off to Los Angeles as a great Met. (Julie Jacobson/AP)

Studious Metsimus Delivers The Eulogy For The 2009 Mets

The 2009 Mets lived an interesting life even though it ended sooner than we would have liked. They wanted to be your friend throughout the season; the kind of friend that stood by you when you needed one to make you stand up and cheer. Sometimes they succeeded (the last three games of the season) and sometimes they failed (the other 159 games). But they kept trying to be there for us, even when we stopped being there for them. They faced many hardships and took advice from the wrong people. But they still found time to think of us, such as the time they taught me the meaning of the word tendinosis.

I remember once when the Mets told me they were moving away from the home they had lived in since I was born. It was hard seeing them leave. I was thinking I’d never see them again. But they comforted me when they told me that they were just moving beyond the bullpen fence and that we could still be together. It was that kind of thoughtfulness that made them so special to my heart.

What is it that we remember when we think of the 2009 Mets? I think everyone who knew them would agree with me on this. It was their wicked sense of humor. When Oliver Perez was signed for three years and $36 million, we laughed because we knew that signing was a joke. When players such as Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran went down with injuries, we chuckled every time Omar said they’d be back by the All-Star Break…then August…then September…then only Carlos Beltran would be coming back. When Luis Castillo dropped the pop-up, we laughed because we wanted to blend in with the Yankee fans at Yankee Stadium so that we wouldn’t have to be the butts of their jokes. That is what I will miss the most about the 2009 Mets. They could make me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry (and bang my head repeatedly on a brick on the Fanwalk outside the Jackie Robinson Rotunda). That was their trademark. They did their best to turn our tears into laughter – incredibly demented laughter that once caused the Hospital For Special Surgery to consider opening a mental patient ward. (They did not open one. Apparently, they couldn’t afford the real estate needed for the expansion of the hospital. Too many Mets players had taken up residence there.)

Their death was not sudden. They had been dying a slow death since right before the All-Star Break. The Wilpons refused to pull the plug on the team even when there was no hope of a recovery. Perhaps they should have put them (and us) out of their misery sooner, but had they done that, we would have missed that one final spark of life during the season-ending sweep of the Astros.

The 2009 Mets did many things on this Earth (like educating us on the thousand and one ways to lose ballgames) and I’m sure they will do much more in Heaven. Some angels might be taken out in the process, but they will be able to laugh it off in Heaven the way we were able to do so on Earth.

I will forever be grateful to have known the 2009 Mets. I will forever be grateful that they welcomed me with open arms into their new home. I will forever be grateful for spending six months of my life waiting for my food at Shake Shack. All the memories I have shared with them will forever be cherished and remembered until I forget them. The Mets will forever live in my heart…in our hearts. The heartburn is just a coincidence.

In conclusion, this is not the time for us to grieve the death of the 2009 Mets, but it’s time to celebrate their lives, all nine of them. They kept playing until the schedule told them they couldn’t play anymore. They kept trying to come back to play ball despite their injuries so that we wouldn’t spend the first six innings of the game tailgating, not knowing (or caring) that there was a game going on inside. They showed us how not to run the bases by making those mistakes for us so we could learn from them. That shows how much they thought about us and how much we should think about them.

So at this moment when we are about to lay this season to rest, let’s all think back and remember how the 2009 Mets made an impact on our lives. This is not the moment for us to shed our tears but we should all be thankful that we were given the chance to have known a team called the 2009 Mets. They will be missed but I know in time (like in six months or so), I will meet the Mets again. We will all meet the Mets again and I’m sure they’ll make us laugh again, hopefully for the right reasons this time.

Studious Metsimus Has Statsimus Maximus

Dudes, do not try to say the title of this post five times fast. I will not be responsible for whatever injury your tongue suffers and I will certainly NOT be driving you to the Hospital For Special Surgery (unless if you can get me an autograph from one of the many Mets players who hang around their gift shop).

Here are a few final stats from the 2009 season:

With the season-ending sweep of the Astros, the Mets finished their first season at Citi Field with a winning home record. The three-game drubbing of Houston gave the Mets a 41-40 record at home. (They were 9-11 in the 20 games attended by members of the Studious Metsimus team.) Of course, that 29-52 road record kind of put a damper on things.

Daniel Murphy led the team in home runs this season with 12. This tied the franchise record for fewest home runs by a team leader. In 1977, Steve Henderson, John Milner and John Stearns led the Mets with 12 home runs apiece. In June 1998, Sammy Sosa hit 20 HR by himself. On the bright side, Daniel Murphy has never had the shadow of steroids following him, just the shadows of his stint in left field and this awkward photo.

As reported by Studious Metsimus three weeks ago (click here for proof...we wouldn't lie to you), David Wright's power outage did indeed become historic. He finished with 10 HR this season after hitting 33 HR in 2008. That marked the first time in major league history that a player with at least 500 at-bats in consecutive seasons hit as many as 33 HR the first season and as few as 10 HR the following season. Wright had 626 at-bats in 2008 and 535 at-bats in 2009. On a positive note, Wright didn't break the all-time strikeout record this year. Mark Reynolds of the Diamondbacks did with 223 Ks. We won't get into the fact that Reynolds also found the time between strikeouts to hit 44 HR with 102 RBI.

If Carlos Delgado played his last game in a Mets uniform, his last appearance as a Met came in May. The last player with as many home runs as Carlos Delgado's 473 HR to cut a season short in May was Mike Schmidt when he announced his retirement from the Phillies in 1989. Fortunately for Delgado, he took the inveitable news of the end of his season with a little more dignity than Mike Schmidt did.

Angel Pagan had a nice half-season for the Mets as an everyday player. In 343 at-bats, Pagan hit 22 doubles, 11 triples (one of only four major leaguers with as many as 11 triples) and six home runs. Getting thrown out on the bases for taking stupid chances has not yet been recognized by Major League Baseball as an official stat so Angel will not be embarrassed in this blog.

I personally like the dude. Not only is he a good hitter, but during Saturday's rain delay, he personally signed autographs for EVERY SINGLE FAN that stuck around for the game to resume.

Studious Metsimus was there and took an exclusive photo of Pagan signing those autographs (see photo above). He even signed one for the guy in the picture who was more interested in the yellow raincoat than the major leaguer standing three feet away from him. Stay classy, Angel Pagan!

Finally, we can't finish this without mentioning Nelson Figueroa. If I told you the Mets wouldn't have a single complete game shutout at Citi Field until the last game of the season, Nelson Figueroa would probably not be the first name rolling off your tongues. (Plus, if you didn't listen to me at the beginning of the blog and decided to say the title five times fast, nothing would be rolling off your tongue right now!)

Therefore, the final stat of the day is the number one. Nelson Figueroa tossed the one and only complete game shutout at Citi Field this season, one week after Pat Misch pitched the only other complete game shutout by a Met in 2009 against the Marlins in Florida.

For his efforts in the season finale, Figueroa was awarded with a shaving cream pie to the face. Although Figueroa laughed it off, Studious Metsimus was told by an unnamed source (who turned around when we called him Oliver Perez) that it was the team's subtle way of telling him to shave his eyebrows a little.

Congratulations to Nelson Figueroa for his excellent performance to end the season and also to Oliver Perez for not trying to do like Jose Reyes by making a failed comeback attempt only to exacerbate his previous injury. Then again, given Studious Metsimus and its hate/hate relationship with Señor Perez, perhaps he should have attempted a comeback.

Well, SMFs. That's all for the 2009 season. Don't fret. We'll still be here blogging about all things Mets. If there's a story out there to be made fun of, we'll fart all over it. If there's breaking news to report, we'll break it some more and then send it over to the Hospital For Special Surgery. And if Oliver Perez is out there, just shoot him and put him out of his misery.

Thank you for your readership and your support. Never forget...Angel Pagan: classy. Mike Schmidt: wimpy. If you remember to fly like an Angel, you won't be treated like a piece of Schmidt. Byeeeeeeeeeee!