Our obsession with hitting a round number is no different than a major league baseball player's quest to do the same thing. The guys who will forever be known as members of the 2019 Mets are no exception, as several of the team's players could reach and - dare I say it - surpass various career milestones during the course of the season.
So which of the everyday players are going to reach a lofty numerical mark this season? Is there a member of the I-work-once-every-five-days fraternity who will look at his Baseball Reference page and see a nice round number next to one of his cumulative stats? And why does Jason Vargas look like he just attempted to rescue a struggling swimmer on the beach before he himself needed to be saved by the lifeguard on duty? At least two of those questions will be answered below. Enjoy!
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| Jason Vargas has nothing on David Hasselhoff or his hair stylist. (Matt Ehalt/Twitter) |
Attainable Individual Milestones (Position Players)
Michael Conforto:
- Needs 24 home runs to reach 100 for his career.
- Needs 150 hits to reach 500 lifetime base knocks.
- Needs 20 doubles to reach triple digits in that category.
- Needs to strike out less. I mean, seriously, by the end of this season, he's going to be knocking on the door of the top ten whiffers in club history. Make more contact, dude!
Robinson Canó:
- Needs 30 hits for 2,500 in his career.
- Needs 12 runs scored to reach 1,200.
- Needs 93 RBI to become one of baseball's all-time top 100 run producers.
- Needs to forget he's 36 and hit like he's 26. Oh, and we're going to need him to play solid up-the-middle defense as well. As the wise philosopher Bill Lumbergh once said, "That would be great".
Todd Frazier:
- Needs seven home runs to reach 200.
- Needs 93 hits to reach 1,000 for his career.
- Needs 69 strikeouts to also reach a grand.
- Needs to realize that no one is going to be lining up outside Citi Field two hours before the gates open to get his WWE bobblehead on Saturday, April 6. Except maybe those fans who mistakenly think the Jacob deGrom Cy Young Award bobblehead is going to be given out that day instead of the following afternoon.
Brandon Nimmo:
- Needs 26 RBI to reach 100 in his brief career.
- Needs 81 walks for 200, a number attained by only three dozen Mets players.
- Needs to get hit by 23 pitches to match Lucas Duda atop the Mets' all-time leaderboard.
- Needs another solid year at the plate to become just the fifth player in Mets history to produce back-to-back seasons with a 5.0 oWAR or higher. I'm not kidding. Only Darryl Strawberry (1987-88), Edgardo Alfonzo (1999-2000), Mike Piazza (2000-01) and David Wright twice (2007-08, 2012-13) produced an offensive WAR of at least 5.0 in consecutive campaigns. Hernandez, HoJo and Beltrán never did it. I'm sure joining those franchise legends would finally give him a reason to smile.
Yoenis Céspedes:
- Wait, he's still on the team?
Pete Alonso:
- Needs 15 home runs to surpass the total Dominic Smith put up in parts of two seasons.
- Needs to be on the Opening Day roster.
- Needs to hit one up in the Budweiser Landing on May 25 since I'll be up there and I've never caught a home run ball (or foul ball for that matter) in the 700+ games I've attended in person. Do it for this beleaguered blogger, Pete!
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| Do me a solid and hit one solidly on May 25, Pete! (Photo by Gary Dunaier/Baseball Fever; Orange Text by Ed Leyro) |
Attainable Individual Milestones (Pitchers)
Jacob deGrom:
- Needs 102⅓ innings pitched to reach 1,000 in his career.
- Needs 173 strikeouts to move into the Mets' all-time top five in whiffs.
- Needs 12 wins to finally knock Steve Trachsel out of the team's top ten in that category.
- Needs to get a bigger wallet 'cause the man's about to get paid. By someone. Hopefully by the Mets.
Zack Wheeler:
- Needs five starts to reach 100.
- Needs 184 strikeouts to be knocking on the door of the team's top ten lifetime fan artists.
- Needs 163 innings to enter the Mets' all-time top 25, an impressive feat considering he missed two full seasons due to injuries and surgeries.
- Needs to read the last attainable individual milestone I mentioned for Jacob deGrom and react accordingly. Especially if he continues to progress as he did last season and doesn't turn into another Matt Harvey.
Noah Syndergaard:
- Needs 14 starts for 100 in his career.
- Needs 256 strikeouts to become one of the Mets' all-time top ten whiffer snappers.
- Needs 13 wins to reach 50, which would match Mike Pelfrey's total with the Mets and would continue to prove that wins are a meaningless stat for pitchers.
- Needs to decide what he wants to do with his famously flowing locks. Man bun? Shaved on the side, longer in the back? What's next, a spiky hairdo a la Poindexter in Revenge of the Nerds?
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| Poindexter's hair looks like it had a date with Thor's hammer. (Revenge of the Nerds/20th Century Fox) |
Steven Matz:
- Needs 29 starts to reach triple digits.
- Needs 137 strikeouts for 500 in his career.
- Needs his grandpa to come out to more games. He's fun to watch.
- Needs to stop being so streaky and start being more consistent. The Mets haven't had many great southpaw starters in their history and right now he's closer to being Jon Niese than he is to being Jon Matlack.
Jeurys Familia:
- Needs 60 appearances to enter the team's all-time top five in that category.
- Needs two saves whenever Edwin Díaz needs a rest to reach 125 as a Met.
- Needs 40 strikeouts to have more Ks than any Mets reliever not named John Franco, Tug McGraw, Jesse Orosco or Armando Benitez.
- Needs to once again come into games with "Danza Kuduro" playing as his entrance music just so I can continue to use the Tony Danza GIF on Twitter.
Edwin Díaz:
- Needs 41 saves for 150 in his career.
- Needs 99 strikeouts for 400 lifetime whiffs.
- Needs to reproduce his 7.3 K/BB ratio from last year. No Mets reliever has ever had such a season. (Addison Reed's 7.0 ratio in 2016 - 91 K, 13 BB - is tops for Mets relievers.)
- Needs 34 saves to enter the Mets' all-time top 15, which says pretty much all you need to know about how few great closers this team has had in their nearly 60-year history. I mean, Braden Looper and Doug Sisk are currently in the top 15, while Díaz has yet to throw a regular season pitch for the team. Enough said.
Jason Vargas:
- No, seriously, what's up with that hair and why is he still a member of the team?
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| Borrowing Tim Teufel's old glasses isn't going to fool us, Vargas! (SNY screenshot) |
