Jon Springer – Page 39 – Mets by the Numbers

Can the Grandy Man?

I don’t want to set outsized expectations, but a good season from new outfielder Curtis Granderson just might eclipse the career home run totals of the Mets’ all-time leader in among those who’ve worn No. 3. Carl Everett racked up 27 home runs over his three seasons in Mets No. 3 jersey. And an OK season would match the eight-year career home run output of Vance Wilson, No. 3’s second-most prolific home run hitter.

It’s not unimaginable that Bud Harrelson’s 242 career RBI could be in jeopardy after a few seasons, though his totals for Games and at-bats as a No. 3 may never be challenged. Take a look at the career totals here.

Queens Baseball Con

Hi! I’m honored to have been invited to participate in a panel discussion at the Queens Baseball Convention, a fan-run and organized event scheduled to take place Saturday, Jan. 18 at McFadden’s Citi Field. Actually, this is not just a panel, but “The Greatest Mets Uniform Discussion of All-Time” with Paul Lukas and Phil Hencken of Uni Watch; MLB uniform designer Todd Radom; and Russ Gompers, embroiderer to the Mets. Better bone up.

The QBC, headed up by Mets Police chief Shannon Shark, is also scheduled to include trivia games, appearances by Ed Kranepool and Ron Darling, panels examining history, games for kids, etc. Details and ticket info is available here. Hope to see you guys there!

40 Weight

I suppose there is little doubt that big fat Bartlolo Colon will show up in Big Fat No. 40 when the Mets open camp this year. The guy after all is 70 years old and worn the same number all his life, or seems to have. That and 40 is available now that Tim Byrdak has flown the coop. He was never the same after that shoulder injury and his presence on the roster in 2013 seemed to border on a favor to him, but now he’s gone. Thanks for all the fish.

Colon, now. This was an acquisition that surprised me somewhat. I guess the front office deserves a tip of the cap for not replacing Matt Harvey with some stiff fighting to reestablish himself with a spring training invite (uh, like Shawn Marcum) when that was exactly what I was expecting them to do. That said, this is a value buy if he pitches like he did for Oakland. But, beyond donning a No. 40 jersey, size 56 short, I haven’t a clue what he’ll do. You?

The Power of Five

I was too excited to notice it, but worth mentioning that last May 3, David Wright’s stunning, game-tying solo home run off Atlanta’s Craig Kimbrel did more than spark one of the best wins of the season (the Mets rallied to win 7-5 in 10 innings at Turner Field). It also propelled Mets who wore No. 5 into the all-time lead for home runs-by-a-uni-number.

Wright, who finished 2013 with 222 career home runs – all while wearing No. 5 — has accounted for more than half of No. 5’s 407 total home runs. And his 18 last year was more than enough to overcome the men of No. 20, who’d led in this category for at least a decade and even got help last year with six fresh dingers from Anthony Recker. That group owes nearly half of its total to Wright mentor (and new Seattle coach) Howard Johnson’s 190 home runs

A solid 2014 season could see David Wright overtake the Mets’ all-time lead in home runs, yet the ever-increasing likelihood of his being the last player who’ll ever wear No. 5 as a Met will someday put this accomplishment in jeopardy.

(Thanks a million to Shorty for pointing this out in comments last year).

Following is a list of the Mets’ all-time Home Runs by Uni Number (through 2013). Note the tight race at positions 4-6 which could certainly change if the Mets give Lucas Duda a shot this year:

No.	Home Runs	Leaders
5	407	David Wright (222 and counting); John Olerud (63); Steve Henderson (35)
20	399	Howard Johnson (190); Tommie Agee (82); Jeromy Burnitz (37)
18	377	Darryl Strawberry (252); Joel Youngblood (38); Jose Valentin (18)
15	338	Carlos Beltran (149); George Foster (99); Jerry Grote (35)
9	335	Todd Hundley (123); Jim Hickman (56); Gregg Jefferies (42)
21	332	Carlos Delgado (104); Cleon Jones (92); Lucas Duda (44 and counting?)

Count Me In

Oh hi.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to take a whole season off, it’s just that the whole process of moving 14 years of stuff to a new configuration took a while.

I sort of got stuck halfway. As I mentioned before, the architecture supporting the MBTN database (that is, the gears generating the who-wore-what-when lists; and how they were set up to display) was in such need of renovation I felt the best thing to do was outsource its placement: So a year ago I donated all of my uni-number data to the Ultimate Mets Database and I have been updating the information there as it comes as always. I think it looks and works great. My friend at the UMDB helped set that up and all I do anymore is plug in the data, which given my level of tech expertise, is the perfect task for me.

Moving the remainder of the content to a more appropriate format was the next hurdle, but the sheer volume of it was intimidating and had the effect of chilling investment in the “old” site: Why contribute to a site that you know is doomed for eventual destruction?

At the same time I was also struggling a bit with defining the purpose of a web site about uni numbers when the “news” aspect of it has been slaughtered by the 24-hour news cycle and the data resides elsewhere. When I started doing this 15 years ago, there wasn’t a reliable source for this kind of information. Today, anyone who needs to know what number the latest Met is wearing knows it hours before I can update, and the context — who was the last guy to have worn this number for the Mets etc etc — is picked clean by Twitterers with gigantic followings, almost always without credit. I’m not mad about this so much: Just feeling a bit less relevant in the grand scheme.

Add to that the Mets’ own irrelevancy, demands of being a dad and having a job, and well, before you knew it I’d missed a whole season. I’m sorry about that, and I’m especially sorry if the abrupt lack of activity led anyone to worry about me or my family: We’re totally OK other than the fact we’re still Mets fans. Thanks for your concern!

So now what? Well, I’d begun having the urge to write about the Mets again and with a few days off around Thanksgiving began the process of transferring old posts to a WordPress format. I did all this manually, which took forever, and I tried to preserve all the comments since that’s where so much action took place. I re-imagined the tags and categories. There’s still some work to be done. It doesn’t look great all the time and some of the links you’ll find no doubt are dodgy, but I left the spam behind and you’re welcome to add to the conversation again.

How’d you guys like 2013? I’m sad that the injuries piled up and served to undo so much of the progress we otherwise made; and disappointed of course that our team’s two biggest problems (first base and shortstop) were things we hadn’t anticipated. That’s baseball.

More to come…

Bud Harrelson and 23 Stiffs

Oh hi! My friend Greg Prince kindly reminded me today that people might be coming here to check on past wearers of the No. 3 jersey now that Curtis Granderson jerseys are on sale.

I also wanted to take the opportunity to say that the site (and me) aren’t dead, we’re just resting. I have recently begun work on a much-needed site retooling that hopefully will go live later this year or early next. I’ll share more on that soon. Thanks for coming!

Laff-A-Lympics

Aaron Laffey and Anthony Recker are expected to make their Mets debuts this aternoon in the rubber game of the Marlins series. Reports this morning say Laffey will wear No. 47, becoming the first Met to wear that number since Miguel Batista a year ago. Recker will wear No. 20, which last belonged to Jason Pridie in 2011 and hasn’t appeared behind the plate for the Mets since the glory days of Mike Fitzgerald. And, not for nothing, but 1984 was a glorious year for the Mets.

Who knows what to expect of Laffey? He’s a pitch-to-contact lefty with OK numbers in parts of six seasons with four teams, most recently the Blue Jays. Recker in the meantime is a career .152 hitter over cups of joe with the A’s and Cubs, which means he’s close already to improving upon Mike Nickeas.Johan Santana was trtansferred to the 60-day DL to make room on the 40-man while Juerys Familia was sent to AAA to make room for Laffey on the active roster.

I’ll be at the game for the first time this year. Let’s Go Mets!!

Solving the Mejia Mystery

It may be still be awhile before Jenrry Mejia appears in uniform again for the Mets but at least we now have an idea of which one. Programs distributed at Citifield this week (but not the roster at Mets.com incidentally) list the disabled lefty reliever as having taken No. 58 — this after seeing his previous No. 32 issued to newcomer LaTroy Hawkins. The online roster still lists Mejia wearing 32.

It’s probably for the best suiting Mejia up in a rookieish garb again while we try to forget the bumbling early months of his career and the inevitable recriminations that followed his surgery. It was also a nice gesture on behalf of the 40-year-old veteran Hawkins, who according to Baseball Reference has worn 32 for the Twins, Cubs, Giants, Orioles, Rockies, Brewers and Angels over the course of his 19-year career. He’s also settled for short stints in 23 (in Baltimore); 22 (with the Yankees and Astros) and 21 (Yankees).

Thanks to Jason E for the tip!

Opening Day Notes

As pointed out in the comments below, LaTroy Hawkins has broken camp with the Mets wearing not the No. 30 assigned to him during the spring but No. 32. No word on what Jenrry Mejia will wear when he comes off the disabled list because 32 has been his assignment since his ill-fated and premature arrival three long years ago.

Otherwise it looks like the new Mets hit the field Monday in the same jerseys issued to them this spring. Numerically, that’s Collin “Slammy” Cowgill in No. 4; Marlon Byrd in No. 6; Brandon Lyon in 34; Greg Burke in 46; Scott Atchison in 50 and Scott Rice in 56. I was rooting for Pedro Feliciano to return in his original jersey but there is still time for that it appears. I’d also have bet on Andrew Brown and Brandon Hicks to have made the squad, at least when camp began but to their credit have rewarded guys like Cowgill and Byrd for winning the jobs offered to them.

I tend to be optimistic in the spring in general (the blowout win on opening day is only helping) but would say I think this Mets team could have a pretty good offense this season just counting on improvements from Davis and Duda and the incremental upgrades from Bay to Byrd and Thole to Buck+ but the starting pitching is way too thin to imagine holding up over the course of a long year (with or without Santana, of whom I hadn’t expected much of). The bullpen will be adequate. The defense OK. Overall, underestimated. Let’s Go Mets!

Big Announcement!

Here’s one offseason move you may have missed: Mets by the Numbers is donating its data to be hosted at the Ultimate Mets Database in a combination of two of the longest-running Mets reference sites on the Internet. Beginning today, you can find all player uniform numbers as well as an all-time numerical roster at the Ultimate Mets Database.

Over the coming weeks, I will redirect the links to player profiles, uni numbers and rosters here to their counterparts at the UMDB, then commence a relaunch of this site only without the bolted-on database. What will stay are years of site updates, essays and the discussion of Mets past and present that have been a part of this site from the beginning. Only the roster and player records are moving — and I’ll still be maintaining that data, only there, not here.

Why now? For one thing, this site was long overdue for a re-engineering (it’s built on a long-outmoded version of the useful but complex and ever-changing CMS Drupal — but I don’t have the time or skill to devote to keeping it up to date. But the best argument for it is that uni number data has always been a natural fit for the UMDB, which until now included just about everything except uni numbers. Moving the info to the UMDB and integrating it with all the other cool data there also allows for new features like scorecards with numbers and truly awesome running tallies of uni-number leaders and stats-by-uni-number — features that I’d only been able to scratch at here. All these links should be functional right now; if you encounter any bugs just let me know.

MBTN and the Ultimate Mets Database go back a long way. Shortly after launching this site, I went to check on some facts when I came across it for the first time. As it turns out, our sites launched within weeks of one another in February of 1999 (that’s more than 14 years ago!!) and we’ve since collaborated on projects through fellow Mets fans at the Crane Pool Forum including the Schaefer Mets Player of the Year project, which recreates the sponsored recap of Met broadcasters of the 1970s. You too should participate in these projects. Trust me when I say this stuff is in good hands over there.

You can still add to the discussion and contact me here; in the meantime look for a re-launch of this site soon. Oh, and opening day in 2 weeks. Let’s Go Mets!!