Tom Seaver Fever

Opening Day just didn’t look the same to me this year. That could be because I was in Cincinnati.

 

Opening Day as you may know used to be a big deal in the Queen City, where they honored longevity by giving the Reds the first crack at starting each new season. That tradition went away some time ago but it was still a festive occasion, particularly outside the stadium before the game started. Once it did, all the energy vanished and the Reds went down easy.

I contemplated wearing my Tom Seaver Mets jersey to honor the former Cincinnati great but it wasn’t about me. The Reds’ starter, Andrew Abbott, wore 41 instead.

We sat just to the 3rd base side of the famous notch or whatever its called, in the 400s. It was my first tip to that stadium and will remark the stands along the first base side of the notch are laid out almost exactly like Citi Field. They have a dumb steamboat in the outfield where we have a fake bridge, and we have more outfield seating overall. On the third base side of the notch the 400 section is twice is deep and the 500 has fewer rows.

The game, a rematch of the 1975 World Series, went to Boston 3-0.

We were getting lunch outside the stadium when we learned that the Mets had somehow knocked Paul Skenes out of the box in the first inning. I was certain that was going to be a typical low scoring opening day like 3-0, 301, or 2-1 for either team but baseball can surprise you.

As noted Carson Benge made the team and changed his uni No. to 3; Richard Lovelady survived the relief pitching hunger games and got a new number, 55. Here’s to home games in 2026.

 

Single–and Available

The Mets did an impressive job of clearing out the single digit numbers over the offseason, whacking players wearing Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, and 9.

Refilling the void for the moment are mostly fringe role players who we could see at times this year. No. 2, Vidal Brujan, may well be the starting shortstop on opening day and MJ Melendez could be the fifth outfielder.

The intrigue is in who will wind up wearing No. 3 and when. Unassigned at the moment, it’s thought to be a carrot for young outfielder Carson Benge who is facing seemingly little resistance to an assignment in right field. Benge is wearing 93 in camp but he rocked 3 in college at Oklahoma.

Thanks to those filling in the blanks: Mike Tauchman in 50; Ben Rortvedt is 77; and Bryan Hudson is 78. I will add those guys to the list.

Someone just told me there’s a Mets game on TV today. I may be missing it so I will wrap this one up early.

Meet Your Mets

So they went and posted a roster over on Mets.com but here’s what it looks like numerically and with camp invites and coaches filled in. (This was built on top of last year’s chart, in case there’s errors).

I’d like to point out the following–newly acquired lefty Bryan Hudson is awaiting assignment.

Justin Hagenman has switched from 51 to 47 to make room for Freddy Peralta.

Tylor Megill has switched from 38 to 58 for Devin Williams.

Hayden Senger has switched from 30 to 6 for Luke Weaver.

Camp invitees Anderson Severino and Grae Kessinger have been assigned the same number as coaches. That will be a temporary problem, it seems.

Number Name Notes
0 Ronny Maurico, INF
1 MJ Melendez, OF
2 Vidal Brujan, INF
3
4 Francisco Alvarez, C
5 Retired David Wright
6 Hayden Senger, C was 30
7 Brett Baty, INF new number: was in 22
8 Unassigned (Gary Carter)
9
10 Marcus Semien, 2B
11 Jorge Polanco, 1B
12 Francisco Lindor, SS
13 Luis Torrens, C
14 Retired Gil Hodges
15 Tyrone Taylor, OF
16 Retired Dwight Gooden
17 Retired Keith Hernandez
18 Retired Darryl Strawberry
19 Bo Bichette, 3B
20
21 Jonah Tong, P
22 Juan Soto, OF
23 David Peterson, P
24 Retired Willie Mays
25 Brooks Raley, P
26 Nolan McLean, P
27 Mark Vientos, 3B
28 Christian Arroyo, INF
29 Jared Young, INF
30 Luke Weaver, P
31 Retired Mike Piazza
32 Tobias Myers, P
33 AJ Minter, P
34 Kodai Senga, P
35 Clay Holmes, P
36 Retired Jerry Koosman
37 Retired Casey Stengel
38 Dein Williams, P was Tylor Megill
39
40 Luis Garcia, P
41 Retired Tom Seaver
42 Retired Jackie Robinson
43 Huascar Brazobán, P
44 Austin Warren, P
45 Christian Scott, P
46 Craig Kimbel, P
47 Justin Hagenman, P was 51
48
49 Nick Burdy, P
50 Cai Correa, bench coach Also, Mike Tauchman, OF
51 Freddy Peralta, P
52 Carl Edwards Jr, P
53 Mike Baumann, P
54 Daniel Duarte, P
55 Austin Barnes, C
56 Joey Gerber, P
57 Kevin Herget, P
58 Tylor Megill was 38
59 Sean Manaea, P
60 Troy Snitker, hitting coach
61 Jeff Albert, director ML hitting
62 Justin Willard, Pitching coach
63 Tim Leiper, 3B-infield coach
64 Carlos Mendoza, MGR
65 Gilbert Gomez, first base-outfield coach
66 Dylan Ross, P
67 Jose Rosado, bullpen coach
68 JP Arencibia, catching coach 
69
70 Nick Morabito, OF
71 Cristian Pache, OF
72 Dedniel Nunez, P
73 Albert Azolay, P
74 Joe Jacques, P
75 Reed Garrett, P
76 Daniel McKinney, assistant pitching coach
77 Dave Racaniello, bullpen catcher Also,  Ben Rortvedt, C
78 Eric Langill, bullpen catcher Also, Bryan Hudson, P
79 Danny Barnes, quality control coach Also, Grae Kessinger, INF
80 Kevin Mahoney, batting practice P Also, Anderson Severino, P
81 Jose Rojas, INF
82 Brandon Waddell, P
83 Ji Hwan Bae, OF
84 Alex Carillo, P
85 Jackson Cuff, INF
86 Jose Ramos, OF
87 Ryan Clifford, INF
88 Luis Robert Jr., OF 
89 Robert Stock, P
90 Matt Turner, P
91 Jonathan Pintaro, P
92 Jack Wenninger, P
93 Carson Benge, OF
94 Nate Lavender, P
95 Kevin Parada, C
96 Chris Suero, C
97 AJ Ewing, OF
98 Jacob Reimer, INF
99 Ryne Lambert, P

Take Your Seats

So another word about tickets. They did finally announce single-game tickets were going on sale, but only for games though June. It’s not enough to keep season plans limited to those requiring fans to buy more tickets than they can use, feeding the secondary markets which the Mets also get a cut of, but “make-your-own-plan” fans like me who’ve reliably occupied seats for decades, all on the hope that a good first half can what last year’s entire season couldn’t, and that’s drive actual demand for Mets tickets.

Anyway, I tried what Stu suggested and bought a few games in the secondary market, and the rest we can try to buy (through June anyway) when the window opens on Thursday. I paid a few bucks above face value on these tickets and part of that goes right back to the Mets who essentially get to sell the same ticket twice, depending on demand.

Oh, and they’re having a presale this weekend on single-game tickets, but only if you have a Citi credit card. I went and applied for one, got approved in like 5 seconds but they won’t release the account number and code until the card gets here in a few business days. Too late.

I also saw where they raised parking fees for non-season ticket holders to $50. I’m OK with that–surface parking is a terrible waste of parkland and I use public transport as all good people should–but it’s another middle finger to people who just want to go to a game. And like number retirements, nothing can be done to stop it.

When we finally get to the ballpark we’ll see Luis Robert wearing No. 88 and playing center, Freddy Peralta wearing No. 51 and probably pitching on opening day and maybe even Craig Kimbrel in the bullpen. As noted in the comments the roster shows Devin Williams taking over 38 but Tylor Megill still hanging in there fighting for it. Tobias Myers, acquired along with Peralta, is listed as 32. Brandon Sproat’s abandoned 40 appears yet to be reissued so maybe Megill winds up there. Kimbrel is a non-roster guy for the moment but has rarely been seen without wearing 46.

There remain several guys on the 40 who still need number assignments: Pitchers Luis Garcia and Joey Gerber; infielder Vidal Brujan and outfielder Nick Morabito. They also signed outfielder MJ Melendez, a one-time hot prospect from the Royals who’s now a fringy guy, or an everyday player in Syracuse.

 

 

That’s the Ticket

Not that you’d necessarily want to, but you can’t buy a ticket to a Mets game this year.  Well you can buy packages of 20 or 40 or 81 games, but the old-school a la cart single-game ticket window hasn’t opened yet, and they’re not saying when.

Speaking as someone accustomed to creating my own season ticket one game at a time, that’s unusual. Individual tickets went up for sale in the first week of December last year, and several years before that. The last time I can remember tickets going on sale this late in the year, they were playing at Shea Stadium, and we lined up by Gate D on a frigid Sunday morning. Tim Teufel was there to make it all worth it.

It’s almost as if they knew that surrendering their most popular players through trades and free agency was going to do something to demand, and now, they must hustle to make it up.

I like Bo Bichette and happy the Mets got him and not Tucker. Right handed hitter, a batting champion candidate, hits lots of doubles. I’m not entirely okay with yanking third base out from under Baty when he’d finally had a decent year, but he hits well enough to play left.

The Mets still need a pitcher. There are the top-shelf free agents like Framber Valdez but I kinda like the under-the-radar guys too. He struggled early last year with an injury but Zac Gallen has been pretty good for years. I’m also not afraid to bring in Justin Verlander or Max Scherzer again. I think the young staff could use the right veteran, a la Orel Hershiser in 1999. Besides I’ve never even heard of our pitching coach, Justin Willard. They don’t even have a mugshot of him on the official site.

As noted in the comments it will be interesting to see what number they issue to Bichette, having assigned his No. 11 already to a different incoming free agent, Jorge Polanco. I feel like the Mets are too deferential to numerical identities formed on other teams. Neither the Rangers nor Orioles nor Dodgers replicated the respective jersey numbers of Alonso, Nimmo and Diaz, though it seems like they let them pick (To be fair, Frank Robinson and Roy Campanella may have something to with it, but I digress–I’d be happy to see Bo Bichette take up something new).

Diaz by the way is tempting the baseball gods by choosing No. 3. All relievers stop being effective at some point.

Goodbye New York

Whatever you make of the bloodless decision to let him go to Baltimore without so much as a competitive offer, New York just isn’t going to be the same place without Pete Alonso as part of it. That’s what bothers me most. I saw Alonso as a guy the Phillies and Braves feared, and the fans embraced as one of theirs doing walkoff interviews with Gelbs at the stadium, a goofy, reliable slugger who  came through in some huge moments and built an insurmountable lead for home runs by Guys Who Wore No. 20. All the best for the Orioles who are one of my “back-up” rooting interests, although recently my heart’s been in Toronto.

Brandon Nimmo is another guy who seemed destined to say longer. He was a good versatile hitter and on-base guy, whose 188 doubles vaulted No. 9 to second all-time. But lately I’d thought of him as the guy whose brought so much Jesusness to New York with his walk-up music.

I don’t think for a moment that the swap of Edwin Diaz for Devin Williams is an upgrade but I’m skeptical of relievers being reliable over long periods so I’m predicting Los Angeles will have as many regrets if not more than us.

Marcus Semian over Jeff McNeil? Sure. McNeil, as useful as he was as a multiposition guy, probably will get a bigger chance in Sacramento. Jeff departs as a perhaps the club’s most distinguished three-number wearer since Ron Darling. His versatility could be replaced by the switch-hitting, power-hitting newcomer, Jorge Polanco, who might also be the team’s next first baseman.

Luke Weaver? OK I guess. He’s going to wear No. 30, according to Mets.com.  As previously revealed Semian gets the No. 10 once having belonged to Ronny Mauricio–Mauricio is listed in No. 0 now. Devin Williams still doesn’t have a number with the Mets–his customary 38 belongs to Tylor Megill, so we’ll see how that works out.

All this–like the signing of Carl Edwards Jr. (No. 6 with the Cubs!) to a minor league deal– and I’m still wondering how they’re going to replace the right-handed power of Alonso. I’ve had enough 2024 Yankees already so let’s hope Stearns has something creative up his sleeve.

Relief Pitchers and Number Retirements Suck

Long time, no see!

There’s been a confluence of events that’s kept me away, and laziness/real job is only part of it. Like the Mets I sort of petered out at the end of last season. I was never expecting anything along the lines of 2024 but that was a rotten season for the Mets who somehow both sucked and underachieved simultaneously. They gave up when I did.

Then there was the drudgery of keeping the data fresh. At some point, the work here became less about the Mets and more about chronicling whichever 13th reliever the Mets had up for the day. By the time he’s entered in, he’s gone, and I’m like anyone else looking up what number the next one is wearing on Mets.com. In a few days or weeks I’ve forgotten these guys even existed much less their predecessor in No. 68 or 82. Seems like, there was a time when obscure Mets had a story behind their obscurity. Now they’re too damn ephemeral, and even where the job is writing it down, my memory cannot fit any more Richard Loveladys or Jonathan Pintaros.

I’m also fatigued with uni-number retirements if you want to know the truth. There’s definitely some dissonance associated with chronicling numbers for a team with fundamental differences in the purpose of them. Please reissue 8 today.

My friend and counterpart at the  Ultimate Mets Database is encountering the same exhaustion I have and as a result he’s in the process of transferring that site after 25 years in business. The new owner intends to refashion it, which is nice, but it leaves the uni-number data in some uncertainty. In case you don’t know I moved that info from here to UMDB several years ago and I still manually maintain that part of it. It’s not clear if that be the case in the future.

I’ve considered retiring my own number, so to speak, but not quite yet. New year, new look for the website, hope springs eternal, etc. I’ll address this massive Met overhaul in a separate post. For now, goodbye and hello.

Stick Out Your Tong

In a season without a lot of pleasant surprises you gotta be pleasantly surprised at how awesome Nolan McLean‘s been through three starts. Steve Cohen in fact has already decreed to retire No. 26 in a ceremony next season. But before that, we’re getting a potentially better young pitcher in Jonah Tong, whose motion recalls Tim Lincecum and who’ll be wearing No. 21.

I ran into friend of MBTN Dave the other night at CitiField and we agreed that of the available numbers (we went though them all), 21 was the best for Tong. That’s in part because it’s just a badass number, but also because it aligns with McLean’s 26 as a kind of new identifier of a rising Met rotation–sort of like when the 86ers took numbers in the teens or the accident of Matz, Harvey and Syndergaard occupying 32-34.

This may all be imaginary as young pitchers are notoriously unpredictable and too many guys now arrive wearing No. 73. But maybe we can find room for Brandon Sproat to take 29– sorry, Jared Young.

I count only six pitchers to wear 21 in Mets history, starting with Warren Spahn, then Bob Moorhead, Bill Pulsipher, Masato Yoshii, Bobby M. Jones and most recently, Rich Hill.

*

I’ve been meaning to take a moment and extend props to Starling Marte, who was forgotten while injured last year but is reminding us once again that he’s a very good player. I guess that also counts as a pleasant surprise of 2025.

Alert reader Chris Sullivan points out that Marte recently surpassed teammate/half-brother Jeff McNeil as the all-time leader in home runs by guys who wore No. 6 for the Mets. Marte sits at 36 dinger; McNeil was the previous leader at 34. As noted frequently in this space, that’s not necessarily saying much although McNeil and now Marte have brought new stability and skill to the jersey we haven’t seen since Wally Backman.

Dead Line

I can remember there being some real heat coming out of the trade deadline but despite what they did–and maybe because it it a little–I don’t detect a vibe for tonight’s game.

I suppose that’s mostly because the Padres kicked our asses all over the place in that series and it’s getting to be too often that the Mets just look bad out there. It’s hard to build off a fragile foundation like that.

Will 3 new relief pitchers and Cedric Mullins help? I hope so. I’m bigger on Cedric Mullins than his numbers would indicate. I think we need a better everyday guy than Tyrone Taylor in center. We did the same thing a year ago when we bailed on Harrison Bader. It was a small upgrade that helped the team get a lot better. Plus Taylor is a fine backup and gets that job again.

As our friend Jim reported in the comment section, Mullins will wear No. 28, belonging most recently to Jose Azocar (I think). Mullins was a 31 in Baltimore which is retired here.

New relievers Tyler Rogers will suit up in his customary 71 and Ryan Helsey will wear the same 56 he wore in St. Louis. Rogers I’m familiar with from his unique delivery (and his role on my fantasy team). But I’m not even going to pretend I know anything about Helsley who apparently is good but I wouldn’t know because I try not to pay any attention to the Cardinals.

Fun fact: Justin Garza and Zach Pop were the respective previous wearers of 71 and 56. Garza may as well be a St Louis Cardinal for all I remember about him.

For Who?

That’ll be a big question this deadline while the Mets work out some roster indigestion while the trade deadline approaches. I have no idea who they will trade for and for whom and I don’t have a particularly strong opinion other than, this is a better organization to trade from in a long while and so it seems they have the capital to get whoever it is they want.

The price for Gregory Soto looks light for now but you never know what might become of Wellington Arecena. The Mets suited up Soto in his customary 65 (33 would be better, no?), while moving Jeremy Hefner from 65 to 95, though the Hef never shows his uni anyway, I barely understand why we even keep track.

Soto’s arrival meant a DFA for big lefty Jose Castillo and his No. 54. Castillo had a day or two before replaced Chris Devenski, who refused his minor league assignment and became a free agent. He seemed good enough to maybe help somebody in a pennant race, or maybe the Braves. We also saw Alex Carillo (84) and Kevin Herget in there–Herget came all the way back from Atlanta and was able to reclaim No. 57 as Richard Lovelady was gone again.