Selecting the Mets All-Wilpon Team Part 1: Starting Rotation
Which Mets best represent the dysfunction and turmoil of the Wilpon era?
The 2020 New York Mets season ended in familiar fashion.
Thanks to their 26–34 record and last place finish, the Mets missed the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season in a year in which eight of 15 National League teams advanced to October baseball.
Unfortunately, this is and has been the norm. This is the 12th losing season in the last 18 years since the Wilpons gained sole control of the team.
Now this bleak chapter in Mets history is finally coming to a close as hedge-fund billionaire Steve Cohen will become the new majority owner of the New York Mets.
The end of an era is upon us and what better way to reflect, honor, and memorialize a significant time for a sports franchise than by immortalizing its defining figures.
No, this is not a greatest-players list or a favorite moments rankings. No. Quite the opposite.
The Mets, of course, have been defined by ineptitude and endless embarrassment for quite some time on and off the field.
From financial trouble to familial fist fights, crippling contracts to crippled players, and colossal collapses to countless hit pieces, there’s a reason LOLMets seems to write itself. There’s a reason the fans have endured so much nonsense with such little reward for their loyalty.
That reason is the Wilpons. So without further ado…
It’s time to name the Mets All-Wilpon Team by fielding a lineup, rotation, bullpen, and bench with notable players who fell victim to and/or exemplify the meddling buffoonery and mind-numbing dysfunction that has come to define the Mets while resting in the shaky, sweaty hands of the Wilpon family.
It wouldn’t be a Wilpon team without scapegoats, so I’ve named a manager and front office team as well.
To be considered a player, manager or executive had to be present in the organization from 2002 to present day — the Wilpons took majority control of the team in ’02 — and the rest speaks for itself.
After all, in the words of Fred Wilpon, the Mets are snake-bitten baby! Let’s go.
The Starting Rotation
5. Jason Vargas
Jason Vargas had two stints with the Mets in his 15-year career. The first saw him as a quad-A depth starter in 2007 pitching just 10 1/3 big league innings across two starts. He surrendered 14 earned runs. Vargas would be included in the three-team deal that would bring JJ Putz to Flushing that winter.
Unfortunately that was not the last time he’d don the Blue and Orange. Vargas returned in 2018 to solidify the backend of the rotation as a veteran innings eater.
Vargas was a veteran. He was not an innings eater. He was not very good.
Vargas pitched to 5.77 ERA in 20 starts for an underwhelming 77 win Mets team in 2018. While he improved slightly the next season, he was jettisoned from the team before season’s end though not for his performance on the mound.
Tensions were high in the locker room following a late June loss, and manager Mickey Callaway took offense to a comment made by Newsday reporter Tim Healy.
Vargas, hearing his manager call a reporter a motherf — r, came to the rescue by threatening to knock Healy the f — out. The ever-sweaty Vargas was hot to the point of needing to be restrained.
The Mets responded with a vintage generic statement as if it was copied from a template, and traded Vargas a month later to the Phillies for a soft-hitting 26 year old AA catcher named Austin Bossart, who was a teammate of Bradley Wilpon, Jeff’s son, at UPenn.
So, to complete this edition of Mets MadLibs:
Jason Vargas was traded to the Phillies for a friend of the family because he threatened a reporter.
4. Matt Harvey
Oh, Matt Harvey. You carried us out of obscurity almost singlehandedly. But as the Dark Knight rose so did the tension between him and Mets brass which exacerbated an almost Shakespearean downfall in Flushing.
Whether it was his active nightlife or active twitter account, Harvey never seemed to fall in line with the brain trust. When they wanted him to adapt a less extravagant life off the field, he pushed back. When he wanted to ramp up his rehab to get back on the field, they pushed back.
Years of tension eventually boiled over when he was suspended in 2017 for not showing up to the ballpark on a day when he wasn’t scheduled to pitch.
Harvey would file a grievance while the team came under fire. Former Met Bobby Ojeda, who was an SNY analyst at the time, tweeted that “the relationship between the Mets and Matt Harvey has become so toxic.”
It may very well have been a lack of communication that led to his suspension, which is fitting considering Mets leadership is notorious for not just a lack of communication, but no communication or media availability.
Don’t get me wrong, Harvey didn’t help himself on his way out of Queens. But he practically sacrificed his right arm for the 2015 World Series, too. Clearly there was a mutual lack of respect that likely would’ve prevented his tenure from ending smoothly even if he was healthy. RIP the Dark Knight.
3. Johan Santana
Johan Santana has a firm place in Mets lore as one of the biggest acquisitions in team history, an absolute stud down the stretch in 2008, and, of course, the pitcher who gave us our first and only no-hitter.
No-han was as advertised, and — if you ask me — worth every penny of what was the richest contract for a starting pitcher in baseball when it was signed.
However, his heavy workload caught up to him and injuries derailed the backend if his career.
The first major shoulder surgery came in 2010 to repair a torn anterior capsule. The team originally announced he had a strained pectoral. Adam Rubin would confirm later that the Mets let Santana throw a bullpen before diagnosing the career threatening shoulder injury.
Santana came back and would pitch that no-hitter before being shut down in August 2012 in hopes that he would return stronger for the 2013 season, the final year of his contract.
That fall, while passing out lunches to Coney Island residents impacted by Hurricane Sandy, Santana and Jeff Wilpon assured the press that the star pitcher was healthy.
“He was using his left arm to give out packages,” Wilpon told Andy McCullough of the Star Ledger. “So he’s fine.”
Santana was not fine, and worse he and the Mets were never on the same page. A complete lack of communication about his throwing program led to a back and forth in Spring Training on whether he was ready to begin pitching.
Santana said he was ready. The Mets wanted him to slow down. Bitterness spread quickly on both sides.
Eventually management’s disapproval of Santana’s workout regimen became public and ran on the back pages. Santana responded by throwing a now infamous unauthorized angry bullpen, which likely contributed to him re-tearing his anterior capsule.
The rest is history. Santana would need another surgery and he would never throw another Major League pitch.
2. Pedro Martinez
I love Pedro Martinez. Many Mets fans love Pedro Martinez. Many baseball fans love Pedro Martinez. He’s one of the most dominant starting pitchers to ever toe the rubber. He’s a Hall of Famer. A legend.
Yet, when I think of Pedro as a Met my first thought is not his devastating changeup or his sparkling smile. I think of his toe, Jeff Wilpon, and the beginning of the end of a remarkable career.
Martinez confirmed in his book Pedro that Wilpon forced him to play injured in a meaningless September matchup with the Marlins as a way to sell tickets. While manager Willie Randolph was doing his job by shutting Martinez down, Wilpon was playing Don King, and his big heavyweight bout was Pedro Martinez vs Dontrelle Willis.
Delaying Pedro’s rehab in 2005 contributed toward more significant injury in 2006 culminating in arthroscopic shoulder surgery and missing the 2006 postseason.
Once Martinez’s season officially ended early in ’06, General Manager Omar Minaya said “How do you replace Pedro Martinez?” Well, they never really did.
The pitching deprived Mets came up short of a pennant in a Game 7 loss started by Oliver Perez. Pedro was never the same.
There’s no way of knowing what difference if any Pedro would have made had he been available during the ’06 playoffs, but we never got the chance to see it because the COO traded that chance for a quick buck the year before.
1. Victor Zambrano
The Mets traded away not just their top pitching prospect, but one of the top pitching prospects in baseball for a hurt starter who, when healthy, was mediocre at best to begin with. Need I say more?
Scott Kazmir was shipped off on July 30, 2004 to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for Victor Zambrano. Sitting six games back of a playoff spot this was supposed to help the Mets get over the hump. Ha.
Zambrano, who was known to be dealing with elbow trouble, led the American League in walks, hit batters, and wild pitches the season before.
Not only was he the league leader in walks again at the time of the trade, but he finished 2004 tied for the American League lead in walks (96) despite being traded to the National League midseason. They traded their top prospect for that!
Zambrano would pitch 201 2/3 innings with a 4.43 ERA for the Mets from 2004–2006. For the sake of brevity, he stunk.
Oh, and that playoff push Zambrano was brought in to facilitate? Yeah, he only pitched 14 innings in ’04 before elbow problems shut him down.
The Mets would try to blame the Devil Rays for not providing enough medical records on Zambrano’s bum elbow. The league took no action. I’d say that the Mets doctors should have caught the red flags, but the Mets don’t particularly respect medical diagnoses to begin with.
General Manager Jim Duquette would be the scapegoat but Jeff Wilpon was the guy who pulled the trigger. Wilpon, along with pitching coach Rick Peterson, soured on Kazmir and were convinced that Zambrano could be fixed. Peterson claimed he needed just 15 minutes to fix him.
Reminder, Kazmir was 19(!) years old and a top 10 prospect in the game. Not only was he traded, but he was traded for damaged goods that doesn’t sniff the type of return a prospect of Kazmir’s pedigree deserved.
The Mets would remain deprived of pitching for years while Kazmir blossomed into an All-Star almost immediately — his first selection was in 2006, the same year the Mets started Steve Trachsel, John Maine and Oliver Perez in five of seven NLCS games.
Jeff Wilpon, when speaking with the New York Times in 2006, discounted the what if scenario because the Mets had learned their lesson. Seriously, he said that.
Flash forward to 2020, the aftermath of Jared Kelenic being shipped to Seattle for Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz. General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen discounts the idea of losing games because, well, more lessons have been learned.
Time is a flat circle. Luckily, the cycle will soon be broken.
There you have it. The All-Wilpon starting rotation.
Stay tuned throughout the week for the All-Wilpon bullpen, bench, scapegoats, honorable mentions, and starting lineup.
