In Defense of Straw

I like Neyer’s project of trying to define the eras of teams by representative players, and I think he nails the Mets. (It would have been amazing to think in 1981 that Joe Torre would go into the Hall of Fame as a manager.) To mount my “great players should generally not be blamed for the failures of their teams” hobbyhorse, though, I would take mild issue with this:

As good as Strawberry was (and he was very good) and as good as the Mets were (and they were, under manager Davey Johnson, very good), there was always the feeling that everyone could have been just a bit better. That Strawberry, the Rookie of the Year in 1983, should have won an MVP Award or three in his career. That the Mets, who did win the World Series in 1986, should have reached the postseason more than twice. And that maybe they would have, if only Strawberry had reached his enormous potential.

The Mets of this era were obviously underachievers, and I suppose Strawberry never reached his “enormous potential” even with the Mets, although it’s always hard to know how to measure that. Still, Strawberry was one hell of a player during his Mets career, I think better described as great than very good — a tremendous offensive player, decent corner OF, could have been more durable but had only one really bad injury year. The big injury year may have cost the Mets the pennant in ’85, but he did have a 164 OPS+ when he played. The best case for linking Strawberry to the Mets’ underachievement would be 1989, where he had his worst Mets season and they lost a fairly close race. But even so, he was their second-best player and the third-best RF in the league (behind Hayes and Gwynn.) I’d start looking at such things as “Juan Samuel: center fielder!” before Strawberry’s failings. And it should be noted as well that while the Mets underachieved through much of this era they didn’t collapse until they decided to let Strawberry walk and replace him with Vince Coleman and Hubie Brooks. Admittedly, after 1991 Strawberry really was done as a full-time player, so this in retrospect didn’t work out that badly, and there could be no further question that Strawberry was a sad case of wasted potential. But as a Met, he was a fantastic player, and although he had only two more good years (one as a part-timer) there a number of worse players in the Hall of Fame. And if he gets demerits for his various “intangible” issues surely he should get some credit for being a significant part of the two greatest teams of the post-Big Red Machine era.

All in all, I’d say Strawberry was the least of the Mets’ problems during their disappointing follow-ups to ’86. The big issues were that 1)Carter and Hernandez got old and were never really adequately replaced (although Magadan was OK), 2)Gooden — in addition to his own demons — was worked way too hard in ’85 and was never remotely the same pitcher again, and 3)they let the defense go way too much.