The Quintessential Met

Baseball is filled with heartbreaking stories about potential superstars who never reach the promise that seems within their grasp.  The Mets have had their share.  Dwight Gooden was a sensation when he burst onto the scene at age 19 as a once-in-a-generation talent, but  injuries and substance abuse tragically derailed his career.  His teammate, Darryl Strawberry, also never lived up to his limitless potential.  Then there was the trio of can't miss pitchers dubbed Generation K in the mid-1990s --Jason Isringhausen, Bill Pulsipher and Paul Wilson -- who all suffered major arm injuries before they even got started.  More recently, Matt Harvey, another dynamic pitcher, dubbed the Dark Knight, has had his path to almost-certain greatness stalled by injuries before being unceremoniously shipped out of town.

David Wright is not exactly in this category.  He is one of the greatest Met players of all time -- their greatest position player.  He is the career leader in pretty much every offensive category (except home runs in which he is 10 behind Darryl Strawberry).  But a series of injuries over the last several years took their toll on what could have been a Hall of Fame career.  

An article by sportswriter Matt Snyder plausibly claims that at age 30, Wright looked like he was on his way to the Hall of Fame.  At age 27, after six full seasons (2005-2010), he was a five-time All Star, with two Gold Gloves.  He, rather than Jimmy Rollins, arguably should have won the National League MVP in 2008 (he came in fourth in the voting).  Wright had two other top-ten MVP finishes in that span.  His career at that point was comparable to George Brett, Chipper Jones and Ron Santo -- three Hall of Fame third basemen -- when they were that age.  The following year, 2011, Wright suffered a stress fracture to his back, and missed two months of the season.  He rebounded in 2012, with another MVP-caliber season (finishing sixth in the voting) but hasn't had a full healthy season since.  Wright couldn't play at all last year and the two years before then he appeared in a total of 75 games.

As Snyder points out, through 2013, his age 30 season, Wright had pretty much maintained the great numbers he had been putting up throughout his career, with totals that included a .301 batting average, over 1500 hits, almost 250 doubles, 222 homers, 876 RBIs and 853 runs scored.  According to Snyder, with a relatively healthy next six-to-eight years, Wright likely would have amassed somewhere between 2500-3000 hits, 550 doubles, 350-400 home runs and 1500 RBIs and runs -- in other words, Hall of Fame numbers. Sadly, since then, he has either played hurt or was too hurt to play.

David Wright could have gone elsewhere after 2012, but remained loyal to the Mets, and signed a 7-year contract extension.  As a result, he is one of the few Met stars to have played his entire career with the team -- actually, with all due respect to Ed Kranepool, he is the only Met star to have played his entire career with the team.  In 2013, he was named team captain, and has been a steadfast presence with a remarkably positive outlook despite relentless setbacks to his recovery and generally disappointing play by his teammates.

With remarkable self-sacrifice and determination, Wright tried relentlessly to overcome the back, neck and shoulder injuries that have plagued him, and as another dismal season is nearing its end, he was hoping to take the field with the team either for a well-deserved swan song or perhaps as a stepping-stone to a more expansive comeback next year.  He played in some rehab games before the end of the minor league season and a few simulated games but it became clear that his body would not allow him to go forward at the major league level.

Met management has mismanaged so much over the decades but they deserve enormous credit for how they ultimately handled the end of David's career -- which ended today.  He was activated for this weekend.  He pinch hit yesterday and started the game today.  After two at bats (a walk and a foul out), he trotted out to third one last time and was then taken out of the game, leaving the field to an emotional ovation by his adoringfans at a sold out Citi Field.

Wright's career has spanned a period of hope and failure all too familiar to Met fans.  The devastating loss to the Cardinals in Game #7 of the 2006 playoffs, the two historic collapses to miss the playoffs the next two years (despite his stellar play), followed by six straight losing seasons and then a World Series appearance in 2015, which the team squandered, losing in 5 games.  Wright couldn't play at all these last two years and neither, it seemed, could the Mets.

So much of David Wrights' baseball career -- the injuries, the team's awful play and ownership's problematic decisions -- have been out of his control.  But he ended his career on his own terms.  He deserved it.