Damn I Hate West Coast Swings
June 29th, 2012 by slangon

Games that start after 10 o’clock? Games that end around 1 in the morning? Ugh. Fortunately, the Mets were able to hang on by their toenails last night against the Dodgers and win it 3-2. Of course since it was a close one, I wasn’t able to go to sleep until that last out was recorded slightly before 1 A.M. Combine that with the fact that I have to get up a little before 6, and I’m not feeling great this morning. Damn you Walter O’Malley.

Anyway, one thing that was enjoyable last night was the performance by this guy.

David went 2 for 3 with a double and home run. He drove in 2 and also took a walk. In drawing that base-on-balls, he took the Mets club record for walks, which now stands at 581. Prior to that, he had been tied with Darryl Strawberry. Wright is now the holder of 13 Mets club career records (out of the 43 different career records that Baseball-Reference lists). He also in the Top 10 in 25 others, including several that he will probably own by the end of the season. He is also towards the top of the National League in most offensive categories this season.

While I was enjoying David’s performance, the thought did cross my mind that depending on how the season shakes out, he could be in the conversation for MVP. I know it’s early, and I’m aware of the fact that there’s this dude Joey Votto out there, but I think he’s certainly earned the right to at least be part of the conversation.

Then my thoughts turned to this guy.

R.A. has certainly become a topic of conversation when it comes to the Cy Young award (and honestly, probably has more of a legit shot at it than David does the MVP). Now I’m not writing this to stump for David and R.A. and I’m not trying to convince anyone of their worthiness. I’m just saying that so far, both players have been having outstanding seasons and have at least earned consideration.

That all got me curious as to when was the last time, if ever, the Mets had viable MVP and Cy Young candidates in the same season. I know that a Met has never won the MVP, but they have gotten their share of Cy Young’s. But was there ever a year that they had guys come close? There’s been a few seasons where they had guys in the Top 10 in voting for both awards, but was there any really close years?

During the 1988, season, David Cone came in 3rd in the Cy Young voting, while Darryl Strawberry came in 2nd and Kevin McReynolds came in 3rd in MVP voting. It’s interesting to note that their combined votes were way more than Kirk Gibson’s.

In their Championship 1986 season, Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez came in 3rd and 4th respectively in MVP voting, while almost their entire starting rotation was in the Top 10 in Cy Young Voting. Bobby Ojeda was 4th, Ron Darling was tied for 5th and Doc Gooden and El Fatso Sid Fernandez tied each other for 7th.

1984 they came really close. Hernandez came in 2nd behind Ryne Sandberg and Doc came in 2nd behind Rick Sutcliffe.

The closest they ever came though was 1969. Tom Seaver won his first Cy Young that year by an overwhelming majority. He also came in second in MVP voting behind Willie McCovey. What’s really interesting is that although he only had 243 voting points to McCovey’s 265, they both had the same number of 1st place votes.

2 Responses to “Damn I Hate West Coast Swings”

  1. as a Dodger fan in Brooklyn who has watched our offense for the last 2 weeks, I went to bed after the 7th confident that I’d wake up to a 3-2 loss.

  2. Mets fan here. Was following online til about the sixth and sleep eventually won me over. Completely shocked to wake up to a victory this morning. Dickey going for the dirty dozen tonight!

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