Since 1971, the Clemente Award has been presented to an MLB player who “best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to his team,” the winner is chosen by a combined fan and panel vote from 30 nominees (one player from each team). Originally called the Commissioner’s Award, the name was changed in 1973 to commemorate Roberto Clemente’s death one year earlier, in a plane crash en route to Nicaragua to provide relief for earthquake victims.  Granderson is the 46th player to receive the award, with Paul Konerko and Jimmy Rollins as dual recipients in 2014, and the Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen as last year’s winner.

Granderson’s charity work is well-known to Mets fans. He established the Grand Kids Foundation in 2007 to provide baseball clinics and character development/education programs to underserved areas in New York and other cities. He’s also raised money for other NYC-based charities, is active in the Mets’ veterans’ appreciation programs, and partnered with Citibank in 2016 to raise money for No Kid Hungry.

And I’m happy to report that Granderson is part of a strong tradition of Met Clemente Award recipients—the Mets, Orioles, and Cardinals are all tied at the top with four winners each. Here’s a look at some Clemente Award winners of old—no doubt Grandy’s in good company.

Gary Carter

Is sportsmanship and community involvement calculated into Carter’s 65.3 career WARP? The Clemente recipient in 1989, Gary Carter was also the first catcher ever to win the award. He started the Gary Carter Foundation to support reading programs in poverty-stricken Title I schools in Florida; with him at the helm, the foundation raised over $622,000. The foundation still exists today in his memory, operating a variety of programs to support health and education for Florida children.

Carter was, of course, also an accomplished catcher—11-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glove winner, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2003—with a career slash line of .262/.335/.439.

(And speaking of sportsmanship, Merriam-Webster’s 2012 Collegiate Dictionary credits Carter, who seldom cursed, with the proliferation of the term “f-bomb.”)

Al Leiter

The 2000 winner Al Leiter has long been renowned for his philanthropy, having given over $1.5 million to a variety of charities, including the Little Kids Rock support for music education in public schools, the Jason Taylor Foundation for literacy, and the Children’s Cancer and Blood Foundation. Leiter also won the Branch Rickey Award in 1999 and the Bart Giamatti Award in 2002 for his charitable work.

As a pitcher, Leiter was a two-time All-Star and had a 3.80 ERA across 419 games, with a WARP of 21.8.

Carlos Delgado

Awarded the Clemente in 2006, Carlos Delgado is best known for his efforts in Puerto Rico, where he has donated to the non-profit organization Sapientis, and guest-taught with their health and wellness program in a public housing project. He also donated money and time to hospitals across the island, where he brought toys to sick children and purchased video equipment so his hometown hospital could be in contact with Boston hospitals for diagnostic purposes.

Clemente has also been a strong pacifist voice, speaking out against the use of Vieques as a bombing practice target, and making waves as the precursor to Colin Kaepernick by refusing to stand during “God Bless America” because of his opposition to the war in Iraq.

As a first baseman, Delgado was a two-time All-Star and three-time Silver Slugger, with a career line of .280/.383/.546 and a WARP of 46.7.

Great job, team! Coming off a season where the Mets made the controversial decision to pick up Jose Reyes, (or more problematically in my view, give him a hero’s welcome) it’s nice to be reminded of all the great stuff baseball can do for its community. Now, any chance we can get someone to take back Curt Schilling’s Clemente Award?

Photo Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

That’s an alternative reality, though. Alderson has shown no interest in making such a trade. So instead of discussing how the Mets improved themselves at this deadline, we’ll look back to the past trades that we recall most fondly. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

June 15, 1969 — Mets Acquire Donn Clendenon

Donn Clendenon was Yoenis Cespedes before Cespedes was even born. This trade’s importance cannot be overstated, as it helped the Mets win their first World Series. Kevin Collins and the three minor leaguers did nothing in their career, while Steve Renko had a decent career as a middling starting pitcher. However, it was the addition of Clendenon to a struggling offense — and the team’s subsequent World Series victory — that people still remember to this day.

Clendenon slashed .252/.321/.455 with 12 homers in 226 plate appearances for the 1969 Mets He followed that up with a brilliant 22 homer and .288/.348/.515 slash line campaign in  1970. However, what Clendenon is most celebrated for is his performance in the 1969 World Series. He homered in games 2, 4, and 5, and doubled in game 1, to propel the Mets to a five-game series victory over the heavily-favored Baltimore Orioles. This trade will always be a big part of Mets history as a major piece of the Mets legendary 1969 season. — Tyler Plofker (@TylerPlofker)

June 15, 1983 — Mets Acquire Keith Hernandez

The Cardinals’ misfortune was the Mets’ gain. Twelve years after improbably turning a 42nd-round pick into a World Series champion, a Gold Glover, and the 1979 co-NL MVP, Keith Hernandez was done with St. Louis. He was on the outs with skipper Whitey Herzog, they suspected drug abuse (which was true), and he wanted a new contract. So at the trade deadline in 1983, the Cardinals rid themselves of their All-Star first baseman.

All the Mets had to give up to get Hernandez were pitchers Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey. The latter would appear in just 21 games for St. Louis before his career ended in ’86. Allen was okay for a couple of years, but then he collapsed in ’85 and was sold to the Yankees. Meanwhile, Hernandez kicked his cocaine habit, returned to All-Star form in ’84, and finished in the top 10 for NL MVP in back-to-back years. His superb .310/.413/.446 season in ’86 brought the Mets to a World Series title, and etched his place in franchise lore.

So thanks, Cardinals! That almost makes up for Yadier Molina. Almost. — Andrew Mearns (@MearnsPSA)

December 10, 1984 — Mets Acquire Gary Carter

The Mets have a knack for being just one measly power-hitting catcher away from assembling a team that can achieve greatness. That was the case in May 1998, when they acquired Mike Piazza from the Marlins, but it was even truer some 14 years earlier when general manager Frank Cashen pulled off one of the great trades of the decade, sending four middling-at-best players in their 20s to Montreal — only Hubie Brooks, who would hit 121 more homers after the trade, did anything of consequence — for the lynchpin of a future World Series winner.

Carter was already one of the game’s great hitting catchers when he arrived for spring training in 1985. In his first season with the Mets, he became the first catcher since Johnny Bench eight years earlier to hit both 30 homers and drive in 100 runs. (Carlton Fisk, by then with the White Sox, also accomplished the feat that year.) Carter’s infectious personality and clear joie de vivre also made him an instant fan favorite for all-time. But it was that prowess at the plate, along with his veteran command of an elite pitching staff, that propelled the Mets from 90 wins in ’84 to 98 in ’85 and then 108 in ’86. He only lasted five seasons in Queens, but the Kid sure made the most of them. — Erik Malinowski (@erikmal)

December 20, 1996 — Mets Acquire John Olerud

In 1996, the Mets used three first basemen who combined for 0.5 wins above replacement. The Blue Jays were looking to deal away incumbent first baseman John Olerud so they could move Carlos Delgado to first and put an aging Joe Carter at designated hitter. The Mets took advantage of Toronto’s frustration with the patient Olerud and offered Robert Person, a 26-year-old pitcher who was only slightly better than replacement. Olerud had a resurgence after moving to the National League, posting a .400 on base percentage in 1997.

He re-signed for two more years, posting 17.2 wins above replacement during his time in Queens. Olerud holds the Mets’ single season records in batting average (.352) and on base percentage (.447), along with the franchise records in both categories for anyone who spent at least 2000 plate appearances as a Met. Batting helmet aside, he was an outstanding defensive first baseman and part of one of the best defensive infields ever in 1999. Olerud replaced the immortal Butch Huskey at first; he moved to a right field/utility role for his best seasons before the Mets dealt him. Person was below replacement level in Toronto and got traded to Philadelphia years later. To think, Toronto was so happy to get rid of Olerud that they paid most of his contract in 1997! — Noah Grand (@noahgrand)

May 22, 1998 — Mets Acquire Mike Piazza

When the Mets dealt the trio of Preston Wilson, Ed Yarnall and Geoff Goetz to the Florida Marlins for Mike Piazza, they made one of the best trades (if not the best trade) in New York Mets history.  During his seven-and-a-half seasons with the Mets, Piazza hit 220 home runs, including as 200 as a catcher, on his way to setting the record for home runs at that position with 396. Piazza will be remembered for helping the Mets reach the playoffs in 1999 and the World Series in 2000. But he solidified himself as a legend in New York for his home run in the first game back after September 11th, on September 21st igniting the crowd and leading the Mets to victory. Recently, Piazza was inducted into the Hall of Fame (the second player to do so as a Met) and had his number 31 retired by the team on Saturday, July 30th.

The pieces sent to the Marlins cannot compare to what Piazza brought to the Mets. Preston Wilson had a solid career of ten seasons in the Major Leagues (with multiple teams) but had problems striking out too frequently. Yarnall pitched minimally over two seasons for the Yankees before playing overseas in Japan and becoming a career minor leaguer. Goetz never made it past Double-A before crashing out of baseball. With these results, it is easy to see the Mets got the best of this trade. — Seth Rubin (@sethrubin)

November 24, 2005 — Mets Acquire Carlos Delgado

Omar Minaya did not inherit a particularly good farm system from his predecessors, especially after 2004 deadline deals sent Justin Huber and Scott Kazmir away for Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano.  And Omar wouldn’t do a great job restocking the system during his tenure either. He was pretty good at figuring out who to deal though, at least early on. The Mets had tried to get Delgado as a free agent shortly after Minaya took over, but lost out to the Florida Marlins in the midst of one of  their #MarlinsTakeovers. The front office only had to wait until the next offseason though, as the Marlins inevitably sold off their high-priced players.

The package going to Florida — Mike Jacobs, Yusmeiro Petit and Grant Psomas — pretty spiffy at the time. Petit made it all the way to Triple-­A Norfolk late in 2005 and was considered the 69th-best prospect in the game, per Baseball America. Jacobs had a white-hot September with the Mets, slugging over .700, and no doubt the Marlins had visions of  six cheap years of his mashing as Delgado’s replacement. And Psomas, well, I honestly forgot he was in the deal, but he would have hung around the back end of a Mets top 10 list in that era after a season mashing at two A-­ball levels.

You know how it went from there. Delgado spent three seasons batting cleanup for a high-­powered  Mets lineup (sighs wistfully) while Jacobs turned out to be a Quad­-A masher, Petit didn’t establish himself as a useful major-league swingman until four organizations on (with a detour into the Mexican League), and Psomas never made the majors. There would be plenty of Bannister­-for-Burgos and Heath ­Bell-­for-­Jon ­Adkins to come, but Omar definitely got this one right. — Jeffrey Paternostro (@jeffpaternostro)

July 31, 2015 — Mets Acquire Yoenis Cespedes

Through his first 15 major-league starts, Michael Fulmer has a 2.50 ERA. His peripherals don’t quite support that level of dominance — he carries a 3.15 DRA and a 3.67 FIP — and a great half-season doesn’t quell the longer-term durability issues that kept Fulmer’s prospect stock a bit lower than it otherwise might’ve been. But Fulmer is already a heck of a pitcher, only a year out from the trade that sent him away from the Mets, and Luis Cessa might yet emerge in a rotation or a bullpen too.

Yet nothing Fulmer or Cessa could do diminishes the franchise-altering nature of getting Yoenis Cespedes. Cespedes has been one of the eight- or ten-best position players in baseball over the past calendar year, a terrifying force of nature as a hitter bouncing between Gold Glove-quality defense in left and adequacy in center. More than that, the Mets won the pennant on the back of his MVP-quality 2015 stretch run. As Joe Sheehan most famously posited, flags do fly forever, and while the financial and moral implications of turning around a moribund franchise aren’t quite as everlasting, they’re still huge. And this is the deal that got the Mets there. – Jarrett Seidler (@jaseidler)

Photo Credit – Wikimedia Commons

Just because we know that time heals all wounds and regresses all stats, it doesn’t mean early-season lines aren’t fun while they last. For your enjoyment, selected small-sample performances by your New York Mets. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

David Wright’s Worst-Ever O-Contact Rate

Anyone who says they can predict what David Wright will do this season is either lying or a witch, but so far he’s putting up unexpectedly strong production, with a TAv of .315 (same as last year) compared to his .283 PECOTA projection. Wright is also drawing a ton of walks, which helps offset his well-below-normal .254 batting average. Wright’s bugaboo at the plate is a career-high 35% strikeout rate, 10 points higher than his second-worst season.

The reason for this is not hard to figure out — a 16% swinging strike rate and a 60% contact rate do not translate well. If this is his new true talent level, Wright may very well be looking at a Mark Reynolds-esque season. But there’s no back condition in the world that would let him maintain a 23% contact rate on pitches out of the zone, which is the worst in baseball and would be the worst in history. He may not get that number up to his 64% career average, and expecting a career high in strikeouts is not a particularly hot take, but David Wright has some pretty clear room for regression to the mean. — Maggie Wiggin (@maggie162)

Walker Isn’t Walking

Neil Walker is a liar. Sure, he’s off to a very nice start in a Mets uniform, hitting .288/.299/.606 with seven homers in just 16 games. Something odd should stand out about that triple-slash though. Walker has hardly lived up to his surname — until Saturday night, he did not have a single walk on the season. Only 16 players since the end of the Deadball Era have managed an OPS+ over 110 while drawing under 20 walks; could Walker be number 17?

Since Walker has been hitting so well, it hardly matters, but eventually he will need to incorporate more plate discipline into his game. Walker has never been a hacking Alfonso Soriano/Dave Kingman type. His walk rate has never dipped below seven percent in a season, yet it took 62 plate appearances in 2016 for him to take four pitches outside the strike zone.

Given his reliable history of normal walk rates, this is a trend that is unlikely to continue for much longer. Walker will walk the walking path to walks. — Andrew Mearns (@MearnsPSA)

Steven Matz Since An Anonymous Scout Called For His Demotion

I get the pressure that comes with having to fill column inches every week. I do. Sometimes there isn’t much baseball to talk about, and you have to conjure a little soft shoe number about fried ham product. Maybe that doesn’t play in the tabloids, I don’t know. There’s good reason why they never make me an editor. But making grand proclamations after one game is a good way to look foolish a couple weeks later. Since our secret scout’s hot take, Matz has thrown 13.1 innings, allowed two runs, struck out 17, and walked 2. So a bit of skepticism might have been useful here. Was Sean Gilmartin really going to be a short-­term upgrade? Being a blithe stenographer for a scout that wants his opinion in ink is all well and good, but it can on occasion make you look W A Y behind your peers.

There will still likely be growing pains for Matz during his first full season in the majors, but the stuff matches up with the rest of the Mets’ big four, and one shaky outing after almost two full weeks off a mound shouldn’t have been above the fold on the Op­Ed page at Panic City Press. Fortunately, lessons have been learned, and we now wait for three or four starts before proclaiming a Mets starter toast. — Jeffrey Paternostro (@jeffpaternostro)

Lucas Duda Since the #SNYWhale

Mets Twitter, like every kind of Twitter, understands the occasional outage, even if we experience acute withdrawal for the few minutes our timelines fail to update. Mets Twitter is far less understanding when our underrated first baseman, he of the career .297 TAv, opens the season slashing .195/.233/.244. That kind of performance deserved its own Fail Whale, and SNY was ON IT.

Following the #SNYWhale’s appearance during Lucas Duda’s second at-bat on April 17, he’s hitting .333/.320/.909. That’s three doubles, three dingers and two singles, along with a sacrifice fly, in 25 post-Whale plate appearances. We all knew Duda would start hitting soon — we just didn’t realize he’d need to be rebooted first. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

Logan Verrett’s Microscopic ERA

Until a scoreless inning of mop-up duty in the Mets’ 8-2 win on Saturday night at Turner Field, Verrett was sporting a 0.69 ERA through 13 innings on the year. To say he’s been an especially nice buffer for a rotation that suddenly found itself without Jacob deGrom is an understatement. In starts against Miami and Philadelphia, Verrett allowed no earned runs in 12 innings and struck out 10 against only nine hits and three walks. Sure, consider the competition, but Verrett had command of his pitches — a four-seamer sitting at 91, mixed in with an 84-mph slider — and gave Dan Warthen some emergency starts that kept the team afloat during some early-season uncertainty.

Now that deGrom is back, Verrett returns to the pen, but he’ll surely be called upon to make more spot starts as injuries and circumstances arise. Ultimately, his major contributions this season may come more as a valuable long man-with-starting-experience. Think of Yusmeiro Petit with the 2014 Giants team that won the title. Plus, Verrett is still only 25 and learning just how good he can be. OK, his stuff doesn’t rival that of the others on this staff, and his ERA will surely level off as the year progresses, but he doesn’t need to be deGrom or Harvey or even Colon for the Mets to get decent value from him going forward. For now, they’ll take what they can get. — Erik Malinowski (@erikmal)

Noah Syndergaard (Also) Has A 59 Percent Ground Ball Rate

Hahaha. It’s cool everyone. Despite Jake Arrieta continuing to improve towards a 0.01 ERA and despite Clayton Kershaw putting on a convincing “Sandy Koufax, but longer-lasting” impersonation, some people are calling Syndergaard the best pitcher in baseball … right now. Yes, Thor has more velocity than the Autobahn and a world-beating strikeout rate of 13.1 batters per nine innings, but it’s his ridiculous ground ball rate that has me scratching my head. Yes, it will definitely go down. It must! However, if Syndergaard can raise his ground ball rate from last season (48 percent) and keep it inching up, then that’s a great sign.

Why? Because as much as we’d like it, his velocity is not going to be top-of-the-heap for his entire career. Eventually, someone else will take the velocity crown, and Syndergaard will have to do all the things that mid-career pitchers learn to do: change eye levels, sequence their pitches, and get some grounders. In the meantime, a rising GB rate means that there’s less stress on the young fella’s arm (more short PAs!) and more indication that Thor can not only shove, but he can do literally everything a great pitcher can do. There’s no way he’ll maintain this Keuchel-ian rate for long, but it’s a good, tiny sign. – Bryan Grosnick (@bgrosnick)

The Mets Are #OnPace To Break The Team Home Run Record

What new deadball era? The 2016 Mets could set a new team record for home runs in a year. Through 16 games, the Mets have hit 25 dingers, on pace for 253 for the season. Perhaps even more remarkably, the team only put two balls over the wall in the season’s first eight games, improving to 23 homers, nearly three per game, in their last eight contests.

The 2006 Mets currently hold the franchise record for home runs in a year, at 200. I suspect many fans could recall the stars on that team — Carlos Beltran (41 homers), Carlos Delgado (38), David Wright (26) and Jose Reyes (19) — but how many remember that Jose Valentin added 18 long balls to finish 5th on the squad? Meanwhile, back in 2016, Neil Walker and his seven jacks are on pace for 71, Yoenis Cespedes is on pace for 51 and Curtis Grandslamderson is on pace for 41. — Toby Hyde (@tobyhyde)

Bartolo’s Leading The Mets in K/BB Ratio

Strikeout-to-walk ratio is a fun metric for pitchers because it takes two related but distinct results and provides a balanced statistic. The Mets’ small-sample strikeout to walk leader among all pitchers so far this season is Bartolo Colón, with 8.5 strikeouts per walk. Notably, Colón is the leader among a staff with a rotation-mate, Noah Syndergaard, who is striking out 13.1 batters per nine innings. Colón is not merely leading the pack on the strength of his command (although his miniscule 0.96 walks per nine innings helps). Colón wouldn’t be the leader if it weren’t for 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings. And that figure is worth noting because it’s Colón’s best K/9 in the majors since the year 2000, when aforementioned rotation-mate Syndergaard was seven years old. — Eric Garcia McKinley (@garcia_mckinley)

Bartolo’s BB = HR

Over his first three 2016 starts combined, Bartolo Colon has walked two batters and given up two home runs. Allowing the same or fewer walks than home runs feels unusual, so I went on Baseball Reference’s excellent Play Index tool and looked it up. This used to be a fairly unique trick — it only happened five times before 1998, but has happened 20 times from 1998 through 2015.

The list is littered with pitchers that had good-to-great careers: David Wells four times, Brad Radke twice, Bret Saberhagen, Greg Maddux, and Curt Schilling once each. These starters have some traits in common with each other and Bartolo Colon. They’re extreme command/control artists, flyball pitchers, and they often accomplish this feat late in their careers. The most recent pitcher to give up more home runs than walks over the course of a season? Why, that’s Bartolo Colon in 2015, of course. – Jarrett Seidler (@jaseidler)

Antonio Bastardo Ks > Matt Harvey Ks

Antonio Bastardo has more strikeouts than Matt Harvey. At Bastardo’s current pace, he will punch out 152 batters in only 94.5 innings. Both the raw K total and the innings-pitched marks are outstanding (and unlikely to continue) for a modern reliever. On the other hand, Matt Harvey has struggled to start the season. He has the lowest strikeout rate (5.6 K per 9) and highest walk rate (3.2 BB/9) of any Mets starter. On Friday he kept leaving the ball up, needing 101 pitches to get through five innings. Opposing batters are more likely to make contact with Harvey’s pitches out of the zone instead of swinging and missing. It’s possible that Harvey is still warming up after an aborted Spring Training and has some mechanical issues to sort out. — Noah Grand (@noahgrand)

Jeurys Familia Has The Highest Velocity Of Any Mets Pitcher

Zero-point-one-four. There’s only a 0.14 mph difference in velocity between Jeurys Familia and Noah Syndergaard, but anything over 0.01 is excess. This stat is prime #smallsamplesize material because the sample is exactly what determines Familia’s minuscule advantage over Thor. Over 129 pitches during the 2016 season, Familia has thrown only one pitch under 95 mph on average — his slider — and has used that pitch but 15.5% of the time; his primary pitch, the sinker, averages a shade above 95.5, which is impressive but a full three mph below Syndergaard’s. The starter, however, utilizes his slower changeup and curve over 28% of the time, and with 285 pitches under his belt, this slows down his velo enough to give the closer the temporary edge. — Brian Duricy (@briansusername_)

Photo Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports