A Long Island native with lifelong ties to the orange and blue, the 51-year-old endeared himself to the fan base during New York’s pennant-winning 2015 season when his selfie-style video reactions to the Mets’ daily fortunes became popular on social media. Rather than watch the action from a suite like many celebrities prefer, Breuer can often be seen cheering amongst the crowds at Citi Field.

While his energetic and offbeat style makes him an ideal fit for the stage, the “SNL” alum is just as comfortable discussing the history of his favorite baseball team. A follower of the Amazins since 1973, Breuer reflected on Mets third baseman David Wright and what the team captain meant to him personally over the course of a storied career.

“He was the guy, you know? I’ve only went through two cycles of players where I got to watch them come out of the system,” Breuer said during a recent phone interview. “Watching him come through the system and then become that Met guy was really awesome because there really hasn’t been once since the ’80s.”

Drafted by the Mets 38th overall in 2001, Wright was the longest-tenured active player to spend his career with the same team. Until returning to action last Friday night as a pinch-hitter, the seven-time All-Star had missed almost two and a half years with debilitating back, neck and shoulder injuries. The franchise leader in hits, RBIs, runs, extra-base hits, walks and a few other offensive categories, Wright played in his last major league game on Saturday in front of 43,828 emotional supporters whom he addressed in a brief on-field ceremony following the last out.

Currently on the road performing stand-up and touring with Metallica, Breuer planned to watch the night play out backstage on his iPad as he prepared for a private show in San Francisco. Wright’s 2-year-old and infant daughters were in the ballpark, however, to witness him play for the first time in the 35-year-old’s big league career.

“I always say God has you out there for the right reasons. For all you know, he needs to be home with his little girls. He needs to be taking care of his body for something deeper that may happen down the road, so in the end it doesn’t even matter if his kids saw him play,” Breuer said. “My kids have no clue that I did TV and stuff. They just care that you’re a dad. My wife just cares that I’m a husband, and maybe at this point in his life it’ll be a little more important for him and he can relax and give his body a rest and know that he gave it his all and he was one of the all-time greatest.”

Wright provided many memorable moments since first appearing as a fresh faced 21-year-old from Virginia, but one in particular that stands out for Breuer came in a key game down the stretch in 2015 against division-rival Washington.

“That summed up a career and his life as a Met. As a Met fan I felt like one of my children just felt that all-time, lifetime moment,” Breuer recalled. “I believe it was against the Nationals and they were coming to the final stretch and there was a play at the plate and he slid in and he got up and he did the big fist pump down, and you see that clip a bunch of times now. I’ve been seeing it more and more. I remember watching that moment and seeing the excitement in his face, and that thrill and the passion. For me that’s the moment I’m going to remember (from) him forever. The passion he had as a Met. The thrill of feeling that we can win this. We can beat these guys. We can take it all.”

Wright’s enthusiastic reaction after sliding in safely with an important run late in that game was both exciting and also somewhat out of character for the typically-reserved Mets captain. In fact, Breuer wasn’t convinced early on that Wright had what it took to be a leader based on his calm demeanor. That all changed when the third baseman stepped in after separate incidents where two of the club’s young pitchers behaved in a manner he thought was unbefitting of a major leaguer.

“There was a long time where people would say he needs to be the leader, he needs to be the captain, and he’s got such a soft, I don’t know the exact word, clean-ish personality. And I went, I don’t know, is he really the captain?” Breuer said. “But I have to say, you’d see little examples which made me respect him so much more. He looked like a timid guy and he seems to be the guy that, I wouldn’t say is a pushover, but can easily be like, ‘ahh, just let it go, it’s all good.’ But there were a couple moments where Noah Syndergaard came up and I believe he stepped up and said something to Noah.”

Breuer added: “And then that whole thing with Matt Harvey. I remember that moment too, when Matt was walking in the outfield (during batting practice) and they showed it and David Wright kind of gave that ‘You just disrespected the team, bro. You put yourself ahead of the team.’ look. That was a powerful moment for me as a fan, not so much against Matt but I saw that full-blown respect like, ‘hey, David’s in charge here and he sets a tone on how you’re supposed to be as a player and as a gentleman.’ It almost goes up there with, I got to say, like a Gary Carter but without the high intensity.”

Jose Reyes, Wright’s partner on the left side of the infield for many years, took his usual place at shortstop for Saturday night’s sendoff and shared several laughs and embraces with his old buddy throughout the evening. A former batting champion who led the NL in stolen bases three consecutive years, Reyes batted just .189 this season and his career may also be coming to a close, a fact not lost on Breuer.

“I say he was one of the most exciting Mets that I’ve ever watched and rooted for in my whole life. I love Jose Reyes,” Breuer said of the former shortstop who was brought back to the Mets in 2016 after his domestic violence suspension ended. “I loved him from the moment he showed up. I was absolutely heartbroken when he left. When he came back I know he wasn’t the same player. I don’t care. It’s like having an old family member. He gave me the greatest thrills for the longest time as a Met fan. I adore Jose Reyes and he’ll always have a special place for me in my heart as a Met fan. He’s one of my all-time favorites. Everything about him. That smile, the years when he would just get on base and be a menace to society. He’d hit one in the gap and before you blink he was on third and it was over.”

Wright has stated that he’d like to stay involved with the club in some capacity, a development that could provide some consolation to Breuer and his fellow Mets fanatics.

“I hope he stays in the organization forever. That would mean so much to me as a Mets fan, to see David Wright always be a Met,” Breuer hoped. “I feel better as a Met fan moving forward knowing that he’s going to be somewhere in the organization and I hope Jose Reyes is, too.”

Photo credit: Brad Penner – USA Today Sports

As throngs of folks lucky enough to land tickets formed long lines that snaked from the ballpark’s main entrance all the way to Roosevelt Avenue and the stairs to the 7 train, a family of five milled about near the third base marker from Shea Stadium, their young son beaming from ear to ear, exclaiming, “I can say I stood on the same third base as David Wright!”

Others in the parking lot were similarly appreciative, but also melancholy about their favorite Met’s impending swan song. By the close of the on-field theatrics later that night, both Wright and many in the stands had shed their share of tears. The waterworks began much sooner for some tailgating supporters, however.

Donning a standard-issue David Wright home jersey and struggling to contain her sadness about the finality of the moment, Anna Connelly’s dark sunglasses couldn’t mask the wave of emotion hidden behind their lenses.

“I’m hoping I’m not going to cry,” said the Dumont, New Jersey resident, a proud member of the Flushing faithful since 1973. “His teammates love him and he tried so hard. It’s such a shame that he has to go out like this but I’m so glad to be at this game.”

“He’s just classy. You don’t hear anything bad about him, and for his daughters to be able to see him play is something amazing,” a choked-up Connelly added. “That he could make this comeback, and the work that he has to take just to be able to play a game. Hours to get ready, I can’t believe it and I can’t believe I’m here. I just can’t.”

Kyle Brancato, 25, reflected on Wright’s debut and how he rooted for the always-smiling Virginia kid from day one.

“He means the world to me. I remember distinctly listening to his first game on the radio when they were playing the Expos and there was something about him,” Brancato said, wearing an orange T-shirt with the word ‘Captain’ emblazoned across the chest. “Announcers were talking about him and talking about his experiences in the minors coming up, and over the years I feel like whether they were winning or losing he was just always the first one doing an interview, talking about how much he loved being a Met, and obviously on the field he was going to be a Hall of Famer. It didn’t work out but he’s always going to be Hall of Famer in my eyes, for sure. He was that good.”

Brancato’s pal, Michael Bonello, saw the night as a kind of closing time for his younger years.

“It’s going to be an end of an era,” Bonello said about Wright and Jose Reyes taking the field together for the last time. “A bit of my childhood leaves today along with them.”

Long Island native and lifelong Mets fan Tim Massa spoke passionately about Wright, comparing him to another New York baseball idol.

“Wright has a special place for me based on his pride to wear the orange and blue. He loved being a Met,” said the 57-year-old Massa. “Wright wanted to be a Met and never wanted to be anything but a Met and you’ve got to respect that. He’s the closest we have to our Derek Jeter.”

Massa added: “I’m a grown man but I’m going to cry. I know it. It’s going to happen. Listen, baseball is threaded into your body. You’ve got to be a special guy to be a Met fan because they put you through hell, but that’s what it is to be a Met fan and having a David Wright day, it can’t be better than this.”

Massa’s son, T.J., a fan since the late ’90s, has tried to follow Wright’s lead off the field as well.

“David Wright came up when I was just like in the sixth or seventh grade and I was immediately drawn to him in the way he carried himself and he was such a great ballplayer and he was such a leader,” the younger Massa said. “I always kind of wanted to be like that myself in my life. I just always looked up to David, one of my favorites of all time.”

Eventually, they all huddled inside the park to watch a game that they’ll never forget, and as Saturday night turned into early Sunday, a flock of weary scribes hung around in front of Wright’s locker in a mostly empty Mets clubhouse. Several cracked jokes with the always affable third baseman, the class that Connelly alluded to still on display despite a physically and emotionally draining couple of days. With family and friends waiting patiently in the hallway to continue the celebration, Wright had a few kind words and a handshake for every one of us individually. No big surprise, though. Since 2004, that was David Wright. I imagine that it always will be.

Photo credit: Scott Orgera; pictured: Kyle Brancato (left) and Michael Bonello (right) 

The fans showed up to bid adieu to their captain, because for so many fans, for so many years, David Wright was the Mets. The lone bright spot during losing seasons, the catalyst behind thrilling playoff runs, and an amazing teammate and ambassador for the game of baseball.

Health robbed the greatest position player in franchise history of a chance for immortality in Cooperstown, but Mets fans made it clear Saturday night that they’ll never forget Wright’s immense contributions to the franchise. And honestly, how could they? Will we ever get tired of watching that catch? Or the World Series home run? Because if we do, there’s an entire career’s worth of legendary, legacy-defining moments that Wright left us with. If that’s not enough, he’ll even walk away as the franchise leader in hits, doubles, RBI and extra-base hits.

Good baseball players (and all professional athletes in general), whether they like it or not, become role models for the next generation of the game. They’re thrust into a role of leadership at a young age solely because of their athletic abilities, an unfair proposition no matter which way you slice it. Some take the responsibility seriously, some don’t and some even use their platform to do some absolutely incredible things. David Wright took that responsibility seriously and used his platform to inspire real change in the community, yet somehow that still doesn’t even begin to describe the type of human being he is.

His body betrayed him time and time again, as did ownership and the front office, but Wright’s ninth baseball life allowed him to go out on his terms. The Mets only found him two plate appearances in his last ever game — he went 0-for-1 with a walk — but David looked as happy as he ever has after he was lifted from the game. We all would’ve liked to see him play semi-regularly in September, or even for a couple of more innings on Saturday, but Wright seemed genuinely elated with how his career ended. How many athletes can say that?

Saying goodbye to some of the best things in our life is, unfortunately, a part of the human experience. We get to know people and become familiar with them, only for them to leave us in one capacity or another. The end of David Wright’s baseball career is the end of many of our childhoods. Waving him into the sunset hasn’t been easy for us because he’s all we’ve ever known as Mets fans. The impact he’s had on many of our lives transcends his baseball ability. When David walked into the Citi Field dugout for the final time, it hit us all. What is our Mets fandom without him?

Photo credit: Brad Penner – USA Today Sports

The game started out well for the Mets, as after Corey Oswalt hurled a scoreless top of the first, Amed Rosario gave the Mets the early lead in the bottom of the frame, singling home Jeff McNeil with an opposite field hit. Unfortunately, that was the highlight of the ballgame for the New York offense.

Oswalt did his part to keep the game on track in the final start of his rookie campaign, keeping the Fish off the board for the first three, but he ran into a patch of difficulty in the fourth. After allowing a pair of singles and a walk to load the bases with one out, Oswalt got the ground ball he needed from Magneuris Sierra, but unfortunately the speedy Marlins right fielder beat the return throw to first to allow the tying run to score. It became clear following that inning that Oswalt was done, and that was when the only real drama of the night unfolded.

It was already known Wright would be the first man off the bench tonight, and with Oswalt due up fifth in the bottom of the fourth inning, the stage was set. The Marlins however, delayed the moment, retiring No. 8 hitter Kevin Plawecki to end the frame and leave the captain in the on deck circle. Temporarily.

Paul Sewald entered for the Mets in the fifth and was unimpressive, surrendering two runs on three hits to the middle of Miami’s lineup, but all the crowd really cared about was the next half inning. Wright emerged from the dugout to a chorus of cheers, and the longtime face of the Mets’ franchise looked visibly nervous as he dug in. His at-bat was short lived, when he hit the first pitch he saw from José Ureña directly on the ground to third, but making an out was far from enough to wipe the smile off No. 5’s face.

After that, the rest of the night went downhill fast for the home team. Drew Gagnon entered for New York in the sixth, and while he only allowed one earned run in what  ultimately amounted to 1.2 innings of work, thanks to errors from Todd Frazier and Rosario, the Marlins were able to push five runs across against him, establishing an 8-1 lead that would be the eventual final score.

Tim Peterson pitched very well in the eighth and ninth innings to maybe provide a slimmer of a silver lining at the end, but it’s clear that everyone associated with this team began looking forward to tonight’s contest the minute Wright’s at-bat tonight concluded.

This evening, left hander Steven Matz will make his final start of 2018, but more importantly, Wright will take third base for the final start of his memorable Major League career, and it will be fascinating to see what kind of final moment he can give us.

Photo credit: Wendell Cruz – USA Today Sports

In honor of the Captain, a few BP Mets staffers pulled together their favorite memories of No. 5:

Dave Capobianco: I witnessed David Wright’s World Series home run in person, but there’s another memory I have of him that clearly stands above that or anything else. I’ve told this story before, but it’s worth repeating now: In 2006, as a 9-year-old, I attended a small baseball clinic for kids that was held by Wright. He was 23 at the time. It wasn’t much, just a few hitting and fielding tips for a bunch of kids in a stuffy high school gym. To be clear, Wright was getting nothing out of doing this, but he didn’t seem to mind at all. Throughout the entire clinic, Wright was engaging, personable and seemed genuinely happy to be there. At the end, Wright took pictures with everyone single person there, including me:

Justin Birnbaum: Mike Piazza was my childhood, but David Wright represents my formative years as a baseball fan. I could never ask for a better role model and player to represent a team that I love so dearly. When I think about Wright’s career, so many memories come to mind. The image of him with his arm around Jose Reyes, covered in champagne with a cigar in his mouth after their 2006 division title is forever burned into my memory. I sat in the upper deck at Shea Stadium when he rocketed his first walkoff home run over the left field fence against the Padres. I was sitting right behind first base in right field when he knocked a single for his last walk-off hit in 2016 against the Brewers. Captain, all I can say is thank you. Thank you for being a leader. Thank you for being a role model. Thank you for being an ambassador to the game. When I have children, I want them to play the game like you — filled with passion and exuberance. The world is not fair and you were robbed of your career, but as a fan, I rest easy knowing that you left it all out on the field.

Jordan Rabinowitz: I could dig through my brain for hours trying to excavate the most indelible memory I have of David Wright doing something with bat, legs, arm or glove that actually helped the Mets score or prevent runs, (there’s plenty to choose from) but ultimately it’s this: David Wright realizing, after 12 Major League seasons, that he’s finally going to the World Series. I feel secondhand catharsis every time this GIF loops. You watch that and understand that Wright wasn’t just a player happy to finally reach the World Series, he was a player happy to finally reach the World Series as a Met. What began in 2004 as hope, followed by bitter disappointment, followed by bitter-er disappointment, followed by waste, followed by hope again — it all culminated in this moment. It’s perfect, and thanks to GIF technology, it can be endless.

Photo credit: Brad Penner – USA Today Sports 

Once every few years, though, a player comes through Flushing and connects with this fanbase in a very special, personal way that completely transcends baseball. It doesn’t even really matter how good the player is — though it does help if they produce — but skill is not always the paramount attribute that gets you in the good graces of Mets fans. Wilmer Flores, for example, is barely a starting-caliber player, but is an icon in Mets lore just because he was accidentally human once. Bartolo Colon was a league-average pitcher. Sometimes, a player just needs to have something about him that simply clicks with people: a certain charm, or a certain smile, or certain characteristics that people gravitate towards.

In 2005, I was just starting to get interested in baseball. I was 8 years old (please save your wise cracks about my youth) and I was still learning the ropes. I didn’t know every player on the Mets, but I knew Mike Piazza — because he was my dad’s favorite for years — and I had also heard of this new guy named David Wright. I didn’t know much about him, but everyone was talking about him, and some of the Mets fans in my fourth grade class had his jersey, so surely he must’ve been cool. One of my friends gave me a David Wright baseball card. Sure, okay. I could go with this.

I started watching games down the stretch that season and went to a few in August and September. I saw him play. He hit home runs in two of the three games I went to. And it just clicked. I got it. I saw what everyone was talking about. Now, maybe it was just because he hit a few dingers while I was watching and I was still very impressionable. Or maybe it was because we share the same first name, which probably means something to an 8-year-old. But mostly, there was just something about him. It was something that set him apart from Carlos Beltran or Paul Lo Duca or Tom Glavine or even Jose Reyes. Whatever it was, it was tough to put your finger on, but I saw it, and I bought in. I was all aboard the David Wright train.

With Piazza gone the next year, Wright became my first-ever favorite player. The first jersey I ever got was a No. 5.

In the days since Wright announced his retirement, I’ve watched copious amounts of videos. I’ve seen tons of highlight videos, tribute videos, clips of his milestone moments, clips of him with kids, clips of him arguing with umpires, low-quality videos of RBI singles from 2005 and many of the interviews he has done. Some of these interviews were from when he was young, while some were more recent, and the significance of them ranged anywhere from “The Tonight Show with David Letterman” to an amateurishly-done story that some obscure media outlet did on him granting a wish.

Watching these interviews of Wright — always articulating and conducting himself in a manner that was usually way more professional than necessary — one sentiment he repeatedly expressed was that, from an early age, he knew he wasn’t the most talented player on the field. He didn’t have the God-given gifts that the other players around him did. He did, however, have an undying love for the sport, and a promise he made to himself to outwork everyone else around him.

Of course, it’s not like Wright exactly lacked in latent talent either. Even the best coaches in the sport couldn’t dream of teaching the innate bat speed he once possessed, or the elite strike zone judgement he had since he was a prospect, or the natural opposite-field power he constantly displayed. That stuff comes naturally.

That said, I don’t think anyone who watched him play for 13 seasons or followed his repeated comeback attempts the last few years could ever deny Wright’s work ethic, or the desire and the drive he had not only to play this game, but excel at every single aspect of it.

David was correct; he wasn’t gifted the blazing speed or the prodigious power or the big throwing arm. He never led the league in anything. He was just good at everything, and he was good at everything because he made himself good at everything; because he refused to have deficiencies. That palpable desire to be perfect and the transparent, ubiquitous passion for this game that Wright possessed is really the “something” that instantly drew us all in to him. Fans can really keen in on and appreciate that kind of stuff. That’s what really sparked this remarkable relationship Wright holds with this fanbase.

And that is a relationship that has only been strengthened by Wright’s actions off the field since then. He has gone to unprecedented lengths in order to be accessible to fans and has spent a significant portion of his life making sure he gave back to this fanbase, which we never deserved and he never owed to us. He still did it anyway, though, because our relationship with him is just as important to him as it is to us.

That’s what makes David Wright so authentic. He is genuine, earnest and sincere. He is as real as they come. He was a perfect player and remains seemingly a perfect person. That is why a sellout crowd will make its way out to Citi Field on Saturday just to say goodbye. He has given his life to this game, his body to this team and his heart to its fans. Now it’s our turn to give back to Wright. Saturday night is our chance to say thank you.

Photo credit: Noah K. Murray – USA Today Sports

It was painful to watch for any multitude of reasons, none of which were eased by the fact that we’ve all known this day was coming for two years. Because we have. Even the most optimistic among us knew, on some level, that David Wright wasn’t coming back. On Thursday, he admitted it too.

“Throughout this process, a lot of times my mind and my heart were telling me one thing, and my body was telling me something completely different,” he said at a press conference. “It was always, ‘I can do this. I can do this.’ The goal when I was injured was to come back as the player I expected myself to be. Once things ramped up and baseball activities got tougher and the games became for me more of ‘Just let me get through this and survive it,’ it became more apparent to me that that goal is now, ‘I just want to put this uniform on again.’ . . . I needed the games for my body to finally tell me, ‘It’s not happening. It’s not working.’”

I wanted to believe that he could do it, that he could overcome the spinal stenosis. I wanted it for me and for him and his daughters. So I guess, technically, my wish was granted. I get one last David Wright game. But to get there, I had to watch a man admit it’s over.

Sandwiched between John Ricco and Jeff Wilpon, Wright sat in the Citi Field media room and cried. In orange and blue, he said his body had failed him. It had been 840 days since his last major league game, since he stood in a batter’s box and watched strike three cross home plate. He’d tried some minor league games, a few that Gameday had recorded, a few it didn’t, but we knew this was the end. The lies we told ourselves were fantasies. “He’s just rusty!” we proclaimed. “His bat speed is still there,” we pretended. “The arm strength will be back, just give it time,” we whispered. We knew it wasn’t true. But we lied because we wanted to believe it. We lied because the alternative was failure.

We can’t lie anymore, because Wright told us not to.

“As far as regrets go, I can’t say I have regrets,” he said Thursday. “I felt like, I knew one way to play the game, I tried to play that way, and there’s not a lot of people out there who can say they made it to the big leagues, that they got to be with one team for their entire career, and got to captain that team, and to have the success that, at least in my mind, I like to think that I had.”

And with that, a 13-year career ends.

For me, Wright was the Mets. He was young when I was young and he was sad when I was sad and he was hopeful when I was hopeful. I will never be a Hall of Fame-level talent at anything except convincing myself that I’m on Amazon’s website anyway, I may as well just buy the boxset of “The O.C.,” but I lived vicariously through him, because that’s what sports fandom is at its core.

Wright was good, but the Mets were bad. Of the 13 seasons he played at least part of, the Mets finished atop the NL East just twice. There was heartbreak and disappointment and a lot of bad baseball. But there was also Wright, who never complained, never grumbled, never asked for a trade. He was pure joy to watch, and he played like he enjoyed doing so. He was just there, every day. Until he wasn’t.

We’ve had two years to prepare for goodbye. Wright sat at that press conference and said it’s over. Now we have to do the same.

We lie because we don’t want to admit the truth. We lie because we don’t want to acknowledge that we’ll never see another Wright home run or a sidearm throw from third. We lie because we’re not used to watching people give up. Athletes, overwhelmingly, don’t give up. They push their careers as far as they can go and then hang on for a few more years. Wright didn’t get that option. His body betrayed him and stole him from us before his time was up.

We lie because admitting it’s over is admitting defeat.

Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports

A nice player.

Is there anything more deflating than being reassured by a non-Mets fan that David Wright was a nice player? They say gaining different perspectives is enriching, but I’d rather spend the rest of my existence with my head buried in the sand, deaf to how people who didn’t cheer for Wright or the Mets, feel about him. You don’t get to tell me he was a “nice player.” I get to tell you he was a first-ballot Hall of Famer before the universe robbed him of a career Back 9. That he was a mensch of the highest order. That I’ve spent half of my life staking my emotions to him and his performance, which is too long for anyone to refer to him as a “nice player” and not an all-time great.

“Man. Do you know the worst part about all this?” I’d ask them rhetorically. “Wright posted his career-best OPS + of 156 in 2013, his age-30 season. Some great years were still to come. He was already fighting through injuries, sure, but he still played in 134 games the following season and was two years away from the spinal stenosis diagnosis that would signal the beginning of the end of his career.”

“By all accounts, the house lights were flickering in 2013 and Act 2 was starting,” I’d continue in what’s inexplicably turned into a theater metaphor. “And while it was going to be more awkwardly paced and feature fewer showstopping numbers than Act 1, it would be a worthy piece of the whole David Wright Show.”

But of course, that’s not how it went and that’s how we wound up here: with Wright retiring five years later at the age of 35 — having not played more than 40 games in a season since 2014 and sitting out the last two years entirely — to a chorus of “pretty good” and “nice player.”

The thing is, everything about the way David Wright is viewed by the 29 other fanbases and impartial viewers is true. He’s retiring as a pretty great, but not Hall-of-Fame-worthy player; as the greatest hitter in Mets history who could have amassed numbers worthy of making him one of the greatest hitters in MLB history if his body allowed. Just because we loved him more doesn’t make these things untrue. I’ve acquiesced to this objective reality, even if I haven’t quite gotten used to the fact that his career is indeed over.

And because Wright’s road doesn’t lead to Cooperstown, it’s time to reflect on perhaps the saddest, if not the most poetically Metsian layer to his retirement. When Wright signed a seven-year extension in 2012, it appeared the Mets would finally have a completist. Here was Wright, who was going to be an all-time great who would spend his career with the Mets, set every team record and inevitably land in the Hall of Fame. Here was our Chipper, our Jeter. Our Gwynn, Schmidt, Banks and Bench.

That it didn’t end like that could not be sadder. Or more appropriate. The Mets finally had a completist, and his body started decomposing as soon as he crossed the wrong side of 30.

It always seems to go this way with the team’s all-time greats. The greatest player in franchise history, Tom Seaver, was unceremoniously traded to the Reds after 11 seasons, three Cy Youngs, two pennants and one World Series, due to a salary dispute. (The Mets? Salary dispute? You don’t say.) Doc Gooden had an electric half-decade before drug issues irreversibly damaged his career. Darryl Strawberry had eight monster years before signing as a free agent with the Dodgers, where personal issues would envelop his career as well. Mike Piazza, on the other hand, already enjoyed seven monster years as a Dodger before being traded to the Mets (via the Marlins, of course). He joined Seaver as just the second player to don a Mets cap in Cooperstown, but the Dodgers may have the stronger claim to the best years of his career.

No such asterisk would be needed for Wright. In December 2012, it was clear he was going to be a Met for life, and undoubtedly the greatest Met of all time. He’d assure us that he wouldn’t just be the greatest Met by his numbers, but by his spirit too, earning just the fourth captainship in team history before the 2013 season. Save for the gigantic baseball for a head, he was Mr. Met — Mr. Met in a way that Piazza, and even Seaver for reasons much to his chagrin, were not. He loved this franchise and its fans, and the franchise and fans loved back five-fold.

That it was all set up to end so perfectly and magically, only for it to fall apart as his body did the same, feels like, in retrospect, the only possible outcome for us. For the Mets.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom after 2014, which weirdly gets sort of lost now. Wright came back in earnest next August and was an integral part of a team that won the NL pennant, finally checking a box in his career he fell painstakingly short of doing nine years prior. He hit a home run in his first World Series at-bat in Queens. I was there. It was awesome. He’ll get to play in one or two final games at Citi Field in front of his daughter and tens of thousands of adoring fans, and that will be awesome too.

I’m supremely sad Wright’s career is ending this way, but I’m also taking a strange sort of solace in it as a Mets fan. We lost Seaver to the Reds. We lost Doc to drugs. We lost sole claim of Piazza’s prime to the Dodgers. We lost David Wright to his back. The Mets are good at losing. Isn’t there a sort of twisted comfort to be taken in that?

Photo credit: Brad Penner – USA Today Sports

What’s fun is extrapolating Mets stats from their historic small-sample stretch. Like this: “Winning at an 11-1 rate over a 162-game season would produce a 148-14 record.” Or this: “Met catchers are on pace to hit 13 triples this season, more than all but one player (Charlie Blackmon) hit in 2017.” In that spirit, the BP Mets staff will gaze into their crystal ball and project…

The Team’s Dollars Spent on DL players

As of Saturday, the Mets had spent $2.9 million on disabled players. David Wright accounts for two-thirds of that total, but the Todd Frazier signing proves the Mets have no plans for Wright to play again (and we know the team recovers 75 percent of Wright’s salary under an insurance policy while he remains injured). So while it looks like the 2018 Mets have spent more money on the DL than any team except the Giants, exempting Wright’s cost puts the Mets toward the bottom third of the league.

Granted, this one seemed more promising before the 25-man roster was stripped of both its catchers over 48 hours. But still. Michael Conforto is back and raking, the starting staff (sans superfluous Jason Vargas) is shoving, and the bullpen is thriving despite Anthony Swarzak’s absence. The 2018 Mets have always been a bet on health. If the new training staff can keep its players upright all season, minimizing DL dollars lost, they could be in for a run to rival the 108-win 1986 World Series team. — Scott D. Simon

Amed Rosario’s Strikeout Rate

Much was expected from Amed Rosario when he received the call to the majors last season. The Mets’ shortstop of the future ranked eighth on our main site’s 2017 top 100 prospect list, but Rosario disappointed with the bat to the tune of a .248/.271/.394 triple-slash. Perhaps even more troubling was the 28.8% of Rosario’s at-bats that ended in a strikeout, which was more than 10% higher than his minor league career K-rate. Through his first 43 plate appearances of the 2018 season, Rosario’s K-rate is sitting at 32.6%. It’s a troubling trend for the young shortstop that limits his upside as a hitter, especially considering the lack of power he’s shown thus far. I think it’s reasonable to expect Rosario to get his K% down to about 23% by the end of the season, which would be a huge boon to his batting average and on-base percentage. Rosario exhibited terrific bat to ball skills throughout his years in the minors; it’s only a matter of time until it translates to the majors. — Alex Rosen

Brandon Nimmo’s OBP

Through April 9, before a controversial demotion and subsequent return to Flushing in the wake of a catching collapse, Brandon Nimmo put up a .600 OBP, including four walks in just 15 plate appearances. A .600 OBP on the season would put him behind only Barry Bonds’ 2004 in the record books. It would beat Ted Williams’ 1941 and Babe Ruth’s 1923 and Mickey Mantle’s 1957. A .600 OBP would make Nimmo a legend. He’s not that, probably. He’s almost assuredly worse than Bonds and Williams and Ruth and Mantle. He’s not a .600 OBP guy. But he deserves a chance to prove that. — Kate Feldman

Noah Syndergaard’s Zone Percentage

Our friend Noah Syndergaard hasn’t been at his sharpest to this point in the season. Interestingly enough, before Sunday’s start, Syndergaard had thrown just 32.1% of his pitches in the strike zone despite a career average around 47%. For a guy with as much talent and confidence as anyone, it’s more than a bit surprising to see that he’s seventh lowest in Zone% in the majors, despite Mickey Callaway’s constant encouragement for his pitchers to “be aggressive in the zone.” Perhaps it’s just a bit of rust or a case of Syndergaard being too cute, but it’s easy to envision that number jumping back up to his career norm by the end of the 2018 campaign. — Adam Kaufman

Jay Bruce’s Defensive Stats

There’s lots of fun to be had with small sample size numbers, but you can probably have the most fun with defensive metrics, which can be completely ludicrous without sufficient data inputs. As of Friday, Jay Bruce stood out in particular with a -60.5 UZR/150 in 93 innings of play in right field. For reference, the worst outfielder season on record by UZR/150 was Brad Hawpe in 2008 with the Rockies, who posted an obscene -44.7 in 1,172 innings. What’s more, it took Manny Ramirez around 4,000 innings to accumulate -60 career UZR. So basically, UZR/150 is saying that 150 games of Bruce at this rate would be about as valuable as 4,000 innings of Manny in your outfield. Oof. — David Capobianco

Michael Conforto’s OPS

Quick trivia! How many times has a Met completed a full season with an OPS over 1.000 (min. 500 PA)? Once. In 56 years of franchise history, only Mike Piazza has cleared quadruple digits, finishing 2000 with a robust 1.012 mark. A week ago, Michael Conforto had a 1.021 OPS in over 16 plate appearances. We’re doing this exercise primarily to illustrate the preposterous nature of small-sample sizes, so while it’s irresponsible to say Conforto will sustain this mark based on 16 turns at the plate, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility in general. Conforto had a .939 OPS in 440 PA last year. He’s now a year more disciplined at the plate with as much pop as he’s ever had. And if Mickey Callaway continues to sandwich Conforto at leadoff between a position player and Yoenis Cespedes, he’ll typically have the upper hand on opposing pitchers before even seeing a pitch. – Jordan Rabinowitz

Mets’ Catchers’ Stolen Bases Allowed

While the Mets have provided critics barely anything to complain about through their first 13 games, the trend of allowing stolen bases has continued. Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki allowed 12 of 13 runners to successfully steal before their injuries.  The current roster has weak-armed Jose Lobaton, who has permitted 79% of baserunners to steal successfully in his career (in addition to two already this season), and an inexperienced Tomas Nido. Sandy Alderson and staff may take this opportunity to go out and upgrade a position that has been weak for the Amazins for quite some time now.  If a trade is not made or a veteran is not signed soon, look for the Mets’ abysmal number of stolen bases allowed to continue to rise. – Tyler Oringer

Steven Matz’s Home Run Rate

As of Sunday morning, Steven Matz’s HR/FB rate was 30.8%. That means almost one out of every three fly balls allowed by Matz this year have gone over the outfield wall. Let us assume he holds those fly ball and home run rates throughout the season, and we will, perhaps foolishly, project him for 150 innings (he has never surpassed 145). In this scenario, he will allow 43 home runs this season, which is just seven shy of the major league record. Of course, when Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven allwed 50 home runs in 1986, he did so in 270 innings pitched. Were we to project Matz to throw 180 innings with this rate, he’d allow 51 home runs. I love to see records fall, but this is one I could do without. — Zane Moran

The Bullpen’s Strand Rate

The Mets entered Sunday’s game against the Brewers with a 1.62 bullpen ERA, the best in baseball. Last year the Mets’ bullpen – with a lot of the same guys – posted an NL-worst 4.82 ERA. Mickey Callaway comes from the Indians’ innovative school of intelligent reliever usage, so maybe he’s brought better performance from Cleveland. However, the biggest thing going for the pen right now is luck. The Mets have stranded an astounding 98.7 percent of opposing baserunners so far; average pitchers only strand around 73 percent of opposing runners. It’s reasonable to expect the Mets’ bullpen to be above average at stranding runners all season, since they are one of the best at striking hitters out. But even the best bullpens end up below an 80 percent strand rate for an entire season.  — Noah Grand

Yoenis Cespedes’s Strikeout Rate

Yoenis Cespedes has struggled in 2018 despite the Mets’ overall success. He’s striking out over 40 percent of the time (as of April 14).  Unfortunately, his high strikeout rate for could continue throughout the season. Opponents are attacking him with changeups and fastballs while relying less on cutters, sliders and curveballs. This change in approach has knocked Cespedes off his game. He is swinging more at pitches both inside and outside the strike zone but making less contact. His contract rate is down from his career average of 77 percent to 69.4 percent, while his swinging strike rate has jumped to 15 percent. We’ll see the rest of the season if Cespedes can adjust his approach. If not, expect to see this abnormal strikeout rate continue. — Seth Rubin

Photo Credit: Steve Mitchell – USA TODAY Sports

But what if 2018 were the brightest timeline? The storybook would feature a first-time manager with a forward-thinking approach, a free agent who signed with his hometown nine for a discount, and a bunch of bold yet optimistic predictions coming true. At the risk of jinxing the National League’s best team to date, so far, so good. So long as we’re dreaming — the 6-1 start *is* a dream, right? — we asked the BP Mets staff to ask and answer some What-ifs? about Flushing’s favorites.

What if spinal stenosis wasn’t a thing?

David Wright was an All-Star in 2013, when he .307/.390/.514, a line that was 54% better than league average. That was his seventh Midsummer Classic appearance in eight years. Then, at age 31, Wright got old in a hurry. He stopped stealing bases, lost 140 points of SLG, and notably lost the ability to put anything behind his throws from third base. The culprit was a degenerative back condition that Wright will have to live with for the rest of his life. But what this question supposes is: What if he didn’t?

Through his first 10 seasons, Wright was a career .301/.382/.506 hitter. His seven-year peak produced 36.2 bWAR, a bit behind the pace produced by the 14 Hall of Fame third basemen. If Wright had hewed to the standard aging curve, he’d have another 15 WAR on his resume and be projected to deliver another 3 wins in 2018. Wright could well have been the next Met inducted into Cooperstown. Now he’ll have to settle for a retired number and a plaque near the Citi Field team store. – Scott D. Simon

What if the Mets were publicly owned?

After decades of PR blunders, wouldn’t it be great if the Mets were publicly owned? Years ago I imagined that the Wilpons would lose so much money from the Bernie Madoff scandal that they would be forced to sell, like the Green Bay Packers’ owners nearly a century ago. Who knows: it may be easier these days to crowdfund a Mets purchase than to find one person to buy out the Wilpons.

But what would a publicly owned team do? Would they refuse to participate in the collusion holding down free agency this offseason? Would fan-owners be asked to fork over more money for a middle reliever to replace Hansel Robles? Would the GM have to listen to #MetsTwitter’s calls to trade everybody? New owners skew towards ambitious moves or Derek Jeter-level fire sales. Maybe broad public ownership would surprise everyone by being too diffuse to make big waves, making it easier for everyone to do their jobs. – Noah Grand

What if Rafael Montero had turned into the pitcher we thought he would when he was a prospect?

It’s easy to write Rafael Montero off as a competent starting pitcher. In fact, you should do exactly that. You should have done that long before the Tommy John surgery. But for a while, he wasn’t bad. He was good. He was supposed to be better than Jacob deGrom. Imagine if Montero had been part of the Five Aces, if that legendary rotation had included one more flamethrower. It’s a weird thought, isn’t it?

Maybe Steven Matz would have been allowed to be hurt. Maybe Matt Harvey doesn’t have to try for nine innings in Game 5. Maybe Chris Flexen gets more time to develop. Prospects don’t always pan out, no matter what teams insist about a second-round draft pick that just doesn’t make signing Jake Arrieta worth it. Montero didn’t pan out. But what if he had? – Kate Feldman

What if the Mets never signed R.A. Dickey to a minor-league contract in 2010?

After throwing 64.1 mediocre innings for the Minnesota Twins in 2009, R.A Dickey signed a minor league contract with an invitation to Mets spring training. The knuckleballer would go on to start 91 games for the Mets, winning a Cy Young award in 2012 on his way to becoming one of the best starting pitchers in the game. In one of Sandy Alderson’s best moves as GM, he traded Dickey to the Toronto Blue Jays after the 2012 season for a package of players that included Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud.

Syndergaard has developed into one of the best starting pitchers in the game as a Met, while d’Arnaud has been intermittently healthy and productive. Dickey was never able to repeat the success he had in New York, and the Mets reached the 2015 World Series with Syndergaard on the mound and d’Arnaud behind the plate.  Dickey’s success as a Met allowed the organization to build its next contender much sooner than anyone could have hoped. – Alex Rosen

What if the Mets successfully traded Wilmer Flores and Zack Wheeler to the Brewers for Carlos Gomez at the 2015 deadline?

There are so many Butterfly Effects in this multiverse. Chiefly, the Mets would’ve gotten an injury-plagued Carlos Gomez, who had an 85 OPS+ with the Astros in the second half of 2015, instead of Yoenis Cespedes (17 HR in 57 games, 155 OPS+), who supercharged the offense to such a degree that for about a week, the baseball commentariat believed he deserved to win MVP over Bryce Harper. Oh, and he led the Mets to a surprise division title and their first pennant in 15 years, and is now cararguably the Mets’ most dangerous power threat since Mike Piazza (let’s debate the merits of Carlos Beltrán another time).

Then there’s the case of the insane night where Wilmer Flores cried himself into Mets lore. If Sandy Alderson likes what he sees in Gomez’s medicals, Flores gets pulled at the appropriate juncture, sheds no (public) tears and becomes the answer to a Mets trivia question. He never even gets a chance to become one of the most indelible folk heroes in team history two days later. This is probably, not so secretly, the saddest part of this whole dystopia.

There are also the moments within these greater arcs we never get, with broad implications: Is Daniel Murphy still the same, “net negative” Met without his Ruthian postseason? Does Sandy Alderson lose his job? Are Ruben Tejada and Chase Utley friends? Question marks abound.

Admittedly, the team would be minus a Zack Wheeler and plus a Michael Fulmer, which may be the only silver lining Mets fans can enjoy in these other universes. Because what happens when the Carlos Gomez-led Mets inevitably miss the playoffs? Maybe they still sign Céspedes in the offseason and make a similar run in 2016, but who knows? The Mets we know have never been able to put it all together and ride their young, controllable pitching talent to consistent division titles, but at least they had 2015. The Mets affected by this particular butterfly didn’t, and yes, now I’m depressed. – Jordan Rabinowitz

Photo credit: Tommy Gilligan – USA Today Sports; Photo illustration: Scott D. Simon