What wasn’t memorable about that night, though, was the team around Santana. The 2012 Mets were, well, not very good. There were a lot of bad players on that team. Now, a lot has happened in the five years since that day for both the Mets as a team, and all of these players who were on the team that night. And while we know what’s happened to the Mets since then, we might not know what has happened to all of the players who were on that team. So let’s check in with all the players who were on the Mets’ 25-man roster on June 1, 2012, and see how things have gone for them over the last 1,825 days.

Lucas Duda, Daniel Murphy, R.A. Dickey, and David Wright: These are the only four players left from that game who are still on MLB rosters right now. We don’t really need to catch up with these guys, because we know all about how they’re doing. Duda is now a Good first baseman, Murphy is a star on the Nationals, and Dickey’s having a rough time of it on the Braves. Let’s not talk about Wright.

Mike Baxter: Baxter famously destroyed his body to preserve the no-hitter, but that was pretty much his peak. After the 2013 season, he was claimed off waivers by the Dodgers, whom he played literally one MLB game for in 2014. In 2015, he signed on with the Cubs, and had a cup of coffee in the big leagues with them, but didn’t fare well. He spent last year in the Mariners’ minor league system, but did not sign back with them for 2017. He remains a free agent, and his baseball career may be all but over.

Kirk Nieuwenhuis: And here I thought I never had to spell that name again. The former high school football player has spent the last two seasons with the Brewers, and has done exactly how you think he has. Last year, he walked 14% of the time, played solid defense, posted a .176 ISO, and struck out 33.9% of the time. This year, he was designated for assignment and later sent to Triple-A after a 2-for-25 start with 15 strikeouts. He’s still Kirk Nieuwenhuis.

Ike Davis: The no-hitter occurred before the Ike Davis ship had completely sunk, but the iceberg had been struck and the lower levels were beginning to flood. The Mets correctly chose Lucas Duda over Davis in 2014, and since then Davis has been released by the Pirates, Athletics, Rangers, and Yankees. His last MLB stint came last year on the Yankees for eight games. He then signed with the Dodgers this offseason, where he is now buried on the first base depth chart behind Adrian Gonzalez, Cody Bellinger, and apparently Chase Utley.

Josh Thole: He put up a 29 wRC+ in 50 games last year with the Blue Jays, and is now in the Diamondbacks’ minor league system. He underwent surgery over the offseason to repair a torn hamstring and is estimated to be out until around August.

Omar Quintanilla: After his Mets career ended, Quintanilla had a two-game stint in the Rockies minor league system before heading off to the Mexican League. He’s spent the last two years getting very infrequent playing time for Toros de Tijuana, totaling only 27 PAs over these past two seasons.

Jon Niese: Niese is still in the Yankees system and has been working in extended spring training.

Dillon Gee: Gee is pitching for the Rangers Triple-A affiliate. He has a 3.88 ERA in nine starts in the PCL so far, and has made one appearance for the Rangers’ MLB team.

Bobby Parnell: Parnell was exiled from the Mets after his disastrous 2015, and hasn’t had much success since then. He went to the Tigers last season and pitched only 5.1 innings in the majors, and this season is pitching in Triple-A for the Royals. He owns a 4.71 ERA in 21 innings so far.

Vinny Rottino: Did you know Rottino played on the 2012 Mets? Well he did, and he was on the 25-man roster for the no-no. He’d floated around the minor leagues since 2012, and finally retired from baseball last September. Hopefully he can now start up a pizza roll business and call it Rottino’s Pizza Rolls.

…That was a funny joke and you should laugh at it.

Andres Torres: Torres retired from baseball after 2014 after playing his final season in 2013 for the Giants. Sadly, Torres lost his wife, Soannie, to cancer this past December at the age of 37. Torres is still heavily involved in the Bay Area community, and is doing what he can to inspire inner city kids.

Scott Hairston: Jerry’s younger brother spent time with the Cubs and the Nationals in the two years after his Mets tenure ended. He was signed by the White Sox before the 2016 season, but was released after spring training. He technically remains a free agent, though it certainly looks as if his playing days are over.

Mike Nickeas: The non-elite prospect played one MLB game for the Blue Jays in 2013 after the Mets traded him, and retired from baseball in 2015. He went back to Georgia Tech to complete his degree in business administration last year, and now serves as the volunteer bench coach on the Georgia Tech baseball team. He was also the bench coach for the Great Britain National Team in the WBC qualifiers last fall.

Jordany Valdespin: Released by the Mets because of numerous attitude issues, Vladespin spent time with the Marlins and Tigers before heading to the Mexican League this year. He was promptly released in April by Leones de Yucatan after just 14 games with them because they couldn’t stand him either. However, he signed on to play for Olmecas de Tabasco just two days later, and he’s hitting .371/.470/.556 in 34 games with them. So that’s good. Valdespin is also now immortalized on Mets pre-and-post-game shows with Nelson Figueroa’s daily “I’m the Man Right Now” segments.

What’s more, the awful music video for the terrible rap song about him was removed from YouTube for some reason, though the atrocity still exists in audio form. As of this writing, that video has 11 views, and at least three of them are from me.

Jeremy Hefner: After two Tommy John surgeries, Hefner decided to retire from professional baseball this past January at the age of 31. It’s a sad end for Hefner, who looked like he had some potential as a useful fifth starter/swingman, which the Mets could really use right about now. But Hefner is now serving as an advance scout for the Twins, and continues to keep a strong social media presence along with his wife, Sarah.

Jon Rauch: Arguably the Mets’ best reliever in 2012, Rauch and his neck tattoos last pitched for the Marlins in 2013. He’s retired now, and owns a car shop called Bullpen Garage in Tucson, Arizona. According to the shop’s site, it is dedicated to off-road and 4×4 vehicles.

Ramon Ramirez: You may remember Ramirez as the guy who pulled his hamstring running in from the bullpen in the celebration after the no-hitter. After an unsuccessful season with the Mets in 2012, he had minor league stints with the Giants, Mariners, Orioles, Angels, and the Mexican League from 2013-2016, though he’s not signed anywhere for this season. He also has the most detailed Wikipedia page I’ve ever seen for a journeyman reliever.

Elvin Ramirez, Frank Francisco, Jack Egbert: These were relievers on the 2012 Mets. They were on the 25-man roster on June 1, 2012. They are no longer in baseball. This is the most information I could find about any of them.

Tim Byrdak: Byrdak was also a victim of anterior capsule surgery. He went under the knife in 2012, and it basically ended his career. He was able to return to the Mets in 2013, but only for a handful of innings, and has not played baseball anywhere since then. He has dabbled in announcing, even calling a few Mets spring training games with Josh Lewin in 2014, but he’s since gone back to college and is currently attending Robert Morris University working towards a degree.

Johan Santana: Santana made only 10 more starts in his MLB career after his no-hitter. He had a second anterior capsule surgery in 2013, which many thought would end his career, but to his credit, has tried his best to make a comeback.

Santana signed with the Orioles in 2014 on a minor-league deal. On June 6 of that season, he tore his Achilles tendon and missed the rest of the season. In 2015, he attempted another comeback, but halted his comeback attempt once again due to a toe infection. He went unsigned in 2016, though his agent said he was still trying to comeback. Reports were that Santana was going to pitch in the Venezuelan Winter League over the offseason, though I was unable to confirm if he actually did.

Santana, now 38, has likely seen his playing career come to an end. Nobody can deny the valor he showed towards the end, gutting out a 134-pitch effort while not fully recovered from major surgery and continuously trying to fight his way back into baseball, but it never worked out for him. Santana was legitimately one of the best pitchers in baseball for a decade, and his Mets career outside of the no-hitter may forever go underappreciated as well, due to the way it ended and the amount of money he was owed.

***

This was a bad team. There were other players not mentioned here, because they were not on the 25-man roster on June 1, 2012, due to injury. Jason Bay, Ruben Tejada, Ronny Cedeno, and Miguel Batista are a few of the names left off this list, and it’s probably a good thing they were. The fact that Santana was able to throw his no-hitter with this cast of characters around him makes it all the more impressive.

Photo credit: Kate Feldman

Hopefully everyone enjoyed it because it will be quite a while before another Met is honored in Cooperstown. This year’s ballot and numerous others down the road are devoid of obvious candidates from the franchise. The gap extends beyond players who enter the Hall of Fame in a Mets hat, too. There are essentially zero likely upcoming Hall of Famers who played even one game for the Mets.

The period between Seaver’s induction in ’92 and Piazza’s last year actually saw a good portion of former Mets elected to the Hall of Fame who simply did not don the cap:

These Hall of Famers range from beloved by Mets fans (Carter) to reviled (Alomar), but they’re all Hall of Famers regardless. There is no one like them who figures to be remotely close to election over the next decade.

2017: Jeff Kent, Billy Wagner, Gary Sheffield

The 2017 ballot had three holdovers who were modest candidates, but do not currently stand anywhere close to inevitable Hall of Fame induction. Kent is the leading home run hitter among second basemen in big-league history and spent most of the first few seasons of his career with the Mets from 1992 through 1996 until he was dealt for Carlos Baerga. In four years on the ballots though, he has never topped the mere 17 percent mark.

Wagner was a top-flight reliever who signed a four-year, $43 million deal with the Mets prior to the 2006 season, and he is probably the most popular Met in this group. He did have some awesome years closing for the Mets until falling victim to Tommy John surgery late in the ’08 campaign. His Cooperstown case is fascinating in comparison to the much more acclaimed Trevor Hoffman, since his rate stats are much better and he chose to retire early rather than being forced out by ineffectiveness like Hoffman. Unfortunately, most BBWAA writers don’t see it that way—he only received 10.5% of the vote in 2016 and 10.2% in 2017.

( * – Editor’s Note: Here’s another, less comprehensive breakdown of Wagner’s HoF case.)

Sheffield’s connection to the Mets is the loosest of the three, but the slugger did spend the last season of his 22-year career in Queens, smashing dinger number 500 in the fourth-ever game at Citi Field. If there weren’t any PED connections to Sheffield, he would probably be doing a lot better given the 509 career homers and .292/.393/.514 triple slash. He has absolutely been penalized and has never even approached Kent’s low voting levels during his three years on the ballot.

2018: Johan Santana

There is no getting around the fact that it’s depressing that Santana is almost Hall of Fame-eligible already at the mere age of 37. He is still attempting to come back and pitch in the majors for the first time since 2012; all power to him! The odds are that he will indeed hit the Hall of Fame ballot next year, and he is the Mets’ only legitimate candidate aside from the carryovers.

The problem is that Santana just didn’t last long enough to receive serious Hall of Fame consideration, though as expert Jay Jaffe has argued, he has an intriguing case based on peak. After all, he won two Cy Young Awards, contended for three others (including 2008 with the Mets), and finished with a better career ERA (3.20, 74 ERA-) than southpaw luminaries Steve Carlton and Randy Johnson.

Jaffe did ultimately decide that it wasn’t an overly strong case, particularly with superior starters like Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina already struggling for induction. Maybe a Veterans Committee To Be Named Later will look at Santana more favorably, but either way, it’s going to take some time.

2019: David Cone, Bret Saberhagen

Unless you’re a devoted member of the Jason Bay family, there are zero new Met names of note ahead on the 2019 BBWAA ballot. So the “best new chance” turns to the Veterans Committee, which according to the Adam Darowski will have their “Today’s Game” committee meet in December 2018.

The top Mets there will be Cone and Saberhagen, two pitchers who saw their greatest fame outside Queens with championship teams in the Bronx and Kansas City, respectively. Both went one-and-done on their initial Hall of Fame efforts in the late-2000s, but Jaffe recently outlined how they both deserved a better fate since advanced metrics really like them. It’s hard to envision a Veterans Committee truly appreciating them though since they have elected precisely zero living players since Bill Mazeroski in 2001. Alas.

2020-21: [tumbleweed]

The Veterans Committee is primarily reviewing players during these two election cycles who predate the Mets’ entire existence, and the best new Mets-related candidate on either is Bobby Abreu, who despite an interesting comp to Vladimir Guerrero, will not come close to induction. So…

It’s going to be a long, long time before another Met has a serious immediate shot Cooperstown. ESPN’s David Schoenfeld predicted that the next one to be enshrined will be Carlos Beltran in 2029, and that’s not a bad guess at all. His career is ending soon, and while he’s a better candidate than everyone else mentioned so far (and David Wright), it will likely take him a few years to climb the BBWAA voting ladder. He should get there eventually though.

The unfortunate reality is that Beltran will probably be the first Met of any kind elected since Piazza. Until then, Met fans will have to settle for Chipper Jones pointing at his son Shea in the crowd next year, I guess. Bleak.

Let the long wait begin.

Photo Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports

Fortunately for Collins, Alexei Ramirez rendered this point moot by breaking up Matz’s bid with a ground-ball single to right on his 105th offering. The post-game questions about Matz still brought one name from the Mets’ recent past to mind: Johan Santana. It was, of course, just a few years ago that the resurgent lefty snapped the Mets’ 50-year no-hit drought with his gem on June 1, 2012.

The story of Santana’s no-hitter has been spun into a cautionary tale, as he needed 134 pitches to get through it. He missed all of 2011 with shoulder surgery, and two months after the no-no, he made his last career start. Santana eventually needed another shoulder surgery and despite multiple comeback attempts, he has yet to return to a big-league mound. So the story has been that Santana’s grueling effort to complete the no-hitter caused damage to his shoulder, thus crippling the remainder of his career.

As numerous Met fans have brought up time and time again though, the story is not that simple. A high pitch count is not what sent Santana’s career to the pits. The Mets did what they could to give Santana a reprieve after the outing. He had six days of rest before his next outing and pitched with one extra day of rest twice during the remainder of June. He had a bad game against a Yankees offense that crushed 245 homers but still ended up with a 3.60 ERA and .727 OPS against over five starts in the remainder of June.

Santana was healthy, and there appeared to be little cause for concern regarding his no-hitter at that point. The problems only started on July 6 against the Cubs. Naturally, it was Mets nemesis Reed Johnson who did the damage. He hit a leadoff homer, but importantly, he hit a weak grounder between the pitcher’s mound and first base in the fifth inning.

Johnson ran over Santana’s ankle to get the base hit. Santana took some warm-up pitches and stayed in the game. He then promptly allowed hits to six of the next seven batters to put the game out of reach. The 2012 All-Star Game gave him a little rest between starts, but he was smoked by the Braves and the Dodgers in his next two appearances.

The Mets then placed Santana on the DL with a right ankle sprain. The suggestion that the no-hitter caused his struggles was already out there, but Santana, Collins, and the Mets all pointed to the ankle injury as the real culprit:

The Mets believe the injury has caused Santana’s surgically repaired shoulder to become fatigued, and he needs to rest and build up arm strength.

“Ever since the ankle injury, basically he’s lost his command,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “We don’t think he can land properly … he is using all arm to pitch with, causing some fatigue in his shoulder, (but) no pain. There’s just nothing there.”

It’s not surprising that the ankle injury forced adjustments to his pitching motion. In a similar instance of a much more publicized ailment leading to something worse, the Yankees’ Chien-Ming Wang suffered a Lisfranc injury running the bases in 2008. Its subsequent effects on his delivery during rehab partlially led to the shoulder problems that ruined his career.

Santana suffered the same fate. He never quite got his mechanics back together, and after two more rocky starts in August, his Mets career was over. As it stands, Santana had an 8.27 ERA in the 10 starts after his no-hitter, providing an easy statistic for critics to reference. The July 6 ankle injury is constantly overlooked though, as again, he was fine for the rest of June following the no-hitter.

Santana’s shoulder was always going to be a risk as well, given the severity of the 2011 surgery. One long outing wasn’t going to be the difference-maker. Santana is far from the only pitcher in his mid-30s to have a night like that. For example, 36-year-old Chris Carpenters threw 132 pitches in a complete game on June 29, 2011. He was also a pitcher with a lengthy injury history. He luckily did not have any pesky outfielders stomp on his ankle and pitched to 2.93 ERA for the remainder of the season. Carpenter then helped pitch St. Louis to a World Series title.

It’s certainly not impossible for the no-hitter to have affected Santana, but given the circumstances surrounding the rest of his 2012 campaign, it doesn’t seem right to pin his rapid decline on pitch count. It’s hardly definitive that pitch counts in that range instantly lead to injury. Regardless, Santana himself has no regrets. He had the opportunity to accomplish history. Some analysts might criticize the prestige of a no-hitter these days, but they still definitely matter to the players and countless fans.

Collins might feel some regret over the no-hitter given the way the media reacted to the pitch count instead of the subsequent ankle injury. If Matz’s pitch count ran much further, Collins said he “wasn’t gonna visit the Johan Santana scenario again,” suggesting that he might have been pulled early. Provided that there aren’t any freak injuries in Matz’s future though, he probably would have been fine if he kept the no-hitter and remained in the game.

The myth of Santana’s downfall being the result of pitch count needs to die. Regrettably, based off the reactions to Matz’s no-hit attempt, it seems like it is here to stay.

Photo Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

deGrom performed so well that neither the Mets’ bats nor Familia had room to muck it up—deGrom threw a shutout in his first complete game, giving up a single hit to the opposing pitcher Zach Eflin, a moment I found equal parts infuriating and another point in my tally box for arguments against the DH.

Now more than four years out from Johan Santana’s streak-ending no-hitter, deGrom’s performance fits right into the Mets’ previously held tradition of being oh-so-close. While the Phillies actually hold the longest streak for not throwing a no-hitter—8,945 games over 58 years from 1906-1964—the new era of pitching in more recent years does make the Mets’ 8,019 games and 50-plus years without a no-hitter (from the team’s inception to 2012) feel like something special.

And statistically, it is: a fascinating bit of Baseball Prospectus history, the site published Craig Glaser’s in-depth look at the mathematical likelihood of the Mets managing to avoid a no hitter as long as they did just three days before Johan Santana broke the streak on June 1, 2012 (in the 8,020th game). At the time of Craig’s analysis, the Mets had played 8,008 games, making the probability that a team could have played that many games and that none of them would’ve been a no-hitter just 0.67 percent, and the probability that the Mets themselves could have done it just 0.32 percent. The latter number is to me particularly intriguing because, if you were rounding to the nearest whole percentage point, it’d be zero—meaning that from 1962-2012, the Mets had achieved the impossible.

The 0.32 percent also speaks to an historically very talented pitching staff. Nine Mets pitchers threw no-hitters before becoming Mets—Warren Spahn threw two. And, though technically not recognized as a no-hitter by the MLB, Pedro Martinez threw nine innings of a perfect game as an Expo in 1995 before giving up a double in the 10th. Seven pitchers also went on to pitch no-hitters after their time with the Mets—Nolan Ryan threw seven alone (!), and Hideo Nomo threw two.

And then, the streak was broken. Le sigh. I’m not going to argue that to break the streak was a shame because it was a bit of bonding material for us fans, exactly, though a part of me can’t help but ascribe to this brand of Mets masochism; I feel a perverse pride, for example, that no one is likely to touch that 1962 40-120 record, a bit of baseball history for us to claim wholly. Really, though, I just wish the no-hitter to have broken the streak was actually, like, a good one. For one thing, the foul ball Carlos Beltrán hit down the third base line in the sixth was to my eyes pretty clearly fair, though I suppose that is just the way of the game pre-video review, and many no-hitters were likely subject to similar bouts of luck (or injustices). But that Santana also threw the infamous 137 pitches despite his count limit and walked five batters doesn’t exactly scream history-making pitching perfection.

In fact, a lot of Mets pitchers have had better games. Notably, the Mets have had 38 one-hitters over the years, including one by Jonothon Niese in 2010 against the Padres and three by R.A. Dickey. (Two of these were rain-shortened games, and a few were joint efforts by multiple pitchers, but they are technically recognized by the MLB as Mets one-hitters.) Two of Dickey’s one-hitters came days after Santana broke the streak, on June 13 and June 18, 2012. Matt Harvey and Bobby Parnell together took a one-hitter into the 10th against the White Sox in 2013. And deGrom’s shutout of the Phillies on July 17 was the latest in impressive close-but-no-cigar performances.

Yet even as pitchers today are throwing harder than ever, with their value in the eyes of management having increased in Queens and across the sport, the post-Santana Mets seem to have gone straight back to carrying the torch of an exceptional starting rotation and zero no-hitters. Some of this has to do with luck and some has to do with the fielding that backs up those pitchers, but even still I can’t help but wonder whether the Mets are be headed toward another streak of improbable pitching despite their cadre of stars.

Meanwhile, the Padres are about to cross the 8,000 games sans-no-hitter streak, lasting from the team’s inception in 1969 to today. It seems unlikely that they’ll break through before reaching 8,019, but I suppose it always does. Sorry Padres fans—my heart of hearts holds a secret wish that you hold out until 8,946, if only to steal a record from those pesky Phillies.

Photo Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

April 1, 1996 — Rey Ordoñez’s Relay

The throw wasn’t mythic, but the events that followed were. At least, they were in my young mind. The best part of the highlight, obviously, is the throw. As a shortstop out in left field taking a limp relay throw, the play would have been a highlight if he were on two feet, if only for the display of accuracy and strength to the plate. Except he threw from his knees, and the throw was still accurate and strong. The other great part of the highlight is Royce Clayton’s reaction to getting thrown out. He looks like he got shot.

That play lodged the notion that Ordoñez was a great, great baseball player in my head. He wasn’t. But what more can one want in a timeless highlight than the mere mention of a person to evoke an idea in time?

— Eric Garcia-McKinley (@garcia_mckinley)

October 9, 1999 — Todd Pratt Sends the Mets to the NLCS

Many of the best highlights in baseball history come out of completely nowhere. No one predicted Bill Mazeroski would be the first hitter to win a World Series with a homer or Daniel Murphy suddenly becoming Babe Ruth in last year’s playoffs.

Sixteen years before Murphy, an even more anonymous player stole the show. Todd Pratt was not even supposed to be in the lineup in Game 4 of the 1999 NLDS against the Diamondbacks. Hell, he was fortunate to even be in a uniform; three years prior, the backup catcher was out of baseball entirely. The Mariners cut him in spring training and he spent most of the next year coaching at Bucky Dent’s baseball school in Florida while also managing a Domino’s franchise.

By necessity, the Mets reached out to him for catching depth, and he worked his way up from Triple-A Norfolk to become new star Mike Piazza’s regular backup. In 1999, the Mets were back in the playoffs for the first time in 11 years but suddenly without their franchise catcher, as an allergic reaction to a cortisone shot forced Piazza to the bench in the middle of the NLDS. They overcame the big loss to win Game 3 and had Arizona on the brink of defeat in extra innings of Game 4. Up stepped Pratt, who had just 16 homers during his seven-year career.

Pratt crushed the pitch from Matt Mantei deep into center field. Steve Finley ran back to the warning track and jumped for the ball. It seemed like he might have a play:

Finley juuuuuuust missed it, as the ball went narrowly by his glove and over the wall for a walk-off home run. Pratt was the first National Leaguer in 39 years (since Mazeroski himself) to win a playoff series with a homer, and the victory came from just as unlikely a source. Baseball is beautiful.

— Andrew Mearns (@MearnsPSA)

October 17, 1999 — Robin Ventura’s Grand Slam Single

This was the last truly enjoyable moment of a surprising and satisfying 1999 playoff run. Of course, it all ended with a gut-punch conclusion to an NLCS Game 6 that still gives some fans night terrors. But before the darkness, there was light: Ventura’s chill-inducing, game-winning grand slam in the bottom of the 15th inning of Game 5 at Shea Stadium. Todd Pratt had won the NLDS with his dramatic dinger, but Ventura’s late-night tater was so stirring that he didn’t even get to round the bases and earn credit for all four runs. Good thing the Mets only needed a single run to record the win, so I’m sure Ventura was A-OK with logging a mere RBI single — the longest and most dramatic RBI single in New York Mets history.

— Erik Malinowski (@erikmal)

September 21, 2011 — Mike Piazza’s Post-9/11 Home Run

The greatest hitter in Mets History. Ten days after the worst day in New York history.

There were two ways to go with greatest highlight: one, pick the best baseball moment — like a World Series title, or the Endy catch, or the Rey Ordonez throw; or two, pick something bigger than the game. Obviously, the Piazza homer falls into the latter category.

Baseball cannot solve terrorism, or provide a road map to balance security and civil liberties, or bring back 9/11’s victims or rebuild the countless lives damaged in the attack and the subsequent, endless war. But it does provide home runs, and special moments.

— Toby Hyde (@tobyhyde)

May 21, 2005 — Dae-Seung Koo Doubles and Scores off Randy Johnson 

There have been over 1,000 New York Mets players in history, but my favorite Mets moment comes courtesy of a Korean pitcher named Dae-Seung Koo. Some will remember him as a left-handed reliever who lasted one season in the majors. I will remember him for one of my favorite Met moments. In his first major league at-bat, Koo stationed himself far away from the plate and took every pitch, striking out. But Willie Randolph decided to give Koo a second at-bat with the Mets leading against Randy Johnson and the Yankees on May 21st.

With Koo once again stationed far away from the plate, he took the first two pitches. But on the third pitch, Koo swung hard — crushing the ball over Bernie Williams’s head in center field for a double. The crowd and the announcers went crazy. Never has a double to lead off the bottom of the 7th brought Mets fans so much energy and excitement.  Koo was not done. Jose Reyes bunted in an attempt to sacrifice Koo to third. Jorge Posada fielded the bunt in front of home plate and threw to first to retire Reyes. But Koo — seeing Posada several feet away from his position — dashed home and dove head-first to beat the first baseman’s return throw. But while this may forever last in my memory, this play most likely stunted the Major League career of Dae-Seung Koo: the dive home injured his shoulder, he pitched poorly the rest of the year, and was subsequently sold back to Korea.

— Seth Rubin (@sethrubin)

June 1, 2012 — Mike Baxter’s Catch to Preserve Johan Santana’s No-Hitter

That Friday night, my wife and I had an 8:30 dinner reservation at a restaurant 15 minutes from my house: We’d been married on a June 1st nine years prior. Why not watch the start of the Mets game until it was time to leave? We sat side-by-side on the sofa, as we always have. The Mets plated two in the bottom of the fourth (Nieuwenhuis single, Wright double, Duda sac fly, Murphy triple) but the big news was on the other side of the line score.

There was no controversy in our decision to not leave for dinner until the Cardinals got their inevitable first hit of the game off Johan Santana. I called the restaurant to cancel after the top of the fifth. When a three-run Duda dinger put the Mets up 5-0 after six, the Mets had a 98% win probability but the game’s outcome remained in considerable doubt.

The seventh inning first brought up the prior year’s World Series hero, David Freese. Santana got him to pop out to first. Next came noted Mets Villain Yadier Molina. Johan fell behind, 3-1. On the fifth pitch of the at-bat, Molina uncorked one to the deepest part of left field. Mike Baxter took a great circle route backward that Statcast would find less than efficient. But as Baxter reached the warning track, he stretched out, caught the ball, and proceeded to ram his unprotected shoulder into the hard outfield wall.

As Baxter walked off the field with the trainer holding his damaged shoulder, the Citi Field crowd gave him a standing ovation. Baxter had been hitting .323/.392/.523 in 2012 before the injury. When he returned from the DL on July 30, he hit just .228 the rest of the way, and then just .198 in parts of the next three seasons.

Baxter is currently hitting .249/.341/.423 for Seattle’s Triple-A team. He sacrificed himself for Johan’s greater glory. Pretty good anniversary, too.

— Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

July 14, 2015 — Jacob deGrom’s Dominant All-Star Game Performance

The word “highlight” often connotes one event, a flash-in-the-pan occurrence that exists as a singular exemplar of excellence. But pitching has the ability to stretch highlights so that they encompass a series of events, to show that repetition can be brilliant in its own right. When Jacob deGrom began the sixth inning of the 2015 All-Star Game, 74 pitchers had compiled an immaculate inning. None had ever done so in an All-Star Game, against a three-man stretch of some of the best hitters the game has to offer. In deGrom’s 2015 All-Star performance, he fired eight straight fastballs — the velocity of which increased from 96 to 98 mph between the first and eighth pitch — seven for strikes, and finished with two nasty cutters low for swinging strikes. Though he missed immaculate status by one errant fastball, and though this highlight came in a Mets jersey but not in a Mets game, it’s imperfect; but dominance like that is its own form of perfection.

— Brian Duricy (@briansusername_)

July 31, 2015 — Wilmer Flores’s Post-Non-Trade Walk-Off Home Run

This is the one Mets highlight that I can think of, at least that I have seen, in which the joy I get from watching it comes from feeling so great for the player. When Flores hit that walk off homer, a night after crying because he believed he’d been traded, it was just too perfect an ending to imagine. The non-trade has really paid dividends for the Mets — Carlos Gomez  has struggled and Yoenis Cespedes has raked — but the original mishandling of its reporting led to the emotion we saw from Flores, a type of emotion we usually don’t see on a baseball field.

No this homer didn’t propel the Mets into the playoffs, or win a pivotal game, but it was the perfect storybook ending for a guy who wanted nothing more than to be a Met.

— Tyler Plofker (@TylerPlofker)

October 10, 2015 — Yoenis Cespedes’s NLDS Bat-Flip

This seems appropriate, because it is a highlight I have only seen as…well, a highlight. I  was working the NLDS for Baseball Prospectus, which in addition to being a weirdly surreal experience, meant I had to act like a member of the working press. So like a good member of the working press, I was charging my cell phone in the media lounge during the game’s middle innings. The lounge had plenty of TVs, of course (as well as Keith Hernandez watching, keeping score, and complaining about first base defense, despite not being on air) and piped in the radio feed as well. The radio feed was live, and thus a bit ahead of the TV broadcast. So I heard Wayne Randazzo’s call before I even saw the Alex Wood pitch. I also felt the stadium shake. That will clue you in. The home run was majestic, an exclamation point on the first Mets home playoff game since the unpleasant denouement of 2006. But I haven’t watched that clip roughly 350 times because of the home run. Cespedes hits crazy bombs all the time. It’s part of his charm. No,  this is my favorite Mets highlight because of the bat flip. It’s mesmerizing. The Mets still had to beat one of Kershaw or Greinke again, and as that bat lands, you are convinced it is going to  happen. Yo knows.

— Jeffrey Paternostro (@jeffpaternostro)

October 30, 2015 — David Wright’s World Series Home Run

David Wright’s home run in Game 3 of the 2015 World Series will always have special meaning for me. Strictly on a personal level, it was the first World Series game I ever attended in person. It was the only game the Mets actually won during the World Series. And Wright gave the Mets an early lead in dramatic fashion by going deep in his first home at-bat in his first World Series appearance. It felt appropriate but also long overdue. Years of frustration and disappointment released in one swing. It was palpable. Knowing all that he had to go through to make that moment possible made it even more special. The rest of that weekend didn’t go according to plan, but I can always look back at this video for some warm-fuzzies.

— D.J. Short (@djshort)

May 7, 2016 — Bartolo Colon’s First Career Home Run

At a certain point in life, you realize your biggest athletic feats are probably in the rear-view mirror. You’ll never be able to dunk a basketball. You’ll never be able to hit a home run. You’ll look more like Bartolo Colon than Matt Harvey when he posed nude for ESPN the Magazine. The great thing about Bartolo is he doesn’t seem to care. He’s enjoying every minute he gets to stay in baseball, and we get to enjoy every at-bat. A couple months ago, he hit his first career home run at age 42 — the oldest any player hit his first homer. It seemed as probable as you or I hitting a big league homer! (Well, you may have more power.) Fun, wacky, and completely unexpected? That’s why I watch baseball.

— Noah Grand (@noahgrand)

Featured Photo Credit: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports

Mets manager Terry Collins has called June 1, 2012 “without a doubt the worst night I’ve ever spent in baseball.” Johan Santana made only 10 more starts in 2012, registering an ERA over 8.00. After being diagnosed the next spring with a recurrence of the same shoulder injury, Santana did not pitch in the majors in 2013, 2014, or 2015, and remains unsigned for 2016.

Nobody has any idea whether the no-hitter specifically caused the derailment of Johan Santana’s career. Nobody has any idea whether letting Ross Stripling throw 15 or 20 or 25 extra pitches over his designated 100 in pursuit of history would’ve caused any harm to his career. As Jeff Passan’s excellent new book The Arm lays out in great detail, almost all pitcher management–including 100 pitches as the norm for removal–is just a guess. On a recent episode of the Effectively Wild podcast, Sam Miller pointed out that by removing Stripling, Dave Roberts denied him a chance at a unique historical achievement, and the resulting lifelong fame and autograph signing paydays that would follow. Perhaps those might even outweigh Stripling’s chances of a substantial major league career.

Just last year, the Mets–still managed by the same Terry Collins that describes himself as haunted by Johan Santana–continued to pitch ace Matt Harvey through the World Series, against the advice of his agent and surgeon. Michael Baumann covered the Harvey moral hazard of 2015 in depth when it was happening, and his thoughts are always worth a read. In short, the Mets only have control of Harvey through the 2018 season, and given that his agent is Scott Boras, from an economic perspective the team just doesn’t have much vested in his career beyond that. Harvey, meanwhile, is looking at a potential payday in the hundreds of millions in free agency, covering seasons where the Mets already assume Harvey will be wearing someone else’s uniform. Do the Mets have a moral imperative to get Harvey to free agency healthy and ready to go for someone else? Does Harvey have a moral imperative to give everything to the team he currently pitches for even if he diminishes his expected value on the free agent market by doing so?

Harvey evened out the stakes a bit for his decision to continue to pitch in 2015 against medical advice by buying insurance, reportedly for both loss of performance and a career-altering injury. But Collins rode his ace, allowing a fatigued Harvey to talk his way out for the ninth inning in Game 5 of the World Series, just like Santana did for the eighth and ninth innings of his no-no. It’s striking to see Harvey scuffle early in 2016, with mediocre velocity and results leaving a lot of fans wondering. It will be easy to draw conclusions in retrospect if these scuffles are the result of an underlying injury, but what if Harvey’s just never the same ace again while still being average or even good? How do you know he wasn’t going to be that regardless of how hard Terry Collins pushed him late in 2015, or how long he pitched in Game 5 of the World Series?

A more subtle and complicated dance between the present and the future is ongoing in the Met outfield. Michael Conforto is one of the most promising young players in the majors, every bit the equivalent on the hitting side of Matt Harvey. Terry Collins recently promoted him to the third spot in the batting order, but only against right-handed pitchers. Against lefties, Conforto sits. Collins has also continued a trend from 2015, pinch-hitting or double-switching Juan Lagares into games for Conforto, sometimes to strengthen the defense and sometimes to avoid having Conforto face tough lefty relievers.

As my colleague Erik Malinowski pointed out on Tuesday, Conforto has barely seen left-handed pitching in the majors, and the only way to develop his abilities against lefties is to play him. But Conforto is not the only promising young Met in the equation who needs playing time. Lagares, a Gold Glover in center, is only 27 himself, and was a very good regular as recently as 2014. While injuries and extra bulk derailed his 2015, Lagares showed up looking like 2014 Juan Lagares again this season, and you would certainly like to get him some playing time. And then there’s a team monetary commitment to consider; Lagares is signed through the 2019 season as a result of a $23 million extension signed before 2015.

Sliding Juan Lagares into center also allows the Mets to shift Yoenis Cespedes back to left. While Conforto is no defensive slouch himself, Lagares and Cespedes are both amongst the strongest defenders in baseball at those positions. Take one more step beyond that, and Lagares’s major offensive skill is crushing lefties. Through Tuesday’s game, Lagares is a career .281/.326/.429 against southpaws. With Lagares’s defense, that’s nearly impossible to sit against a lefty starter. So when we’re talking about the success of the 2016 Mets, a hoped-for pennant contender which has already dug a slight hole behind the Washington Nationals, Lagares in center and Cespedes in left is probably a superior lineup even assuming Conforto’s stardom.

Collins has two other plausible slots to relieve the Conforto/Lagares logjam. Both right fielder Curtis Granderson and first baseman Lucas Duda also hit left-handed, and are viable choices to sit to get Lagares in against lefties or for defense late in games. Granderson has shown huge platoon splits through much of his career, including 2015. Duda hit lefties in 2015, but it was the first time he had done so. The Mets and Conforto have discussed getting him playing time in right or first, but Conforto has yet to play a position other than left in his professional career. Cespedes, another potential fit as a right fielder in the playing time shuffle, has also never played right in MLB, and has been rumored to be skittish about playing there.

This is a heck of a lot of information for Terry Collins to weigh when filling out his lineup card. Underlying all of this is managing the clubhouse. Like Santana in 2012 and Harvey in 2015, Granderson is an established star player, a locker room leader coming off a great season out of the everyday leadoff role. Do you want to be the manager to tell Granderson that he’s no longer a regular player? Lucas Duda has hit 59 home runs since becoming a full-time player at the beginning of 2014, and hit lefties better than righties last year. For that, he earns a demotion to the long side of a platoon?

These aren’t easy situations to handle. Neither is a potentially compromised pitcher chasing history, or your ace asking for the ball two months past where he was supposed to, all the way to the ninth inning of a World Series game. Managing a major league team goes deeper than getting the optimal lineup order and summoning the correct reliever for the correct situation. These are people, with future earnings and emotions and agents and egos and families and expectations. Dealing with all of that, well, I’m glad that’s Terry Collins’s job and not mine.

Photo Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports