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

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

Photo credit: Brett Davis – USA Today Sports

In 2012, Johan Santana removed the Mets from the list of teams that have never pitched a no-hitter. Much less discussed: Teams that have never had a player win the MVP. The National League award has gone to players on every team except the Mets, Miami Marlins and Arizona Diamondbacks. That the Mets have a 24-year head start on the Marlins and 29 on the Snakes makes the omission more glaring. Tom Seaver led the majors with 11 bWAR in 1973 (2.08 ERA over 290 IP!) but lost out to NL West-wining Pete Rose (.338/.401/.437, 8.2 bWAR). At least Seaver’s Mets beat Rose’s Reds in the NLCS.

The 2017 Mets are in as good a place as any to produce their first-ever NL MVP winner. Should they dominate the standings, it will almost certainly be due to a range-busting performance from Yoenis Cespedes. PECOTA says Cespedes’s 90th percentile performance would look like .289/.347/.526 with 33 home runs — a 6.4 WARP season. Maybe we’re biased Mets fans, but is it crazy to suggest La Potencia could hit .320/.390/.580 if everything broke right? That looks like an MVP.

The BBWAA awards are, fortuitously, not the only ones awarded each year. There’s no shortage of uncredentialed folks predicting who will win the major trophies. Here at BP-Mets, we’ve created our own Met Awards. As a special bonus, we will also tell you who will win them. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

Empty Soup Can

It’s still hard to believe that James Loney, of all people, delivered the key home run to clinch last year’s wild card berth. It’s no surprise that Terry Collins stuck with Loney. Collins loves to stick with veterans, even when they slide below replacement level. Collins’s desperate attempt to bring Bobby Parnell back for a playoff spot in 2015 forced me to leave the stands when he was pitching. I could see the helplessness of lost command from the nosebleeds. I’m not sure if Collins can recognize when the well has run dry and he’s trying to sustain his team with an empty can of soup.

Loyalty is a wonderful thing, but every year it feels like Collins picks a player to shower with playing time no matter how painful the results. It’s maddening because we know we could make better choices. This year’s Empty Soup Can winner seems pretty obvious: Jay Bruce… Come on down to the stadium of boos! — Noah Grand (@noahgrand)

Robert the Rookie (of the Year)

Newly-minted No. 4 starter Robert Gsellman has earned plenty of column ink this spring as the wild card amidst the Mets’ collection of aces. BP’s crack prospect team rated Gsellman No. 17 among all prospects this offseason. This spring, his velo and stuff have looked as awesome as anyone’s in the rotation not named Syndergaard or deGrom. So how far out of the realm of possibility is it that Gsellman follows the former fellow-Mets-prospect Michael Fulmer’s path to a trophy? Well, the biggest hurdle standing between No. 65 and his hardware is the ultra-talented Dansby Swanson, so to get there Gsellman may have to put up a sub-3.00 ERA just like he did over 45 innings last season. It’s certainly possible … just don’t ask him to hit. — Byran Grosnick (@bgrosnick)

The Underdog

I don’t know how, but we’re still underrating Jacob deGrom. It seems impossible that the floppy-haired Florida Man who put up a 2.30 ERA in 133 innings and 21 starts before his elbow started acting up – his season ended on Sept. 1, just a few weeks after giving up eight runs to the Giants – can be underappreciated. Yet here we are. He’s stable: he’s not blazing a 97 mph fastball like Noah Syndergaard or breaking spin rate records like Seth Lugo or making a (hopefully) triumphant return after two years like Zack Wheeler. He’s just there, doing his thing. deGrom won’t be the staff ace – that title will still go to Thor, barring a national disaster. But on a team full of studs, he’ll finally get the respect he deserves. — Kate Feldman (@kateefeldman)

The Future Freaks Me Out

“[Terry] won’t stop [sending Jay Bruce] to [the outfield] / How [the Mets refuse] to [start Michael Conforto]”

At the end of last season, one assumed 2017 would be the year Michael Conforto got a good amount of MLB playing time. Even, potentially, a starting role. That assumption was halted around late January, when we discovered the Mets couldn’t find a trade partner for Jay Bruce.

“We waste away the days with [veterans] and [scuffling hitters] / From an era we hate to admit we embrace”

So, now here we are. Bruce, who owns a .288 TAv at his 90th-percentile PECOTA projection, is slated to be the Mets’ starting right fielder — over Conforto, who owns a .281 TAv for his 50th-percentile PECOTA projection. You could say it’s more a fault of roster construction than thinking Bruce is better than Conforto, if it makes you feel better. Nevertheless, the Mets still appear to be shunting off one of their potential key-stones in favor of a veteran. For that reason, Conforto takes home this somewhat conciliatory award for a young player the Mets appear afraid to give a full-time job.

“[Terry], I need you [to start him] / [We] miss [him] / [We’re a worse team] without [him] / To [see plugged in the lineup] with [our] cellular phones”

These are actual quotes from the song “The Future Freaks Me Out” by Motion City Soundtrack. Do not attempt to use the Google to verify. Just take my word for it. — Shawn Brody (@ShawnBrody)

Third Time’s the Charm

The well-traveled Kelly Johnson has been part of a mid-summer trade from Atlanta to New York each of the last two years. This summer will make it three in a row, as he will sign an early-season deal with the Braves only to be sent back to the Mets for their annual intra-division sacrifice of a decent pitching prospect. Mets fans will let out a collective sigh of “meh.” But late ’90s Mets reliever and known superstitious personality Turk Wendell will publicly offer a characteristically unique spin on the deal: “The Mets have traded for Kelly the last two years. They’ve made the playoffs the last two years. I don’t think they can get there without this yearly acquisition. Plus, he’s played in Yankee Stadium.” — Zane Moran

Photo Credit: Jerry Lai – USA Today Sports

Will’s vision for Deadspin was to publish sports news that never made it into the public domain “because of either corporate obligations or just plain laziness.” Deadspin needed and wanted to be the internet’s depository for otherwise-unrevealed sports stories. You might recall Jim Bouton opened the door to such reporting in Ball Four, but Deadspin debuted in 2005 not 1969. (How long ago was 2005 in internet time? OG Deadspin was a great place to read the comments.)

An MLB Trade Rumors tweet the other day brought back the memory of my favorite ancient Deadspin post. No, not that one. Someone at the NCAA had published a webpage containing contact information for the people running each of the 32 college bowl games. An industrious reader found the page and tipped off Will, who ran with it. We all got a laugh when we read that ESPN, which then as now televised 90% of college bowls, was also responsible for organizing a couple of games themselves. Even in 2005, ESPN producing its own live sports #content was mildly scandalous but not really surprising.

I was reminded that obvious sports story is obvious when I saw this last Tuesday:

Braves Considering Kelly Johnson https://t.co/uYHo40EVZx pic.twitter.com/iIvOXkDWuj

— MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) February 21, 2017

The natural Met fan response:

…to be a good candidate to rejoin the Mets sometime during the 2017 season. https://t.co/y2hBEQQ0Ro

— Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon) February 21, 2017

Nobody here would be shocked, shocked if Kelly Johnson ends up a 2017 Brave, then a 2017 Met. It would not surprise us in the least. Here, then, are some more Mets futures that would leave us unperturbed. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

Noah Syndergaard wins the Cy Young; Clayton Kershaw finishes second

If I just said it wouldn’t surprise me if Noah Syndergaard would win the Cy Young in 2017, well, that wouldn’t put me out on much of a limb. Thor in 2016 was 3rd in ERA, 4th in strikeouts, and 1st in FIP in the National League. He has the best raw stuff in baseball. He’s easily a top-five pitcher in the league, and top-five pitchers win the Cy all the time.

But I’ll go a step further: I expect Clayton Kershaw to turn in a prime Clayton Kershaw season. And I still think Syndergaard wins. Maybe it’ll be close, maybe it’ll be controversial, but I think Syndergaard’s 2017 is so good that it overcomes the everyday magic of Kershaw’s best. And a race between the two of them at their absolute best might be the most enjoyable thing in baseball. — Jarrett Seidler (@jaseidler)

Terry Collins spends all season trying to get Jay Bruce going

There’s an alternate reality, a different timeline, in which 2015 Matt Harvey left Game 5 after the eighth inning and David Wright was mobile and Daniel Murphy figured things out before he left town. This is not that reality. This is the reality in which Michael Conforto, a shiny young outfielder who dominated in his first taste of the big leagues, will be left to rot in the high noon sun of Las Vegas because Jay Bruce is inexplicably still wearing orange and blue. Conforto slugged .727 in Triple-A last season. That won’t matter. Bruce hit .219/.294/.391 as a Met. That won’t matter either. Barring injury – and maybe even then – Terry Collins is going to stick with the veteran. Even if the veteran isn’t all that good anymore. — Kate Feldman (@kateefeldman)

Amed Rosario is not eligible for our 2018 Top 101 Prospect List

As you may be aware, I just got finished with four months of prospect lists, culminating with the release of our BP 101 on the site two weeks ago. Amed Rosario ranks quite highly, but he could use another full season in the upper minors. Anyway, even considering that we just have to take the Mets’ word for it that David Wright is playing catch … somewhere … the 2017 team has a fairly settled and deep infield. If Asdrubal Cabrera’s hip starts barking again, Jose Reyes can slide over to shortstop. Wilmer Flores has, uh, plenty of experience there as well. There really shouldn’t be a need for Rosario to suit up in Flushing beyond a September call-up to get a few major league reps with an eye toward taking over the starting shortstop job in 2018.

However, there are already raves for Rosario coming out of Mets camp. Terry Collins gushes about him at pressers, and when Terry likes a guy, Terry plays a guy. This rule has traditionally been limited to veterans like Eric Campbell, Alejandro de Aza, and James Loney, but I can definitely see a scenario where Rosario is hitting .370 in Vegas in July, half the Mets’ infield is on the disabled list (LOLMets), and he is both the best option and the player the manager is agitating for. Rosario might be overmatched in his first taste of major league action, but he has the tools to hit the ground running and never look back, leaving me to ponder if Dom Smith, Thomas Szapucki, or Justin Dunn will top our Mets prospect list in 2018. — Jeffrey Paternostro (@jeffpaternostro)

Matt Harvey performs as a mid-rotation starter

Last season was rough, as Harvey pitched through thoracic outlet syndrome that sent his performance careening and ended his season early. Pitchers with TOS have a mixed record upon their return, but Harvey has enough natural talent that he can survive a hit and keep on ticking as a mid-rotation arm, provided he can actually stay healthy this time. I think he’ll be fine, but perhaps never again an ace.

Compared to 2016, PECOTA’s projection for Harvey is rosy, with a 4.14 DRA in about 156 innings … a performance worth roughly two wins. With decent health, that sounds about right to me: a solid but unspectacular No. 3 starter overall in his time on the bump. In some games he’ll be magic and some he’ll be a disaster. Though I’m not sure we’ll ever see anything quite like his remarkable 2013, Harvey’s got the underlying velo, smarts, and stuff to succeed as a big league starter, even if his strikeout rate is diminished and opposing hitters make better contact than ever before on his slider. He’ll be “fine.” — Bryan Grosnick (@bgrosnick)

Bartolo Colon makes a glorious return (in the Kelly Johnson deal)

Mid-season, once Wright and Walker’s spinal columns are reduced to piles of ashes, Collins begins to pine for a middling utility man. He promptly reacquires Kelly Johnson — who can deny a love so deep? Luckily, in the trade package, Bartolo Colon also makes a triumphant return to Citi Field, where he stands upon a mound made of the bone spurs of his younger colleagues and once again becomes the most consistently uninjured pitcher in Queens. — Sara Nović (@novicsara)

Old Curtis Granderson morphs into Chris Carter

This possibility was always present in the back of our minds from the moment Curtis Granderson signed his four-year contract in the 2013-14 offseason. In his last couple seasons with the Yankees, albeit while battling fluky hit by pitch injuries in 2013, Granderson became a total strikeout machine. His potent power and ability to draw walks kept him useful, but it seemed like that was the player the Mets signed.

Granderson turned out to be much better, cutting down on his strikeouts in Queens, bringing them to a more reasonable level. So even as he moved further along in his thirties, he remained a very productive player, batting .241/.342/.436 with 76 homers in 462 games. As Granderson’s about to turn 36, though, his bat speed seems bound to fade. The strikeouts may rise, but that’s okay. The dingers should still be around. As Chris Carter and earlier iterations of Granderson demonstrated, that kind of hitter is still valuable, no matter what your grouchy uncle thinks. — Andrew Mearns (@MearnsPSA)

Mets players’ names remain non-predictive of performance

The recent history of Mets onomastics has hidden its fair share of verbs within its subjects’ names, though their relationship with the players’ skillsets have seemed misplaced. Zack Wheeler does not share his Backyard Baseball counterpart’s bristling speed. “Smoker” better fits an ill-tempered, hulking first baseman in the Clu Haywood movie villain mold (provided “Josh” is swapped for a more menacing name). Sure, “Steven Matz down the competition” is a bad headline waiting to happen, but…

That brings us to Neil Walker, whose name includes a literal baseball stat! Except his career 8.2% walk rate is the kind of pedestrian that, in childhood, would have had his parents yelling at him for playing in the middle of the road. In 2016, Curtis Granderson’s team-leading 74 free passes on a 11.7% rate far outpaced Walker’s (granted, injury-shortened) 42-walk campaign despite a career-best 9.2% walk rate. It would be unsurprising if Granderson repeated: he’s tallied the most plate appearances and walks on the team each season since his crosstown switch, and hasn’t posted a walk rate south of 10% since 2007. Walker is just not an elite walker.

With this, our hope turns to Jerry Blevins. As of this writing, “blevin” is not yet in the dictionary, but you can’t tell me that this guy isn’t leading the league in blevins this coming season. — Brock Chenier (@brockchenier)

Michael Conforto receives 500 plate appearances

I was one of the few Mets fans who didn’t panic last month when an unnamed Mets executive told the New York Post that Jay Bruce would start on Opening Day. After all, a lot can happen between the start of Spring Training and the end of the season. But I also remember that Terry Collins liked having one primary backup in both the infield and outfield last year. Alejandro De Aza got 267 plate appearances as the primary extra outfielder, versus Conforto’s 348 as a half-season starter. That’s why no distribution of outfield playing time will surprise me in 2017, ranging from the incredibly smart to the incredibly stupid. Since Spring Training is a time of hope, it’s important to remember that high variance situations include positive outcomes like a breakout season for Conforto. — Noah Grand (@noahgrand)

Beloved former Mets plague the Amazins

The ghost of Mets past will come back to haunt Queens this season. The Atlanta Braves have nineteen games against New York in 2017. Their pitching staff includes many familiar (and beloved) faces who once played in blue and orange. While former Mets farmhand John Gant was traded from Atlanta to the Cardinals during the offseason, the Braves picked up R.A. Dickey and Bartolo Colon. For many, those were two of the most adored Mets pitchers of the last decade. I’d expect those pitchers to have a winning record and perform strangely well against the Mets, even though they are a combined 85 years old. —  Bryan Kalbrosky (@BryanKalbrosky)

The Mets struggle against the NL East

PECOTA projects the Mets to win the NL East with a record of 88-74. For this to occur, though, the team will need to beat up on their lowly competition in the NL East: the Atlanta Braves, Miami Marlins and Philadelphia Phillies. All three nominal competitors are currently re-building and project for under-.500 records. Yet last year the 90-72 Mets seemed to lose a bunch of winnable games against the Braves — at 68-93, the 5th worst team in all of Major League Baseball.

The three NL East bottom feeders expect to improve as they rebuild. Therefore, the Mets will need beat up on these teams while they have the opportunity. However, with the Mets’ luck and the growth of the other NL East teams, I would not be surprised to see New York struggle against the weaker competition. If this happens, the Mets will have difficulty competing for a spot in the playoffs. — Seth Rubin (@sethrubin)

Photo Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

I for one will be rooting for Chicago. Even if I attempt to be the bigger (wo)man and neutralize the Utley Factor, I’d still go for the Cubs. From what I can tell, lots of Mets fans feel similarly. In fact, in an extremely scientific Twitter poll I conducted on Monday, 47 percent of respondents (out of a total whopping 32 votes) are also for the Cubs. (The Jays came in second with 28 percent, 16 percent for Cleveland and nine percent for L.A.) It makes sense. We Mets fans have known droughts—and because of that, it’s hard not to have at least a little sympathy for a team that hasn’t touched World Series turf since 1945.

76 years (or 108 since their last win) is a long time, enough to make even the most rational-minded among us consider the possibility of some dark magic. And this is another tether between Cubs and Mets fans (and players)—superstitions galore! Of course, baseball in general is rife with superstition, but the Cubs’ long dearth of World Series appearances is probably the most famous curse still in action, (and in an interesting twist, one in which the Mets feature). Simultaneously, Mets players routinely top lists of performing the strangest luck-seeking routines. I’ve read a lot of weird, weird habits these past few hours, and rounded up some of my favorites here, but first—the curse:

Tavern owner Bill Sianis brought his good luck charm—a goat named Murphy—to Game 4 of the 1945 World Series at Wrigley. The powers that be let Sianis but not the goat in, declaring that the goat stunk, while Sianis in turn is said to have declared that the Cubs would no longer win. And they haven’t since, not the World Series, anyway.

The Mets are implicated, too, in the curse of the Billy Goat by a trio of Murphies—when the 1969 Mets performed the miracle of overtaking the first-place Cubs in a race to the World Series, it was under the management of GM Johnny Murphy. The team’s announcer at the time? Bob Murphy. Then of course there was 2015 Daniel Murphy, (who the Mets might argue is their own special curse). In the NLCS, though, Murph was MVP, hitting four home runs and batting .529 for the series.

The more you look at it, the more it makes sense that the Mets, and their fans, might believe in a little baseball magic. Starting with:

Rally Caps!

The start of the tradition is often pegged to 1940s Detroit baseball, but its more widely noted that Mets fans popularized the superstition. Fans at Shea in 1985 employed the rally cap in wide swaths, and the practice spread to other fans and the players themselves, most memorably the next year in the World Series, when Mets in the dugout turned their caps inside out in a tight 2-3 Game 6, at which point they of course did rally to force a Game 7 … and the rest is history.

Richie Ashburn

An original 1962 Met, Ashburn used to sleep with his old baseball bats.

Did it work? Ashburn’s magical bedmates weren’t strong enough to do much about that 40-120 team record, but Ashburn himself had an All-Star year—his last in the majors—slashing .306/.424/.393. He averaged .308 over his 15-year career with a WARP of 72.1.

Dick Stuart

Stuart, a ’66 Met, always chewed a piece of gum while going up to bat, then threw it out across the plate before the first pitch. What the hell, Dick—now the next guy’s gonna have that stuck to his cleat!

Did it work? Well, it wasn’t amazing (that’s what you get for littering!) In Flushing, Stuart batted .218/.292/.356, with a career average of .264 and WARP of 6.4.

Lenny Dykstra

A Met from 1985-89, Dykstra was known for changing his batting gloves each time he struck out.

Did it work?: Seems like it—the Mets went all the way in ’86, and Dykstra was a good hitter throughout his career, slashing .285/.375/.419 with a WARP of 46 (though, annoyingly, his All-Star years were all with the Phillies). His luck certainly ran out later though, off the diamond—maybe he should have thought about some gloves when he was out (allegedly) committing grand theft auto?

Turk Wendell

Pitchers are known to be the most superstitious players of the most superstitious game but Wendell really took it to the next level—a treasure trove of quirks. One of his more normal habits was to avoid stepping on the foul line, as many players do, though he was known to jump over it and avoid the surrounding dirt completely as well. He also chewed four pieces of black licorice per inning while pitching, then brushed his teeth in the dugout between innings. He wore a necklace strung with the teeth of things he’d killed. Instead of a 10-million-dollar contract, he asked that it be written out as $9,999,999.99 (to match his uniform and favorite number, 99).  Then there was that time we lost him in the woods for a while, and he came back with a giant dead mountain lion ….

Did it work? Well, maybe it helped him not get eaten by that mountain lion? As a Met from 1997-2001, Wendell had a 3.34 ERA over 285 games, slightly better than his career average of 3.93, and WARP of 3.1.

Oliver Perez

Perez also had a particularly distinctive jump over the first base foul line, one that changed in height depending on how good he was pitching that day.

Did it work? Eh. A Met from 2006-2010, Perez had an ERA of 4.71, with an overall career average ERA of 4.46 and a WARP of 8.7.

R.A. Dickey

Dickey’s pitching rituals aren’t particularly quirky (especially in the shadow of Wendell’s); he was most known around the clubhouse for taking a Jacuzzi, then a shower, before a start. At the plate, though, things get a little weirder. Dickey names his bats really bizarre, slightly Medieval names—some greats include “Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver” and “Hrunting.”

Did it work? I don’t know about Dickey-as-slugger, but a Met from 2010-2012 and a 2012 All-Star and CY Young winner, Dickey spent some of his best years in Queens, with an ERA 2.95. He has a career ERA of 4.01 and a WARP of 15.

Moises Alou

Okay, ew. I had read before that Alou chose not to wear batting gloves—badass. And read somewhere else that he’d taken to peeling the skin off his hands to avoid too much callous build-up—seems painful and/or painstaking, but fine. But apparently Alou’s additional trick for toughing up his skin while avoiding callouses was to piss on his hands. Jorge Posada was also into this habit, a maneuver that, the Wall Street Journal suggests, may not even make chemical sense. But sorry guys, for me the efficacy and chemical makeup of one’s urine is really a moot point; can’t we all just go back to talking about Jason Giambi’s shiny, slump-busting thong?

Later, as a Cub, Alou had a hand in the fateful 2003 Steve Bartman incident, in which Bartman, a fan in the stands, interfered with a catch that would’ve been the second out in the inning. At the time, Chicago still held a 3-0 lead, but Bartman’s obstruction was the first in a series of (yellow) snowballing mishaps. The Cubs eventually gave up eight runs and lost the game, and the next day the series. The curse of Murphy the goat, it seems, was no match for Alou’s pee.

Did it work? Well not that time! But overall, Alou was a great hitter. As a Met in 2007-2008, at age 40, he batted .342/.391/.507 with a career line of .303/.369/.516 and WARP of 41.

Pedro Martinez

It’s hard to believe that a Hall of Famer like Martinez would be into superstitions. That said, he invited actor and fellow Dominican Nelson De La Rosa, to the Sox clubhouse for good luck in 2004 during the World Series. De La Rosa himself was record holder, recorded by the Guinness in 1989 as shortest living adult, at two feet, four inches.

Did it work? I mean, hell yeah! The Sox broke their curse; Martinez is one of the greatest pitchers ever to have played the game. His numbers in Queens toward the end of his career, 2005-2008, don’t do him justice: his ERA was 3.77, versus the 2.52 across his 7 years in Boston, or 2.93 overall. Maybe, after a long and successful career, it was just his time. Or maybe Martinez really did need good luck from his buddy De La Rosa, who died suddenly in 2006.

Anyway, coming off a killer season, and with no Murphies in sight, I’ll put my rally cap on for the Cubs these next few days—only if they really need it, of course.

Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-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