![]() If Díaz recovers for the Mets next season, 2019 will remain a jarring blip. He blew seven saves, including several backbreaking games that, in hindsight, represent the difference between New York and a playoff team. He allowed as many home runs this season as he had in the previous two combined. He finished the season with a 5.59 ERA - nearly three times what it had been the season before. It was the magnitude of Díaz’s struggles. It wasn’t simply that he blew several important games for the Mets. It wasn’t simply that Díaz didn’t match the absurd standard he set in 2018 with Seattle. The prize acquisition of the offseason, Díaz submitted one of the most befuddling reliever seasons in recent memory. The 2019 Mets will be remembered for Edwin Díaz’s inability to close the door. It is possible and maybe even probable that, 30 years from now, fans will be telling their kids about getting to see Polar Bear Pete as a rookie, the summer he took New York by storm. Nothing suggests this will be a fluke, and even if Alonso does this again next year and the year after that, nothing matches the excitement of seeing it all the first time. In the span of one season, Alonso has made himself the central piece of the Mets. He is a player unlike any the Mets have ever had before, and he has oozed charisma and genuineness in a way that makes fans and marketers swoon. The likeliest legacy of the 2019 Mets is thus Alonso’s transcendent rookie season - one that can stand head and shoulders alongside the greatest offensive seasons in franchise history. ![]() Frankly, it all seems crazy, especially the part about calling him “Peter” not that long ago. Since then, he’s shortened his name by a letter, embraced an ursine nickname, made an All-Star team, won a Home Run Derby, crafted a new motto for the team and set a major-league rookie record and a franchise overall record for home runs. (An important note: I got this idea from Sam Miller’s yearly column about the league as a whole at ESPN.) The 2019 Mets will be remembered for introducing us to Pete Alonso.Īt the start of spring training, the biggest debate surrounding the Mets was whether Peter Alonso should break camp with the team at first base. But every season leaves a lasting mark, and it’s worth exploring the various pathways this season’s legacy can take moving forward. How will the 2019 Mets be remembered? What will be their defining legacy? There will not be any momentous reunion of this group a half-century from now, as there was this past June for the 1969 Mets.
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