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New York Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Capturing David Wright: His 5 best moments as Mets retire No. 5
The last night a New York Met wore No. 5, he waited as long as possible before taking it off. 'To be able to come to work at a place like this, in front of this fan base with this organization, was the honor of a lifetime,' David Wright said then, on the final weekend of September 2018. 'I really don't want to go in there and get changed right now. I want to wear the jersey a little longer.' Advertisement Saturday ensures no one else will get that chance. The Mets will retire Wright's No. 5 in a pregame ceremony Saturday before their contest with the Cincinnati Reds. Even before the club loosened its standards around retired numbers in 2019, that Wright's No. 5 would adorn the Citi Field façade had been a fait accompli. To prepare for Saturday's festivities, let's look back at five defining, representative moments of Wright's Mets career. 'For me, there were a few moments my first couple years where it was like, 'Welcome to the big leagues,'' Wright told me back in 2019. 'One of them was facing Randy Johnson for the first time, and certainly one of them was facing Mariano.' By May 2006, Wright had already suggested he was going to be really good. He'd more than held his own over the final two-plus months as a rookie in 2004, and he'd received down-ballot MVP consideration as a 22-year-old in his first full season in 2005. But that didn't inspire the utmost respect from opponents, just yet. So in the bottom of the ninth on May 19, 2006, with a runner on second and two outs, Mariano Rivera intentionally walked Carlos Delgado to bring Wright to the plate. 'I remember just trying to calm myself down. Your heartbeat is pumping through your chest. It's the Subway Series, you're a young kid,' he said. 'You're emotional, and times that by 1,000 as a young player facing Mariano Rivera, facing the Yankees.' Even more than a decade later, Wright lamented missing the 1-1 pitch from Rivera, a cutter left in the middle of the plate that he fouled back. 'You blew it,' he told himself. Two pitches later, against a better cutter from Rivera, Wright stayed on an even plane and mashed the ball to center. Johnny Damon was playing in to try to throw the runner out at home on a base hit in front of him. As Wright hopped down the first-base line — you can still see it in your mind — the ball outran Damon to the warning track in center. Advertisement 'It's certainly a proud moment in my career and one that I remember fairly vividly,' Wright said. 'You want to be considered one of the elite in the game, and in order to do that you have to be productive against the best to ever do it. Certainly he's one of the best to ever do it.' It was already Wright's third walk-off of the young season. He'd finish his career with nine, not including a memorable one in the World Baseball Classic, where he did some of his best work in the clutch. Wright hit .313 in the highest-leverage at-bats of his career, and he ended up going 3-for-8 off Rivera in his career. 'You probably can't say this about a lot of pitchers in general,' he said. 'I certainly remember all my hits against him.' Let's just get this out of the way: It's probably not the one most baseball fans are thinking of — the one where Wright is scrambling in Petco Park's shallow left field, drifting too far left and throwing out his bare hand at the last second to snag Brian Giles' bloop. Great play, just not the one that best epitomizes Wright's defense. No, this one came two months earlier in Seattle. In his book, Wright explained he'd always wanted to rob a home run — something not possible for a third baseman. The next best thing would be going into the stands on a foul ball. So when Raul Ibañez popped one up at Safeco Field in May 2005, Wright saw his chance. 'The distance was perfect for me to jump and make the play,' he wrote. 'As the ball fell into my glove, I felt a split second of triumph, which lasted only until gravity pulled me onto a little ledge where people were resting their drinks. … My leg was black-and-blue for months.' 20 years ago today, David Wright actually jumped into the stands to make a catch. Video: @NYMhistory — Mike Mayer (@mikemayer22) June 18, 2025 This is the play every Mets fan still brings up whenever they see or hear about Derek Jeter's famous dive into the stands against the Red Sox a year earlier. It was an early warning about the dangers of going all-out all the time. But that was Wright's DNA, he wrote. 'My philosophy was to dive first, worry about the consequences later.' Advertisement In 2011, that would prove more harmful, when a dive to tag Carlos Lee at third base led to a stress fracture in Wright's back, and the start of a series of trips to the then-disabled list and lifelong management of his back. Wright's status as a subheading in Mets history, an era unto himself, was solidified when the club formally named him the fourth captain in its history in 2013. Wright joined Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter and John Franco in receiving the honor. And you could draw a line through franchise history from Tom Seaver, who played with Darryl Strawberry, who played with Franco, who played with Wright. Of course, Wright had embraced an enlarged role for the Mets for a long time. More so than other star players in big markets, Wright had served as a daily spokesman for the team, available to the media after pretty much every game. (Personally, since the Mets were the first major-league team I'd ever covered, it was surprising when I later covered the Yankees and Red Sox that players like Derek Jeter, Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz were available only some of the time.) Still, naming Wright the team's captain emphasized so much of what he stood for, so much of what had been ingrained in him since he was growing up — to play the game the right way, to carry yourself properly, to earn the respect of those around you. 'You never find that player who has every intangible,' said Tony Tijerina, one of Wright's minor-league managers, in 2018. 'Except for David.' 'In that city, in that market, he basically was the poster boy of, 'You're coming up? Be like this guy,'' Jason Bay told me in 2018. 'Anywhere, that's tough; New York is tougher.' It remains difficult, nearly a quarter-century after he was first drafted into professional baseball, to find anyone to say anything negative about Wright. Advertisement 'Being named captain of the Mets was by far the greatest professional honor I had ever, would ever, or could ever receive,' Wright wrote. 'The title meant my teammates respected me as a person, which was a greater accolade than anything that could go on the back of a baseball card.' In retrospect, the bitter end to the 2006 postseason for Wright and the Mets only intensified in the years that followed. What had seemed like the opening of a long competitive window was, in fact, the only year Wright and José Reyes (and Carlos Beltrán and Carlos Delgado) would play postseason baseball together. It would take nine agonizing years for the Mets to get back to October. And by the time they did, Wright's career was in doubt. Early in 2015, he'd been diagnosed with spinal stenosis, a chronic condition that would inevitably end his career earlier than he planned. For much of that summer, as the Mets dallied with contending in the NL East, it was unclear whether Wright would return to the field, and if so, what he could meaningfully provide. Those doubts persisted even as Wright homered with his first swing back (in Philadelphia, of course), even as the Mets surged into first and clinched the NL East, even after Wright delivered a critical base hit in the first postseason game against the Dodgers. As he stepped to the plate in Game 3 of the World Series at Citi Field, he was batting .171 with a .220 slugging percentage in the postseason. 'What is New York gonna get out of this guy, their captain, David Wright?' Joe Buck asked on Fox. Wright provided an answer on the second pitch: turning on Yordano Ventura's 96 mph fastball for a no-doubt two-run homer to left. Wright had hit the first BP homer at Citi Field, he'd hit the first regular-season homer at Citi Field, and he hit the first World Series homer at Citi Field. The stadium had never been louder. 'I will never, ever forget that home run,' Wright wrote in his book. 'I will never, ever forget how I felt in that moment. It's something I will hold close to me for the rest of my life.' The Mets have not excelled at endings in their history. Their best players ended their careers in places like Boston, Cleveland, Oakland and — shudder — the Bronx. They celebrated the closure of their long-time stadium after a cruel season-ending loss. And for a time, for a pretty long time, it looked as if the same fate might befall Wright, his last at-bat coming anticlimactically (and with no one realizing it) in early 2016 against Louis Coleman. Advertisement Indeed, as Wright's rehab through back, neck and shoulder surgeries trudged on, there was even some doubt whether Mets ownership would allow him to suit up ceremonially; there was insurance money at stake, of course. But on the final Saturday of the 2018 season, Wright and the Mets collaborated on one of the most memorable nights in franchise history. It had been jarring weeks earlier when Wright had divulged publicly what he'd known inside for a while: 'It's debilitating to play baseball.' He would get one last start, one last time to put pinstripes over his orange undershirt, to kick third base, to tug at the bill of his helmet as he stepped into the box. Wright walked and popped out; you remember the latter because you still despise Peter O'Brien for catching it. In the top of the fifth, he was replaced in the field and cheered for more than three minutes before heading down the dugout steps. After the Mets finally won in 13 innings, he thanked all the fans who stayed 'just to watch a video and hear me mumble some thank yous.' The night highlighted, as Saturday should as well, Wright's unique place in Mets history — not just as their greatest homegrown position player, but as a player who so thoroughly embraced what it meant to be a New York Met, having grown up a fan in southeast Virginia. 'I live and die with this team,' he said that night. 'When I see the fans take losses hard, when I see the fans smiling from ear to ear after a win, I'm that same way in the clubhouse. I'd like to think that's what's made this connection between the fans and I so strong: I relate to them, they relate to me. We have similar feelings about the New York Mets.' (Top photo of David Wright's home run in Game 3 of the 2015 World Series: Elsa / Getty Images)
New York Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Archetypes of the MLB trade deadline: The Ace, the Shutdown Closer and more
Every trade deadline is different; every trade deadline is the same. Every deadline includes buyers and sellers and teams stuck in the middle. Every deadline has dozens of relievers and one solitary catcher available — and he might not even get moved. Every deadline has the same basic parameters. But the details of each deadline differ. There's always an ace on the table, but some years it's a future Hall of Famer and others it's a guy who will linger on the free-agent market for months. There's always a handful of back-end starters who switch uniforms, but sometimes he turns into a front-end starter by October. Advertisement So, to get a sense of the 2025 trade deadline, we're going to examine seven different 'archetypes' for a deadline acquisition: the ace, the shutdown closer, the one-time star, the extra bat, the back-end starter, the reliever you've never heard of, and the guy for next year. How do this year's versions of those archetypes match up to previous deadlines? This is the jewel of the trade deadline — the single player who lifts a team from a fringe to a legitimate contender. This is Randy Johnson to the Houston Astros, Cliff Lee to the Texas Rangers, David Price to the Toronto Blue Jays, Max Scherzer to the Los Angeles Dodgers. With apologies to all of those aces, who were nails down the stretch for their new teams, nobody owned this dynamic quite like Sabathia with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2008. Acquired in early July, Sabathia ended up making 17 starts, completing seven of them, and pitching to a 1.65 ERA. Milwaukee went 14-3 in those games; it made the postseason by a game. Short of the Pittsburgh Pirates changing their mind on Paul Skenes, nobody this year (or last year, for that matter) looms as that kind of difference-maker. And yes, I understand the absurdity of choosing as this year's 'ace' someone in Sandy Alcántara who carries an ERA over seven into the All-Star break. But nobody else on our latest MLB trade deadline Big Board has won a Cy Young (as Alcántara did in 2022), and nobody else tantalizes pitching coaches across the league with what he could be with one simple adjustment. This is the giveaway that a front office thinks it doesn't just have a good team, but that it has a team that can win a championship. This is when an otherwise smart front office gives up more than it knows it should to feel better about the final three to six outs of games in October. You can't follow baseball in July and not hear someone recall Theo Epstein's rationale for trading Gleyber Torres for Aroldis Chapman in 2016: 'If not now, when?' Advertisement Emmanuel Clase is not having the type of historically good season he had in 2024 for the Cleveland Guardians; in fact, he's already allowed nine more earned runs than he did all of last year. But you can attribute a lot of the jump in ERA to a skyrocketing BABIP and a bad strand rate; the peripheral numbers aren't that far off from where they were last year, and he's still just 27. Plus, Clase represents a twist on the genre because of his extended team control. An acquiring team would have Clase under contract inexpensively through 2028, which provides huge value and, of course, plenty of reason for the Guardians to hold on to him if they don't think the offers are worthwhile. This is a player who's no longer at the peak of his value but still is talented enough to make a difference in a pennant race. By 2021, though Kris Bryant had come down from the heights of his 2016 MVP with the Chicago Cubs, he was putting together a strong season in his platform year when he was dealt to the San Francisco Giants. He helped San Francisco hold off the Dodgers in the NL West and then had a monster NLDS in the loss to L.A., hitting .471 and starting games in four positions, including center field. Ozzie Albies was never quite the star that Bryant was, but he's a three-time All-Star who's only 28 and under cheap team control for two more seasons after this one. He's followed up a subpar season in 2024 with a pretty miserable one this year, but his talent and relative youth could intrigue a team that thinks he just needs a change of scenery. This is the deal that doesn't get its own headlines during the deadline but rather an 'oh, by the way, they picked up (Player X)' kind of story, right up until Player X wins the LCS or World Series MVP — or, if you're the 2021 Atlanta Braves, both. Maybe it's cheating to include all four extra bats Atlanta acquired at that deadline, but no individual one represented a significant move at the time. The collective quartet ended up playing huge roles in the club's comeback from under .500 to win the World Series. Ramon Laureano has been tremendous for an underachieving Baltimore Orioles team that should probably open up regular playing time for some younger pieces. The veteran has just continued the uptick in production he started last season when Atlanta picked him up in late May. The difference is the way Laureano has crushed righties this year, rather than lefties. This is the guy you pick up to help you get to the postseason and maybe start Game 4 once there. Each of the three times J.A. Happ was moved at the deadline as a veteran (since the other two times he was dealt at the deadline in his 20s don't matter here), he exceeded those expectations. If those three post-deadline stints with Pittsburgh, the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals constituted one single season, Happ would have won a Cy Young: In 33 starts after getting dealt, he went 19-4 with a 2.78 ERA. Advertisement Besides being another lefty whose surname begins with H, Andrew Heaney fits the back-end bill. Over the last three seasons, he's reliably taken the ball every turn, keeping his team in the game with an ERA in the low 4s. He started in the World Series for the champion Rangers in 2023. Most every contending team would take that from their No. 4 or No. 5 starter. This deal has become particularly popular as of late, with good teams snatching up middling relievers from bad teams and turning them into something better. It almost seems unfair when the Yankees can take a guy like Clay Holmes, who pitched in the sixth and seventh innings for the Pirates, and make him, over time, into their closer. Pittsburgh, for what it's worth, has extracted some revenge by claiming Dennis Santana from New York and turning him into an excellent reliever over the last 13 months. If I could accurately pinpoint the reliever with pedestrian stats who'd take off somewhere else, I'd be working in a front office. But let's highlight Brandon Eisert, a 27-year-old rookie left-hander who doesn't hit 90 and whose ERA is near 5. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is better than 4-to-1, and his BABIP is elevated by pitching in front of one of the sport's poorer defenses. This is a move that often raises an eyebrow, that lets you know that a team that isn't exactly in the middle of a playoff hunt this year thinks it should be part of the mix the next season. The 2019 New York Mets were listening on offers for Zack Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard when they acquired Marcus Stroman from Toronto, mainly to take Wheeler's spot in the rotation the next year. (It didn't work out: Wheeler's resurgence with the Mets has just kept going for six years with the Philadelphia Phillies, and Stroman opted out of the 2020 season.) The 10th pick in the 2020 draft, Reid Detmers has rebounded from a miserable 2024 by shifting to the bullpen and becoming a late-game monster. He's controlled for two seasons beyond this, and an acquiring team could even consider trying him back in the rotation. (The Los Angeles Angels are not exactly known for getting the most out of their pitchers.) If the Halos decide to move him, Detmers could be a big help in a pennant race this year. But the 25-year-old — you read that age right — carries significant appeal for teams looking to add pitching beyond this season, which could allow Los Angeles to bring back a haul for him. (Photo of CC Sabathia celebrating a wild-card berth with the 2008 Brewers: Darren Hauck / Getty Images)
Washington Post
05-07-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Cal Raleigh ties Ken Griffey Jr.'s Mariners record for home runs before All-Star break with 35
SEATTLE — On the spot, Cal Raleigh compiled a laundry list of players he would consider for a Mount Rushmore of Seattle Mariners following their 6-0 victory over Pittsburgh on Friday. Ichiro was one of the first names off the board, followed by the likes of stud starting pitchers Felix Hernandez and Randy Johnson. When identifying who is the face of the Mariners, though, Raleigh immediately landed on Ken Griffey Jr., who he tied for the franchise record for home runs before the All-Star break with 35 with a pair of blasts.
Al Arabiya
05-07-2025
- Sport
- Al Arabiya
Cal Raleigh Ties Ken Griffey Jr.'s Mariners Record for Home Runs Before All-Star Break With 35
On the spot, Cal Raleigh compiled a laundry list of players he would consider for a Mount Rushmore of Seattle Mariners following their 6–0 victory over Pittsburgh on Friday. Ichiro was one of the first names off the board, followed by the likes of stud starting pitchers Felix Hernandez and Randy Johnson. When identifying who is the face of the Mariners, though, Raleigh immediately landed on Ken Griffey Jr., who he tied for the franchise record for home runs before the All-Star break with 35 with a pair of blasts. 'To be mentioned with that name, somebody that's just iconic, a legend, first-ballot Hall of Famer, I'm just blessed,' Raleigh said. 'Trying to do the right thing and trying to keep it rolling. If I can try to be like that guy, it's a good guy to look up to.' From Raleigh's perspective, Griffey would have smashed the major league home run record, rather than come up 132 short of Barry Bonds, if not for injuries. Thankfully for Raleigh's sake, that admiration hasn't been reserved for the public eye. Whenever Griffey finds himself back in Seattle, which was the case when FIFA Club World Cup games were taking place at Lumen Field, Raleigh has enjoyed his chats with 'The Kid.' 'It's always fun to have him around the clubhouse to just talk to him a little bit and figure out how he went about his business,' Raleigh said. 'So I've talked to him on the phone once or twice as well. So he's a good one. He's one of the best of all time. It's hard to beat talking to somebody like that.' It's also hard to find many comparable runs to what Raleigh–who will participate in the Home Run Derby–is in the midst of and what Griffey accomplished ahead of the 1998 All-Star break. Manager Dan Wilson, who was a teammate of Griffey's in 1998, is among the few folks who can truly put Raleigh's fast start to 2025 in perspective. 'It's remarkable. It feels like he hits a home run every game, that's what it feels like,' Wilson said. 'And I can remember feeling it as a player that (Griffey) just felt like he hit a home run every day. Again, that's the consistency that (Raleigh) has shown. It hasn't been a streak where he has hit a bunch of home runs in a short amount of time. It's been kind of 10 per month.' To Wilson's point, Raleigh has been remarkably consistent. He walloped nine home runs in April, 12 in May, and 11 more in June. Griffey's figures were a tad more mercurial, but just barely (10 in April, eight in May, 14 in June). All told, the 28-year-old Raleigh has more than lived up to the early stages of his six-year, $105 million contract extension, which he signed just ahead of the 2025 season. Not only has Raleigh set a career high for home runs, but he's on track to post new marks for batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. Raleigh chalked those developments up to his maturing a little over halfway into his fourth full major league season. 'I have the ability to drive the ball out of the ballpark,' Raleigh said. 'I mean, it's part of my game and I'm a strong guy. It's learning how to hone it in and take your hits when maybe you're not getting those pitches in the heart of the plate.' Such an approach is all well and good, but the results have been starkly different. Raleigh has racked up just 36 singles, or one more than his home run total. Suffice to say, Raleigh's offensive output has justified every dollar the Mariners have sent his way so far, and then some. 'Want to make sure I'm doing everything I can every single day to earn that paycheck and earn what they gave me,' Raleigh said. 'But it's a lot more than just that. It's being a leader, doing things in the clubhouse and making sure you're ready to go every single day.'
Associated Press
05-07-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Cal Raleigh ties Ken Griffey Jr.'s Mariners record for home runs before All-Star break with 35
Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] SEATTLE (AP) — On the spot, Cal Raleigh compiled a laundry list of players he would consider for a Mount Rushmore of Seattle Mariners following their 6-0 victory over Pittsburgh on Friday. Ichiro was one of the first names off the board, followed by the likes of stud starting pitchers Felix Hernandez and Randy Johnson. When identifying who is the face of the Mariners, though, Raleigh immediately landed on Ken Griffey Jr., who he tied for the franchise record for home runs before the All-Star break with 35 with a pair of blasts. 'To be mentioned with that name, somebody that's just iconic, a legend, first ballot Hall of Famer, I'm just blessed,' Raleigh said. 'Trying to do the right thing and trying to keep it rolling. If I can try to be like that guy, it's a good guy to look up to.' From Raleigh's perspective, Griffey would have 'smashed' the major league home run record rather than come up 132 short of Barry Bonds if not for injuries. Thankfully for Raleigh's sake, that admiration hasn't been reserved for the public eye. Whenever Griffey finds himself back in Seattle, which was the case when FIFA Club World Cup games were taking place at Lumen Field, Raleigh has enjoyed his chats with 'The Kid.' 'It's always fun to have him around the clubhouse to just talk to him a little bit and figure out how he went about his business,' Raleigh said. 'So, I've talked to him on the phone once or twice as well. So, he's a good one. He's one of the best of all-time. It's hard to beat talking to somebody like that.' It's also hard to find many comparable runs to what Raleigh — who will participate in the Home Run Derby — is in the midst of, and what Griffey accomplished ahead of the 1998 All-Star break. Manager Dan Wilson, who was a teammate of Griffey's in 1998, is among the few folks who can truly put Raleigh's fast start to 2025 in perspective. 'It's remarkable. It feels like he hits a home run every game, that's what it feels like,' Wilson said. 'And I can remember feeling it as a player, that (Griffey) just felt like he hit a home run every day. Again, that's the consistency that (Raleigh) has shown. It hasn't been a streak where he has hit a bunch of home runs in a short amount of time. It's been kind of 10 per month.' To Wilson's point, Raleigh has been remarkably consistent. He walloped nine home runs in April, 12 in May and 11 more in June. Griffey's figures were a tad more mercurial, but just barely (10 in April, eight in May, 14 in June). All told, the 28-year-old Raleigh has more than lived up to the early stages of his six-year, $105 million contract extension , which he signed just ahead of the 2025 season. Not only has Raleigh set a career high for home runs, but he's on track to post new marks for batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Raleigh chalked those developments up to his maturing a little over halfway into his fourth full major league season. 'I have the ability to drive the ball out of the ballpark,' Raleigh said. 'I mean, it's part of my game and I'm a strong guy. It's learning how to hone it in and take your hits when maybe you're not getting those pitches in the heart of the plate.' Such an approach is all well and good, but the results have been starkly different. Raleigh has racked up just 36 singles, or one more than his home run total. Suffice to say, Raleigh's offensive output has justified every dollar the Mariners have sent his way so far, and then some. 'Want to make sure I'm doing everything I can every single day to earn that paycheck and earn what they gave me,' Raleigh said. 'But it's a lot more than just that. It's being a leader, doing things in the clubhouse and making sure you're ready to go every single day.' ___ AP MLB:
