Are you listening? What's going on everybody,
welcome back to BT Unleash. You got a little special content
for you today. The snow start to melt a little
bit, baseballs around the corner, Yanks and Mets obviously
deep into the games. The WBC is around the corner
before you know it, Opening day. So the new content I dropped
last week, my all time Yankees lineup one through 9.
We're using the DH and the only rule really is that it's got to
be post 1980 and you had to be on the team for at least two
years. So with that being said, the
Yankees was last week. Today we get with the New York
Mets and I'll tell you what I dropped this year and I wanted
you guys to start giving me your versions and obviously there's
no right or wrong. This is just my personal version
and I noticed in a lot of the replies we already disagreed off
the bat. I saw a lot of Jose races and I
love watching Jose Ray. He was really good.
José José José José he was a beast, but he is not this guy
batting first, playing shortstop for B TS all time Mets team as
we look to fill this out, that's obviously the objective batting
first. We'll slot that in right now.
Let's go with Yeah, we're going to go with Francisco Lindor.
I know. Oh, BT can't stand Lindor.
Oh, I know BT said Lindor should only hit right-handed.
Well, BT is going to come correct when it's time to come
correct. Lindor is obviously a terrific
player. So what I did, I went back to
all of the players that make my all Time Team and I picked out
their best year. So for me, Lindor was obviously
with the Mets of the Guardians back in 2024 where you had a WAR
of 6.9, very high number, finished second in the MVP to
show Otani gave you the power, 33 bombs, 90 plus ribbies, a
very healthy OPS 844 for Lindor. Swipe 29 bags, scored 107 runs,
played really good defense, could have won the Gold Glove.
Now remember last year in 2025, Lindor's defensive metrics
dropped off a bit and hopefully that's just an anomaly for the
Mets and for the Mets fans. But Lindor as the leadoff man,
switch hitter, power, speed, you know, just a terrific 5 tool all
around player. You like to see him get off to a
quick start. You'd like to see that, but you
got to start my all time Mets team with Lindor in the lead off
spot. So now we get to the number two
spot. You want somebody with pop,
preferably somebody with a high contact rate, preferably
somebody who's clutch, somebody who could run a little bit.
This one was easy. Newly minted Hall of Famer.
That's right and well deserved the great Carlos Beltran.
We're going to put Beltran in the 2 hole and Beltran will
obviously bat second. Now we're going back to 2006 and
no, not with it. Didn't stretch.
We get that nasty pitch from Adam Wainwright to wrap up the
the Championship series against the Cardinals, but before that
he had a monster season. He had a WAR of 8.2, which was
the highest of any year he's had, including the Astros, the
Royals, other teams as well. Finished fourth in the MVP that
year. Beltran did what a Gold Glove in
center field and obviously did not start very well as a Met.
That first year at the Mets only had sixteen home runs and people
were saying what's going on with Beltran?
Well, he quickly rectified that Silver Slugger check 41 home run
runs, check 116 RB is check 982 OPS.
I mean, that is a beast of the season.
How about this will go a little deeper in the metrics and OPS
plus of 150 big number. And Oh yeah, by the way, as a
switch hitter with power, with speed, scored 127 runs.
So the Mets all time lineup. My Mets all time lineup post
1980, you've got Francisco Lindor setting the tone, power,
speed in the two spot. You've got Carlos Beltran.
What about the three spot? Well, listen, you know my guy
was Don Mattingly. But if I was a Mets fan, this
dude absolutely would have been my guy.
And even though I'm not a Mets fan, there's a lot of love for
Keith Hernandez. I mean, you talk about a
prototypical #3 hitter. There was a stat I don't think
they really used. I remember used to be on the
back of baseball cards. I don't think they use it
anymore. It was a clutch that like from
the 7th inning on game-winning RBI's Hernandez was always in
the mix there. Now listen he had some great
years with the Cardinals won the MVP back in 70 Co MVP in 1979.
We go back to his 84 season. So Hernandez was acquired mid
season in 83 in 84 Hernandez's first season in 85 the Yankee of
the the Mets well of getting Gary Carter.
But this year in 84 Keith finished second in the MVP.
Now, if there was a wild card like the Yankees back in the 80s
as well, the Mets would have had a lot more playoff appearances.
Second in the MVP for Keith, the best defensive first baseman of
all time. Mattingly was really good.
I got it. I got to keep it correct here.
I mean, I got to come clean on the bunt.
Turn to the 363 double play. Hernandez was an absolute
surgeon. Magician, won the Silver
Slugger, had an 859 OPS, 94 ribbies, 311 average member.
That was a lot of Letty Dykstra, Wally Backman, Samuki at the top
of the you got you got the thump now with Reyes and with Beltran.
I mean Hernandez might drive in 130 a 140 runs.
As I said, hit 311 when you know, hitting for average still
meant something didn't strike out a lot and his on base
percentage was incredibly well over 404 O 9.
So you go Lindor, you go Beltran, you go Keith Hernandez.
Now we get to the four spot. All right.
I don't know if I love him behind the dish as a catcher.
That was certainly advantage Gary Carter.
But in terms of thump, in terms of right-handed presence, Mike
Piazza absolutely as good as it gets.
He's my catch. A little deficient defensively,
sure. I'm going back to the Subway
Series year back in 2000 where Mike Piazza ran up and rang up a
WAR of 5.1 third in the MVP. Yeah, you bet he bagged the
Silver Slugger. 38 home runs, 113 RB is listen to this OPS
over 1001 thousand 12 his OPS plus you thought that, you know,
Beltran's was good at 1:50. This was 155 for the great Mike
Piazza. Only 69 strikeouts process that.
You know, obviously Judge has a ton more power and Darryl
Strawberry, who we might get to at some point coming up, had had
great power, clearly. But to have the power that
Piazza had and only strikeout 69 times, Like imagine if Straw
struck out 69 times or Arrow Judge struck out 69 times.
I mean, that is an incredibly efficient contact rate.
And Oh yeah, by the way, even though he couldn't run, he did
score at 90 runs. So we're going think about this
now one through 4. All right, I'm going to contrast
a little bit. The Yankees lead off man was
Ricky and the Mets lead off man is Lindor.
I had Jeter in the 2 spot for the Yankees, obviously Beltron
of the two spot for the Mets. I had Mattingly in the three
hole vintage peak pre back injury, Mattingly in the third
spot there. Obviously you now get to the
Mets with Keith Hernandez. You got to have that little
Keith and Donnie juxtaposition there.
And now Mike Piazza is in the clean up spot.
And and just a quick aside from the lineup as as I construct
this and I'll continue to build it out in a moment, I think
about some of the the great right-handed hitters in all the
baseball now, really some of his best, most of his best years,
maybe outside of this one and maybe one other with the Mets.
They were really with the Dodgers.
And you look at a right-handed catcher who couldn't run a lick
was hitting three 4350. And in terms of opposite field
prowess, you know, for my money, you know, I mean, I haven't
judges there. Bonds could do it as well.
But like Mike Piantz's ability to hit with power to right
center field, I don't want to say it was without precedent
because I just gave you a couple of names that are obviously
there. But Mike Piantz is on the short
list for incredible oppo power and oppo thumb.
So they got their first four. Now.
It's like I knew the names when I set this up.
There's only one or two. Left field was tricky.
I'll get to that. And I think you would agree left
field for the Mets. Put it this way, it's not Todd
Hundley and it's not Nemo. I no disrespect, but my my issue
was like, where do I put these next couple of guys in terms of
the batting order? Well, in the five hole.
All right, if Piazza doesn't get him in, would you probably will.
How about the straw man? All 6 foot 6 and a blur on the
bases are rocket and right field.
Yeah, I know he struck out. Yeah, I know the Darrell's head
wasn't always there. Yeah, I know he's a little slow
to recover from injuries, but come on.
You go back to 1988, which was his best Met season with a 5.5
WAR, almost one the MVP. I thought he should have won the
MVP back in 88 second in the MVP that year.
Silver Slugger obviously led the league in all these categories.
Home runs, 39 slugging percentage, OPSOPS plus and Oh
yeah, we know Darryl could run. I mean, man, watching Darrell,
obviously he could steal and he had 29 swipes that bag that
year, 101 runs scored. But watching Darrell, what you
know with that 66 frame and he was a quick twitch guy.
Like, you know, that's just to make it a Yankee met thing.
But Bernie Williams was a very good base runner.
Like when he got going, he didn't steal a ton.
His first step is read was but Darrell, you know, on a double
in the gap from first base or a base hit up there to right field
from 2nd. We're even tagging up from third
on a semi shallow bolt to the like Darryl's wheels were
phenomenal. So after Piazza, yeah, I love
Darryl. I mean I love them as a Yankee,
but again, I got to come correct.
There's some of these Mets I really enjoyed watching my dad's
a Mets fan as you know, and Channel 9 was on a little bit
more often than WPIX until I got older and I started taking
control of the remote. Then it went to the to the
Yankees more. But love Darryl lot lot of love,
lot of respect for Darryl. Good guy happy turns his life
around and and he deserves to be in that five spot.
All right, now we get to the 6th hole.
So we have Keith Hernandez playing first base.
So Pete Alonzo is not my first baseman obviously, but you
better believe that Big Pete is my designated hitter.
He's behind Daryl in the sixth spot.
So I'm going to go back to Pete's 29 was really early.
Obviously guys that was that was his first year 2019 Rookie of
the year, a WAR of 5.4 As a rookie.
He broke Aaron Judges rookie home run mark with 53 had 120
ribbies, had a 941 OPS as a rookie had an OPS plus of two of
147. And it's not like he hit 220 or
230 hit a really healthy 2 Sixty 57th in the MVP had 103 runs
scored. And I think it's funny, this is
as a quick decide, but if you think about a lot of those
conversations that I had on the fan, I had on the fan with Sal,
you know, do you give Pete a long term deal?
What is he worth? Well, one of the things that,
and I know he's not here, so it doesn't really matter, but one
of the things that was beginning to creep into Pete Alonso's
game, you know, like in 2023 and 2024, the average really sunk.
But if you go and and it was alarming, I'm like, is this the
new Pete Alonso? And then he rectified it and
then the Orioles gave him a rightful 5 year big money deal.
But Pete Alonzo early was at 260, was at 260-2265 ish.
I think even one year he may have hit 270 and you know, he
was just a tougher out, didn't strike out quite as much.
But Pete in certainly his rookie year 2019, was an absolute
animal and for the most part was an animal throughout his Mets
run. He is in the 6th hole behind the
straw man now, the 7th spot this is.
And I, I got to be honest, I debated putting this next player
in the 2 hole. Like I was messing around.
I'm like, do I drop Lindoor? Do I maybe mess around to get
cute with some of these new, you know, modern lineups where Judge
hit second, you know, Soto hit second, Shohei Otani's atop the
order. I actually thought about putting
this guy, not one but maybe 2 and he would have fit there
nicely. But he's going to settle in as a
great 7 hitter. That's David Wright, who's
probably outside of Doc and Darrell.
He's by far my all time favorite Met.
I think David Wright is the Mets version of of Don Mattingly.
I've said that a lot the the correlations to their careers,
the back injury, the captaincy, the steadiness, the leadership.
And unlike Donnie, David Wright could run.
I'm going to go to David Wrights 2007 season.
Listen to these numbers. First of all, his war was over
8. Just a little context here.
Aaron Judge's war this past year when I mean Aaron Judge's
superhero right now was a shade below 10.
It was 9.78 point 3 for David Wright in 2007.
Somehow we didn't finish in the top three in the MVP, which is
mystifying. He won a Gold Glove, obviously
got the Silver Slugger stole the career high 34 bases like David
could run 42 double S foul line to foul line power 30 bombs, 107
RB is remember this is before they moved away from Shea and
when he got the city his numbers dip power wise for a minute and
then you know, then they they were stabilized.
But then his back became an issue.
David Wright was just phenomenal.
Just the ballplayer 113 runs scored almost 200 hits banged
out 196 and OPS of 963 and OPS plus of 149.
I mean, those are remark. Those are Hall of Fame numbers,
like if you have 4-5 years like that, which he didn't quite have
that, but if you did, that's a Hall of Famer.
And you know, I look at you guys know what I value on a baseball
field, Obviously power. You know, I want you to be able
to play your defensive, especially if it's a position of
of Providence, like up the middle, shortstop, behind the
plate, center field. I want a slick field in first
baseman. I can live with a guy who's
going to booted at third base a little bit if he's a masher,
left field, whatever. I need a right fielder with a
hose. But when I look at David Wright,
like I just go to the conveyor belt of a baseball players, like
when you are constructing a baseball player, everything I
look for the prototypical body like speed and strength ratio.
Can you run? Do you have an arm?
Do you have soft hands? He was a shortstop as a young
player, so him moving to third base was was a lock.
It was simple. Are you clutch?
Are you emotionally consistent? Are you a leader?
I remember many times David Wright had no issue looking into
that camera and talking to those reporters and calling himself
out, calling his teammates out. Massive respect for David
Wright. You know that back doesn't
betray him. He is AI think he's a first
ballot Hall of Famer. Forget about being a Hall of
Famer and in the seventh spot. That is phenomenal.
Love David Wright, shout out to #5 Now we get to left field.
Not many options. I'm going to lie to you now, I
will say this, and it's not just because he, I mean, he's going
to play this year for the Mets, obviously, which will be year
#2I elected to omit Juan Soto. I'll mess around to give you a
little version of Soda was was in my lineup.
So if Soda was there, I could have put Soda on the left, which
where he'll be this year, could have kept Daryl and right.
And then obviously, you know, I'm not not scratching for a
left fielder here. And it was really the only
position, not so much of the batting order.
I had to think about a few things there.
It was the only position where I'm like really had to crunch
some numbers. I knew the two names that jumped
out right away. It was, and I love Cliff Floyd.
It wasn't Cliff, it was you went to Cespedes.
It wasn't Todd Hundley. You know, it was really that
really came down to Cespedes. And Cespedes is the guy.
Get him up there right now batting 8th.
Now when he was brought into the Mets, really, I mean, do you
want to talk about a surge of energy and just propelling that
team to the World Series? I'm going to go and that was
2015. I'm going to go to his 2016
year. Now this does tell you like the
Mets just had a shortage of of star left fielders and and
Cespedes like he is very low on this list in terms of
Providence. Here is probably last.
As a matter of fact, his WAR in 2016, which was his best Mets,
he had some better years with the A's, I think maybe even one
better one with the Tigers, but his WAR was 2.9.
It is a lot of guys with the 2.9 WAR, but it's a position where
it hasn't been filled over the years greatly by the Mets.
You know, maybe Ben's changes that down the road, maybe Soto
change that, whatever. But up until this point, you
know it's been. So you go back to that season
and again, for an 8 hitter, that's fine. 8 in the MVP.
So top 10, still big value there.
Won the Silver Slugger, hit 31 home runs, only 86 RBI's and a
sub 900 OPS. Again, really good, but less
than some of the other big names and incredible, basically Hall
of Fame numbers that I just hit you with as we filled out the
first seven spots. Now we get to the #9 spot in the
order I'm kind of looking for, you know, a guy that could
easily bat first or in this case he hit second quite a bit.
I was he was a ball player and he was a buttoned up,
fundamentally sound Polish ball player.
Met fans love him. Kind of gets overlooked a little
bit over the years with the straws and the Piazza's and the
Hernandez's and the Gary Carter's.
And Gary did not make my team. I couldn't put Gary at the DH
over Pete and I certainly couldn't couldn't put Gary
behind the plate over Piazza. I guess some people can contest
this and that's what this is all about.
I want to see the comments, I want to see the push back.
I want to spur some debate. Could I put Gary as the catcher
and Mike is the DH and omitted Pete?
I could have. I'm not doing that to the Mets
all time home run leader. So that's how I came up with
what I came up with. But in the nine spot playing
second base, I thought about maybe even pumped and Reyes
there and getting cute. Edgardo Alfonso ball player
winner, good at everything, not great at anything.
That's although this year was great.
Not going to reference in a moment but just every night.
Ground ball, moving runners over, making the right play,
getting the clutch knock. Just a really good player.
How about this war back in 2000 Subway series 6.4?
That was his war. So 109 runs scored monster, 40
double S monster. If you get cute try to beat him
with a fastball 25 you know could take you deep spinning
around 25 home runs. 94 RB is an on base percentage of 425.
I mean, that is freakishly good. 425 is insane and OPS of 967,
which is big time and I value this.
Like I was like Keith Hernandez and a few others that didn't
really strike out much like Mike Piazza only struck out 70 times.
So I've got my bottom third, my last dinner, Edgardo, Edgardo
Alfonso, who can it would pop, can move runners over, SAC fly,
whatever he calls for situational stuff, got to steal
the base, whatever. You know that Fonzie could do
that for you. So that is my all time Mets 1980
lineup post 80. Let's get the lineup card up
there. Let's get it up.
Let's see. It was not easy as I was sitting
in the managers office trying to flush through this year.
So in the one spot playing shortstop, Lindor, you go
back-to-back, switch hitters, think about this.
You got to love that. Beltran Hall of Famer and Lindor
will be 1 of as well eventually. Carlos in the two spot playing
center, great fielder Hernandez best defensive first baseman of
all time, clutch hitter, captain three spot.
Piazza, absolute masher, straight up beast.
A lot of contact as well. He's in the four spot.
Daryl with the power, with the speed, you know, and back then
in the 80s, in the early 90s, power hitters, you know, guys
like Darryl, the great ones, they didn't hit 230.
Like now you know, Darryl was going to hit you 262-7265.
So he's in the five spot. Pete Alonzo, you know, sucks.
He's no longer here. And no Mets fans lament that.
I think it's the right baseball move, but this is not the show
for that. Pete's in the 6th hole.
My DH is going to clean up and just go buck wild with all those
men on base, the great David Wright, all the round talent all
around, player in the seven hole, suspicious in the 8th, Spa
playing left field and Fonzie batting 9th.
Keep that up there for a second here.
Think about the lower third guys.
So how many guys in the lineup can't run?
We're actually let me do it this way.
Who can run? Lindor, yes, Beltran, yes.
Keith was actually OK like pretty quick with the Cardinals
and then a a situationally very smart based runner with the
Mets. Piazza couldn't run a lick.
It was painful. Kind of like me.
Barrel could fly. Pete couldn't move.
Can't move right, can run, Cespedes could run and Fonzie
could run to round it out. So that lower third, you get a
lot of power. You get, you know, good contact
rate and you get good speed. So there it is.
BT's all time Mets lineup post 1980.
Hey, I'm sure you guys will pick apart a couple of things.
Debate, click away. Let's go.
Let's get the conversation flow and hopefully you guys enjoyed
as we move toward the start of Opening Day for the Mets and
obviously for the Yankees in the New York baseball season.
Enjoy it, comment, like and subscribe and all that good
stuff and I'll catch you soon.