As we get ready to put another year in the books and look ahead to 2022, it’s important to look back at what happened over the last 12 months. And, sure, 2021 included quite a bit of frustration for the New York Mets — specifically between July and October — but that doesn’t mean the entire year was bad, right? Right.

Here are 10 moments from the past year that are definitely worth revisiting and celebrating before the Amazins do more cool stuff next year. These moments aren’t in any particular order — y’all can debate that in the comments below.

Mets Sign Max Scherzer

You know what they say — if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That’s what the Mets did in their pursuit of Max Scherzer, and it worked the second time around.

As the July 31st trade deadline approached last season, New York had reportedly planned to check in on Scherzer’s availability. Those talks with the Washington Nationals understandably went nowhere. Then, we heard about how Scherzer wanted no part of playing in New York, but all it took was both Steve and Alex Cohen getting involved — oh, and a three-year, $130 million contract offer — to get the job done.

Now, the Mets are slated to have the two best pitchers in baseball from recent years — Scherzer and some guy named Jacob deGrom — lead the rotation in Queens, which could be a historic one-two punch.

Buck Showalter Hired as Manager

Following a disappointing 77-85 season, the Mets parted ways with manager Luis Rojas by officially declining his option soon after the regular season ended. Nearly three months later, New York finally had a manager again, as Cohen himself broke the news on Twitter that Buck Showalter would be steering the ship next year.

For an organization that had just dropped a quarter of a billion dollars on player talent prior to the lockout, it’s important to have a manager at the helm who had done this before. This is not to say first-time managers can’t be successful right out of the gate, but the Mets tried that three straight times with Mickey Callaway, Carlos Beltrán, and Rojas, and none of them worked out for various reasons.

This hire has also been met with overwhelming praise from virtually all angles, so let’s hope Showalter can once again come in and turn things around in the clubhouse and on the field.

Mets End GM Search

So far, things have seemingly gone swimmingly with Billy Eppler as the newest Mets general manager, but my goodness, did it take a long time to finally get there. Just like last offseason, New York tried to hire a president of baseball operations, and just like last year, they swung and missed on the game’s biggest names before shifting gears to finding a general manager.

Even with that shift, New York got met with either opposing teams refusing them permission to speak with certain executives, or those they spoke with eventually took their respective names out of the running for the position. Eppler was officially named general manager on November 18th. It was awesome just for this search to be done because it meant the Mets would finally start to get to work on improving the roster, which they did in a hurry.

Mets Enjoy a Black Friday Spending Spree

When there is no labor stoppage, we typically don’t see many trades or free-agent signings around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. This offseason is not like any others we’ve experienced in recent memory, though. Just as we were coming out of our turkey-induced comas, New York went on its very own Black Friday spending spree.

Just eight days after officially getting named as general manager, Eppler spent a ton of money by agreeing to terms with Eduardo Escobar (two years, $20 million), Mark Canha (two years, $26.5 million), and Starling Marte (four years, $78 million). And, he did it in a matter of a few hours. This was a huge deal for all the obvious reasons, but after hearing for weeks about how people didn’t want to work for the Mets, it was a relief to see that players weren’t deterred. You know, even without a manager in place at the time they signed.

Mets Acquire Javier Báez

No, it wasn’t Kris Bryant, but the Mets needed to make a big splash prior to the July 31st trade deadline, and they accomplished that by acquiring Javier Báez from the Chicago Cubs. He was easily the highest-profile midseason acquisition New York made since nabbing Yoenis Céspedes from the Detroit Tigers right at the buzzer of the 2015 trade deadline. While the 2015 Mets soared with Céspedes and the 2021 squad tanked after trading for Báez, they performed similarly on an individual basis.

In just 47 games (186 plate appearances) for the Amazins, Báez posted 1.7 fWAR off the strength of a .299/.371/.515 line with nine home runs, 22 RBI, and 32 runs scored. He also added an increased walk rate (4.2% to 7.0%) and a decreased strikeout rate (36.3% to 28.5%), which helped him produce a 143 wRC+.

Mets Acquire & Extend Francisco Lindor

Between signing James McCann, Trevor May, and Marcus Stroman accepting the qualifying offer, the Mets had spent some money last winter, but that big offseason splash didn’t come until January. That came in the form of a trade with the Cleveland Guardians, sending Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez to Cleveland in exchange for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco.

Lindor was slated to become a free agent this winter. However, Cohen showed us what it’s like to be fans of a team with baseball’s richest owner by extending the shortstop to the tune of 10 years and $341 million. Regardless of what this contract will become within the next few years, it was amazing to watch the Mets — the Mets! — spend that kind of money, and break the franchise record for the most lucrative contract by more than $200 million.

Lindor’s Signature Mets Moment (So Far)

The 2021 season didn’t go how Lindor hoped, and it was engineered by a horrific first two months. From June 1st through the beginning of October, he looked more like the player we were hoping to see at the plate, but his overall statistics just didn’t have enough time to recover. His three-homer performance against the New York Yankees at Citi Field under the bright lights of Sunday Night Baseball was easily his best on-field moment of the year. Relive it again just because you should:

Why does this particular game get its own call-out here? Well, because it’s been more than three months since it happened and we’re still talking about how awesome it was. Lindor slugged nine homers with 25 RBI from September 1st through the end of the regular season, so let’s hope he can carry that momentum into 2022, as well.

Whenever Jacob deGrom Pitched

Jacob deGrom was straight out of a video game this past year — and I’m talking about both on the mound and at the plate. Honestly, can you imagine starting a season in the big leagues like this?

DeGrom’s starts have been appointment watching for a while now, but he took things to a new level in 2021. Even with only 92 innings under his belt, he managed to accumulate 3.6 fWAR. Among qualified pitchers, that number would’ve ranked him within the top-25 starters in baseball.

That’s absurd. Here are his five most dominant starts from the year, and make sure you’re sitting down before watching each one.

The Bench Mob in all its Glory

On the injury front, it was dangerous to play for the Mets in 2021, and more specifically, it was incredibly dangerous in May. Jonathan Villar‘s 105 plate appearances were second-most on the team, José Peraza and Kevin Pillar became everyday players, Khalil Lee and Johneshwy Fargas were making ridiculous plays in the outfield, and Cameron Maybin even racked up some plate appearances.

Of course, there was also Patrick Mazeika, who has successfully cornered the market on walk-off fielder choices:

When it was all said and done, the Mets posted a 17-9 record in May, which was their best performance in this month since 2009. The magic that was the ReplaceMets and the Bench Mob was a huge reason why New York stayed atop the National League East as long as it did.

Gil Hodges Finally Elected to Hall of Fame

We don’t have to say, “Gil Hodges should be in the Hall of Fame” anymore. We can now say, “Gil Hodges is a Hall of Famer”. The former Brooklyn Dodger slugger and Mets manager first appeared on a BBWAA ballot in 1969, getting just 24.1% of the vote. His final year was his best, appearing on 63.4% of ballots in 1983. After being included in many Veteran’s Committee ballots since, he was finally selected to enter baseball immortality via the Golden Days Era Committee in the beginning of December.

Whenever anyone talked about players who aren’t in the Hall of Fame but should be, Hodges was one of the first names mentioned. Thankfully, that honor will now go to someone else.

This past season ultimately didn’t go according to plan for the Mets, but there were still plenty of things to get excited about in 2021. Hopefully, there will be a few more things — like a deep run into the postseason, maybe? — to get jacked up about in 2022.