It was 16 years ago today that the Mets acquired Mike Piazza from the Florida Marlins. Oh, if we could only make the same kind of trade today ! A legitimate cleanup hitter, certainly one of the best in the game for one major-league ready prospect in Preston Wilson and two maybes in Geoff Goetz and Ed Yarnall, neither of whom ever contributed on the major league level. Of course, a long-term...
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Continuing this series of posts on the best trades the Mets ever made, if Bernard Gilkey was the only hitter to have a career year after being traded to the Mets, then Bob Ojeda was clearly the first, last, and only pitcher to similarly have a career year after coming to Flushing. Ojeda had been a decent, if unspectacular starting pitcher for the Red Sox for a few seasons. The Mets had been...
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Back in 1963 and 1964 when fringe-major leaguer Al Moran and later, aging veteran Roy McMillan were playing shortstop for the Mets, the minor league system was developing two promising shortstops, one of whom who would hopefully be the long-term heir to the job. On the Mets’ Raleigh farm team, the shortstop was Wilbur Huckle, a hustling good-hands type who was signed to his first professional...
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Dick Selma was probably considered the Mets’ top pitching prospect from the day he signed a $20,000 bonus contract in early 1963. The small (5’11, 160 lbs.) but hard-throwing righthander out of Fresno, California was assigned to Salinas of the California League in 1963 where he led the league in strikeouts and ERA and was named the league’s top rookie and best pitching prospect. Selma was...
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Cleon Jones played both football and baseball at Alabama A&M when the Mets signed him in the summer of 1962 to report the following year. Unlike Kranepool and Swoboda, Jones was not a big-money bonus player who was touted as a surefire big leaguer from the day he signed, but in his first year in the minor leagues, Cleon quickly vaulted to the top of the Mets’ prospect list. He even made his...
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