It’s not official yet, but David Wright‘s time as a professional baseball player looks to be all but over. This is going to create several tangible gaps for the Mets to fill: Namely, at third base. The Mets have had three regular starting third basemen this season after having just one from 2004-2014. Wright’s presence has undoubtedly been missed at the hot corner.

Then there’s the locker-room presence. Wright’s leadership isn’t something that shows on a stat sheet, but it’s hard to imagine losing your captain not having at least some effect on the team. This is hard to gauge from the outside, but I’m sure it’s easy to tell for people on the inside.

These are two tangible areas where the Mets will undoubtedly miss Wright. But the one intangible area where they definitely miss Wright is the title he’s informally held for about a decade: Face of the Franchise.

Nobody came right out and crowned Wright as face of the franchise, but his record-setting play made him the most recognizable player on the team throughout the mid-2000s after Mike Piazza left. Even during the 2015 postseason, it was apparent that Wright was still the Mets’ face. But if he is indeed done, then who is it?

Maybe two years ago it could have been Matt Harvey, but not anymore. Noah Syndergaard‘s not coming back this year, so it’s not him – at least not right now. Yoenis Cespedes? He’s great, but he’s not a franchise player. Michael Conforto is too young to earn this distinction.

This leaves Jacob deGrom alone as the post-David Wright face of the New York Mets for several reasons: He has been the only one of the Mets’ core aces to consistently pitch at a high level and (mostly) avoid injury. Better yet, he’s done it with approximately zero drama. You’ll never hear him feuding with the media, refusing an MRI or not showing up to a game – not that I’m naming names here.

As far as a non-insider can tell, he hasn’t let the “City That Never Sleeps” lifestyle mess with his pitching prowess, which is something that many young Mets stars of the past have struggled with. He’s just like Wright in these respects.

While Syndergaard often gets more attention because he’s more of a public personality and a lot more marketable than deGrom is, deGrom still stands as the best of the Mets’ young pitchers. His 2.87 career ERA is the lowest of any Mets pitcher. He’s thrown more innings than any Mets pitcher as well. Not bad for a guy who was never even considered a top prospect, as all of their other pitchers were.

deGrom’s resumé doesn’t stand out just among his teammates either– he has the 14th-lowest ERA of any pitcher with at least 600 innings through their age-29 season in the Expansion Era (since 1961). Six of the players ahead of him, Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Juan Marichal, Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux, are Hall of Famers. Clayton Kershaw is another ahead of him and he will without a doubt be enshrined, and Roger Clemens, well, it depends who you ask.

So while you might not even realize it because he pitches in a star-studded rotation, deGrom is off to a Hall of Fame start to his career– and aside from Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden, he’s off to perhaps the best start to a pitching career in Mets history.

The Mets are lucky to have deGrom around for the foreseeable future; he’s not due to hit free agency until after the 2020 season which is just another reason to consider deGrom the face of the Mets. He has been a model of consistency, class and dominance like no other player on the Mets. This all makes him a worthy heir to David Wright’s throne.