Devin Williams
In case you haven’t been paying attention the last two years, the New York Mets have been signing former New York Yankees left-and-right. The latest example was the Mets signing Luke Weaver to a two year deal.
Weaver will be setting up for former Yankee Devin Williams. Certainly, they will pitch in relief of former Yankee Clay Holmes.
The pitching changes will be made by former Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza. Mendoza will fill out his lineup card with former Yankee Juan Soto.
You may see a pattern here. Certainly, Yankees fans are noticing and are trolling the Mets and their fans.
To hear Yankeee fans, this is a new development that only works one way. The irony is the Yankees helped build a dynasty off former Mets players.
The Yankees manager was Joe Torre. Torre finished his playing career and began his managerial career with the Mets.
Torre’s pitching coach was Mel Stottlemyre. Stottlemyre was a well known Yamkees pitcher, but he began his career as a pitching coach with the Mets.
Torre’s first base coach was Lee Mazzili. Mazzili was a beloved Mets player. He did play very briefly with the Yankees after a 1982 trade.
Another coach. Jose Cardenal played two years for the Mets. Interestingly enough, he actually played for Torre.
Aside from the coaching staff, the Yankees roster was full of Mets during those dynasty years.
One of the Yankees big game starters was former Met David Cone. Cone was joined in that Yankee rotation by Mets legend Dwight Gooden.
We’d see those Yankees teams use some former Mets relievers in the bullpen. Those pitchers included Wally Whitehurst, Paul Gibson, and Allen Watson.
The Yankees had Darryl Strawberry, who was a significant contributor and mentor. He should’ve been the 1996 ALCS MVP. He was great again in the 1999 postseason.
When the Yankees beat the Mets in the 2000 World Series, it was former Met Jose Vizcaino who had the 12th inning walk-off single to win Game 1. Cone had a big strikeout of Mike Piazza in Game 4.
Look at the current Yankees team. They just re-signed Amed Rosario. Last year, they also had former Mets Marcus Stroman, Paul Blackburn, Carlos Carrasco, Rico Garcia, Geoff Hartlieb, Pablo Reyes, and former Mets draft pick Allan Winans. The Yankees also had former Mets Adam Ottavino, but to be fair, Ottavino was a former Yankee when the Mets signed him.
Put another way, the Yankees love former Mets. They don’t seem to even care if that former Met was good or not. Ability comes second to a history with the orange and blue.
You can honestly say this has been a two way street. It has, but that’s also the point. The Mets aren’t doing anything different than the Yankees do.
They love each others former players and go out of the way for them. The Mets signing a few relievers this offseason only highlights this.
In reality, the Mets signings shouldn’t lead to mockery of the Mets for signing former Yankees. Rather, the Yankees should be mocked for losing so many quality pieces to the Mets.
New York Mets fans are devastated Pete Alonso has left the New York Mets for the Baltimore Orioles. It’s an especially tough hit after Edwin Díaz left to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
There are some differences and similarities. In reality, who cares what they are when the end result is Alonso is a former Met.
With Alonso, he’s a forever fan favorite with some truly great moments. He was the Rookie of the Year breaking the rookie home run record. That would also be the first of back-to-back Home Run Derby titles.
He’s the Mets all-time single season and career home run leader. We can tick off all of our favorite memories, but we should all be able to agree his best moment as a Met was in Game Three of the 2024 Wild Card Series:
Imagine telling a Mets fan on October 3, 2024 that come 2026 Alonso would be gone, and Devin Williams would be a Met.
From a Mets perspective, it’s hard to argue with them not re-signing Alonso. There are plenty of slugging first basemen that fell apart at this point in their careers.
Fred McGriff had 262 homers through his age 30 season. He hung around for another 10 years and never got to 500 homers. For reference, Alonso is at 264.
Ryan Howard had 253 through his age 30 season. As we know, his career fell apart after that, and he’d only hit 129 homers over the next six years.
Yes, there are other examples for guys who were successful past 30. We don’t have to look far with the Mets bidding for Kyle Schwarber before Schwarber returned to the Phillies on a five year deal.
Whatever the case, we can look to last offseason as to the big reason Alonso likely left.
Alonso was looking for a massive payday, and no one was willing to give it to him. The negotiations irritated Steve Cohen with Cohen remarking, “I’m being brutally honest. I don’t like the negotiations. I don’t like what’s been presented to us.”
Both sides were angry and hurt with the bitterness apparently still lingering. After all, Alonso didn’t even wait to get out of his full uniform before announcing he was opting out of his deal.
For their part, the Mets never made a formal offer. That was on the heels of their pursuit of Schwarber.
Let’s be honest. Both sides were ready to go separate ways. The Mets didn’t want to give him a massive deal that will likely age badly, and Alonso wanted to go somewhere that would pay him like a superstar.
Alonso wanted to go, and he found a home. Unlike Díaz, he didn’t go somewhere to win a World Series. He went and got paid. There is nothing wrong with that.
All this means is that LFGM is dead like OMG died when Jose Iglesias left. A future Hall of Famer left the door with the Mets searching for ways to replace him.
Pete Alonso is an Oriole, and the Mets are in transition. That’s for the best for everyone. Best of luck to him, thanks for the memories, and for one last time:
https://x.com/we_are_met_fans/status/1955449841515155954?s=46&t=C-cAjvMjkzGA7iCb6Xr6ng
LFGM