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The New York Mets

       I grew up on Long Island, New York. I used to take the subway from the Babylon train station in to Flushing Meadow. Although I saw a bunch of games at Shea during my teenage years with my brother, we almost never missed Banner Day. My brother and I, with our mother's help, would fabricate simple paint-on-bedsheet banners in order to get the priviledge of going on field and parading around in a big loop between games of the double header. That was when you could still bring in a cooler to the stadium. We brought our lunches and sodas had a great time.

       Anyway, I thought I would put together a list of the top 25 New York Mets players of all time. Lists are fun and thought-provoking. There is no right answer to who should be where, but I'll fill in my thinking. I'm going to start at the bottom and work my way forward. Here are my rules:

1) I'm only going to consider what a player did in a Met uniform.

2) A regular field player must have at least 1,500 at-bats in a Met uniform to be considered for the list. This makes my job a little easier. I figure a player has to have the equivalent of three full seasons as a Met to even get to the starting line in this kind of analysis. Ironically, this rules knocks out both Met World Series MVPs. Both Donn Clendenon and Ray Knight don't reach 1,000 Met at-bats. Oh well..

3) A starting pitcher must have at least 90 games started in a Met uniform to be considered for the list. Same thought process as rule # 2 above for a field player. You need the equivalent of three full seasons at your trade to make the cut for my list. This rule knocks out notable players like Brett Saberhagan (74 Met starts), Nolan Ryan (74 Mets starts) and Rick Aguilera (59 Met starts).

4) A relief pitcher must have at least 75 appearances in a Met uniform to be considered for the list. The Mets have been relatively thin on dominating closers, so this rule doesn't do much damage to anyone.

5) Longevity is going to matter in this first analysis. For example, Ed Kranepool played his entire 17 year career with the Mets. He is the all-time hit leader in a Met uniform. Therefore, he is likely to appear as a top 25 all-time Met, and pretty high up at that. This despite the fact that he was rarely an every day player during his career.

6) As the years go by and more players hit the minimum requirements above I may revise the list if need be. It will keep me interested.

7) I'm going to be using a modification of the ESPN player ranking system. There are many, many player ranking systems out there- some of the formulations are known, some not known. I need something realtively easy to get me started. You can go here for more info on the system I'm using. Compared to some of the systems around, this one is easy.