New York Mets: Five recent players we forgot played in Flushing

If you forgot about the time these men suited up for the New York Mets in the 2010s, don’t worry. A lot of people did, too.

New York Mets fans know that while some players arrive in Queens and stay for years, many more come and go without leaving much of a mark. The decade of the 2010s featured many of these “blink and you missed it” Mets players who did not linger too long in the Big Apple.

Some were expected to be a “big move,” while others were more under-the-radar signings that ultimately made little impact. Here are five players from the past decade that were, technically, members of the Mets, but who did not figure prominently in the team’s overall win/loss record.

These five players also merited inclusion on this list because until writing this article, I had completely forgotten that any of them had ever been on the Mets.

Aaron Harang

Before he arrived in Queens, Aaron Harang compiled most of his career highlights as an anchor of the Cincinnati Reds’ starting rotation. He had several good years in Cincy, leading the league in wins and strikeouts in 2006 and finishing 4th in NL Cy Young voting in 2007. The next several years were filled up with ups and downs for Harang, and he found himself bouncing between several teams over the next few years.

By 2013, Harang was no longer a frontline starter. He began the year in Seattle and made 22 starts for the Mariners, but was released on August 31. Never one to shy away from taking a chance on aging starters, the Mets promptly signed him to a minor league contract the next day. This decision likely came in the wake of the news a few days prior that Matt Harvey was shut down for the rest of the season with a partial UCL tear.

Harang’s time in Flushing was extremely short-lived. He only made four starts in Queens to finish out the 2013 season, going 0-1 with a 3.52 ERA. Harang also had seven plate appearances, notching two hits and scoring a run for a very respectable .286 Mets batting average. Though the Mets’ season was essentially over, Harang provided some much-needed rotation insurance to close out the year, with Harvey out, a doubleheader on the schedule, and rookie Zack Wheeler on an innings limit.