New York Mets: Five best left fielders all-time in franchise history

Who is the best New York Mets left fielder in franchise history?

Throughout New York Mets history, there are many fielding positions that have a clear all-time franchise great. For pitchers, it’s clearly “Tom Terrific” himself, the great Tom Seaver. For third basemen, “the Captain” David Wright has that title locked up. The first base prize belongs to Mr. “good fundies” himself, Keith Hernandez.

But what about left field? There’s no one guy who spent his entire career in Queens playing left field for the Amazins that comes to mind as the obvious, indisputable number one. The contenders for “best left fielders in Mets history” seem to come out of, well, left field.

With that said, spanning their entire history from 1962 through the present day, the Mets have had several fantastic players manning the left side of the outfield for years at a time. Here are my picks for the top five left fielders in Mets history, beginning with number five. An honorable mention goes to Bernard Gilkey, who had an outstanding season for the Mets in 1996 as their everyday left fielder but never quite regained that offensive prowess for the rest of his career.

5) Dave Kingman

Dave Kingman had two separate stints with the Mets, navigating the Shea Stadium grass from 1975-1977 and 1981-1983. He split time between left field and first base while in Queens, but he played enough games in left field and produced enough runs at the plate to warrant inclusion on this list. Kingman was one of the first notable “all or nothing” major league hitters that hit for extraordinary power but often struck out more than anyone else in the league. In today’s game, with strikeouts becoming increasingly common, Kingman would probably be a superstar.

He set many franchise power records while with the Mets, starting with the 36 home runs he hit in 1975. That was a new single-season team record until he broke it himself the next year with 37. In total, Kingman had three years in Flushing with 35+ home runs, which puts him in select company with Mike Piazza, Darryl Strawberry, and Howard Johnson as the only Mets ever to hit 35 or more home runs in at least three separate seasons. Kingman is fifth all-time in franchise history with 152 home runs in a Mets uniform.

Unfortunately, Kingman was never a defensive wizard. Far from it. He posted a career defensive Wins Above Replacement (dWAR) of -6.2, which if anyone is unfamiliar with the term, translates to “bad.” A 2012 Bleacher Report article titled “40 Worst Fielders in Baseball History” referred to Kingman as “simply awful in the outfield.” Had Kingman been an above-average, or even an average, defensive player, he likely would have placed higher on this list.

Nonetheless, Kingman’s mammoth home runs were legendary during the 1970s and 1980s. Mets fans of a certain age vividly remember being awed by his power. The nostalgia factor is strong with Kingman, and he is still one of the overall greatest and most memorable left fielders in team history.

4) Yoenis Cespedes

Yoenis Cespedes had a relatively short peak in a Mets uniform that lasted about a season and a half, but for that brief time, he was a crucial part of two playoff runs. He came to Flushing via a blockbuster deadline deal in 2015, in which the Detroit Tigers sent him to the Mets in exchange for Michael Fulmer and Luis Cessa.

The Mets were fresh off of the Wilmer Flores no-trade fiasco when they acquired Cespedes, but as soon as “Yo” came to town, the Mets offense roared to life and did not lose steam for the rest of the season. Cespedes led the way with a monster second half in Queens: .287 batting average, 17 home runs, 44 RBI, and 14 doubles in just 57 games. He also unleashed several nasty throws throughout the second half to gun down innocent baserunners, from both left field and center field.

Cespedes split time between left field and center field fairly evenly during his first two seasons in Queens, but in 2017 all of his outfield starts were in left. He missed significant time due to injury that year which limited him to just 81 games, but when he was on the field, he was productive, hitting .292 with 17 home runs and 42 RBI.

Since 2017, Cespedes has fallen prey to the injury bug more often than not. He has not played more than 81 games in a season since 2017. The Mets may not have gotten their full money’s worth out of the four-year, $110 million contract that Cespedes signed after the 2016 season, but even in limited time since then, Cespedes has retained his flair for the dramatic. His home run on Opening Day 2020 against the Atlanta Braves came in just his third at-bat in over two years and sent the Mets to a triumphant 1-0 victory. He opted out of the season a little over a week later due to COVID-19 concerns.

Though his time with the Mets had its ups and downs, the meteoric highs that the Amazins reached with Cespedes in the outfield justify his ranking as one of the best and most impactful left fielders in franchise history.

2) Kevin McReynolds

After winning it all in 1986, it might have seemed logical for the Mets to keep their championship roster together, but instead they made several substantial moves that impacted their team for the remainder of the 1980s. One of those moves was trading Kevin Mitchell, who made a name for himself in New York by scoring the game-tying run in the 10th inning of Game 6. On December 11, 1986, the Mets sent Mitchell and Kevin Armstrong, Kevin Brown, Shawn Abner, and Stan Jefferson to the San Diego Padres in exchange for Adam Ging, Gene Walter, and outfielder Kevin McReynolds.

McReynolds had enjoyed a couple of productive years in San Diego, even placing top-20 in the 1984 NL MVP voting, but his most consistent offensive production came once he arrived in Queens. From 1987 through 1990, McReynolds hit over 20 home runs, knocked in over 80 RBI, and hit at least .269 every year. He finished third in NL MVP voting in 1988, losing to Kirk Gibson of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Teammate Darryl Strawberry outpaced him by a few votes, finishing second in that year’s award balloting.

McReynolds also had an interesting distinction in 1988 by stealing 21 bases without being caught once, which was an MLB record until Chase Utley (public enemy #1 for Mets fans) broke it in 2009 by going 23 for 23 on the base paths.

His relatively reserved personality starkly contrasted with that of teammates such as Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, and Keith Hernandez, but McReynolds quietly was one of the best offensive players on the Mets for several years. He didn’t have a lot of flash, but his on-field play spoke for itself.

In addition to his reliable offensive statistics, McReynolds made plenty of defensive highlights while with the Amazins. He led the National League in outfield assists for three consecutive years from 1988 to 1990, led the NL in double plays turned from the outfield in 1988 and 1989, and was known for outfield range and effortlessly tracking down any ball that was hit to him.

“Turned out there’s a pretty good group of guys in New York,” said McReynolds in a 2020 interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “They’d just come off of winning the World Series. It was a lot of fun playing there. It could be tough at times with all the media coverage. . .  For the most part, it was a team with a lot of talent for several years there. We just never were able to completely get to the big show again, but it was a lot of fun. I’m glad I was there.”

Though McReynolds has never established his place in Mets lore quite like some of his teammates that were on the 1986 squad, he deserves to be recognized as one of the very best players to man left field that the Mets have ever had.

1) Cleon Jones

In the top spot as the “greatest left fielder in Mets history” is Cleon Jones, the man who caught the final out of the 1969 World Series. He patrolled the Shea Stadium grass from 1963-1975, which was nearly his entire major league career until he finished his big-league years with the Chicago White Sox in 1976. Jones was a well-rounded player and was among the early leaders in many Mets offensive categories, including home runs. His 93 homers was the Mets all-time team record until Dave Kingman broke it in 1981.

When Jones hung up his Mets uniform for the final time, he was also the franchise leader in hits, runs, RBI, and doubles, and was second in batting average.

In terms of raw statistics, Jones was impressive on many levels. Though he officially debuted in 1963, he ended up toiling in the minor leagues for the entire 1964 season and did not cement his place in the Mets’ outfield until 1966. That season, he was the everyday center fielder for the Mets and hit .275 with eight home runs, 16 doubles, and 57 RBI in 139 games, which earned him a fourth-place finish in the NL Rookie of the Year voting.

Jones’ best year, unsurprisingly, was 1969. His 12 home runs and 75 RBI were crucial to the Mets’ 100 victories that season, but his .340 batting average was the real star on his baseball card. That .340 mark ranked third in the NL in 1969, trailing only Pete Rose and Roberto Clemente. Venerable company, indeed. It also puts him fourth all-time on the Mets’ single-season batting list.

Aside from pure statistics, Jones played his way into Mets history through several other incidents. During his outstanding 1969 season, he was famously pulled in the middle of a game on July 30 by manager Gil Hodges, reportedly for failing to hustle after a double from the opposing Houston Astros. Jones also received the infamous “hit by pitch” that turned into the “shoe polish incident” during Game 5 of the 1969 World Series.

His Mets career ended on somewhat of a sour note in 1975 when he was released in the middle of the season following an off-the-field incident in spring training and poor play to start the year. Nowadays, he spends his time on a decidedly non-baseball note. He and his wife Angela are working to restore his hometown of Africatown, Alabama by cleaning abandoned buildings, painting schools, doing electrical repairs, and various other tasks.

Jones may not be an all-time great in the baseball canon. But he was an excellent player for several seasons and directly led the Mets to one of their two World Championships. For those efforts, he is their greatest left fielder ever.

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These five players all split time between the Mets and other MLB teams throughout their careers, but many of their very best years came when they were in the orange and blue.