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.

3) Cliff Floyd

Cliff Floyd may not have caught a World Series-winning flyout like another player on our list (more on him later), but he did catch the final out of the game that clinched the Mets’ 2006 NL East division title. On that day, when Josh Willingham of the Florida Marlins flew out to end the game, Floyd’s veteran leadership over the past four seasons came to full fruition.

He came to the Mets in 2003 from the Boston Red Sox, though he spent most of his early years with the Marlins. Floyd replaced Roger Cedeno, who had started 125 games in left the year before and had enjoyed a couple of decent years in Flushing. When he arrived in Queens, Floyd brought with him both established, solid left field play and distinct clubhouse leadership.

David Wright in particular has spoken often of Floyd’s impact on the Mets clubhouse since they were locker buddies years ago. In interviews, Wright has mentioned that Floyd bought him his very first “big league” suit after he came up to the majors in 2004. Wright has also recounted how he carried Floyd’s luggage as a rookie. Though this request may not have endeared Wright to Floyd at the time, it did forge a longstanding friendship between the two that remains to this day.

But much more important to the Mets’ on-field success than having a luggage caddy was Floyd’s steady bat and dependable defense. From his first season in Flushing in 2003, through the end of the 2006 season, Floyd hit .268 while averaging 20 home runs, 68 RBI, and 23 doubles for each of those four seasons. He also had several defensive highlights scattered across those four seasons, including a league-leading 15 outfield assists in 2005 and four double plays turned from the outfield in 2003.

Floyd had a few notable individual highlights as a Met. He hit a three-run, walk-off home run in the 10th inning against the Los Angeles Angels in 2005, a feat that did not directly propel the Mets to the playoffs that season but which provided a taste of the wall-to-wall dominance that came the following year. Floyd also hit a game-tying home run in the 11th inning of a game against the Atlanta Braves in 2006, a game that the Mets went on to win 8-7 in 14 innings. He is not remembered as an all-time slugger in Mets history, but when the pitch was right, Floyd’s smooth left-handed swing rarely missed a chance for a towering bomb.

Many of Floyd’s career highlights came elsewhere, but for the four years he spent in Flushing, he was an above-average everyday player in every baseball metric.

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.