The 1975 NY Mets were an odd team before the organization went into its darkest time

The 1975 New York Mets were one of the better Mets teams of that era of 50 years ago. They had a rotation of Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Jon Matlack, with Seaver capturing his third Cy Young Award with a league-leading 22 wins and 243 strikeouts. They had an offense led by the power hitting of Dave Kingman’s 36 home runs (a lot for that era) and Rusty Staub’s club record 105 RBI.

So what happened? The Mets managed only 82 wins against 80 defeats. Two years earlier those same 82 wins got them to the post season and into the 1973 World Series. But it would only be good enough for a third place finish in the NL’s Eastern Division and Yogi Berra would end up being fired as manager 2/3 of the way through the season.

The New York Mets would see some productive individual performances but it didn't translate into success for the team

The truth is that while there were some really good individual performances by the players, including Ed Kranepool having the best batting average of his career (.323), the team just didn’t do well. It seemed like there was just something missing.

Cleon Jones would only play in 21 games and Bud Harrelson would appear in just 34 games. John Milner would make 91 appearances and struggle to hit .191 with only 7 HR.

Gone from the team was Tug McGraw. He was replaced by Bob Apodaca who had a strong season with a 1.49 ERA and 13 saves.

And while Jones was out for almost the entire season, the Mets got Del Unser in the trade for McGraw who was an outstanding centerfielder and was having a career year until he got hurt and was forced to play at less than full strength.

The Mets acquired Joe Torre who would platoon at third base with Wayne Garrett, and then with Kranepool at first base. Torre was a few years removed from his MVP season and was just another failed attempt at a right handed hitting third baseman to displace Garrett. I think he was the fourth attempt at this scenario over the years. His lack of ability to play third meant he had to go to over to first, creating a logjam there and necessitating the move of Kingman to left field.

But Kingman didn’t stay in left field. He moved to third base. That’s right. Because some rookie named Mike Vail would come up to play left field and set a new rookie record for hitting in 23 games straight.

Torre also set a record – hitting into four double plays in four consecutive at bats. Of course he blamed it on Felix Millan who had four singles in four straight at bats. Because, after all, if Millan didn’t get on base, Torre couldn’t have hit into those four double plays.

And that pretty much summed up the 1975 season.

Although the Mets had rebounded from one of their worst seasons ever in 1974, the 1975 season would be a bit of a tease that the club was still competitive. It wasn’t. The very next season began the trend into the baseball abyss where the Mets would be in the worst state the organization had ever seen.