3 former MLB MVPs who were flops as NY Mets players

2) George Foster won the MVP in 1977 when he led the National League with 52 HR and 149 RBI while hitting .320

Foster was 28 years old when he won the MVP as a member of the Big Red Machine. Foster would have a seven-year stretch from 1975 to 1981 where he would be one of the most productive hitters in the National League. And, really, if your look at his seasons closely, other than the three seasons of 1976, 1977, and 1978, he was rather pedestrian.

Foster also had the benefit of the star-studded lineup that included Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, Ken Griffey, and Dan Driessen. He had a lot of protection in that lineup.

When the Mets traded for him prior to the 1982 season, he was 33 years old and five seasons removed from that MVP year. And because Foster wanted no part of going to a losing team, the Mets had to re-negotiate his contract, giving him a contract that was second to only Dave Winfield’s contract with the New York Yankees.

Foster never came close to earning that contract. In his first season with the Mets, Foster hit a whopping .247 with 13 HR and 70 RBI. He followed that up in 1983 by hitting an impressive .241, but did up his power outage to 28 HR and 90 RBI. It was in 1983 that the Mets had Dave Kingman, and then came the arrival of Keith Hernandez and Darryl Strawberry. So it makes sense that Foster would have some other bats in the lineup…like he did in Cincninnati?

While the Mets were starting to build up to that championship season of 1986, Foster did have two somewhat decent seasons in ’84 and ’85, hitting .269 with 24 HR and 86 RBI in ’84 and .263 with 21 HR and 77 RBI in ’85.

His numbers weren’t “awful” but they certainly weren’t great, not for someone who was expected to be an “MVP-type” player. And then to make things worse, DURING that 1986 season, Foster was hitting a resounding .227 with 13 HR and 38 RBI when he was benched in favor of rookie Kevin Mitchell. When he accused the Mets and manager Davey Johnson of racism, he was released.

Foster’s numbers with the Reds for a short period of time, a time that included that MVP season, were a bit deceiving. He was never going to resemble that player with the Mets, but he didn’t even come close to being productive enough to be worthy of that contract, or even worthy of being in the lineup…hence…the benching during a dominating championship season.