3 former NY Mets players who were expected to replace stars and didn't

It's tough enough trying to be a Major League Baseball player, let alone when the bar is set so high because you are expected to make fans forget about the star that you are supposedly replacing. New York Mets fans have always had high expectations and when you falter, they let you know. So when you take the place of one of their favorites, you're gonna hear it.

There are three players who learned the hard lesson that you shouldn't try to replace a Mets star, a fan favorite, or you might just become one of the team's trivia questions.

Mike Vail gave the New York Mets reason to rid themselves of Rusty Staub until he didn't

Rusty Staub was already a fan favorite in Montreal and his stardom only grew when he came to the Mets for the 1972 campaign. Unfortunately, Staub arrived immediately after the sudden death of Gil Hodges, and then he spent most of the season like the rest of the team in the trainer’s room and on the injured list.

He had productive 1973 and ’74 seasons, when the Mets would rebound to make their way into the World Series in ’73 and then have an absolutely brutal year in ’74. But 1975 brought some changes. Yogi Berra would be fired mid-season. But the biggest change was the addition of Dave Kingman, giving the Mets their very first true pure slugger in the lineup.

That season was a very strange year for the Mets as the organization was starting to make the transition away from the players who were tied to the 1969-1973 era. Oh, there were a few left, but with the exception of Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Jerry Grote, Ed Kranepool, Bud Harrelson, and Wayne Garrett, there was nobody left from the ’69 World Championship team. Instead, there Dave Kingman, Del Unser, Joe Torre, Skip Lockwood, Bob Apodaca, and John Stearns.

And in the middle of that season emerged a young player who wasn’t even on anyone’s radar – Mike Vail. Vail was raking at AAA Tidewater and was brought up and immediately inserted into left field. With Staub in right field and first base crowded, Kingman, believe it or not, was moved to third base.

Vail rewarded the Mets for their confidence by hitting in 23 consecutive games, a rookie record at the time. He looked so natural at the plate, that the Mets decided that they would anoint him their starting right fielder for 1976, and trade away Staub who M. Donald Grant wanted gone because he was M. Donald Grant.

Truth be told, while Staub had a great career and is the only player in history to have 500 hits with four teams (one of them being the Mets) Staub had his best seasons with the other clubs he played for over his career. Nevertheless, other than Seaver, Staub was the one true and legitimate star on the team and was loved by the fans. And now he was going to be replaced by this kid, Mike Vail.

Over the winter, Vail played in a charity basketball game. Many players in previous eras did a lot in the off-seasons because, quite simply, they didn’t really make enough money. And Vail ended up getting hurt during that charity basketball game and didn’t recover in time for the start of the 1976 season and, actually, never really recovered at all. That snippet in time in 1975 (.302 with 3 HR in 38 games) was the best and most productive period of Vail’s fairly short career with the Mets, and in the Major Leagues.

It was a 38-game audition that convinced the Mets hierarchy would forget about Rusty Staub. That turned out to be a bit of an error in judgment.