All-time favorite NY Mets player list by prospect Sammy Stafura caused a stir among fans

One of the big hooks about the Luke Weaver trade alongside getting a well-ranked prospect for the system was the fact that Sammy Stafura was one of us. He grew up a New York Mets fan and that’ll be his gimmick for the time being.

NJ.com’s Max Goodman had a chance to have the most MLB offseason during a lockout conversation with Stafura. The topic went to “all-time favorite players” on the Mets. Stafura proceeded to assemble a lineup that surprised everyone.

Showing off his age completely, this is how his team looked:

P-Jacob deGrom
C-Travis d’Arnaud
1B-Lucas Duda
2B-Ruben Tejada
SS-Jose Reyes
3B-J.D. Davis
LF-A.J. Ewing
CF-Brandon Nimmo
RF-Juan Soto

A few things about this all-time Mets list sticks out

Stafura seemed to be focused on trying to not name current players, especially those currently on the Mets. A.J. Ewing sounds like a pal or he’s just a super-fan of some kind. He did his best to not put Juan Soto in right field, but drew a blank on other options with Michael Conforto covering the position for a good majority of his fandom. No Curtis Granderson?

Stafura was born in 2004 and this was a very “I was born in 2004” kind of list. No 2006 Mets other than Jose Reyes were included and that choice might be the result of Stafura not wanting to pick Francisco Lindor. Fair enough.

The real surprise was J.D. Davis at third base. The look on Goodman’s face says it all. After seeing it run on mute at first, I was guessing the pick might have been Todd Frazier. Davis was a far more popular Mets player during his brief successful stint from 2019 through mid-2022. The absence of David Wright made Stafura’s list proprietary. Wright expands nearly every generation with maybe only a few older hats picking Howard Johnson and rebels selecting Robin Ventura.

The very 2015 Mets-centric list tells us exactly how much has changed with the team since then as well as how long it has been. Stafura was 10-years-old during that run. That age is right around the beginning of everyone’s prime fandom. In other words: don't go disrespecting Todd Hundley in front of me.

If there was ever any doubt about Stafura’s fandom, he confirmed it. You don’t whip out some of these names without going through the agony. Still, where was Daniel Murphy? No Juan Lagares in center field probably tells us Stafura was mostly into the 2015-onward Mets more than the leaner era before it.

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