NY Mets Hall of Fame candidate's season remains one of the best in club history

The New York Mets are among the three teams in the MLB that have never produced an MVP winner. The other two, Tampa Bay and Arizona, have played less games combined then the Mets alone who just finished their 62nd season. However this is not to say they have not come close.

In 2024 Francisco Lindor became the third Met position player to ever finish second for the MVP. But he along with Keith Hernandez in '84 and Daryl Strawberry in '88 did not have better offensive seasons then Carlos Beltran in '06. The only other season that is comparable to Beltran in 2006 is the famed 2007 season of David Wright.

Carlos Beltran finished 2006 with a WAR of 8.2 and a slash line of .280/.361/.610, good enough to finish fourth in NL MVP voting. On the other hand Wright in '07 had a WAR of 8.3, slashed .325/.416/.546. and finished third in NL MVP voting. Beltran hit a then franchise record 41 home runs, 116 RBI, and is still the franchise leader for runs scored in a single season with 127, all better then Wright's 2007 campaign.

Unbiasedly looking at the stats, Beltran had the better season. But if you ask Met fans about the best season by a Met hitter, they will immediately say David Wright in 2007, but for all the wrong reasons.

Why Beltran's 2006 season gets overlooked in Mets lore

Beltran lead the Mets to 97 wins and a division title in 2006, while Wright's '07 season coincided with the worst collapse in Mets history, blowing a seven game division lead with 17 games left to miss playoffs completley.

Logically, Beltran's season should be held in higher regards due to the team around him having more success. But it's how the 2006 season ended that will forever tarnish Beltran's miraculous season and his career as a Met entirely.

No one wants to remember the franchise record 41 home runs in the regular season, especially now that Pete Alonso broke his record in 2019. No one wants to remember his postseason heroics, carrying the team down the stretch while other stars like Wright and Reyes struggled. For better or worse, the infamous curveball that Beltran watched grace the bottom of the strike zone for a called strike three to lose Game 7 of the NLCS is what gets remembered.

The strikeout looking has left a horrible taste in the mouths of Met fans for nearly two decades. After he was fired three months into his managerial career due to his role in the Astros sign stealing scandal, he lost the chance to re-write his legacy with the team that he should be enshrined in Cooperstown with. Which is why the greatest hitting season and the greatest center fielder in the franchise's history will forever be summed up in two words, "curveball looking".