A rollercoaster NY Mets trade ending in the best way possible

A hypothetical rollercoaster either starts high and drops then raises again or does the complete opposite. Those MLB trades which start with a low, go up again, and drop once more aren’t always remembered so fondly. It’s the beginning and ending which typically matters most. In 1984, the New York Mets made one of those good kinds of trades.

It was August 28, 1984 and a .223 hitter’s numbers were on the decline. The Mets and Houston Astros made one of several significant trades in the teams’ histories. Not realizing they’d fight each other for the pennant two years later, the two teams agreed to swap veteran Ray Knight for three players to be named later. They became Gerald Young, Manuel Lee, and Mitch Cook.

Young would have an okay career with two years of leading the league in caught stealing highlighting what he did. Lee was taken from the Astros in the Rule 5 Draft. Cook never made it to the majors. This trade ended up being about Knight more than anyone else. A sort of complicated Mets tenure, it was the rollercoaster which began in the clouds and ended there, too.

Find a Mets player with a more rollercoaster two and a half years than Ray Knight

Knight was really good in his 101 plate appearances for the 1984 Mets. He hit .280/.337/.355. It was a huge uplift from the .223/.259/.281 he hit with Houston. Still mostly absent of power, hitting one home run after just 2 with the Astros, his game was never about round-trippers.

In 1985, Knight’s playing time was reduced to a platoon role alongside Howard Johnson. Johnson came over from the Detroit Tigers in the offseason and added to the third base depth. The situation wasn’t ideal. Johnson had a fine year for a young kid, posting a .693 OPS. Knight’s fell to .580. He hit only .218 for the Mets and the team was ready to move on. Luckily, they didn’t.

Knight had a huge rebound season starting with 6 of his 11 home runs coming in the first month of the year. He hit over .300 in four of the six regular season months. He finished the year batting .298/.351/.424 and earning a quiet 14th place in the NL MVP voting. The 1986 Mets weren’t his team. And yet you can’t tell the story of that championship without his World Series MVP performance.

After going only 4 for 24 against the Astros in the NLCS, Knight took off in the World Series. He batted .391/.440/.565. His leadoff seventh inning tie-breaking home run in Game 7 is what cemented his place as the World Series MVP.

The Mets famously let Knight walk in free agency the following offseason. It was the first time a World Series MVP left the following offseason in free agency. He landed with the Baltimore Orioles and hit .256/.310/.373 with 14 home runs. They traded him the following February. He'd play out his final MLB season with the Detroit Tigers hitting .217/.271/.301. Knight retired after the season concluded. A lengthy career after his playing days were over that included broadcasting and managing, Mets fans remembrer him most as one of only two players to win the World Series MVP in franchsie history.

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