7 former All-Stars who had a recent cup of coffee with the Mets

Michael Wacha (All-Star season: 2015; Mets career: 2020)

Wacha’s brief Mets career was, to put it mildly, unsuccessful. He arrived in Flushing in 2020, along with fellow starter Rick Porcello, and was described to Mets fans at the time as a “replacement” for future All-Star and Cy Young finalist Zack Wheeler. 

Wacha was coming off of several solid-to-very-good seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals. His finest moment came in his rookie season, when he did not allow a run over two starts in the 2013 NLCS and was named the series MVP. Wacha was an All-Star two years later, when he went 10-3 with a 2.93 ERA in the first half of 2015. 

As a Met, however, he was not quite as dazzling. In the shortened 2020 season, Wacha had a 6.62 ERA over eight starts, allowing four-plus runs in five of those starts and only making it through six innings once. He was a part of a Mets rotation that largely struggled outside of Jacob deGrom in 2020, and lasted just one season in Queens.

The Wacha signing was not a terrible idea, in theory, but it was apparent throughout his Mets tenure that the right-hander would not be able to magically recapture his dominance from seven years prior. He may have taken Wheeler's No. 45, but Wacha was not able to "wheel and deal" as much as the Flushing faithful would have liked.