3 Mets franchise records that will be nearly impossible to break

As most devoted New York Mets fans know, Tom Seaver set many franchise records during his Mets tenure that will likely never be broken. It’s a different game for pitchers now than when he played, and it’s extremely unlikely that any upcoming hurler will surpass the 198 wins, 3045 2/3 innings pitched, 171 complete games, or 44 shutouts that he acquired while with the Amazins.

However, this article isn’t about unbreakable Seaver records. It’s about all of those more under-the-radar Mets records that you might not think about every day, but that are so far ahead of second place or from such a different era in baseball that they’re quite unlikely to ever be broken.

These records span career marks and single-season achievements across all of Mets history.

They’re also not all admirable accolades; sometimes a record can be infamous, rather than famous.
Without further ado, here are three Mets records that I doubt will ever be overtaken.

Anthony Young losing 27 consecutive decisions

This was a really tough stretch for a pitcher who ended up with a very respectable 3.89 career ERA. Young was drafted by the Mets in the 38th round of the 1987 MLB Draft out of the University of Houston and made his Major League debut on Aug. 5, 1991. Nine months later, on May 6, 1992, he lost a decision to the Cincinnati Reds. It was the first of 27 straight decisions, both starts and relief outings, that Young lost. He did not win another decision until July 28, 1993, against the upstart Florida Marlins.

This streak might seem like the ultimate display of ineptitude for an MLB pitcher, but the losses don’t tell the whole story of how Young actually pitched during that stretch. He converted 12 straight save opportunities at one point with a scoreless innings streak of 23 2/3 frames. Young’s ERAs in 1992 and 1993 were also a respectable 4.17 and 3.77, respectively, which combine for a 3.98 ERA over 221 1/3 innings. Furthermore, his FIP throughout the streak was 3.80, exactly league average. Hardly the figures you’d imagine when hearing about a franchise-record losing streak for a pitcher.

Young’s unfortunate stretch isn’t just a Mets record -- he holds the all-time MLB record for the longest losing streak by an individual pitcher. What makes it even less likely that someone will beat his record is that Young’s 27 straight losses are four more than the next closest such stretch, which occurred over 80 years prior. From June 13, 1910, to May 22, 1911, right-handed pitcher Cliff Curtis lost 23 straight decisions for the Boston Doves/Rustlers (now the Atlanta Braves).

Given that Young is the only Major League pitcher we know of that has notched an unenviable 27-game losing streak, I find it highly unlikely that any Met will ever top this, no matter how many bad pitchers they have in their future.