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3 Mets franchise records that will be nearly impossible to break

By Elizabeth Muratore |
Anthony Young
Anthony Young / Stephen Dunn/GettyImages
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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.

Pedro Feliciano
Pedro Feliciano / Nick Laham/GettyImages

Pedro Feliciano appearing in 92 games in a single season (2010)

When “Perpetual Pedro” suddenly passed away in November 2021, there was an outpouring from the entire baseball community, Mets fans and otherwise, about the incredible workloads he took on during his Mets tenure. Feliciano was the Mets’ most durable and reliable reliever for several years during the mid-2000s and early 2010s, spending his entire MLB career with the Mets across parts of nine seasons.

In 2010, Feliciano set what still stands as the Mets’ all-time record for single-season pitching appearances by entering 92 out of the Mets’ 162 games. He led all of MLB that year in appearances, surpassing the second-place finisher, Tampa Bay Rays hurler Randy Choate, by seven games. Being a workhorse was nothing new to Feliciano by this time -- he also led the Majors in appearances with 86 in 2008 and 88 in 2009, which are second and third all-time in the Mets’ single-season history. Combined across those three seasons, Feliciano pitched to a 3.44 ERA over 266 appearances and 175 1/3 innings.

Those three seasons represent the three highest single-season appearances totals by a pitcher in Mets history. On this franchise top 10 list, Feliciano holds four of the 10 spots; his 78 appearances in 2007 are tied for 10th in club history. His 92-appearance season in 2010 is historically significant in yet another context -- it is tied with Mike Marshall’s 92 appearances in 1973 for the fourth-highest number of single-season appearances in MLB history. (Marshall’s 106 appearances the following year in 1974 occupy the all-time top spot.)

For all of his heroic efforts, Feliciano rocketed up to second on the Mets’ all-time appearances list with 484 games played during his Queens tenure, second only to John Franco’s 695.

In 2021, the MLB leader in appearances was the Cleveland Guardians’ Bryan Shaw with 81. Given how both starters’ and relievers’ workloads are managed in today’s game, I would be surprised if any future Mets pitcher appears in more than 81 games, let alone 92 different contests, in a single year.

Jose Reyes
Jose Reyes / Jim McIsaac/GettyImages

Jose Reyes’ 408 stolen bases with the Mets (or his single-season stolen base record of 78 in 2007)

Though his first Mets tenure ended unceremoniously after he took himself out of the lineup in 2011 to preserve his batting title, and his second Mets stint ended unceremoniously after he batted .189 over 110 games in 2018, Reyes is by far the most prolific base stealer in Mets history on several levels. He holds the all-time franchise record with 408 swiped bags, which far exceeds the 281 that Mookie Wilson stole as a Met. For any future Mets player to exceed this mark, they would have to average stealing over 40 bases per season for 10 straight seasons with the Amazins. It’s not statistically impossible, but it does seem very unlikely to be broken.

The Mets, collectively, have not been very active on the basepaths since Reyes retired. Outfielder Starling Marte, who they acquired after the 2021 season, led the Majors in ‘21 with 47 stolen bases. By contrast, the Mets as a team stole 54 bases in 2021, which ranked 13th out of 15 National League teams and tied for 24th out of the 30 MLB teams. If you go back through the Mets’ last few full seasons (the pandemic-shortened 2020 excluded), they stole 56 bases in 2019, 71 in 2018, 58 in 2017, 42 in 2016, and 51 in 2015. In four of Reyes’ Mets seasons (2005-08), he stole 50-plus bases by himself.

Now, I’m not saying that base stealing as a whole is being erased from the game. Other teams frequently steal many more bases than the Mets -- the Kansas City Royals led the Majors in 2021 with 124 stolen bases, over twice the amount that the Mets mustered. The top individual base stealer for the Mets in 2021 was Jonathan Villar, who stole 14 bases (but was caught seven times). With larger bases reportedly coming to the Majors in 2023, base stealing will likely be up all over the league in the near future, which hopefully will work in the Mets’ favor.

Still, given that no Mets player came close to Reyes’ career or single-season stolen base records before he came along, and no one has approached them since he retired, I feel confident saying that they will stand for a very long time.

Next. Who were the top 5 Cy Young snubs in Mets history?. dark

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