Mets Offseason Retrospective: The stars brought in between 1991 and 1992 weren't nearly enough

The 77-84 New York Mets team from the 1991 season had a new look. Many of the club’s stars from the 1980s had already left. Rick Cerone and Mackey Sasser shared catching duties. Dave Magadan was their light-hitting first baseman. The starting pitching staff had some name recognition but many of them were aging fast even if their birth certificates disagreed.

Having lost Darryl Strawberry in the previous winter, the team began the turnover to what they were hoping could become a new successful era of Mets baseball. During the winter of 1991-1992, they successfully added star power.

As they would soon learn, you win games on the field and nowhere else.

The Mets offseason of 1991-1992 didn’t turn out as planned

It was a weird time for Mets baseball in the early 1990s. The 1980s were the glory days for the franchise with everything coming together for them in 1986. Even before and after the championship season, the team was competitive.

A big reason for this was because so many trades and free agent additions they made in the decade seemed to work exactly as planned or better. Those teams were built with smart transactions around some of the best prospects in franchise history, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry at the forefront.

The 1991 Mets season ended with a second-half collapse. Manager Bud Harrelson got the ax before game 162 and only seven games left to play. Jeff Torborg would get his shot to manage the team in 1992. With a roster that already included some of the franchise’s best starting pitchers of all-time, maybe they could make the most of the year with their big offseason additions.

Or maybe this would turn into a winter of all flash and no sizzle.

The big offseason additions for the 1992 Mets season

In many cases, when a team goes out and adds a future Hall of Famer, a two-time Cy Young winner, and a guy that had been in the MVP conversation several times in recent seasons, you’re going to build a winner. This wouldn’t be the case for the 1992 Mets. The offseason prior to the start of their season, they were putting a Band-Aid on a much larger wound.

The first of their big winter transactions was the free agent signing of Eddie Murray. Now in his mid-30s, his days of crushing baseballs with the Baltimore Orioles were a little more distant than I think the Mets had realized. However, he did hit .330 with 26 home runs only two years earlier with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The two years deal with Murray gave the club a .274/.330/.446 performance with 43 home runs and 193 RBI. In 1993, he even had one of the franchise’s rare 100 RBI seasons.

Murray’s time with the Mets was okay but not great. At this point of his career, he would have been a nice finishing touch to an already great roster. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the best players around him.

Only days after inking Murray to a deal, the Mets made a much more notorious signing when they brought Bobby Bonilla to town.

Bonilla finished third in the MVP vote in 1991 and was the runner-up in 1990. His years with the Pittsburgh Pirates were fantastic. In his first year with the Mets, he batted only .249/.348/.432 with 19 home runs and 70 RBI. He wasn’t the same well-rounded player he was during his Pittsburgh years. Bonilla would manage to salvage some competency with the Mets, representing them in the 1993 All-Star Game. In a lot of ways, this turned out to be a decent signing but not nearly enough to make them contenders again.

Finally, of major note, the Mets made a trade to try to improve their starting rotation. Gregg Jefferies, Kevin McReynolds, and Keith Miller were shipped to the Kansas City Royals for Bret Saberhagen and Bill Pecota.

Saberhagen was the big grab in this trade. He would miss a ton of time in 1992, making only 15 starts and a pair of relief appearances for the club. Injuries continued to limit his action and by the time he left the Mets in mid-1995, Saberhagen was 29-21 with a 3.16 ERA.