5 Mets players from last year you already forgot about

You forgot Chance Sisco played for the NY Mets last year

Mason Williams is one thing to remember. There was a lot of talk leading up to his promotion due to how well he was hitting in Triple-A. Chance Sisco is a different story. If you can recollect any of his 10 plate appearances for the Mets, including his 1 hit, you might want to think about updating your online dating profile with information about something other than your favorite baseball team.

Sisco was a waiver claim by the Mets on June 25 from the Baltimore Orioles. Brought in as a veteran insurance policy behind the plate, he ended up playing in five games for them. One of them was a suspended game from April against the Miami Marlins. So don’t try looking at his game logs from last year and get as confused as I to see him go from Baltimore to New York back to Baltimore and to New York again.

The lone hit of his run with the Mets was a pinch-hit double against the San Francisco Giants. Nobody believed it was the start of something good. Sisco’s purpose was understood from the moment he joined the club. If he was going to play at all, it meant someone else wasn’t feeling so good.

You forgot Stephen Tarpley played for the NY Mets last year

Some people really tried to justify the Stephen Tarpley move when the Mets first brought him in. The lefty who had never tossed more than 24.2 innings in a single season didn’t have much success in the big leagues. He could strike batters out at a high rate but it came with a ton of walks.

For the 2021 Mets—both the New York and Syracuse version—he couldn’t have been much worse.

In Syracuse, Tarpley was 1-2 with a 15.58 ERA in 8.2 innings of work. On April 24 against the Washington Nationals, he had an appearance that made fans forget all about him.

In relief of Marcus Stroman who had only gone four and given up 5 runs, Tarpley entered the fifth. He gave up a walk, a single, another walk, and a hit by pitch. Luis Rojas had seen enough. It was Robert Gsellman time after all. Tarpley left the game and a groundout to the next batter tacked on a second earned run to his stat sheet without retiring a single batter.

Tarpley now has the distinction of owning an infinity ERA with the Mets. Only possible when you don’t record a single out and a run scores against you, he is forever in the record books—unless they give him another chance.

You forgot Geoff Hartlieb played for the NY Mets last year

You may have completely forgotten the name Geoff Hartlieb and feel no guilt about it. If so, welcome to my club.

Hartlieb joined the Mets in mid-July of last year when he was selected off of waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates. He would go to the Boston Red Sox in early September through a waiver claim as well, but not before giving the Mets 4.1 innings in 3 appearances.

Hartlieb appeared in nothing but losses for New York. He gave the team 1.1 innings in Cincinnati against the Reds then another frame at home against them on August 1. His final Mets appearances was a two inning performance versus the Los Angeles Dodgers. Each outing included at least an earned run tagged to his stat sheet. When it was all over, he had a 14.54 ERA and a walk/strikeout ratio of 6/5.

We can consider him one of those mid-season additions meant only to get the team through a couple of innings in blowout losses. This was the gift Hartlieb brought to the Mets n his one and only year with the ball club.

This season, a member of Boston’s Triple-A team, he’s kind of doing the same thing. At last check, he had a 9.15 ERA in 20.2 innings of work. It sounds about right.

You forgot Heath Hembree played for the NY Mets last year

Heath Hembree was on the 2021 Mets? A well-known name and seasoned big league reliever for many years, he somehow got into 15 games for the Mets last season. He was even pretty good—pitching to a 3.45 ERA in 15.2 innings of work. Hembree even picked up a save. How did we forget all about him?

Hembree joined the Mets on August 20 when he was claimed off waivers from the Cincinnati Reds. By this point, the Mets were looking less likely to make it to the postseason.

What’s most surprising about Hembree’s stint with the Mets is that he only gave up runs in three of his appearances. One was a beating from the St. Louis Cardinals in mid-September when they scored three times against him in only 0.2 innings.

Forgetting about Hembree is likely due to the fact that it was already September when he pitched the bulk of his games. At that point, the Mets were fighting for a whole lot less. For as well as he did perform for the Mets, Hembree was mostly used in games where they team was trailing already.

Often, the most valuable baseball cards are the rarest of them. If there’s a cardboard square out there with Hembree in a Mets cap, you might have a goldmine in your closet—or probably not.