Reinventing the Mets: 1969

The Mets had become contenders in 1968. With what was, statistically, the best pitching staff in the National League, combined with an elite slugger in Dick Allen, surrounded by a group of quality hitters and solid defenders, along with a versatile and productive bench, the Mets had finally risen to the status of being a threat in the National League. Going into 1969, the Mets brain trust knew that they couldn’t sit back and hope that their roster took the next step and that the only way to guarantee that it did was to have a proactive and productive offseason.

Here’s the roster that the Mets would have finished 1968 with:

Tommie Agee
Dick Allen
Sandy Alomar
Gerry Arrigo
Ken Boswell
Bill Denehy
Duffy Dyer
Johnny Edwards
Danny Frisella
Jerry Grote
Jack Hamilton
Bud Harrelson
Mike Hegan
Bob Heise
Al Jackson
Bob Johnson ( infielder )
Bob Johnson
Cleon Jones
Dalton Jones
Cal Koonce
Jerry Koosman
Dave May
Jim McAndrew
Tug McGraw
Bobby Mitchell
Joe Moock
Jose Morales
Amos Otis
Camilo Pascual
Steve Renko
Bob Reynolds
Les Rohr
Nolan Ryan
Tom Seaver
Don Shaw
Jimmy Stewart
Ron Swoboda
Hawk Taylor
Ron Taylor
Pete Ward

Minor Leaguer via Giants in Dietz trade – Bernie Williams

As always, house cleaning occurred first. The Mets had two prospects that they needed to protect from the upcoming Rule 5 and minor league drafts in promising outfielder Jerry Morales and solid young right hander Ernie McAnally. To do so, the team cut bait with two veterans who had been solid editions to the 1968 roster, but weren’t going to be missed long term in Taylor and Hamilton. For Taylor, it would be the second offseason in which the Mets either released or sold him to another team.

Another consideration for this offseason was the upcoming expansion draft. Major League Baseball was adding four franchises, two in each league, and holding an expansion draft soon after the end of the World Series. The rules of the draft were different this year. Instead of a list of players being made available, each team would have the ability to protect 15 players on their 40 man rosters for the first round of the draft. After that round, each team had the ability to protect an additional three players in each following round until 6 players from each forty man roster were selected.

Since the minor league portion of the draft was being held only four days after the World Series ended, teams attempted to get some transactions done in advance of having to set their rosters for the draft. The Mets would make one of these moves:

The Mets trade Edwards and a minor leaguer to the Astros for Dave Giusti and Hal King.

This is a slight modification of the trade the Astros made with the Cardinals at this time in the season to acquire Edwards, whom they viewed as being their starting catcher in 1969. The Mets would have jumped at the opportunity to get Giusti, a quality starting pitcher, and King, a left hand hitting catcher with power potential. Originally the Astros traded Dave Adlesh, another catcher, to the Cardinals and later traded King to the Red Sox. Since they were willing to trade both, we swap King for Adlesh.

Three days after this trade occurred, on October 14th, 1968, the Mets lost Arrigo, Jerry Morales, Stewart, Shawn, McAnally and Denehy to the fledgling Padres and Expos. This is approximately half of the players the actual Mets lost. Dick Selma was one of those, but our Mets traded him to Cincinnati as part of a package for Edwards and Sammy Ellis. Arrigo, as a solid young left hander who would not have been protected in the original 15 players, is the best approximation for Selma. The other two different players selected from the Mets were Larry Stahl and a minor leaguer that never made the big leagues. Neither Stahl, nor that minor leaguer, are on our 40 man roster, so the best approximations for either player are Stewart for Stahl and Denehy for the other minor leaguer. Neither would have seen protection in the draft and were thus expendable.

With six more roster spots open and the offseason officially under way, the Mets would have looked to upgrade the roster. The Mets would have wanted a left handed hitting, veteran outfielder, but would have quickly lost out on discussion for Vada Pinson, who was traded before the expansion draft. The Mets would also be in on discussions for Rusty Staub and Joe Torre, but would not meet or could not meet the expectations of their teams in a deal. Staub and Torre would both be traded and the Mets would have to make other accommodations. To start, they would go to the Rule 5 draft and select Wayne Garrett from the Braves. Garrett, the brother of former Mets 40 man roster alumni Adrian Garrett, was a promising young, left hand hitting infielder. He could play second base, short stop or third base and would provide a plus fielding back up at several positions.

After discussions for Staub and Torre didn’t work out, the Mets would make several trades with some of the expansion teams. To start, they would make the following deal with the Padres:

The Mets trad Dalton Jones, King, Moock, Koonce and Pascual to the Padres for Tony Gonzalez, Al McBean, Zoilo Versalles and Tom Dukes.

Nothing like this trade actually happened, although some of the players the Padres received are equivalents for what the Braves traded the Padres for Gonzalez during a trade dead line transaction, but the Padres were a classic expansion team that made a lot of trades in their inaugural season and none of the players sent to the Mets in this deal would be long term contributors to the club. This was a classic trade in which an expansion team gets younger, versatile players as commodities surrounding a solid center piece. The deal would have started as Pascual for Gonzalez and other parts until finalized at the above trade. The Mets were young and wanted to add a veteran outfielder that could not only platoon with Swoboda, but be a known back-up option if Agee’s terrible season from 1968 was more reality than anomaly. McBean and Dukes would provide veteran options in the bullpen and Versalles would give the Mets a platoon partner for either Boswell, Ward or both and a stop gap for Harrelson as it was already known that he would spend some time in the military reserves during that season. For the Padres, Moock and King were intriguing young players, Dalton Jones was a versatile reserve, Koonce was either a solid bullpen arm or potential back of the rotation starting pitcher and Pascual could be the ace of the staff and was not thrown off by pitching for below average teams after spending most of his early career in Washington.

After this deal went down, the Mets began to look for takers for Hegan as he didn’t have a spot on the roster. While this was going on, the team made two smaller transactions by sending a minor leaguer to the Tigers for left handed pitcher Jack DiLauro and sending Mitchell to the Phillies for veteran catcher Clay Dalrymple. Dalrymple would provide a veteran left hand hitting back up for Grote and DiLauro would be minor league depth as a left handed reliever or starter.

The expansion Seattle Pilots (a year later they would move to Milwaukee and become the Brewers), had interest in Hegan and May. The Mets would have been shopping the disappointing May all offseason after a poor 1968, but only the Pilots, in the position to take on younger players who had potential but hadn’t reached it, would be open to making a move for May and Hegan. This would result in the following trade:

The Mets Trade May and Hegan to Seattle for Steve Barber and Skip Lockwood

Again, nothing like this deal actually happened, but originally the Pilots did purchase Hegan during the 1968 season and trade for May during the 1970 season. Barber was a veteran left hander who would compete for a spot in the rotation or bullpen and Lockwood was an intriguing young right hander who had just started to transition back to a pitching role in the minor leagues after the Athletics had, for some reason, attempted to make him into a third baseman. Again, it was a veteran upgrade to a solid original core of players for the Mets.

Although the upgrades to the roster wouldn’t have been exactly what the Mets wanted, they did represent more depth to the roster. Going into spring training, there wouldn’t be much up for grabs regarding roster spots. However, just like in 1968 with Ryan, an intriguing young arm in Gary Gentry would pitch his way into the starting rotation.

As the season commenced, expectations would have been the highest they’d ever been, but the early going would be a tad rocky. To start, two members of the bullpen, Dukes and Jackson, would struggle and be sold or released early in the season. However, McGraw, who had languished in the minors in 1968 and reinvented himself as a reliever, would be a revelation as a co-closer with Taylor and the veteran McBean would easily replace Koonce. The team’s top three starters, Seaver, Koosman and Gentry would be terrific, but the back end of the rotation would struggle with injury and ineffectiveness as Barber battled shoulder problems and Giusti battled back problems. Ryan struggled again with blisters and wildness and McAndrew, called up during DL stints for both players, would be good, but not as dominant as in 1968.

Despite pitching issues, the offense would hold up strong. Allen was having the best year of his career, on his way to hitting in excess of .310, with 40 plus home runs and 115 plus RBI. Settled in as an average fielding first baseman with a winning club built around him and a manager in Gil Hodges who was a combination of both disciplinarian and father figure, would have built Allen into a player that was more baseball player than the controversial figure he became in Philadelphia. Gonzalez was a solid contributor in all three outfield spots and Jones was having the best season of his career. Harrelson missed time due to the military, but he also had a solid bounce back year and Alomar again proved to be a capable back-up. Garrett, when not over exposed, would prove to be a solid contributor with good on base skills and a quality glove at three different positions.

The real issue offensively would be at third base. Ward had been playing through back and neck problems for several years, but in 1969 they were limiting his ability to play regularly. Otis, brought up and forced onto third base against his will, struggled in that role. Garrett began to show signs of over exposure at the plate and struggled against left handers. The veteran Versalles, partially acquired to help at third base, was not hitting well. It was a hole in the lineup and, just like the back of the rotation pitching problems, was something that the Mets had to decide to live with or fix.

Our Mets work to fix both scenarios by making the following trades:

The Mets trade Renko and three minor leaguers to the Expos for Bob Bailey.

The Mets trade minor leaguers Roy Foster and Jim Bibby to the Pirates for Jim Bunning .

In 1969, the Mets originally completed a trade with the Expos for Donn Clendenon. With Allen at first base, that trade wouldn’t happen. However, Bailey was available. Bailey had been a top prospect in the Pirates organization that had never panned out as hoped, but had been a long time starter at third base with some power and a good eye at the plate. He was also a right hand bat that could platoon with Ward or Garrett and potentially play other positions (Swoboda was struggling at the time, so Bailey would see time in right field as well). Originally the Mets gave up Kevin Collins as a part of this swap, but our Mets have already traded Collins, so he isn’t available. Renko was a top pitching prospect, but the Mets were deep in young pitching, so he was ok to move.

The original 1969 Mets had Don Caldwell to fall back on as a veteran starter, but our Mets have never acquired him, so when the Pirates made Bunning available in 1969, the Mets would have leapt at the chance to add the still effective veteran and Bunning would have been all for having one last shot at a World Series. The real 1969 Pirates eventually traded Bunning in an August waiver wire transaction to the Dodgers for two middle rung prospects. The 1969 Pirates would select Foster in the minor league draft and Bibby was an intriguing, big right hander, so this is clearly a deal that would have more likely occurred at the trade deadline with more demand for Bunning.

These two trades solidified the lineup and the bullpen as it allowed Ryan to move in there full time, with McAndrew dropping into the five hole and Giusti spot starting and relieving to help his back problems. Barber would be released to resign elsewhere so that DiLaurio, pitching well in the minors, could take his spot as an effective second left hander in the bullpen.

What would the results of all of this have been? Well we all know that. This Mets club is better than the 1969 version and the key parts that made that 1969 team so special are all here. Agee, with his fantastic play in centerfield and out of the leadoff spot, Swoboda turning it on down the stretch, the steady play of Grote and Harrelson and the terrific pitching seasons by Seaver, Koosman, Gentry, Taylor and McGraw. One can’t forget Hodges, who would have had better parts to platoon with in Gonzalez, Alomar, Dalrymple, Bailey and Ward then the original 1969 Mets had. This Mets team would run roughshod over the Braves and be less of an underdog in the World Series against the Orioles. With how Allen played in big games, along with the heroics of Swoboda, Agee, Jones and others, a championship parade still would have run down Broadway in New York City as October came to a close.