J.D. Martinez and Mark Vientos look to give the Mets five players with 70 RBIs

It was a rare game Friday night, as the Mets scored six runs and not one of them was driven in by Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor or Brandon Nimmo, who are the three guys who lead the team in RBIs. Instead, it was a big night for Mark Vientos, with four, and J.D. Martinez drove in one of the other two runs. Those five players mentioned are the top five players on the team in RBIs and if things go as expected the rest of the way, they’ll all finish with at least 70 RBIs. Here’s what they’ve done so far:

84 – Lindor
78 – Alonso
74 – Nimmo
66 – Martinez
62 – Vientos

RBIs are only part of the story because you need guys on base in order to get one, outside of hitting a homer. While Vientos has 24 home runs, the fact that he has 62 RBIs in less than 60% of the ABs that Lindor has is pretty special. And Lindor has six more homers than Vientos.

If Martinez and Vientos reach the 70-RBI mark to give the Mets five players with that many, it will be the first time that’s happened for the Mets since 2019. Since they began play in 1962, there are only two other times five guys have reached 70 RBIs – 1997 and 1987. Let’s look at those three teams:

2019 (86-76) – When you think of this team, you might think of the pitching first, as this team had Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz, Noah Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler. But this was also Alonso’s first year, when he hit 53 homers. Here are 70+ RBI guys on this team: Alonso (120), Michael Conforto (92), Jeff McNeil (75), Wilson Ramos (73) and Amed Rosario (72). The first two would have been easy to get and a few additional guesses would have likely gotten you McNeil. But Ramos and Rosario? I may have never gotten those two.

1997 (88-74) – The first full year under Bobby Valentine, this season gets forgotten due to the success of the clubs in 1999-2000. But as this squad snapped a streak of six-consecutive-losing seasons, we should probably remember them better. Here are the 70+ RBI guys on this team: John Olerud (102), Todd Hundley (86), Butch Huskey (81), Bernard Gilkey (78) and Edgardo Alfonzo (72). If you’re like me, you have trouble remembering which guys were on which teams 20 years ago. Gilkey and Alfonzo were on the same team? Okay, if you say so.

1987 (92-70) – This year is remembered more for all of the starting pitchers getting hurt than it was for the offensive exploits of the hitters. Yet this team led the NL in both runs and RBIs, so it’s no surprise they made this list. Here are the 70+ RBI guys on this team: Darryl Strawberry (104), Howard Johnson (99), Kevin McReynolds (95), Keith Hernandez (89) and Gary Carter (83). Tim Teufel could have made it six with a little more playing time. He had 61 RBIs in a year with just 299 ABs. It was a great year for Teufel, who finished with a .943 OPS and a 153 OPS+.

It’s no surprise that these three teams finished with winning records. What is a surprise is that the top eight teams in franchise history did not make the list. The 101-win squad of 2022 had just two players reach the 70-RBI mark in Alonso (131) and Lindor (107).

It will be a surprise if the 2024 Mets surpass the 92 wins of the 1997 clubs, which would make this another good, not great, team to have five guys drive in 70+ runs. It seems counter-intuitive, that this many good RBI-players would limit the ceiling of a club. But there are always mitigating circumstances at work. The ’87 squad had the pitching injuries while this year’s team had the brutal first two months of the season.

Still, I’ll be rooting for Martinez to get four more RBIs and Vientos to drive in eight more in the final 21 games of the season. It will be a nice team accomplishment, one that will look even better if they make the playoffs, unlike the three previous squads. Although that had more to do with the playoff structures at the time. If six teams made the playoffs in their day, the 2019, 1997 and 1987 squads all would have played in the postseason.