Thursday, September 27, 2012

Another Day Another Mets Record for David Wright

Since joining the Mets on July 21st 2004, David Wright has been a fan favorite in Queens and has been setting out on re-writing the the team record books. Most of the team records David has set have come this season.

The first record to fall this year came on April 25, when Wright hit a two run home run in a 5-1 victory against the Miami Marlins, giving him 735 career RBIs, passing Darryl Strawberry for the most in Mets franchise history. Wright broke another franchise record on June 5, when he hit a solo-shot off of Washington Nationals pitcher Jordan Zimmermann, driving himself in and reaching 736 runs. The previous record holder was José Reyes at 735 runs. He hit his 200th career home run in a loss on August 24 to the Houston Astros. That made him the third player in team history to hit 200 or more home runs in their time with the Mets. As of writing Wright sits 3rd on the all time team list in home runs with 203. He trails only Mike Piazza (220 home runs) and Darryl Strawberry (252 home runs) on the Mets all time list.

On September 25, 2012, Wright tied the all time hit record with the Mets Ed Kranepool with 1,418 hits in a game at home against the Pittsburgh Pirates. On September 26th 2012, David broke the Mets all-time hit record with an infield single, putting him past Ed Kranepool and in sole possession of the club record. After taking over the all time team lead in hits, David now has club records in hits, RBI's, runs scored, doubles, walks, strikeouts (sadly), total bases, runs created, extra bases, and times on base. Currently David sits third in games played, second in at-bats, 14th in triples, third in home runs, fifth in stolen bases, second in batting average, fourth in on-base percentage, and third in slugging percentage.

He also either holds outright or is tied for a few more single season records as well. He has the single season record for total bases with 334 that he set in 2008. Also he is tied for the most RBI's in a season with 124 in 2008. The only other time somebody drove in 124 runs in a season in a Mets uniform was Mike Piazza back in 1999. Another milestone David has to his credit is he has the most hits in baseball since his debut in July of 2004. He is now one of four active players who have their team's all-time hits record, joining Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, Colorado first baseman Todd Helton and Texas infielder Michael Young (thanks to ESPN.com for this surprising stat).

Since joining the Mets in 2004, David has driven in 100 RBI or more in every year except for four, 2004 2009 2001 and 2012. Otherwise he has driven in 100 or more in every other year. Another surprising stat is that the Mets have had winning records in Davids tenure in New York only three times, 2006, 2007 and 2008. So for the most part it seems David has had a good and mostly successful tenure here in the Big Apple. His numbers offensively during the start of his career were better than what it has been as of late but there might be a few possible explanations for why that may be.

From my perspective the reason Wright's numbers have gone down slightly over the last few years are due to injuries, and trying to do too much. With injuries, there really isn't much of an explanation that needs to be given. Injuries happen to everybody and it affects there performances differently, and of course David is no different. But there is one other big factor as to why he may have had the drop in production over the past few years, and that would be he might be trying to do too much from having a lack luster supporting cast around him. 2009 was the year, if you look at his statistics year by year, was the year his numbers started to drop off if you will. So between 2004, when he came up with the Mets, and 2009, when his numbers slowly started going down, he had great numbers. The reason being I feel was he had plenty of support in the Mets lineup, and he didn't have to try and carry the load on offense. Think about this for a second. between July of 2004, when David came up, and October of 2008 when that season ended, David was playing in a lineup that had the likes of Jose Reyes, Cliff Floyd, Mike Piazza, Mike Cameron, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado. Most of those guys were expected to contribute in big ways to the offense and they did. This allowed David to play more relaxed and not try to do to much. It showed by him putting up good numbers ever year. But then in 2009, the injury bug and lack of a supporting cast in the batting order sort of forced David to almost take on the load of carrying the offense. He still puts up average to pretty good numbers every year but they aren't the same as say four to six years ago.

Despite not having a great supporting cast in the Mets lineup, David Wright is still putting up numbers and continues to be a big star in Queens. by the time his career is over, it won't surprise many people if he has most to all of the Mets offensive career records by the time he is done!

(Some of the stats for this article provided by mets.com)

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