Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the Mets for Trading Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi

December 10, 1971, 50 years ago today: The New York Mets trade pitchers Nolan Ryan and Don Rose, catcher Frank Estrada, and right fielder Leroy Stanton to the California Angels for shortstop Jim Fregosi.

Estrada was a backup catcher who'd played 1 big-league game, for the Mets in '71, and never appeared in another. No loss there. Rose had also reached the majors for 1 game with the '71 Mets, put up a 1-4 record for the '72 Angels, and by April 1974 had appeared in the majors for the last time. No loss there.

Stanton turned out to be a good player, putting up OPS+ seasons of 110, 116 and 123, before slumping a bit in 1976, and being left unprotected in the expansion draft. Taken by the Seattle Mariners, he put up an OPS+ of 130 in 1977, before an injury ended his career the next season at just 32 years old.

We all know what happened to Ryan: He found his control with the Angels in 1972. He set records for strikeouts in a game (19, since broken), a season (383 in 1973, still stands) and a career (5,714, still stands). He pitched 7 no-hitters. He won 324 games, 295 of them after leaving the Mets. And we know what happened to Fregosi: He got hurt, was never the same player again, and is now better known as a manager, having gone back to the Angels and leading them to their 1st postseason appearance, in 1979 -- he was only 37, and could still have been a productive player -- and then leading the Philadelphia Phillies to a Pennant in 1993.

This was just 8 days after the New York Yankees traded Stan Bahnsen to the Chicago White Sox for Rich McKinney. That remains one of the worst trades in Yankee history, but it turned out to not be even the worst New York baseball trade of the month.

Why did the Mets do something so stupid? If you know your baseball history, then you've heard the case for the prosecution. Can there possibly be a case for the defense?

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the Mets for Trading Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi

5. Jim Fregosi. At this point, there was nothing wrong with wanting a healthy Jim Fregosi on your team. He would be just 30 years old on Opening Day 1972, had been an American League All-Star 6 times, won a Gold Glove in 1967, and, until slumping to 89 in 1971, had never had an OPS+ (on-base percentage + slugging percentage, in relation to the league average) lower than 108 in his first 8 full seasons in the majors, peaking at 141 in 1964.

His highest batting average had been .290, in 1967; peak home runs, 22, and peak runs batted in, 82, both in 1970. In 1968, he led the AL in triples with 13. The franchise was just 11 seasons old at that point, but Fregosi was, without a doubt, the greatest player the Angels had yet had.

Certainly, Fregosi was a better player than the Mets' incumbent starting shortstop, Derrel McKinley "Bud" Harrelson. Although Harrelson had helped the Mets win the 1969 World Series, and had won the '71 season's National League Gold Glove for shortstops and was selected for the last 2 All-Star Games, Harrelson couldn't hit a lick. His highest single-season OPS+ was 82, well below Fregosi's slump season. His peak batting average thus far was .254, and he would top that only twice; his peak RBI year was 42, and his peak home run year was... 1 -- in each case, it would remain so.

Clearly, what the Mets needed to do was make Harrelson a backup, a "defensive replacement." Or maybe the Mets could move him to 3rd base, where 1969 starter Wayne Garrett had badly tailed off, and incumbent starter Bob Aspromonte was at the end of the line. (Bob was a Brooklyn native, now best known as the last active player who had played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was also the brother of the somewhat better Ken Aspromonte.)

Instead, the Mets kept Harrelson at short, and moved Fregosi to 3rd. At first, it seemed to work, but then Fregosi got hurt. He appeared in only 101 games that season, finishing the season with only 32 RBIs and an OPS+ of just 89, and was never the same again. His 382 plate appearances that season would be far and away more than he'd ever have again.

Between the ages of 21 and 28, Jim Fregosi was, statistically speaking, similar to Alan Trammell, the longtime Detroit Tiger shortstop who is now in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But between the ages of 29 and 36, Fregosi was just another broken-down player.

4. Joan Payson. The owner of the Mets trusted her chairman, M. Donald Grant, to make the team's personnel decisions. After the 1973 World Series, Grant began breaking up their "dynasty." Keep in mind, this man not only traded Seaver and Dave Kingman away on the same day, but he used Ryan (and his wife! and Seaver's wife, too) as an excuse to lowball Seaver on contract talks.

Mrs. Payson offered little oversight over Grant's decisions. In contrast to Dan Topping and Del Webb, who would occasionally overrule George Weiss' decisions with the Yankees in the 1950s, she let Grant do whatever he wanted. After she died in 1975, her daughter, Lorinda de Roulet, continued this policy, until she finally fired him in 1978.

So, chances are, keeping Nolan Ryan beyond the 1971 season would have meant giving him up well before 1984. 

3. Nolan Ryan -- As He Was Then. At the time of the trade, he was a month and a half short of his 25th birthday. He had a career won-lost record of 29-38. Not good, especially when you consider that the Mets had won 100 games in 1969, 83 in 1970 and 83 again in 1971.

He struck out a lot of batters, but also walked a lot, giving him a WHIP (Walks and Hits, divided by Innings Pitched) of almost 1.6 in '71. His ERA was nearly 4, not good in the NL of the time, which was pitching-friendly with a lot of concrete multipurpose oval stadiums (3 new ones in the preceding season and a half), and, of course, no designated hitter.

With Ryan having been disappointing thus far, and with Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Gary Gentry and a somewhat-still-effective Ray Sadecki in their rotation, the Mets could afford to let Ryan go. He was expendable. Trade bait. Or so it seemed at the time.

2. It Might Not Have Mattered in the Short Term. The 2 biggest questions in Met history are, "What if Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry hadn't fallen victim to drugs?" and, "What if the Mets had never traded Nolan Ryan?"

The answers to both questions are uncomfortable. After all, Doc and Darryl had injuries that cut their careers shorter than they should have been, and those would probably have happened even without substance abuse. And having Ryan might not have helped the Mets much.

Met fans see a rotation with Ryan and Tom Seaver as being unbeatable from 1972 onward. But would it have been? From 1972 until 1983, the Mets only got close to a National League Eastern Division title once, in 1973. They actually did win it, although with the worst record any Division title winner has ever had, 82-79. Then they won the NL Championship Series over the Cincinnati Reds. They didn't need Ryan to do that.

The key is the World Series, against the defending World Champion Oakland Athletics. The Mets took a 3-2 lead, with Games 6 and (if necessary) 7 still to play in Oakland. Yogi Berra, then the Mets' manager, gambled by starting Seaver in Game 6, on 3 days' rest. It didn't work: The A's won. That left him with Jon Matlack as his best available Game 7 starter, and he had 1 bad inning (the 3rd), and the A's won.

If the Mets still had Ryan, they could have started him in Game 7. Or, depending on how Yogi set up the rotation, Ryan in Game 6 and, if necessary, Seaver in Game 7.

But let's look at Ryan's postseason record. It's mixed. He saved the Mets' bacon in Game 3 of the '69 NLCS against the Atlanta Braves, and did so again in Game 3 of the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles -- all this before he became NOLAN RYAN.

After that, he next appeared in postseason play in 1979, and while he pitched well for the Angels, it wasn't enough, as they lost the game and the Pennant to the Orioles.

In 1980, now with his hometown Houston Astros, he blew the Pennant-clinching Game 5 of the NLCS, at the Astrodome no less, enabling the Phillies to win their 1st Pennant in 30 years, and then their 1st World Championship in 98 years of trying. At that point in their history, blowing a Pennant to the Phillies was like losing to Suzanne Somers on Jeopardy! (This was when she was playing Chrissy Snow on Three's Company, well before she proved her smarts as a fitness expert and a businesswoman. She wasn't a dumb blonde, she just played one on TV.)

In the strike-forced Division Series of 1981, Ryan pitched well for the Astros, but in the process, he only got a split of 2 decisions against the Los Angeles Dodgers. And he made just one other postseason appearance, in the 1986 NLCS with the Astros, losing Game 2, and pitching well but not getting the decision in a Game 5 his team lost... to the Mets.

And even in 1973, the year the Mets won the Pennant and Ryan fanned a still-standing record of 383, he also led the AL in walks with 162. In fact, he led the League in walks 8 times (6 in the AL, 2 in the NL). He also gave up 18 homers. He was hard to hit, but when he got hit, he got hit. (Which sounds like something Yogi might say.)

Having a 2nd World Series win since the Yankees' last one in 1962 would have been a huge bragging point for Met fans until the Yankees started winning again in 1977. Until 1996, they could say that, since 1962, we've won just as many titles as you have (2). But, if you'll pardon my mixing of my sports metaphors, but having Ryan in the 1973 World Series to pitch to "The Swingin' A's" of Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi, Sal Bando, Gene Tenace and Deron Johnson was no slam dunk.

But there would be other chances, right? Having Ryan would certainly improve those chances, right?

1. It Might Not Have Mattered in the Long Term. From 1974 to 1983, the Mets were not in one single Pennant race, and it's hard to say how much difference Ryan would have made then.

Then there's the Mets' glory years from 1984 to 1990. Then again, for all their talk, there wasn't a whole lot of glory. Could Ryan, who pitched remarkably well even until he was 44 in 1991, have made a difference there? The Mets finished 6 1/2 games behind the Chicago Cubs in 1984, so Ryan wouldn't have made the difference there.

In 1985, the Mets finished 3 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals, but Ryan was 10-12 with a 3.80 ERA. If he makes 3 games' difference, do the Mets beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS? Maybe, the Dodgers had Tom Niedenfuer in their pen; Jack Clark hitting a Pennant-clincher in the top of the 9th in Game 6 wasn't a surprise, but Ozzie Smith hitting a walkoff in the bottom of the 9th of Game 5 was. I can certainly imagine Niedenfuer giving up homers to Lenny Dykstra in Game 5 (or maybe Lenny still hits his in Game 3) and Gary Carter in Game 6.

The Series, against the Kansas City Royals? I don't know, because the Cards did lose, and if Cardinal fans still curse the name of umpire Don Denkinger over a quarter of a century later, what would Met fans say if that same call were made? I think the Mets win the '85 Pennant, but lose the Series.

Ryan would have made no difference in 1986. How could he? The Mets won the World Series. The only difference is that the Mets beat the Reds in the NLCS, since the Astros don't have Ryan. (Then again, the Astros won the NL West by 10, so maybe they win it anyway.)

In 1987, at age 40, Ryan led the NL in ERA and strikeouts, but had an 8-16 record, because the Astros remembered that they are the Houston Astros: Great pitching, good defense, couldn't hit the ground if they fell off a ladder.

The Mets finished 2nd to the Cards again, 3 games back. Ryan definitely would have made a difference here, and the Mets would probably have beaten the San Francisco Giants for the Pennant. But the Minnesota Twins were not going to lose any World Series games in the Metrodome. Nobody beat the Twins in the Dome in October. Nobody. (Except, as it turned out, the 2003, '04 and '09 Yankees, who clinched 3 ALDS in that disgraceful facility.) So the Mets reach their 3rd straight Series, but win only 1.

In 1988, the Mets lost the NLCS to the Dodgers in Game 7... or, rather, they lost it in Game 4, when Mike Scioscia took Gooden deep in the 9th. The Mets started, in the 7 games, Gooden, David Cone, Ron Darling, Gooden, Sid Fernandez, Coney, Darling. Ryan had a good year, but I'm not sure where he starts. In all honesty, I can't say with any certainty that he makes a difference in this series.

In 1989, his 1st season with the Texas Rangers, Ryan had his last big season in terms of wins, 16, for an 83-win team. The Mets finished 2nd to the Cubs again, 6 games back. Maybe with Ryan, now 42 but still effective, the Mets don't make that dumb trade for Frank Viola, and win the Division.

But I don't think they win the Pennant, unless there's another dumb trade they don't make, Kevin Mitchell to the San Diego Padres for Kevin McReynolds. Mitchell's trade, soon after, from the Padres to the Giants made the Giants a postseason team in '87 and '89, and they beat the Cubs soundly in the NLCS; they would have done the same to the Mets.

In 1990, the Mets finished 2nd, 4 games behind the Pirates. Ryan had a pretty good season, and if he'd been in the rotation instead of the sinking-fast El Sid, they might have won the Division. On the other hand, as I said, if they still had Ryan, they wouldn't have traded for Viola, who won 20 in his one good season for the Mets. No, having Ryan at this point probably hurts them.

In 1991, Ryan's last effective season -- as a fastball pitcher at age 44! How come no one ever tested him for steroids? -- the Mets collapsed, finishing 20 1/2 back of the Pirates. Having Ryan wouldn't have helped. Having him in the disastrous '92 and '93 seasons, Ryan's last 2, wouldn't have helped, either.

So Ryan might have helped them win 3 more Division titles (1985, '87 and '89), and 2 more Pennants (1985 and '87), but it's hard to see how he wins them any more World Series (unless you count 1973, and you can't count on that).

VERDICT: Not Guilty. M. Donald Grant made a lot of bad decisions as the Mets' de facto owner, and trading Ryan for Fregosi is the one that sticks out the most. But, just as Harry Frazee had reasons to let Babe Ruth go from the Boston Red Sox in 1919, there was more to the move than meets the eye. It would be fairer to say that both Frazee in the early 1920s and Grant in the 1970s broke up their winning teams, each with many bad decisions, too soon.

Jim Fregosi, 1942-2014; Tom Finney, 1922-2014

Remember "Laugh-In Weddings"? You know: "If Cyd Charisse married Julius Caesar, she'd be Sid Caesar."

Well, Sid Caesar died this week. And now, so has Jim Fregosi, who was the subject of another: "If Bella Abzug married Jim Fregosi, she'd be Bella Fregosi." (A play on "Bela Lugosi.")

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James Louis Fregosi was born on April 4, 1942, in San Francisco. He attended Junipero Serra High School, Class of '59, in nearby San Mateo, named for the man who, essentially, was the founding father of California.

That same school has produced many other great sports personalities: John Robinson '54, legendary USC coach; Danny Frisella '64, a member of the '69 Mets; Tom Scott '69, a member of the Canadian Football League's Hall of Fame; Lynn Swann '70, who played for Robinson at USC and won 4 Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers; Bob Fitzgerald '84, Golden State Warriors broadcaster; and Gregg Jefferies '85, whose role with the Mets was nearly as dubious as Fregosi's. Also, Barry Bonds '82 and Tom Brady '95 -- the cheating bastards.

From outside sports: John Shields '50, former CEO of Trader Joe's; Bill Keller '66, New York Times columnist; Michael Shrieve '68, drummer for Santana; Peter Barsocchini '70, creator of the High School Musical franchise; Michael Trucco '88, actor on the new Battlestar Galactica and Fairly Legal.

Fregosi was signed by the Boston Red Sox, but they left him unprotected in the 1961 expansion draft, and the Los Angeles Angels took him. (They became the California Angels in 1965, the Anaheim Angels in 1997, and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in 2004.) He made his big-league debut on September 14, 1961, at Metropolitan Stadium in Minnesota. Batting 8th and playing shortstop, he went 0-for-3 against Jim Kaat and made an error, and the Minnesota Twins beat the Angels, 3-1.

Things got better, though. He came up to the big club for good in 1962, and was named to the American League All-Star Team in 1964, '66, '67, '68, '69 and '70. He wasn't a sensational hitter, but his OPS+ was at least 108 every year from 1962 to 1970, topping out at 127 in 1970, and in 1968 he led the AL with 13 triples. His fielding also improved, and he won a Gold Glove in 1967, not an easy thing to do with Luis Aparicio and Rico Petrocelli also in the AL.

In 1971, an injury limited him to 107 games. Still, he was the greatest player in the first decade of the Angels' franchise, and, to most observers, he is still the team's all-time shortstop.

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On December 10, 1971, the Mets sent pitchers Nolan Ryan and Don Rose, outfielder Leroy Stanton and catcher Frank Estrada to the Angels, for Fregosi.

Estrada played 1 game with the Mets in 1971, and never played again, for the Angels or any other team. Rose had also played just 1 game in the majors before the trade, washed out with the Angels in '72, and ended up pitching only 19 times. So giving them up was no loss for the Mets.

Giving Stanton up was another matter. He hit 47 home runs with 242 RBIs in 5 years with the Angels, and provided some veteran stability on the expansion 1977 Seattle Mariners. Not a great player, but the Mets sure could have used him.

As for Ryan: If you don't know what he did after leaving the Mets, you're either under the age of 25 and don't know your history, or you're reading the wrong blog. He turned from a pitcher with great speed but little control into the greatest strikeout artist in pitching history. He broke Walter Johnson's longstanding record for strikeouts in a career, broke Sandy Koufax' much more recent record for strikeouts in a season, and tied Steve Carlton's even more recent record for strikeouts in a 9-inning game (since surpassed by others).

After leaving the Mets, Ryan had 295 wins, 5,221 strikeouts, and 7 no-hitters. He also reached the postseason 4 times before his career came to an end; the Mets, over that same period, 3. Think the Mets could have used Ryan, in his greatest season, in the 1973 World Series? Or, still throwing BBs at age 41, in the 1988 NLCS?

So giving up Stanton wasn't good, but giving up Ryan turned out to be a boneheaded move for the Mets. So they'd better have gotten something out of Fregosi, right?

Trading for Fregosi did make a little sense: Their shortstop, at the time, was Bud Harrelson: Good field, no hit. In the off-season of 1971-72, there was nothing wrong with wanting a healthy Jim Fregosi to play shortstop for your team.

But two things went wrong. One of them, the Mets could control, and handled badly: Instead of putting Fregosi at short, and keeping the decent if unspectacular Wayne Garrett at 3rd base, the Mets moved Fregosi to 3rd. (It's generally forgotten now, but 3rd base had been a point of embarrassment for the Mets at that point, and remained so until Howard Johnson came along in 1985.) Fregosi had become a good shortstop, but he was not a good 3rd baseman.

The other thing that went wrong, which they couldn't control, was that he got hurt. He broke his thumb that season, but played on, anyway. On May 19, he was batting .304, but went into a 4-for-44 slump that dropped him to .240. A 1-for-15 to end the season dropped him to .232.

On July 11 of the next year, the Texas Rangers made the Mets an offer, and they took it. Fregosi bounced back a little in 1974, like many of his teammates responding to manager Billy Martin, as the Rangers finished 2nd to the Reggie-Catfish Oakland A's. But it was a false comeback, and his injuries continued. The Rangers traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1977.

On June 1, 1978, when the Angels offered him their managing job, he asked the Pirates for his release, got it, and retired as a player.

Lifetime batting average, .265. On-base, .338. Slugging, .398. OPS, .736. OPS+, 113. Hits, 1,726. Home runs, 151, although he was never really a power hitter, topping out at 22 in 1970.

From age 21 to 28, he was an All-Star-caliber player. After that, he was just another injured player, and was done at age 36.

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But it will be for his managing career that Fregosi is best remembered. In 1979, his first full season at the helm, with Don Baylor winning the MVP, big seasons at the bat also from Rod Carew, Brian Downing, Bobby Grich, Carney Lansford, Joe Rudi, Dan Ford and Willie Aikens; big pitching seasons from Ryan and Dave Frost, and a good righty-lefty bullpen combination of Mark Clear and Dave LaRoche, the Angels won 88 games.

It was good enough to win the AL Western Division title, their 1st postseason appearance -- and they did it in the only year between 1977 and 1981 that the Dodgers didn't at least reach a Game 163, thus momentarily taking the L.A. market away from the O'Malleys.

(Indeed, from 1977 to 1988, at least 1 of the L.A.-area teams got to at least a Game 163 every year except 1984 and 1987. It was also a good time for the Rams, the Raiders, the Lakers, and football at both USC and UCLA.)

There were a couple of oddities about that time. Frank Tanana, a workhorse who formed a good lefty-righty tandem with Ryan for a few years, was hurt and didn't do so well. And the Angels' most-used shortstop was Bert Campaneris (like Rudi, a star on those 1970s Oakland teams). He and backups Rance Mulliniks and Jim Anderson, between them, batted .229 and had only 4 homers and 46 RBIs.

At age 37, not having played since the previous June, Fregosi might have been the best shortstop in the organization at the time!

The Halos were not expected to beat the Baltimore Orioles in the AL Championship Series, and didn't. But they could have: Game 1 went to extra innings, and they lost Game 2, 9-8, before winning Game 3. They could have put the O's in a hole, but the O's won 102 games that year with just the kind of resilience they showed in the 1st 2 games. They won Game 4 in a blowout, and then nearly beat the Pirates in the World Series.

Injuries, and the loss of Ryan to free agency, hurt the Angels badly in 1980, and they went from first to worst. Fregosi was fired before the 1981 strike could be resolved. However, for his service to the franchise as both a player and a manager, his Number 11 was retired by team owner Gene Autry. The board of directors had retired 26 for Autry, as "the 26th Man," but Fregosi was the 1st actually-uniformed man to get his number retired by the Angels.

(Don't blame the Singing Cowboy for letting Ryan get away: Ryan wanted to be the majors' first $1 million a year player, and Autry was always willing to spend big money if he thought he could get big results. But Ryan also wanted to pitch in his hometown of Houston, and the Astros, at the time, had the money to spend. Autry couldn't offer Ryan home.)

Fregosi went on to manage the Triple-A Louisville Redbirds, winning regular-season American Association Pennants in 1983 and 1985, and winning the AA in the Playoffs in 1984 and 1985. That was all the Chicago White Sox needed to see to hire him, but his 3 seasons at Comiskey Park were undistinguished.

The Philadelphia Phillies gave him a chance in 1991, and for the 1st 2 seasons, not much happened. At that time, the Phils were regularly breaking the First Commandment of Team Sports: Thou shalt not allow thyselves to become boring.

In 1993, the Phillies had one of the least boring seasons in Philadelphia sports history. This was the year of "Macho Row," or, as broadcaster Harry Kalas called them, "This wacky, wonderful bunch of throwbacks." Lenny Dykstra. John Kruk. Darren Daulton. Curt Schilling. Danny Jackson. Larry Andersen. Mitch Williams. As Garth Brooks might say, they weren't big on social graces.

But they won. In just 1 season, they went from 70-92 to 97-65. (To put that in perspective, the only Phillies team to have won a World Series to that point, the 1980 squad, won "only" 91. The 1964 team, so often cited as a great failure, won 92. So did the much-celebrated 1967 Red Sox and 1996 Yankees.)

They were a team of improbable come-from-behind victories. They dethroned the 3-time defending National League East champion Pirates, and even clinched the Division on their turf at Three Rivers Stadium, after also outlasting a pretty good Montreal Expos team. Then, in the NLCS, they stunned the heavily-favored Atlanta Braves (in their last year in the NL West), to take only the 5th Pennant in the Phils' 111-season history.

(Lest we forget, Mitch Williams was on the mound for that final out, leaping high into the air and pumping his fist. Say what you want about how the Wild Thing pitched in the World Series, but they wouldn't have won the Pennant without him.)

The Phils couldn't quite finish the story, as Joe Carter and the defending World Champion Toronto Blue Jays smashed the glass slipper. Oddly, getting all the way to the World Series in their 1st year of contention might have been the worst thing that could have happened to the Phillies: If they had come close but not won the Pennant, they might have made the necessary moves to improve.

Instead, they didn't do a good job of promoting young players, something that turned out to be necessary, as injuries struck the ballclub. Fregosi, in particular, was accused of relying too much on veterans at the expense of younger players (a charge that would later be leveled against Joe Torre on the Yankees).

A lot of fans made angry calls to Philly's all-sports radio station 610 WIP. On May 21, 1994, Fregosi responded, and went a bit too far. According to the preeminent Philly sports blog, The 700 Level (named for the upper ring of the now-demolished Veterans Stadium):

Fregosi etched his name in Philly sports radio infamy when over heard making certain comments about WIP radio, which eventually made their way to well-known station personality Howard Eskin. The quote often varies in exact wording depending on the source, but reads something like:

“People who listen to WIP are a bunch of guys in South Philly that [fornicate with] their sisters and the people that work at WIP [fornicate with] their mothers.”

The comment, unsurprisingly, was deemed as offensive by many, and Fregosi had some answering to do for it. The manager did not deny that he made the comments, but sort of brushed them off as part of a “bull session” he was having pre-game, kidding around with a bunch of local reporters, and claimed that they had no bearing on his actual feelings about Phillies fans. “I sincerely appreciate our fans,” an impassioned and admittedly embarrassed Fregosi swore in a conference held on the matter.

Though it’s understandable why the comment drew the ire of many at the time, in today’s sports world of neutered press conferences and unremarkable quote-spewing, it can’t help but feel a little refreshing to think of a time when managers would offer vulgar, not-giving-a-rap off-the-cuff remarks like this. It’s probably the sort of thing that the great majority of notable Philly sportsmen have wanted to say about the shit-starting WIP at some point in their career, though it’s unlikely that many of them would have worded their thoughts quite so, uh, elegantly.

The Phillies let him go after the 1996 season, and he was hired by the San Francisco Giants' front office. His last managing job was with the Blue Jays in 1999 and 2000. The Phillies nearly hired him again in 2004, but hired Charlie Manuel instead -- and Manuel went one step further than Fregosi did, winning a World Championship.

Philly fans got over Fregosi's remark, and gave him a nice hand at the closing of The Vet in 2003, and again last year at the ceremony honoring the 20th Anniversary of the 1993 Pennant. He was also honored at the Angels' 50th Anniversary celebrations in 2011.

This week, he was on an MLB Alumni cruise in the Caribbean, when he suffered a stroke. Airlifted to Miami, he seemed to be stable, but took a turn for the worse, and died this morning. He was 71.

In Southern California, Jim Fregosi is the greatest Angel shortstop, and arguably the greatest Angel manager before Mike Scioscia.

In the New York Tri-State Area, he is a convenient symbol of the near-constant ineptitude of Met management.

In the Delaware Valley, he is the manager of Macho Row, the one Pennant won in Philadelphia in a quarter-century stretch.

Harry Kalas had it right about that team, and about Fregosi: He was a throwback. There aren't too many like him left in baseball, and I wish there were more.

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But Fregosi was not the best athlete to die this week. It just came over the wire that Sir Tom Finney has died as well.

And if you're an American, you might never have heard of him.

Thomas Finney (no middle name) was born on April 5, 1922 in Preston, Lancashire, England, at his family's home, a few steps from Deepdale, the stadium of Preston North End Football Club. 

Soccer (or "football") had first been played on the ground known as Deepdale Farm in 1875, with the club being founded in 1878. No other site in the world has been used for the sport longer, continuously. By the time Sir Tom played there, the dates of the stands' openings were 1875, 1890, 1921 and 1934. Today, they're 1995, 1998, 2001 and 2008, so it's a modern stadium.

Tom's mother died when he was only 5 years old. He got good at soccer, and North End were interested in signing him. But his father insisted that, first, Tom complete his apprenticeship in the family plumbing business. Hence his nickname, the Preston Plumber.

He finished his apprenticeship, signed as a professional, and then had to go off to war. He fought under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery as a tank driver in Egypt and Italy. He played for service teams, including a game against Egyptian actor-to-be Omar Sharif. He came home in 1945, and married Elsie Noblett. They had a son named Brian and a daughter named Barbara, and remained together 'til death did they part, in 2004.

Up until the George Eastham case in 1961, English football had not just an equivalent to baseball's reserve clause, but a maximum wage: £20 a week. As a plumber, he was making an additional £14 a week. And, since Preston weren't very good, they were often called "The Plumber and His 10 Drips." 

Another joke of English football in the 1950s: "Tom Finney should claim income tax relief, for his 10 dependents." And other was, "Tom Finney is a one-club man, and Preston are a one-man club." I wonder if anybody said, "The other players need to get the lead out for the plumber." (The Latin name for lead is plumbum, hence "plumber" and its atomic symbol, Pb.)

The 5-foot-8 winger, usually wearing Number 7, saw his League debut and his England debut both come early in the 1946-47 season. He said his goal on his England debut, in a 7-2 defeat of Northern Ireland in Belfast, was "my proudest day as a footballer." He would play for England in the 1950, 1954 and 1958 World Cups. 

But his 2 most notable England games were ignominious defeats: To America in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, and to Hungary's Mighty Magyars in Budapest in 1954, 7-1. (He was not selected for the 1953 match against them, when Hungary won 6-3 to become the 1st non-British team to beat England on home soil.) Still, he won 76 caps for England, scoring 30 goals.

But Finney's legend grew, and in 1952, Palermo offered Preston £10,000 to bring him to Sicily. The club turned him down. It was probably for the best: Except for John Charles, British players have tended to spectacularly fail in Italy: Jimmy Greaces, Joe Baker, Ian Rush and Paul Gascoigne being notorious examples.

In 1953, Arsenal just barely edged Preston for the League title. In 1954, Preston reached the FA Cup Final, and Tom played despite not being fully fit. They lost 3-2 to Birmingham-area club West Bromwich Albion. (Preston haven't won the Cup since 1938.) Nevertheless, he was awarded the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year. 

In 1956, Preston visited Chelsea, and it poured before kickoff. At one point in the game, Finney beat 2 defenders, and won the ball, raising up a lot of water as he did. A photograph was taken, and named "The Splash." It is one of the iconic images of the game in that period.

"The match would not have been played today," he later said, "because there were huge pools of water on the playing surface. I was going past a defender and the ball ran in to a pool of water. It was a fantastic photograph and it won the Sports Photograph of the Year award."

He was awarded the FWA Footballer of the Year again in 1957, the 1st 2-time winner. Preston finished 3rd that year, and a close 2nd again in 1958. But they never won a trophy as long as Tom Finney was with them.

A persistent groin injury led him to retire in 1960, after 433 League appearances and 187 goals -- all for just 1 club. He was knighted in 1998. In 2004, a sculpture of The Splash, complete with a fountain -- perhaps fitting, giving his plumbing background -- was erected outside Deepdale. By that point, he was the club's honorary president. A new stand at Deepdale, and the street outside it -- Sir Tom Finney Way -- were named for him.

Tom died this morning at the age of 91. He had long outlived Bill Shankly, who had played on Preston's 1938 Cup winners and also had a new stand at Deepdale named for him, and later managed Liverpool to glory. Shankly had called him "the greatest player ever to play the game." Bobby Charlton of Manchester United, an England teammate at the 1958 World Cup, said, "His contributions to football are immeasurable."

In front of his stand at Deepdale

He didn't play for his club during its greatest era. He just gave it its greatest player, and its greatest personality. Sir Tom Finney was plumb great.

UPDATE: There is no gravesite for Jim Fregosi, as he was cremated. Tom Finney was buried at St. John's Minster in Preston.

Ryan for Fregosi: 40 Years Later

This is an update of an article I've posted before. I'm doing it today because it's the anniversary.

December 10, 1971, 40 years ago today: The New York Mets trade 4 players to the California Angels for shortstop Jim Fregosi.

At this point, there was nothing wrong with wanting a healthy Jim Fregosi on your team. He would be just 30 years old on Opening Day 1972, had been an American League All-Star 6 times, won a Gold Glove in 1967, and until slumping to 89 in 1971, had never had an OPS+ (on-base percentage + slugging percentage, in relation to the league average) lower than 108 in his first 8 full seasons in the majors, peaking at 141 in 1964.

His highest batting average had been .290, in 1967; peak home runs, 22, and peak runs batted in, 82, both in 1970. In 1968, he led the AL in triples with 13. The franchise was just 11 seasons old at that point, but Fregosi was, without a doubt, the greatest player the Angels had yet had.

Certainly, Fregosi was a better player than the Mets' incumbent starting shortstop, Derrel McKinley "Bud" Harrelson. Although Harrelson had helped the Mets win the 1969 World Series, and had won the '71 season's National League Gold Glove for shortstops and was selected for the last 2 All-Star Games, Harrelson couldn't hit a lick. His highest single-season OPS+ was 82, well below Fregosi's slump season. His peak batting average thus far was .254, and he would top that only twice; his peak RBI year was 42, and his peak home run year was... 1 -- in each case, it would remain so.

Clearly, what the Mets needed to do was make Harrelson a backup, a "defensive replacement." Or maybe the Mets could move him to 3rd base, where 1969 starter Wayne Garrett had badly tailed off, and incumbent starter Bob Aspromonte was at the end of the line. (Bob was a Brooklyn native, now best known as the last active player who had played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was also the brother of the somewhat better Ken Aspromonte.)

Instead, the Mets kept Harrelson at short, and moved Fregosi to 3rd. At first, it seemed to work, but then Fregosi got hurt, finished the season with only 32 RBIs and an OPS+ of just 89, and was never the same again. His 382 plate appareances that season would be far and away more than he'd ever have again.

Between the ages of 21 and 28, Jim Fregosi was, statistically speaking, similar to Alan Trammell, the longtime Detroit Tiger shortstop who is maybe one step short of being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame (and would be in, as would his double-play partner Lou Whitaker, if they could go in as a unit, like the Chicago Cubs' early 20th Century combo "Tinker to Evers to Chance"). But between the ages of 29 and 36, Fregosi was just another broken-down player.

At 36, in 1978, the Angels fired manager Dave Garcia, and asked Fregosi, then playing out the string with the Pittsburgh Pirates, to come back; he instantly accepted the job, retired as a player, and in 1979, his first full season on the job, led the Angels to the AL Western Division title, their first postseason berth.

*

Did the Mets blow it by trading 4 players for an injured formerly solid player? Not necessarily. We have to take a look at those 4 players, to see if the Mets gave up anything worth having.

* Frank Estrada. He was a backup catcher who'd played 1 big-league game, for the Mets in '71, and never appeared in another. No loss there.

* Don Rose. A pitcher, he'd also reached the majors for 1 game with the '71 Mets, put up a 1-4 record for the '72 Angels, and by April 1974 had appeared in the majors for the last time. No loss there.

* Leroy Stanton. He was a right fielder, and he turned out to be a good player, putting up OPS+ seasons of 110, 116 and 123, before slumping a bit in 1976, and being left unprotected in the expansion draft. Taken by the Seattle Mariners, he put up an OPS+ of 130 in 1977, before an injury ended his career the next season at just 32 years old.

Still, the Mets could have used someone like that from 1972 to 1977, particularly after trading Rusty Staub after the '75 season -- another dumb Met trade, as they got Mickey Lolich. Staub for Lolich would have been a good trade, even after the '71 season; but not after '75. (Interestingly, on Baseball-Reference.com's "Similar Batters" list, Number 1 on Stanton's list is... Ron Swoboda. Former Yankee World Champions Gary Thomasson and Ricky Ledee are also in his top 4.)

*

And now, to confront the elephant in the room: The remaining player sent from Flushing Meadow to Anaheim.

* Lynn Nolan Ryan of the Houston suburb of Alvin, Texas.

At the time of the trade, he was a month and a half short of his 25th birthday. He had a career won-lost record of 29-38. Not good, especially when you consider that the Mets had won 100 games in 1969, 83 in 1970 and 83 again in 1971. He struck out a lot of batters, but also walked a lot, giving him a WHIP (Walks and Hits, divided by Innings Pitched) of almost 1.6 in '71. His ERA was nearly 4, not good in the NL of the time, which was pitching-friendly with a lot of concrete multipurpose oval stadiums (3 new ones in the preceding season and a half), and, of course, no designated hitter.

With Ryan having been disappointing thus far, and with Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Gary Gentry and a somewhat-still-effective Ray Sadecki in their rotation, the Mets could afford to let Ryan go. Or so it seemed at the time.

In 1972, his 1st season in the AL, Ryan led the League in both walks and wild pitches... but also led it in strikeouts with a whopping 329, and shutouts with 8, forging a 19-16 record for a team that won just 75 games. A decent Angels team would probably have made him a 23-game winner.

In 1973, he set a new major league record (since the 1893 adoption of the 60 feet, 6 inches pitching distance, anyway) with 383 strikeouts. That record has never even been approached, except by Ryan himself, the next season, with 367. Nor is it likely to be approached, unless managers suddenly decide to stop babying pitchers and let them pitch 7+ innings every 4 days instead of the post-1990 idea of only letting them pitch 6 to 7 innings every 5 days.

By the close of the 1974 season, Ryan had 3 seasons of 300+ strikeouts, 4 no-hitters, 3 games with at least 19 strikeouts (he would add a 4th, although "only" 1 of those came without the benefit of extra innings), 91 wins (but also 86 losses), a career ERA of 3.01 (not bad considering he was now in the DH-affected AL), and 1,572 strikeouts -- and he was only 27.

Putting aside for a moment all the things Ryan would achieve after 1974 -- 233 more wins, 3 more no-hitters, and enough additional strikeouts to place himself 4th on the all-time list even if you only count from 1975 onward -- this was still a bad trade for the Mets.

Add in everything Ryan did from Opening Day 1972 until his retirement after the close of the 1993 season, and Ryan-for-Fregosi -- even if you forget about the decently talented Stanton -- looks like a candidate for the title of "The Worst Baseball Trade Ever" -- and not just the worst Met trade.

*

But is it? There is another elephant in the room. (You ever smell a room with 2 elephants in it? Smells worse than the Mets... most of the time.)

Big question no one ever seems to ask: Would having Nolan Ryan have helped the Mets any from 1972 onward?

It's easy to say, as does Greg Prince, author of the book and blog Faith and Fear in Flushing, that the Mets lost the 1973 World Series to the Oakland Athletics because manager Yogi Berra pitched Tom Seaver in Game 6 and Jon Matlack in Game 7, each on just 3 days' rest.

And Yogi wasn't that "old school": He was only 48, and had seen his mentor, Casey Stengel, adapt to changing conditions pretty well when they were together on the Yankees from 1949 to 1960. And it's not like Yogi had a lot of choice: Koosman had started Game 5, and couldn't have pitched again unless rain pushed Game 7 back a day; Sadecki had pitched in relief in Game 4; and he and George Stone, the Mets' other starter, had pitched in the Series only in relief and weren't much better options.

Besides, if you're a Met fan, who would you rather have, pitching a game that could win you the World Series, in a park that really, really favored pitchers, as the Oakland Coliseum always has: Tom Seaver on 3 days rest, or... any other pitcher then active? Especially knowing that, if Tom Terrific couldn't go the full 9, you had a workhorse reliever in Tug McGraw?

If the Mets had Ryan in '73, that would have been a huge boost for them. Not just in the Series. Don't forget, due to the closeness of the race, and rainouts, the Mets did not clinch the NL East until October 1, the day after the season had originally been scheduled to end, and even then they had to play a doubleheader at Wrigley Field to get Games 161 and 162 in. They clinched in Game 161 when they won and the Pirates lost, making Game 162 meaningless, and more rain led to the umpires canceling it.

Having Ryan's 21-16 in the rotation instead of the combined 8-12 of Sadecki and Jim McAndrew might have gotten the Division clinched sooner, thus enabling the Mets to set up their NL Championship Series rotation better; having Ryan there, against the Cincinnati Reds, might have gotten the Pennant clinched before Game 5, thus helping the Mets set up better in the Series.

Or... would it? Ryan's career postseason record is mixed. He saved the Mets' bacon in Game 3 of the '69 NLCS against the Atlanta Braves, and did so again in Game 3 of the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles -- all thise before he became NOLAN RYAN.

After that, he next appeared in postseason play in 1979, and while he pitched well for the Angels, it wasn't enough, as they lost the game and the Pennant to the Orioles.

In 1980, now with his hometown Houston Astros, he blew the Pennant-clinching Game 5 of the NLCS, at the Astrodome no less, enabling the Phillies to win their first Pennant in 30 years (and then their first World Championship in 98 years of trying). At that point in their history, blowing a Pennant to the Phillies was like losing to Suzanne Somers on Jeopardy!

(This was when she was playing Chrissy Snow on Three's Company, well before she proved her smarts as a fitness expert and a businesswoman. She wasn't a dumb blonde, she just played one on TV.)

In the strike-forced Division Series of 1981, Ryan pitched well for the Astros, but in the process, he only got a split of two decisions against the Los Angeles Dodgers. And he made just one other postseason appearance, in the 1986 NLCS with the Astros, losing Game 2, and pitching well but not getting the decision in a Game 5 his team lost... to the Mets.

Add on the fact that, from 1974 to 1983, the Mets were not in one single Pennant race, and it's hard to say how much difference Ryan would have made then.

Then there's the Mets' glory years from 1984 to 1990. Then again, for all their talk, there wasn't a whole lot of glory. Could Ryan, who pitched remarkably well even until he was 44 in 1991, have made a difference there?

*

So, really, what might have been the impact of the Mets keeping Nolan Ryan after 1971? Keeping in mind that, like Anaheim Stadium (or whatever the California Angels are calling it, and themselves, these days), Shea Stadium was a pitchers' park extraordinaire; but also that Ryan had a career winning percentage of just .526, is the all-time leader in walks, and is among the all-time leaders in wild pitches, we can surmise the following:

1973: We can presume that Ryan would have made a difference. The Mets clinch the Division sooner, and Ryan pitches well in the NLCS, where the Met rotation is Seaver-Koosman-Ryan-Matlack (in that order), clinching in Game 4, instead of Seaver-Koosman-Matlack-Stone-Seaver (as it was in RL), going the full 5.

The World Series? Instead of Matlack for Games 1, 4 and 7; Koosman for Games 2 and 5, and Seaver for Games 3 and 6; we get Seaver for Games 1 and 4, and potentially 7; Koosman for Games 2 and maybe 5; and Ryan for Games 3 and maybe 6, with Matlack as the long man if one is necessary.

Ken Holtzman pitched great for the A's in that Series in real life, so the Mets probably still lose Game 1 in this timeline. The Mets win Game 2 anyway. Against a tired Seaver, the A's needed 11 innings to win the real Game 3; against a rested Ryan, the Mets might win, and there's your difference. Presuming the Mets still win Games 4 and 5, get the riot police ready, it's another Shea Stadium clincher. New York Mets, 1969 and 1973 World Champions.

After this, the Mets aren't in contention again until...

1984: Ryan was only 12-11, but the Astros weren't very good that year. Without him, the Mets finished 6 1/2 games behind the Cubs. Would having Ryan have made 7 games' worth of difference? Probably not: After Dwight Gooden and Ron Darling, the Mets' rotation had Walt Terrell, Bruce Berenyi and a not-yet-there Sid Fernandez. Having Ryan instead of one of those might have made it closer, but the Cubs would still have won the NL East.

1985: Hard to say. Ryan was 10-12 for another under-hitting Astro team, with a 3.8 ERA and a 1.3 WHIP. If he were in the rotation instead of Ed Lynch...

The Mets finished 3 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals. I don't know if Ryan would have made 3 games' difference in this season. If he had, do the Mets beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS? Maybe, the Dodgers had Tom Niedenfuer in their pen; Jack Clark hitting a Pennant-clincher in the top of the 9th in Game 6 wasn't a surprise, but Ozzie Smith hitting a walkoff in the bottom of the 9th of Game 5 was. I can certainly imagine Niedenfuer giving up homers to Lenny Dykstra in Game 5 (or maybe Lenny still hits his in Game 3) and Gary Carter in Game 6.

The Series, against the Kansas City Royals? I don't know, because the Cards did lose, and if Cardinal fans still curse the name of umpire Don Denkinger over a quarter of a century later, what would Met fans say if that same call were made? I think the Mets win the '85 Pennant, but lose the Series.

1986: No, Ryan makes no difference here. How can he? The Mets won the World Series. The only difference is that the Mets beat the Reds in the NLCS, since the Astros don't have Ryan. (Then again, the Astros won the NL West by 10, so maybe they win it anyway.)

1987: This is the season Ryan, at age 40, led the NL in ERA and strikeouts, but had an 8-16 record, because the Astros remembered that they are the Houston Astros: Great pitching, good defense, can't hit the ground if they fell off a ladder.

I saw Ryan pitch that year, at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, as a friend of the family had a relative who briefly pitched for the Astros. I got to sit right behind home plate as Ryan, still mighty fast at 40, was zippin' 'em in there. Being 75 feet away from Mike Schmidt as he batted against Nolan Ryan, even at that stage of each man's career, was awesome. It was a typical game for Ryan that season: The Phils won, 2-1, beating Ryan with a Randy Ready single in the 8th.

Anyway, in 1987, the Mets finished 2nd to the Cards again, 3 games back. Ryan definitely would have made a difference here, and the Mets would probably have beaten the San Francisco Giants for the Pennant. But the Minnesota Twins were not going to lose any World Series games in the Metrodome. Nobody beat the Twins in the Dome in October. Nobody. (Except, as it turned out, the 2003, '04 and '09 Yankees, who clinched 3 ALDS in that disgraceful facility.) So the Mets reach their 3rd straight Series, but win only 1.

1988: The Mets lost the NLCS to the Dodgers in Game 7... or, rather, they lost it in Game 4, when Mike Scioscia took Gooden deep in the 9th. The Mets started, in the 7 games, Gooden, David Cone, Darling, Gooden, El Sid, Coney, Darling. Ryan had a good year, but I'm not sure where he starts. In all honesty, I can't say with any certainty that he makes a difference in this series.

1989: In his first season with the Texas Rangers, Ryan had his last big season in terms of wins, 16, for an 83-win team. The Mets finished 2nd to the Cubs again, 6 games back. Maybe with Ryan, now 42 but still effectve, the Mets don't make that dumb trade for Frank Viola, and win the Division.

But I don't think they win the Pennant, unless there's another dumb trade they don't make, Kevin Mitchell to the San Diego Padres for Kevin McReynolds. Mitchell's trade, soon after, from the Padres to the Giants made the Giants a postseason team in '87 and '89, and they beat the Cubs soundly in the NLCS; they would have done the same to the Mets.

1990: The Mets finished 2nd, 4 games behind the Pirates. Ryan had a pretty good season, and if he'd been in the rotation instead of the sinking-fast El Sid, they might have won the Division. On the other hand, as I said, if they still had Ryan, they wouldn't have traded for Viola, who won 20 in his one good season for the Mets. No, having Ryan at this point probably hurts them.

1991: In Ryan's last effective season -- as a fastball pitcher at age 44! How come no one ever tested him for steroids? -- the Mets collapse, finishing 20 1/2 back of the Pirates. Having Ryan wouldn't have helped. Having him in the disastrous '92 and '93 seasons, Ryan's last 2, wouldn't have helped, either.

So, in their history, real and alternate...

Real Life Mets, 1962 to 2011, without Nolan Ryan after 1971: 7 postseason appearances, 4 Pennants, 2 World Championships. Not great, but plenty of teams haven't done that well, including some teams that have been around longer.

Alternate Mets, 1962 to 2011, with Nolan Ryan from 1971 (really, from 1966) to 1993: 10 postseason appearances, 6 Pennants, 3 World Championships. Not a huge improvement, but a significant one. After all, when you've only won 2 World Series, winning a 3rd is significant. Ask fans of the Chicago White Sox. And those of the Chicago Cubs.

*

My, my, this room is getting cramped. Do you know why? Because there's a 3rd elephant in the room.

It's what happened to the Mets after the 1973 World Series. Team chairman M. Donald Grant -- who "didn't know beans about baseball," according to '69 Met scout and later highly successful big-league manager Whitey Herzog -- broke up the team, piece by piece. In 1977, he got rid of Seaver by playing him (and his wife Nancy) off the Anaheim-based Ryan (and his wife Ruth), with the help of New York Daily News columnist Dick Young, a once-great (and once-liberal) sportswriter who had became embittered, pedantic and pedestrian (and arch-conservative).

When Ryan signed with the Astros in 1980, it made him baseball's first $1 million-a-year player. At the time, if you asked most fans to name 5 current players who might be worth that, I think most of them would have had Ryan as one of the 5. (The others would have been Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton and maybe Dave Winfield.)

Grant would not have been one of those who believed that Ryan, or any player, was worth $1 million a year. (Then again, he was not a baseball fan in the classic sense.) It is likely that Grant would have gotten rid of Ryan well before the 1979-80 off-season.

After all, he had already traded several fan favorites before Seaver and Dave Kingman in the June 15, 1977 "Midnight Massacre" moves: Swoboda in 1970-71, Tommie Agee in 1972-73, Harrelson and Tug McGraw in 1974-75; Staub, Stone and Cleon Jones in 1975-76, and Garrett during the 1976 season; Matlack and John Milner would follow in 1977-78, and so would Koosman in 1978-79. And, unlike Fred and Jeff Wilpon letting Jose Reyes go in 2011-12, Grant didn't let those guys go because he desperately needed to save money, but because he greedily wanted to.

So, chances are, keeping Nolan Ryan beyond the 1971 season would have meant giving him up well before 1984. Therefore, the most likely scenario is that the Mets would have increased their winnings by 1 World Championship, and no other postseason berths.

Then again, think of how much 1 more World Series win would have meant to Met fans from 1973 onward.

A Met fan born between October 17, 1962 (who presumably would have been aware of baseball by October 16, 1969) and October 17, 1977 (the day before the Yankees won another Series) could have told a Yankee Fan born during that same stretch, "The Mets have won more World Series in our lifetime than the Yankees have!" And from October 16, 1969 until October 17, 1978, and again from October 27, 1986 to October 26, 1996 -- 19 of their 34 years -- that would have been true. And for all 34 years, the Mets would have been either ahead of the Yankees or tied with them (it would have been 2-2 from '78 to '86).

Of course, we're talking about the Mets here. Even with Tom Seaver, they found a way to lose the 1973 World Series. So who can say, with even 99 percent certainty, that they wouldn't have found a way to blow it with both Seaver and Nolan Ryan? After all, for much of their history, the Yankees have usually found a way to win; while, except for '69 and '86, the Mets have usually found a way to lose.

If the Mets Had Not Traded Nolan Ryan

December 10, 1971: The New York Mets trade four players to the California Angels for shortstop Jim Fregosi.

At the time, there was nothing wrong with wanting a healthy Jim Fregosi on your team. He would be just 30 years old on Opening Day 1972, had been an American League All-Star 6 times, won a Gold Glove in 1967, and until slumping to 89 in 1971, had never had an OPS+ (on-base percentage + slugging percentage, in relation to the league average) lower than 108 in his 1st 8 full seasons in the majors, peaking at 141 in 1964.

His highest batting average had been .290, in 1967; peak home runs, 22, and peak runs batted in, 82, both in 1970. In 1968, he led the AL in triples with 13. The franchise was just 11 seasons old at that point, but Fregosi was, without a doubt, the greatest player the Angels had yet had.

Certainly, Fregosi was a better player than the Mets' incumbent starting shortstop, Derrel McKinley "Bud" Harrelson. Although Harrelson had helped the Mets win the 1969 World Series, and had won the '71 season's National League Gold Glove for shortstops and was selected for the last 2 All-Star Games, Harrelson couldn't hit a lick. His highest single-season OPS+ was 82, well below Fregosi's slump season. His peak batting average was .254, and he would top that only twice; his peak RBI year was 42, and his peak home run year was... 1 -- in each case, it would remain so.

Clearly, what the Mets needed to do was make Harrelson a backup, a "defensive replacement." Or maybe the Mets could move him to 3rd base, where 1969 starter Wayne Garrett had badly tailed off, and incumbent starter Bob Aspromonte -- a Brooklyn native who is now best known as the brother of the somewhat better Ken Aspromonte, and who was also the last active player who had played for the Brooklyn Dodgers -- was at the end of the line.

Instead, the Mets kept Harrelson at short, and moved Fregosi to 3rd. At first, it seemed to work, but then Fregosi got hurt, finished the season with only 32 RBIs and an OPS+ of just 89, and was never the same again. His 382 plate appearances that season would be far and away more than he'd ever have again.

Between the ages of 21 and 28, Jim Fregosi was, statistically speaking, similar to Alan Trammell, the longtime Detroit Tiger shortstop who is maybe one step short of being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame (and would be in, as would his double-play partner Lou Whitaker, if they could go in as a unit, like "Tinker to Evers to Chance"). But between the ages of 29 and 36, Fregosi was just another broken-down player.

At 36, in 1978, the Angels fired manager Dave Garcia, and asked Fregosi, then playing out the string with the Pittsburgh Pirates, to come back; he instantly accepted the job, retired as a player, and led the Angels to their first postseason berth, the 1979 AL Western Division Title.

*

Did the Mets blow it by trading 4 players for an injured formerly solid player? Not necessarily. We have to take a look at those 4 players, to see if they gave up anything worth having.

Frank Estrada. He was a backup catcher who'd played 1 big-league game, for the Mets in '71, and never appeared in another. No loss there.

Don Rose. A pitcher, he'd also reached the majors for 1 game with the '71 Mets, put up a 1-4 record for the '72 Angels, and by April 1974 had appeared in the majors for the last time. No loss there.

Leroy Stanton. He was a right fielder, and he turned out to be a good player, putting up OPS+ seasons of 110, 116 and 123, before slumping a bit in 1976, and being left unprotected in the expansion draft. Taken by the Seattle Mariners, he put up an OPS+ of 130 in 1977, before an injury ended his career the next season at just 32 years old.

Still, the Mets could have used someone like that from 1972 to 1977, particularly after trading Rusty Staub after the '75 season -- another dumb Met trade, as they got Mickey Lolich. Staub for Lolich would have been a good trade, even after the '71 season; but not after '75. (Interestingly, on Baseball-Reference.com's "Similar Batters" list, Number 1 on Stanton's list is... Ron Swoboda. Former Yankee World Champions Gary Thomasson and Ricky Ledee are also in his top 4.)

*

And now, to confront the elephant in the room: Lynn Nolan Ryan of the Houston suburb of Alvin, Texas.

At the time of the trade, he was a month and a half short of his 25th birthday. He had a career won-lost record of 29-38: Not good, especially when you consider that the Mets had won 100 games in 1969, 83 in 1970 and 83 again in 1971. He struck out a lot of batters, but also walked a lot, giving him a WHIP (Walks and Hits, divided by Innings Pitched) of almost 1.6 in '71. His ERA was nearly 4, not good in the NL of the time, which was pitching-friendly with a lot of concrete multipurpose oval stadiums (3 new ones in the preceding season and a half), and, of course, no designated hitter.

And with Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Gary Gentry and a somewhat-still-effective Ray Sadecki in their rotation, the Mets could afford to let Ryan go... or so it seemed.

In 1972, with the Angels, Ryan led the AL in both walks and wild pitches... but also led it in strikeouts with a whopping 329, and shutouts with 8, forging a 19-16 record for a team that won just 75 games. A decent Angels team would probably have made him a 23-game winner. In 1973, he set a new major league record (since the 1893 adoption of the 60 feet, 6 inches pitching distance, anyway) with 383 strikeouts. That record has never even been approached, except by Ryan himself the next season with 367.

By the close of the 1974 season, Ryan had 3 seasons of 300+ strikeouts, 4 no-hitters, 3 games with at least 19 strikeouts (he would add a 4th, although "only" 1 of those came without the benefit of extra innings), 91 wins (but also 86 losses), a career ERA of 3.01 (not bad considering he was now in the DH-affected AL), and 1,572 strikeouts -- and he was only 27.

Putting aside for a moment all the things Ryan would achieve after 1974 -- 233 more wins, 3 more no-hitters, and enough additional strikeouts to place himself 4th on the all-time list even if you only count from 1975 onward -- this was still a bad trade for the Mets. Add in everything Ryan did from Opening Day 1972 until his retirement after the close of the 1993 season, and Ryan-for-Fregosi -- even if you forget about the decently talented Stanton -- looks like it could be the worst trade ever.

*

But is it? There is another elephant in the room. (You ever smell a room with 2 elephants in it? Smells worse than the Mets... most of the time.) Would having Ryan have helped the Mets any from 1972 onward?

It's easy to say that the Mets lost the 1973 World Series to the Oakland Athletics because manager Yogi Berra pitched Tom Seaver in Game 6 and Jon Matlack in Game 7, each on just 3 days' rest. And Yogi wasn't that "old school": He was only 48, and had seen his mentor, Casey Stengel, adapt to changing conditions pretty well when they were together on the Yankees from 1949 to 1960.

And it's not like Yogi had a lot of choice: Koosman had started Game 5, Sadecki had pitched in relief in Game 4, and he and George Stone, the Mets' other starter, had pitched in the Series only in relief and weren't much better options.

Besides, if you're a Met fan, who would you rather have, pitching a game that could win you the World Series, in a park that really, really favored pitchers, as the Oakland Coliseum always has: Tom Seaver on 3 days rest, or... any other pitcher then active?

If the Mets had Ryan in '73, that would have been a huge boost for them. Not just in the Series. Don't forget, due to the closeness of the race, and rainouts, the Mets did not clinch the NL East title until October 1, the day after the season had originally been scheduled to end, and even then they had to play a doubleheader at Wrigley Field to get Games 161 and 162 in. (They clinched in Game 161 when they won and the Pirates lost, making Game 162 meaningless, and it was never played.)

Having Ryan's 21-16 in the rotation instead of the combined 8-12 of Sadecki and Jim McAndrew might have gotten the Division clinched sooner, thus enabling the Mets to set up their NL Championship Series rotation better. Having Ryan there, against the Cincinnati Reds, might have gotten the Pennant clinched before Game 5, thus helping the Mets set up better in the Series.

Or... would it? Ryan's career postseason record is mixed. He saved the Mets' bacon in a game in the '69 NLCS, and did so again in Game 3 of the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles. After that, he next appeared in October in 1979, and, while he pitched well for the Angels, it wasn't enough, as they lost the game and the Pennant to the Orioles.

In 1980, now with his hometown Houston Astros, he blew the Pennant-clinching Game 5 of the NLCS, at the Astrodome no less, enabling the Phillies to win their 1st Pennant in 30 years (and then their 1st World Championship in 98 years of trying). In the strike-forced Division Series of 1981, he pitched well, but only split 2 decisions against the Los Angeles Dodgers. And he made just one other postseason appearance, in 1986 with the Astros, losing Game 2 of the NLCS, and pitching well but not getting the decision in a Game 5 his team lost... to the Mets.

Add on the fact that, from 1974 to 1983, the Mets were not in one single Pennant race, and it's hard to say how much difference Ryan would have made then. Then there's the Mets glory years from 1984 to 1990. Then again, for all their talk, there wasn't a whole lot of glory. Could Ryan, who pitched remarkably well even until he was 44 in 1991, have made a difference there?

*

So, really, what might have been the impact of the Mets keeping Nolan Ryan after 1971? Keeping in mind that, like Anaheim Stadium (or whatever the California Angels are calling it, and themselves, these days), Shea Stadium was a pitchers' park extraordinaire; but also that Ryan had a winning percentage of just .526 and is the all-time leader in walks and is among the all-time leaders in wild pitches, we can surmise the following:

1973: We can presume that Ryan would have made a difference. The Mets clinch the Division sooner, and Ryan pitches well in the NLCS, where the Met rotation is Seaver-Koosman-Ryan-Matlack, clinching in Game 4, instead of Seaver-Koosman-Matlack-Stone-Seaver, going the full 5.

The World Series? Instead of Matlack for Games 1, 4 and 7; Koosman for Games 2 and 5, and Seaver for Games 3 and 6; we get Seaver for Games 1 and 4, and potentially 7; Koosman for Games 2 and maybe 5; and Ryan for Games 3 and maybe 6, with Matlack as the long man if one is necessary. Ken Holtzman pitched great for the A's, so the Mets probably still lose Game 1. The Mets win Game 2 anyway. Against a tired Seaver, the A's needed 11 innings to win Game 3; against a rested Ryan, the Mets might win, and there's your difference. Presuming the Mets still win Games 4 and 5, get the riot police ready, it's another Shea Stadium clincher. New York Mets, 1969 and 1973 World Champions.

After this, the Mets aren't in contention again until...

1984: Ryan was only 12-11, but the Astros weren't very good that year. Without him, the Mets finished 6 1/2 games behind the Cubs. Would having Ryan have made 7 games' worth of difference? Probably not: After Dwight Gooden and Ron Darling, the Mets' rotation had Walt Terrell, Bruce Berenyi and a not-yet-there Sid Fernandez. Having Ryan instead of one of those might have made it closer, but the Cubs would still have won.

1985: Hard to say. Ryan was 10-12 for another under-hitting Astro team, with a 3.8 ERA and a 1.3 WHIP. If he were in the rotation instead of Ed Lynch... The Mets finished 3 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals. I don't know if Ryan would have made 3 games' difference in this season. If he had, do the Mets beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS? Maybe, the Dodgers had Tom Niedenfuer in their pen; Jack Clark hitting a Pennant-clincher in the top of the 9th in Game 6 wasn't a surprise, but Ozzie Smith hitting a walkoff in the bottom of the 9th of Game 5 was. I can certainly imagine Niedenfuer giving up homers to Lenny Dykstra in Game 5 (or maybe Lenny still hits his in Game 3) and Gary Carter in Game 6.

The Series, against the Kansas City Royals? I don't know, because the Cards did lose, and if Cardinal fans still curse the name of umpire Don Denkinger a quarter of a century later, what would Met fans say if that same call were made? I think the Mets win the '85 Pennant, but lose the Series.

1986: No, Ryan makes no difference here. How can he? The Mets won the World Series. The only difference is that the Mets beat the Reds in the NLCS, since the Astros don't have Ryan. (Then again, the Astros won the NL West by 10, so maybe they win it anyway.)

1987: This is the season Ryan led the NL in ERA and strikeouts, but had an 8-16 record, because the Astros remembered that they are the Houston Astros: Great pitching, good defense, can't hit the ground if they fell off a ladder. I saw Ryan pitch that year, at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, as a friend of the family had a relative who briefly pitched for the Astros. I got to sit right behind home plate as Ryan, still mighty fast at 40, was zippin' 'em in there. Being 75 feet away from Mike Schmidt as he batted against Nolan Ryan, even at that stage of each man's career, was awesome. It was a typical game for Ryan that season: The Phils won, 2-1, beating Ryan.

Anyway, the Mets finished 2nd to the Cards again, 3 games back. Ryan definitely would have made a difference here, and the Mets would probably have beaten the San Francisco Giants for the Pennant. But the Minnesota Twins were not going to lose any World Series games in that damn Metrodome. Nobody beat the Twins in the Dome in October. Nobody. (Except, as it turned out, the 2003, '04 and '09 Yankees, who clinched 3 ALDS in that disgraceful facility.) So the Mets reach their 3rd straight World Series, but win only 1 of them.

1988: The Mets lost the NLCS to the Dodgers in Game 7... or, rather, in Game 4, when Mike Scioscia took Gooden deep in the 9th. The Mets started, in the 7 games, Gooden, David Cone, Ron Darling, Gooden, El Sid, Coney, Darling. Ryan had a good year, but I'm not sure where he starts. I don't know if he makes a difference here.

1989: In his 1st season with the Texas Rangers, Ryan has his last big season in terms of wins, 16, for an 83-win team. The Mets finished 2nd to the Cubs again, 6 games back. Maybe with Ryan, now 42 but still effective, the Mets don't make that dumb trade for Frank Viola, and win the Division.

But I don't think they win the Pennant, unless there's another dumb trade they don't make, Kevin Mitchell to the San Diego Padres for Kevin McReynolds. Mitchell's trade, soon after, from the Padres to the Giants made the Giants a postseason team in '87 and '89, and they beat the Cubs soundly in the NLCS; they would have done the same to the Mets.

1990: The Mets finished 2nd, 4 games behind the Pirates. Ryan had a pretty good season, and if he'd been in the rotation instead of the sinking-fast El Sid, they might have won the Division. On the other hand, as I said, if they still had Ryan, they wouldn't have traded for Viola, who won 20 that year. No, having Ryan at this point probably hurts them.

1991: In Ryan's last effective season -- as a fastball pitcher at age 44! How come no one ever tested him for steroids? -- the Mets collapse, finishing 20 1/2 back of the Pirates. Having Ryan wouldn't have helped. Having him in the disastrous '92 and '93 seasons, Ryan's last 2, wouldn't have helped, either.

So, in their history, real and alternate...

Mets without Nolan Ryan after 1971: 7 postseason appearances, 4 Pennants, 2 World Championships. Not great, but plenty of teams haven't done that well, including some teams that have been around longer.

Mets with Nolan Ryan after 1971: 10 postseason appearances, 6 Pennants, 3 World Championships. Not a huge improvement, but a significant one. After all, when you've only won 2 World Series, winning a 3rd is significant. Ask fans of the Chicago White Sox.

*

My, my, this room is getting cramped. Do you know why? Because there's a third elephant in the room.

It's what happened to the Mets after the 1973 World Series. Team chairman M. Donald Grant -- who "didn't know beans about baseball," according to '69 Met scout and later highly successful big-league manager Whitey Herzog -- broke up the team, piece by piece. In 1977, he got rid of Tom Seaver by playing him (and his wife) off the real-life, Anaheim-based Ryan (and his wife), with the help of New York Daily News columnist Dick Young, a once-great (and once-liberal) sportswriter who had became embittered, pedantic and pedestrian (and arch-conservative).

When Ryan signed with the Astros in 1980, it made him baseball's 1st $1 million a year player. At the time, if you asked most fans to name 5 current players who might be worth that, I think most of them would have had Ryan as 1 of the 5.

Grant would not have been a person who believed that any baseball player was worth $1 million a year. (Then again, he was not a baseball fan in the classic sense.) It is likely that Grant would have gotten rid of Ryan well before the 1979-80 off-season. After all, he had already traded several fan favorites before Seaver and Dave Kingman in the June 15, 1977 "Midnight Massacre" moves: Swoboda in 1970-71, Tommie Agee in 1972-73, Harrelson and Tug McGraw in 1974-75; Staub, Stone and Cleon Jones in 1975-76, and Garrett during the 1976 season. Matlack and John Milner would follow in 1977-78, and so would Koosman in 1978-79.

So, chances are, keeping Nolan Ryan beyond the 1971 season would have meant giving him up well before 1984. Therefore, the Mets increase their winnings by 1 World Championship, and no other postseason berths.

Then again, think of how much 1 more World Series win would have meant to Met fans from 1973 onward. A Met fan born between October 17, 1962, who presumably would have been aware of baseball by October 16, 1969, could have told a Yankee Fan born during that same stretch, "The Mets have won more World Series in our lifetime than the Yankees have!" And from October 16, 1969 until October 17, 1978, and again from October 27, 1986 to October 26, 1996 -- 19 of their 34 years -- that would have been true. And for all 34 years, the Mets would have been either ahead of the Yankees or tied with them (it would have been 2-2 from '78 to '86).

Of course, we're talking about the Mets here. With Tom Seaver, they found a way to lose the 1973 World Series. So who can say, with even 99 percent certainty, that they wouldn't have found a way to blow it with both Seaver and Nolan Ryan?