This weekend, we celebrate the accomplishments of mediocrity, and I say that with pride.
The 1969 Mets were a great team and one of the best stories in baseball history.
One thing they were not was an offensive juggernaut.
The 1969 Mets hit .242 as a team. The only teams with a worse batting average were the two expansion franchises, the Expos and Padres.
But it was a consistent .242. I looked up their offensive numbers from the season-ending surge that propelled them from 9 1/2 games out to the NL East title. In that stretch, they hit...242.
The 1969 Mets slugging percentage of .351 ranked next-to-last in the NL, as was their .662 OPS.
The 1969 Mets struck out 1,089 times- third-most in the National League.
The 1969 Mets were the 11th-best team in the NL for hitting doubles, the eighth-best for hitting home runs and the eighth-best for stealing bases.
They fare a little better, rankings-wise, when you include the AL within these tallies, but not by much.
You know what offensive category the Mets were statistically best at?
Not hitting into double plays.
The Mets hit into only 105 of them, tied for the best mark in the majors.
That's because there was often nobody on base!
If you take out Cleon Jones (admittedly an unfair thing to do), the rest of the team hit .232. They had one player hit 15 or more home runs. Their RBI leader had 76 (and yes, this is statistically dicey, since they didn't have Donn Clendenon for the full year). Their leader in stolen bases had 16. Their No. 2 hitters hit a combined .222... We could go on and on.
And yet this team somehow won the World Series. Amazin'
The 1969 Mets were a great team and one of the best stories in baseball history.
One thing they were not was an offensive juggernaut.
The 1969 Mets hit .242 as a team. The only teams with a worse batting average were the two expansion franchises, the Expos and Padres.
But it was a consistent .242. I looked up their offensive numbers from the season-ending surge that propelled them from 9 1/2 games out to the NL East title. In that stretch, they hit...242.
The 1969 Mets slugging percentage of .351 ranked next-to-last in the NL, as was their .662 OPS.
The 1969 Mets struck out 1,089 times- third-most in the National League.
The 1969 Mets were the 11th-best team in the NL for hitting doubles, the eighth-best for hitting home runs and the eighth-best for stealing bases.
They fare a little better, rankings-wise, when you include the AL within these tallies, but not by much.
You know what offensive category the Mets were statistically best at?
Not hitting into double plays.
The Mets hit into only 105 of them, tied for the best mark in the majors.
That's because there was often nobody on base!
If you take out Cleon Jones (admittedly an unfair thing to do), the rest of the team hit .232. They had one player hit 15 or more home runs. Their RBI leader had 76 (and yes, this is statistically dicey, since they didn't have Donn Clendenon for the full year). Their leader in stolen bases had 16. Their No. 2 hitters hit a combined .222... We could go on and on.
And yet this team somehow won the World Series. Amazin'
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