Mike Friere - Blast From The Past (Darryl Strawberry)

As difficult as it may be of late, I am making an effort to switch things up a bit and take a more positive approach for this series of articles.  I am calling this series a “blast from the past” and I plan on picking a different Mets’ player from the past for each installment.  In doing so, I want to take a deeper look at their performance, to include the use of some modern statistics that may or may not have been in vogue during the different player’s career(s).

Past installments in this series included Hubie Brooks and Keith Hernandez.   Today, I would like to focus on “the big guy”, also known as Darryl Strawberry, who was supremely talented and also extremely flawed all at the same time.  His overall story should serve as a cautionary tale for future players who have a world of talent and need a roadmap to keep from squandering the same.  

Too Harsh?   Maybe, but when I think of Darryl I see someone who could have been so much more.   Regardless, let’s take a look at what he was able to accomplish during his baseball career.

DS was born on 03/12/62 in Los Angeles, where he subsequently attended and graduated from Crenshaw High School in 1980 where he was a local legend on the diamond.   Shortly thereafter, he was drafted with the first overall pick in the 1980 MLB Draft by our very own New York Mets (which was a very wise pick in hindsight since the rest of the players picked in that round were rather ordinary).    

Odd, I know…..the Mets used to draft pretty well.

After pretty much rocketing through the minor leagues, DS made his Mets debut on 03/06/83 as a 21 year old outfielder (so it is OK to aggressively promote your better players….someone should tell Sandy).   After the listed debut he produced the following statistics for the rest of the 1983 season;

473 PA   .257/.336/.512  (.848 OPS)

26 HR/74 RBI/19 SB/63 RS

2.7 WAR

1983 Rookie of the Year

After a such a stunning debut, many folks pegged a young Darryl as not only a career Met, but a potential Hall of Fame player.  Sadly, neither of those things would come to pass due to a myriad of reasons, to include drug and alcohol abuse (as referenced by DS himself in the ESPN 30 for 30 series).  It is my personal belief that IF he stayed with the Mets and if he stayed clean, he would have been one of “our legends” and most certainly in the HOF, but I digress.

For his career, DS played from 1983 through 1999 (a total of seventeen seasons) and he produced a total of 42.2 WAR during that time period, while earning just shy of 22 million dollars for his entire career!   

He actually played for four different franchises to include the Mets (8 seasons), the Dodgers (3 seasons), the Giants (1 season) and the Yankees (5 seasons).  He also earned eight All Star berths and one runner up finish for the NL MVP in 1988 after a monster season where he was robbed of the award, in my opinion.  

What is interesting is that after leaving the Mets for the Dodgers in 1990, DS never played another full season despite the relatively huge free agent deal that he signed at the time.  As a matter of fact, roughly 72% of his career plate appearances occurred during his first eight years with the Mets, so in essence, he was a part time player for more then half of his seventeen years.  Viewed a different way, he earned 36.6 WAR in eight seasons with the Mets and 5.6 WAR in nine seasons with three other teams.

Here is an “average” season for DS when he was with the Mets so you can appreciate the trajectory that he was on before his “fall from grace";

568 PA   .263/.359/.520  (.878 OPS)

31.5 HR/91.6 RBI/23.9 SB/82.8 RS

4.58 WAR

If you extrapolate those numbers across a potential seventeen year career (with normal regression as he aged), you would be looking at some truly legendary statistics (over 500 HR and 400 SB, for example).

Taking this quick look backward, it is clear that DS was an impact player and he was just as good as I remember (for his Mets’ career, anyway).  There are some players that are “must see” types that cause an entire stadium to pause when they are at the plate and he was definitely one of those.   If you ever watched him take batting practice or in a live game, the ball made a different sound when he connected with it.  I distinctly remember a home run he hit in Montreal that would have left the stadium had it not hit the very top ring of concrete that formed the roof of the facility which is absurd!

Simply put, Darryl was a monster early in his career and I truly enjoyed watching him play for the Mets.  His departure from the Mets and the startling drop in performance were sad, but I choose to remember the good times when his name is mentioned and I hope that he has turned his life around in retirement.