Tom Brennan - DAVID WRIGHT WEEK

Tom Brennan - DAVID WRIGHT WEEK

This is David Wright Week for the Mets.

Yes, Jake deGrom Week, too, as he finalizes his pursuit of a well-deserved Cy young award - but this will be a wonderful David Wright week.

As we look forward to this final week in the playing career of David Wright, it is hard for me to get past the bone-headed decision made by the Wilpons to build Citi Canyon starting with the 2009 season, which neutralized David and the other Mets' hitters with park dimensions that killed the normal reward for well-hit shots.  Doubles and homers were turned into easy outs, in bunches.

In Wright's first 4 full years (2005-08), Wright was surely on a Hall of Fame pace - here are his averages for those 4 seasons:

159 games, 716 PAs, 597 ABs, 42 doubles, 29 HRs, 106 runs 112 RBIs, .311/.394/.533, 24 of 29 steals.

Statistics compiled playing at Shea Stadium, a park considered a pitcher's park.

In 2009, playing in the Cavern, he went to the plate 618 times and hit just 10 homers, drove in just 74.  Neutered by the Wilpons' Cavern.  

And especially neutered that 415 foot high wall in Wright's beloved right center power alley, 19 feet deeper than the already fairly deep 396 foot dimension in that section of the real estate in Shea Stadium.

In 2010, he adjusted and ended up closer to his Shea years' numbers with 36 doubles, 29 HR, and 103 RBIs.  After a down season in 2011, he had 41 doubles, 21 homers, and 93 RBIs in his last good season.   

Back problems were intruding.   The beaning did not help.

Many attribute Wright's back as cutting short a budding Hall of Fame career.

But I blame the Wilpons.

Wright now sits with just 242 career homers, 970 career RBIs.  That, and his .296 lifetime average, is very good, but not HOF-good..

Had the Wilpons been smart, realizing they had one of the most talented and marketable power hitters in the entire game, as well as its most charismatic, they would have built a hitters' park instead, designed for Wright, with let's say 380 in right center, not 415.

And built it with the current park dimensions in left field (not the impassible "Great Wall of Citi" that destroyed hitters when it was first built).  And, had they also set CF at 400 rather than 408, a dimension that would have heavily favored Wright, who hit many a blast to dead center.  

While the Mets hit a fine .274 at home in 2009, they were by far the lowest in home field homers at 49.  So the 2009 team could hit - they just couldn't hit homers there.

I railed in articles from this website about the first fence shortening a few years later from the initial gargantuan dimensions, bellowing that fences were still too deep, and that fans dig homers and love scoring.  Oddly, and perhaps a tad mischievously, Sandy Alderson, when he announced the second move in of the fences, said that a big part of the reason to do so was that fans dig homers and love scoring.

I believe Wright, not having the benefit of a hitters' park, and instead having to hit in Citi Cavern versions I, II, and III, lost 80-100 career homers, 10-15 points on his career average, 150-200 RBIs.   

Am I too optimistic?  Are those higher numbers too inflated?  

I don't think so.  

Would those increased numbers have gotten him to the Hall, regardless of his later back issues? I think so; Sandy Koufax had a shortened career due to injury and got in easily. 

Not only would David have hit better, year in, year out, in a park with hitter-favoring dimensions, the whole line up would have hit better, too, leading to 20-40 more at bats per season for David.  

David would have required no altering of his classic power approach to adjust to a large field - in a smaller field, he would have just kept pounding homers and doubles.  

If he averaged 42 doubles and 29 homers in his first 4 seasons playing at Shea, what would those numbers have been playing in a park akin to Philly's park?  45 and 38?

Sadly, David Wright could have been the Mets' first home grown offensive Hall of Famer, had the Wilpons been smart and not foolishly hyper-focused on recreating a Brooklyn Dodgers park with extremely unfavorable hitting dimensions.  

We surely deserve our own home-grown offensive Hall of Famer after nearly 60 seasons.  That could, and should, have been David Wright.

Articles do come to an end - my lament is over.  So I will close with this:

I wish Wright a true memorable final week.  

He surely deserves nothing less.

In true Mets fans' hearts, he IS a Hall of Famer.