Tom Brennan - A CONTRIBUTING ARTICLE FROM "REMEMBER 1969": WHAT IF EVERY MET WAS A SUPERSTAR? PART 2

SUPERSTAR!

(Mack’s Mets reader “Remember 1969” follows up on his article from last week in this two part series – enjoy!)

 

Last week in Part 1 of What if every Met was as Superstar, I contemplated the angle of whether you root more for a team full of future Hall of Famer types rather than a collection of very good players with other depth fill-ins.

 

In Part 2, the focus will be on whether it is necessary to have nine superstars to win a World Series.  

 

The Mets recently obtained a bonafide superstar, perhaps on a Hall of Fame path, to play shortstop in Francisco Lindor.     He has many other complementary teammates that are very good players in their own right, but it would be hard to put a Hall of Fame case together for any of them except possibly Jacob deGrom.     

Can they win the World Series in 2021? 

 

Sure.  

 

In examining one of the best Fall Classics in my memory, I look at the 1985 Series between the Royals and Cardinals, won by Kansas City 4 games to 3.  

 

There was one future Hall of Famer on each side, George Brett for the Royals and Ozzie Smith for the Cardinals.  

 

The Royals had several other good players as a supporting cast, including Frank White, Willie Wilson, Dan Quisenberry, and the Series MVP Bret Saberhagen.   They also had Buddy Biancalana as their starting shortstop.  Steve Balboni and Hal McRae were really the only other notable starters on that team.

 

The Cardinals with Smith were Jack Clark, Terry Pendleton, Vince Coleman, Willie McGee and a few others to make a very exciting squad.   Their top starter that year was John Tudor and their closer was Jeff Lahti, not guys you would go to Cooperstown to find.  

 

An interesting comparison was the 1996 World Series won by the Yankees 4 to 2 over the Braves.    Each team featured 4 future HOFers with Jeter, Rivera, Boggs, and Raines on the New York team and Jones, Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux on Atlanta. 

 

It was interesting that managers of three of the four teams that I selected to highlight are in the Hall of Fame - Whitey Herzog leading the '85 Cardinals, and Joe Torre and Bobby Cox of the '96 Yankees and Braves, respectively.     Dick Howser of the Royals was not a bad manager either, but not in the HOF.

 

Maybe it is the Manager that really needs to be the 'superstar'.

 

Do the Mets have the talent around deGrom and Lindor to win this year?    By comparison of the players on other Series winners, yes, they do.      

 

Their manager, however, has a lot of time and winning yet to do to join they others.   

 

So what do you Mack’s Mets Superstars think about that?