Tom Brennan - EARLY '60'S METS STARTER FLASHBACK

Tom Brennan: EARLY '60'S METS STARTER FLASHBACK

Halloween is an appropriate time to reminisce about early 1960s Mets starting pitching.

Not that the pitchers were bad, by and large. 

The teams they pitched for were NIGHTMARES, though.

LET'S REMINISCE ABOUT 6 OF THEM:

ROGER CRAIG:

Here is a guy who was 59-52 in his career as a non-Met.  Here is a guy who, in pre-Mets 1958-1960 was 21-9 with an ERA under 3.00.  

Here was a guy who had a decent 4.14 ERA as a Met.  

Yet he was an awful 15-46 spanning 1962-1964 as a Met, with 64 starts and 22 relief appearances.  Why 15-46?  

The Mets truly stunk then.  Would the 1963 version of Roger Craig, when he went 5-22, have been in the Mets 2017 rotation?  Sure - after all, his ERA that year was a fine 3.78. 

AL JACKSON

Jackson was another victim of the early Mets.  The lefty, in painful 1962, was 8-20 despite a not-terrible 4.40 ERA.  The next season, a much better 13-17, with a 3.96 ERA.  Overall as a Met, he was 43-80 (.350 win %) spanning 138 starts and 46 relief outings, and his Mets' ERA was 4.26.

The rest of his career?  24-19, ERA in the low 3's.  Clearly demonstrating that pitching for the early Mets was hazardous to one's health.

Could Al Jackson of Mets lore have been a starter for the 2017 Mets instead of, say, Raffy Montero, who sported a 2017 ERA of 5.52 and a Mets career ERA of 5.38?  You're smart - what do you think?  Don't wait for me to give you all the answers.

JAY HOOK

Jay Hook was lousy.  Period.

As a Met in 1962 and 193 (and a few 1964 innings before his career ended), he was 12-34, 5.22.

With his other prior team, Cincy, he was 17-28, 5.23.

So, the same ERA got him a .378 win % with Cincy, just .262 with the lowly Metsies.

Jay "up, up, and away" Hook allowed 111 home runs in just 753 career innings.  He made hitters happy.  He made managers queasy, and they gave him the hook often.  Jay did, though, manage to complete 15 of his 56 Mets starts.

Could Jay Hook have pitched in the 2017 Mets rotation?  Only if you think Tommy Milone and Adam Will were welcome additions to the Mets' 2017 starting rotation.

JACK FISHER

Jack avoided the Mets until 1964, but he pitched 4 years for them.  Four LONG years.  He went 38-73 for them, including an 8-24 nightmare one season in which his ERA was a pretty darned decent 3.94!

In the rest of his non-Mets career he was a much better 48-66.  His career ERA in total was 4.06 spanning 1,976 innings.  Pretty darned decent.

Could the 8-24 Fisher have pitched in the 2017 Mets starting rotation?  The answer is an obvious YES.

BOB MILLER

Big bad Bob was a really bad 1-12 for the Mets in 1962, and 3-14 overall.  His ERA?  A relatively good 4.41.

The rest of his career?  He toiled for 9 other teams - and was  66-67, with an ERA of 3.20!!!  Shows what an awful team can do to a good pitcher.  Could he have started for the 2017 Mets?  No doubt.

CRAIG ANDERSON

Sometimes, a pitcher can get PTSD.  Anderson's major league career started in 1961 with the Cardinals in 1961, when he was 4-3, 3.26 in 39 innings of fine short relief.  After that, shell shock:

In 1962 with the Mets, he was  3-17, 5.35.  OUCH!  After that, he was 0-3 as a Met, making his Mets career 3-20, 5.56.  If he jumped on a time machine from 1962 to 2017, and asked if he could start for the Mets, what would I have told him?  Warp somewhere else, please!

So, in my book, 4 of those 6 (Craig, Fisher, Jackson, and Miller) would have been welcomed to this Mets team with open arms.  With the 2017 so-so Mets defensively still being far better afield than the 1960's fumblers, and with the 2017 squad being far superior offensively, these 4 guys, who combined for a 99-213 win loss record for the early Mets, would have been winners for the 2017 version.