One Season Wonders: Bret Saberhagen

In 1991, the Mets went into the season with a manager other than Davey Johnson for the first time since 1983. Perhaps not coincidentally, the 1991 season ended with the Mets registering their first losing record since the aforementioned '83 campaign.

During the Mets' seven-year string of excellence from 1984-1990, the team prided itself on having a strong starting rotation.  Pitchers like Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez, Bobby Ojeda, David Cone and Frank Viola had all contributed excellent seasons for the Mets during that period.  But a lot was changing as a result of the 1991 season.

Ron Darling was traded to Montreal at the 1991 trade deadline. Also gone were Bobby Ojeda, who was traded to Los Angeles prior to the 1991 season, and Frank Viola, who signed as a free agent with the Boston Red Sox after losing 10 of his last 12 decisions with the Mets in 1991.

Of the pitchers still on the Mets,  Sid Fernandez was coming off an injury-plagued season in which he only made eight starts, winning one of them.  David Cone lost a career-high 14 games in 1991, despite leading the league with 241 strikeouts.  And Dwight Gooden, the long-time ace of the staff, had undergone rotator-cuff surgery in September and was not a lock to be ready for the start of the 1992 season.

The Mets needed a quality starting pitcher and they needed one fast.  They also wanted a young pitcher who was a proven winner and could give them plenty of innings.  Five years after acquiring David Cone from Kansas City, they went back to the Royals and found themselves the ace they wanted in 27-year-old Bret Saberhagen.

The Mets hoped Bret Saberhagen would be the apple of their eye when they traded for him in 1991.

Bret William Saberhagen had done it all in the major leagues before his 28th birthday.  He was a two-time All-Star (1987, 1990), a Gold Glove Award winner (1989), a two-time Cy Young Award winner (1985, 1989), had pitched a no-hitter (1991) and was a World Series MVP, pitching the Kansas City Royals to their first and only title in 1985.  One thing he hadn't done was pitch in a large market city, as Kansas City wasn't exactly the media capital of the world, or even Missouri for that matter.

But with the Mets in need of a quality arm to anchor their depleted staff, Saberhagen seemed like the perfect fit.  So on December 11, 1991, the Mets traded Kevin McReynolds, Gregg Jefferies and Keith Miller to the Royals for Saberhagen and Bill Pecota.  The cost to acquire the front-line starter they coveted was steep, as McReynolds, Jefferies and Miller were all regulars on the 1991 Mets, but the Mets were desperate for an ace, and Saberhagen fit the bill.

As good as Saberhagen was during his eight-year stay with the Royals, he did suffer from the even-year, odd-year syndrome.  Saberhagen finished with a losing record in every even-numbered year, going a combined 36-48 with a 3.70 ERA and 1.23 WHIP in 1984, 1986, 1988 and 1990.  However, in odd-numbered years, Saberhagen was an elite pitcher.  In 1985, 1987, 1989 and 1991, Sabes combined to go 74-30 with a 2.85 ERA and 1.06 WHIP.  His first year with the Mets was going to be an even-numbered year.  You can imagine what happened next.

Bret Saberhagen was one of a number of new faces brought in by general manager Al Harazin prior to the 1992 season.  With Eddie Murray, Bobby Bonilla and manager Jeff Torborg on board, Saberhagen was supposed to be the crown jewel of the offseason haul.  Instead, he turned out to be the cubic zirconia version of his former self.

Injuries prevented Saberhagen from performing at the level the Mets expected of him, and as a result, he was only able to make 15 starts, going 3-5 with a 3.50 ERA.  The next year, everyone expected a bounceback season from Saberhagen, especially since it was an odd-numbered year.  The only problem was that it was only Saberhagen who everyone expected to bounce back.  The rest of the team was another story.

In 1993, the Mets produced their worst record in twenty-six years.  Not since the days before Gil Hodges' arrival as manager had the Mets been so awful.  The '93 squad finished the year with a 59-103 record, and it could have been much worse had it not been for a season-ending six-game winning streak.  The Mets were so bad in 1993 that even the expansion Florida Marlins finished ahead of them in the seven-team National League East.  Needless to say, Bret Saberhagen did not win a lot of ballgames in '93.  However, he wasn't that bad compared to his teammates.

Although injuries curtailed Saberhagen's season for the second consecutive year, he was the only starter to not finish the season with a losing record.  In addition to his 7-7 record in 19 starts, Saberhagen had a respectable 3.29 ERA and an outstanding 1.06 WHIP.  The low WHIP was a direct result of Saberhagen's excellent control, as he walked a mere 17 batters in his 19 starts.

After two injury-plagued seasons in 1992 and 1993, the Mets still had not gotten what they expected from their ace.  However, when Saberhagen was healthy in 1993, he showed he could be one of the stingiest pitchers in baseball.  All he needed was one season of good health, just one, to prove that he could still be one of the best pitchers in the game.  That wish became a reality in 1994.

After their horrific 1993 season, the Mets weren't expected to do much in 1994.  But they surprised most experts over the first month and a half of the season, jumping out to a quick start.  The Mets weren't doing it with their hitting (they finished next-to-last in the NL in batting average in 1994) or their baserunning skills.  (Jose Vizcaino went 1-for-12 in stolen base attempts and John Cangelosi led the team in thefts with five - that's one, two, three, four, FIVE STEALS!)  But the one thing they had in 1994 that they didn't have in 1993 was a healthy Bret Saberhagen.  And his health was instrumental in getting the Mets off to their quick start.  In the team's first 32 games, Saberhagen was 4-1 with a 3.09 ERA.  As a result, through May 10, the Mets were in second place with an 18-14 record, just 2½ games behind the first place Atlanta Braves.

Saberhagen split his next four decisions as the Mets slipped below .500.  But beginning with his start on June 13 against the defending National League champion Phillies, Saberhagen went on a roll that lasted until the end of the season.  On that fateful night, Saberhagen pitched beautifully, allowing two runs (one earned) in seven innings, needing only 94 pitches to stifle the high-powered Phillies' offense.  It was a far cry from his previous outing against Philadelphia, a four-inning, seven-run debacle on May 21.  The confidence he gained by beating the Phillies in mid-June lasted for the rest of the season, as Saberhagen was pretty much unhittable after that game.

Beginning with his final start in June, Saberhagen had one of the finest extended stretches in club history.  From June 30 to his last start of the season, Sabes went 7-0 with a 1.51 ERA and 0.85 WHIP.  Even more impressive was his strikeout-to-walk ratio, as Saberhagen struck out 62 batters over his final nine starts while walking only five.  That's one, two, three, four, FIVE WALKS, as in the same number of steals John Cangelosi had all season.

During this second-half surge, Saberhagen pitched what was perhaps his best game as a Met against the San Diego Padres on July 15.  In the second game of a twi-night doubleheader against the Padres, Saberhagen pitched ten scoreless innings, allowing five hits (all singles) while striking out 11 and walking none.  Unfortunately, Padres' starter Andy Benes matched Saberhagen zero-for-zero, striking out 14 Mets batters in eight innings of work.  Saberhagen's valiant effort went for naught, as the Mets lost the game, 2-1 in 14 innings, when Mike Maddux allowed back-to-back home runs to Tony Gwynn (the best hitter in Padres' history) and Phil Plantier (the current hitting coach for the Padres).

After Saberhagen defeated the Phillies again on August 10 to improve his record to 14-4, the Mets stood only two games under .500 with a 55-57 record.  It was Saberhagen's seventh consecutive victory, a streak that began on June 30 when the Mets entered the day in last place with a 33-43 record.  Since then, the Mets had gone 22-14 and had climbed into third place in the NL East.  The Mets lost their next game in 15 innings and then lost the season soon after, as the baseball strike put an end to the 1994 season.  Who knows what Bret Saberhagen would have accomplished had the season not been cut short?

Despite the premature ending to the 1994 season, it still went down in history as the year in which Bret Saberhagen produced one of the best pitching performances in club annals.  For the year, Saberhagen went 14-4, but that didn't tell the whole story.  His 2.74 ERA and 1.03 WHIP were both second in the National League to Atlanta's Greg Maddux.  Saberhagen also finished in the top ten in wins (14, 3rd), winning percentage (.778, 2nd), innings pitched (177⅓, 3rd), strikeouts (143, 4th) and complete games (4, 4th).  He also had the dubious distinction of finishing the year with more wins (14) than walks (13).  In addition, by recording 143 strikeouts against only 13 bases on balls, Saberhagen finished the year with an unheard of 11:1 K/BB ratio.  How unheard of was it?  To this day, it's still a major league record.

After two injury-plagued seasons in 1992 and 1993, Saberhagen finally produced the season the Mets expected from him during his third year in New York, making the All-Star team and finishing third in the Cy Young Award vote.  His 1994 campaign came on the heels of his infamous bleach-spraying incident, a matter that earned him a four-game suspension to start the '94 season and caused him to be discussed in trade talks with the Cleveland Indians, a trade that would have brought shortstop Felix Fermin and young right-handed starter Albie Lopez to the Mets.  Fortunately for the Mets, that deal was never consummated, as Fermin went on to hit .190 in 1995 and 1996 (after a .317 campaign in 1994) and Lopez posted a career ERA just under 5.00 in a decade-long major league career.

The 1995 season didn't begin as scheduled, as the strike knocked out the first three weeks of the regular season.  The season finally did get underway in late April, but Bret Saberhagen left his best stuff behind.  Although Saberhagen was decent in 16 starts for the Mets in 1995, he only won five games.  His 3.35 ERA and 1.14 WHIP, although both good, were nowhere near his numbers from his record-setting 1994 campaign.  Also, his strikeout-to-walk ratio decreased dramatically in 1995, as Saberhagen struck out 71 batters while walking 20 in his 16 starts.  The 3.55 K/BB ratio was a far cry from his major league record 11.00 K/BB mark in 1994.

As a result, Saberhagen was traded to the Colorado Rockies in July for minor league pitchers Arnold Gooch and Juan Acevedo.  Although the move was widely speculated to be payroll-related, Mets' co-owner Fred Wilpon said it was due to Saberhagen's injury history and lack of overall productivity during his 3½-year stay in New York.  Wilpon had decided that Mets needed to get younger to get better, and Saberhagen was not part of that equation.  Besides, Generation K was about to take Flushing by storm.  Until it didn't.

One thing Fred Wilpon was right about was that Bret Saberhagen wasn't very durable.  In fact, Saberhagen only had one more injury-free season left in him, going 15-8 in 31 starts for the 1998 Red Sox.  Although Saberhagen did pitch in the majors until 2001, he was never able to stay healthy once he left the Mets, save for that 1998 season.  A career that once looked so promising fizzled out earlier than expected, as Saberhagen appeared in only three games after his 36th birthday.

If not for injuries and Bleach-gate, Bret Saberhagen's career as a Met could have been truly special.

From 1992 to 1995, Bret Saberhagen was never as bad as people made him out to be.  Although he won only 29 games as a Met (the same total won by Oliver Perez, a pitcher who really was as bad as people made him out to be), he posted a 3.16 ERA and 1.08 WHIP in his nearly four-year career in orange and blue.  Let's put his Mets career in perspective. 

Only ten pitchers in Mets history had a lower ERA than Saberhagen's 3.16 mark.  Bret Saberhagen's winning percentage as a Met was .580.  The only pitchers in team history who topped that are Dwight Gooden (.649), Rick Reed (.621), Johan Santana (.615), Tom Seaver (.615), David Cone (.614), Ron Darling (.586), Al Leiter (.586) and Pedro Martinez (.582).  And about that WHIP.  The only Met with a better career WHIP than Bret Saberhagen is Tom Seaver, and you need to go to a third decimal point to determine that Seaver's 1.076 WHIP was only slightly better than Saberhagen's 1.079 WHIP.

For all the talk about how Bret Saberhagen underachieved, he really didn't.  Although he wasn't as healthy as he could have been, when he was on the mound, he was one of the best pitchers to ever put on a Mets uniform.  Unfortunately, his career on the field in New York was overshadowed by his mischief off the field.  But once you look past his off-field behavior, you'd see that Bret Saberhagen was really a special pitcher for the Mets.

To New York sports fans, 1994 was memorable because of the Rangers winning the Stanley Cup and the Knicks making it to the seventh game of the NBA Finals.  But for Mets fans, 1994 was the year Bret Saberhagen quietly put up one of the best seasons in team history, even if the season was cut short by the players' strike.  The Mets haven't had a player win more than 17 games in a season since Frank Viola and Dwight Gooden accomplished the feat in 1990.  Just imagine what Bret Saberhagen could have done had it not been for the strike.

Although he was technically a one-season wonder in New York, Bret Saberhagen's career as a Met was not too shabby.  But because his tenure in New York coincided with some of the worst seasons in recent history, his accomplishments on the field have been largely forgotten.  They shouldn't be.  Bret Saberhagen was pretty darn good.  No amount of bleach will ever erase that.


Note: One Season Wonders is a thirteen-part weekly series spotlighting those Mets who had one and only one memorable season in New York.  For previous installments, please click on the players' names below:
 
January 2, 2012: Bernard Gilkey
January 9, 2012: Terry Leach 
January 16, 2012: George Stone
January 23, 2012: Roger Cedeño
January 30, 2012: Frank Viola
February 6, 2012: Joe Christopher 
February 13, 2012: Dave Magadan 
February 20, 2012: Pedro Martinez

Bobby V Becomes Bobby VIII

Former Met player, coach and skipper Bobby Valentine will be officially introduced as the new manager of the Boston Red Sox on Thursday.  When he takes his place in the dugout on Opening Day 2012, Valentine will become the eighth former Mets manager to take over the reins of another team after his tenure with the Mets had ended.

Since the Mets haven't exactly been giving me much to write about, I thought it would be interesting to see how the other seven managers did with their new teams after they managed their last game in Flushing.  Some have had outstanding results, while some should have stayed away from the dugout, including one manager who barely the managed the Mets, then had a shorter stay with the Mets' expansion sibling.

Enough chit-chat already!  Let's get to the Magnificent (and not-so-magnificent) Seven, shall we?

Wes Westrum

After Casey Stengel retired during the 1965 season, Wes Westrum was tabbed as the Ol' Perfessor's replacement.  Westrum, who spent his entire 11-year playing career as a member of the New York Giants, finished the 1965 season with a 19-48 record after taking over for the only manager the Mets had ever known.

In 1966, Westrum accomplished two things his predecessor couldn't do - he led the Mets out of the basement and also presided over their first non-100 loss season, which was quite an accomplishment for a team that had never lost fewer than 109 games in its short existence.  Unfortunately, even with rookie sensation Tom Seaver joining the Mets in 1967, the team regressed, losing 101 games during the Franchise's first season.  Westrum didn't stick around to see the team reach the century mark in losses, resigning as manager with 11 games to play.

In 1974, Westrum's former team, now playing in San Francisco, reached out to him to manage the team after Charlie Fox was relieved of his duties midway through the season.  Westrum fared better with the Giants than he did with the Mets, but he still could manage a winning record, going 38-48 to close out the 1974 season, followed by an 80-81 mark in 1975.

Salty Parker

After Wes Westrum resigned as manager of the Mets in 1967, Francis James Parker (better known as Salty) became the interim manager for the team's final 11 games, going 4-7 during his two week stint as Mets manager.  Parker had a tendency to do baseball-related things in 11-game stretches.  His playing career in the major leagues lasted (you guessed it) 11 games as a member of the 1936 Detroit Tigers.

Parker didn't manage the Mets again after the 1967 season.  Some guy named Gil Hodges replaced him to start the 1968 season.  However, he did manage (no pun intended) to return to the dugout as a big league skipper again in 1972 with the Houston Astros.  Unfortunately, that stint couldn't even make it to the 11-game mark, but it was never supposed to.  Parker managed the Astros for one game in 1972 after Harry Walker was unceremoniously let go despite the fact that Houston was on its way to recording its first winning season in franchise history.  (The Astros were 67-54 at the time of Walker's firing.)  Walker's replacement, Leo Durocher, could not join the Astros immediately, necessitating the one-game fill-in for Parker as Astros manager.  But at least he was victorious in his "one-and-done" with Houston.

Yogi Berra

After the sudden death of Gil Hodges in 1972, Yogi Berra was tabbed to replace the man who led the Miracle Mets to the 1969 World Series championship.  After leading the Mets to their second-best record in franchise history (83-73 in the strike-shortened 1972 season), Yogi overcame a series of boo-boos on the field in 1973 to lead the team to its second World Series appearance.  The Mets struggled again in 1974, but this time they failed to make a late season run, finishing 20 games below .500.  Berra was fired in 1975 after the team played mediocre baseball for most of the season.

Yogi did not get another chance to manage in the major leagues until the Yankees called upon their former Hall of Fame catcher to fill the vacant managerial position in 1984.  Although Berra won 87 games in his first season as Yankee manager, it represented a four-game decrease in wins from the Billy Martin-led 1983 team.  After a 6-10 start in 1985, Berra was shockingly fired by the Yankees and replaced by the man he replaced a year earlier, Billy Martin.

Joe Torre

In 1977, Joe Torre became the first and only player/manager in Mets history.  Two days after the infamous "Midnight Massacre", Torre ended his playing career to focus exclusively on managing his ragtag group of misfits.  Perhaps he should've stayed on the field.  Under Torre, the Mets never won more than 67 games in a full season, with the team finishing dead last in the NL East in three of his five seasons.

Following his stint with the Mets, Torre managed the Atlanta Braves for three seasons, leading them to the NL West title in 1982.  In 1990, Torre took over for Red Schoendienst in St. Louis and managed the Cardinals until 1995.  Although he failed to win a division title in St. Louis, he never finished lower than third place in any full season with the team.  Then came 1996 and the New York Yankees.  You probably know what happened next so I'll skip that part.

Following his time with the Mets' crosstown rivals, Torre took his final managerial job with the Los Angeles Dodgers, leading them to back-to-back NLCS appearances.  After an 80-82 finish in 2010, Torre retired from managing and is now Executive VP for Baseball Operations for MLB, which is a fancy term for "he's a pretty big kahuna now".

George Bamberger

Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  That was the case for George Bamberger not once, but twice.  Prior to managing the Mets, Bambi was the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers from 1978-1980.  The Brewers then went on to the playoffs in 1981 (as the second-half winners of the AL East) and made their first (and only) pennant in 1982.  Where was Bamberger when the Brewers were on their way to the World Series?  He was managing the Mets to a last place finish, that's where.

Then in 1983, after he "suffered enough" with the Mets through their 16-30 start, he resigned as manager.  Of course, the year after Bamberger left the Mets, they went on to post 90 wins for the first time since 1969 and began the most successful era in franchise history, which included two division titles and the 1986 World Series championship.  Where was Bamberger in 1986?  He was back in Milwaukee, managing the Brewers to their second consecutive last place finish.  Wrong place.  Wrong time.

Davey Johnson

Davey Johnson needs no introduction.  He is only the winningest manager in franchise history.  The Mets had enjoyed one 90-win season during their first 22 years of existence.  Davey Johnson managed the team to five consecutive 90-win seasons from 1984-1988.  His "worst" full season as Mets manager came in 1989, when the team won "only" 87 games.  After Johnson was fired by the Mets in 1990, he didn't wait very long to get another managerial position, taking over for the terminated Tony Perez in Cincinnati in 1993.

In Cincinnati, Johnson led the Reds to division titles in 1994 and 1995.  In 1996, he took over the reins in Baltimore, leading the Orioles to an 88-win season.  He followed that up with a 98-win season in 1997 and the AL East division crown, only to have Jeffrey Maier and the Yankees end his season early.  Due to a spat with Orioles' owner Peter Angelos (not the first time Davey dueled with the front office of a team he was managing at the time), Johnson resigned after the 1997 season.  The Orioles have not had a winning season since.

Johnson spent two uneventful season in Los Angeles in 1999 and 2000, then dropped out of the managerial spotlight until 2011, when he was hired to replace Jim Riggleman as manager of the Washington Nationals.  Although the Nationals went 40-43 after Johnson took over, they still finished in third place in the NL East.  It was the highest they had ever finished in the division since moving from Montreal prior to the 2005 season.

Jeff Torborg

Vince Coleman.  Bobby Bonilla.  Bret Saberhagen.  Jeff Kent.  Those were just some of the names associated with the team forever known as "The Worst Team Money Could Buy".  Those were also the names of players managed by Jeff Torborg during his two-year stint as Mets manager.  In 1992, the former AL Manager of the Year (1990) was brought in to bring the Mets back to contention in the NL East after they had finished the 1991 season with their first losing mark in eight years.  Torborg "led" the Mets to a 72-90 finish in 1992, which was actually quite good considering that in 1993, the Mets lost over 100 games for the first time since the days of Wes Westrum (see, it all comes full circle).  Alas, Torborg was not there to see the 1993 Mets complete their 103-loss campaign, as he was fired after beginning the season with a 13-25 record.

After doing his part to blow up the team in 1993 (Vince Coleman wasn't the only one capable of doing that), Torborg managed the Expos briefly in 2001, going 47-62 in Montreal, followed by a short stint in Florida.  After going 79-83 with the Marlins in 2002, Torborg was fired after a 16-22 start in 2003.  Florida responded to Torborg's termination by winning the World Series under new manager Jack McKeon.  Hence, Torborg went from managing "The Worst Team Money Could Buy" to being fired from "The Best Team Money Didn't Buy".  Ah, symmetry is a beautiful thing.

The Worst Team Money Could Buy: The Sequel

Back in 1992, the Mets added four new faces to the team in the hopes that they could recapture the glory days of the recently concluded 1980s. In new manager Jeff Torborg, first baseman Eddie Murray, outfielder Bobby Bonilla and pitcher Bret Saberhagen, the Mets thought they could knock off the two-time NL East champion Pittsburgh Pirates from their perch atop the division.

Not only did they not dethrone the Pirates, they completely fell apart, finishing the 1992 season with a 72-90 record. That was good for a fifth place finish in the NL East, 24 games behind the three-peating Bucs.

The 1992 Mets employed many high-priced players and fading veterans. They also had quite a bit of turmoil in the clubhouse. That combination of poor play and off-the-field distractions served as the impetus for the book by Bob Klapisch and John Harper called "The Worst Team Money Could Buy: The Collapse of The New York Mets".

So why is this relevant now in 2010? Because the last Mets team to begin their season with a 2-6 record was the 1992 Mets. That start has now been duplicated by the 2010 Mets.

Jeff Torborg was never the right man for the job in 1992. The 1992 Mets had to deal with injuries and players bouncing in and out of the lineup. Only Eddie Murray, Bobby Bonilla and Dick Schofield (yes, he was actually the Mets' shortstop that year, forming a double play combo with Willie Randolph!) collected over 400 at-bats in 1992. Sound familiar?

Now we're in 2010. Jerry Manuel's leadership skills are being questioned and the Mets are playing musical chairs with their lineup on a daily basis. There appears to be no continuity from game to game and the Mets have not established anything other than their position in last place.

The team appears lost and is allowing pitchers like Greg Smith and Tyler Clippard to do their best Cy Young impersonations against the high-priced bats the Mets send up to the plate day in and day out.

Although the "it's still early" mantra can still be used, the Mets are showing no sign of wanting to get out of their early season funk. There is no fire burning in the eyes of the players and they're running out of excuses. They can't use the "when we get healthy" excuse because the Phillies have Joe Blanton, J.C. Romero, Brad Lidge and now Jimmy Rollins all on the disabled list, yet they're still sitting pretty atop the division with a 7-1 record.

The Mets are only eight games into the 2010 season and they're already five games behind the first place Phillies. I don't want to give up on the season so early, but the Mets have not shown me anything that could give me even a sliver of hope that they're going to turn this sinking ship around. To borrow the team slogan, I'd like to believe the team will come back this year, but for now, it's beginning to look a lot like 1992. The 2010 Mets are probably not the worst team money could buy, but they sure aren't doing much to play like the best.