This morning, I read a post from NY Mets Report’s John Delcos and I felt compelled to respond.
The topic of the blog post was retiring numbers. People have been campaigning for Gary Carter, Mike Piazza and Keith Hernandez. Delcos suggests a man I haven’t heard brought up— Ed Kranepool.
No.
There’s simply no reason for the Mets to retire his number. If they were to do so before Piazza, Carter and Hernandez, it would be a slap in the face. Sure, he was on the team from 1962 to 1979, which is impressive in itself, but he’s a classic compiler. In all that time, he hit .300 just twice and he never hit more than 16 homers in a season.
In his career as a Met, he hit .261 with a .316 on-base percentage, which doesn’t exactly sound like a number retiree to me. Piazza hit .296 as a Met, with a .373 on-base percentage. Hernandez hit .297 as a Met with a .387 on-base percentage. Carter hit .249 with a .319 on-base percentage. I have never been a fan of retiring his number either.
If you as me, there are tree men who should have their jerseys retired: Piazza, Hernandez and Doc Gooden, who had a record of 67-23 as a Met and set the club record with eight shutouts during the 1985 season and was a key cog in the World Series Championship team in 1986, along with Hernandez.
As for Kranepool? He has my respect as an original and lifelong Met, but he is not a hall of famer, and his number should not be retired.
