(W)right There

Player A is George Brett:  first-ballot Hall of Famer, franchise icon, one of the very greatest third basemen in the history of Major League Baseball.

Player B is another franchise icon; unfortunately, he didn’t quite reach the other designations earned by Brett.  By the title of this piece, you may have guessed his full name:  David Allen Wright.

Once upon a time, the Mets’ seven-time All-Star appeared to be headed for the heady levels of hot corner holiness.  If he wasn’t going to match footsteps with Brett and Mike Schmidt and Eddie Mathews and Wade Boggs and Chipper Jones to the top of the penthouse, he was on the way toward securing comfy digs just below, maybe sharing a space with Ron Santo or Brooks Robinson.  In some ways, he was New York’s (the team) answer to New York’s (the other team) Derek Jeter – an “our guy” representative that fans, whether they had been cheering the club for decades or had been more recent converts, could follow and champion and imagine a day far in the future when the jersey number would be retired and the Mets would finally, finally, finally, have their star – a Hall of Famer – who began his career with the club and never, ever left.

Wright never left, playing all 1,585 of his games with the Mets.  But he did leave all of his supporters and all of us who once had so much fun pondering his possible heights with the sense of “Can we do this career over again – can we maybe get to see what happened if David Wright played more than just a measly 211 games after turning 31 years old?”  

In a way, the imagination of possibility runs directly toward Adrian Beltré, the other hot corner maestro who has a claim to hang out with the very best.  For just one point of comparison, through his age-30 season, Beltré had amassed 44.6 bWAR, so very close to Wright’s 46.5 at that stage.  After, the 2024 Hall of Famer added another 48.9 and averaged 163 hits (58 for extra bases) and 89 RBI per season for the final nine years of his career.  In his age-31 season and on, Wright totaled 219 hits (66 for extra-bases) and 94 RBI and 2.6 bWAR.  Two paths diverged on a diamond – one aimed toward the pantheon, the other wrecked by neck and back and spine maladies.  

It’s a common enough theme – the road to a Hall of Fame career waylaid by bodily betrayal.   One could assemble one heck of a roster from these sad tales darkening the landscape.  Charlie Keller and his back … Nomar Garciaparra and his wrist … Don Mattingly and his back and wrist.  Wright is right there.  

The Mets are one of 24 franchises to have been around since at least 1969.  Among the two dozen, they are one of five unable to claim a Hall of Famer who played his entire career with the club, along with the Angels, Athletics, Expos/Nationals and Senators/Rangers.  There are a few third basemen who get to be on the other side – Brett with the Royals, Schmidt for the Phillies, Jones with the Braves, Robinson for the Orioles, even Pie Traynor as an exclusive representative of the Pirates.  For a time, David Wright appeared destined to join the latter group and remove New York from the former.  Instead, in his first year on the Hall of Fame ballot in 2024, Wright received 24 votes, just enough to reach the minimum percentage needed for a return appearance.  

At the close of the 2013 season, David Wright had a decade in the big leagues.  At that moment, his 46.5 bWAR was the eighth highest ever for any third baseman through his age-30 season,  stuck between Scott Rolen’s 47.5 and Home Run Baker’s 45.8.  Only one of the names ahead of him failed in a Hall of Fame bid (Buddy Bell).  At that moment, one could (and wanted to) look ahead and imagine how the rest of the 2010s would play out:  more All-Star bids, more excellent, if not stratospheric, counting stat seasons to keep adding to the numbers, more data points in a Mets uniform to solidify the case for Cooperstown.  He was right there.  

And then he wasn’t – he played 38 games in 2015 and another 37 the following year before missing all 162 in 2017.  The Mets’ first 159 contests in 2018 came and went without Wright’s contribution, too.  Then, in a Friday evening loss to the Marlins at Citi Field, Wright grounded out in a pinch-hitting appearance.  The next day, he got the start at third, handled one chance without incident, drew a walk and then popped out in his last swing inside the box.  Wright’s career had its final sentence and summation:  Hall of Very Good, not of Fame.  

At least that’s the context for his standing among the entirety of MLB; within the smaller world comprising Mets and their careers in the blue and orange, fame and excellence are readily apparent and everlasting.  Wright is behind only Tom Seaver when it comes to the franchise high in bWAR; the third sacker is the all-time franchise leader in at-bats, runs and hits, total bases and doubles and walks, RBI and extra-base hits and times on base.  From the first to last, David Wright was a Met, a franchise great, a star and an attraction – right where he belonged.

Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.