“Meet the Mets, meet the Mets, step right up and greet the Mets.” As their theme song would suggest, the Mets have done a pretty good job of introducing brand new players to fans over the years. While the Amazins’ may not have an excess of World Series rings to show for their 64-year history, they boast six Rookie of the Year winners, and are one of just three franchises with at least four ROTY-winning pitchers (along with the Yankees and Dodgers). It’s been eleven years since the Mets had multiple rookies put up at least 2.0 bWAR in the same season, but that streak seems likely to end this year. Even after trading Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams to Milwaukee, the Mets enter 2026 with top prospects once again projected to get significant time in the spotlight — especially Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong, and Carson Benge. Only time will tell which of these three players might blossom into stars by the season’s end, but all three should have the opportunity to make a mark.
In light of these exciting prospects waiting in the wings, this edition of Tuesday Top Ten will take a look back at some of the most memorable rookies who have worn orange and blue. As with all editions, this ranking is completely subjective, based on a healthy mix of stats, historical significance, and personal preference. So with all that out of the way, let’s count down the greatest rookie seasons in Mets history…
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Gary Gentry (1969)
The third starter on the Miracle Mets, Gentry pitched to a respectable 3.43 ERA and earned the win in the first World Series game at Shea Stadium.
Juan Lagares (2013)
Despite holding an 80 OPS+, Juan Lagares played stellar centerfield defense and recorded 3.4 bWAR, the second-highest mark for a position player rookie in Mets history.
Noah Syndergaard (2015)
Thor’s total of 166 strikeouts ranks sixth among Mets rookies, and his mark of 26 postseason strikeouts is tied for 5th among rookies in baseball history.
Jeff McNeil (2018)
Jeff McNeil impressed in limited playing time during his first season in the majors, putting up 3.0 bWAR and recording 74 hits in just 63 games.
THE LIST
10. Steve Henderson (1977)
Steve Henderson’s rookie season began in the wake of a massacre. In the final hours of June 15, 1977, the Mets did the unthinkable, trading Tom Seaver — a Met so iconic that his nickname was simply “The Franchise” — to the Cincinnati Reds. The stunning deal would soon be dubbed “The Midnight Massacre,” and is still widely regarded as the most infamous event in Mets history. In return for Seaver, the Mets received a quartet of young players, two of whom (Dan Norman and Henderson) had yet to make their major league debuts. Norman made his debut three months after the trade. Henderson made his debut the very next day.
In just 99 games, Henderson put up 2.7 bWAR, the third-most among position players on the 1977 Mets. The left fielder hit .297/.372/.480, setting a new record for Mets rookies in each sector of that slash line (min. 300 PA) throughout the team’s 16-year history up to that point. Had he played for a full season, Henderson might have been named the N.L. Rookie of the Year, but he was ultimately voted as runner-up to the Expos’ Andre Dawson. Over the course of his twelve-year MLB career, Henderson never again put up a bWAR total as high as his rookie season’s in 1977. Over the course of his four-year Mets career, Henderson put up 9.4 total bWAR, the highest among the quartet of players the Mets acquired in the Midnight Massacre.
9. Jason Isringhausen (1995)
Better known for his time with the Cardinals (or even his short stint with the A’s), right-hander Jason Isringhausen began his professional career as a 44th-round draft pick by the Mets. As a 22-year-old rookie in 1995, Isringhausen served in the role of starting pitcher. In 93.0 IP, Isringhausen posted a 2.81 ERA (that mark was good for a 144 ERA+ back at the start of the steroid era) while winning nine of his 14 starts. Despite only debuting in mid-July, Isringhausen’s performance was enough to earn him fourth place in that season’s N.L. Rookie of the Year voting, behind Hideo Nomo, Chipper Jones, and Quilvio Veras.
When the Mets traded Isringhausen to Oakland at the deadline in 1998, he had just one career save: a three-inning performance in a blowout, 10-0 victory over Montreal. When the Mets signed Isringhausen again in 2011, he had 293 saves. On August 15, 2011 at Petco Park, the 38-year-old became just the third player to record his 300th save in a Mets uniform, joining John Franco and Billy Wagner. With exactly 300 career saves, Isringhausen currently ranks 30th on the all-time saves leaderboard — the fourth-highest placement for a homegrown Met behind Jeff Reardon, Randy Myers, and Rick Aguilera.
8. Kodai Senga (2023)
As a 30-year-old who entered the majors with eleven years of professional baseball experience in Japan, Kodai Senga’s rookie season stands out from the other entries on this list. Instead of watching a top prospect deliver on high expectations or an unknown youngster rise to stardom, Mets fans in 2023 were treated to the story of a battle-tested veteran fighting to prove himself in a new league.
During a year when things came chaotically crashing down around the Mets and their postseason aspirations, Senga was a steady presence, posting a 2.98 ERA and making 29 starts (the most on the team). In just 166.1 IP, Senga struck out 202 batters, a mark which is rarely reached anymore by major league rookies. Since 2000, only four rookies have collected 200 strikeouts: Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2007, Yu Darvish in 2012, Spencer Strider in 2022, and Senga in 2023. It’s no coincidence that three of those four players came over from Japan, giving them more high-pressure experience while also ensuring a full season of rookie eligibility (most rookies are called up from the minor leagues midseason, while Japanese players debuting in MLB are typically signed before the regular season starts). Senga did not become the seventh Met to win the N.L. Rookie of the Year Award, as that honor was unanimously bestowed upon Corbin Carroll, but Senga ran away with the runner-up position, becoming the tenth (and most recent) Met to finish first or second in ROTY voting.
7. Darryl Strawberry (1983)
A rookie season which long stood as the greatest by a Mets position player, Darryl Strawberry’s 1983 was the first sign of better things ahead for a fledgling franchise. After making his debut in early May, the 21-year-old and former first-overall pick put up a 134 OPS+ over 122 games, clubbing 26 homers and stealing 19 bases. Strawberry was the first rookie in baseball history to put up those home run and stolen base totals despite missing a month of the season, and only four other players in baseball history have matched them since: Nomar Garciaparra, Chris Young, Mike Trout, and Julio Rodríguez.
Strawberry got off to a relatively slow start. At the end of June, he was hitting .180/.245/.317, with only four homers to his name. But over the next 82 games, he hit .295/.379/.609 with 22 homers. At the time, Strawberry set new franchise rookie records in home runs and RBI, both of which would hold until a certain Polar Bear broke them in 2019. Strawberry also won the N.L. Rookie of the Year, and was the only Mets position player to achieve that accolade…until 2019.
6. Jacob deGrom (2014)
If you had told ten Mets fans on May 15, 2014 that a right-handed starting pitcher making his major league debut that week against the Yankees would go on to win Rookie of the Year, all ten fans would have bought Rafael Montero jerseys. Jacob deGrom, a 26-year-old drafted in the ninth round, was an afterthought — a quiet, lanky kid from Florida without a superhero persona or a Futures Game resume — but he impressed in his debut on both sides of the ball, firing seven one-run innings and getting a hit in his first major league at-bat (the Mets’ first hit of the game). Despite the performance, he was pinned with a hard-luck loss as the team fell 1-0 to their crosstown rivals. If that isn’t foreshadowing, I don’t know what is.
After some midseason struggles, deGrom went on a tear to close out 2014, going 9-3 with a 1.90 ERA in his final twelve starts of the season. In his penultimate start on September 15, deGrom struck out the first eight Miami Marlins he faced, at the time tying a major league record for most consecutive strikeouts to open a game. By the season’s end, deGrom had tallied 140.1 IP, posting a 2.69 ERA and recording 144 strikeouts. Five and a half months after his unassuming promotion to the majors, deGrom had been named N.L. Rookie of the Year, and had become one of the key pieces in the franchise’s plans to build an elite rotation of young fireballers.
5. Tom Seaver (1967)
Tom Seaver was terrific out of the gate. While not yet at the level of dominance he would reach in 1969, when he won the N.L. Cy Young Award (along with 25 games), Seaver made an impressive statement as a 22-year-old Rookie of the Year in 1967. In 251 IP, Seaver posted a 2.76 ERA and racked up 170 strikeouts. He also mustered a complete game in 18 of his 34 starts, marking the most for a right-handed rookie since 1948.
Seaver eventually being nicknamed “The Franchise” feels inevitable when considering that, as a rookie, he set almost every major single-season pitching record — wins, strikeouts, and complete games — up to that point in the Mets’ six-year history. By 1969, at just 24 years old, Seaver had set the Mets’ all-time record in all three categories. He still holds each of those records to this day.
4. Jon Matlack (1972)
The Mets entered 1972 with a familiar, formidable duo of Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman sitting atop the starting rotation, but it was 22-year-old rookie Jon Matlack who might have been the team’s true ace. The lefty recorded a 2.32 ERA in 244 IP, striking out 169 batters and winning 15 games. He handily won the N.L. Rookie of the Year Award, becoming the second Met to win the award (after Tom Seaver had done so five years earlier).
Of all the phenomenal rookie seasons the Mets have had throughout their history, Matlack’s is perhaps the most overlooked — as is his career more broadly. Matlack ranks 12th all-time for bWAR as a Met, above two players (Keith Hernandez and Mike Piazza) who have their numbers retired, while he only played seven years in Queens. And as stellar as his 1972 was, Matlack’s magnum opus came in 1974, when he recorded 9.1 bWAR and seven shutouts. The only Mets pitcher with more shutouts in a single season slots in at the top spot on this list…
3. Jerry Koosman (1968)
Wait a minute, Jerry Koosman wasn’t even named the N.L. Rookie of the Year in 1968. What is he doing at third place on this list, ahead of four players who actually won the award? Even for “The Year of the Pitcher,” Koosman’s rookie season stands out as one of the best in Mets history. The 25-year-old southpaw pitched to a 2.08 ERA, the third-lowest for a rookie since integration (min. 150 IP). He totaled 178 strikeouts in 263.2 IP, firing a complete game in 17 (exactly half) of his 34 starts and racking up seven shutouts, marking the second-most for a rookie since integration behind Fernando Valenzuela’s eight in 1981. He also compiled a whopping 19 wins, a mark which only two rookies (Mark Fidrych in 1976 and Tom Browning in 1985) have reached since then.
Koosman’s numbers surely would have been enough to earn him Rookie of the Year honors, but the lefty — often overshadowed on his own team by ace Tom Seaver — was characteristically relegated to No. 2 status by future Hall of Famer Johnny Bench, who won the award by a single vote.
2. Pete Alonso (2019)
Pete Alonso’s inaugural season comes with the most punchy accomplishment on this list: he hit more home runs than any other rookie in baseball history. No addendums. No specific timeframe. No qualifying splits. He hit 53 home runs, and that’s the most by a rookie in the 157-year history of the major leagues. It almost feels trivial to add, but Alonso also obliterated the Mets’ record books, setting the rookie mark for RBI by mid-July and the single-season mark for homers before the end of August.
On top of all that, he won the Home Run Derby, invented a new slogan in “LFGM,” and instantly propelled himself to face-of-the-franchise status in the wake of David Wright’s retirement. For a player who was
openly disappointed that he didn’t get a call to The Show during the prior season, Alonso proved he belonged in every possible sense. It’s also worth noting that without the gutsy decision of another “rookie” — first-time General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen — to sacrifice a year of team control in order to have Alonso on the team’s Opening Day roster, the Polar Bear might not have set his famous single-season records (not to mention his eventual franchise home run record).
1. Dwight Gooden (1984)
Arguably the most electric start to a pitching career in major league baseball history, Dwight Gooden’s emergence was the type of fantasy you dream up when throwing baseballs in your backyard, or beginning a new create-a-player mode in a video game. In 218 IP, Gooden struck out 276 batters, setting a record which still holds for the most strikeouts by a rookie in the modern era, as well as a record which has since been broken for highest K/9 (11.8) put up by a rookie. Gooden reached a new gear as the season came down the home stretch; over his final nine starts, he went 8-1, struck out 105 batters while only walking 13, and pitched to a 1.07 ERA and 0.74 WHIP. Gooden also dazzled on the national stage by striking out the side at the 1984 All-Star Game, earning him one of the top entries on
another Amazin’ Avenue ranking.
While Gooden’s dominance reached its peak during his sophomore season in 1985, his rookie season in 1984 was more than enough to spark a city-wide sensation. His starts were must-watch events, drawing energized crowds which Shea Stadium wasn’t used to seeing after seven straight years of losing baseball. While I wasn’t alive to watch Gooden pitch, the stats speak for themselves, and the stories—well, the stories still seem to speak from every corner of Citi Field today, including the literal
“K Korner,” which endures in scoreboard form in left field. Oh, and as if that level of on-field excellence and off-field phenomenon weren’t enough to cement this season’s legacy, Gooden was
only 19 years old. That’s two years younger than any other player on this list. Doc’s 1984 comes out on top in a crowded field of impressive Mets rookie seasons, and it would take quite a campaign to strip him of that title. Though as Mets fans are known to say, “Ya Gotta Believe,” and nothing is impossible…(We’re looking at you, Nolan McLean.)
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