Presenting the Mets' All-Quarter Century team, Queens' best of the 2000s

Editors note: The Athletic is marking 2025 by naming an MLB All-Quarter Century Team , selected by Jayson Stark.

We invited readers to take our survey and make their picks for the best players at each position since 2000, with the results announced in an upcoming story.

Some of our beat writers are picking All-Quarter Century Teams for the teams they cover.

Check this page to find all of our All-Quarter Century Team coverage.

Advertisement The New York Mets entered the 2000s in a good place.

They had just made the NLCS , losing in six games to a rival, and they were a favorite in the National League to win a pennant in 2000 (which they did).

They entered 2025 in a good place.

They had just made the NLCS, losing in six games to (perhaps an incipient) rival, and they are a favorite in the National League to win a pennant.

Almost makes it seem that the intervening quarter-century was smooth, eh? The juxtaposition of 2025 to 2000 belies the occasional peaks and longer stretches in the valley that the franchise has experienced in that time.

The Mets have endured the Bernie Madoff scandal and its consequent years of austerity, a pair of brutal late-season collapses, and a series of debilitating injuries to many of the players Im about to single out for praise.

But the team Im about to build? Its pretty good.

The left side of the infield has combined for more than 100 career wins above replacement (according to FanGraphs).

The center fielder has the second-most WAR among all outfielders this century.

The pitching staff, while shy on longevity, can be dominant.

This is the Mets All-Quarter Century Team.

Catcher: Mike Piazza Since its been almost two decades since his last game with the Mets, you might have thought Piazza wasnt behind the plate enough this century to make this choice so easy.

Well, hes caught 200 more games in the 2000s than any other Met, and Piazza isnt going to lose on production to anyone, Met or otherwise.

From 2000 to 2005, Piazza hit .286/.368/.525 with 157 home runs.

Honorable mention: Travis dArnaud First base: Pete Alonso Alonso has made this a simple decision, as well, putting up numbers on par with Carlos Delgados best years for a lot longer in blue and orange.

Hes played almost twice as many games at first as any other Met, and he should set the franchise home run record later this season.

Advertisement Honorable mentions: Delgado, Lucas Duda Second base: Daniel Murphy This is the first difficult selection, and Im going with Murphy over Jeff McNeils higher WAR with the Mets.

And yes, its because of about a 10-game stretch in October 2015.

This is no slight to McNeil, who has made two All-Star teams and won a batting title with the Mets; hes been their best regular-season second baseman this century.

But Murphys postseason run in 2015 included homers in five straight games (many off the games best pitchers that season).

He provided all the Mets offense in the deciding victory over the Dodgers in the NLDS probably the best game the Mets played this century until last fall.

And Murphy manned second base nearly as often as McNeil has, making his own All-Star team in 2014.

Honorable mention: McNeil Shortstop: Francisco Lindor Here again, Im bypassing the clubs actual leader in WAR at the position (Jose Reyes, of course) for a different pick.

Lindors played more than 500 fewer games at short than Reyes (and 800 overall), but hes approaching the same overall value and emerged as a leader for this era of Mets baseball.

Honorable mention: Reyes Third base: David Wright Does this require explanation? Wright is the best Mets player of this century and the last Met to be named team captain.

He played five times more games at third than any other Met, such that theres not even a point in having an honorable mention here.

(Sorry, Robin Ventura.) He also authored one of the finest individual seasons in team history in 2007, when he might have won MVP if not for the team collapsing around him.

Left field: Brandon Nimmo If you want to be super strict about positional alignment in the outfield, then this is a close race between Nimmo and Cliff Floyd.

(Floyd played more games in left this century than Nimmo has so far.) But when you add up what Nimmo has done in all three outfield positions, hes head and shoulders above the other contenders here.

Advertisement Nimmo has matured from an aw-shucks kid from Wyoming into a verifiable team leader, a guy who cried tears of joy on the field last season when the Mets clinched their first postseason series at Citi Field.

By the end of his contract in 2030, hes poised to play 15 seasons in a Mets uniform more than all but Ed Kranepool in franchise history.

Honorable mention: Floyd Center field: Carlos Beltran Beltran isnt just the center fielder for this team; hes the center fielder on the all-franchise team if we go back to 1962.

Following a slow start to his Mets tenure in 2005, Beltran was a force for the final six years of his contract.

He made five All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves, placed in the top five for the MVP in 2006 and brought back Zack Wheeler in a deadline deal in 2011.

Honorable mention: Nimmo Right field: Michael Conforto Perhaps Conforto didnt live up to all the promise he showed as a sweet-swinging rookie comfortably performing in a pennant race and the postseason in 2015.

Overall, though, he had a fine Mets career that included an All-Star team in 2017 and a 30-homer season in 2019.

Its unfortunate that his two best years as a Met were both cut short: 2017 by a shoulder injury and 2020 by the pandemic.

Honorable mention: Curtis Granderson Designated hitter: Yoenis Cespedes Picking a DH doesnt feel right for a team that didnt have one for 21 seasons this century.

But lets go with the best hitter not yet on the team, a guy whose acquisition provided as big an in-season spark as an offense has ever experienced.

Cespedes did, after all, hit a game-winning homer in the first home game in which the Mets ever played a DH.

As with some other greats in franchise history, the memories are better if we forget how it ended.

Bench: Ramon Castro, Wilmer Flores, Endy Chavez, Dominic Smith OK, so before you furrow your brow, Im going with guys who actually came off the bench for most of their Mets tenures.

Advertisement Castro ranks fourth among Mets backstops in WAR this century despite never batting more than 240 times in a season with New York.

Hes getting pushed here now by Luis Torrens, although so is Francisco Alvarez, so Torrens might not be a backup much longer.

Had Castros fly ball to the warning track in the first inning of the final game of the 2007 regular season traveled about six more feet, hed have supplanted Piazza on this team.

Flores is a Mets icon even though he qualified for the batting title only once in Queens, in 2015.

A walk-off magician, he overcame the lack of a solid defensive position to be a consistent contributor.

I remember writing about him weekly when part of my first job was covering the Appalachian League and he was a 17-year-old wunderkind in Kingsport; that was literally half a lifetime ago for him.

Is Chavezs catch still the most memorable Mets play of this century? (Other contenders off the top of the noggin include Piazzas home run in the first game back after Sept.

11, Bartolo Colons home run and Pete Alonsos season-saver last fall.) He had the best year of his career in 2006, hitting better than .300 with 22 doubles while filling in often for Floyd.

Smith edges out Lenny Harris and Marlon Anderson for his pinch hitting prowess.

Thats right, Im not even factoring in his absurd 2020 season which in retrospect will go down as one of the great anomalies in club history.

But when pinch hitting for the Mets, Smith posted a .902 OPS with some clutch homers, most notably his unbelievable shot to end the 2019 season.

Honorable mentions: Harris, Anderson, Joe McEwing, Mike Baxter, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Scott Hairston Starting Rotation: Jacob deGrom, Johan Santana, Al Leiter, R.A.

Dickey, Matt Harvey DeGrom is as easy a choice as any on the board a legitimate contender to be on a team picked from the entire league.

His run of success from the start of the 2018 season through his injury halfway through 2021 is on par with the greatest in the sports history.

(His ERA+ over that stretch is better than the best four-season stretches by Sandy Koufax, Greg Maddux or Randy Johnson.

Pedro Martinez does best deGrom with his run from 1997 through 2000.) Advertisement Santana had just 3 1/2 healthy seasons as a Met, but he was among the games aces throughout that stretch.

He delivered a signature performance on the penultimate day of the 2008 season and, of course, the first no-hitter in club history.

While Leiters most memorable start as a Met came in 1999, he was the ace of the 2000 pennant-winners and a stalwart at the top of the rotation through 2004.

He did not post an ERA above 4.00 this century with the Mets.

Dickey owns the fewest wins above replacement of this group, ranking way down at ninth for the club among starting pitchers.

His 2012 Cy Young season, however, was an obvious bright spot, and his trade to Toronto helped spark the Mets eventual pennant in 2015.

For the last spot, Im going with Harvey over Noah Syndergaard.

Syndergaard is actually second among Mets starters in WAR this century, behind only deGrom.

However, its hard to overstate how meaningful Harvey was to Mets fans at the time of his arrival in 2012 and breakout in 2013.

And Harvey was right there with deGrom as the ace of the 2015 staff a guy who deserved Game 1 starts in the postseason (and, as I duck, the ninth inning of Game 5).

Honorable mention: Syndergaard, Zack Wheeler, Tom Glavine Bullpen: Edwin Diaz, Jeurys Familia, Billy Wagner, Armando Benitez, Addison Reed, Seth Lugo, Bobby Parnell, Pedro Feliciano I contemplated going strictly by bullpen roles, but decided that byzantine arguments about who the best longman of the century for the Mets was Darren Oliver over Trevor Williams, I think is best left for the comments.

Diazs 2022 season is the best by a Mets reliever this century, and out of this group, hes still the guy getting the nod to close.

No Met has thrown more innings out of the pen this century than Familia, whose struggles in the 2015 World Series and at the end of his Mets tenure have overshadowed how good and important he was last decade.

Wagner and Benitez were excellent closers who did not do their best work in the postseason, unfortunately.

Advertisement Reed is the best set-up man the Mets have had this century, and Lugo was for a time as useful a reliever as any in the sport (even if the Mets often labored to maximize that usage).

Parnell was a solid reliever for a lot of mediocre teams, and Feliciano or Perpetual Pedro, as Gary Cohen took to calling him felt like he got a big out every day.

He appeared in 344 games over a four-year stretch, or easily more than half of New Yorks games.

Honorable mention: Aaron Heilman, Adam Ottavino, Francisco Rodriguez Lineup And because making a lineup is fun: SS Lindor CF Beltran C Piazza 3B Wright RF Conforto DH Cespedes 1B Alonso 2B Murphy LF Nimmo (Top photo of Jacob deGrom: Brad Penner / USA Today).

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