Just Mets

Before the 2010 season, Omar Minaya signed then-journeyman R.A. Dickey to spring training and invited him to big league camp.

He really didn’t stand out that spring – he made one start and one relief appearance and allowed five runs in five innings before being among the first cuts from big league camp.

So Dickey went to the minor league side and traveled north to Buffalo and started his season there as a 35-year-old quite possibly on the last leg of his search for success as a big league pitcher. But it was that April he finally discovered his knuckleball, and he earned a promotion to the Mets after posting a 4-2 record with a 2.23 ERA in eight starts.

He would never be a minor league player again.

He embarked on one of the most remarkable stories in baseball history under Jerry Manuel and the Mets beginning on May 19, 2010, when he allowed two runs in six innings against the Nationals in Washington. It would be a recurring theme for Dickey – he finished the 2010 season 11-9 with a 2.84 ERA in 27 games and 26 starts.

In three years as a Met, Dickey became quite the spectacle given the long and arduous journey he and his family had been on as he pursued success as a big league knuckleballer in his 30s. He went 39-28 with a 2.95 ERA in 94 games and 91 starts with 468 strikeouts and eight complete games in 616 2/3 innings over that span, by far his most successful run to-date as a big leaguer. He was an All-Star and a Cy Young Award winner in 2012, capping his remarkable three-year run during some lean times in Flushing.

But none of those stats, none of those awards, none of the one-hitters and other must-see TV starts he made for New York are considered the greatest value he provided to the Mets, at least according to manager Terry Collins.

“The year he won the Cy Young, we weren’t in the hunt,” Collins said, according to Marc Carig of Newsday. “But what he’s brought back has allowed us to be in the hunt. So, the value that he provided this organization was a chance to move a guy and move the organization forward.”

He’s right. Heading into Dickey’s first start against his former club on Thursday, the Mets are 36-31 and 1 1/2 games ahead of the Nationals in first place in the National League East. Two of the three prospects (Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard) the Mets acquired 2 1/2 years ago for Dickey have all contributed to that success in the first half of the 2015 season, while the other one (OF Wuilmer Becerra) is progressing very well through the lower levels of the Mets minor league system.

On the other hand, while the Blue Jays felt they were acquiring an ace to lead them to October in 2013 and beyond, they have yet to truly realize any significant return on their investment. Toronto has still not been to the postseason since 1993. While they finished above .500 in 2014 and are off to a good start in 2015, the Blue Jays lost the same number of games the Mets did in 2013 (88), the first year of Dickey’s tenure in Toronto.

Dickey has been about league average for Toronto during that span, but certainly not close to the levels he pitched in New York – he finished the 2013 with a 14-13 record and a 4.21 ERA in 224 innings over 34 starts, and went 14-13 with a 3.71  ERA in 215 innings in 2014. 2015 has been more of a struggle for Dickey, however, as he’s currently 2-6 with a 5.29 ERA in his first 13 starts, allowing a league-high 48 earned runs in 81 2/3 innings so far this season.

But Dickey will start against the Mets for the first time since being dealt following the 2013 season. The only Mets to have ever faced Dickey are Curtis Granderson and John Mayberry Jr., none of whom have had any consistent success against his knuckleball.

Perhaps Dickey is no longer must-see TV material every five days, but it will be fun none-the-less to see what was once a standout and perhaps iconic Met in the eyes of the fanbase pitch tonight.

Only this time, that fanbase will hope his knuckleball isn’t as dazzling and mesmerizing as it was during his Cy Young season of 2012, and for much of the three years he donned orange and blue 500 miles south of the Rogers Centre.