Mike Piazza will make his first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot next year and the 12-time All-Star catcher wants to wear a Mets hat on his plaque.
Piazza was interviewed yesterday while at Madison Square Garden in New York for the Knicks-Nuggets game and replied “it’s gotta be the Mets, no question” when asked which team he’d like to represent in Cooperstown.
That’s not surprising, but it also may not matter because players don’t get to decide which hat they wear. That decision is made by the Hall of Fame and in Piazza’s case they have a tough call to make.
Piazza played more games for the Mets (972) than he did for the Dodgers (726), but he was a better player in Los Angeles than he was in New York. He hit .331 with a .966 OPS and 33.6 Wins Above Replacement for the Dodgers, compared to .296 with a .915 OPS and 24.6 Wins Above Replacement for the Mets. And while Piazza’s lone World Series appearance came with the Mets, his Rookie of the Year award and pair of runner-up MVP finishes all came with the Dodgers.
Piazza is about as close as a Hall of Famer can get to having his career split evenly between two teams and he also played briefly for the Padres, A’s, and Marlins. I’d lean toward the Dodgers because they drafted him, developed him, and were the team for which he debuted and emerged as a superstar, but Piazza clearly thinks of himself as a Met, played more games for the Mets, and was certainly a great player in New York even if he was better in Los Angeles.
And of course all this speculation assumes that the Hall of Fame voters will do the right thing and elect Piazza, which I suppose is no certainty at this point.
