On August 1, the day before Cespedes made his debut as a Met, the team sat at 54-50, a game behind the National League East-leading Washington Nationals. In the Wild Card race, they were 3.5 games behind a playoff spot.
Over the next couple of months, the Mets went on a hot streak with Cespedes leading the pack. The team finished 90-72, or 36-22 over the last 58 games. They won the NL East with a seven game lead on the Nationals and had the fifth best record in the National League.
Cespedes finished the regular season batting .287 with 17 home runs and 44 RBI in 57 games. To prove how good of a stretch that was, in 102 games with Detroit, Cespedes hit .293 with just 18 home runs.
"Pre-Cespedes:"
New York Mets: 54-50
Washington Nationals: 54-48
"Post-Cespedes"
New York Mets: 36-22
Washington Nationals: 29-31
The playoffs would be a similar story. In a pitching-dominant series, the Mets edged out the Los Angeles Dodgers in the last game of the series. While Cespedes struggled, hitting only .250, he did have a pair of home runs in the series.
The next series would be a step forward for Cespedes, hitting .286 with three RBI. But the spotlight was on Daniel Murphy and Lucas Duda, who were two of the main factors in the team’s four game sweep of the Chicago Cubs.
After not making a playoff appearance since 2006, the team finally had won another National League pennant. The team geared up for a tough World Series where they would face the contact-hitting Kansas City Royals.
As the story would go on to tell, the Royals won in five games. Their bats were too much for the Mets’ pitching and the bats that were hot in the NLDS and NLCS cooled down. Cespedes hit a mere .150 with just one RBI.
Cespedes’ contract was up and after a successful run, ending with disappointment, and the Mets front office knew that if they were to make another deep run, re-signing Cespedes was the first step.
While the trade was originally a three month rental, it turned into a huge payday for Cespedes and for him to stay in blue and orange for a few more years.
To date, he is hitting .297 with 22 home runs and 58 RBI and has led the Mets to a 53-48 record. The team is now third in the NL East, 6.5 back from the first place Nationals. In the Wild Card race, the Mets are just 1.5 games back.
Next: Not a Bad Return