11 players you totally forgot played for the Mets

Rick Ankiel

I’ve written about how bad I feel for Rick Ankiel before.

Ankiel spent the first 10 years of his career in the St. Louis Cardinals organization From 2010 to his retirement in 2014, he played for five different franchises. His final one was the Mets.

Ankiel signed with the Astros in the 2013 offseason, but was designated for assignment and eventually released in May.

The Mets signed him a week later and put him right into the starting lineup, even after he was hitting .194 in his first 25 games. His Mets tenure saw much of the same.

His slash line in 20 games with the Mets was .182/.239/.364. He struck out in 46.9 percent of his at bats that season with both Houston and New York.

What hurts even more is that Ankiel had an .849 OPS in his first 172 games as a full-time outfielder. Of course, Ankiel is best known for having one of the most infamous cases of the yips on the mound, so he turned into an offensive player.

But from 2009 to 2013, his OPS was just a mere .676.

I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.