But, I will always have a special place for Cespedes in my Mets hall of memories for a game-changing play in Game 3 of the NLCS. No, it wasn't a home run. It was stealing 3rd in the 6th inning, which eventually led to the Mets taking the lead on the best offensive strikeout in Mets history. According to Statcast, Cespedes reached 23.6 mph on that stolen base. That is insane from a guy with such ridiculous power. It was an incredibly smart play at a crucial point in the game.

And let's not forget the throw he made in Game 1 to cut down Starlin Castro at the plate by 10 feet.

The general perception is that the Mets are winning this postseason due to starting pitching and Daniel Murphy. That ignores the fact that the Mets are playing spectacular baseball, including defense and baserunning, as demonstrated by a perfect throw and a stolen base by Mr. Cespedes.

The 4-base error in Game 1 against the Royals (charitably scored a HR) was very Timo Perezish, and throwing Conforto (a star in the making) under the bus didn't help my opinion of YC.

Thanks, YC - we wouldn't have had the LA/Chicago thrills without you, but couldn't you have kept your head in the game for one more week?

Try some Pilates exercises instead, will you, Yoenis!

He came aboard and powered the team to the World Series in 2015. He was brought back and helped the team to the playoffs with an All-Star season the next year. He had style, an air of cool, a swagger that made him seem like he could lead the team to World Series victory.

And I'm sure he still has that. When he's healthy. But as I write this, he has yet to play this season (2019), with news that he just fractured his ankle at home. He's played a total of 119 games since the dawn of 2017. He's done well, hitting 26 home runs in that span, but he hasn't been around long enough these past three seasons to justify his contract (could we have gone after Bryce Harper if Cespedes wasn't weighing us down financially?).

I remember the hope he inspired in us all after that first season-and-a-half. I hope his last campaign, 2020, is at least a solid bookend to (yet another) otherwise disappointing "big name" signing.

Unfortunately, Cespedes was plagued with recurring leg injuries over the next several seasons. At that time, it was thought that physical therapy might help with Cespedes’s frequent hamstring injuries. Eventually, the always crack New York Mets medical staff determined that Cespedes was suffering from bone spurs in both feet and would require season-ending surgery to correct the condition.

Okay, after the two successive surgeries and during a prolonged period of recovery, what happens next? Cespedes somehow breaks one of his ankles while engaged in some unnamed physical activity at his ranch in Florida. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up!

Of course, we all eventually find out that Cespedes broke his ankle while trying to apparently capture wild boars on his ranch. With all of his million of dollars in salary, Cespedes couldn’t pay some professional animal control people to get rid of the wild boars for him? I don’t blame Jeff Wilpon and Brodie Van Wagenen for severely docking Cespedes’s multi-million dollar salary after he violated the restrictions in his Met player contract.

Oh yeah, Cespedes was previously interviewed by an Oakland sportswriter and Cespedes proclaimed how much he enjoyed playing for the Oakland A’s and how he would like to finish his career with the A’s. This guy’s getting paid over twenty million dollars by the Mets and he praising the Oakland A’s; talk about chutzpah!!!

Well, what can you say about a baseball player who was traded by Oakland to the Boston Red Sox and then quickly shipped off to the Detroit Tigers and finally schlepped off to our New York Mets.

And, was anyone really surprised when during this past season, Cespedes just took off for home (without first informing Met management), saying that he did not want to play anymore due to his concerns over the COVID pandemic? I guess Cespedes’s salary cut had absolutely nothing to do with it all.

Well, let’s hope that “Yo” can sign with and finish his career with his beloved Oakland A’s.

Goodbye and good riddance!

But we will always have that night with the yellow-green bird. The stars were aligned. It was meant to be. "Attraction", as Keith said. What a magical moment.

Unfortunately, besides that game, not many more memories. I vaguely remember him arriving to spring training in a batmobile.

My main Cespedes memory must be frantically listening to WFAN's running news commentary on the run-in with a bull (or wild pig) on his ranch. Yoenis and the Mets (and the world as we knew it) were never the same again.

"I remember the hope he inspired in us all after that first season-and-a-half. I hope his last campaign, 2020, is at least a solid bookend to (yet another) otherwise disappointing "big name" signing."

Well, uh, nope. He spent 31 at-bats with the club that year and hit .161.

All-in-all, Cespedes spent more seasons with New York (5) than any other team, yet he played only 316 games with the club. Pound-for-pound he was awesome, slashing .279/.344/.539 with a 136 OPS+, the best numbers of his career.

But he was excellent like Bobby Bonilla was excellent. The statistics were great, but the actual results were lacking.

Cespedes was that good and yet they managed just one meaningful postseason berth in his time with NY.

As a whole, my memory of Cespedes, looking back, isn't negative. His 2015-2016 with the Mets were THAT awesome. But man, what if.

As always ... what if.

Nevertheless, his heroics were so great in 2015—and his follow up in 2016 was so awesome—that he was elected in the Mets Hall of Fame project I run on another site. He had to wait until his fourth try, earning 80% of the vote.

In 2015, I wrote him an autograph request through the Tigers, but he sent my card back unsigned with a form letter requesting $30. LOL, nah.