David Wright was one of baseball’s best players for the better part of a decade, but the longtime New York Mets third baseman’s career will go down as one of unfulfilled potential due to the injuries that cut his career short.
As he debuts on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot in 2024, it’s obvious that Wright is an extreme long shot – but he could stick around on the ballot for years to come if he hits the 5% voting threshold this year.
Wright had the seventh-highest WAR in baseball from 2005-2013, batting .302 with an .890 OPS over that stretch, winning two Gold Glove awards. His career to that point (at age 31), was looking like one of a future Hall of Famer.
Wright suffered a stress fracture in his back while making a diving tag in 2011, the first in a series of major injuries that would ultimately bring his career to an early end.
An All-Star in seven of his first nine full seasons, he was a bright spot for a Mets team that went nearly a decade between Wright’s two career postseason appearances. He’s the franchise’s all-time leader in just about every offensive category, and finished his career 10 home runs shy of Darryl Strawberry’s team record.
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Diagnosed with spinal stenosis in 2015 (limited to 38 games), Wright had a neck surgery in 2016 (37 games) that led to shoulder problems and ultimately rotator cuff surgery in 2017, a season he missed entirely. His last meaningful at-bat came in 2016 – at the age of 33.
‘It’s debilitating to play baseball,’ Wright said in 2018.
The case for David Wright
The Mets were determined to overtake the Yankees in the tabloids by the mid-aughts, with Wright making his big-league debut as a 21-year-old in 2004. Along with (fellow ballot newcomer) Jose Reyes, the Mets had two phenoms that they bolstered with the statement-making signings of Carlos Beltran and Pedro Martinez in the 2004-05 offseason.
Wright lived up to the hype immediately, batting .306 with 102 RBI in 2005, his first full season at age 22, before helping the Mets win their first division title in nearly two decades in 2006. They ultimately lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS.
Wright’s best seasons – 8.3 WAR in 2007 and 6.9 WAR in 2008 – were bittersweet and largely overlooked due to the Mets’ misery. They blew a huge division lead in September 2007 and lost in the final game at Shea Stadium to miss out on the playoffs in 2008.
In 2015, Wright battled back from his spinal stenosis diagnosis to play every day down the stretch and into the postseason, helping the franchise reach the World Series for the first time in 15 years.
The case against
Wright just didn’t do it for long enough. The injuries brought his career to an early end.
“If I were to sit here and play the what-if game, it would drive me crazy,” Wright said ahead of his ceremonial final games in 2018. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about not trying to dive for Carlos Lee. It runs through my mind… It’s impossible to not think about things that might have gotten us to this point.”
His power numbers dropped off after the Mets made the move to Citi Field, which originally featured some of the most inexplicable dimensions and obstacles in the ancient history of sporting coliseum architecture.
Realistic outlook
There’s basically zero chance Wright makes the Hall of Fame, but he’s tracking at 7.3% through the first 142 ballots on Ryan Thibodaux’s world-famous voting tracker. Future annual evaluations may help Wright’s vote share climb slowly in the years to come, but him ever getting to 75% is inconceivable at this point in time.