Time Traveler Tuesdays : Strikeouts, Failure, and Then Excellence. These are the Best Mets Pitchers of the 1990s

In Mets history, the 1990s can feel like a few different decades in one. The early 1990s were highly anticipated seasons, but then they crashed in a nose-dive into the ground. By 1999, Shea Stadium finally sounded dangerous again. In between came losing streaks, roster churn, deadline deals, false starts, bad summers, and one eternal Queens truth: when the Mets had something to believe in, it usually began with a pitcher standing alone on the mound.

David Cone, John Franco, and Al Leiter were not really a trio in the ordinary sense. They did not define one rotation or share one long October. Cone was the last bright flare of the old Mets power, the strikeout artist whose early-’90s dominance outlived the team around him. He was a pitcher who may have been ahead of his time. If Cone pitched in today's 5-inning "quality start" environment, he may be a Hall of Fame shoo-in. Franco was the bridge, the Brooklyn-born left-hander who carried the ninth inning through almost the entire decade and beyond. Leiter was the late-arriving ace, the Jersey kid who showed up when the Mets were ready to matter again. Together, they form the pitching story of the Mets’ 1990s: brilliance, endurance, and finally, release.

Cone’s Mets decade began with electricity already in his arm. By 1990, the Mets were no longer the swaggering machine of the mid-’80s, but Cone still pitched as if the old noise had never gone away. He attacked hitters with a full-body confidence, part technician and part daredevil, the kind of starter who the Mets took for granted. In 1990 and 1991, he led the National League in strikeouts, with 233 and 241, respectively, a two-year run that made him one of the sport’s great swing-and-miss pitchers.

The signature Cone game of the decade came on the final day of the 1991 season, when he struck out 19 Phillies in a complete-game shutout. It was one of those games that seemed to exist apart from the standings. The Mets were not going anywhere, but Cone was. Every fastball, slider, and splitter carried the feel of a man who was always sharp and who was meticulous about his craft. Cone struck out 19 Phillies in a complete-game shutout to close the Mets’ season. The box score said 7-0; the fact that people remember any games in that terrible season is amazing in itself.

There was something bittersweet about Cone as a ’90s Met. He was dominant enough to represent what the franchise still had, and soon gone enough to represent what it had lost. In August 1992, the Mets traded him to Toronto, where he would help the Blue Jays win the World Series. For Mets fans, the deal was not only a transaction; it was a handoff from one era’s leftovers to another era’s uncertainty. Cone had given Shea the last roar of the old staff, and then he disappeared into someone else’s pennant race.

Franco, meanwhile, stayed.

If Cone was the flash, Franco was the nightly anxiety. Closers live in small rooms: one inning, sometimes one batter, always with the whole game squeezed into the space between the rubber and the plate. Franco made a career there. The Brooklyn native and St. John’s product, he was not a visiting star learning New York; he sounded like it, understood it, and pitched as if he was being honked at by drivers on the BQE.

His first Mets season set the tone. In 1990, Franco led the National League with 33 saves, won the NL Rolaids Relief title, and set what was then a Mets club record for saves in a season. He was not overpowering in the modern closer sense. He won with nerve, deception, command, and that changeup/screwball that seemed to fall through a trapdoor. The ninth inning did not always look easy with Franco. That was part of the experience. He made you watch.

Through the worst of the decade, Franco gave the Mets something rare: continuity. Players came and went. Plans changed. The team’s identity blurred. But Franco was still out there, tugging at his cap, staring in, carrying the bullpen phone’s burden. By the end of his Mets career, he held the franchise records for saves and games pitched. His Mets record was 276 saves and 695 appearances.

Then came Leiter, and with him the feeling that the Mets were finally building toward something instead of away from something.

Leiter arrived before the 1998 season from the Florida Marlins, acquired with Ralph Milliard in a deal that sent Jesús Sánchez, A.J. Burnett, and Robert Stratton to Florida. On paper, he was a veteran left-hander coming off a championship organization’s teardown. On the field, he became the adult in the rotation, the man Bobby Valentine could hand the ball to when the Mets needed steadiness more than romance.

His 1998 season was immediate proof. Leiter finished sixth in the National League Cy Young voting, ranked among the league leaders in ERA, winning percentage, opponents’ batting average, and strikeouts, and his 17 victories were the most by a Mets pitcher since Frank Viola won 20 in 1990. The Mets still fell short that year, but Leiter gave the team a shape it had lacked: a real ace in a real race.

The payoff came on October 4, 1999, in Cincinnati. The Mets and Reds had finished 162 games tied for the National League Wild Card, and the Mets’ season had nearly dissolved in a late collapse. Then Leiter took the ball and turned panic into silence. He pitched a complete game, allowed two hits, struck out seven, and beat the Reds 5-0, sending the Mets to their first postseason since 1988.

The beauty of these three pitchers is that each gave Mets fans a different kind of belief. Cone gave them awe. On his best days, he made the game feel unfair in the Mets’ favor. Franco gave them attachment. He was local, stubborn, imperfect, durable, and deeply theirs. Leiter gave them validation. He arrived late in the decade and made the Mets look like a serious baseball team again.