The early 2010s were a tough time to be a Mets fan. The offense featured a collection of players who failed to hit for contact OR power, with the first three seasons of the 2010s only seeing three Mets hit better than .300, and one hit 30+ home runs. The pitching was stronger than the offense, but it wasn't great either. Ace Johan Santana was aging quickly, and the starters around him would typically have ERAs well into the fours. It's not surprising why these Mets finished fourth in the National League East in 2010, 2011, and 2012.
Those years the Mets definitely weren't fun to watch, but that's what was expected. After all this was a team that was in the middle of a (successful) rebuild. Even with the teams lack of success, there was still one thing that made Mets games mandatory viewing, at least every fifth day, and that was the pitching of R.A. Dickey.
Before coming to the Mets in 2010, Dickey had bounced around from the minors to the majors and from team to team for the better part of 10 years, being called up seven times and sent down seven more times. This was due to the fact that he had been largely ineffective as a major league pitcher. His career ERA before joining the Mets was a 5.43, he had a career WHIP of 1.572, and he had never had more WAR than .7 in a season. Dickey was serviceable AT BEST, but much of his struggles hadn't been his own fault.
In 1996 Dickey was drafted by the Texas Rangers out of the University of Tennessee, as a hard throwing traditional starting pitcher. That year he was a part of the Olympic team and was featured on the cover of Baseball America Magazine, along with the other team USA starting pitchers. The Rangers team doctor noticed his arm was hanging in a strange way in that cover picture, spurring an evaluation of his elbow. When they looked at his arm they discovered that Dickey had been born without a Ulnar Collateral Ligament in his throwing arm. This is what’s known as “the Tommy John Ligament” and it’s crucial for elbow joint stability, especially in overhead athletes such as pitchers. They didn’t even understand how Dickey could open a door without pain, let alone throw, so they cut his signing bonus from $810,000 to $75,000. Dickey likened the experience to “winning the lottery and losing the ticket”.
This discovery made him change the way he pitched, becoming a high 80s junk pitcher, throwing a forkball dubbed "the thing". By 2005 he realized two things, the first being that his "forkball" was really just a fast knuckleball, and the second being that the knuckleball was his only chance at continuing his career. The next year he worked with knuckleball legend Charlie Hough to perfect the pitch and by 2006 he was full on knuckleballer. Even though he wouldn't last with the Rangers past that season, his new pitch gave him enough upside that there were other teams willing to give him a chance.
When the Mets signed R.A. Dickey to a minor league deal in December of 2009, it completely flew under the radar. It was seldom mentioned in recaps of the 2010 offseason, partially because everybody was too busy talking about the acquisition of outfielder Jason Bay, which happened about a week later. Bay's production would drop off a cliff once he joined the Mets, and he has gone down as one of the worst free agent signings in team history. Dickey, the untalked about free agent, would be the exact opposite.
R.A. started the 2010 season, his first in the Mets organization, in the minor leagues, but after only 8 starts for the AAA Buffalo Bison, he got called up for the 8th time in his career. His time with the Bisons would be his final stint in the minors. He would go on to have his best season ever by a mile, outperforming the previous 7 years in every measurable way. His 2010 ERA was 2.84, tenth best in the MLB, and he had 3.6 WAR, far higher than the rest of his career to that point combined. His successful first year in the Big Apple earned him a two year contract from the Mets for a total of 6.5 million dollars (plus a million dollar signing bonus, and a club option for a third year).
The next season he took a small step back, to a 3.28 ERA, but that was still far better than any other Mets starter that season and his WAR was yet again 3.6.
The main attraction came in 2012, when Dickey had a 2.73 ERA, 1.053 WHIP, 20 wins, and a league leading 230 strikeouts. Dickey was only the 6th Met ever to achieve 20 wins, and no Met has accomplished the feat since. In June of 2012 he threw 1-hitters on back to back starts, making him the only Met to ever do so, and one of two Mets to throw as many 1-hitters in a whole season. A lot of his success came from being able to to control his knuckle ball (a pitch historically known for being wild), only walking 2.1/9 innings that season, and striking out 4.26 batters per walk (far better than hall of fame knuckleballer Phil Niekro ever did). Dickey also won a Cy Young award that season, something else Phil Niekro, or any other knuckleball pitcher, never did.
R.A Dickey won that Cy Young award after his age 37 season, which is remarkable and puts him in elite company. Of the 118 times the Cy Young award has been given out, only five times was it given to a pitcher older than Dickey (three more times going to a pitcher the same age as Dickey). Of the 7 pitchers who have won at least 1 Cy Young as a 37+ year old, they are ALL Hall of Famers, except for R.A. Dickey and cheater Roger Clemens. The only pitcher to ever win their first Cy Young award older than Dickey was Early Wynn, who did so at the age of 39, but the reason he had to wait so long was because the award didn't exist until his age 37 season. The only pitcher I can find who had a career peak as late as R.A. is Dennis Eckersley who won a his first Cy Young and an MVP as a 37 year old, but for Eckersley that season was the culmination of a 5 year late career resurgence (where he received Cy Young votes three times), sparked by a move to the bullpen.
For Dickey, who never received a Cy Young vote before 2012, there isn't any clear reason for this sudden change into being an elite pitcher once he joined the Mets. Sure he was on a new team, but he had already been on three teams in the prior three years. That wasn't the problem. He just simply got better. In terms of Cy Young candidacy, and to a lesser extent pitching in general, R.A. Dickey was the latest bloomer ever.
It can be expected for any knuckleball pitcher to perform better later in their career, compared to a traditional pitcher (due to the knuckleball causing less stress on the arm), but even in terms of knuckleballers a peak this late is unheard of. Phill Niekro had his best ERA season as a 28 year old, Dickeys mentor Charlie Hough had his as a 28 year old too, and Tim Wakefield had his as a 25 year old. Dickey was an outlier, even within the larger field of knuckleballers, a group of outliers on their own.
In total for the Mets R.A. Dickey had a 2.95 ERA. His ERA is currently the fourth best by a Met ever, the third best by a Met starter, and at the time it was the second best by a Met starter. By the end of Dickey's Mets stint he had a better ERA than every Met starter ever, other than Tom Seaver. Compared to his stats on other teams, Dickeys Mets ERA is a whole 1.67 better than his best ERA with any team before coming to New York, which was his 4.62 ERA in his year with the Minnesota Twins.
Before the 2013 season the Mets traded Dickey to the Toronto Blue Jays where he would pitch admirably for a few seasons, having a total ERA of 4.05 with the Jays, but he would never quite replicate the success he had in New York. He would retire after the 2017 season, after a brief cup of tea with Atlanta.
That isn't the end of Dickey's legacy with the Mets though. When he was traded he gave the Mets the best parting gift they could have ever asked for. In exchange for R.A. Dickey the Mets got Noah Syndergaard, and for as long as Thor pitches in Queens, we have Robert Allen Dickey to thank.
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