Notably, he pitched in the Mets 18 inning game against Milwaukee on May 4, 2019. He tossed the 13th inning.

He's also one of the few Mets pitchers to finish with a career Mets ERA of 0.00.

Wallace was one of those other guys. A former #11 overall pick, he had a 1.72 ERA for Norfolk in 1996, then had an acceptable run with the Mets later that year. He stuck around in their system through 1999 and though he had some decent years at Triple-A, the vagaries of baseball made it such that he never made it back to the big league club (guess they deemed Mel Rojas a better option in 1998 and Josías Manzanillo/Billy Taylor better options in 1999).

And now, like many of them, he's just a blip in baseball history.

(Also, he didn't sign the autograph request I sent him in 2010).

The risk of acquiring him didn't pay off, of course, but the logic behind the deal was actually (for once) understandable. Especially since all he cost them was a middling minor leaguer who never advanced beyond A ball (Dawrin Frias).

I fondly remember Eric O'Flaherty, actually, but obviously not because of his time with New York.

He fit the mold of that era's New York Mets pitcher—an astoundingly recognizable name, but when you look at the stat log you see he didn't actually do much with New York. Others that come to mind are Terry Bross, Jeff Musselman and Wally Whitehurst. I think their name recognition stems largely from the fact that they pitched smack dab in the middle of the era of hyper-produced baseball cards. So even though they didn't do much, you were constantly seeing their names on cards, so they engrained themselves deep in your mind anyway.

He was a good minor league pitcher, though. 22-11 with a 2.31 ERA between 1987 and 1988.

At one point, he was on the farthest periphery of my "Hall of Fame" dark horse list. Not so now. Usually I'd say it was him going to the Mets that killed whatever sliver of a chance he had. But by watching his play, he alone killed it.

What is cool though is that before he became a star he signed an autograph for me through the Astros in 2012.

Stanek posts a 6.06 ERA. Maton posts a 2.51 ERA in about twice as many games.

So what do the Mets do? Ditch Maton and bring Stanek back. Dumb dumb dumb.

Maton, right now, has a 0.00 ERA, 11.1 K/9 and 0.618 WHIP in a league-leading 12 appearances.

Should've brought Maton back instead (or, at least, as well).

Maton was a reliable, though all-too-short-lived reliever. Can't go wrong with his 2024 performance (regular season, at least). It was fairly unsung additions like him that helped them turn the tide and become a true playoff team.

Wish you had a longer MLB career, Joe. ("Sic transit gloria.")