New York Mets: Five best left fielders in franchise history
2. Cleon Jones
We arrive at our number two choice. He was a home-grown Met and the guy that caught the final out of the 1969 World Series. That was off of the bad of some guy named Davey Johnson, but that irony is for another day.
Cleon Jones played part of the 1963 and 1965 seasons with the Mets but officially had his rookie year in 1966. That year Jones hit .275 and was fourth in the Rookie of the Year award vote. His career best came in the championship season of 1969 when he batted .340 to lead the team and drove in 75 runs. He had been at .297 the previous season and went over .300 once more in his career (.319 in 1971).
Jones was, like the rest of this list, a solid left fielder. His fielding percentage was .978 in left field overall, take away maybe a point because there were eight chances and no errors during his included time in Chicago. Again like the other members of this list, he didn’t win any Gold Gloves but his fielding was never a problem either.
Jones moves into the number two chair because of his bat. His .340 and .319 batting averages were the two best that this list has had to offer. So here Jones lies at number two.
So who is number one? Find out on the next page.