Third base hasn’t exactly been a position of luxury for the Mets over the years. That’s not to say that there haven’t been good third basemen, of course, but there’s been a whole lot of turnover for long stretches of time.
But when David Wright, a highly-touted prospect who had grown up a Mets fan in Virginia, arrived, the Mets wound up not having to think about who would play third base for quite a while. Wright’s rookie year, his age-21 season in 2004, went very well, but he really took off in 2005 and played at such a high level both at the plate an in the field that it was almost hard to believe.