Hall of Famer Tom Seaver passes away at 75

Tom Seaver, the legendary ace of the New York Mets and 3-time Cy Young Award winner, has passed away, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He was 75 years old.

The longtime Mets ace won 311 games in his historic career, establishing himself as one of the clear best pitchers of all time by winning Rookie of the Year honors in 1967 before taking home his first CYA two years later en route to a World Series title.

Seaver, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1992 with a then-record 98.8% of the vote, accumulated an astonishing 106.0 bWAR in his career, one spent mostly with the Mets but also with the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and Cincinnati Reds.

And while his Mets career alone was Hall worthy, it gets somewhat overlooked just how effective Seaver was in his Cincinnati days, too.

For those of us who were just young enough to see the 1990 Cincinnati Reds through child-eyes, we were raised with tales of the Big Red Machine, the goliath of professional baseball that our parents lived through. A pair of World Series titles, four Hall of Famers, MVPs galore, and the toast of the baseball world they were, and history continues to remember them as one of the greatest dynasties in the history of the game.

While the bulk of The Machine stuck around beyond the back to back titles in 1975 and 1976, the success wasn’t quite the same after those years, and many point to the decision to part ways with Tony Perez as the beginning of the slow decline. Brought in to help fill that void at the 1977 trade deadline was Seaver, who would go on to pitch 1085.2 innings of 3.18 ERA ball for the Reds over the next 6 seasons, even if they weren’t quite as memorable team-wide as the era prior.

Seaver won 75 games for the Reds, put up 18.3 bWAR in his time there, and with a 2nd place finish ranks tied with Johnny Cueto for the best finish in CYA voting in Reds history. He picked up his 3,000th career strikeout as a Red, threw a no-hitter with them in 1978, and his entire body of work with the Reds earned him induction into the Reds Hall of Fame in 2006.

A true icon of the game, Tom Terrific wrapped his career in 1986 at age 41, and predictably breezed into the Hall on the 1st ballot in 1992.

Rest in peace to a true Mets, Reds, and baseball icon.