Seaver. Gooden. deGrom. McLean? Mets fans dreaming big with righty phenom

The Mets have had young pitching stars before, have they ever, all the way back to the great Tom Seaver. He was a phenom who stayed a star until he won his 300th game -- with the White Sox by then -- when he was 40. Now another young guy, Nolan McLean, has come along. No one knows if he will become a legend of the team, because you never know at this stage. All the Mets know and all their fans know is how hot the kid came in last season. And got them dreaming that he might have one of those right arms.

Somehow Seaver and Nolan Ryan came up to the Mets around the same time in the 1960s. So, there were two right arms like that with the Mets at the same time. They would both end up leaving for other teams as they made their way to Cooperstown. But the first point of light, for both of them, was at old Shea Stadium, when the Mets first mattered.

Later, the phenom at Shea would be a teenager named Dwight Gooden, nearly two decades after Seaver and Ryan had come along. Doc became more of a hot kid than any other pitcher in the game, first as a teenager who could throw fastballs past the world in 1984.

Not all of the phenoms who would become part of the line later were blessed with great careers, or very much good luck. Matt Harvey briefly became known as the Dark Knight of Gotham. But he flamed out. So did Noah Syndergaard, nicknamed Thor, though both Harvey and Syndergaard pitched in the last World Series in which the Mets played in 2015.

So did the pitcher in his 20s who became a real phenom from that generation of young Mets pitchers, Jacob deGrom. He would finally experience arm problems, too, before leaving the Mets as a free agent. But for a time, deGrom was the best pitcher in baseball, winning back-to-back Cy Young Awards, once with an ERA of 1.70. When he was at his best, Mets fans talked about “deGrom Day” when it was once again his turn to pitch. He is with the Rangers now, the team with whom Nolan Ryan finished his career.

Now the Mets have another Nolan, and you can’t blame their fans for having high hopes for him, and not just because it’s the baseball spring. Because when everything was falling apart for the Mets last season -- when they were on their way to missing the playoffs after having the best record in the game when they were 45-24 -- it was McLean who came out of the Minors and brought such terrific stuff (and hope) with him.

From the start, he didn’t act like a rookie or pitch like one. He pitched like he belonged is what he did, had a record of 5-1 down the stretch over eight starts and an ERA of 2.06, and made fans of the team wish he had been around from the beginning, in a season when they ultimately needed just one more win to make it to the postseason.

Now, in what will technically still be his rookie season, the Mets' No. 1 prospect gets a full season and a shot to show he is the real thing, a chance to prove that he is more than a flash in the pan and just might have one of those right arms. When the Mets were falling down at the end of last summer, McLean stood up.

Here is something his manager, Carlos Mendoza, told McLean upon his arrival at Citi Field:

“Go out there, be yourself, we’re not expecting heroes here.”

From then until the regular season eventually ended in such a cruel way for the Mets in Miami -- losing two of their last three and getting passed by the Reds -- McLean did pitch like a bit of a hero, dazzling with his fastball for strikes along with his sinker and slider and change. The young man from North Carolina who pitched his college ball at Oklahoma State didn’t just show you arm. He showed you imagination.

When he was asked recently about his various goals for this upcoming season, one of the first things he said was, “I want to be an innings eater.” The Mets want him to be a bit more than that. They will go into the season with Freddy Peralta as their ace, for sure. But if you saw McLean pitch the way he did last season, you know he is the one who could soon be their real No. 1.

Of course, you never know how these pitching stories will play out, in New York or anywhere else. Seaver got traded to the Reds. Ryan got traded to the Angels. Dwight Gooden had all the problems in the world off the field. Matt Harvey got hurt. So did Syndergaard. Jacob deGrom got hurt, even if he seems to have recovered fully in Texas.

Now it is Nolan McLean’s turn to see if he has the stuff and staying power and even serendipity to join that long line. Because of the rules, he sure is still classified as rookie. So he gets that kind of second bite of the Big Apple, and a chance to be a phenom all over again.