Beware, Mets fans: the team revealed Tuesday that David Wright will play the role of Santa Claus at next Tuesday’s holiday party, one of the club’s most popular annual charitable endeavors. But like an action shot on the cover of Sports Illustrated or an appointment to defend the dark arts at Hogwarts, it is not an honor to be taken lightly.

For the better part of the past decade, the position has quite obviously been cursed; any player who has pulled on the red-and-white suit has either left the team, been injured or suffered a serious decline in production thereafter.

– Anthony DiComo, MLB.com.

Obviously neither DiComo nor anyone else is taking the “Santa Claus Curse” all that seriously, but there’s a pretty reasonable explanation here:

The Mets apparently aren’t going to have a guy coming off a crappy season play Santa. John Maine and Mike Pelfrey both assumed the roles after career years, Francoeur earned it with 308 plate appearances far beyond his usual production. Somewhat predictably, all three regressed the following season. Pelfrey also suffered at the hands of a terrible defense behind him.

Benson’s case is unique, since his curse was only having a wife who thought it appropriate to show up to a children’s charity event wearing nearly nothing.

What happened to Mike Cameron probably makes the best argument for the existence of a curse, since it’s not often you see gruesome head-to-head collisions on a baseball field. But then, the Mets did ask Cameron to shift to a new position after the 2004 campaign.

And then there’s David Wright, who played Santa after 2006 and went on to have the best season of his career in 2007. Turns out legitimately excellent players are immune from the curse.

I am a bit disappointed that the Mets didn’t go with my recommendation.