35 Years of Misery & Counting
This is a huge blow, but it helps that we had 6 starters on the roster already. With everything going on, who knows when the baseball will resume, but either way, we won’t be seeing Noah anytime soon.
The Mets are calling on a familiar face to help cope with their latest injury.
They’re calling up Ruben Tejada as Jeff McNeil is going on the 10-day injured list with a mild left hamstring strain, The Post’s Mike Puma confirmed. McNeil underwent an MRI Wednesday.
McNeil hurt his hamstring in Tuesday night’s 5-3 loss to the Braves while trying to beat out an infield hit in the ninth inning.
“It didn’t feel great, but I don’t think it’s terrible,” McNeil said after the game.
Tejada, 29, was signed by the Mets in March and hasn’t appeared in a major-league game since 2017 with the Orioles. He spent his first six MLB seasons with the Mets, who originally signed him in 2006. He’s most remembered for suffering a fractured leg from a Chase Utley slide during the 2015 NLDS. Tejada is hitting .330 in 71 games with Triple-A Syracuse.
Cespedes communicated to the team that, “He stepped in a hole and twisted his leg and foot into a difficult position,” Van Wagenen said. The rookie GM added it was his understanding that Cespedes didn’t fall off a horse.
While Van Wagenen wouldn’t say as much, the serious injury clearly means Cespedes will miss at least the duration of this season, with his availability for next year in question.
Van Wagenen made a point of noting that Cespedes suffered his injury from “non-baseball-related activity,” thereby leaving the team’s options open regarding an attempt to recoup some of Cespedes’ salary if it can prove the accident resulted from actions outlawed in the 33-year-old’s contract. Asked whether Cespedes’ activity might have compromised his right to be paid, Van Wagenen said, “We haven’t even thought about implications to the contract.”
Hey, with the help of Cespedes’ mighty bat, we got to a World Series in 2015 and a wild-card playoff game the following year. Since then Cespedes has barely played and the Mets coincidentally or not coincidentally have suffered greatly without him. And now with yet another setback that will presumably kill any chance he had of returning this season, I think it’s time for the Mets, if they can, to just close this chapter for good.
New York Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes says he thinks he will be able to return this season following surgery on both heels last summer, but he doesn’t know when he will be ready to play.
“I do feel like I will return. … It may be three months, it may be two months, it may be one month, but at this point, I do think I can return,” the 33-year-old slugger said Friday, speaking to reporters for the first time since camp opened. “When I do return, I plan on being 100 percent, like I was in 2015.
Cespedes was traded to the Mets at midseason in 2015 and helped power their drive to the NL championship. He hit 35 homers that season, with 105 RBIs and a .291 average.
But since signing a four-year, $110 million contract following the 2016 season, the two-time All-Star has appeared in just 119 games. He missed half the 2017 season with hamstring problems and played just 28 games last season before undergoing multiple surgeries on his heels to eliminate calcification and bone spurs.
As a Mets fan I want Cespedes back asap. But truth be told, the way long-term contracts like Cespedes’ have gone awry are a major reason why Bryce Harper and Manny Machado remain free agents.
As far as the Mets are concerned, the idea of seeing Yoenis Cespedes in their lineup this season should be listed under the category of a pleasant surprise. And while that had been the team’s prevailing attitude when Cespedes needed surgery on both heels to remove bone spurs, the status of the slugger’s lengthy rehab hasn’t done much to alter that opinion.
“If he gives us anything this year, that is great,” special advisor Omar Minaya said Wednesday during an interview with MLB Network Radio. “We’re happy for that.”
The Mets have resisted providing any timetable for Cespedes’ return, and with their spotty track record for such projections, it’s probably a wise strategy in this case. At the very least, the Mets should be able to recoup a sizable portion of Cespedes’ $29-million salary this season through insurance, as he has been on the disabled list since July 24 of last year.
Wow. Wasn’t the point of Cespedes ending his 2018 season early and getting surgery on both his heels so he could come back at the beginning of 2019? And now this news? Well, I’m sorry but there’s just no way you go into the new season with a starting outfield consisting of Nimmo, Conforto and an injury-prone Juan Lagares. And word has it that a very-injury-prone-of-late AJ Pollock is asking for way too much $$$ long-term. So how about spending a lot less on Nick Markakis, who btw is way more reliable than Pollock and is coming off an All-Star season?
This is just lame, especially considering how much the team has struggled during Cespedes absence. Your star player not talking also makes you sympathetic to the idea of why Cespedes has already been with 4 different teams in his career.
Considering all the emphasis and changes the Mets made to their medical staff this off-season, it’s funny that Sandy Alderson gets flustered when asked about the rash of injuries this year. To think, we’re just hitting June.
Regardless what the future still holds, injuries will always define Juan Lagares’ Mets career. Never has Lagares, the Mets’ Gold Glove center fielder, enjoyed a full, healthy big league season. This year, he did not come particularly close.
Lagares is expected to miss the rest of the season after tearing a ligament in the big toe of his left foot, the Mets announced Friday. The team placed him on the 10-day disabled list, reinstating reliever Jerry Blevins from paternity leave, with plans to send Lagares for surgery next week.
“It’s going to hurt us a little bit,” manager Mickey Callaway said. “We counted on Juan off the bench at times. He was probably in a situation where he was going to start playing a little more than he had, with some guys out. It’s going to hurt us.”
To think, I was going to write a post demanding that Lagares be named the starting CF and then comes this news…smh. It’s like we’re cursed sometimes. Time for Conforto and Nimmo to step it up. We don’t have any other choice.
An offseason focused on flexibility and injury prevention did not allow Yoenis Cespedes to avoid the disabled list. Following days of consideration, the Mets opted Wednesday to place Cespedes on the 10-day DL with a strained right hip flexor, retroactive to Monday. Cespedes will be eligible to return May 24.
Injuring his hip in a May 6 game, Cespedes initially played through the injury, going 5-for-15 with two walks and a home run in five games. On Tuesday, he underwent an MRI, which revealed the strain, but the Mets still did not place him on the DL at that time. Only after playing shorthanded in their 12-2 win over the Blue Jays did the team decide to make a move, calling up utilityman Phillip Evans from Triple-A Las Vegas.
“The information I have is that he can get this resolved with some rest,” Mets manager Mickey Callaway said of Cespedes. “He could have continued to gut it out, continued to play. We were hoping with the off-day and days like that, the progression would be there at some point, maybe this would go away while he was playing. … [We decided to] take a different route and make sure that we are cautious with him and get him back to being the Cespedes he can be soon.”
Honestly, this has gotten ridiculous. It’s the same quad issue that pops up every year with this guy. And the Mets have way too much invested in Cespedes to not take this extra seriously, much less wonder how often it’s going to keep happening. It’s been reported that Cespedes has given up golfing in his spare time during the season and even changed his workout regimen (even taking up yoga) to prevent these quad issues from arising. But clearly, that hasn’t worked. And when your team’s struggling and the same health issue keeps happening to your best player, it’s beyond frustrating to a Mets fan.
