In case you missed it…
Last night, the Mets announced that Carlos Beltran will need eight to 12 weeks to rehab from knee surgery he elected to have yesterday in Colorado.
To follow how the story developed, click here.
Joel Sherman of the New York Post says the Mets have contacted the Commissioners Office and the Players Association to say this was done without clearance.
According to Sherman, the Mets are threatening to take some form of action.
WFAN, as well as other media outlets, say the Mets will hold a conference call with reporters later today, during which they are expected to provide further details.
Updated at 9:00 am:
Jon Heyman of SI.com was a guest on WFAN this morning, and said he has not heard from a credible source that Beltran had microfracture surgery. Instead, Heyman believes the surgery is exactly as the team described.
According to Heyman, Beltran was feeling fine through much of the winter, but started feeling pain in his knee as he stepped up his workouts, at which point he got checked out by team doctors who determined he did not need surgery. However, Beltran’s personal doctors disagreed.
Heyman said he is not sure if the Mets were aware of the surgery, but, in either case, they did not approve of him having the procedure He believes the Mets were made aware of the surgery either at the ‘11th hour,’ or, possibly, during the procedure.
According to Heyman, though the Mets have talked with people about their options, he is certain there is no way the they can void his contract.
To listen to Heyman’s entire interview, go to WFAN.com.
This is not good. “Legal action” means they are looking to get out of his contract.
… and looking to get out of the contract means 12 weeks is a tub of crap.
I hope the Mets aren’t incompetent to try to get out of the Beltran contract. That option is a lose-lose for them. First off, the Mets need to come out and play the PR game. Most of baseball thinks the Mets Medical staff is incompetent and, getting out of a contract with a player because his doctor advised him to have his knee scoped is a political nightmare.
Let’s say the Mets are able to release Beltran. If they can’t get Crawford now, if not sooner, then, good luck selling any more season tickets. It will negate all the gains they made, or may make, this off season.
Now, let’s say they try to release Beltran and fail OR they just fine him. Now you have a disgruntled star centerfielder on your team that you can’t trade and ur stuck with for 2 more years.
Let’s kill the drama and negativity. If we lost Beltran for 12 weeks to FINALLY have his knee repaired than, so be it. He hurt it giving his all for our team so, the least we can do is not act like spoiled children because Pagan has to play in April.
What I said is that if they are looking to get out of the contract the injury is much worse. It’s a conditional statement. Further I believe Pagan can fill in more than adequately for a month or two. He produces offensively, just differently. And the defense we wouldn’t be hit hard either.
I think they need to upgrade at 1B; but I’ve been saying that for months.
I’d agree, this definetly increases the chances Delgado is a Met provided he doesn’t need a hoveround out there. Not particularly happy about it, but what choice do they have at this point.
I agree on 1B… My comments were directed more at the general Mets fan and management hysteria and not directly at your comments.
ok
While most of baseball might be continuing to have a laugh at the Mets medical staff, the doctor who performed this procedure yesterday is the same one who saw Beltran last summer, told him all he needed to was rest and then cleared him to go play meaningless baseball games in September.
Hmm, this Dr. who everyone says is the absolute best at what he does misdiagnosed Beltran waited too long and then put him under the knife. So maybe it is not the Mets medical staff, maybe, just maybe these players don’t know jack about how to communicate their own ailments.
What about just looking to save some money for the time he is out, is this possible?
that is one and the more pressure they put the less likely anybody wants to sign here.. I like Carlos but this should of been done during his DL stint last year. Some people will blame the Mets training staff . This is not the Mets fault why because a athlete has played so long he takes alot of poundage on his knees so this is not something that happen because of last year it was something on going. i wonder if this is covered under insurance policys that the team takes out on certain high profile players like Carlos with Lords of London. any who the Mets are between a rock and hard place not too many CFs are in free agency and even if they are not of Carlos’s abilty when healthy.
If they get out of his contract I guarantee you they’ll go after Carl Crawford, who will be a FA after this season.
But the Yankees will be going after Crawford as well, and let’s be serious, which team do you think Crawford is going to lean towards?
Doesn’t matter if Crawford wants to play in Japan, The Rays would be making the trade, and he does not have a full no trade clause. That said, I doubt they do anything at all with CF, atleast in the short term. The got 2 guys who can more than handle the position, defensively, probably better than anyone available not named Carl Crawford. I would think it would make more sense to upgrade 1st or / and 2nd base. Could this be the final straw that gets Castillo Released?
If not Lords of London, maybe Lloyds of Flatbush will handle it.
And you’re right that this should have been handled earlier in 2009
“Lords of London”?
Oh, my…
When is our team going to become a real team and not be a soap opera in every form. I’m growing tired. Everything is an issue in some way shape and form. I was actually starting to feel good about going into the season in spite of not having another pitcher yet (and Pineiro is close to signing with the Dodgers). Now we’re going to have the dramatics of this entire issue unfold and continue to make our team look like an embarrasement. This issue has absolutely no good side to it at all. If Beltran comes back there is going to be an issue with his health and his attitude because he did it without consent from the team. If he doesn’t come back then although the Mets have more payroll flexibility then we lose a hard hitting Homerun CFer. Name another CF that produces that much power!!! This whole issues sickens me.
I am sick and tired of the Mets management. This guy was out a good part of the year with this injury and then came back and played with it. The Mets have been reticent to have surgeries on their players. Just look how long it took Reyes to get his surgery. Obviously Beltran felt he needed the surgery and the Mets felt he didn’t. He missed a lot of games last year and the problem is still there. The Mets were going to have to go without him some time this year unless they fixed this.
Beltran did the right thing. Who the hell is giving the Mets medical advice? They need to be fired right now and hopefully this blows up so much that they will.
The right thing would have been for him to get their thumbs up on the surgery before he went through with it. Fans would still be upset if he had the surgery after the Mets gave him the OK, but we wouldn’t be talking about voiding his contract.
Exactly, he should not have left it up to his agent, everyone knows that Boras is all about the money, Beltran is a big boy who can speak for himself and talk to the Mets doctors, get rid of the softie liar.
I agree. It kills me to say it, but at this point it almost seems like best case scenario is that they find a way to get out of his contract, get the money back, and send a message that this is a business and if you’re not going to respect your employer you can leave.
That’s simply nuts. No one will come here if they play it that way. They have a reputation now of screwing up their players’ health and now you want to take the most productive player the Mets have had the last five years and sacrifice him to prove a point. Idiocy.
Ridiculous, time and time again it is proven if you pay the price the playe will come.
Nov 2004 – Pedro will never be a Met, he did not want the Mets, the Mets paid the most, here he is.
Jan 2005 – Beltran will never be a Met, he did not want the Mets, the Mets paid the most, here he is.
Jan 2008 – Santana will never be a Met, he did not want the Mets, the Mets paid the most, here he is.
Jan 2010 – Bay will never be a Met, he did not want the Mets, the Mets paid the most, here he is.
“softie liar”?! Wow, some of these comments are way over the top; get a grip folks. There is no trust of the mets when it comes to their players’ health. If Beltran listened to his doctor to do this, how can any of us criticize that? Don’t we all listen our doctors? And the mets have no credibility with players and their health issues. I’d rather have Beltran fully healthy than have him wait out an injury as they had Reyes wait out his. And using the term “softie liar” shows no class and shows no respect for a player who’s been great for us.
If my employer was paying me $17 million to be in the best shape I can be and my knee hurt and they said “We understand surgery is one option, but for the time being we prefer you to continue rehabbing your knee” I would do what they said. But that’s just me.
yea, me too!
If your employer had no credibility and you watched many of your fellow employees get bad advice and lose a lot of work time and one of the best doctors in the land is telling you this is necessary, then what? No one can say anything about Beltran’s credibility. He’s played through pain time and again. If the mets alienate Beltran and the entire MLB players association by trying to invalidate his contract as you want then we wouldn’t be able to attract anyone to play here. Play hard ball with one of your top players is a recipe for disaster. I only worry about the lack of communication.
Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me no class??????, i do have respect for Beltran but he is not credible for showing heart to doing what is best for the team. Really pissing me off with your comment, but whatever, sticks and stones.
Who’s going to play CF Pagan/F Mart?
Would have to think so, which delays/kills any trades if they were to be used for a pitcher, or any position for that matter, in the next coming weeks.
Probably not, the Mets likely wouldn’t have traded both of those guys(F-mart, Pagan) anyway as they knew the condition of Belttans knees even going back to last season. I don’t know that the would kill a legit trade to bring in pitching just because Beltran might miss a couple of months. BTW for those who have mentioned it, there is no way in the world the Mets could, nor would they want too void Beltran’s contract. Any legal action is likely centered around recouping dollars from Beltran’s contract, not voiding it, which really shouldn’t be too much of an issue because I’m pretty sure his contract was insured when it was signed.
“because I’m pretty sure his contract was insured when it was signed.”
Ummm…this is the Mets we are talking about….
…ya sure of that?
Let’s just say I’m not 100% sure, but 99% sure it was reported that the contract would be insured when it was signed way back when. Most teams do that with major long term deals that are worth a ton of money. Johan Santana’s deal is insured as well.
I think it was. He was 28 when he signed if I remember right which typically at that age there is no problem getting the contract insured.
>>> Last night, the Mets announced that Carlos Beltran will need eight to 12 weeks to rehab from knee surgery he elected to have yesterday in Colorado.
Saying that he needs 8-12 weeks to rehab seems to imply that he’ll be back at the end of that time. Reports that I read say he cannot begin baseball activities for 12 weeks which means he’ll need another 4-6 weeks (maybe more) to get back into shape.
Of course, that’s assuming no set backs, and the microfracture surgery takes and all that.
IMO, there’s a high chance he misses most if not the whole season.
He didn’t have microfracture surgery he had his knee scoped and cleaned. As for the time frame, its going to take atleast a day or two to get all the facts so, anyone that comes up with an estimate is pulling it out of their butts. At one point, SNY had a video graphic that said “8-12 weeks” while the rolling scroll said “atleast 12 weeks” and the announcer was talking 4 months. Vague terms like “begin baseball activities” is used by the media when they are cluless but wanna sound like they know something.
No good ever came from worrying so, let’s just see what happens from here.
Jon Heyman said on the air that he believes it was more than just microfracture surgery. I hear what you’re saying about waiting to get all the facts, but I’d be surprised it was just scoped and cleaned.
If it was MORE than microfracture, then they probably amputated his knee. I think you meant less. And, you would think if it was just a clean and scope as they are saying, he should be ready to go in a matter of weeks. This thing is (well, of course it is) confusing because the Mets are involved.
It has be a serious procedure. Why else would the Mets be angered at a minor procedure that they were aware of. The crux of this topic is that Beltran opted to do this on his own, which leads me to believe it was a more aggressive surgery than the Mets Doctors had hoped for.
Still, we will have to just wait it out though to see the true facts.
Sadly, either way, this doesn’t look good.
I don’t know what a scope and cleaning entails. It might be more than a minor thing.
I think the Mets are mad because,
A) he did it without their ok
B) the news comes out that he will miss Opening Day at a time when they are struggling to sell tickets
In any case, its all conjecture until we see Beltran back on the field again.
It is also Heyman we are talking about here. The coin happened to land on heads so that means report the world is coming apart. It sounds from later reports as a scope and clean out so we are talking about mid April or so.
From cnnSI.com:
“The doctor said eight weeks, possibly, and a window to 12 weeks to resume baseball activities. With elite athletes, the timetable is sometimes shorter than the original prognosis,” Boras said.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/baseball/mlb/01/14/mets.beltran.ap/index.html?eref=sihp
>>> He didn’t have microfracture surgery he had his knee scoped and cleaned.
Has this been confirmed? Everything I’ve read has been conflicting in this aspect.
My thought is that if it was just scoped and cleaned, shouldn’t that be a faster recovery than 12 weeks? I would think 4-6 weeks for something like that, which makes me think it was more serious than that.
well, from my understanding, a microfracture surgery takes much longer than 12 weeks to recover from. In any case, calm and patience is the best medicine for us.
>> Who’s going to play CF Pagan/F Mart?
F-Mart isn’t ready. He’s needs at least a full year in the minors, and most of all, he needs to stay healthy.
Quite likely, we’ll see the human baserunning blunder, Pagan out there.
Interesting news. If I am Beltran I would do the same thing. He has made enough money and probably figures why should he linger on and keep hurting. He probably said the hell with the Mets because their medical staff stinks and this is my health he is talking about. I cannot blame him. The flipside is if I am the Mets I have every right to get his contract voided or prorated for doing this on his own. If Beltran can prove the medical staff is wrong this will be like a cut that will not stop bleeding. I think the Mets should of replaced the medical staff after last year anyway. This can make it real tough to sign anyone from here on out. This really dampens my outlook on willingness to go out to the games. I will still be a fan and watch the games and follow what is going on I am not going to go and pay that kind of money to see what I saw for alot of the time last year. Fix this situation Wilpons and do it swiftly. I think that may be asking more than possible, sounds good though.
Great, except the Dr. who operated on his knee yesterday, was the same one who prescribed rest last summer and then cleared him to play baseball in September when he was admittedly NOT 100%.
If people want to get on the Mets for anything here, it is that they did not say no way, stay home and rest the knee, season is over.
Before everyone goes crazy bashing the Mets, lets keep in mind that it was Beltran who decided to have the surgery and when to have it. And, quite frankly, its his body and his right. Should he have the Mets in the loop? Of course. Did he? Who knows? Is this just a case of two sides not agreeing? We’ll have to see. Is the Mets team doctor the only quality surgeon in the world? Of course not.
Of course, the real issue, is how long will he really be out and how can the Mets compensate for a $20M player that may not give them much, if any production in 2010? Hope they have insurance.
Let’s avoid the NYPOST mentality of bashing anything the Mets do.
My guess would be that if he misses the year they can recoup through an insurance policy. If it really is just a couple weeks of the season not a big deal. I tend to go with the 8 to 12 weeks as it is more than likely coming from the doctor who did the procedure and he happens to be the Dr. Andrews of knees.
I don’t blame Beltran in the least for going outside the Mets supervision, just in his timing. The performance of this team’s medical staff has been abysmal. They have given players bad advice, misinformation and mis or under diagnosed them and have appeared as incompetent much of the time. Anyone that has been faced with pain and possible surgery wants to be assured that they will receive the best available care. It was obvious that the organization was not and does not provide it. What’s most obvious is that the doctor’s are more concerned with getting bodies back on the field as quickly as possible.
But, why didn’t Beltran do this in October? If he truly wanted to be ready for the season and understood that the recovery period would be this lengthy, why didn’t Boras encourage him to have this done as soon as the season ended? There are no heroes in this situation.
thats my problem too. the timing. But the way the report reads its like he hoped to heal it with rest and it may have even felt good in light workouts. But as ST inches closer, his regimin probably increased and he started feeling something. Either way though, I wish he did this 2-3 months ago.
Questions. Can Carlos play center anymore? Are the Mets talking about voiding the contract? (I mean, we’re not talking about a fine so it must be voiding his contract.) Are the Mets really in a position to void the contract, or just let Carlos come back and play. Sounds to me like it would be a long legal fight.
It’s going to be a mess one way or another. If they’re taking action, they’ll try to get at least SOME sort of compensation, meaning he’s going to be upset. I don’t see this going away anytime soon.
There is no “winner” in this picture at all.
Beltran is still hurt.
Beltran will be out for an unknown period of time at this point
Mets look bad by not knowing
Mets look bad by threatening some kind of action against a player
Team looks bad, loses big bat and a big glove up the middle
Players, media distrust team doctors
Players, media, FANS distrust the leadership
Everyone involved loses.
Oh…
and if Beltran states the Mets in fact WERE in the loop all winter on his progress, then the team looks even sillier…considering the statements they were reported to have made yesterday (not knowing, contacting Players Association, the Commissioners Office).
Stay tuned. This could be the “Joe Pisarcik” moment for the team.
Can Pisarcik go back on a ball?
Apparently not. And neither could Larry Csonka at that stage of his career.
But there IS good news:
1. The Giants cleaned house, from top to bottom after that.
2. I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico.
1) It put Herm Edwards on the map, for better or for worse.
2) We prefer the deep-voiced guy from The Unit’s company – we don’t trust limey lizards with our cars.
P.s…You might like this:
http://themattstv.com/videos.html?videoNum=28
Let’s no overreact and create something out of nothing.
All it sounds like is the Mets and Beltran disagreed about whether he needed surgery or not. After last year, Beltran chose the safe route, i.e. Have surgery now so he’s back by May, versus the risky way of possiblity recovering, or possibly needing the surgery anyway and not having it until March and being out until July. We can live without Beltran for a couple of weeks. The Mets knew, and knew what he was considering, it just sounds like he went ahead and did it without commiting his decision to the Mets, even though they knew he was leaning that way.
The Mets are _not_ going to try to get out of his contract. He’s still the best CF in baseball, it’s still minor surgery, and there is no reason to expect he won’t be back. (and why would the Mets know if he wasn’t?) If they contacted
Ummm, I really don’t think this is a “get out of the contract” event. But it cam be a pretty important moment depending on how the management handles the entire episode.
It’s going to be hard to put a positive spin on this, for the entire franchise.
We do not know if this was minor surgery or not. Not enough information at the moment.
Everything reported says minor surgery. Scoped, cleaned, etc. Not microfracture.
If its’ just a disagreement over treatment..well, it’s not really that big a deal.
Actually it is a big deal, this same Dr. whom many people are clapping like seals at is the Dr. who told Beltran to rest and then cleared him to play at less than 100% last Sept.
Even if the surgery is minor, after all the raking over the coals the Mets have had regarding medical staff, I’d be pissed that this expert third party effed up.
Oh, boy… Steadman is a leading knee doctor, so at least that’s good news. But after having 4 arthroscopic knee surgeries ourselves, 8-12 weeks sounds fishy.
“Hey, Carlos… Did you have the microfracture surgery that was bandied about last year, you sly dog?”
That could be the reason for the legalities…
Moving on – Lee Mazzilli still looks fit – maybe he can hold the fort with his patented bread-basket catches… Or how about Lance Johnson? Juan Samuel??? STOP THE RIDE, we want to get off…
Don’t forget that Heyman is the mouthpiece for Scott Boras… Of course, he’s going to say that everything is fine…
Here we go again!!! The season has not even started yet, and, we allready have a key player on the DL. 2010 is looking real good…NOT !! This is just the best ever, I just don’t understand whay the baseball gods hate us so much.
Bottom line…
Everyone looks bad here no matter what happens
Beltran has surgery and doesn’t inform the team: Beltran and Boras look bad.
The Mets know he needs this type of surgery and say “No”: Mets look bad.
Pagan starts in CF: He’ll hit and field but his base running will look like a giraffe trying to stop on a dime.
Any way you slice this it’s not good.
Thanks for the echo.
Same ol’ Mets….
If you had told me 2 days ago that Cerrone would be making a post titled “News: Mets, Beltran, Surgery and Legal Action” I may have cried.
I think a lot depends on how long the team thinks he will actually be out of the lineup before they decide how to fill CF.
No one they bring in will match the production of a Beltran, but I do not believe that they can go into the season with what they have right now.
Pagan can start, but then we need to find a fourth OF.
The FA market is thin in terms of CF. Randy Winn can come in and back up all three spots. Rick Ankiel can start in center, but he is not worth overpaying to get.
What about David Dejesus from KC. More of a LF at this point, but can play CF, especially in our potentially desperate state.
I am just not convinced that Fernando Martinez is ready to start full time in our lineup.
Yeah, we are in trouble here. I’ve been as big a Beltran supporter is there is on this site. But man…. this one is hard to figure. I understand he didn’t start feeling the pain until he stepped up his workouts, but why did he wait this long to do that? Knowing that he had an injury-plagued 2009, wouldn’t you make some changes in the early part of the offseason (if you cared , anyway… which I really hope I’m not too naieve to think they do), and find out that you’re still not right sooner?? I really hate to say it, but maybe the Mets would be better off getting out from under the contract of one of my all time favorite Mets.
“but maybe the Mets would be better off getting out from under the contract of one of my all time favorite Mets.”
^^ I just do not see that happening.
This guy started complaining of knee issues at the end of 2006. In fact, he missed the first few weeks of 2007 with a knee problem.
My guess is he has been playing on bothersome knees since 2006.
We replied to you above… Scroll up.
I couldn’t predict what will happen, but it is probably far more likely that nothing happens. But I do think this will have an effect on whether they explore an extension. This is exactly why Beltran has been so valuable, you just CANNOT find a CF who can hit like he can, and play GG defense. Even as great as Carlos is, his body has broken down.
I’d say the next step is forget about Crawford, and get ready to back the truck up for Kemp.
I blame the Mets 100% here, not Beltran. If your team mis-diagnosed your knee injury, resulting in a MUCH more severe injury, would you trust their diagnosis again? I know I wouldn’t.
I have a feeling that this is a last-ditch effort to clean up his troubled knee. If it doesn’t work, we’ll be learning a lot about microfracture surgery come June or July.
All the reports so far is that it wasn’t microfracture surgery but arthroscope cleaning of the knee. How long he will be out depends on who doing the talking. John Heyman said hell miss the month of april ed coleman last night said 3 to 4 months.
Hard to blame 100% of anything on anyone when you don’t know 100% of the facts. It’s all speculation and here say right now.
Yeah, that’s the real issue here, is whether or not this will make him healthy or is just temporary. I’d hate for him to come back, help the Mets into the playoffs and then haev to have the surgery in Sept.
You never know though. look at A-Rod last year, had surgery, was generally reported that it was a ‘temporary’ fix and he’d probably need to have a more intensive surgery, but he stayed healthy and whatnot.
I am of thje camp that we should not make claims about the Mets medical staff without something to back it. I know, there were tons of injuries which raises the question were they missing something but as far as I know there are no credible reports that the medical team in Queens has been negligent. Did you see something?
Wow, I am lost for words on this one. Not good that’s all I can think of. Not even the fact that he had surgery and might miss up to a month of the season. But again, Mets look like a Mickey Mouse organization again. Even if this is not on the Mets and all on Beltran and Boras, if there is one thing the Mets did not need this offseason it was bad press and a story like this.
In the last few weeks people have started to become more positive about the Mets. Bay signing, Molina on the way. Some sort of pitching help on the way. But this story takes that all away and once again the focus is not on baseball but some negative story that once again make the Mets look like a second rate Mickey Mouse Organization. You don’t see this with any other team in baseball, just the Mets. SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THAT!!!!
I have a feeling anyone who was on the fence about buying a ticket plan made up their mind pretty quickly this morning.
Just another day in Met land.
Scott Boras has a hand in this and he only cares about one thing Breltrans next contract and his big fat commision. I hate that F####ing guy.
Wow, this was not what I had been expecting with my morning coffee today.
I’m glad I was unable to get to a PC between last evening and just now, because this story unfolded in an ugly manner.
I’m hearing a lot of accusations from posters in the posts, which quite honestly sounds silly considering we don’t really know what the real story is yet. We’ve already heard very conflicting stories from various outlets.
We know that the Mets are all about P.R. spin … so we have to take what they say with a grain of salt. We also know that it’s possible that Carlos Beltran has something to hide. It was a bit fishy the way this went down, so I wouldn’t rule out something like he actually hurt something off the field (regardless of whether it was playing basketball with friends, or hitting in a cage). Maybe Beltran was trying to hide that he hurt it doing something he should not have been, and just jumped in for the surgery quickly before people could analyze it or anything.
The whole point is that this is all just speculation. It could be anything from just a good scoping of the knee, to a very serious season-threatening injury.
No matter what, it’s terrible news. The Mets are lucky to have a decent backup option in Pagan, but Pagan is no lock to do as well in 2010 as he did in 2009. This also could be the right time for Fernando to step up and man CF … although an OF with Bay and one of Pagan/Martinez does not inspire the confidence that one anchored by Beltran does.
If nothing else, the lesson learned here is how important it is to hang on to your prospects and chips. Imagine we had traded Fernando and Pagan in some deal for a pitcher, where would be we be now?
If he is going to be out 3-4 months we need to bring someone in. If he will be back in May we can survive. But the strain on the relationship between Beltran and the Mets is huge !
You know what really scares me is that we all left the 2007 season in a daze because of the 7 with 17 left to play collaspe, but shook it off saying that well this cannot possibly happen again. Then in 2008 it happens again. Then the nightmare of last season comes and the season couldn’t end sooner. Now we walk around saying well they can’t be as hurt as they were last year….looks like we could have another injury filled year yet again!!!! This time I blame management and the obviously horrible medical staff . Gauranteed that the Mets management told the team doctors to waive the possibility of surgery so they could not lose season ticket sales. A disgrace. As far as who’s playing CF while Carlos is out…I like Pagan, but feel like they should probably try and get a guy by the name of Endy Chavez to come in.
Well, if Beltran is going to be for an extended period of time, you do need a fourth outfielder. But, Endy is coming off serious surgery himself…I’d love to have him back if he’s healthy, though.
I hate to say it but I agree that he was better off telling the Mets med staff to flush off and do what his docs and agent were telling him to do and get the surgery now so worst case he misses 2-4 weeks of the season or way case scenario he misses a week of the season. What did the Mets want him to do wait four weeks then he starts feeling more pain and now is out until
July. I’m glad he is getting ready now.
Okay, so assuming he’s out for a while. Can Reyes hit in the three hole? Pagan leads off with Castillo to follow. Then Reyes, Wright and Bay followed by Franceour, Murphy and Molina?
But, expected back in May…
Wright is this guy to bat third bat Castillo 8th Pagan 2nd Bay 4th
My thought was to bolster the middle of the lineup. With Reyes and Castillo setting the table and Wright, Bay, and Franceour to follow it might be a touch weak. But, Pagan and Castillo setting the table and Reyes, Wright and Bay coming up, I can see more runs crossing the plate.
Of course, this is a temporary plan hoping Beltran is back in June or so. If he is going to miss more action, the team has to make some moves.
Just read the article in the daily news it was really depressing.
What about Scott Hairston as a stop-gap in center? What can we give the A’s? He has also played 2B in his career. Can he also be a utility guy if Beltran comes back?
Why not sign Rick Ankiel or Chavez to add outfield depth
We all have to wait to see if it was a simple scope and “clean out” of bad cartilage ORRRR microfracture surgery. If it was the former, he could miss the first month or so of the season. If it is the latter, it would be more, perhaps a lot more.
If it is the scope, let’s not forget that the Dodgers missed Manny for 50 games, the Skankees lost A-rod for a month last year.
Patience. Patience. Patience. Let’s wait and see what kind of surgery.
As far as the legal issue, we also have to wait.
The Beltran affair reminds one of the way the FO handled Reyes, Church, Santana and Perez last season. One more instance of a bush-league organization disregarding the health of its athletes for the sake of ticket sales..
Maybe this will encourage the Mets to dump Limpy now and bring in Hudson so we at least have a little more pop in the lineup top to bottom? or Laroche?