The Mets wanted Carlos Beltran to get a third opinion? OK, here goes:
“Hey Carlos, your team needs starting pitching.”
Opinions are like Met injuries: There are plenty to go around. Today the Mets expressed, as blandly and nonlitigiously as possible (other than by just shutting up), the opinion that Carlos Beltran went behind their backs to fix his knee. That’s their opinion and they’re entitled to it. That knee is a big investment for them.
I don’t really know what the Mets were supposed to do once they couldn’t be ahead of the story from the start. Had they taken, as Mike Francesa lucidly suggested, the tack of “we don’t discuss our players’ injuries,” it would have fired up a PR storm that was already brewing. A PR storm is almost always brewing around the Mets. Twenty-four hours ago, the Mets’ PR waters seemed unusually calm. David Wright was sharing football insights with Francesa, and pitchers and catchers were creeping ever closer.
Now hobbled centerfielders and secret surgeons are reporting instead.
I also don’t know what reporters who cover the Mets are supposed to ask, but none of their questions elicited much in the way of revelations — bad for information junkies, good for the Mets not looking terrible, I suppose. I listened to the conference call with John Ricco, which boiled down to two essential exchanges:
“Can you tell us everything we want to know about your internal machinations?”
“No.”
And:
“Can you accurately forecast when an injured player will be fully recovered and playing baseball despite the horrendous track record attached to your usually wild and inaccurate guesses.”
“Twelve weeks.”
Other than that, the whole process has been characteristically enlightening.
The upshot I gather is Carlos Beltran has two knees and would like them both to function so he can perform at his job. He went to a really well-regarded doctor for an operation that apparently didn’t do him undue harm. He and his agent ignored his employer since the Mets’ default prescription for regular leechings and bleedings wasn’t making him feel any less pain. And now Angel Pagan will have to be directed to center field, which I’m guessing he’ll find nine of every ten times he lights out for it.
So…do the Mets still Believe in Comebacks?
That was my general consensus. Certain twitter feeds were reporting it like they were killing cats or something, but once the story got ahead of them, which in this case was actually the story, they couldn’t do much else but gather their info, and tell us about it.
Not saying anything would’ve just fueled rumors about termination, career-ending surgery, or whatnot.
If they hadn’t got their shorts in a twist and contacted the Commissioner’s office yesterday, it wouldn’t have become public. They could have issued a bland statement about the operation, but there was no reason they couldn’t have got their ducks in a row before letting out that they were exploring their legal options, and letting Boras go to town on them.
Seems we’re getting the story clearer.
According to Jon Heyman, the Mets own team doctor agreed with Beltran’s surgeon that the operation was necessary. The Mets might be angry at Boras for not telling them Carlos was going under the knife or not following certain protocals and not getting a third opinion.
Bottom line is that ownership has again proved how inept they are — if Beltran followed their advice it would mean his returning to the lineup even later. The only rationale would be that delaying surgery would hasten public knowledge of the impending surgery and squeeze out a few more season tickets. No doubt this is more important to the Wilpons than squeezing out a few more victories.
You know, thinking about this a little further, I’m not even sure the Mets were balking at the idea of surgery. Once the guy suggested it and Beltran basically said he wanted it, supposedly all they wanted to do was talk about it. It’s very possible they would’ve consented to that treatment and he’d have had the surgery today instead of yesterday.
But why would they want a third opinion? And what more was there to talk about?
And why wasn’t he going through more intensive workouts being he was healthy enough to play the last two weeks of the season? Gradually increasing his work regiment was why the pain only re-surfaced the past week or so.
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Are they planning to sign me?
They’re waiting on a fourth opinion…
[…] Jeff who would absorb the criticism when the organization would inevitably do strange things like call out Carlos Beltran for getting his knee fixed. Now it’s Jeff who’s more than ever the man in charge. Fred didn’t want the […]