Yoenis Cespedes Is Never A Boar
When it comes to Yoenis Cespedes, we have long since learned to never be surprised.
This is a man who put on a car show during the 2016 Spring Training. He’d give the keys to a clubhouse attendant one day to drive to the store because the clubhouse had the wrong waffle iron, and Cespedes wanted to make waffles.
We’d also see Cespedes purchase a farm, a $7,000 pig, and ride horses with Noah Syndergaard to Spring Training.
He’s as fun and eccentric a player the Mets have ever had. One day, he’s riding a horse to the ballpark, and the next, he’s hitting a homer against the Yankees despite needing double heel surgery.
That’s why, when he broke his ankle at his farm, you knew the story, if it ever broke was a doozy. Due to the exceptional reporting of Joel Sherman, Ken Davidoff, and Mike Puma of the New York Post, we have confirmation that it was even wilder than we ever anticipated:
According to multiple people who were informed of the incident, Cespedes has traps on his ranch for a variety of reasons, including to keep boars away from people. But one boar was removed from a trap — perhaps by Cespedes — and either charged toward Cespedes or startled him, causing Cespedes to step into a hole. Cespedes suffered the fractured ankle at a time when he was recovering from surgery to both heels that already was jeopardizing his playing status in 2019.
Yes, the same player who once opted music from the Lion King as his at-bat walk-up song potentially fought off a wild boar. At a minimum, he at least had to avoid them because that’s exactly what you expect to hear about a player rehabbing from double heel surgery.
Perhaps more remarkable than the story is the fact a Cespedes in two bum heels faced off in some fashion against a wild boar, and he lived to tell about it. Really, when you think about it, escaping with just a broken ankle is a near miracle.
For any other player, this would be a shocking story. Yet, with respect to Cespedes, it’s quite more bemusing. With this being the Mets, you absolutely have some to expect these things.
While we may not be entirely shocked Cespedes faced down a boar, we should also not be shocked when he hits a big homer in his return. After all, this is Cespedes, and he has never been boaring.
@Oldbackstop — Happy New Year, friend! Can you remind me which comment that was? (Fwiw, the only reason I haven’t signed up for bill’s site and had largely stayed off sites like BaseballThinkFactory and fangraphs some years back is a largely vain attempt at self-discipline and limiting the time I spend thinking about baseball.)
As an aside I was just thinking about the Donaldson rumors, that he’s now asking for 4/110m, and my conviction that the Mets as constructed needed to add front line talent–at least two terrific players–to get into contention.
Donaldson’s too expensive for the Mets, I suspect, even if they had yet to spend a dime this offseason, but playing GM I think I would have gone for Cole Hamels at 1/18m and Will Smith at 3/40m. I might even have forgone Smith and gambled instead on a return to career norms by Diaz and Familia (since you have to roll the dice somewhere with an 86 win team), and added someone like Moustakas, seeking to add a 3 win player and creating a surplus in the OF by moving McNeil there, letting me in theory deal JD and Dom for a cheap reliever. Fwiw I did think the Marisnick deal was… okay. The Mets needed a good backup CFer, though I would have preferred just a comparable FA who didn’t require minor league talent in trade.
—If you were starting from scratch and based on the prices we’ve seen, what is / was your 2019-20 offseason plan to get the Mets to the postseason?