The Mets have asked Yoenis Cespedes to stop playing golf while hurt
Mets outfielder and avid golfer Yoenis Cespedes has been told to cut it out with all the golf, at least while he recovers from the quadriceps injury that put him on the disabled list this week.
Sandy Alderson, the team's general manager, apparently took issue with "the optics" of Cespedes playing golf during the afternoon before a game (something he does quite a bit) and then re-aggravating the lower-body injury that has been nagging him for the past month or so. Cespedes missed the All-Star Game because of the injury and has been working with occasional days off since.
The MLB Network's Kevin Millar uploaded a picture of himself with Cespedes after a round of golf on Wednesday afternoon, hours before Cespedes would leave a game in the ninth inning after the quad issue flared up. He was placed on the disabled list following that game.
He got me this am @ynscspds #BoyClub #Millar/Cespedes #Rematch ⛳️⛳️⛳️⛳️⛳️ pic.twitter.com/bI5epD1Job
— Kevin Millar (@KMillar15) August 3, 2016
Alderson addressed Cespedes golf habits on Thursday, and he didn't seem very happy at all.
“The golf is bad optics, let’s just start there,” said the Mets GM, according to a report from the Bergen Record. “Our doctors have told us that probably had no impact on the injury, positive or negative, but let’s face it, to play golf during the day and then go out injured in the evening, it’s a bad visual. I think he recognizes that at this point.”
So, despite recognizing that the outfielder's golf outing likely had no bearing on his injury status, Alderson said that it was a bad look and a poor personal decision on Cespedes' part. That led him to reach out to Cespedes' agent and request that the outfielder not play golf until he returns to full health.
Interestingly enough, Mets manager Terry Collins very much disagreed with Alderson's assessment of the situation.
“I don’t care about perception. I deal with reality. And reality is, he was OK to play,” Collins said. “Reality is, he came back after his last at-bat and said,’ my leg’s bothering me again.’ He got on base, ran the bases. It didn’t hurt him in the fourth, it didn’t hurt him in the sixth. It hurt him in the ninth. That’s reality. That’s what we have to deal with. We can’t worry about what happened in 12 in the afternoon.”
Alderson's comments are likely a reflection of the backlash Cespedes faced on social media following his placement on the disabled list, but angry fans will be angry fans and sometimes they need to be ignored. Alderson did acknowledge that, in retrospect, he probably should have placed Cespedes on the DL sooner than he did, but said that both the player and the team wanted to see if he could play through it.
He couldn't, and that's probably not golf's fault.
Now, Cespedes is in pretty much the worst situation possible. Not only can he not play baseball, but he also can't play golf ... at least not without violating the request of management and hurting his public perception.
