David Peterson went on the injured listing Friday, which made it about an peculiar day as you will discover in Mets Land. If the 2021 Mets suffered accidents at a extra speedy charge than at the moment, they’d be a catastrophe episode of “Gray’s Anatomy.”
On the brilliant facet, a minimum of they didn’t should endure Main League Baseball putting a high-priced pitcher on administrative depart.
Sure, Friday’s Trevor Bauer information needed to depart the Mets relieved that the 2020 Nationwide League Cy Younger Award winner turned down their three-year, $105-million provide, barely greater than the $102-million bundle he in the end accepted from the Dodgers. Let’s hope that, along with aid, they felt remorse for ignoring all the crimson flags surrounding Bauer — crimson flags that made Friday’s improvement extremely disturbing and never very shocking — and aggressively pursuing him. They dodged fairly a bullet throughout a 12 months wherein they already had fired a common supervisor, Jared Porter, as a consequence of dangerous conduct towards ladies.
Bauer entered limbo, for now, as a consequence of allegations that he assaulted a lady at his Pasadena, Calif., residence throughout a pair of sexual encounters; the lady, beneath the penalty of perjury, requested and acquired a short lived restraining order towards Bauer. At worst, Bauer would seem to face jail time, and wanting that, a prolonged suspension from MLB beneath its domestic-violence protocols. At finest, even when the 30-year-old someway isn’t criminally liable and avoids additional MLB hassle, the state of affairs displays very poorly upon him and the Dodgers, who knew darn nicely of Bauer’s prior behavioral points.
Earlier than the Mets opened the Subway Sequence on Friday at Yankee Stadium, supervisor Luis Rojas mentioned the important thing to his membership staying afloat amid a blizzard of accidents: “I feel now we have a extremely good camaraderie within the clubhouse as an entire. We discuss concerning the gamers and the problem they’ll have trying round and seeing guys get harm, seeing new faces. Simply having these guys that present as much as soar on the mindset straight away. They’ve performed nice. … And it reveals how good of a household we’re.”
In mild of that camaraderie, I requested Rojas to explain his degree of aid that he needn’t fear about Bauer’s authorized points.
“You recognize what I’m completely satisfied for? That we signed Taijuan Walker. I’m actually excited for that,” Rojas stated. “He has the ball [Friday night]. And he’s been a type of guys that allow us … have that camaraderie. He’s simply an excellent particular person. From the primary time he set foot in our clubhouse, he made that impression. And that’s what I’m excited for. I can’t speak about what wasn’t performed or not having a participant.”
Good pivot by Rojas, and an correct one. The Mets signed Walker, a candidate to make the All-Star Recreation for the primary time in his profession, to a two-year, $20-million contract solely after they whiffed on Bauer. If Walker hasn’t fairly matched Bauer, who has pitched very nicely for the Dodgers, in on-field contributions, he has supplied zero public complications and appeared to combine very nicely along with his teammates, a top quality which the human twister Bauer very a lot lacks.
It will have been nowhere as simple for Rojas to dodge Bauer questions if he have been his supervisor, and that goes triple for Steve Cohen and Sandy Alderson, who led the pursuit of Bauer regardless of having simply dismissed Porter weeks earlier and being nicely conscious of Bauer’s unsettling historical past. The opposite Mets gamers, too, would’ve confronted questions on Bauer quite than having fun with celebrations of their toughness.
Not their drawback, fortunately for them. It must be a significant lesson, although, to heed apparent warnings and never depend on the previous noticed that excessive expertise can neutralize excessive issues.
