Keidel: Wright Doesn't Deserve To Symbolize Mets' Snakebitten Ways
By Jason Keidel
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Of the myriad maladies that have befallen the Mets over the last quarter-century, the latest drips with irony.
David Wright, the backbone of the Mets, has a bad spine. No one has gotten a full taste of the Mets' ineptitude, or rolled up and down the endless arcs over the last decade, the way the Mets' stalwart third baseman has.
Through all the agony and agonizingly close trips to the top, Wright has been the emblem and exemplar of what a baseball player should be in New York City. Wright is just as much metaphor as ball player, the bedrock under the mud that has coated the Mets.
Wright should get a symbolic Purple Heart for all he's been through, from Madoff to Molina, from Ollie Perez to Jason Bay. For every taste of success, Wright has been hurt or humbled tenfold by some organizational misstep. If Wright were on the Yankees all these years, playing next to Derek Jeter, for Joe Torre, or under George Steinbrenner, we'd see a statue of him bulging from some edifice.
When Wright and Jose Reyes landed on the diamond, we thought they ushered in a decade of dominance. But after Carlos Beltran watched Adam Wainwright's wicked curveball dip into the catcher's mitt, the mojo never returned. Reyes left without even finishing his final game, sitting out the final few at-bats to preserve his batting title and then board a plane for Miami.
It has taken many years, many mistakes, and many losses for the Mets to emerge from that dark cellar. And now that the Mets are somewhere between decent and dominant, Wright should have been the captain of the comeback. And maybe he still will be, just on a smaller scale.
Without Wright there is an epic power and production vacuum. Among healthy regulars, only Lucas Duda (.298) is batting over .280. For all the talk of his pyrotechnic spring, Curtis Granderson is batting .234, with more strikeouts (43) than hits (41).
Entering Sunday, the Mets were tied for 28th out of 30 MLB teams in batting average (.237), 24th in runs scored (188), and on-base percentage (.304). Losing Wright for any extended period will only nudge the offensive needle downward.
Another irony is that Wright plays the hot corner, a position that had been so historically cold for the Mets before his arrival.
According to The New York Times, Wright was the 129th man to assume the position for the Mets. His 1,505 games at third almost doubled the second-most seasoned third baseman, Howard Johnson (807 games).
As the Times points out, the position has always been a curious void in franchise history, which has been filled by a cocktail of characters and monoliths who made their names elsewhere, like Joe Torre, Don Zimmer, Dave Kingman, Bobby Valentine and even Gary Carter, who took two turns at third.
Of course, now that the men in Queens are trying to be kings of NYC for the first time in almost 30 years, the most prevalent and productive third baseman in team history finds he has spinal stenosis, a condition that leads football players to retirement and baseball players to detriment.
Like any athlete of any condition, ask five doctors and you'll get five opinions on Wright's narrowing spine. Will he be back in a week? A month? A year? And once he returns, whom will we get, the All-Star or fallen star?
All agree that the condition will not improve over the years, though the extent to which it will hamstring Wright is unclear. What is clear is the Mets owe him $87 million over he next five years. And, at 32, Wright only had a few peak years left, even under peak conditions.
If anyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, however, it's David Wright, who has been the face of the franchise for some time and has brought nothing but nobility to his bio and ball club. And if anyone deserved to ride this resurgence, it's Wright.
For once, this is no one's fault. You can blame the Gods, but not the Mets. This is the rather rare time when the player, team, and town are innocent. And while he's on the back nine of his baseball career, he's still a young man who can handle this and live a full life, even if he never sees the Fall Classic.
David Wright just got a bad break. You would just think that he'd paid enough dues by now.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel