On Thursday, Sandy Alderson addressed the media. As usual, the New York Mets are dealing with major injury concerns. Has Alderson and the Mets medical staff been too cautious in their approach?
No one said it was easy running an organization in New York. Having served as the New York Mets GM for the last eight seasons, Sandy Alderson has seen his share of unknown circumstances that can affect the results of a season.
One of those circumstances is player injuries. In the past few seasons, the Mets have dealt with an unusual amount of soft tissue injuries that bothered Alderson. In the offseason, the Mets did a complete overhaul of their medical staff to help understand why their players kept suffering from certain ailments.
Despite the overhaul and bringing in a sports performance team, led by former U.S. Army special forces supervisor Jim Cavallini, the injuries have continued this season. Yoenis Cespedes, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Juan Lagares, Jason Vargas, Kevin Plawecki, Travis d’Arnaud, Anthony Swarzak, Todd Frazier, Wilmer Flores and A.J. Ramos have all spent time on the DL this season—and we just reached June 1. Does someone have a voo-doo doll somewhere? Things have reached the point where manager Mickey Callaway has resorted to quoting “Dumb and Dumber”.
Addressing the media on Thursday, Alderson expressed his concerns about the injuries, but in his opinion, it has more to do with happenstance than anything else, while stating that being cautious might not always be the best approach. According to Abbey Mastracco of NorthJersey.com, Alderson told reporters:
“Honestly, sometimes I think we’re a little too cautious, frankly, with how we approach injuries,” Alderson said. “You sort of have to hit the sweet spot,” he said. “You’ve got to hit the sweet spot where you’re not too overly-cautious, but you’re prudent. So I think that’s something we need to focus a little more attention on.”
As far as the healthy players, Alderson thinks the Mets starters need to take the pressure of their bullpen by going longer into games.
When asked about Cespedes and how his progress is going, Alderson thinks they have found the culprit, which is a chronic, but manageable, hip flexor issue. Although there is no timetable for his return, Alderson said he is “close” to returning.
“There’s a risk that it can get tweaked,” Alderson said. “It’s something that he’ll have to live with.”
While fans can understand injuries happen, the real underlying issue is that the pool of players for the Mets to dip into to sustain such injuries is very thin.