People on Mets Twitter are annoyed about Daniel Vogelbach being on the club and taking regular at-bats away from Mark Vientos. But at least New York isn’t still employing Darin Ruf, right?
While that’s all good and well, they’re trying to pay for his salary by selling his team-issued jersey at Citi Field. For $250. Yes, I’m serious — stop laughing. Here’s the proof:
$250…. pic.twitter.com/Z4r9F0X4fi
— MetsFanMania (@MetsFanMania) June 3, 2023
Who would even want this thing? Someone has a brilliant idea:
Someone needs to buy this for @NjTank99
— Ben Yoel (@Ben_Yoel) June 3, 2023
Yes. I 100% agree with this. Frank Fleming of Barstool Sports would absolutely love it, don’t you think?
I hate this team
— Frank Fleming (@NjTank99) June 3, 2023
The Mets are in good hands with Steve and Alex Cohen. They’re fans just like the rest of us. Saturday’s Mets Hall of Fame ceremony was another example of how they’re trying to honor franchise history more than the Wilpons ever did.
But I think this is one part of franchise history they don’t need to remind us about.
After coming over to the Mets at the trade deadline last summer, Ruf appeared in 29 games and piled up 74 plate appearances. He struggled to a .152/.216/.197 line with no home runs, seven RBI, and six runs scored. Despite that limited playing time, Ruf still managed to produce a 24 wRC+ and -0.9 fWAR.
New York hoped Ruf could bounce back in spring training, but it didn’t happen. While manager Buck Showalter told us he had a good spring (on the backfields), the Mets cut him loose in favor of Tim Locastro.
Thankfully, we don’t have to watch Buck pencil him into the lineup any longer. But, his legend lives on in the team store. It’ll probably continue until they put that jersey away, too. I can’t imagine any Mets fan would spend money on his jersey.
And definitely not $250.
You can reach Matt Musico at matt.musico@xlmedia.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
