NO MORE HORSIN’ AROUND

Cespedes says $110M deal helps keep him centered entering Met camp:

PORT ST. LUCIE — In convincing the Mets to commit $110 million to him, Yoenis Cespedes didn’t suddenly win the Mets over with his dedication to all things team, no matter how much they profess their love to him these days.

No, he won them over because the Mets came to realize he was made for the New York spotlight, and had a flair for delivering on the big stage that overrides any concern about whether mega-money will affect his day-to-day effort.

For that matter, it may have taken Jay Bruce’s struggles as a Met last season for the Sandy Alderson regime to realize that not every player can do what Cespedes has done, actually raise his game in New York.

But mostly it was La Potencia, as he is called, sparking a playoff run for a second straight year, after coming back from injury last August, that convinced them once and for all they couldn’t live with out him.

As GM Sandy Alderson said after the Mets signed him, “When he’s in the lineup we win a lot more than we lose. At some point you can’t ignore that fact.”

So what is it about Cespedes that makes him made for New York? Hitting coach Kevin Long says in big-moment settings the slugger reminds him of Derek Jeter, whom he coached with the Yankees.

“He loves being up there in the big spot, the way Jeter did,’’ Long said on Saturday. “He wants the pressure on him. He loves being in New York. It reminds me of Jeter in a lot of ways.

“The key for Jeter was how relaxed he was in big situations because he had so much confidence in himself, and that’s what Ces is. He knows how good he is.’’

The comparison clearly works in one sense, for Cespedes does exude that Jeterlike confidence, though he is more capable of carrying a team for stretches with his power than was Jeter.

However, while Jeter became known for his many clutch hits in October, Cespedes came up empty in the World Series in 2015 and again in the wild-card game against the Madison Bumgarner and the Giants last season.

Long is convinced that had more to do with the flaw in Cespedes’ offensive game, his tendency to chase the high fastball, that the Cuban star made strides to fix last season.

In fact, he was a much more disciplined hitter in 2016, lowering his strikeouts while raising his walk total, putting up an .886 OPS that was the best in his five years in the big leagues.

In addition, he seemed to improve significantly as a situational hitter as well, taking sliders away to right field for singles in RBI situations rather than trying to pull everything.

None of that helped him against Bumgarner, who struck him out twice in the wildcard game with high fastballs out of the strike zone, but the Giants’ lefty has a way of doing that to the best of hitters.

“Bumgarner is tough,’’ Long said. “But for the most part I was amazed to see the progression of Yoenis Cespedes.

“People may not realize it, but his hitting IQ is off the charts. So he worked at it. He understood that if he swung at better pitches, his OPS would go up, and he’d still get his home runs.

“What he did was take the information we gave him and say, ok, this is where pitchers are going against me. And for the most part, he stopped swinging at those high fastballs.

“When you see him work in the cage you really appreciate how good he is. Everybody around here sees it. Lucas Duas was watching Ces in the cage the other day and he says, ‘the guy is at a whole different level than the rest of us.’ “

With all of this in mind, Long says he expects Cespedes to continue growing as a hitter, and believes the security of his new, four-year contract will make him feel even more at home as a Met.

Of course, the flip side is the possibility that Cespedes will go through the motions at times, a concern the Mets’ decision-makers voiced privately after the 2015 season, which led to the one-year opt-out in 2016.

Though such whispers have disappeared as the Mets bought in on Cespedes for the next four years, it’s not as if the concerns have changed. It’s more like the Mets are willing to overlook the occasional diva-like behavior for the production they need. ven Long, who can’t praise Cespedes enough, admitted, “You see days where Ces doesn’t seem to be all there. I see it more on the field than his cage work. He’s the first one in the cage and he’s very, very diligent in his work.

“I’ll tell you this: he wants to be in there every day because he knows he’s the guy and he wants to be the guy, and he makes everybody around him better.’’

Bottom line, the Mets became convinced they need Cespedes to win a championship. They’ll live with the occasional misstep along the way, while hoping that, as Long suggest, he eventually gives them his share of Jeter moments in October.

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