Story of man named Jed ends with 7 at-bats for $20M

Jed Lowrie’s tenure with the Mets ended not with a bang, or a whimper, but with a disappearing act. The Mets infielder, who will go down in history as one of Brodie Van Wagenen’s nausea-inducing signings, has not been around the Mets or participated in any baseball activities since July’s training camp. When manager Luis Rojas was asked about Lowrie’s whereabouts, the skipper consistently said, “I don’t know what he’s doing.”

To Rojas’ understanding, Lowrie was scheduled to receive a series of injections for the PCL laxity he was diagnosed with back in July. (Though, he’s formally listed with “left knee discomfort” in the Mets’ records.) The PCL laxity was the first official diagnosis the public received on Lowrie’s knee issues dating back to February 2019.

“I hope he can get back to being the best player he’s been,” Van Wagenen said on Friday. “I was disappointed we weren’t able to do that together.”

Lowrie, 36, signed a twoyear, $20 million contract with the Mets before the 2019 season. He went hitless in seven at-bats over nine games last year.

The Met s were a week into their 60-game season when they received the diagnosis on Lowrie — who has not played in a game this year — and Van Wagenen, at that point, still anticipated the veteran infielder would help the team. “We expect him to contribute,” Van Wagenen said in July. Three days later, he was transferred to the 45-day injured list to make room on the Mets roster.

“I know Jed is a very hard worker; he’s obviously talented,” Van Wagenen said before the Mets’ 15-2 blowout loss to the Braves. “We’ve seen that throughout the course of his career and we even saw that in summer camp when he had the bat in his hand. It’s frustrating he wasn’t able to perform for his own goals, it’s frustrating he wasn’t able to perform for us and our investment in him. I know that he could have helped us as a player.”

The team’s comments on Lowrie routinely contrasted the infielder’s own actions –— which included terse non-answers to the public on his knee injury and lengthy absences from the team.

Lowrie first griped about his knee discomfort, which the Mets originally referred to as a “left knee capsule sprain,” in his first spring training with the Mets in 2019. He rehabbed through the 2019 season and appeared ready to join the club in May, after playing six games for Triple-A Syracuse, but suffered another setback due to a left hamstring strain and was forced to start from scratch.

He again rehabbed in the minors in August before joining the big-league roster for the first time in early September. He hasn’t appeared in a major league game since.

He participated in both training camps this year with a moderate improvement in terms of baseball activity (running, fielding, hitting) this past summer. Lowri e couldn’t work out without donning a bulky black brace that stretched from his left ankle to thigh. It seemed like the infielder was set to play in the shortened season, but for the second straight year, he was not able to go by Opening Day due to injury.

“When we look at someone who’s had health issues, it’s a matter of culling all resources, looking at every angle, uncovering every stone and trying to do everything we can to put him in position to play and play as soon as possible,” Van Wagenen said.

“I think it’s impossible to predict how a body is going to respond … I know there was motivation for him to get on the field and there was motivation for us to try to find any way to get him on the field, for not only last year, but of course for this year as well.”

Lowrie and the Mets accomplished nothing together besides various medical treatments and a compensation of $20 million over two years for his efforts. Van Wagenen’s acquisition of Lowrie made very little sense back in 2018, when the Mets already had four major-leaguers in Robinson Cano, Todd Frazier, Jeff McNeil and J.D. Davis clogging the infield. And the signing made less sense as Lowrie’s injury-infused years played out. Now, as the 2020 Mets try to get into the playoffs, Lowrie won’t be around to help his team win games.

hus ends Jed Lowrie’s era in Queens: a signing that always lacked logic and was perpetually aided by mystery.