Leading OFF
Mets aim to boost Bruce’s confidence, production
PORT ST. LUCIE, FLA. You have to hand it to Jay Bruce for an offseason makeover that’s nothing short of brilliant.
Compared to the bag of nerves who showed up at Citi Field last summer — overwhelmed at the plate, out of place in the big city, miserable from Day 1 — Bruce is a picture of Zen today. He actually looks happy.
That is, until he’s reminded about how much New York Mets fans detested that blizzard of strikeouts after he was acquired from the Cincinnati Reds. And how hard the Mets tried to trade him this offseason, up until camp opened. That’s when Bruce comes face to face with an unyielding truth: He still has a lot to prove.
Mets manager Terry Collins has started a campaign to insulate Bruce from self-doubt. “I told him, ‘You’re the right fielder, get yourself ready to play,’ ” the manager said. The goal is to convince Bruce the audition is over, that he’s not going anywhere. Bruce will be in the opening-day lineup. He’s won.
But this coronation doesn’t come without cost, and it doesn’t directly answer why Bruce was so awful in his first 50 games with the Mets.
He batted .219, struck out once every four at-bats and was targeted by angry Mets fans who feared the ex-Red would sink them in the wild-card race.
And it wasn’t just the ticket buyers who were sweating out Bruce’s slump. Collins benched his veteran slugger in back-to-back games against the Atlanta Braves in late September. The vote of no-confidence couldn’t have cut any deeper.
Press Bruce for an answer, and he bounces from one theory to the next: Slumps are part of baseball, everyone is susceptible, his swing happened to dry up at the wrong time. All true. But it doesn’t address a core suspicion that Bruce, boxed in by the noise, the crowds and the unrelenting pressure to perform, simply short-circuited.
Remember, this was a threetime All-Star who had totaled 233 home runs in nine years with the Reds. Bruce was always a strikeout machine, but those swings and misses were an acceptable tradeoff for the 20 or so times a year he’d take an errant fastball over the wall.
But the Mets family saw none of that until the final eight games of the regular season, when Bruce batted .480 with four homers. That’s who the Mets thought they were adding to the roster — a second coming of Yoenis Cespedes. Nevertheless, general manager Sandy Alderson was soon busy trying to trade Bruce, convincing industry peers that the slugger wasn’t wired for New York.
Bruce conceded he was troubled by that perception.
“It definitely bothered me I wasn’t playing well, and obviously coming here to a fan base full of passionate, kind of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately fans, I can understand the frustration,” Bruce said. “What I was bothered by most was I wasn’t contributing.”
The second part of Bruce’s unease was knowing the Mets made every effort to start 2017 without him. He’s mature enough not to have taken it personally, but his legacy hung in the balance. Better to hope for a trade that would return him to a saner, smaller market? Or pull hard for a second chance at the beast?
Ultimately, Bruce chose to block out the internal debate, focusing on his family and infant daughter, who had been born less than a year ago. That’s one of the reasons Bruce has looked so serene: He has had months to heal a wounded ego.
On his good days, Bruce sounds convincing when he says, “My job is to play baseball and not to worry about and concern myself with trade rumors or anything like that. I refuse to be a distraction, that’s definitely not going to happen.”
The rumors were more than just midwinter gossip, though. The Mets wanted to clear space in the outfield for Michael Conforto, as well as shed the $13 million Bruce is owed for 2017. But there was nowhere for him to go after the Toronto Blue Jays re-signed Jose Bautista, the Baltimore Orioles did likewise with Mark Trumbo and the Philadelphia Phillies picked up Michael Saunders.
Instead of lowering the asking price, the Mets wisely broke off talks and doubled down on last summer’s gamble on Bruce.
That’s why Collins is working to bolster the slugger’s confidence, letting him know the job is his, not Conforto’s, and that no one is holding that 50-game slump against him.
There’s one more reason the Mets are keeping Bruce’s spirits up: They’re considering using him at first base if (or when) Lucas Duda’s back blows out again.
Even in the best-case scenario, a healthy Duda figures to play only four to five games a week. Despite not having played first base regularly since high school, Bruce could be that second option. Conforto, the Mets said, will not be shifting to the infield.
That’s why Bruce could be an important Met after all. Cycle through the strikeouts, the booing, the pennant-race anxiety, the trade talks, and here he is. Still here, just looking to help. Funny how baseball re-loops like that.