Ike likes Mets, wants to stay
OVER THE PAST three months, Ike Davis has weathered a wild swing of rumors and reports about his future, as the Mets’ intentions have moved from a strong eagerness to trade him, to a tentative expectation that he will be in spring training, after all.
How does he feel about it all, after hearing his name so often this winter, and in so many different contexts?
“I want to go back,” Davis told the Daily News on Thursday. “I want to have another chance. I want to win with the Mets.”
Davis’ deep slumps during the first halves of both the 2012 and 2013 season led the Mets to lose confidence in him, and decide that they would rather proceed with Lucas Duda as the first baseman. So Sandy Alderson spent much of November and December talking to Milwaukee, Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh, and other teams. There was interest, but no rival GM has yet been willing to meet Alderson’s price of a young pitcher.
The Mets are still willing to move Davis and/or Duda, in the right deal, but appear comfortable opening camp next month with both first basemen still in the organization. This is the outcome for which Davis is rooting.
“I have wanted to stay,” he said. “I don’t want to leave on this kind of note. I have roots here, with the only team I have ever known. It’s something that a player dreams about, staying with the only team you have ever known.”
If Davis does report to Port St. Lucie (and he is already looking for a house to rent with longtime roommate Kirk Nieuwenhuis near the Mets’ facilities), there are two potential sources of awkwardness: The interpersonal dynamic with Duda, and the idea of playing for a team that was open about its desire to move him.
On the latter point, Davis was asked if he felt disrespected by the news trickling out about him since the end of the season.
“I don’t want to say disrespected, but it has probably been talked about more than it should have been,” he said. “Unless something is actually about to happen, I don’t think it should be publicly talked about. It’s not disrespectful. It’s just open a little too much.”