THE PUTT STOPS HERE!
Cespedes to Mets: I’m bagging golf to try to stay healthy
Yoenis Cespedes will no longer be hitting the links this season after telling Mets he plans to focus on his health, not handicap.
PORT ST. LUCIE — Yoenis Cespedes is sacrificing his love of golf for the hope that he can remain healthy this season. A front office source confirmed reports that Cespedes gave up the game after he suffered a hamstring injury last season and has told the team that he doesn’t plan to play this season.
“This was all his decision,” the front office source said. “He came to us with the idea.”
Cespedes’ love of golf has always been a “bad optics” issue for the Mets and their slugger.
In 2015, when Cespedes left Game 4 of the NLCS with left shoulder soreness, fans began reporting that they had seen him at Medinah Country Club that morning. The Mets clinched that night and Cespedes went on to go 3-for-20 with no extra-base hits in their World Series loss to the Royals.
The most notable conflict over Cespedes and golf was in 2016, when Alderson called Cespedes’ obsession with the game “bad optics” during the 2016 Subway Series. That was the day pictures of Cespedes golfing with former big leaguer Kevin Millar appeared on social media despite a nagging quad issue. Cespedes went on the disabled list the next day and the Mets quietly asked him not to golf while on the DL.
This time, the source said, Cespedes decided to give up the game on his own and focus on staying in the lineup. Cespedes, in the first year of a four-year, $110 million deal, missed 81 games with injuries to both hamstrings.
Cespedes bagged golf while battling his way back from the hamstring injuries. The Mets hope that staying off the courses will allow him more time to rest and recover.
In reaction to his injuries — and those of most of the team in 2017 — the Mets @FisolaNYDN reshaped their medical department. And Cespedes reworked his offseason workout program to focus on being more flexible and less bulky.
Cespedes said that he added more running to his offseason workout and while he continued to lift weights, he stayed away from lifting heavy weights. He has also taken up yoga in an attempt to keep himself more flexible and less susceptible to injuries.
“Yoga has been working for me. Last season, the last couple of seasons, when I showed up down here, my lower back and body was very tight,” Cespedes said Monday, “and I haven’t felt that yet. Yoga has been working for me.”
Cespedes, however, is not expected to play in Friday’s spring training opener. Mets manager Mickey Callaway said he would ease his big sluggers, Cespedes and Jay Bruce, back into the lineup over the weekend. Spring training games begin less than a week after position players reported to camp. It is a full week before they normally do because of baseball’s new collective bargaining agreement, which adds more off days to the regular season and stretches it out.
But don’t go looking for Cespedes at Winged Foot or Baltusrol on those off days this summer. He’s making a big sacrifice.
Cespedes told the Daily News’ Christian Red in 2015 that he was considering a second career playing professional golf.
“Well, I’ve been playing golf for only a year and a half. Some people who have been playing golf for years and they learn that I’ve only played a year and a half, they can’t believe it and they say ‘Incredible.’ I’ve been thinking about it — if there is an opportunity to play professionally later, maybe not PGA, but I would like to play golf professionally,” Cespedes said.
But for now, Cespedes is solely focusing on his professional baseball career. HOWARD SIMMONS/NEWS