Gunning for big things in Flushing
NOT ALL hired guns are created equal.
Some guys embrace the sort of opportunity Yoenis Cespedes receives now, the Mets acquiring him from the Tigers for a playoffrace drive. Other guys, less so.
We won’t know for sure about Cespedes, the slugging outfielder, until these two months have played out. But the early indications bode well for the Mets and their most important rental.
“I really like playing in front of a big crowd,” Cespedes said through an interpreter at a Citi Field news conference Saturday, before the Mets and Nationals faced off again. “I think it drives me, pushes me to do better, to play better, to push myself more. I really enjoy it, and I’m looking forward to it.”
He spoke calmly, his new Mets cap worn backwards and a Tshirt screaming, “BAM” with a cartoon graphic, like when someone in the 1960s “Batman” TV show got punched. He looked, in short, like someone unconcerned about his new work assignment.
“I don’t think he’s concerned about the atmosphere of the city,” Mets manager Terry Collins said of Cespedes. “I think he’ll just go play. That’s one of the things he just kept talking about. He said, ‘Look, I play. Don’t worry about me. Just put me in the lineup every day and I go play.’ ”
Collins and Cespedes spoke Saturday, minutes before they individually addressed the media, with Mets bullpen coach Ricky Bones acting as the interpreter. But Collins entered that meeting already disposed to like Cespedes, thanks to a conversation he held with his old pal Jim Leyland, now an adviser for the Tigers.
“When I talked to Jim I just said, ‘Tell me about him,’ and he said, ‘I think he’s the best left fielder in the American League,’” Collins said. “He said, ‘Terry, he’s got power to all parks. He’s a very, very good defender.’ ”
He’s also a showman, as anyone who attended the 2013 Home Run Derby at Citi Field would remember. While the Derby’s very existence bodes poorly for the future of our civilization, in the smallpicture view, Cespedes’ victory that night — and in the following year’s event at Minnesota’s Target Field — makes him more appealing as the sort of guy you trust to parachute into a Mets universe desperate for September relevance and not be intimidated by that.
“That was a very big crowd. One of the biggest I’d seen,” Cespedes said, recalling the ’13 Derby. “And all I really remember is the last home run that hit the wall in the back.”
As Mets general manager Sandy Alderson said Friday of Cespedes, “He’s a very dynamic player. … I think also, just his presence in the lineup and his presence on the team will raise the energy level, and I hope it raises the energy level in the dugout and in the stands.”
Watching Cespedes, listening to Collins and Alderson, I flashed back to Lance Berkman, whom the Yankees picked up on July 31, 2010. Berkman had been a drafted and developed an Astro, and the move to the Yankees marked his first change of employer. He stood in the Tropicana Field visiting clubhouse that first weekend and admitted to feeling overwhelmed by all of the logistics that came from a midseason switch. It couldn’t have been a complete coincidence Berkman struggled for most of his Yankees stay before performing better in two playoff rounds.
Cespedes has changed employers three times in a year. As a Cuban refugee, he has faced far greater adjustments than becoming a Met.
This doesn’t guarantee success. Yet nearly all of the information we know, encourages.
“I’m very flattered the Mets wanted to give me this opportunity,” Cespedes said. “I’m glad to be coming back to this ballpark. I hear a lot about New York and the crowds and I’m just hoping to do my job, and I think it will all work out well.”
It’s pretty much the script you’d write for your hired gun. Now Cespedes just has to live out the rest of the script.