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| Pic by Mack Ade |
With that said, our new manager went on the record earlier today and stated that he wants David Wright around the team as much as possible, as long as it does not interfere with his ongoing rehabilitation. He cited DW’s leadership and his overall positive influence on the clubhouse, etc. This is an excellent example of real leadership and an emphasis on open lines of communication between the front office, management and the players. In other words, MC is actually doing what he said he would do, instead of simply “saying all the right things” at his first press conference.
Since part of the previous interview focused on our “Captain”, I started thinking about DW and all of the things that he has been through during the past few seasons.
On a side note, if you have ever played “word association” with another person, it is a basic concept but it can reveal quite a bit about the other person’s mindset. The game is simple in that one person mentions a random word and the other person says the first word that immediately comes to mind. For example, you could say the word “pizza” and the other person might reply “awesome”. In DW’s case, if you played this game with a fellow Mets’ fan, the mention of his name would likely conjure up responses like “stenosis”, “injured” or “never coming back” (which is more then one word, but you get the point).
That is sad, because DW was one of the best players in all of baseball for an extended period but he will likely be remembered for what he was unable to do on the field, as opposed to what he had accomplished prior to his string of injuries.
In an effort to emphasize DW the PLAYER, here is a sampling of his statistical contributions prior to his injuries;
DW “broke into MLB” in 2004 as a 21 year old rookie and he played approximately one half of a season’s worth of at bats, giving everyone a glimpse of what was to come. He became a fixture in the Mets’ infield from 2005 through 2014 before his injuries started to take their toll, causing him to miss large parts of the 2015 and 2016 season.
***If you divide his career at bats by 600 (roughly a full season), you get 11.45 “seasons” of playing time for DW, which is a convenient number to use as the divisor for his statistical averages.
Over the estimated 11.45 seasons, DW averaged the following line;
.296/.376/.491 (.867 OPS)
21 HR/ 85 RBI/ 17 SB and 83 R
4.36 WAR (and a slightly positive dWAR)
I would take that right now from Todd Frazier for the 2018 season!
The statistics are impressive, despite his production tailing off as he became more affected by his condition. He was an absolute “beast” during the 2007 and 2008 campaigns, putting up ridiculous statistics to include a “30/30” season that brought back memories of Howard Johnson’s best efforts. It isn’t a stretch to think that if he stayed reasonably healthy, he would have been a strong candidate for induction into the HOF one day.
This is the DW that I prefer to remember when I hear his name, as opposed to the “shell” of a player that he has become due to his medical issues. This version of DW should evoke words like "All Star" or "invaluable".
Unfortunately (I hate to be negative), I think his best days are clearly behind him and it would be an absolute shock to see him well enough to even play again, never mind perform at his previously established levels. Sort of like watching Tiger Woods play competitive golf and not coming close to playing like the magical player that he once was due to injuries.
Compounding DW's issue is the “albatross” of a contract that, in true Mets fashion, was signed JUST BEFORE his career went off the rails. Perhaps a better way to think of his current contract is money owed for the wonderful eleven plus years that he provided for the team and it’s fans.
Whether he plays again or not, DW is still a valuable member of the organization and it is pretty cool to see our new manager recognize that fact.
4 comments:
David's career in my view could be broken into 3 parts:
1) Pre-Citifield - playing in a somewhat tougher then average place to hit, he was Hall of Fame caliber
2) Citifield Pre-Injury - the owners foolishly built the Grand Canyon - Wright's power to all fields was negated. Had he not gotten hurt, those vast dimensions over the several years it took to right-size them might have been enough to keep him out of the Hall of Fame
3) Stenosis years - my guess is he lost a minimum of 50 homers and 30+ doubles in the Grand Canyon years. Even with the Stenosis years, would his numbers perhaps have been good enough for the Hall of Fame if his first several pre-stenosis years been in a new HITTER-FRIENDLY park instead?
Someday, the Mets will finally have a home-grown hitter make the hall of Fame, to join the roughly 20 the Yanks have. It should have been David.
I know in a way it's supposed to be a feel good story about DW's positive contributions, but as Tom outlined there were three distinct phases. Whe he left out was the Madoff situation that coincided with the Citifield years pre-stenosis. His bottom line was an unsightly 10 HRs and 72 RBIs in his first year in the new Grant's Tomb for power hitters. At the end of the 2012 season when he had a fairly typical Wright year -- 21/93/.306 with 15 SBs -- they decided when they had no money to spend to make him the richest player in the history of the franchise. That move even without the injuries that followed was simply bad business because he could have been parlayed into multiple top 10 prospects who would be cost controllable while NOT spending all of that money. The injuries were just gasoline on the dumpster fire that the club became as a result of the Madoff situation. His contract financially pushed the team into the second tier of spending as all of their money was now tied up in a guy who ultimately wouldn't play (through no fault of his own). If the team was hemorrhaging money, 2012 was not the time to put all of your eggs into a single basket. IT was time to sell that basket and use your money to improve several areas. That has nothing to do with the injury that followed...that was just the way a good business should have operated.
While I always liked David Wright, I felt the Mets should have traded him and Reyes back in 2012. While Reyes was injured and the return would have been lessened, Wright wasn’t, and it would have been at least two blue chippers (see what Orioles are getting for Machado and Wright was better). At the time, Wright was almost 29 y.o. and he would have brought back a mint.
Fast forwarding to today, I don’t blame Wright for holding on to his passion. If he can return, it should be as a first baseman or maybe outfielder. His ego and the Mets blinders have cost this team defensively and he was ultimately responsible for the weak throw to first in the Matt Harvey game in the World Series. Yes Duda threw it away, but Wright was playing in and with a very weak underhanded flip to first, it gave Hosmer the break he needed, Duda choked his sidearm (for whatever reason) throw, and Harvey was blamed. I know it’s rude to say negative things about a great guy like Wright, but, sorry.
Also, on the Callaway topic, for seven years not a single reporter outside of Vaccaro was willing to say anything negative about Collins as the pathetic loser was shielded by Fred Coupon and the reporters were afraid of looking bad by picking on an old man. That didn’t help the situation where injuries and lack of talent have been blamed since the 2013 season. Never were manager decisions brought up. Once Carig wrote his eye opening piece, then Collins couldn’t be shielded any more. Callaway won’t have that cover, but we should enjoy the opportunity to hear smart baseball come back to Citifield, complete with accountability, execution and fundamentals. Remember them?
Texas Gus CC - I think Calloway will be refreshing indeed.
Reese, I agree - the trade value would have been extreme for Wright back then.
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