Reese Kaplan -- Hurry Up and Wait Time for the New York Mets

There’s a great irony in that the Nationals are the ones facing a mini explosion in virus infection which is likely causing the entire first series of the season with the New York Mets to be postponed.  If you were a betting person you would likely have picked the Texas Rangers as the more likely club to face negative ramifications of a premature concentration of fans in the stadium.

For the New York Mets it provides their players with the time to do some more conditioning and healing time before the baseball season begins for real.  Obviously there are a few players who could benefit from some extended time off like Carlos Carrasco.  These four extra unplanned days will help allow him to get his hamstring issue closer to being resolved.

Jonathan Villar is another one who could make the most of an extra long weekend.  For a guy whose greatest offensive value comes from his legs, the time off will let his minor groin injury a few extra days to keep from becoming a major issue.  Many fans were not happy with the decision to bring him on board.  After all, in his relatively brief career he’s bounced around between Houston, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Miami and Toronto.  That’s a lot of air miles for a guy who’s not yet even 30 years old.  Of course, he’s stolen as many as 62 bases in a season and hit as many as 24 HRs, so a $3.55 million bench guy with those capabilities is not necessarily a bad thing to have.  

For comparison’s sake, the ToddFather earned $8 and $9 million for the two full seasons he cluttered up the Mets roster never providing more than 21 HRs and never stealing more than 9 bases.  To his credit, he is a much more solid fielder than is Villar, but not worth nearly triple the price.  

The one guy I’m most interested in seeing if he can benefit from some extra rest and training time is former killer setup guy, Dellin Betances.  He finished the pre-season with something of a flourish after starting off looking a lot like the guy he was in 2020.  At age 33 he should still have something left in the tank and even with the wasted 2019 and 2020 seasons he has a 2.52 ERA for his entire career.  It’s time to see whether or not he can still put things together or if the injuries really ended his baseball life.  

Of course, the extra time off will also hopefully benefit manager Luis Rojas who at times in 2020 looked a bit lost out there trying to make decisions on the fly when faced with third level players and various folks sitting out the season for health reasons.  He doesn’t have those excuses this time around and folks are anxious to see what he could do with a full 162 game schedule having a roster of professionals to support him.  

The Mets do face Washington five more times during the rest of the season, so making up these games should not be a monumental task to accomplish, though it could lead to some doubleheaders or sacrificed days off to do so.  That issue will plague both pitching staffs equally, so no one can say it’s more unfair to one team than it is to the other.  On the plus side, it will give bench players an opportunity to get some extended playing time as no one expects a catcher to handle five consecutive games which may included both ends of a makeup doubleheader.  

Some day, play ball!