New York Mets’ Players Continue Dropping Like Flies

Another one bit the dust for the New York Mets last night when Robert Gsellman strained his left hamstring trying to beat out a grounder. The Mets have seemingly had more injury problems than every team in the league for the past several years, but things appear to have hit a critical mass this season. Gsellman’s injury prompted quite the reaction from SNY Broadcaster and former Met Ron Darling, who ripped into the conditioning staff for not properly training the team’s million dollar athletes to play baseball. Darling’s comments, which can be seen below,  reflect a growing frustration with how the Mets continue to pile up injuries at significant rates and do nothing to try and address the situation.

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Gsellman will likely become the sixth starting pitcher to hit the disabled list this season. The Mets actually could put together a nice team of players who have spent time on the DL this season, including the following (Note-italicized players currently or soon to be on the DL):

Starting Pitchers: Noah Syndergaard (lat tear), Matt Harvey (scapula), Steven Matz (elbow soreness), Seth Lugo (partial UCL tear), Tommy Milone (knee), Gsellman (hamstring), Zack Wheeler (biceps tendinitis)

Position Players: Lucas Duda (back), Neil Walker (hamstring), Asdrubal Cabrera 2x (thumb), David Wright (shoulder), Wilmer Flores (knee infection), Yoenis Cespedes (hamstring), Juan Lagares (broken thumb), Brandon Nimmo (Hamstring), Travis d’Arnaud (hand)

Relievers: Jeurys Familia (blood clot), Josh Smoker (loose bodies in elbow)

If you count it out, that’s 18 players that have spent time on the shelf, with most of them being significant contributors. Only Jay Bruce, Curtis Granderson and Michael Conforto have escaped the curse so far, but Conforto is currently day to day with a bad bone bruise after being hit by a pitch over the weekend.

Mets’ skipper Terry Collins was befuddled by his team’s bad injury luck after the game, noting that the injuries aren’t just muscle pulls that can be blamed on poor conditioning. While Collins is correct, the fact that the team has suffered so many injuries period can be broken down to a poor medical structure, which ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick broke down in a must read piece for Mets’ fans last month. A big part of the problem appears to be strength and conditioning coordinator Mike Barwis, who puts players through intense weight lifting programs in the offseason to add muscle to their frames. Check out this clip from ESPN, where Sunday Night Baseball analyst Jessica Mendoza comes to watch a workout Barwis designed for Yoenis Cespedes.

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This workout is exactly what Darling was railing against last night. Instead of focusing on flexibility and making sure that Cespedes is able to run at full speed, Barwin is focusing more on workouts that build muscle mass. Cespedes showed up in incredible physical shape but has dealt with muscle pulls in each of the last two seasons, which have caused him to miss about three months of action. Crasnick’s article notes that the amount of games the Mets have lost to injury has skyrocketed since Barwis came aboard, going from 426 in 2014 (the last pre-Barwis year) to 1,332 in 2015 and 886 last season. While it’s true Barwis isn’t to blame for Wright’s degenerative back condition or the blood clot in Familia’s shoulder, more baseball appropriate conditioning would go a long way towards solving the Mets’ injury woes.

Mets’ General Manager Sandy Alderson has hinted that the organization is making small changes in how it handles injuries, notably providing looser timetables and at one point preventing Collins from talking to the media about injuries. That’s all well and good, but it isn’t enough. Former long time Mets’ beat writer Adam Rubin notes that while he hasn’t heard the team isn’t thinking about changing its training staff, the matter is “complicated” because the Mets have a business relationship with Barwis. If the Mets aren’t willing to consider changing their conditioning staff because they have a business deal with Barwis, the front office has its priorities in the wrong place. Numbers don’t lie, and the numbers say that the Mets’ amount of lost games due to injury has skyrocketed since Barwis became their strength and conditioning guy. Trainer Ray Ramirez gets booed every year by Mets’ fans as the public face of the team’s injury issues, but the numbers lay the blame at Barwis’ door.

The Mets aren’t just losing role players to injuries every year, but core guys who should be helping the team win instead of spending weeks at a time on the trainer’s table. Until the front office actually decides to overhaul the medical side of the operation, the Mets are doomed to have injuries short circuit their seasons. Hopefully ownership was watching the telecast last night, when Darling articulated what every Mets’ fan has been saying for years now.