3 recent Mets free agent additions who basically ended up in Witness Protection

The phrase “the best ability is availability” applies to far too many New York Mets players. Why does it seem perfectly healthy players always end up in Queens just to completely disappear? Did they see something they shouldn’t? Were they forced into changing identities and moving to a small town where no one would recognize them?

There are instances where injuries get in the way of a player’s tenure. For these three recent free agent additions, it was more than a minor inconvenience. We saw them so little, they practically ended up in Witness Protection because of the ailments.

1) Jed Lowrie

You can’t possibly discuss Jed Lowrie and the Mets without coming up with some joke. References to Big Foot, the Lochness Monster, and other creatures were commonplace during his tenure with the ball club. It’s a tenure none of us are quite sure happened.

There’s so much yet so little to say about the 9 games he played for the Mets spanning two seasons. First signed by his ex-agent Brodie Van Wagenen who had become the general manager of the Mets, he was an ill-fit from the start. The Mets already had second basemen aplenty and enough other options at third base. Where were they going to possibly find any playing time for Lowrie?

It turns out they didn’t need it. Lowrie got hurt early in the spring and wouldn’t play until a pinch hit appearance on September 7, 2019. He’d make a total of only 8 plate appearances. This doesn’t include the one time he was used as a decoy pinch hitter against the Los Angeles Dodgers in an attempt to get Clayton Kershaw out of the game. It worked! The Mets still lost 9-2.

Lowrie’s two-year deal worth $20 million felt bad at the time of the deal and even more so in retrospect. 

2) Yoenis Cespedes

A player who actually did give us some memories, Yoenis Cespedes deserves to be on this list because of the way it all ended. There are some great memories of him in 2015. Sometimes forgotten, he had a monster season in 2016 while representing the Mets in the All-Star Game. He clobbered 31 home runs for them and remained a force in the middle of the lineup. The 2016 campaign was his first after re-signing with the team. He opted out after but would return for the 2017 campaign and beyond.

Cespedes was still good in 2017 but missed half the season. In 2018, he cut his games played down to 38. This was when the FBI seemed to get involved as the big slugging outfielder suddenly disappeared.

Cespedes last played for the 2018 Mets on May 13 before an IL stint. He’d return for the Subway Series on July 20 for one game. He homered. Then we never saw him again for the rest of the year. In fact, we didn’t see him until 2020.

The period from 2018-2020 was the weirdest for Cespedes. Exactly what was wrong with him seemed to change on a daily basis. We knew it was lower body, but was it his foot, leg, or something else? He famously ended up stepping in a hole while hunting wild boars on his farm in Florida. Yeah. That’s not good.

Our last view of Cespedes in the majors was in 2020. He homered twice in his 8 games then following some struggles, opted out of the year.

It was a wild ride with Cespedes. There were more than enough “you can’t make this up” stories with this guy.