Mention the name Yoenis Cespedes to any New York Mets fans an they will either roll their eyes or simply cringe. The slugger who carried the Mets to the 2015 World Series has been a ghost basically ever since the club signed him to a four-year, $110 million contract at the end of the 2016 season.
In 2017, Â a hamstring strain limited Cespedes to just 81 games. The next season, he played just 38 games before it was revealed that he would undergo consecutive surgeries on his heels that would keep him sidelined for ten months.
In May of 2019, Cespedes – who the Mets were hoping would return at some during the season – broke his ankle in an accident on his ranch and was ruled out for the season. The Mets did not have a lot of information regarding the details of the accident.
We do now, thanks to a report by Joel Sherman and Ken Davidoff of the New York Post.Â
The mind-boggling injury – which left him multiple right ankle fractures – took place in May while Céspedes was recovering from double heel surgery at his ranch in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
According to the report, the 34-year-old has traps set up to catch wild boars roaming around his property. While one of those boars was being removed from a trap, it reportedly either charged or startled Céspedes – causing him to step in a hole and break his ankle.
Really? Wild boars? Can’t make this stuff up. Only Cespedes. Only the Mets.
The Mets were not about to take this lying down. Once the circumstances surrounding the injury were uncovered, they withheld part of Cespedes’ $29 million annual salary, paying him only $14,811,828 of that amount. The union grieved the move and the Mets won, which also allows them to cut Cespedes’ 2020 salary from $29.5 million to 6 million.
Usually the Mets are on the wrong side of these deals. This time around, they finally caught a break. Cespedes has always been reckless when he needs to be cautious and vice-versa. This time it’s gonna cost him.