Everyone’s down after the news that Carlos Beltran had surgery on his knee and will likely miss Opening Day, and probably most of April. The one thing we were all hoping for in 2010 is that we could go into the season healthy, with a full team on the field, and start feeling good about the Mets again; Positive about the Mets again. This doesn’t help that cause.
I’m going to ignore most of the off-field drama for now. There is a still a lot that we don’t know, about who knew what, what the doctors said, how much the Mets knew or didn’t know, and when Beltran started feeling pain. We know he told Kevin Burkhardt in November that he felt no pain. His knees started acting up again and he had surgery. We’ll go from there.
We haven’t gotten a solid figure on recover time yet. The common figure seems to be around 12 weeks to baseball activity, whatever that means. Is that another month past the 12 weeks to be on the field with the Mets? It’s roughly 12 weeks to Opening Day, so we’re basically talking about most or all of April. If the prognosis is closer to 8-12 weeks, maybe he can be back sooner. Maybe it’s not as serious as all that. I don’t think we’ll really know until we see how Beltran feels in March.
The events of 2009 have given us no reason to believe anything the Mets, or anyone, says about recovery time and return to action. I don’t see how we can do anything else right now. Beltran is irreplaceable and if he’s out for longer than April, things could get murky. Angel Pagan has played very well with the Mets, and while he’s no Beltran, the team can be successful with him in CF temporarily. Fernando Martinez could become a factor too, if he shows something amazing in Spring Training. Of all the possible contigency plans, that has to be the most exciting one.
For now, I’m going to stay upbeat and cross my fingers about all things going well from here on out, and Beltran being on the field by May 1st. A-Rod missed April for the Yankees last year. Championships aren’t won in April. The Mets need to get another solid pitcher, and it looks like they should find another solid lefty OF bat for the bench. I have good feelings on Mike Pelfrey and John Maine based on some stuff I’ve heard from them, and if both of them pitch well in 2010 it would actually overcome the lost offense from Beltran to Pagan.
