The Mets’ big slugger Yoenis Cespedes has barely played over the past three seasons due to various injuries that have hampered him greatly and kept him from playing at all last season.
It appears that thanks to the introduction of the designated hitter into the National League in 2020, the Cuban star will have a new, lesser-risk position on the diamond where he will play.
Instead of manning the outfield as he has done for the majority of his career, Cespedes revealed in a Tuesday press conference that he has been told that he will at least begin the season as the team’s designated hitter.
Cespedes, a key member of the Mets’ 2015 National League champion club and a 2016 NL All-Star, has only managed to play in a total of 119 games over the past three seasons.
This lack of playing time coincided with a 4-year, $110 million contract that the Mets gave to Cespedes in 2017, considered to have been one of the worst deals in the recent era of baseball.
The Mets will hope that Cespedes will be able to stay healthy and help the team in the 60-game 2020 season, something which playing in the role of the designated hitter should, in theory, help him to do.
