What can the Mets expect from team captain David Wright moving forward?
This isn’t an easily answerable question for a number of reasons.
David Wright
#5 3B
New York Mets
2014 STATS
- GM134
HR8
RBI63
R54
OBP.324
- AVG.269
Most notably, it’s not easy because Wright suffered a left shoulder injury with a headfirst slide and it had a significant impact on his 2014 performance.
Wright is two weeks into a six-week rehab program to strengthen his shoulder and has conveyed optimism that he won’t need surgery, but won’t know for sure until he tries to swing a bat again.
So the question may not be one answerable for the short term, but what about the long term?
There are some important things we’ve learned over the course of baseball history that are important to keep in mind.
Wright turns 32 in December. He’s played in more than 1,500 regular season games. 32-year-olds, whether with an injury history or not, tend to decline in performance. It can be a slow decline or a rapid one, but very few players (especially outside of the PED era) have prolonged success after turning 32.
Players who get injured enough to land on the disabled list one season historically land on the disabled list again the next season about 41 percent of the time (for more on this do a Google search for “Bill Macey and disabled list statistics”). Wright has now dealt with a back issue, a hamstring injury and a shoulder issue the last four seasons. It wouldn’t be surprising if other problems crop up. He’s missed at least 25 games in three of the last four seasons.
David Wright vs Scott Rolen
Through Age 31 Season
One of the best parallels for Wright in terms of career performance is former third baseman Scott Rolen.
Rolen has ranked as Wright’s most statistically similar player by age for each of the last four years. He was a better third baseman defensively than Wright, but the Mets captain rates as a better hitter. They’re a good match in that both have had careers that left them highly regarded in the sport.
Though their injuries are different, it’s worth noting that Rolen had left-shoulder issues too. He sprained it in May 2005, then had season-ending surgery for a torn labrum in July. He missed the final month of the 2007 season with shoulder soreness, went on the DL again for that in August 2008, which caused him to miss much of the 2009 season. In 2011, he went on the disabled list with a strained shoulder in April, had surgery on it in July, than strained it again in May 2012, before finally retiring.
Point being: Medical advancements notwithstanding, shoulder injuries can be troublesome.
That’s not to say that Wright can’t still be a productive player. We’ve painted a gloomy picture so far, but it’s not all bad.
Rolen was great for the Cardinals in 2006, hitting .296 with 22 home runs in 142 games and he then put up good numbers in 2009 (.305 with 11 home runs in 128 games) and 2010 (.285 with 20 home runs in 133 games). His defense was stellar, as Wright’s was last season. For all Wright’s struggles at the plate, he did finish with his second-highest Defensive Runs Saved total (13).
David Wright
Games Played by Season
But Rolen’s teams still had to account for his absence, as there was a decent amount of missed time in just about every season and it would behoove the Mets to have a plan in place if Wright’s health is an issue. In his last six seasons, Rolen averaged 2.8 Wins Above Replacement, exactly what Wright managed in 2014.
The Mets are doing what they can to help Wright, likely doing something they should have done at Citi Field from the start by moving the right-center field fence closer to home plate. That should net Wright a couple of more doubles and maybe a few more home runs. They are also in the market for a couple of more bats to take some pressure off Wright, so that he doesn’t have to be the team’s top run producer any more.
But there’s only so much they can do. The certainty that existed with Wright during his prime has since passed.
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