Carlos Beltran Out 12-18 Weeks

Bad news…

Joel Sherman of the New York Post has just reported on SNY that Mets centerfielder Carlos Beltran underwent some sort of surgery on his knee and will miss a minimum of 8-12 weeks.

Reportedly, Beltran underwent this procedure without permission from the team.

Last season, Beltran was very upset with how the Mets handled the bone bruise on his knee. Obviously, Beltran no longer trusts the Mets medical staff, especially one that remained intact after the debacle of last season. Beltran missed 81 games in 2009.

UPDATE 9:50 PM

The Mets issued the following press release a few moments ago:

Carlos Beltran had worsening of osteoarthritis of the right knee during the offseason.  He had not been experiencing pain following the conclusion of the season and into his early offseason conditioning. The symptoms returned to the point where pre-spring training conditioning became too painful.  He elected to undergo arthroscopic clean out of the arthritic area of his knee by Beltran”s personal physician Dr. Richard Steadman today in Colorado.  He is anticipated to return to baseball activities in 12 weeks.

Beltran will not begin rehab until 12 weeks and Angel Pagan will replace him in centerfield.

Kevin Burkhardt reports that he may be out until May, and that’s assuming there is no setbacks.

This is definitely not how we wanted to start the new 2010 season. This is an absolute disaster both from a team standpoint and public relations standpoint for the Mets.

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