As Hojo’s Mojo posted yesterday afternoon J.J. Putz in an interview last week said that:

“When the trade went down last year, I never really had a physical with the Mets.”

In 2008 Putz was ineffective due to injury in his pitching arm.  Can anyone name a franchise in any other sports that runs a team like this?  Before a player comes to your team you give him a complete physical, especially when he has a known injury. The Mets have one of the best medical staffs in the country and yet they continue to not use that staff in the way they should.

Unfortunately for the Mets and us fans Putz also revealed something even more troubling.  Putz says that he continued to feel pain and the Mets forced him to be quiet and tell the media that he felt fine.  I don’t know what is more worrisome, the fact that the Mets acquired a player who had a known injury and did not give him a full physical before completing the trade or that they are now in the practice of encouraging players to lie to the media.

I have often question the Mets integrity and accused them of not telling the truth and it seems I was right to do so.  I am not happy to be right about this as I now have to question whatever the Mets say for the foreseeable future.

That leads to this season with the Mets coming into 2010 with a lot of question marks.  Are they telling the truth that Johan Santana is feeling good and will be ready by Spring Training?  Is Johan lying to the press on how he was feeling after last week’s mini camp?  Yesterday Jose Reyes had a training session which he ran and afterward said he was feeling like the old Jose Reyes.  The Mets said they were encouraged by this workout but once again I have to question if they are being 100% truthful.

The Mets did release a statement that went by the numbers yesterday saying:

“J.J. underwent an exam during Spring Training and an additional exam and MRI before he was cleared to play in last year’s World Baseball Classic.”

While the Mets didn’t say it they are pretty much calling Putz a liar.  With all this incompetence it makes sense that free agents are avoiding the Mets like the plague, would you really want to play for this team?  I would like to take the side of my team and agree with them that Putz is lying but after seeing the way this team has been operating over the last couple of years I think I have take Putz’ word on this one.  I am surprised however that the Mets didn’t just go and blame a beat writer for this.