David Wright has yet to start baseball activity, but plans to get to Spring Training early this year to give it one more shot.
“It really hurts to say this, but I obviously can’t be relied on to go out there and do what I’ve done throughout my career,” Wright told Anthony DiComo of MLB.com on Friday, before hosting his annual Vegas Night to benefit the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Virginia. “That is a tough thing to say.”
Since being diagnosed with spinal stenosis in 2015, it’s been a battle for Wright to stay on the field. That year and 2016, he combined to play just 75. He did not appear in a game this past year.
Just this past year, Wright has also underwent disk fusion surgery, rotator cuff surgery and a laminotomy procedure in an effort to get back on the field. However, his future remains just as uncertain as ever.
“The surgeries are obviously serious stuff, but it just kind of plays with your mind mentally, where you don’t know how your body’s going to hold up,” Wright said. “You don’t know how you’re going to feel a month from now. You don’t know how you’re going to feel a couple weeks from now. You’re hoping that it continues to get better, but you just don’t know.
“Everything is a concern for me. I haven’t progressed to the point where I’ll know how it feels to throw a baseball until we get closer to spring. I certainly don’t know how the back is going to hold up.”
Despite being signed through 2020 and owed $47 million, Wright’s most recent surgeries this offseason put his return up in the air yet again. According to Mike Puma of the New York Post in November, the team isn’t counting on him being ready for spring training.
“We have to get to spring training and see how David feels,” assistant GM John Ricco said. “And given the fact this isn’t just a couple of months, it’s been a while now, and to be fair to us and him we have to plan for him to not be ready, and if he is we’ll adjust.”
The team has been reluctant to go out and sign a new third baseman with hopes that Wright could return to a high level of performance.
According to DiComo, “In the months after undergoing his latest back surgery in October, Wright met biweekly with Dr. Robert Watkins, the Los Angeles specialist who has overseen his rehab since 2015. Wright more recently went for a checkup with Mets team physician Dr. David Altchek, the details of which he was unwilling to discuss.”
At the end of the day, however, Wright hopes that him going out there and trying to play won’t affect his long-term quality of life, but he still yearns to play again.
“I don’t want to have regrets,” Wright said. “If I can’t play? Then I’ll be able to say I gave it my best shot, I really did. And if I can play, which obviously is the goal, then that’s great as well. And that’s ideal. I just don’t want to have any regrets when it’s all said and done that if I would have just put in some more work, or if I would have just concentrated a little more on the rehab program, I might have been able to do it.
“When the end comes, the end comes,” he added. “Hopefully, I’ve got a little more left. But I guess that’s to be determined.”
Mets general manager Sandy Alderson is expected to provide an update on the team captain by the end of the month.
