New York Mets players, Jeurys Familia and Asdrubal Cabrera are readying themselves to play winter ball in order to prepare themselves for the World Baseball Classic. The only problem is the team has yet to provide permission for either player to participate in their respective leagues.
With injuries always being a concern and an eye on the bigger picture that is the 2017 season, General Manager, Sandy Alderson was not too keen on the idea of his star players getting in extra work.
“in Familia’s case, it’s about getting ready for the WBC. The same is true for Cabrera. In terms of playing winter ball to get prepared for the WBC, that’s something that right now we have not permitted. We may or may not.” (NY Post)
With the workload Familia has received the last few years, there is no question that Alderson’s thought process on this makes sense. The same could be said with Cabrera, who dealt with a nagging knee injury through a good portion of the 2016 season.
The team has already dealt with a scare this offseason with one of their players playing winter ball as Juan Lagares sprained his shoulder while diving for a ball. These are not the injuries you would like to risk happening prior to the start of the coming season.
“Obviously with what happened to Juan Lagares, there’s always a risk associated with winter ball,” Alderson said.
“I think it was last year that we allowed [Wilmer] Flores to play five or six games. He got hurt. In Juan’s case, he only played [79] games last year, so the idea of getting him some at-bats in winter ball was valuable.”
In a situation like this, where two of the team’s key contributors are looking to log a significant amount of play prior to spring training, they are right to show caution. It will be interesting to see if the Mets ultimately allow Familia and Cabrera to participate in the Dominican and Venezuelan winter leagues as they look to prepare for the upcoming WBC tournament.
