WASHINGTON – “As is the custom when the season begins, [we are] focusing on player performance, ”wrote Scott Boras in a text message to The Post on Sunday in response to a question about Michael Conforto, further cementing his client’s improbability to sign an extension with Mets before arriving at the free agency in November .
If I were in charge of Mets, there would be fewer players I would like to hire in the foreseeable future than Conforto, the local All-Star who never represented the organization in anything but an exemplary way.
Also, what if I commanded Mets? There are fewer players whose uncertain future would cause me less concern for the present. Considering that an unresolved situation by Francisco Lindor could have hovered over this club like the Sword of Damocles, Conforto imagines that it will move on in silence.
“At the moment I’m focused on the Mets,” said Comfort on Sunday, after the team completed a workout at Nationals Park. “I wish you were asking me about a situation that I did not overcome in a game that we went out and won. I wish we were talking about baseball. “
Baseball will finally host the Mets on Monday night, four days later, when they plan to open their 2021 season against the 3-0 Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. They spent the weekend in the nation’s capital breaking free after the Nationals, their first marked opponent, suffered an outbreak of COVID.
Lindor, 27, will make his Mets debut with a $ 341 million 10-year contract set to start next season, his destiny set after a serious drama. Comfort starts its seventh year with the Mets uniform, the eighth in the organization, with the destination in the air. For better or worse, Steve Cohen clearly marked Lindor, since the team acquired him from the Indians in January, as his “I am not Wilpons” banner to plant on Planet Mets.
Conforto, 28, expressed only happiness for his new teammate, saying: “I think he got what he deserved. I think it’s good for the game ”.
He added: “Obviously, everyone knows that Steve Cohen is a rich guy. He’s a rich Mets fan. But I think he made it very clear that he was not going to spend money carelessly. He would trust his guys that he hired to make baseball decisions. “
Fortunately for Comfort, you would think, Sandy Alderson oversees baseball decisions as a team president; as general manager, Alderson approved the choice of 10th General Comfort in the 2014 amateur draft. No, that did not lead to finding many points in common at the moment, although Boras feels more comfortable than most of his brothers taking his players to the market open.
“I think I could see the team looking very different in the years to come and I thought about it,” said Conforto, although the players’ bodies may be quite intact if Conforto remains.
He has proven to be quite consistent over the previous four years, his OPS + hovering between 122 (in 2018) and 153 (last year) and his games played at 90 percent and above in each of the previous three seasons. The natural, though flawed, comparison, based on the current market, would be George Springer, who received $ 150 million in six years from the Blue Jays as a better hitter in a more important defensive position. However, Comfort is three and a half years younger than Springer, does not have the Astros’ plate theft scandal on his resume and has established his Big Apple and Mets in good faith.
“He is one of our natural leaders here,” said Luis Rojas on Comfort. “He’s a guy who bleeds blue and orange. He cares a lot about the team. “
Comfort brought news to his Zoom audience when he revealed that he caught the coronavirus just before spring training. He recorded blah spring training statistically and you hope that no effects of the disease will persist.
Also, if you are the Mets? Enjoy this last episode of this program knowing that, if it has a typical year of Comfort, you can afford to surpass anyone for its services. What if he has a typical Comfort year? You should probably do just that.