Mets skipper Carlos Mendoza announced on Tuesday afternoon that a handful of players -- Luis Robert Jr., Francisco Alvarez, Jorge Polanco, and Brett Baty -- are currently "on a progression" and will not appear in Grapefruit League games right away.
While none of these players are considered injured, the Mets want to take things slow with them to avoid risking anything.
"We’re going to be proactive, so I’ll throw that out there. He won’t be playing in games out of the gate," Mendoza said of Robert. "This is something that, when we traded for him, our trainers put their hands on him and identified some of the things, especially in the lower half, that needed to be straightened out.
"He’s going through full workouts, he’s going to be getting live at-bats, but as far as putting him in game settings when he has to full go, whether it’s beating out a ground ball, we’re not going to put him [in games] out of the gate. He’s going to be on a progression."
Robert, a tantalizing talent in center field, has missed a combined 114 games over the past two seasons due to a variety of lower-body injuries, including hamstring and hip issues.
But the All-Star outfielder also doesn't sound very concerned about how the team is building him up.
"Once the offseason started, the focus was to strengthen those parts -- most of the injuries that I've dealt with," Robert said, via a translator.
Baty, meanwhile, reported to the club that he felt something in his right hamstring "about two weeks ago" as he was sprinting as part of his offseason conditioning.
While it doesn't seem like Baty's situation is all that serious, Mendoza and the Mets want him to be fully healthy before getting any game action or throwing him in the outfield for reps, which is clearly very important given his potential place in the starting right field battle.
"Especially [with getting] reps in the outfield, that’s going to take a little bit, but he’s fine," Mendoza explained. "But because he felt something with the hamstring, we’re going to slow-play it. ...But like I said, he’s in a good spot now."
As for Alvarez and Polanco, while neither of them are dealing with anything new, their history of injury in previous seasons has the Mets taking a cautious approach.
"Alvy is going to be on a progression as well. We all know how hard he works, but I don’t think we’ll see him in games the first week," Mendoza said. "Jorge Polanco, same way. This is a guy who when we signed him, the physicals, he had a surgery about a year and a half [ago], but he’s going to continue to get live at-bats and we’ll put him in backfield action before we put him in a game."
Waddell gets the call
Mendoza also said that while the Mets' complete pitching plans for Saturday's Grapefruit League opener against the Miami Marlins (1 p.m. on SNY) are still to be decided, left-hander Brandon Waddell will get the start.
"Waddell is going to start. Then I’ve got to check with [pitching coach Justin] Willard to see who is going to follow there."
The 31-year-old Waddell appeared in 11 games last season for the Mets, pitching to a 3.45 ERA.