The gripping mystery of what happened to Yoenis Cespedes now has a fitting conclusion. According to General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen, the Mets outfielder/DH decided to opt out of the 2020 season citing Coronavirus concerns.
The announcement came as a bit of a surprise after the Mets issued a statement earlier in the day Sunday stating that they had no idea concerning the whereabouts of Cespedes, and any communication with the outfielder failed.
Cespedes never showed up to the ballpark - a game the Mets would lose to the Atlanta Braves 4-0 to drop to 3-7 on the season.
During the Mets post game press conference, Van Wagenen told reporters that he had finally made contact with Cespedes and found out mid-game that the left fielder decided to opt out of the season. The Mets GM added that the team sent hotel security to his room and found it empty, all of Cespedes stuff was packed up. According to ESPN's Jeff Passan, Cespedes got up and left and through his agent informed the team of his decision.
Cespedes joins a long list of players in Major League Baseball who have opted out due to COVID-19. However he took the most bizarre and inconsiderate route to do so. While COVID-19 is a huge concern for Major League Baseball, and there is a real possibility that the season will be canceled at a moments notice due to the high number of positive cases around the sport, Cespedes handled this poorly.
He should have notified the Mets about his decision sooner. He forced the Mets hand, made them panic unnecessarily and put his team in a position to fail. While the Mets did a horrible job trying to report what happened - their press release, pre-game, made it sound like something had happened to Cespedes.
Still all the blame lies with Cespedes here. While everyone respects his decision to opt out for health reasons, getting up and leaving in a lurch feels like a sour grapes from a player who is tired of playing on a losing team more than anything else.
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