Carlos Beltran made some candid remarks about the Mets organization following Friday’s press conference introducing him as the newest Yankee.
According to ESPN.com, Beltran recalled moments when he felt unfairly treated by the Mets’ front office:
“All the controversy about the Walter Reed,” Beltran said. “The knee — the organization trying to put me as a player that I was a ‘bad apple.’ I was this. I was that. I can deal with 0-for-4 and three strikeouts and talk to you guys. But when someone is trying to hurt you in a very personal way, trying to put things out there, that I know me. Then we got trouble. Now, it’s personal. When they say all that about myself, I was hurt. You cannot believe the organization that signed you for seven years is trying to put you down. In that aspect, I felt hurt.”
There’s nothing unfair about what Beltran had to say.
Beltran was arguably the Mets’ best all-around player from 2006-2009, before knee injuries slowed him down. It seemed Mets ownership (and some fans – although Beltran’s criticism seems primarily directed toward the front office) never appreciated him nonetheless. Fred Wilpon’s infamous interview with the New Yorker underscored this perception:
“We had some schmuck in New York who paid him based on that one series,” he said, referring to himself. In the course of playing out his seven-year, $119-million contract with the Mets, Beltran, too, has been hobbled by injuries. “He’s sixty-five to seventy per cent of what he was.”
Beltran and the front office disagreed on how to handle his knee injuries. In 2010, Beltran had arthroscopic surgery without the team’s blessing.
Beltran’s comments on Friday might take you aback at first, but they’re really no surprise. The Mets have a habit of bad-mouthing their players (most recently R.A. Dickey before his trade).
It’s another indictment of how the Wilpons have chosen to run their baseball team, and why that kind of culture has to change.