The 2020 campaign will go in the books as a lost season for Mets infielder Jed Lowrie, who won’t play this year on account of left knee problems, Tim Healey of Newsday reports.
The Lowrie signing surely counts as one of the worst in team history for the Mets, who inked the ex-Athletics standout to a two-year, $20MM contract before last season. The switch-hitting Lowrie was coming off two healthy and productive seasons in Oakland at the time, but his knee troubles have since limited him to nine games and eight plate appearances – all of which came in 2019.
Soon to turn 37 years old, Lowrie has undergone platelet-rich plasma and stem cell injections in his knee of late, per Healey. It’s unclear whether Lowrie will play again, then. However, if he does try for another deal, it’s quite likely to be of the minor league variety.
The Mets, for their part, haven’t necessarily needed Lowrie over the past couple years, during which they’ve had a crowded infield. Lowrie’s primarily a second and third baseman, but the Mets have Robinson Cano, J.D. Davis and Jeff McNeil around to handle those spots. Those players are all slated to remain with the team in 2021.
Damn him and pedroia seem to have a similar issue.
Does his family even know what he does for a profession
Collect checks from the Mets.
Good work if you can get it.
The difference is Pedroia actually wants to play while Lowrie hasn’t made a peep publicly.
I don’t see what those two things have to do with each other
Jed Lowrie and I are tied for number of hits as a New York Met.
it wasnt funny the first 10 times you posted it the other 10 threads and still isnt funny.
11th time’s a charm
Yeah, it is kinda funny now.
Me too hahahahaha
Shocking
When you can become one of the worst signings in team history for any team, it is notable. It is especially impressive to do it for a team like the Mets. BTW, when is Bobby Bonilla day again?
July 1st every year through 2035!
Many players have deferrals and Bonilla’s got the Mets a year of Mike Hampton and the 2000 national League championship and then David Wright with the compensation pick when Hampton signed with the Rockies. I’ll take that. People don’t understand the concept of present value. I’m not sure if I should blame the American education system or Americans’ lack of impulse control and need for immediate gratification.
It’s not that deep brother. Bonilla day is just used to exemplify the perpetual bafoonery that seems to surround the Mets. Even if the net value of the deal was a win for the organization, it’s still objectively funny that the idiot Mets are paying a guy millions of dollars to be retired.
Exactly. Bobby Bonilla day is not preventing the Mets from signing big contracts. It’s just low hanging fruit.
Everyone wants to focus on the deferral aspect of the Bonilla signing, but he was the highest paid player in baseball when he signed and he definitely didn’t play like it for the Mets. Take away all the deferrals and he was STILL a bad signing.
And BTW, the Bonilla contract that got deferred is not the one that led to Hampton and Wright. That was when he signed a second time to a smaller one year contract. The deferred contract was from the 5 year deal in the mid 90s. The Mets traded him to Baltimore for Damon Buford and Alex Ochoa. So not exactly the same value.
If ‘the net value of the deal was a win for the organization’, how is it ‘objectively funny’ and how are the Mets ‘idiots’?
well said
Curious if Cohen just pays him out.
The organization is contractually obligated to.
How can it be one of the worst in team history when it’s only 2 years &20 million?! Ridiculous. Stupid signing, no doubt, especially when you look at who they passed over. His history made the outcome all the more unsurprising.
That was also what I thought when I saw this. In the entire history of the team, a guy with knee problems missing a lot is truly the worst one?
Terrible signing. Didn’t need him. Basically, shows up hurt. Unknown injury that never healed? Two years of nothing. Tied up $20m of money that theoretically could have been spent elsewhere.
metsie1
I had PCL repair done by a well known orthopedic surgeon in SF who operated on Olympic athletes as well as famous NFL and MLB players..
This injury had to be known by Lowrie as just walking down a steep grade or a flight of stairs you can feel it. Besides that a simple physical examination by an orthopedic surgeon even before an MRI will easily show this PCL laxity.
The knee joint simply moves and has play in a direction it should not have; its that simple and I lived through it There is no way to hide this as they fix your foot flat and knee bent and move your lower leg.. You can see trainers and doctors do this on the field or the court right after an injury and immediately call it out and then confirm with an MRI.
I blame Jed because he had to know it; it is not unknown and I blame the Mets organization for not having him pass a simple incoming physical before Flushing 20 million down the drain.
Just look at the size of the brace he played with! His knee was that loose!
There is no reason to believe that he didn’t injure his PCL in Port St. Lucie in camp. Perhaps he knew and the Mets physical failed to find it, but the only place I’ve read it is from grousing fans, not anyone that actually knows. If Rhys Hoskins can injure his UCL on a play at first, then I can believe that Lowrie’s PCL injury was the result of a traumatic incident in camp and not a long-term wear-ad-tear injury or a trauma before he signed. It happens. It was $20 million, not $100 or $150 or more. This was no Jacoby Ellsbury contract. Or Jason Bay or Yoenis Cespedes.
I have never seen the actual injury disclosed. When he was 1st shut down BVW publicly stated “not serious”. That was 2 years ago. These are the only facts. No matter $20m and 2 years wasted. Thankfully he is gone.
I knew there was a reason the Mets aren’t going to the playoffs. It was Lowrie all along.
I have a feeling the Mets will overpay for LeMahieu this off-season. Hopefully DJ wants to stay in the Bronx. Maybe 3 years 50 Millon gets it done
With the new CBA on the horizon coupled with the lost Covid revenue I think it’s going to be really difficult to predict free agent contracts this year.
More so than usual.
I was kinda looking at the Donaldson deal in terms of what DJ will seek. But – again – all bets are off.
Donaldsons contract was a bad move by the Twins.
LeMahieu doesn’t strike me as a likely target for the Mets with their current roster makeup (which they would have a hard time doing a whole lot to change this offseason, at least in my view)
Then again, I could have said the same about Lowrie two years ago…
i really cant see LaMahieu taking less than 20 a yr especially with his versatility and last couple of years stats.. Unless he takes a hometown type of discount.
They will try to overpay for Realmuto. If they sign him, he’ll decline like Lucroy. And, we’ll get automated balls and strikes and his framing will have no value to the team.
Jason Bay is smiling while reading this
Bay’s deal was far worse. Sometimes it;s worse if they aren’t on the DL.
I wasn’t a huge fan of his when he was in Boston, he was the wrong guy to replace Manny Ramirez, at the time
Man.
Ya know, I wanted Lowrie instead of DJ.
At the time, he seemed like he offered more positional versatility and a superior bat.
Ooops.
Sorta blew that one.
:)
Coulda had cabrera for much less the money they paid Lowrie and he wanted to play here.
You’re not alone. I wished the Yankees had signed Lowrie instead of DJ. Even us genius fans make a mistake sometimes.
DJ was always criminally underrated among Rockies fans. Every year people would say they needed to trade him because it was obvious he had a career year and couldn’t duplicate it. Then he would go out and not only duplicate, but exceed the previous year. And the next off season would say the same thing.
But the powers that be thought Daniel Murphy was a better signing. Sigh.
At least they got their money’s worth.
Is Lowrie not playing really news?
This must be fake news!
Gee whiz what a surprise!! When is the last time he saw any action?
His bachelor party?
In terms of the worst Mets signings ever, I still put Oliver Perez (09-11) at the top of the list:
112 innings of an 6.81 ERA/6.99 FIP, 59 ERA+, 8 walks per 9 innings and -2.4 WAR on a 3 year, 36 million dollar deal
I think Lowrie might be the most fascinating bad signing in Mets history though, with the possible exception of Bay.
While it was a bad signing in the end, Oliver did provide some innings and if he had more accepted the relief role would have probably been decent. In the end though he actually played and atleast did garbage innings.
Lowrie didnt even provide garbage time stuff. At best he took innings away from there young guys that could have used it. He is basically what carl pavano was for the yankees only he cost them more.
I dont know what they were paid but Jose Reyes last year or Julio Franco were stupid signings and lasted the year on a roster that were a waste of roster spots. Jason Bay probably would rank worse above Perez as well. You could also probably throw in Cespedes last contract with the mets. as well. Sooo many bad deals.
I guess for me, the fact that Perez provided negative value puts him above guys like Bay, Castillo, Matsui. etc (who were also terrible signings, but at bare minimum were around replacement level) and even somebody like Lowrie who didn’t play at all. And Perez was obviously a bad signing from the outset – he was a back of the rotation starter who the Mets overvalued relative to their crummy pitching depth and barren farm system.
Signing Cespedes made sense at the time, that’s another one that looks worse with hindsight.
Lowrie’s decline in 2018’s second half was extreme. This was on both offense and defense. Perhaps the Mets attributed it to his playing in 159 games. Still, Lowrie’s defensive range at second base was non-existent. Yet the Mets somehow thought he could also provide depth at SS and 3B. Not only that, but they brought in another 2B by trading for Cano. Meanwhile, McNeil had sparkled in a 63-game trial in 2018. The fact that they doubted McNeil’s ability to handle the position fulltime speaks volumes of Mets player evaluation. Such a reckless offseason. While Cano has had a nice short season in 2020, his presence ties the organization’s hands when it comes to making upgrades. All because they misjudged a guy who they developed.
Well, at least Lowrie didn’t cost the Mets games because his performance on the field was so bad. He’s got that going for him.
Jason bay. Vince Coleman, brett saberhagen.
Saberhagen was very good for the Mets
People forget how good Saberhagen was for the Mets because his best year with the team happened during the strike year of 1994. The rest of the time he was with the team, he was good, but hurt a lot.
I say this as a Rockies fan that saw the REAL bad of Saberhagen.
Lowrie has had injuries his whole career. He was the Red Sox short stop of the future in 2008, but could not stay on the field consistently…..you would assume he would be hurt each year and be surprised if he actually played a descent number on games, but that only happened withHouston andOakland.
Math brain teaser: Jed Lowrie signed a two-year deal with the Mets for $20 million. In those two years, he accumulated zero hits. How much money was Lowrie paid per hit?
Excel (actually LibreOffice Calc) says #Div/0!
LOL!
Who are we talking about exactly?
His name is Jed. What is up with that?
Maybe his parents really liked Patrick Swayze’s character in Red Dawn. He was the leader of the Wolverines, after all.
Honestly, if this was never brought up, would anyone even know Jed Lowrie is still in the league, let alone on the Mets??
Lowrie had a nice run with the A’s but he’s 37 with knee problems probably time to hang up the spikes
What A shock see you at the s
Allstar game next year for Oakland lmao.
I want to see him and Bobby Bonilla at the next Mets Old-timers Day Game.
Bobby Bonilla is too busy fishing off the coast of Florida. Even if you convinced him to be there for that game, you have to make it all expenses paid because he gets all sorts of freebies in Florida when he flashes his 1997 World Series Championship ring.
Yep, life is good for Bobby. He has a steady paycheck from a team that he never won with, while being able to flash that championship ring for winning with a team that doesn’t have to pay for his retirement, but he gets his freebies with that ring.
Good work if you can get it. Bobby Bonilla endorsed this comment. If you doubt it, I can go to his yacht off the shore of South Beach where he fishes while he’s polishing his Marlins 1997 World Series Championship ring with his Mets paycheck.
He’ll show you the Bronx
I know. The fact that he lives in NY and always comes down to South Beach to fish off his yacht and get freebies with his ring is what makes it all funny. He didn’t do crud for the Mets, nor does he live where your fan base is headquartered (not that a rich guy would live in Queens), but the Mets are the ones paying for his luxurious retirement to live in his mansion in NYC and have an extra home in Florida (that he probably lists as his primary location to not pay income tax) for when he’s fishing and getting those freebies.
Like I said, for him and also Lowrie, great work if you can get it. We all should be so lucky.
And if you don’t like it, to quote the great swindling philosopher, “Make yo’ move!”
This is a total shock.
Only thing worse than signing him the Mets could’ve done was not have insurance on him.
Haven’t heard if they did.