The Mets who spoke — and who didn't — just poured gas on Cespedes fire

“Our priority now is Yoenis and getting him to where he can be the best player he can possibly be. How we do that, I think that’s a question for the experts that are going to re-evaluate where we’re at with him and then check him out.”

— Mickey Callaway, July 21, Yankee Stadium

Experts?

The Mets work with experts?

More to the point, is there an expert out there who will associate him- or herself with the Mets? Declare yourself, brave expert!

For right now, the only expert who seems to be involved with the Mets is an expert in chaos. A saboteur type. Someone whose mission is to make this professional sports operation look as inept and bush-league as humanly possible, and to encourage any interested patrons to run for the hills.

Yoenis Cespedes dropped a bomb on the Mets and the public late Friday night at Yankee Stadium, and the Mets reacted Saturday by bathing in the shrapnel. Cespedes’ short-term future remains profoundly unclear, as he didn’t play Saturday due to general soreness just one day after making his return from the disabled list. More to the point, the Mets’ gift for self-destruction remains as clear as their run differential.

Callaway, the highest-ranking member of the Mets brass to speak on Saturday, began his news conference with an all-time beauty. Asked by SNY’s Steve Gelbs about Cespedes’ comments Friday that he has dual heel calcifications that will eventually require surgery with an 8-10 month recovery period, the rookie Mets manager said this:

“I didn’t get to read any of the stuff he said or hear it. I’m not quite exactly sure what he said.”

CespedesCharles Wenzelberg/New York Post

That, as former Yankees manager Joe Girardi would say, is not what you want.

A Mets official later clarified that Callaway misspoke, that of course he knew of Cespedes’ comments and meant to ask whether Gelbs had a specific question about the outfielder-first baseman’s condition. We know by now that Callaway has a tendency to fumble his words more than Eric Dickerson fumbled the football in his early years. And the skipper spent the rest of his news conference dancing his way around any sentiment besides sympathy for Cespedes, whose desire to play has been questioned after he spent over two months on the DL.

The bigger issue is that when your injury-prone $110 million player breaks this sort of news, it rises above the manager’s pay grade. It falls upon the general manager to address such a topic, and as luck would have it, the Mets currently employ three general managers in Omar Minaya, J.P. Ricciardi and John Ricco. Not one of the trio made himself available, as the Mets worked on completing their trade of Jeurys Familia to Oakland. Which meant the Mets offered only some gobbledygook and one whopper of a brain cramp or something worse by their inexperienced, imprecise manager.

The Mets hope that Cespedes spoke Friday out of a mixture of physical pain and emotional pain, his soreness blended with the annoyance that so many are doubting his integrity. Who knows with this guy? All we have learned with him is not to be surprised whatsoever by any development.

And the same, of course, goes for the Mets, jack of no trades and master of none, either. Remember when they revamped their medical staff and culture last winter to avoid situations precisely like this one?

Looks like they’re gonna need some more experts.

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