In his first comments from spring training, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns gave updates on several players' rehab from injuries, including his impression of outfielder Starling Marte.
Stearns said the “most encouraging” takeaway from his time watching Marte play over the offseason in the Dominican Winter League was “he’s healthy.”
“It was clear watching him play that he was healthy,” he said. “The game I was at, he was playing right field, and he had to handle a number of balls down the right field line and he got there easily. It looked like Starling Marte moving in the outfield. So that was very encouraging.”
Stearns said he doesn’t “anticipate any surprise” injuries of players coming into camp, with infielder Ronny Mauricio and pitcher David Peterson the two known injuries on the roster at the moment.
Mauricio, who sustained a torn ACL in December during winter ball in his native Dominican Republic, is “still at the early stages of his rehab,” he said.“This is gonna be a long haul for him, we knew that when we got the diagnosis of the injury. Everything's going fine so far, but we're still at the eight at the early stages.”
Peterson “is right on track” after undergoing surgery to repair damage to the labrum in his left hip during the first week of November.
“We anticipate him participating for us this year, pitching for us this year, hopefully being an important guy for us down the stretch,” Stearns said of the left-hander. “When that exactly turns out to be, we’ll know more over the next month or so. We certainly expect for him to pitch for us over the summer and maybe towards the early part of the summer.”
Veteran right-hander Kyle Crick, a non-roster signee, has a calf strain that will force him to miss “a good portion of camp, if not the whole thing,” Stearns said.