Noah Syndergaard arrived at New York Mets Spring Training with 17 pounds of added muscle, thanks to an offseason workout regimen heavy on weight-lifting and strength training. Yoenis Cespedes also adopted a weight-centric workout program with team strength and conditioning advisor, Mike Barwis.
“His workout is phenomenal,” Barwis said back in February. “He is in here five days a week pushing hard.’’
Well, Cespedes may have pushed himself too hard. He landed on the disabled list last month with a strained right hamstring. The injury will sideline him for the remainder of the 2017 season. It was one of several leg injuries he suffered over the past two seasons. Even before that injury, Cespedes planned to change his workout program to ensure he avoids a similar ailment next season.
“I want to become more flexible, more athletic, have less bulk,” Cespedes told The New York Post back in July. “I want to do less weight lifting. I’m going to do some different things, I want to do yoga, more stretching. I want to be lighter.”
Cespedes’ remarks stand in stark contrast to those made back in February, when he trained with Barwis. He put heavy emphasis on leg training, and powered through 90-minute workouts, which he believed would keep him “healthy for the whole season.” That plan backfired after his season-ending hamstring injury.
Cespedes still plans to strengthen his legs, but in a different way. He will dedicate more time to running and conditioning his legs from an endurance standpoint as opposed to one of pure strength. The Mets slugger admitted last week that the heavy offseason workload left his legs exhausted halfway through this year.
“Although I was starting out strong, I can tell during the season my muscles weren’t able to keep up,” Cespedes revealed. “They [legs] were probably wearing out, so I figured out that’s definitely where the change needs to be.”
Cespedes’ epiphany echoes that of Syndergaard, another star who could miss the rest of 2017. Syndergaard also plans to make changes to his offseason workout regimen, focusing more on flexibility and endurance over weights and strength training.
Cespedes is too important to the team’s present and future to suffer these nagging injuries. He signed a four-year, $110 million deal last November, only to appear in 81 games this season. Granted, he was productive in those games, hitting .292 with 17 home runs and 42 runs batted in, along with a .540 slugging percentage.
The Mets will closely monitor the 32-year-old outfielder this offseason as he renovates his training regimen. In the meantime, Cespedes wishes he could be out there with his teammates, despite the team’s struggles this year.
“I love being out on the field,” Cespedes said last week. “I love playing baseball, and just sort of seeing the state of the team, it has been really hard not being able to be here for them to help out.”
If Cespedes commits to his new workout philosophy, perhaps that will no longer be a concern. He will be on the field to help his team in what they hope will be a bounce-back 2018 campaign. Although, for a player with Cespedes’ injury history, there is always that seed of doubt. Can he stay healthy? Will his hamstring or quad act up again?
Cespedes carries those doubts into next season. His offseason workout program will determine whether he quells those concerns in 2018, or simply exacerbates them.
Jesse Andreozzi is a staff writer for Outside Pitch Sports Network covering the New York Mets. Follow him on Twitter @Jesse_Andreozzi
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