Mets receive good news on Ike Davis
Ike Davis should be ready for spring training after recovering from a left ankle injury he sustained early last season. (June 15, 2010) Credit: Getty Images
PHOENIX -- Finally, some good news for Mets fans: Ike Davis said Tuesday he is "good to go" for spring training after more than two months of hard rehab on the freakish left ankle injury that cost him most of the 2011 season.
"I'm there now," he said after a two-hour workout at Fischer Sports Physical Therapy and Conditioning near his Phoenix-area home. "Right now it's not, 'I wonder if I can play.' It's 'I'm ready to play.' "
Davis, who has been working out three to four times a week since Halloween, was injured when he collided with David Wright on an infield pop-up on May 10 at Coors Field in Denver.
Davis thought he had a sprained ankle and was going to miss a few days, but it took months for the injury to be correctly diagnosed. At one point last summer, Davis was two days away from having microfracture surgery that would have ended his season and put the start of this one in jeopardy, too.
Finally, it was determined that Davis suffered a sprain, a bone bruise and ligament damage in the ankle joint. He started feeling better as the regular season was ending, but with no reason to rush him back the Mets shut him down and pointed to 2012.
After a month off, Davis ramped up his workouts with no idea if his ankle could stand the pounding. It did. Now he is doing his normal baseball workouts -- he started hitting on Jan. 2 -- with a little extra ankle stuff thrown in, like pulling a 200-pound sled weight across a turf field, as he did Tuesday.
"In my mind, it's really in the past," Davis said. "Now I'm set up for the season and playing good baseball."
Davis was hitting .302 with a team-leading seven home runs and 25 RBIs in 36 games before the injury.
Roster moves. The Mets have removed former top prospect Fernando Martinez from the 40-man roster in order to make room for new signings and could lose the oft-injured outfielder to another team on waivers, a baseball source confirmed.
Martinez, 23, hasn't played in more than 82 games in any of the last three seasons because of multiple injuries, including an arthritic knee. The regime of Sandy Alderson has no ties to Martinez, who was signed as a 16-year-old by former general manager Omar Minaya for $1.4 million and has a .183 batting average in 47 big-league games.
If Martinez is not claimed by another team on waivers, he can be assigned to Triple-A Buffalo. The Mets also removed lefthander Daniel Herrera from the roster; they need room for bench players Ronny Cedeño and Scott Hairston, who both recently agreed to one-year deals.
The Mets announced they re-signed pitcher Miguel Batista to a minor-league deal. Batista went 2-0 with a 2.64 ERA in nine games last season and pitched a shutout on the last day of the season against Cincinnati.
They also signed righthander Fernando Cabrera, 30, who spent last season with the Athletics' Triple-A team, to a minor-league deal.
