Tejada on time, but late for Collins
Ruben Tejada gets ready for batting practice during his first day at spring training in Port St. Lucie. (Feb. 26, 2012) Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Early, late. Take your pick. Maybe Ruben Tejada said it best shortly after his arrival early Sunday morning at Digital Domain Park.
After a week of Terry Collins publicly poking the young shortstop for choosing his native Panama over Port St. Lucie this winter, Tejada was asked what he believed: Was he indeed tardy, as the manager had insisted, or on time?
"I'm here now," Tejada said.
With the Mets' first full-squad workout scheduled for Monday, Tejada wasn't even required to be on the field Sunday. But he dressed and took batting practice in the cages on an unseasonably cool, windy morning in South Florida.
That was the easy part. First, Tejada was called into the manager's office as soon as he walked through the clubhouse door as Collins wanted to clear the air over any mixed messages from earlier in the offseason.
To call it a conversation probably would be a stretch.
"There wasn't a lot of back- and-forth," Collins said.
The manager was disappointed in Tejada for not sharing the same sense of urgency for the coming year, which happens to be the first one without Jose Reyes, a four-time All-Star and the reigning NL batting champion.
It also happens to be a season in which Daniel Murphy, the work-in-progress at second base, will be paired with the 22-year-old shortstop. Doesn't quite have the same feel as Omar Vizquel-Roberto Alomar, circa 1999, so you can understand where Collins is coming from.
Collins brought up the other shortstop in town, the future Hall of Famer with five World Series rings, to get his point across. "I just think it sends messages," Collins said. "I'm going to look at the team on the other side of the field. Who's the first guy in their camp? The biggest baseball star in the City of New York. He does it all the time. That sends a message. This guy does it -- how come the others can't?"
Collins seemed to get his point across, and he indicated that he was pleased with Tejada's response. Or at least he was satisfied by it. "He's such a good kid," Collins said. "He was very upset to think he messed up. I told him he was going to have a bad day and so far, he's had one."
Perhaps it is a good sign that when questioned by reporters afterward, Tejada appeared relatively unfazed by Collins' lecture. He occasionally leaned on bullpen coach Ricky Bones as an interpreter but handled most of the load himself.
"I had a little problem getting here early, but I'm here today to start working hard," Tejada said. When asked why he wanted the extra time at home -- something contrary to Collins' wishes -- Tejada had a ready explanation. "I had a personal trainer in Panama," he said, "so I thought it was better off to stay there and work out with the personal trainer. To get ready and strong."
That endurance is a concern for the Mets, who wonder if the slightly built Tejada can hold up over a full season. He's generously listed at 5-11, 185 pounds, and he has played only 174 games in the majors in the past two years. One encouraging sign is that Tejada batted .319 (51-for-160) with a .384 on-base percentage in 44 games in the final two months of last season.
"I don't know if anybody knows the ceiling on this guy," Collins said. "With what he did at the end of last season, we are going to press that mightily this spring. That was good enough. Do not try to do more. I'm not asking Ruben Tejada to do what Jose Reyes did offensively. You can't ask anybody on this team because we don't have that guy."
