Mets captain and third baseman David Wright resumed throwing a baseball on Friday as he tries to work his way back from a shoulder impingement that has kept him from playing the field yet this year. And with the Mets playing in the National League, that obviously meant that he had to begin the year on the disabled list.
The length or Wright’s throwing program and rehabilitation isn’t a known quantity, and there’s no guarantee it will go more smoothly than it did when he tried throwing in spring training. But if he’s able to get through it, his bat could still be very useful to the Mets. Last year, he hit .226/.350/.438 with 7 home runs and a 117 wRC+ in 164 plate appearances. That wasn’t the typical David Wright batting line, but it was still good.
Wright’s shoulder isn’t the only thing he’ll have to work through moving forward, though, as he’s coming off surgery for a herniated disk in his neck that ended his 2016 season very early. And he’ll always still have spinal stenosis, the condition that cost him a large chunk of the 2015 season.