The fallen face of the Mets

The emptiness of his team’s existence in the final weeks of baseball’s regular season has reduced David Wright, the tireless worker, the true company man, into something of an office drone, punching the clock, playing out the string.For the Mets, he has remained a paragon of professionalism, the one whom newcomers are instructed to watch and emulate. But with nine games to play, Wright, 28, is set to finish what would amount, statistically, to his worst professional season. These vexations, furthermore, extend beyond just the present year, continuing instead a long arc of frustrations wrought from the last half-decade.And so a series of questions — big, important ones — have begun to emerge about what Wright’s true capacities as a player might be and where he should be working in the future, particularly in light of the financially uncertain circumstances of his employers.“It’s always going to be a frustrating season when you find yourself playing out the schedule with two or three weeks left, and I would say also it was very frustrating personally that I had to miss a couple of months,” Wright said, reflecting on the 2011 season, which included a long stint on the disabled list with a stress fracture in his back. “It’s pretty hard to judge your own performance when the team is 20-something games back and just playing the schedule.”Since his charmed debut as a 21-year-old in 2004, Wright has been the quintessential Met, a cornerstone of the team, in every sense, from his post at third base. But his tenure has been discolored somewhat since 2006, the Mets’ last foray into the playoffs. Since then, he has been buffeted by two straight late-season collapses by his team, by a beaning and by his own enigmatic performances on the field.This season, Wright is batting just .263 and has a fielding percentage of .927. The figures, far below his career averages, can be rationalized to some extent by the fact that he played hurt for a while until his back problem was finally diagnosed. Nevertheless, the statistics remain unsettling.“There’s so many variables that go into putting up numbers,” Wright said. “There’s some years where I’ve felt like I had really good years, and the numbers have been lower than years where I haven’t felt so great.”But the numbers will be judged nonetheless. Earlier this summer, Wright was the subject of trade speculation, and when the season ends, the rumors are certain to start anew.The Mets owe Wright $15 million next season and hold an option for his services the year after that. Common thinking dictates that the team, amid its financial difficulties, will have difficulty keeping both Wright and Jose Reyes, their dynamic shortstop, who will be a free agent after the season.One major league scout, who has watched Wright frequently this season and was granted anonymity so he could speak candidly about another team’s player, said that Wright looked somewhat tentative, both in the field — he has 18 errors in 93 games — and at the plate since returning from the disabled list, and that he thought Wright had lost a full grade defensively, with greatly diminished range.Still, he said Wright, given a change of scenery and relieved of the burden of trying to prop up a losing franchise, might put up steady numbers for years to come.For now, the prospect of a Mets team without Wright is difficult to fathom. He remains something of a revered figure in the clubhouse, and though he is not a vocal and passionate motivator of his teammates, he is unequivocally their leader.“How can you not want to play as hard as David Wright plays?” Manager Terry Collins said. “He says and does all of the right things.”Among fellow players, Wright’s work ethic and general diligence are consistently invoked as model behaviors.“It shows that if you want to be great, like I think David is, then getting your work in is important,” said Mike Pelfrey, his longtime teammate.Endorsements came from opponents as well. Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves said that he and Wright had developed a “mutual respect” as counterparts — third basemen who bat third — on longtime divisional rivals, and that they had gotten to know each other as teammates at the World Baseball Classic.Jones said he thought Wright’s back injury, and the ensuing rehabilitation, had bothered him more than he let on. The same could be said, Jones speculated, about the large dimensions at Citi Field, which he believed had affected Wright’s swing more than he would admit.Since Citi Field replaced Shea Stadium in 2009, Wright’s basic offensive numbers, once remarkably consistent, have begun to veer all over the place. His home run and runs batted in totals sank, then revived; his batting average went up slightly, then began to erode; his strikeouts have climbed alarmingly.“I think it gets in his head,” Jones said of Citi Field’s size. “At Shea, he could go opposite field at will, and that assured he could hit from foul line to foul line.” The scout who spoke about Wright echoed Jones on that point, saying that Wright’s natural swing was to right-center field and that right-center field was a “graveyard” at Citi Field.And yet amid these concerns, Jones also said it was hard to imagine the Mets without Wright.“I think the world of David, and I think he’s the total package, the kind of player and the kind of person you want to build an organization around,” Jones said. “It’s hard to replace three-hole hitters. It takes a special breed.”There is a general sense that Wright is more frustrated with the losses and his own performance than he lets on. “There’s been nights when you look in those eyes, and there’s some anger,” Collins said.But an even keel is a valued trait among team leaders, and negative displays of emotions from Wright remain rare.For the most part — and for the time being — he keeps punching the clock, playing out the string.