Mets cut ties with Robinson Canó
Canó, 39, was batting .195 (41-8) with one home run and three RBIs in 12 games in his return to the majors after serving a second suspension for violating baseball’s anti-doping policy.
Upon being placed on assignment, Canó will have to wait a week to become a free agent and sign with any other team, which would only have to pay him a proportion of the minimum salary ($700,000 in 2022), while New York would be responsible for most of his $24 million guaranteed salary for this and next season.
When they traded Canó to the Mets in December 2018, the Mariners agreed to pay $3.75 million per year of the Quintana Roo-born ballplayer’s salary.
Canó is batting .302 with 2,632 hits, including 335 home runs, and 1,305 runs batted in over 17 years in the majors, but the ballplayer’s future was a topic of conversation in recent days in Queens as the May 2 date approached, when the Mets and all other major league clubs were to reduce their rosters from 28 to 26 members.
Normally, Major League rosters are composed of 26 players, but because of how short spring training was, the commissioner’s office allowed two extra pieces, mostly relief pitchers, to be added between April 7 and May 1.
“This is a position nobody wants to be in,” Canó said Sunday night. “You’re never prepared for things, but when they come, you adapt. Let it be whatever God wants that has to happen in life,” he added.
Canó, an eight-time All-Star and multiple Gold Glove winner, had a career that seemed headed for the Cooperstown Hall of Fame until he was suspended for doping twice. The first suspension, for 80 games, occurred in May 2018, while the second, for all 162 games in 2021, was announced in November 2020.
The slugger reported to Mets practice in Port St. Lucie, Florida, without a guaranteed role in new manager Buck Showalter’s overall plan.
“I haven’t thought about a role, but I feel good about competing,” Canó said, after apologizing to his teammates and Mets fans.
“It’s all going to depend on how he feels physically, how he evolves. I can’t say right now if he’ll play as many games at second base, that he’ll get as many turns as designated or any other role. We’re just getting ready for the season,” Showalter said. “Jeff McNeil is the favorite to play second base,” Showalter added at the time.
