Jayson Werth wanted nothing to do with the Mets.
Werth fired his agent before spring training, and he said he called around to every team himself — except the Mets. He trained all winter only to find out many teams didn’t know he was interested in playing, he told the Howard Eskin Podcast.
“I had offers in November and I was advised by my former agent to wait — ill-advised, I guess,” Werth told the host. “Spring training came and went and by about halfway through spring training I felt like I was ready to play, so I took matters into my own hands. I called every team — you’ll love this — but one to try and get a job.
“The only team I didn’t call? The Mets … I wouldn’t play for them.”
Werth, 39, had a lot to say about baseball but didn’t talk any more about the Mets. He played the last 10 years of his career on the Phillies and the Nationals — two Mets rivals.
His agent until this offseason was Scott Boras, though Werth didn’t mention him by name. Boras is known for his hardball negotiating tactics and counts Bryce Harper and Matt Harvey among his clients.
Later in the interview, Werth blamed former Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. for not keeping together the Philadelphia team that won the World Series in 2008 and the NL pennant in 2009. Specifically, Werth criticized the decision to trade Cliff Lee to the Mariners, saying Amaro panicked because Lee’s agent asked for a “marginal” salary increase. The Phillies then traded for Roy Halladay.
Amaro is now the Mets’ first-base coach.
“There’s no reason we shouldn’t have had Cliff [Lee] and Roy Halladay in 2010,” said Werth, who signed a seven-year, $126 million deal to go from Philadelphia to Washington that offseason.
“We should’ve had another reunion for the 2010 team. With Cliff, we walk away with it [the World Series]. That’s where the whole thing ran astray — Cliff was ready to sign and I was ready to sign. Ruben was … handed a World Series team and in a short period of time, that team had been dismantled.”
Werth also criticized the use of analytics in baseball today, slamming the “super nerds” in front offices.
“They’ve got all these super nerds in the front office that know nothing about baseball, but they like to project numbers and project players,” he said. “I think it’s killing the game. It’s to the point where just put computers out there. Just put laptops and what have you, just put them out there and let them play. We don’t even need to go out there anymore. It’s a joke.
“When they come down, these kids from MIT, Stanford, Harvard, wherever they’re from — they’ve never played baseball in their life. When they come down to talk about stuff like that [shifts], should I just bunt it over there? They’re like, ‘No, don’t do that. We don’t want you to do that. We want you to hit a homer.’ It’s just not baseball to me. We’re creating something that’s not fun to watch. It’s boring. You’re turning players into robots. You’ve taken the human element out of the game.”
He spent a brief period of time in the Mariners’ minor league system this season before announcing his retirement in June. In his career, Werth slashed .267/.360/.455 for 229 home runs and 799 RBIs.
