Last night for AAA New Orleans, Ambiorix Burgos, who’s been out for quite awhile now due to an elbow injury, threw a scoreless inning, allowing no hits, no walks, and no strikeouts.
When he was initally injured, many people expected him to have TJ surgery and that the Mets brass just wanted his elbow to “calm down” a bit first, but now he appears to be back to full strength.
As I noted a few months back, Burgos was known to have attitude problems:
I’m not libeling in any sort of way when I say Burgos certainly has some character issues, something that as we all know the Mets put a lot of emphasis on. These issues included things like he wouldn’t be watching the game in the bullpen during the early innings because he was more interested in doing his thing (whatever that was). Allegedly, he didn’t get along with many coaches, particularly his bullpen coach. Since he’s left, a number of Royals, including Mike Sweeney, have alluded to the team shedding some dead weight. He was rumored to think that since he was a successful rookie in 2005, he was due something, and in thinking so, he rubbed some of the veterans in the wrong way.
Of course, its pure speculation as to whether this was the exact reason the Mets sent Burgos to AAA. But having known this, Royals GM Dayton Moore’s emphasis on tools and makeup, such as the case with Angel Berroa, and the Mets bullpen struggles, it’s a very strong possibility.
Now, as I mentioned in my article last week, makeup can be very overrated and talent must triumph character issues in almost every case. But here’s a guy that, more than anything, needed a little bit of coaching, and to ignore it he was doing himself a disservice.
Filed under: baseball
