Memories of Jay Bruce, Revisited

[Edgy MD]

The Reds will always produce sluggers, it seems.

[smg58]

The team was in denial for too long that he was playing hurt.

The fact that he played pretty well on his return (.243/.344/.467) seems to have already been forgotten.

I would argue that the contract looks bad in hindsight more because of Brandon Nimmo than because of Jay Bruce.

[seawolf17]

When you look at the numbers, he played more or less to his career numbers here. Good guy, apparently, too. So that's that. By 2023 I'll forget he was a Met, though.

[Benjamin Grimm]

[A Boy Named Seo]

When he got hot during that first tenure, man he was hot. Looking back, I'm surprised the Mets went back to the Jay Bruce well for a second time.

[Lefty Specialist]

They went for Bruce because they were panicked that Conforto either a) would be out longer than anticipated or wouldn't be the same player after such an injury. Plus they didn't really believe in Nimmo, seeing him as a 4th outfielder.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Jay is the guy they really never wanted but kept coming back to like a bad penny.

I liked him enough, he's a legit Productive Bat when healthy. I get why they signed him.

[G-Fafif]

From the second go-round, he hit a go-ahead homer in the tenth inning to ultimately beat St. Louis in April. Then, it was mostly a vast desert of nothingness, symbolized most clearly by the ninth-inning home run he didn't hit to beat the Orioles in June (fly ball that died in front of the wall, much as the Mets were dying all that month). Yet another non-first baseman who proved first base is a position, not a way station. Wasn't fully healthy in 2018, but hard to see where a tip-top Bruce would have fit in 2019.

Between Met stints, the Cleveland-based Texan did a good deal of fundraising for those affected by Hurricane Harvey. Seems worth mentioning. Good luck to a good guy.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Ceetar hasn't been around for a while. If he was here, this thread would have already included the words "garbage" and "meh."