Yoenis Cespedes is going to keep everything close to the vest this season.
As the Mets’ slugger becomes more and more available in 2020 after three injury-riddled campaigns, he wants no part in speaking with the media.
“Not today, not tomorrow, not at all this year,” he said down in Port St. Lucie on Monday when approached by reporters.
Cespedes missed the entire 2019 season after an offseason run-in with a wild boar that led to a fractured ankle.
It derailed his recovery process from surgery on both of his heels that limited his 2018 season to just 38 games.
Since the start of the 2017 season, he’s appeared in just 119 games.
His injury led to the Mets reducing his 2020 salary from $29 million to just $6 million, though it could go up to $11 million if he makes the Opening Day roster.
That could be a possibility considering Cespedes has shared the progress of his recovery in recent weeks while setting lofty goals for the 2020 season — which includes 50-plus home runs in at least 140 games.
He took live batting practice with the team on Monday afternoon.
It would be an enormous addition to the middle of the Mets lineup, which is already looking promising with Pete Alonso coming off a 53-home-run season and Michael Conforto adding a career-high 33 round-trippers.
In the last two seasons in which he’s played at least 130 games, Cespedes eclipsed the 30-home-run mark, providing the promise of that same output if he stays healthy.
Slotting him in at the No. 3 or 4 spot makes the Mets that much better in an NL East division that is expected to be one of the most tightly-contested races in baseball.
But the last year or so of scrutiny from the New York media has taken its toll on Cespedes, who will now enter 2020 as tight-lipped as ever.
And he remained defiant in his explanation as to why, too.
“Because I don’t want to.”
