Mets Cespedes, Conforto injured: Fantasy fallout

Over the last couple of days, the Mets lost two of their top outfielders, Yoenis Cespedes and Michael Conforto. How does that impact fantasy now and beyond?

The New York Mets. Man, what an unlucky past two seasons. Last year, the pitching staff was decimated by injuries. This season, the team has had injuries to both the pitchers and top hitters. Most recently, the Mets lost two outfielders, likely for the season.

The Mets, according to Baseball Reference, have nine players on the DL, three of them being hitters, Yoenis Cespedes, Michael Conforto and TJ Rivera. It’s been a year of injuries across the league but the Mets can’t seem to catch a break. The first injury happened on August 24 to Conforto.

Conforto left the game in the fifth inning with what was being described as a dislocated left shoulder. Adam Rubin, SNY contributor, tweeted an update from the Mets. The update said that there were no fractures but suffered a posterior capsule tear.

The team also announced that they are looking into all treatment options, including surgery. If he does go under the knife, that would end his season. The Mets aren’t playing for this season so surgery shouldn’t be completely ruled out. He’ll have enough time to recover and be ready for next season.

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Conforto is hitting .279 with 27 home runs, 68 RBI and 72 runs scored. He was owned in 76.9 percent of ESPN leagues before the injury. It’s dropped 18.9 percent over the last week. He will have his shoulder further evaluated Monday. We’ll get a better idea if his season is over or not by then.

Two days later, Cespedes suffered another hamstring injury as he was rounding third base in Friday’s game. This time, it was his right hamstring. He missed 40 games earlier in the season with a left hamstring injury.

Mike Puma, Mets beat writer for the New York Post, tweeted that Mets GM Sandy Alderson said this hamstring injury is as severe as the previous one. He was then placed on the DL on Saturday.

Despite the power being down, Cespedes was hitting .292 with 17 homers, 42 RBI and 46 runs scored. Those are roughly the same numbers he posted in the second half of 2015 when he first joined the Mets.

He is still owned in 94 percent of leagues. With uncertainty around his status for the rest of the season, I understand keeping his rostered. The Mets have just 35 games left. How much of that do you think Cespedes plays?

It’ll be hard to rank him inside the top 30 for outfielders next season. If he is done for the year, he’ll have played just 81 games this year. You can’t rank him higher than 40th based on unreliability.

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The Mets promoted Travis Taijeron from Triple-A. They also have Brandon Nimmo, Juan Lagares and Matt Reynolds in the outfield.

Outside of the Mets organization, Rhys Hoskins is killing the ball. Former Met, Curtis Granderson is hitting well with the Dodgers. Kevin Kiermaier also looks well since returning.