Cespedes wants to play golf again to break slump

You can't break a promise if you didn't make one in the first place.

Struggling New York Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, who was advised to take golf out of his routine in an effort to prevent further controversy, wants to get back on the links because he thinks it'll improve his play on the diamond.

"It wasn't a promise, but one of the things was, I went to play golf in the morning and then I came to play baseball in the afternoon," Cespedes said of his former habit, according to Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. "I stopped doing it in the offseason. But I think I'm considering playing golf again."

Despite coming through with a clutch RBI single in the 12th inning on Friday, Cespedes struck out four times, and now leads the league in that category (34). He said that in the past he turned to golf when he was struggling at the plate, but the hobby also generated controversy in 2016 when Cespedes was pictured playing while on the disabled list with a quad strain. At the time, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson referred to the situation as "bad optics."

"One of the things that I did before, years ago, when I was in a slump, was playing golf and trying to get out of my slump," Cespedes added. "I said this season I wouldn't go to play golf. So one of the things that I'm doing now, that I didn’t do before, is watching the videos. That’s something different I’m doing right now. But unfortunately, it's not going too well so far."

Cespedes, the Mets' highest-paid player, is in the second season of a four-year, $110-million contract he signed in 2017. In 19 games this year, he's hitting .208/.274/.377 with a career-worst 40.5 strikeout rate and 78 wRC+.