The New York Mets have swapped Michaels. Their veteran left fielder will hit the disabled list with a knee injury while their prospect left fielder will make his MLB debut on Friday.
Michael Cuddyer was placed on the 15-day disabled list with soreness in his left knee and the Mets promoted Michael Conforto, according to the team's Twitter account. Reports from earlier in the week as well as yesterday suggested the move could be imminent.
Conforto will likely spend a few games with the Mets until general manager Sandy Alderson makes a trade to land another bat before the July 31 deadline. The 22-year-old was the Mets' first-round draft pick last year and was recently promoted to Double-A Binghamton, where he is batting .312/.396/.503 with 21 runs scored, 5 home runs and 26 RBIs in 45 games.
"Most young position players that come to the big leagues for the first time aren't all that successful," Alderson told Andy Martino of the New York Daily News.
"Now, somebody like Conforto can be the exception, somebody like Conforto can come up with the intended purpose of only being here for a week or 10 days to get through a shortage, a player shortage that we might have. So there are different scenarios."
New York has been significantly hampered by injuries this season, beginning with Zack Wheeler and Josh Edgin needing Tommy John surgery in spring training. That soon snowballed into David Wright, Jerry Blevins, Rafael Montero, Dilson Herrera, Alex Torres, Daniel Murphy, Travis d'Arnaud and Steven Matz all hitting the DL for an extended period of time.
The Mets hope Conforto can inject some life into their anemic offense, which ranks 29th in runs scored (329) and last in OPS (.654) among the rest of the MLB. Their pitching staff has largely been responsible for their success thus far and the team sits just three games behind the Washington Nationals for the NL East lead and three games behind the Chicago Cubs for the second wild-card spot.
Look for Conforto to make his MLB debut tonight at Citi Field against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
