David Wright Is Okay With Power Outage

David Wright has two Gold Glove awards. He has all star appearances. He even has the 'Captain' status on a major sports franchise in New York. He seemingly has everything.

That everything includes a power outage in his teams' new ballpark.

We've all been through this, I know, but the numbers don't lie. Allow me to briefly visit this topic in light of a recent interview David Wright has given. Since he broke into the league in 2004, he has not had a full season of less than 26 Home Runs or 100 RBIs until last year. He had a career high in season strikeouts with 140 and career low in season hits with 164.

This could just be one bad year. Let's hope so, after all every major player has a bad year or two. We don't have to look too far for an example of this. For all of the slack that Carlos Beltran has had recently, he has been a very productive player, not only for the Mets, but in his career.

Beltran has had only three full seasons of less than 20 home runs. Two of them occurred while injured, one of which was last year. The other was directly after signing a major contract and having to adjust to the media jungle that is New York. He bounced back to have a monster year after that.

I'm not comparing the two players, merely pointing out an important factor. It's how you bounce back from that bad year that defines the type of player that you are. I hear the words 'blue collar' and 'hard nosed' being thrown around about Wright.

The word I don't hear is tenacious. That is different than 'hard working'. Of course, tenacity can lead to hard work and then to success, which may be the case here. The truth is no one except Wright himself knows how much work he puts in to his game.

However, judging by the shape he is in, it's probably safe to say that he puts in more than the average player. That is almost a requirement for an athlete who wants to be great. This is promising, however, the attitude may be up for debate.

When a player says that he will not adjust to his surroundings, that can be troubling. The surroundings can make or break a player's career. A case in point, Dante Bichette. He never had a season of more than 15 home runs before he went to Colorado.

During his time there, he never had a season under 21. After he left, he had only one good season, and even that year he didn't break 100 rbi's. In other words, Coors Field made him and not having Coors Field broke him. Imagine if Mike Piazza hit at Coors Field for his career, he'd be in the top 5 all time home run list.

On the other end of the spectrum the name Tony Gwynn Sr. comes to my mind. He spent his entire career playing for the same team and in two pitchers parks. He adjusted his game to the environment. He had 8 seasons of more than 195 hits and never once had more than 17 home runs and only one year with more than 100 rbi's.

I am by no means saying that Wright is like Gwynn or Bichette for that matter, but you have to accept your surroundings and adjust accordingly with an open mind. Players can't just say 'so be it'. They have to be aggressive, on the attack. That is the nature of sports. Sports is competition.

If Wright spends more time working on proper perspective and less time talking, he may just bounce back. The Mets need a bounce back year from him, since the departure of Delgado and the injury to Beltran have caused obvious holes in the lineup.

Jason Bay will help, but he is not the hitter with the most potential in this lineup. That award goes to Jose Reyes.

Reyes is a spark plug, but he is not the leader of the ball club. David Wright is the leader and he must act like the leader. Leaders must lead by not only example, but attitude and sometimes words. As long as those words are timed well and spoken articulately, unlike his offseason comments. Therefore, he must lead properly. If he does, he could lead this team for many years to many good things.