The Mets Try the Personal Touch

Mickey Callaway, new manager of the New York Mets. David La Spina for The New York TimesOne evening last January, the new manager of the New York Mets asked his best hitter to dinner. Mickey Callaway had been hired a few weeks earlier, after the Mets lost 92 games during a disastrous 2017 season. He wanted to get to know Yoenis Cespedes, who is regarded around the clubhouse as the team’s moodiest, most tempestuous player. He also wanted to persuade Cespedes to try something that would make him uncomfortable.

During his seven major-league seasons, with four teams, Cespedes nearly always hit third or fourth in the batting order. The Mets’ statistical analysts were convinced that if he hit…