The other day in the Mets’ clubhouse, Juan Lagares and Ruben Tejada were joking and chatting with Yoenis Cespedes. They listened to him with reverence, the way a son might listen to his father.
Lagares, at 26, is only three years younger than Cespedes, but he has admired him for years. He respected Cespedes’s power and how hard he played, sprinting out ground balls. Lagares wore big chains and flashy clothes and expressed his style the same way Cespedes did.
But Cespedes possessed a skill set that Lagares did not. That is what made him a star, and that was why the Mets acquired him at the trading deadline.