{"id":35575,"date":"2020-07-28T22:58:51","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T02:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=35575"},"modified":"2020-07-28T22:58:51","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T02:58:51","slug":"mets-reach-agreement-catcher-bruce-maxwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2020\/07\/28\/mets-reach-agreement-catcher-bruce-maxwell\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Mets Reach an Agreement with Catcher Bruce Maxwell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/teams\/NYM\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York Mets<\/a> have reached an agreement with catcher <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/maxwebr01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bruce Maxwell<\/a><\/strong>. The former big leaguer is most remembered for being the first player to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/mlb\/news\/as-catcher-bruce-maxwell-becomes-first-mlb-player-to-kneel-for-national-anthem\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">take a knee<\/a> during the national anthem.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Mets To Sign Bruce Maxwell <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zivqKGMlcK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/zivqKGMlcK<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/byByohJlgu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/byByohJlgu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mlbtraderumors\/status\/1288143913207975936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 28, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Off the Field Issues<\/h2>\n<p>This is the first contract that Maxwell has had since the 2018 season. Maxwell believes that kneeling is what caused him to be out of baseball for two seasons, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/sports\/mlb\/bruce-maxwell-i-got-pushed-out-of-the-game-because-i-took-a-knee\/ar-BB16xdEh\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">telling ESPN<\/a>: \u201cI got pushed out of the game because I took a knee during the national anthem. It eats at me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Maxwell is a lifetime .240 hitter and has never hit more than three home runs in a season. Off the field, he was also arrested in 2018 for <a href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/2781388-bruce-maxwell-curses-at-cops-in-arrest-video-interaction-is-why-he-took-a-knee\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">aggravated assault<\/a> in Arizona. He allegedly pointed a gun at a delivery guy, but he reached a plea agreement after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to two years of probation.<\/p>\n<h2>Role With Mets<\/h2>\n<p>Maxwell is a solid defender on the field and came up the major leagues because of his bat. He has yet to really put that on display in MLB and has mainly been a backup.<\/p>\n<p>The Mets also have <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/ramoswi01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wilson Ramos<\/a><\/strong>, who is in the final year of his contract as the starter. Both <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nidoto01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tomas Nido<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/riverre01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rene Rivera<\/a><\/strong> appear to be higher on the depth chart.<\/p>\n<p>Nido made his first start of the season Sunday night hitting a double, and Rivera had a pinch-hit single later in the game against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/teams\/ATL\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Atlanta Braves<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2020\/07\/27\/braves-mets-20200726\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sunday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Mets also have their <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2020\/07\/19\/new-york-mets-2-prospect-francisco-alvarez\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">second-best prospect<\/a> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=alvare006fra\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Francisco Alvarez<\/a><\/strong>, who isn&#8217;t on the 60-man player pool, still waiting for his chance to make his big league debut in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Maxwell arrived to New York on Monday as the deal is pending a physical and testing negative for the coronavirus. If the deal goes through, he will likely report to Brooklyn and work with the Mets taxi squad.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: <a id=\"r6YzogVVQ5l95bFClQeWZA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/967914400\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'r6YzogVVQ5l95bFClQeWZA',sig:'2V0N7SKpgCIaQiiHBfhx9Npr6M3FYPpnxqQnhSKdA0M=',w:'594px',h:'401px',items:'967914400',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Mets have reached an agreement with catcher Bruce Maxwell. The former big leaguer is most remembered for being the first player to take a knee during the national anthem. Mets To Sign Bruce Maxwell https:\/\/t.co\/zivqKGMlcK pic.twitter.com\/byByohJlgu &mdash; MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) July 28, 2020 Off the Field Issues This is the first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3428,"featured_media":35602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1709,164],"class_list":["post-35575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mets","tag-bruce-maxwell","tag-new-york-mets"],"modified_by":"DJ Kleinbard","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}