Ex-Met Michael Conforto making best of postseason letdown amid tough Dodgers season
LOS ANGELES — A decade ago, Michael Conforto played in his only World Series, as a rookie who helped fuel the Mets to the National League pennant.Now, after the worst season of his major league career, the 32-year-old outfielder is viewing another potential World Series run by his team from a different perspective: as a spectator.Excluded from the Dodgers NLCS roster — as he was for the wild-card round and NLDS — Conforto is staying ready in case he’s needed as an injury substitute — but acknowledges his disappointment.“I am just trying to enjoy this experience and soak it all in and trying to stay ready if they need me in this series or the next one,” Conforto told The Post before the Dodgers beat the Brewers 3-1 in Game 3 of the NLCS.“But definitely not being on the roster is motivating, so I have some things I have to work on and go into the offseason and take care of those things and we’ll see what happens.”Conforto struggled to a .199/.305/.333 slash line with 12 homers and 36 RBIs in 138 games this season for the Dodgers.
Still, it came as a surprise to some in the organization that he’s been excluded from the postseason.The Dodgers instead have opted to carry veteran Enrique Hernández because of his extensive postseason track record.
Hernández hasn’t disappointed — he entered Thursday with a .972 OPS this postseason.Conforto, who spent the previous two seasons with the Giants, said it was an adjustment playing for the Dodgers, who signed him to a one-year contract worth $17 million.“Personally, it was trying,” Conforto said of his season.“There were a lot of rough patches in there, but to be on a team of this caliber — I had to readjust the idea of the role I play on this team, so there is a little bit of an adjustment period, and toward the end of the season I started to do more of the things I needed to do in the role that I was in.“But to see how this team compares, how they celebrate wins, let alone the star power ...