Friday on SNY, Keith Hernandez, who might have chosen to say nothing, and then Ron Darling, chose to tell us what we’ve repeatedly seen and know to be untrue: Yoenis Cespedes is a superb, intelligent base runner.

“Once again, as I’ve said before,” Hernandez said, “he’s the best base runner on this ball club. … He is such a smart player.”

Darling added, “How quick he can throw it into high gear.”

Cespedes, despite abundant slugging and throwing skills, was relegated to expendable by three teams — Oakland, Boston, Detroit — in just two seasons due to his indifferent, minimalist regard for playing team-first, fundamentally winning baseball, including couldn’t-care-less base running.

If you’re keeping score, the above implication that Mets OF Yoenis Cespedes is either lazy or stupid or both, comes on the heels of the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick assailing the former for wearing gold chains, not running on a dropped third strike, and “spending his money on expensive, silly things like pimped-out, three-wheeled sand buggies.” On the charge that Cespedes was deemed all-too-dumpable by his prior MLB club, Mushnick has called him, “so valued he quickly became expendable to three previous teams,”, so at least he’s even bigger on regurgitation than I am.

On the occasions Cespedes manages to beat out an infield hit, Phil, naturally has something else to write about (most likely the temerity of teams on the west coast actually scheduling their games during times in which persons with day jobs can attend them). That Oakland flipped Cespedes for Jon Lester and Detroit did the same for a strong Rookie Of The Year candidate in Michael Fulmer, goes unmentioned. Persons willing to take Mushnick’s grudge at face value might well believe Cespedes is lucky to have a job!