PORT ST. LUCIE — When your home run production drops from 33 to 10, you’ve got to change something. David Wright has done just that.
Look closely at Wright and you see a much more defined body. His biceps are bigger. His forearms are bigger. He is stronger. This offseason he made a concentrated effort to get stronger, and you can see the difference in a big way.
To go yard, you have to go big.
All that should help transfer into more home-run power. Wright is 206 pounds, the most solid 206 pounds of his baseball life. For the first time in his professional career he dealt with major adversity last season.
“Seeing how a player bounces back from that adversity,” Jeff Francouer said yesterday, “really tells you about a person. David has really worked hard. He looks in great shape.
“I noticed that when he took his shirt off the other day he looked more cut, he looked leaner. I put David up there with the top 10 players in the game. A guy like that, if he’s challenged, you’ve got to believe that he is going to come back the next year and put a good year together.”
Wright batted .307, but the power numbers dropped off the table. His slugging percentage went from .534 to .447. Home runs plummeted and so did RBIs, as he went from 124 to 72.
“It’s hard to admit but I’m getting older and I had to make some changes,” Wright, 27,said.
Wright worked out with more passion and changed his diet, sticking to healthy foods and stopped eating at all hours of the day.
Wright’s goal is to drive the baseball and to be more consistent.
“There were too many stretches last year when I wasn’t consistent,” Wright said. “There was too much ebb and flow in my game.”
Hitting coach Howard Johnson said being stronger will help Wright.
“I think it’s a mental advantage, too,” Johnson said. “He wants to drive the ball more this year and that’s part of the package.”
This is not just a physical change for Wright, but a mental change, as well. Francouer has encouraged Wright to relax more away from the ballpark, to speak his mind more and to show more emotion on the field.
“Whether he likes it or not, he’s at that age where he has to be a leader on this team,” Francouer said.
Wright already has shown more leadership, talking about how he expects the Mets to win the World Series. Wright, who arrived at camp early, is giving himself more mental breaks. Jerry Manuel said Wright took yesterday off (position players do not yet have to be in camp) and the manager wants to see more of that. He wants Wright to sometimes get away from it all. “Slow it down,” is how the manager put it.
Francouer has encouraged Wright to play more golf this spring training. Francouer also can take away some of the massive media responsibilities from Wright and get him away from thinking baseball 24-7.
When the two are hitting in the cage, Francouer keeps it fun. The outgoing Francouer is good at seeing the big picture and wants to help Wright to be more relaxed.
“Let’s have fun, let’s play golf, let’s enjoy ourselves,” Francouer explained. Francouer then told the story about how he took Wright golfing last year during the season on an off-day. Wright complained, saying that he does not like to play golf during the season. Francouer guaranteed that Wright would get some hits the next game if only he went out for a little golf therapy. The next game, Wright got three hits.
“Sometimes you need to get away,” Francouer said, noting you don’t want to make the game an obsession and not a game. “I think you’ll see a different David this year.”
Physically and mentally, David Wright already is in a much stronger place.
kevin.kernan@nypost.com