No more ice cream sandwiches for Jesus Montero.
The former top Yankees prospect, now better known for his girth than anything he’s done on the baseball field, has shed upwards of 30 pounds this offseason according to Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik — before the calendar has even flipped to 2015.
Zduriencik also said Tuesday on ESPN Seattle radio that Montero, the former catcher, will work at first base during spring training.
Montero’s 2014 campaign ended on a humiliating note, when he confronted a Mariners scout with a bat because the belligerent scout had taunted him about his weight by sending him an ice cream sandwich during a Triple-A game. The 25-year-old is (very) conservatively listed at 235 pounds on the Mariners roster.
After hitting .328 in a big league cameo for the Yankees in 2011, Montero became a part of one of the most mutually useless baseball trades in memory, swapped to Seattle for perennially injured, pine-tar-swabbing right-hander Michael Pineda.