Three tidbits to look forward to [Quotes]

Quick and dirty quotes from three different articles.

Sources: Santana to start Opening Day by Adam Rubin

New York Mets ace Johan Santana will oppose Florida right-hander Josh Johnson on Opening Day, but manager Jerry Manuel has tweaked the rest of his rotation after a string of underperformances, team sources said.

I wasn’t worried that Santana would miss OD, but I guess this is reassuring for those with tickets.

Top 10 for '10: What I'm most looking forward to this season by Tom Verducci

10. The surprise team

Fourteen teams had losing records last year. One of them will be in the playoffs this year. How do I know this? Of the 120 playoff teams in the wild card era, 30 of them had a losing record in the previous season. That's 25 percent of your playoff teams, or an average of one turnaround team in each league each year. There has been at least one turnaround team in the playoffs every year but one in the 15 wild card seasons.

Verducci tabs the Mets as one of the teams to keep an eye on for this spot.

NL East Preview: A Steady Reign by Albert Chen

Prospects like 23-year-old first baseman Ike Davis and 22-year-old center fielder Fernando Martinez brightened an otherwise gloomy Mets camp as they sliced up opposing pitchers and gave hope to an injury-cursed team.

Chen also picks the Mets to finish 4th with a 79-83 record.

Yay?

Lennon on Green in Buffalo

David Lennon is doing a live chat right now (you can use your one free page view to join in) and I asked this question:

How many dinners will Sean Green be buying in Buffalo? He'll be making nearly $1 mil and playing in Triple-A. How long until he comes back up / is traded?

Here’s Lennon’s response:

For the Bisons sake, hopefully there is an Outback or Carrabas in Buffalo. Seeing the state of the Mets pen, they may call up Green sooner rather than later. I don't see him being traded.

Join Read the chat here.

Manuel’s Musing

“For some reason, I just feel that
everything is going to be all right.”

-Jerry Manuel on the season

Um, Chris Carter?

Daniel Murphy has been diagnosed with a sprained right knee.  He is listed as day-to-day. 

Everyone and their mother is going bonkers and calling for Ike Davis to be called up to replace him.  What about Chris Carter?

I know Carter isn’t the homegrown prospect that Davis is and Davis already looks to be the future of first base with the organization, but I still maintain that he needs to get steady playing time every day.  Carter, on the other hand, could be used right now.  There’s not as much riding on Carter’s ability.  If he hits, he hits.  If he doesn’t, he doesn’t.

If the Mets call up Ike Davis and put him on the 25-man Opening Day roster, what’s the guarantee he gets steady playing time?  If Mike Jacobs is on the team, which seems all the more likely now, who’s to say they won’t split time? 

For now, I would pencil in Carter to replace Murphy.  Let Davis go to Triple-A and refine his game.  I’m all for the future, but the future doesn’t have to be right now.

Did the ESPN hammer already fall on Adam Rubin? (Updated)

Update: Rubin is back to tweeting today.  In fact, he sent nearly the exact same tweet early this morning.

With the launch of ESPNNewYork.com a few days away, Rich Coutinho, who covers the Mets for ESPN 1050 tweeted the new account for Adam Rubin, who left the New York Daily News to join ESPN New York.

The account, @AdamRubinESPN, already has 404 followers in roughly three hours.

Rubin greeted his new followers with a kind thanks and tweeted that the Web site launches Friday.

A half-hour later, Rubin sent another tweet from his BlackBerry, reading: “Not supposed to start yet but some tidbits: Rotation shuffle/Pelfrey not starting Game 2; Santos and F-Mart to AAA; Acosta claimed for Bisons”

But when clicking through to that tweet a few minutes later while I was preparing to write something about Mike Pelfrey being bumped, I was directed to this page, telling me that “This page does not exist!”

Going back to Rubin’s Twitter page, the second tweet he sent, where he mentioned he “wasn’t supposed to start yet” had been deleted.  Below is the screengrab from my TweetDeck, for evidence…Either Rubin pulled it himself or the suits behind ESPN New York got him to pull it, we may never know.  But ESPN New York hasn’t even launched yet and we’re already seeing the tightening of the leash.

Waiver Wire: Mets pick up Acosta, place Misch

The Mets have added Manny Acosta off the waiver wire from the Atlanta Braves.  He has been placed on the 40-man roster and optioned to Triple-A Buffalo, according to Brian Costa.

Acosta, who has pitched for the Braves for the last three seasons, went 1-1 with a 4.34 ERA and 1.714 WHIP in 37 1/3 innings over 36 games in 2009.

Also, the Mets have placed pitcher Pat Misch on waivers.  If he clears, he will be assigned to Triple-A Buffalo, but can be picked up by another team.

Manuel’s Musing

“We're going to have to get our heads together and see what we think fits for getting off to a good start for a championship team.”

-Jerry Manuel on the roster

From the comments: A tag-team rotation

Commenter RonOK presents an idea for the Mets rotation and bullpen…

Perhaps the Mets should present a "tag-team" rotation in 2010.

1. Johan
2. Pelfrey (R) - with Nieve (R) ready for the 5th or 6th every time Yippie starts
3. Perez (L) - with Figueroa (R) ready for the 5th or 6th every time Ollie starts
4. Maine (R) - with Takashi (L) ready for the 5th or 6th every time Maine starts
5. Niese (L) - with Igarashi (R) ready for the 5th or 6th every time Maine starts

I started writing this as a lark, but with the way this pitching staff is developing and the way the roster is coming together, why not?

If you replaced Nieve with Misch, you would have a righty and lefty available for every game depending on how the starter performed in a given game .... if you had to go to the second guy, you would cause some issues with the opposition's batting order since most managers build their lineup based on whether a lefty or righty is starting the game.

Again, I started this as a joke and don’t ever see this happening -- but with this organization, you just never know.

Interesting.  As I replied, I doubt it will ever happen because that’s just not “how baseball works.”

What do you think?

Mets have lots of (good) bullpen depth

Marty Noble penned an article last night with a headline that has since changed.  When published, it read that Pedro Feliciano had “landed” the 8th inning job with the Mets.  Today it reads that Feliciano is “eyeing” that role.

Whether Perpetual Pedro lands that role or not, another nugget caught my eye (and James’ over at Amazin’ Avenue) in terms of the bullpen.

Noble notes that the Mets seem to be high on pitcher Raul Valdes.

If you just said “Who?” out loud to yourself, you’re not alone.  Just take a look at his Baseball-Reference page.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say Valdes makes the Mets and Feliciano is tabbed as the set-up man.  Where does that leave the bullpen?

Well, with the report that both Sean Green and Bobby Parnell will start the season in Triple-A, that likely leaves these players in the Mets bullpen come Opening Day (expecting Jon Niese is the 5th starter):

• Francisco Rodriguez
• Pedro Feliciano
• Ryota Igarashi
• Hisanori Takahashi
• Raul Valdes
• Fernando Nieve
• Nelson Figueroa

The retaining of Takahashi, Nieve and Figueroa could benefit the team as John Maine continues his struggles of staying on the mound past four or five innings.  These pitchers can all toss multiple innings without batting an eye.  This, with the Mets current rotation question marks, would be a smart and savvy move by the front office to help keep the rotation fresh and (with luck) keep the team winning.

This also bumps young-gun Jenrry Mejia to Triple-A and keeps rehabbing Kiko Calero and Kelvim Escobar in extended Spring Training and/or heading to Buffalo.

With what the Mets would deem five, if not more, major-league ready arms ready to fill in the bullpen come injuries or ineffectiveness, the Mets have a large surplus of bullpen arms ready to fill in.

Link: Photos of McFadden’s Citi Field and more

One of my best blogging buddies, Kerel Cooper of OnTheBlack.com, went down to Citi Field yesterday to get a tour of McFadden’s Citi Field.

He snapped a bunch of photos of both the construction on the bar and many other shots, especially of the new banners and memorial stones that have been placed around Citi Field.

I love it all.  It’s too bad it took a year for this to get done, but it’s there now and we should all revel in it.