Benjamin Grimm

I think Dickey will have a very good year. Probably not a Cy Young, but the Jays and their fans will be glad to have him. Jose Reyes? The name seems familiar...

Good thing the team is deep in outfielders...

vtmet wrote: thanks for the definition...and I apologize if I stepped on anyone's toes by doing one for Reyes/RA... Absolutely no problem at all.

One more for today. (IPP, for those who missed it, stands for "Individual Player Prediction") Gee will have a nice season... 30 starts, 12 wins, ERA a little over 4. No injuries that will demoralize the team.

I do think he'll pitch for the Mets this year, but not as the "perpetual Pedro" that he used to be. I'll say about 15 games, and that will be the end of his career.

He'll get some save opportunities early, and he'll do poorly. He'll lose the "closer" job some time in May, and he'll be gone for good before July 1.

I have no idea. What about you?

I think he'll appear in 65 games, with a 3.90 ERA. He'll win at least one Schaefer Mets Relief Pitcher of the Month award.

Mets' Rafael Montero realizing a lifelong dream By Jorge Castillo/The Star-Ledger on February 28, 2013 at 9:38 PM, updated March 01, 2013 at 7:50 AM VIERA, Fla. -- Rafael Montero was 17 years old when he decided to leave his rural hometown of Sabana Higuero, nestled near the Haitian border, and move 250 kilometers southeast to the Dominican capital city of Santo Domingo. Alongside one of his eight older brothers, he relocated with one goal in mind: to play professional baseball. It is the common dream of children across the baseball-crazy Dominican Republic. But by the time a player reaches 17 years of age, it is often considered too late for him to attract enough attention from scratch to intrigue a Major League Baseball team. Montero, who has a first-grade education, had played recreationally growing up in Higuerito, but never in a structured format. He was aware of the uphill climb. It fueled him to work harder. Every morning he would wake up at 6:30 to train with his brother. When the brother went to work at a hardware store, Montero would go to the local park to train some more. He arrived in Santo Domingo with a fastball that topped out at 89 miles per hour. By the time he was 20 years old, it was at 94. When the Mets discovered Montero, they found a finished product, a rare talent that had slipped through the cracks. Bidding was minimal and they signed him on Jan. 20, 2011, for $90,000. "I thought I had a chance," Montero said in Spanish hours before he made his Grapefruit League debut last night. "I just needed to work hard so that when I was 19 or 20 I would sign. And that�s how it happened. God helped me and I signed." Montero was the beneficiary of a recent development. Before taking his current post, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson was appointed to oversee MLB�s initiatives in the Dominican Republic. He said a transition he helped set forth has been made in recent years as showcases for players between the ages of 18 and 20 have surfaced. "Until the last three or four years, it was extremely rare because when kids don�t sign at age 16 or 17, they�re often confined to the waste bin," Alderson said. "I think clubs began realizing that there was a market of players who were of that age that had been overlooked, so clubs started to go back in to take another look." Montero quickly impressed in 2011. Also featuring a changeup, slider and sinker in his arsenal, he posted a 2.15 ERA over 71 innings in 17 appearances, 12 of which were starts, between rookie ball and low-A Brooklyn. Last season he emerged as a bona fide prospect. In 20 combined starts with low-A Savannah and high-A St. Lucie, the diminutive Montero -- he is generously listed at 6-foot, 170 pounds -- had an 11-5 record and 2.36 ERA over 122 innings. He walked just one batter per nine innings with Savannah and ratcheted up his strikeout rate per nine innings to 9.9 in 50? innings with St. Lucie. He had 110 strikeouts to only 19 walks between the two stops. He was then named the Mets� Sterling Organizational Pitcher of the Year. Baseball America now ranks Montero the Mets� fifth-best prospect. "He keeps the ball down," Mets bullpen coach Ricky Bones explained. "He throws strikes and has the confidence in his pitches. And his composure on the mound, his mound presence is impressive for a 22-year-old." Yesterday, Montero started against the Nationals, his first test against major-league hitting. He arrived at Space Coast Stadium unaware that he would be opposite the phenom Stephen Strasburg. He allowed a leadoff double to Denard Span in the first, but left him stranded by retiring the next three hitters. He allowed two doubles in the second, but left the damage at just one run. The Mets ended up tying the Nationals, 4-4 in 10 innings. "I wasn�t nervous," Montero said afterward. Five years removed from a fateful decision, he was living the dream he set out for.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: He's back! 15-11, has once special afternoon where he deals the first no-hitter in team history. I just noticed this prediction that Michigan made on March 19, 2012.

Ashie62 wrote: Only lack of Games played keeps him from ROY.. That... or Zack Wheeler. (If he gets "the call" early enough.)

Oh boy... This can go so many different ways. I'll say he joins the Mets in late May and takes over about half of the catching duties from John Buck. And as the year progresses his ratio of games started will continue to increase. There will be Gregg Jefferies-style pressure on him to immediately be a Rookie of the Year candidate, but he'll fall somewhat short of that. He'll be decent but not spectacular in his rookie season: .260, 8 homers, 300 at bats.

So who is Ike Davis? The guy who hit .160 for two and a half months and looked completely lost? Or the guy who cranked it up in the second half and finished with 32 home runs? I'm counting on it being the latter. I'll admit there may be wishful thinking here, but I think Ike is going to come through pretty big in 2013. He'll approach 40 homers and may even break the club record of 41. He'll drive in about 110 runs. I'll even predict that he'll be the Schaefer Mets Player of the Year. What do you expect from Ike Davis?

I'm pretty sure there is, but I never focused on it enough to know the details.

I keep wanting to think that his name is Clarence, probably because I conflate him with Clarabelle Cow. Anyway, I think he'll at least be good enough this year that I'll learn his name. I have a good feeling about Clarence, or Collin, or whatever it is. I'm not saying he'll be an all-star, but I think he'll be part of the solution if the Mets return to winning ways in the next few years. As the righty half of a potential platoon with Nieuwenhuis, he'll initially get less playing time than Kirk, but I wouldn't be surprised if he does well enough to take away some of Kirk's starts against righties. .270 batting average. He'll lead the team in triples.

How about Robert Carson? The Mets bullpen may not be as good as we want it to be, but it does seem to be crowded. My guess is that Carson will be a victim of this crowding to at least some degree. I'll say that he gets into more games in Vegas than with the Mets. Put me down for 25 big league games and an ERA of 4.20.

More and more lately I've been getting e-mails from people trying to track down videos of past games. I'm pretty sure that there's an online community or two that specializes in these types of collectibles. I've never been a part of that so I don't have any idea where to direct people who ask this of me. Does anyone know of any good sites for this kind of thing so that I can better help the next person who asks? Thank you!

Yeah, I was also thinking that it might be a Florida ballpark. Some long-gone spring training facility like Pompano Beach or something.

The lettering on the back needs more orange, I'd say. It looks too much like those low-rent replica jerseys that don't get the lettering right.

Yes, it could. And that's really the only one "great memory" that ever happened at Citi Field. There are probably any number of "nice" memories, but all of the "great" ones, except for the Santana no-hitter, happened at Shea. (Or at the Astrodome, I suppose.)

I thought they tore down the place with all the great memories?

I had pretty much ignored the story until the other day, when I finally read some of the details. That dude is seriously nuts.

Thank you! (And if anyone comes across anything that indicates what town he died in, I'd appreciate a heads up.) Mario Ramirez is now officially dead on the UMDB.

This is the last one I'll start today. I'm trying to go more or less alphabetically, and if I've missed any A or B names, please feel free to start a thread for whoever I missed. In days to come, I won't be at all offended if anyone else initiates some of these threads. In fact, the more the merrier. As for Andrew Brown, I think he'll spend most of the season in Las Vegas. My guess is that Cowgill will earn, and retain a roster spot, and Brown will be a September guy and will fill in for the Mets if anyone goes on the DL.

What Vic said, although I hope they don't bury or cut him. I'd like to see him return to a reserve role next year when we (I hope!) have a better outfield.