Centerfield

Right! Or Floreboom, or Rivera. Some depth here is good. I'm high on Cecchini. Not sure why. Just seems hitter-ish to me.

If we are dreaming, then Mike Trout is in that lineup someplace. Back closer to reality, I am hoping that Conforto performs so well he forces his way into the middle of the lineup. I know this might be wishful thinking, but I feel like he can do it. Eventually I'd love to see this: 1. Reyes 3B 2. Cabrera SS 3. Conforto CF 4. Cespedes LF 5. Duda 1B 6. Walker 2B 7. Granderson CF 8. d'Arnaud C If Cabrera doesn't hit well enough to stay at #2, you can flip flop him with Walker.

Has stupid hair.

I'm kind of fearful of a big regression for Jose. I think the half-season did him well last year, and by August, I think he will be out of the picture. Either because of injury or lack of production. SS will be Cabrera/Reynolds/Rosario, and Cecchini/Rivera will play 3B.

I don't think it will happen in 2017, but I see him attempting a comeback someday but then realizing he sucks without the roids.

Lefty Specialist wrote: It's always something with Matz. Until he actually does it, I'll never predict him for a full season. 8-5, 3.25, 18 starts. Good when he's on the field but he won't be on it enough. Prove me wrong, Steven. This sounds right.

Not looking so good here. I guess we have to be patient. Will be rooting hard for Matt this year, but it's hard to see him getting back to form with the way he's looked this spring.

Anyone watching? How does Harv look?

Sure, but if I'm the organization I view it differently if a kid gets hurt while hustling to make the team, versus getting while playing in an exhibition tournament. And I give deference to the actual foreign players who face pressure back home to represent. But guys like Lugo and Nimmo? I just shake my head. In the end it probably won't make a difference. If the talent is there eventually he'll be in the bigs. But it just boggles my mind that a minor leaguer on the cusp would have anything else on his mind. I will now stop my old man rant.

Nimmo goes down with a hamstring injury. Out several weeks. I feel bad for him, but you have to question the judgment of leaving spring training when you are on the brink of the bigs, to play for a country that you kinda sorta are connected to. Hope those games were worth your shot at the Show.

Those stills make him look a bit spastic and awkward.

Excited. Planning on lounging on the couch and taking this one in.

SIGN KELLY JOHNSON.

Division rivals clash in a pivotal match that could set the stage for the ENTIRE SEASON!!!

NO HITTER INTACT

1:05 p.m. No TV but the game will be aired on 710.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: [tweet]https://twitter.com/AnthonyDiComo/status/834087245791498240[/tweet] boi-oi-oi-oing Awesome. Lucas Duda is going to hit 85 HR's this year. He's also going to steal 3 bases.

Edgy MD wrote: I signed for four years—the only $100 million contract of the offseason. And since then, I've been working out like a monster. This is nice to hear. I know that there was some concern he would get complacent after a big contract. It's only one spring, but at least he's off on the right foot. I don't know. I kinda worry he will regress a bit this year. .266 - .319 - 27 HR - 89 RBI

Edgy MD wrote: Amed Rosario, as shown in this nice Times piece, waiting to get turned into a tarjeta de béisbol. Is that our #1 prospect? WTF he's fuck he's tiny! OMG we totally should have traded him.

I'm at a total loss on all of these. Last name of a reliever, first name of a stolen base guy. I'm going to go with Mookie Looper.

I mean, I bet Grant's mom couldn't even tell you that.

Both correct. Like the guy ahead of him on the list, Roberts short-circuited his career with PEDs. That guy had a lot of drama for a parts-of-five-seasons career. And not all of it was his fault. After coming through the system as the last of the high-end pitching prospects of the 1990s Mets, he got absolutely raked in his only big league start, coming right in the midst of a playoff hunt. Basically got consigned forever to bullpen duty after the trauma of that one start. Was utterly fantastic through the first two months of 2002, pitching out of the bullpen with a nearly invisible ERA. After his first bad outing of that season, pow, he gets put on the disabled list in one of those "it's nothing" assignments that portends the beginning of the end. Newsday lists him as one of seven Mets actively using marijuana, shortly after teammate Mark Corey has a terrifying brain seizure after smoking some of Tony Torasco's shit in a parking lot. Remember when Newsday did investigative work? That minor issue that interrupted his season? That was apparently a torn rotator cuff that took too damn long to diagnose. He missed most of the second half of 2002 and his career was now looking like a runaway train heading to Craig Swan City. On top of that, Newsday comes out with a shot of him going down on a bong. It turns out, that bong shot was part of an extortion plot by an ex-girlfriend. Helpful hint to all gold-diggers: wait until the guy is making real money. Diagnosis and rehab plans go back and forth and most of 2003 is lost for the guy as well. He doesn't appear until September and plans for surgery on the cuff for the off-season. Fuck it. He decides NOT to have surgery in the off-season, putting him at odds with the team. He predictably sucks it up at the start of 2004 before landing, again, on the disabled list. He plans to finally have his surgery in mid-May. The Mets, pissed that he missed the opportunity to go through this in the off-season, are fuming. In an ugly-assed bit of vindication, with Roberts wearing a gown and minutes from undergoing surgery, the Mets DFA him, disqualifying him from getting the operation. Confronted by the MLBPA that that sort of dastardliness is not really allowed, the Mets relent, and he gets the procedure a few weeks later. He becomes a free agent at the end of the year, but amazingly, signs a minor league deal with the Mets(!), who are now under new management of Omar Minaya, which presumably washes away some of the bad blood with the previous adminsitration. Roberts fails to make the team out of spring training ... and fails a PED test. After serving his ridiculously short 15-day suspension, the Mets release him. Roberts signs a minor league deal with the Yankees, for whom the sort of drama he brings is a typical workday. He fails to impress with the AA Trenton Thunder and ultimately retires without returning to the bigs with another team, qualifying as a career Met, very much representing the black hat era in a nutshell. Like seriously. How does anyone know this.

Zach Wheeler starts were torture to watch. He lacked control, his secondary pitches were sub-par, and he used to run up late-career Al Leiter-type pitch counts. I agree with JCL that he wasn't all that beforehand. He was a good pitcher. And those numbers are actually better than what I would have thought. And yes, I get that he is young and could definitely have gotten better. The one encouraging thing that I remember reading, pre-surgery, was that the TJ operation would alleviate issues he had been dealing with for years, and that he expected to improve coming out on the other end. That, I guess, is still possible. Notwithstanding the long recovery. At this point, nothing would really surprise me about Wheeler. If he came on and was lights out, it's in the realm of possibility. So is a second TJ surgery and never making it back to the bigs. Such is pitching I guess.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: 41Forever wrote: I predict he's traded in spring training and we don't get the value we should be getting for him. That sounds right to me. But instead of "in spring training" I'll say "before May 15." Yup. It all depends on the timing of the first power hitting outfielder to go down for the season. Hopefully it's on a team other than the Mets.

Frayed Knot wrote: There's been a certain percentage of Met fans who have been seeing a Wright-to-1st move as a "solution" (to something or other, I've never quite been sure what) and have been advocating for it since about his 2nd year. Now there's at least the issue that his throwing will be the last thing to come around (if it does at all) but, as already said, unless he is going to play every game and out hit Duda in the process, or a trade comes up where we ransom big Lucas for a Chris Sale-like package of prospects, even this doesn't justify the rush. "What the heck are they waiting for?" Oh I dunno, maybe a good reason! Yup. And considering that his condition dictates that his time on the field must be limited, there is a compelling reason to be efficient with his practices. Have him work on what you know he will need to do. Not something he maybe, someday, might have to try. If you need a Duda replacement, sign Kelly Johnson!