On the Upcoming Season

Opening Day's about a week away, and it's time to look at the upcoming season - in foresight - and make some predictions. They're going to be wrong - heck, they're always wrong, but what're you worth if you can't make mistakes on your own blog?

I'm going to go position by position, and give my ratings, both objective and subjective (as compared with the 2009 Mets).

Catcher - Rod Barajas is hardly somebody to write home about, but compared with either Brian Schneider or Bengie Molina at five times the price, his acquistion was a quite logical move by the Mets.

He should provide some pop, but his high in OBP (for a full season) is .306. Last year it was .258.

First Base - Daniel Murphy should be better this year than last year for a few reasons:

1. Age - He's about to turn 25, and is probably getting better.
2. More experience should make him a better first baseman
3. More experience should make him a better hitter.

So, yes, I think he's going to be better than he was last year. In a league with Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Lance Berkman and Ryan Howard as other first basemen, I'd give Murphy a very slim chance to make the All-Star team.

Second Base - Luis Castillo's signing has been widely scoffed at by the world at large. And I'm not here to defend it. But according to fangraphs.com, Castillo was worth more than what he made last year. If he's similar to what he was in 2009, he'll be quite serviceable. But, at his age, decline is to be expected. Still, if he's close to last year, it'll be hard to keep complaining about Luis's contract.

Third Base - David Wright had (statistically) a freakishly weird season last year. A lot of people expect his power to rebound. Personally, I'd be surprised if he hits 10 (or fewer) homers in 2010, but without knowing why he hit so few home runs last year, I can't quite convince myself that he'll hit 30 this year.

The thing is, even if he loses his power stroke completeley, like last year, he's still an extremely good baseball player. His fielding, batting and baserunning are all quite good. He's just not MVP-caliber without the power, but he's still excellent.

Left Field - Jason Bay will probably (i.e. he'd better) hit better than 2009 Met left-fielders, and I think he'll field out there a lot better than Daniel Murphy, too. The guy's good.*

Center Field - Carlos Beltran will probably be back soon and have a phenomenal year. He's going to knock over 25 home runs and he's going to have over 100 RBIs. And play Gold Glove defense. He's probably the best center fielder in baseball. And in the last 12 seasons, he's been caught stealing 38 times.

Right Field - Jeff Francoeur leaves, I suppose, some room for hope. I'm probably least optimistic about his upcoming year than I am with any other Met.

*And for all those who like to point at his 36 home runs last year being in his first full year with the Red Sox, he only hit 15 home runs at Fenway Park. And only 2 were at Yankee Stadium.

That's it for the starting lineup. No guarantees, but pitchers, the bench and that ever-elusive might fast shortstop may follow in a future post.

On Fernando Martinez

Fernando Martinez is something (or, perhaps, someone) that I have spent some time thinking about. Obviously, it's way too early to know what will become of him, and I think that a lot of Mets fan were rather disappointed in the way that he performed in his tours of duty in 2009. Which is understandable. When your number one prospect is struggling to approach .200 and has an OPS+ of 38 (Johan Santana OPS+d 33 last year), discouragement is a rather natural reaction.

Here's the thing. Fernando was just 20 years old last year and was the second youngest player in the National League. (Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarnerthe youngest). He couldn't really have been expected to flourish at such a young age (and with the dearth of AAA experience that he had) at the major league level.

Also, and I thought this was very encouraging, Martinez could field quite well. Often, a player is touted as a five-tool prospect, yet he lacks the instincts to playe the field well. (Lastings Milledge is a textbook example of this .) This doesn't* seem to be the case with Martinez.

Now he just needs to hit.

* Fangraphs.com is not all that happy with Martinez's fielding, but it's a small sample size, and as such, I think we can ignore it for the time being (i.e. until the sample size grows).

Officially Psyched

It's Spring Training in Port St. Lucie, and hope is in the air. Hope for a fresh season. Hope for an about-face by those Mets. Hope for summer.

No, I'm not going there. Enough of that is written by, like, people who write that type of stuff. I'm not necessarily against the "hope"y slant, but I think it's overdone. Here's the problem - perhaps more than most previous years, I really feel it.

Reyes hitting a triple, Jon Niese saying that he's fine, a little battle for the first base position, Fernando Tatis breaking in all his gloves (it was third base yesterday, what do you think it'll be tomorrow?)...what can I say? As I sit in the snow in New York (and if you're not around here, it's A LOT of snow) things are just looking up -- way up.

And I don't care if it's too poetic. That's how I feel!


Golf Point: There's a headline on ESPN.com reading "Report: Tiger at home, getting into golf shape." Now, I don't consider myself a golf expert by any means, but isn't the whole point of golf that you don't need to be in shpae to play it?

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's kind of what I thought.