Adam Rubin of ESPN New York gets the scoop on what uniform numbers all the players in camp will be wearing this Spring. 1. Jordany Valdespin, if/of 2. Justin Turner, if/of 3. Omar Quintanilla, ss 4. Collin Cowgill, of 5. David Wright, 3b 6. Marlon Byrd, of 9. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, of 11. Ruben Tejada, ss 12. Brandon Hicks, if 15. Travid d’Arnaud, c 16. Brian Bixler, if/of 19. Zach Lutz, if/of 20. Anthony Recker, c 21. Lucas Duda, lf 22. Landon Powell, c 23. Mike Baxter, of 27. Jeurys Familia, rhp [...]

Updated at 3:30 PM by Joe D. Following up on the tiny bit of updates coming in today on the Mets and their pursuit of Michael Bourn, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports, believes the Mets’ path is still cloudy. Maybe the New York Mets can pull the whole thing off and sign free-agent center fielder Michael Bourn without losing their first-round pick, Rosenthal says. ”But he Mets’ path to Bourn still might not be clear.” Other clubs might have greater [...]

This article which was originally published on January 25th by Mitch Petanick, is worth a second look in light of recent events. Mark Simon did a piece on ESPN New York yesterday which ranked the top five infields in the team’s history, as well as the top five outfields. His rankings were pretty solid, although he had the 1999 Mets outfield ranked as No. 5 snubbing a very solid 2006 outfield.  Let’s be honest, 2006 was [...]

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year.  As over one billion members of the Chinese community prepare to usher in the year of the snake, baseball enthusiast in Miami is pumped about 2013 – the year of the Marlin.  Before you assume there was a typo in that last sentence with me not pluralizing the word “enthusiast”, take a look at this tweet by Marlins beat writer Joe Capozzi. Of course, I [...]

In 1966, in the days before Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Gary Gentry, and Nolan Ryan, when the Mets’ young pitchers were named Dick Selma, Dick Rusteck, Darrell Sutherland, and Rob Gardner, the Mets tried to provide some veteran presence on the staff to help carry the team to respectability while the young pitchers developed. In the early sixties, you could make up a pretty good core for your major league rotation with the likes of [...]

It’s no secret the Mets have concerns in their rotation, but that doesn’t mean they should rush Zack Wheeler, regardless of how good a spring training he has. The Mets tooker a somewhat patient approach with Matt Harvey, waited to bring him up last summer and gave him ten starts in which he showed his potential. The Mets need to do the same with Wheeler. I still maintain the Mets rushed former first-round pick Mike [...]

In his first interview since being denied first-ballot entry into the Hall of Fame, Mike Piazza spoke candidly with David Waldstein of the New York Times ahead of the release of his autobiography, Long Shot, due out on February 11. In the book, Piazza admits to using androstenedione as part of a supplement pack until the outcry over Mark McGwire’s use of it forced him to phase it out. He flatly denies ever using steroids. “It shouldn’t [...]

As an update to the Ike Davis and 2012 fatigue discussion from Wednesday, here is an update from Adam Rubin of ESPN New York, who spoke to Ike Davis today at Port St. Lucie: Ike Davis publicly portrayed his diagnosis of valley fever last February as a non-issue, insisting it was giving him no problems and was a latent case at worst. In reality, Davis confessed Friday, he would retreat home after Mets workouts last spring [...]

Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors posted part of the interview he conducted with Greg Genske of The Legacy Agency, Red Sox GM Ben Cherington and one other NL Executive. It was on the topic of qualifying offers, the draft pick compensation attached to free agents, and how it hurts the good, but not great players. If signing a free agent does require the forfeiture of a first or second round draft pick, how much does it matter to potential [...]