On Thursday, Jerry Manuel unveiled his plan that he would bat Jose Reyes in the third spot spot of the lineup, at least until Carlos Beltran re-joins the team. Yesterday, Reyes was all gung-ho for the idea. “Whatever is best for the team, I’m going to do it,” Reyes said. “Manuel is the boss. Whatever he says, I’ll do it. I just want to get back on the field.” He’s such a good soldier…

Mike Jacobs fever is reportedly catching on around Mets camp as he mixes it up with old pals and makes some new friends. Yesterday we learned that the Mets will have him donning a catchers mask and getting some work in behind the plate. By the looks of things, Jacobs could secure a spot on the team whether he beats Danial Murphy out or not, as the team is intrigued in having him as the emergency catcher and giving Jerry Manuel added late-game flexibility.

Mets Merized Online has jumped into the advanced metrics arena with their own addition to the sabermetric lineup of alphabet soup. It gives me great pleasure to announce OPSwB (On-base Plus Slugging with Brace). After we learned that Mets rightfielder Jeff Francoeur intends to play with a thumb brace in 2010, we decided to put pen to paper. We reached into our pocket protectors and whipped out our calculator, a pink highlighter and a medium ballpoint pen and went to work. What we found out was that Jeff Francoeur’s batting average was 148 points higher than his career average while wearing his brace. Small sample size to be sure, but who cares it’s a new stat dudes! Forget the walks, lets get every Mets batter suited with a thumb brace as soon as possible, and that goes for you pitchers too.  

Here’s a scary thought, yesterday Jerry Manuel said that the team played its best baseball last season in San Francisco, when Castillo was batting leadoff, followed by Alex Cora. Even if that were true, you don’t ever, ever, ever say something like that Jerry. However, if you want to bat Angel Pagan leadoff, Luis Castillo second and then Reyes, Wright, Bay, Francoeur, Murphy… I certainly can deal with that until Beltran returns from the DL.

We already give opposing teams plenty of incentive to try and kick our asses on the field. I don’t have a problem with a Met saying we’re good enough to win a World Series, in fact I applaud it. But I don’t think it’s wise to compare yourself to individual players and give the other team bulletin board material for the upcoming season. Memo to Johan Santana: Mets fans already know you’;re better than Roy Halladay, but dude, tone it down a little.

Don’t worry about Kelvim Escobar. According to Adam Rubin, Escobar expressed little concern about being ready for Opening Day, or about the rigors of pitching regularly in the back end of the bullpen. As I wrote previously, I do believe that Escobar could be one of the more significant and impactful signings of the offseason after Jason Bay. 

Adam Rubin also tells us that David Wright don’t need no stinking “C”. Manager Jerry Manuel doesn’t plan to name a captain. Manuel said, As long as I’m running this ship, I don’t need more chefs making the soup or too many indians running the show. A-ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah…”

There you go… All of the latest spring happenings in one neat little post…