Belated opening day greetings and welcoming nine new guys to the roster this year: John Curtiss (46); Tim Locastro (26); Omar Narvaez (2); Tommy Pham (28); Brooks Raley (25); and David Robertson (30). We’re still waiting to see Dennis Santana (46 65), Kodai Sega (34) and the injured Justin Verlander (35). Drew Smith (40) is officially in a new uni.
I’m not sure what to make of this group yet, other than to say it’s pretty much last year’s team with a few changes and that was a pretty good team. LGM!
As exciting as it would have been I had a hard time seeing how Brett Baty or Mark Vientos would have fit on the Mets’ veteran-soaked roster. The Mets cut both guys yesterday and sent ’em to the minors where they’ll await injures or inconsistency in the third-base or DH positions.
Both things could happen. While I’m somewhat confident Daniel Vogelbach is capable of keeping up his end of the DH platoon, Darin Ruf and/or Tommy Pham on the right side is a bigger question. Then there’s Eduardo Escobar. We can’t wait 4 months for him to heat up again this time around.
Catching up on the news, Dennis Santana, who was acquired from Minnesota after Edwin Diaz went down, is wearing No. 65 in camp, taking the number formerly belonging to Rule 5 acquire Zach Greene, who was returned to sender. Former top draft pick Dylan Bundy was signed to a minor league contract the other day, giving depth now that Jose Quintana is out. I think we’d have been better off just resigning Taijuan Walker.
Reports say Tommy Hunter has made the roster, but that’s an easier thing to do now that Diaz is out. Stephen Nogosek has an edge for a bullpen spot due to his veing out of options. John Curtiss has pitched well enough to make the squad, and Brooks Raley could made the opening day roster if his injuries heal in time. Then there’s new closer David Robertson, and from last year’s group Drew Smith and Adam Ottavino.
The Mets officially added non-roster arrivals Travis Jankowski and Chasen Shreve to the 40-man and active roster, which will have 28 guys for the first few weeks. The shaggy Jankowski will wear 16 and Shreve, who was 
Other staff– Manager Buck Showalter in 11; Bench coach Glenn Sherlock returns to the No. 53 he wore as a Mets coach in 2019; Wayne Kirby, who wore No. 11 as a Mets player in 1998, will be sporting No. 54 as the portly first base coach; new hitting coach Eric Chavez will wear 51; and third-base coach Joey Cora will wear 56.
We’re piecing the numerical roster together as guys appear and the job would have been easier and less stressful had our overmatched young manager Luis Rojas not made a complete disaster out of last night’s opener, showing off his new team instead of trying to win.
The most famous 61 since Roger Maris’ shot off future Met Jack Fisher has come gloriously back to life.
As readers of this site know this was an important historical moment not just because Orosco would go to make another 1,251 appearances–the most for a pitcher in baseball history–but that for the unusual circumstances under which he appeared: Wearing a jersey that bore No. 61, with no name on the back. Verifying this bit of odd history–Orosco made all of his subsequent appearances for the Mets wearing No. 47–and maintained that number for 23 years until a career-ending 8-game stretch with Minnesota when teammate Corey Koskie wore 47–was one of the landmark Holy Grails of this project.
Hey all, I’m getting my first vaccine jab today. I’m also getting a shot from the Mets to re-buy 2021 tickets, although we’ll have to see how that all works out.
I suppose there remains a little drama as to who makes up the back end of the bullpen, where a newly numbered Robert Gsellman is facing a Matz-like make-or-break moment in his stalled career and Jacob Barnes and Mike Montgomery are considered possibilities to make it. Tommy Hunter already left us. I’d left him and Montgomery off the in-progress sprint roster (which is now updated below). You’d figure if Montgomery comes north it’d be in Hunter’s 29 and not the 70 he’s been wearing. Barnes wears 40, which he can keep.
Hard to believe they’re going to try and pull this off, but ready or not (um, not, based on the injuries and exhibitions I’ve seen) they open in a little more than 24 hours and today announced the THIRTY guys they’re going to start off with. We’ll update the records on the database as they go live, but say hello to the Pandemic Mets of 2020 (including 40-man guys “not active”: I guess they are in some sort of limbo, along with the Non-roster guys like who didn’t make the cut like Steven Gonslaves who I assume are set free to join the growing number of unemployed Americans).
As disappointed as we all are to learn the start of the baseball season has been delayed as part of the economic wreckage of incompetent U.S. preparedness for the coronavirus, perhaps there’s a silver lining in not immediately experiencing how dumb it’s going to be when new rules requiring relief pitchers throw to at least three batters takes effect. And the March 26 opening date seemed obscenely early anyway. I don’t often bother to show up in Flushing until May, given that place is guaranteed to be 20 degrees colder and twice as damp as anywhere else in the five boroughs, but let’s hope they get it going by then.
How are we going to pass the time though? I’d been suffering through the Islanders season and now that’s done too. So we’re rewatching The Wire on the stream, and reading some books.
There’s a little Met content too, with J.J. Putz, Lastings Milledge, Angel Pagan, Razor Shines, Ambiorix Burgos and Xavier Nady among those featured.
There’s always an interesting lede when a player returns as a coach to a team he made a mark with as a player. If he was a particularly good player, his homecoming is celebrated with some level of excitement. If he had previously passed through without distinction, it can still be a feel-good story with a potential for redemption.
So it is with a ray of spring sunshine that we today see a youthful Jeremy Hefner return as pitching coach (nearly an effing half century younger than his predecessor) in the same 53 he brandished as a player. He had the small grace to come to the team under circumstances no more dramatic than the hiring of a coach (a minor league contract in January 2014), got a number that reflected that, and briefly flourished in it. But when his status upgraded itself to rotation mainstay for about a full season split between 2012 and 2013, his number stayed the same. So his return as a coach in such high digits is not a dim a signal that he can tack on a few more paychecks by cashing in on a large legacy, but that he’s here to add some more substance to a small one — the same guy in the same uniform with the same number on a somewhat different road.
When last heard from in a Mets spring training camp back in 2014, Hef was a bit player in one of those stupid Matt Harvey dustups that always seemed perfectly timed for a day when there was no other news. The team was settling into their spring digs and Harv decided to complain that rehabbing players were not dressing next to the active players training and preparing for games. Now, there are certainly sound arguments for and against keeping everybody integrated even if they’re on a different springtime agenda, but rather than make an internal appeal, Harv decided to 