Some discussion in the post below raised the practice of dressing young prospects at camp. I was certainly expecting to see Zack Wheeler wearing his preferred 45 but was pleased to see the Mets haven’t granted him that priviledge quite yet. As Gogred points out, Dwight Gooden wore 64 as a spring training invite in 1984 (and again many springs later in an atempt to recapture the feeling. At this time in 2004, David Wright was rocking No. 72 — although Jose Reyes wore 7 during 2003’s spring training. Last year, Matt Harvey was 70 and Kirk Nieuwenhuis was 72. It’s believed that Travis D’Arnaud could be assigned his preferred 15 (I incorrectly said 16, below) but there’s something to be said for reminding the youngsters to have some humility.
We should have the first sightings of unis and/or rosters real soon. Keep an eye out.
Let’s start with a few good guesses. Shawn Marcum wore 18 last year with Milwaukee. That gives me an uncomfortable 10-year flashback to Jeff D’Amico, like Marcum a veteran junkball pitcher via Milwaukee, recovering from an injury, wearing 18. But that would require Tim Teufel changes his shirt (could Ruben Tejada surrender 11 in a chain reaction?) Marcum also has some equity in 28, although that belongs to Daniel Murphy. 38 would work as long as they don’t issue it to Lyon should he come aboard.
John Buck, acquired in the Dickey deal, wears 14 most frequently but with that retired here could wear 4 or if he dares, 44. Travis D’Arnaud appears to prefer 16. Zach Wheeler, as per his Twitter handle, appears to prefer 45, which is available. Omar Quintanila is back on a minor league deal and could reacquire No. 6, and Josh Satin could take back No. 3, but no guarantees for either. Finally there’s the complicated case of Pedro Feliciano, who’s worn 55, 39 and 25 in his Met stints. Who knows what they give him this time. His coming back to the Mets without having appeared at all for the Yankees and their arrogant general manager is about the greatest thing ever. I’m less certain he’s got anything left, but that’s what the invite is for.
The Mets this week made what ought to go down as one of the more important personnel moves in recent history with the trade of beloved knuckleballer R.A. Dickey (along with both of his catchers!) to Toronto for catcher prospect Travis D’Arnaud, young pitcher Noah Syndergaard, veteran catcher John Buck and very young outfielder Wuilmer Becerra.
So we all knew Mets did a poor job of keeping the fact they would have a few new uniform looks in 2013 a secret but all the same was anyone as shocked as me by how softly they revealed them today given the potential for the new look to spark a retail renaissance and maybe sell a few tickets? Couldn’t they have asked Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum to come along for a big runway show instead of unceremoniously Tweeting the news that these new looks are available?
In the event you didn’t see it before, my 
