{"id":1658,"date":"2011-03-23T15:00:09","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T15:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/?p=1658"},"modified":"2015-04-20T20:40:39","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T02:40:39","slug":"go-4th-and-prosper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=1658","title":{"rendered":"Go 4th and Prosper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"68\"<\/a>Looks like Rule 5 acquiree Brad Emaus is going to win the starting second-base job with the Mets, and I’m OK with that. I had zero confidence in\u00a0Daniel Murphy’s ability to hold down the fort defensively, and, although I have hopes he’ll be a useful bench player for the Mets, I’d sure like to see him regain those life-or-death intentions he had at plate back when he debuted with the Mets in ’08.<\/p>\n

Emaus apparently told some radio interviewers that he’d ditch the unseemly\u00a0No. 68<\/strong>\u00a0he’s been wearing in Spring for the more dignified\u00a0No. 4\u00a0should he make the squad. That number belonged to longshot infielder Russ Adams this spring, to\u00a0Henry Blanco\u00a0last year, and to a long line of stinky short-timers before you get to Robin Ventura’s dignified reign from 1999-2001. Until then, No. 4 was one of the better numbers in Mets history, having been shared by\u00a0Ron Swoboda,\u00a0Rusty Staub\u00a0and\u00a0Lenny Dykstra, not to mention\u00a0Bruce Boisclair. So here’s hoping Emuas has more Nails in him than Wood(ward).<\/p>\n

In the meantime that minor-league assignment Mets fans clamored for\u00a0Oliver Perez\u00a0to take will finally happen, but happen for the Nationals, who signed the disgraced lefty to a bush league contract after the Mets finally cut ties with him on Monday.\u00a0You could look it up:<\/a>\u00a0I was in favor of Perez’ signing in ’08, and might do it again. (Dig also my prescient take on the closing situation, what a disaster that ’08 offseason became). I think Ollie’s issues were physical, coming into camp out of shape in ’09 leading to knee troubles from which he never really recovered physically. I think the whole circus of the attempted minor-league assignment and subsequent doghousing was handled poorly last year, and I wish that instead of burying the guy and playing shorthanded for half a year, they’d have just given Perez enough rope to hang himself last summer and avoid the depressing death watch this Spring Training became.<\/p>\n

Perez departure makes the\u00a0dreaded No. 46\u00a0available again but I’d be surprised to see it issued for awhile, and it’s just as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looks like Rule 5 acquiree Brad Emaus is going to win the starting second-base job with the Mets, and I’m OK with that. I had zero confidence in\u00a0Daniel Murphy’s ability to hold down the fort defensively, and, although I have hopes he’ll be a useful bench player for the Mets, I’d sure like to see … Continue reading “Go 4th and Prosper”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[534,237],"class_list":["post-1658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brad-emaus","tag-oliver-perez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1658"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2298,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions\/2298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}