It’s arrived. The day we’ve been counting down towards since the Mets walked off the field last fall. Pitchers and catchers are reporting to Port St. Lucie Florida to Digital Domain Park to being preparing to play baseball.
It’s a time of new beginnings and fresh starts. The Mets begin 2012 with no players injured and everyone preparing together. Terry Collins and Sandy Alderson now have a year of familiarity with the team and the organization and a better sense of what they’re capable of. There are new faces and old ones. Someone here is going to surprise us and have a breakout season. There are going to be long majestic home runs arcing into the sky, diving catches on sinking liners, and curveballs making batters look funny and strike out. Everything you love about baseball starts happening now, as the Mets start to get ready to play some exhibition games in two weeks.
Soon (March 5th, 6pm) the voices of Howie Rose and newly acquired Josh Lewin will drift out over the airwaves, talking about Mets this, and Mets that. The Mets Extra jingle will play and we’ll hear Mets talk and interviews and daily sound bytes from Terry Collins. What could be better? It’s baseball!
What to expect from Optimistic Mets Fan this year? Think of these as my New Year’s Resolutions, because the baseball New Year starts now.
For one, I’ve got a couple of ticket giveaways planned. That should be fun, but I should warn you: I’m probably going to request optimism from you to be eligible.
I plan to work on getting a working database on my own computer so I can tweet and post random stats that amuse me, as well as delve further into the understanding of baseball as a whole.
I also plan to interface with other bloggers better. Whether this is linking them more, guest-writing, or talking on the various radio/podcast type shows out there only time will tell.
And I will continue to blog about beer as it pertains to baseball. I’ll specifically update the Citi Field Beer List, as well as talk about what’s going on in other parks. If you’re a beer fan of a non-NY baseball team and feel like helping me out, drop me an email.
Earlier this year I wrote about how the Mets had paintings of players done and using the profits from selling them to support Florida local Little League. Here’s a couple of those pictures that were on display at Digital Domain Park.
I’m back from Spring Training, and it’s all too soon. I was having a lot of fun poking around Port St. Lucie and Digital Domain Park. I took 500 pictures over three days, and captured images of many of our favorite, and less favorite, Mets players. I watched road, home, and minor league games and saw players from the low minors to the cream of the crop doing all different kinds of baseball drills. I met Amber Coyle, and Matthew Rose of NL East Chatter and The Real Dirty Mets Blog.
First, check out these two posts I put up last week involving Mets eating dinner and pictures from the St. Patrick’s Day game against the Red Sox and then click below to view more pictures.
I can practically guarantee that this conversation will happen during a Spring Training broadcast.
Gary Cohen: “It‘s the bottom of the third inning here at Digital Domain Park. The Marlins just made a pitching change, bringing in their ace Josh Johnson to get his work in. David Wright at the plate with the bases loaded.
Ron Darling: “The Mets are down a run, this is the perfect opportunity for them to tie the game even with an out.”
Keith Hernandez: “They’ve got some speed on the bases. With..who’s on first?”
All teams have a variety of different roster spots open for the taking in Spring Training. So what should we be watching in Port St. Lucie with the Mets? (And if you’re watching on SNY, the games will be in HD this year!)
Tiki Hut at Digital Domain Park
Health
Keeping players healthy is definitely number one. This includes building up arm strength and recovering from an injury that ended last season, or simply not getting hurt. Jason Bay, Francisco Rodriguez and Daniel Murphy ended up the season on the disabled list. The primary goal from them is to get to Opening Day without experiencing any pain or lingering effects of what ailed them last year. Bay and Rodriguez have both been reported healthy and pain free, but it’ll be good to show that in real spring training games. Daniel Murphy has had some knee issues, and the best shot he has at winning a job this season is to not be hampered by lingering pain that prevents him from putting in the work both at second base, and at the plate, that he needs.
Some guys have been injured frequently, to various degrees, and may be at risk again. Chris Young, Chris Capuano, Carlos Beltran are three of the most recent cases. Beltran has mainly been dealing with one issue, a lack of cartilage in his knee, and may have that under control via an understanding of what ails him, and a knee brace that keeps his knee bones from bruising further. Beltran’s goal this spring is to prove the brace hasn’t reduced his range significantly in center field, and to get the reps at the plate he needs to keep up to speed without needlessly stressing his knee in exhibition games.
Young and Capuano have more to prove if they want to earn a spot on this team and continue contributing for the entire season. Consistent starts this spring with no reports of pain or soreness would go a long way to giving us confidence that can give us some quality innings.
Jose Reyes often gets mentioned in the injury discussion, but really he was healthy for most of 2011. He had a medical condition that had him almost literally rolling out of bed and into the field in April, and had a slight oblique strain mid-season that was so poorly managed by the Mets and their manager that it probably cost him twice as many games as it needed to. Players get nicked u, and an oblique strain isn’t something to worry about. Given these parameters, it seems like 2010 is the absolute floor of what we can expect out of Reyes for any given season, and given a full spring worth of preparation it’s not unfair to expect him to be much better again.
The Stars
The results may not matter, but it’s still fun to watch some of the best in the game play. The Mets have a nice core of excellent players. David Wright and Jason Bay can launch home runs and bash the ball all over the place. Jose Reyes can run wild and be his energetic, fun to watch self. Carlos Beltran may go back to making difficult defensive plays look easy while blasting home runs.
While maybe not on the same level, yet, many other players that have jobs secured are fun to watch. Ike Davis has some great power and is maturing as a hitter. R.A. Dickey is an amazing guy and watching him taunt hitters with the knuckleball is always fun. Jon Niese progressing with his devastating curveball or Bobby Parnell blowing guys away with his occasionally triple digit fastball will make highlights reels all spring long.
Rounding Out the Roster
Which guys will make the team seemingly out of nowhere? Who will have a monster spring and launch themselves into the conversation for 5th starter, or long reliever, or first pinch hitter off the bench? A lot of the bullpen is open for guys looking to have a strong showing. Beyond second base that has a couple of favorites, but is an open competition, there are a couple of different ways the Mets could fill out the extra bench spots. Could it be Nick Evans? Or Scott Hairston? What about Jason Pridie or Justin Turner?
The Future
What’s more exciting than seeing what may be on tap for the years to come? Jenrry Mejia make a lot of noise last spring, enough that he mistakenly got a roster spot in the bullpen. He’ll be exciting to watch this year to see how’s he progressed and if he’s someone we can look forward to in the future. You’ve got some possible outfielders that look exciting, like Lucas Duda or Kirk Nieuwenhuis.
The Broadcast
Besides the games finally being in high definition, Gary, Keith, Ron, and Kevin are a joy to listen to do a game. Just like Spring Training is a little more lax than the regular season, so are the broadcasts. Obviously most of us don’t have the opportunity to listen to them live, because most games are on at 1pm, but if you do get a chance it’s well worth it.
The Mets are supporting the local Little League down in Florida. They’ve agreed to have a couple of art clubs paint portraits of a handful of Mets players and then auction them off, with the money going to support Florida District 17 Little League teams. Being featured will be David Wright, Angel Pagan, Jose Reyes, Mike Pelfrey and Jason Bay.
The artwork will be on display at Digital Domain Park all of Spring Training. I’ll be down there in the middle of March and am looking forward to seeing some of them.
Due to a deadline to book a free flight with JetBlue I’m departing Florida Sunday morning March 20th. This has made it easy to pick a weekend to go to Spring Training this year. The only decision is how many days to take off and how long to stay. Spring Training is in a way the Mecca of baseball fans. It’s a great experience that everyone should experience at least once. There is excitement in the air, the players are working out and more relaxed, and there are more opportunities to get close and get an autograph. The seats are much closer and much cheaper. It’s warm and really gets those juices flowing for the season to come.
I looked at the tenative schedules, since nothing is completely official yet, and came up with a plan. The Mets are about as far away from home as they can be on Wednesday and Thursday of that week, playing the Twins and Red Sox on the other side of the state. Disappointing, but to make up for it I’m thinking of taking in the Red Sox against the Braves in Disney on Wednesday, and then going to Universal Studios and the new Harry Potter ride on Thursday, and of course a Shamrock Shake for St. Patricks Day.
The Mets are home on Friday against the Braves. This will be a perfect day to go to the park for the early morning workouts. Saturday they have a split squad game in Disney, so a lot of the younger guys will be away from Port St. Lucie, but the rest of the team plays the Nationals at home. After that I’ll fly home, and anxiously await the Mets to join me and start the season.
Are you going to Spring Training this year? What type of plans do you have, or are you thinking of?
