Easy Does It

Love the enthusiasm from Sip yesterday, but there's no sense in worrying about what All or Nothing Ollie or Billy the Kid did in their first Spring Training outing of the year. As a whole, the Spring gives the coaches and management a sense of how everyone looks. Taken individually, a performance in a single Spring Training game mean less than nothing.

I mean, it's just way too early to be worrying about batting and pitching lines. I like that Jose Jose Jose hit a homer yesterday, and I like that his slap-happy celebration with Blastings made it onto SportsCenter, but I would have been fine if the Cards had caught the ball on the warning track. I would have been fine if he struck out.

I'm not concerned about the lineups, which everyone says are experimental and designed to get guys at-bats. I'm not reading tea leaves about which pitchers are used.

Baseball is back, and for now, that's plenty good. At this point, we need keep only one eye on how things are going down in Port St. Lucie, and it doesn't always have to be a critical eye. Hell, how else am I supposed to get excited about David Newhan?

----

Baseball Prospectus 2007 literally just showed up in my mailbox, which is why this post is so late coming. I had pre-ordered it back before Christmas, and with those ship dates a couple months in the future, you lose all track of when something's going to show.

Plenty to talk about in the massive, 602-page tome, including a fascinating section on the Mets and great player comments about many of our favorites. We'll get into those soon enough. There's the expected mocking of El Duque's advanced age, skepticism about the usual suspects (it always comes back to Ollie, don't it?), and some discussion of David Wright's mid-summer struggles.

The real talk is going on on BP's Web site, where there's a healthy debate over which is the more valuable NL East SS property; Reyes or Hanley Ramirez. Nate Silver, take it away.

As for Reyes versus Ramirez, I think PECOTA is correct in breaking that tie in favor of the man in Florida. They had nearly identical batting lines last year, both finishing with a .294 EqA, but Ramirez is six months younger, is a steadier defender, and has a fair bit more power projection on account of his larger stature. They’re both franchise players, but anyone that puts Reyes on a higher tier than Ramirez isn’t being objective; if anything, the reverse is true.

Well, there's something to discuss, ain't there? More when Reyes Week heats up later in Spring Training.

----

This was all very well and good, and another example of why it's good to be an SI writer. Happen to witness a big game while taking your son around to see your alma mater? Pen a column about it, and not for no blog -- for the big guys.

----

I just noticed that Metsblog has a post up making the same points I was about to make here, but whatever. Anyway, Ambiorix Burgos threw 13 pitches yesterday in getting four outs, and all of the pitches clocked in at 94 mph or above. That's good velocity for this time of year, and even better consistency.

KC Star columnist Joe Posnanski warns us not to get even remotely excited about Burgos, calling him in effect a bullpen wonder and non-performer. His record, which we discussed here at length over the off-season, certainly bears some of that out.

It was astonishing to watch people light up Burgos just about every time the game mattered (and honestly … how much did those games REALLY matter anyway? The Royals were out of the race in the third week of April). He blew 12 saves last year, but that doesn’t even begin to describe the agony of watching him pitch.

Yeah yeah yeah. But word out of Kansas City is that Brian Bannister, the schlub the Mets traded for this frustrating but eminently projectable 22-year-old arm, is a long shot to make even the Royals' rotation. Gil Meche, Luke Hudson and Odalis Perez are in there for sho', and it looks like they're confident with Jorge De La Rosa (5.88 career ERA) in the No. 4 slot.

That leaves a battle between head case Zack Greinke and Bannister for the No. 5 slot in what will probably again be the worst rotation in the league, all but confirming that the price the Mets paid to roll the Burgos dice was certainly fair.

Everyone enjoy your weekends.