Mark Himmelstein

Reese Havens made his season debut yesterday for the St. Lucie Mets after missing most of April with a strained oblique. I'm guessing his assignment to St. Lucie is temporary and related to his rehab and the warm weather (though upstate New York probably feels about as close to Florida this weekend as it ever does) rather than the level of competition. Expect him to join the Binghamton squad in the near future. He was 1-3 with a walk. Of course, the news wasn't all good, as Jeurys Familia missed his scheduled start for the PSL Mets in the same game. No news yet on why he was unable to appear. Elsewhere, Fernando Martinez hit a homer in his first AB back in the Buffalo Bisons lineup after missing a handful of games with a sore back. Update: According to Toby Hyde via Twitter, Familia has been placed on the St. Lucie 7-day DL with a left wrist burn.

The number of people wondering why Nick Evans is in Double-A > The number of people surprised he's the EL player of the week.

John Sickels profiles the Mets' projected opening day first baseman.

Fantastic article over at THT by Justin Inaz discussing the variety of run environments among the affiliated leagues. Its widely known how pitcher friendly the FSL is, and this research reflects that, as it has the lowest run environment both in terms of Base Runs and Actual Runs. The next five lowest in order are the GCL, International, NY-PA, Midwest, and Eastern Leagues. The Mets have affiliates in every one of those leagues save the Midwest. The highest run environment the Mets have an affiliate in is the Appy League, where Wilmer Flores made a name for himself. The South Atlantic League, where Wilmer spent 2009, is just about middle of the pack. Its worth keeping all this in mind when regarding Mets prospects. Almost all of their affiliated teams play in leagues that are much more pitcher friendly than most other leagues at the same level. Hitters in the system are much more likely to get undervalued and pitchers much more likely to get overvalued.

Just imagine if the team had signed him and this came out. Delgado is expected to miss about four months, though he still intends to play this year once he returns.

As per a pair of tweets from Ken Davidoff. Having Niese healthy and miraculously getting Nelson Figueroa through waivers again to start the season would give the Mets Bisons one of the best 1-2 combos in Triple-A. That might not sound like much, but its the kind of depth that would make signing a little-talent, high-durability guy like Jon Garland pretty superfluous.

There's some buzz now that despite the $60 million pricetag that was floated around earlier this offseason, Chapman may get less than $20 million. If this is the case, he could very well become one of the better high-risk fits for a team like the Mets. The problem presented with matching up a different high risk guy, say Sheets or Bedard, with a lower upside "innings eater," is that it forces someone, most likely John Maine, out of the rotation right away. Then if they did get hurt, Jon Niese and Nelson Figueroa would essentially be the only replacement options. With Chapman, who would be in his first year of service time, he could be out-righted to the minors after the spring if he didn't look quite polished enough yet. Maine could keep his spot warm, and Niese and Chapman could essentially compete in Triple-A to be the guy who forces Maine to the pen eventually.

According to multiple sources. The Yankees would receive Curtis Granderson, the D'Backs Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy, and the Tigers would get Max Scherzer, Austin Jackson, Phil Coke, and Daniel Schlereth. I'm personally hoping this deal goes through, so we can stop hearing about how "great" Austin Jackson is from Yankee Fans.

According to Joel Sherman, he's been hired as a Major League scout. Just one more manager waiting in the weeds for Jerry to let Pedro Feliciano pitch to Matt Diaz again.

All it ever got him was a championship. Hat tip to arnec at BtB for the link.

Projectprospect.com has been running a series on the top prospects in the minors for each position, going 15 deep at each position and 30 deep for pitchers. The Project Prospect philosophy is more about giving credit for high floors than some other big prospect pundit, though upside is still obviously considered. Here are the Mets farmies who appear in the rankings (rank on respective list in parenthesis): John Niese, P (16) Jenrry Mejia, P (18) Fernando Martinez, CF (3) Ruben Tejada, SS (13) Reese Havens, 2B (5) Ike Davis, 1B (7) The Mets had no ranked players on the Catcher, Third Base, or Corner Outfield lists.

How come whenever we all agree on an idea here at AA, it seems like the Red Sox or Rays are the ones to pull the trigger on it?

Apparently he's getting his $2 million, once again guaranteed, this time with some type of vesting option.

After going 2 for 4 with his third HR of the season, in 37 games, Thole is now hitting .392 / .493 / .584. He leads the league in AVG, OBP, OPS, and doubles, and has a crazy 24/13 BB/K. He's sixth in walks, and his 3 HR are more than he's hit in any stateside professional season save his 2008 in the FSL. He's also among the league leaders with 17 total XBH. He's essentially the Joe Mauer of the VWL.

For those of us who go a little stir crazy in the baseball offseason, Mock Drafts are a good way to pass the time until, at the very least, the Fantasy Draft season starts. Mock Draft Central is the most commonly known resource for Mock drafting, especially this early in the year, but non-premium users are limited to one per day, and even for premium users, they're only running two drafts each day anyway. Couch Managers appears to be completely free, but no one uses it, so I figured I'd pimp it out a bit and see if I could get some traffic over there so I'm not just competing with 9 auto-draft slots.

Reportedly just a $500k base salary with just $1 million in incentives. Can you say missed opportunity?