Your Saturday morning dose of New York Mets and Major League Baseball news, notes, and links.
Meet the Mets
The Mets lost 1-0 to the Marlins yesterday. Zack Wheeler pitched well over 4.2 innings and was focusing on building his arm strength for the season. The Mets are a split squad today, as they host the Twins at Port St. Lucie and send a group to Las Vegas to play the Cubs.
Scott Boras says that the Mets have had dialogue with him about Stephen Drew. The Mets are still not changing their tune, however. That means Ruben Tejada is still the guy at shortstop and Terry Collins gave the 24-year old a fiery speech to try to help him.
The Mets demoted Jacob deGrom and Jeff Walters to minor league camp yesterday.
The battle between Ike Davis and Lucas Duda is set to resume as both got minor league at bats yesterday.
Jared Diamond wrote about the need for Noah Syndergaard to develop his changeup.
At Rising Apple, Dan Haefeli tried to develop his own player projection model.
Around the Majors
SI has a really cool piece on the ballpark of the future, created by Populous.
Not only have the Braves lost Kris Medlen but Brandon Beachy may also need a second Tommy John surgery. Ouch.
Oakland starters A.J. Griffin and Jarrod Parker are likely out to start the year due to arm injuries.
Ryne Sandberg claims he didn't bench Jimmy Rollins to send a message but people around the team aren't buying that.
The Marinersdemoted Jesus Montero to minor league camp. Montero famously added lots of weight this offseason when he did nothing but eat.
Red Sox prospect and 2013 draft pick Jon Denney seems like a really cool guy...not.
Yesterday At AA
Michael Donato figures out the Mets best outfield alignment.
Can Dillon Gee, Jon Niese, and Zack Wheeler get more calls on borderline pitches this year?
Should Carlos Torres start or relieve? Seems pretty easy to me.
Here's our community discussion on who should be the 5th starter. And our community projection of David Wright.
If you read an article or find a link that you think would be a great addition to a future edition of Mets Morning News, please forward it to our tips email address tips@grission.com and we'll try to add it in.