213 Miles From Shea

Short note today as my teaching job is taking up a good chunk of my time tonight.

213 MFS turned 6 today! Thank you all for reading this blog and spreading the word. Without you this blog would be nothing!

Keep reading and LETS GO METS!

South Africa was in the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classic. Last year, they didn’t win a game at all so they had to go to the qualifying round where they were beat out to the show by Spain. Anyway, their uniforms look the same, which is fine. The green uniforms look good and the font size is correct on the jersey front.  You can see pictures of the uniform in action here, and the hat below:

The Philippines were another team eliminated in the qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic. On the uniform front, they did a good job. The hat and uniform both have colors that pop and match the country flag. Nice looking set. You can see the uniform in action here and the hat below:

Wanted to watch Oliver Perez again? Of course you do. Oliver Perez will be playing for Mexico in this year’s World Baseball Classic. Mexico is keeping the same color pallet from last year and the same hat however the uniform update didn’t go so well:

The hat still looks good. The uniform is suffering from the same characteristic as a lot of other teams, the small jersey font. If the jersey said “Mexico” in larger letters, it would look a lot better.

From May to June last year, the Mets had Vinny Rottino on the team and had to use him as a starter on B-Roster Days. I remember one of these days clearly. it was the start where Johan Santana pitched a complete game shut out before pitching his no hitter. The Mets won 9-0 thanks to home runs by Scott Hairston, Vinny Rottino and a grand slam by Mike Nickeas. The starting lineup that day was Torres, Turner, Wright, Hairston, Duda, Rottino, Cedeno, Nickeas and Santana. Seriously, not the group of guys who go on to win a game 9-0 (Davis, Murphy and Kirk, who was looking good back then, had the day off to start the game). Anyway Rottino went on to hit his first homer of his career that day and his second one of his career in his next game against the Phillies. He was later claimed by the Indians and would hit a homer for them to.

Well now Vinny, who bounced around the minors a lot, is playing in Japan on a 350K deal with 100K in bonuses. In the uniform department, he did very well. Check out his new digs via the Orix Buffaloes:

Few baseball uniforms come off as intimidating. These may.

New Zealand was eliminated in the qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic. New Zealand brought a Black and White uniform set with a nice hat and a uniform that could have been a lot better then it turned out. Black and White uniforms have received some stylistic bonuses from the Brooklyn Nets. The problem with New Zealand is the name is too small across the front (the common complaint with a lot of the uniforms this year). Here’s a picture of the uniforms in action as the players perform the traditional Haka before the start of the game. And here is their hat:

If the season started today, the Mets OF would be a joke.

Anyway, if the season started today, I would expect the roster to look something like this:

C: John Buck
1B: Ike Davis
2B: Daniel Murphy
3B: David Wright
SS: Ruben Tejada
LF: Lucas Duda
CF: Captain Kirk
RF: (Open Competition) Mike Baxter
BN: Anthony Recker
BN: Brandon Hicks
BN: Colin Cowgill
BN: Justin Turner
BN: Jordany Valdespin

SP: Johan Santana
SP: Jon Niese
SP: Shawn Marcum
SP: Dillon Gee
SP: Matt Harvey
P: Frank Francisco
P: Bobby Parnell
P: Josh Edgin
P: Jeremy Hefner
P: Robert Carson
P: Greg Burke
P: Jeurys Familia

Let’s talk about the locks. The following players are pretty much guaranteed to be on the roster for Opening Day: Wright, Buck, Tejada, Murphy, Davis, Santana, Niese, Marcum, Gee, Harvey, Parnell, Francisco and probably Duda.

That leaves the rest of the roster open for competition. d’Arnaud and Wheeler most likely do not break camp with the team. They are both close, but could use some extra time in the minors getting used to each other (and delaying free agency by a full year). TDA will probably be with the team either in May or June and Wheeler probably in June or July.

The OF is the hardest part of this team to place. In most other scenarios, Duda shouldn’t even be guaranteed a job but things are so mysterious for this crew that he can pretty much bet on a job in April. That leaves Baxter. Cowgill, Kirk, Puello, Valdespin, den Dekker, and apparently Lutz and Turner in an open competition for the remaining spots.

If Dekker has a good spring, he could easily squeeze into center where I have Kirk listed right now. Baxter extrapolates as a bench player better so this would knock Kirk over to right, or Duda back to right. Valdespin in winter showed more patience, so if he has a good spring, he could weasel his way back into the mix. With the lack of depth the Mets have at OF, I wouldn’t mind carrying him on the bench to start to act as a spark plug like he did for a stretch of the season last year.

The bullpen is another area that is mostly question marks. Francisco is reluctantly the closer, although Parnell could edge him out. Everyone else it will be a full competition. Hefner has an inside track as the probable long man unless someone else is brought on.

Pitchers and Catchers is still over two weeks away, therefore this will probably change a bit before then, especially if the Mets can some how land Bourn.

The Chinese World Baseball Classic Team, formerly managed by Mets’s skipper Terry Collins. Their uniforms are pretty similar to the last go around, although the color panel look goes well on the road grays. Here’s the uniform set:

A lot of teams went with away colors, and all of the teams that went with away grays with color panels, look nice. So, way to go China.

Parallel cards in baseball have inflated value of cards over the last decade plus. For example, if it’s been a while since you have purchased cards, series like Topps have a gold parallel numbered to the year for every card, essentially making 2013 special sets of cards with in the set. There are other serial numbered cards as well, generally including colors like Black, Green, Blue, Orange (these colors for Bowman especially). The only difference between these cards and the normal cards is the color of the card border.

This year, Topps decided to go in a new direction with pink borders and this (from their twitter page):

That’s a camo border, numbered up to 99. So there are 99 sets of tops cards with camo borders. I’ve never seen this before and it really continues to blend this idea of the military complex and sports. They have apparently done this already with their football cards. The word is that the camo cards show support for the Armed Forces and Pink cards show support for Breast Cancer Awareness. Are they donating profits for these cards? What is the actually connection? On the whole I’m not a fan of support like this. If there is no money going to either organization, then this is shameful. If there is money, then this is like getting a certain amount of likes on facebook, retweets or followers on twitter for charity (like the Mets just did). If you are going to donate money, just do it.

Colombia has my favorite uniforms in this tournament, by far. It’s a shame they got eliminated early because the world stage for these uniforms. Here’s a picture of the front, and here’s a picture of the back. These uniforms have great, great colors. The hat is nice too: