2-12-13 – Herb Goldstein, Reese Havens, Justin Turner, Jenrry Mejia

Mike Puma‏ - @NYPost_Mets

One Mets player expressed relief his locker wasn't "next to No. 1." ... Jordany Valdespin is No. 1.

Herb Goldstein has replaced Mack Ade as Director of Media for the site. Mack currently holds a Publisher and Founder position and, as such, is not directly involved with the on-site reporting on Spring Training activities any longer for the New York Mets. 


Goldstein was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. and received a Bachellor's degree in Management Engineering from Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from the Baruch School of Management, City College of New York. He was a Management Consulting Partner (now retired) in Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) and BDO Seidman.


Ade will continue with 8am morning report on past minor league activities from the night before and write various independent editorial-type posts involving the minors, in particular,, and the Mets, in general. Ade also continues  as a contributor at www.bigleaguefutures, plays with his grandchildren, and sprays tomatoes in his garden in the summer. He can also be played singing and playing guitar on Saturdays to Alzheimer patients in the Low Country of South Carolina.

Kevin Kernon on 2B Reese Havens:

Reyes is gone. Wright is here for the duration. Davis, despite some setbacks, is fulfilling his power promise. As for Havens? He’s still trying to find the key to staying healthy. Havens believes he may have finally found the answer this offseason. The Mets have been down this shattered glass road before and can only hope for the best while not counting on anything. Havens has played more than 61 games in a minor league season only twice. He has never hit the 100-game mark.

There’s an awful lot that has to be done here for Havens to win back his future on this team. Hig age alone gives him only one more shot and he needs a 120+ game, 25-HR, 75-RBI season for anyone to consider him taking over the second base job from Daniel Murphy in 2014. No one was a bigger fan of Havens than I was (I didn’t like the Davis pick that year), but this one might be toast. My guess is that the injury bug will hit again and Danny Muno will take his place.

Justin Turner about playng the OF:

“We talked about it at the end of the season last year. He told he wanted me to get out there, get some reps. I don’t know if that means I’m going to be playing for a spot, or it’s just another couple of positions to maybe get some more at-bats. In 2011, when I first came up, I started as a role guy off the bench. And then, because of all the injuries, I ended up getting at-bats. So I’ve had a little bit of a taste for what [pinch-hitting] is all about. It’s just last year I had to sustain it for the whole year. It was hard when you’re only getting four or five at-bats a week. You’ve got to try to figure out a way to get ready and not give away pitches. It was definitely an adjustment, but it’s part of the game. Somebody has got to do it.”

Let’s understand something. All of the above comes from one interview by one reporter (Adam Rubin). Like all good beat reporters, Rubin’s job is to file at least one solid piece each day during spring training. Sometimes the player being interviewed is scheduled. Other times, the reporter sees the player hanging around so he texts Jay Horwitz, gets the okay to proceed, and a new interview begins.

All this makes for a nice story on an early day in camp, but Turner doesn’t stand a shit chance of playing this year in the outfield.

Frankly, with Jordany Valdespin, Josh Satin, Omar Quintanila, and Brandon Hicks around, he might want to concentrate on the infield utility position.

Mets pitcher Jenrry Mejia will be delayed in reporting to SpringTraining due to visa issues.

          It’s what, day one of pitchers/catchers and we now find out that the taxi didn’t pull up with Mejia in it due to visa problems?

          Did a baseball team ever think that maybe they should arrange for all their non-citizen baseball players that are supposed to be a member of the parent portion of spring training be in a Florida hotel like a month earlier?

          Am I asking too much from someone that wants people who want to play this game… in America…  begin their journey here early enough so, if there is a problem, it can reach the team a month early and then there might be plenty of time to work it out with a foreign government?

          Maybe this isn’t Mejia’s fault, but it sure seems to me this all could have been handled better.