Nick Evans Fans May Get Their Wish
You know the old adage “be careful what you wish for” ?
In the case of the Nick Evans Fan Club — an underground, but rapidly growing movement — we may get our wish of seeing Evans on the Mets’ 25-man roster come Opening Day, but the reason why may not be so pleasant.
I say “we” because I’m a member of the NEFC, and have been since Nick made his MLB debut in 2008 — voicing my support for him on many occasions.
This year is no different; I continue to support Evans and hope the 25-year-old makes the big club in April. However, if he does, it may be because Carlos Beltran doesn’t.
The latest news is that Carlos Beltran has “a little tendinitis” in his left knee — a problem significant enough to shut him down for five days. Think about that: he was a DH for one game, ran around the bases once, and now needs a week off. Mind you, this is his GOOD knee.
Beltran and Terry Collins and anyone else from the Mets can blow all the smoke up our you-know-what’s they want, but we’ve been through this spin doctored template before. If Beltran can’t even DH now, how is he going to play the field three weeks from now? It ain’t happening, and it would be irresponsible to force the issue. Unless something miraculous occurs in the next two weeks, Beltran most likely will stay in Port St. Lucie when April rolls around, and continue to get himself into shape during “extended spring training”. In that case, the Mets will have an opening in the outfield — which means there is room for Nick Evans.
Sitting in Mets-Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
Be-cause of Je-rry…..
Good luck, Nick. It’d be nice to see a good story emerge to start the season….this applies to Mr. Duda and F-Mart as well — but I think they’d be better suited to Triple-A to start. Especially since Evans is out of options.
Nowhere Man please listen,
The Mets don’t know what they’re missing,
Nowhere Man, the world is at your command!
…………not if we put any stock in what Cerrone’s saying over at Metsblog:
“In talking to people in camp, and others connected to the team, it seems Brad Emaus will likely get the bulk of the playing time at second base to start the season. That could change, of course. But, as of now, he’s the front-runner.
This means, if I had to do it, I’d bet on Luis Castillo being cut, meaning Daniel Murphy will end up an occasional platoon-partner for Emaus and back-up to Ike Davis, David Wright and Jason Bay.
Also, it is sounding to me like Chin-lung Hu is very likely to get a spot on the bench. He offers an outstanding defensive, late-game, middle-infielder, which will be needed if Emaus and Murphy are the primary second basemen.
In either case, Mike Nickeas will be on the 25-man roster, at least until Ronny Paulino completes his 8-game suspension. Also, it’s more or less a lock that at least one of Scott Hairston or Willie Harris will be on the roster… if not both.
This means Nick Evans likely ends up on waivers, where he’ll almost certainly be claimed by another team. Frankly, as Adam Rubin of ESPN News has pointed, the only way Evans makes the team is if a) one of Hairston or Harris get hurt, or b) Carlos Beltran starts the season on the disabled list, meaning Harris or Hairston will start in right field, opening up a spot on the bench for a back-up outfielder.
In other words, the five-man bench will likely end up being Murphy or Emaus, Hu, a catcher, Harris and Hairston. In either case, we should learn more about this soon, as the team is expected to make its first round of cuts sooner than later.”
so it’s a murphy/castillo “platoon.” there is no way the mets are cutting castillo or perez. get used to it!