For sure, the first man down in Port St. Lucie wouldn’t be for at least another week, right? But no, even before the first official workout commenced, the Mets lost starting first baseman Lucas Duda.

If you had Wilmer Flores in the pool as the Mets Opening Day shortstop, get ready to collect. As incredible as it sounds, the Mets, a team hoping to vault into contention via their cache of young pitchers,  are actually planning on starting the season with a previously-failed shortstop prospect manning this vital position; pointing to a small sample size (occurring in September no less) as the rationale for this move. It would be far better for them to just admit that they can’t afford a roster full of  the caliber of players that a contender needs, a but honesty was an early casualty in the post-Madoff era.

I am rooting for Flores and I really want the Mets to go back to the playoffs. I don’t need to be right about this one. I will gladly suffer self-congratulatory remarks from a champagne-soaked Jeff Wilpon in the Mets clubhouse after an NLCS win rather than dealing with another losing season. But, after 40-plus years (gulp!) of Met fandom, I have been conditioned into expecting the worst. And I think we’re going to get it. The Mets have a long history of trying to shoehorn bad fits into their lineup, often with disastrous results. The Howard Johnson in centerfield experiment still gives me (and I suppose Hojo as well) nightmares. I have racked my brain trying to come up with a scenario for Flores that might have if not a happy ending, at least a less bad one. Then I remembered Keith Miller and the great 1990 Centerfield Experiment.

If anyone epitomized the term “nice little ballplayer,” it was Miller. He played all over the field and could run a little. On a team loaded with superstars, the blue collar Miller was a welcomed throw back. In 1990, the season after they traded both incumbent centerfielders, the Mets handed the center field job to Miller. The results where less than stellar. Miller didn’t field well enough to overcome his 250/350/404 slash line for the first month of  the season. The Mets, picked by many to win the division where struggling (manager Davey Johnson would be fired 42 games into the season) and looked for upgrades. They found one in Daryl Boston, whom they picked up off waivers on April 30. Boston was soon inserted into centerfield and slashed 273/328/440 the rest of the way. One of my favorite Shea Stadium scoreboard witticisms was BOSTON POPS! on the marquee after an extra base hit from Daryl. Not a gold glover by any stretch, he was nevertheless defensively  an improvement over Miller and overall, represented an upgrade for the Mets in center.

With a new manager and a new centerfielder, the Mets somewhat righted the ship. They won 91 games, four behind the division winning Pirates. There where only two NL divisions and no wildcard then, so they went home. This was the end of the great 1980’s Mets run and they wouldn’t have another winning season for seven years and not break the 90-win plateau until 1999. As for Miller, he was dealt after the 1991 season in the ill-fated Bret Saberhagen trade.

Flores reminds me somewhat of Miller: a decent bat and no real defensive position. Miller had “potential” written all over him until prolonged exposure to major league pitching revealed his limitations. I suspect the same will happen with Wilmer. BTW–Miller hit .373 for the 1987 Mets, higher than any average Flores has put up anywhere.

The Miller-to-Boston switch might be the best we can hope for at short this year. The Mets themselves have great expectations for this season and the noise will likely increase as Opening Day draws near. If the team and Flores stumble early, like Miller and the 90 Mets did, will GM Sandy Alderson finally bite the bullet and bring in a real shortstop? Perhaps he can finally convince Seattle to part with either Brad Miller or Chris Taylor. Or will he  (dare I dream it?) trade for one of the Cub shortstops? These types of upgrades would make the contender talk much more realistic. Or was Terry Collins really serious the other day about an open competition between Wilmer and Ruben Tejada?

Only two weeks ago, Mets GM Sandy Alderson publicly announced that Matt Harvey might not make his 2015 debut until the Mets’ home opener on April 13 — a full week after Opening Day.

Yet today, when the question was asked of Mets manager Terry Collins, Collins made abundantly clear that Harvey would be pitching before then.

Per Adam Rubin of ESPN:

“He’s going to be in those first five guys, I’ll tell you that,” Collins said Saturday.

Asked if that meant Harvey would pitch one of the first five games of the season, Collins replied: “Yes.”

Hmm … so, who’s in charge? Alderson or Collins? Or Harvey?

Breaking news: Phil Coke will NOT sign with the Mets.

Looking over the winter of transactions throughout MLB — and the lack of transactions involving a certain team based in Flushing, New York — one particular deal stands out to me as a possible missed opportunity for the Mets.

As of this writing, there are about a dozen seats left for this Saturday’s lunch with Dwight Gooden. So, get yourself over to www.LunchwithDoc.com NOW and buy your tickets. As a MetsToday insider, you get $25 off the price of your ticket by entering the promo code “METSTODAY” at checkout.

Why are you still here? Get over to LunchwithDoc.com and buy your tickets!

In case you didn’t already read … Dr. K will be the main attraction at a fundraising luncheon, hosted by the Baseball United Foundation, to benefit programs to grow youth baseball programs in regions of the world where baseball is not traditionally played.

The event — titled “Lunch with Doc” — will be held on February 21, 2015 at Graziella’s Italian Bistro in White Plains, NY. It will feature a talk and Q&A session with former Mets and Yankees star Dwight “Doc” Gooden.

If you want to help spread the word of baseball, buy tickets to the luncheon. If you want to meet Dwight Gooden, buy tickets to the luncheon. If you like a good plate of Italian food, buy tickets to the luncheon. If you want to tell me to my face what a jerk I am for constantly criticizing the Mets, buy tickets to the luncheon. If you have none of these desires, then you can spend Saturday working on your “honey-do” list. Have fun with that.

Ok, in less than ten days we can finally begin to change the conversation in this terrible, boring, frustrating, no-good Mets offseason. The official date for pitchers and catchers is February 19^th, although many Mets players have already matriculated down to Port St. Lucie.

I think much of the angst evident among the faithful during the past three winters has turned into apathy as they’ve done it to us again: a brief burst of activity followed by…nothing. That is unless you count the drivel oozing from the  mouth of GM Sandy Alderson. As was posted here, I think Alderson is the fulcrum on which the Mets pantheon of awfulness (The Wilpons, Terry Collins, Citi Field, a Triple-A team in Las Vegas, losing WFAN, etc.) balances on.

This offseason, it has been all about the prospects. The Mets just can’t/won’t/don’t make any moves because they have this bumper crop of prospects that are soon to deliver the good times again. Or is this yet another set-up? Maybe there is a way to find out before you spend any of your hard-earned money on them.

Take a look at Baseball America’s top-10 Mets prospects coming into the new season:

1. Noah Syndergaard
2. Steven Matz
3. Brandon Nimmo
4. Dilson Herrera
5. Kevin Plawecki
6. Ahmed Rosario
7. Michael Conforto
8. Rafael Montero
9. Marcus Molina
10. Gavin Cecchini

That certainly is a great list and at several of those names  have Mets fans dreaming of the day a pennant (or two) flies over Citi Field. Along with those supposedly robust ticket sales,  these farm system rankings are being touted by the Mets as third party verification that better days are just ahead.

Like barnacles on a ship, negativity is attached to everything “Mets” these days, so there is no shortage of folks to remind us of Generation K and The Teenaged Hitting Machine. I have not been shy about my distain for most of the non-playing members (and a few that do play) in the Met organization, but I really do want the team to win. It is always difficult to project future performance of prospects, but some empirical evidence exists to at least help us take an educated guess.

Let’s start with BA’s top ten Met farmhands list from 2012 and 2013:

2012

1. Zack Wheeler
2. Matt Harvey
3. Nimmo
4. Jeurys Familia
5. Cesar Puello
6. Jennry Mejia
7. Kirk Nieuwenhuis
8. Michael Fulmer
9. Reese Havens
10. Wilmer Flores

And 2013:

1. Wheeler
2. Cecchini
3. Nimmo
4. Luis Mateo
5. Montero
6. Flores
7. Fulmer
8. Familia
9. Domingo Tapia
10. Cory Mazzoni

15 names dot those two lists. Of them, Havens has retired, while Fulmer, Mateo and Mazzoni have been slowed by injuries.  Tapia may have flamed out in the face of improved competition. Puello’s stock soared until his PED revelation.  While I wouldn’t give up on these guys totally, their big league futures seem cloudy.  Nimmo and Cecchini’s high rankings are mainly due to BA’s institutional high regard for first round draft picks. Sans those two, six of 13 (46%) have made it to the majors. Mejia already having made his debut in 2010 with the rest called up by the end of 2013. For argument’s sake let’s give both Nimmo and Cecchini (or one  of them and Mazzoni) at least a cup of big league coffee. That’s eight out of 15 or a 53% yield. Not great.

Stick with me however and let’s take a look at BA’s two top farm systems from 2012 and 2013, which would be the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals, respectively  (BTW, the Mets system ranked 25^th and then 16^th in those two years). Seven of the top ten from each organization became major leaguers–although one of them was Yu Darvish. Because conventional wisdom indicates the Mets system is at or near the top of the organizational rankings (there is no 2015 info for BA yet) and that better systems produce more major leaguers, let’s risk the small sample size and assume that seven of the names on the 2015 Mets list will be in the majors by 2016.

Remember that Herrera and Montero have already debuted, so who are the other five?  It might be easiest to project the four most advanced names: Syndergaard, Plawecki, Matz and Nimmo. That’s going to leave a lot of Mets fans, not to mention the Front Office disappointed with a wasted top pick (either Conforto or Cecchini).  And it might mean that we shouldn’t buy into the Rosario hype. Or does Conforto join Nimmo in Queens while one (or both) of the AAA arms comes up lame? There’s a scary thought.

OK, you may be thinking, there will still be some disappointments, but overall the guys that do break through will make the Mets a lot better.  Don’t count on it. How good have the 2012/2013 list graduates been? Harvey made the All-Star team and then had TJS; while Mejia, Familia and Wheeler appear poised to stick as better than serviceable performers. Kirk will likely peak in his 4^th-outfielder/pinch hitter role. I am rooting for Flores, but I think that for a variety of reasons, he is being set up to fail.  That’s one franchise-type player, three contending team-caliber players, a utility guy and a Mystery Box (Flores).

Prospect-wise, the Mets are close to where the Cardinals were two seasons ago. From that Cardinal list, the Oscar Taveras tragedy is unimaginable, but their #2 prospect went to Atlanta and the #6 prospect had TJS. The best of the remainder are in the same band as Mejia/Familia/Wheeler.

For arguments’s sake, call Syndergaard  the next Harvey, while Matz, Nimmo and Herrera become regulars and Plawecki sticks as a backup. Added to the mix currently here, how much better does it make the Mets?  I think it still leaves them as a flawed team, with a major Achilles Heel.

A deeper comparison between the Mets and the Cardinals shows that a strong prospect base is about where the similarities between the two franchises end. The Cardinals have made trades, signed free agents, aggressively promoted players, play better defense, have more speed and are well-run, from the owner’s box to the manager’s office.  About the same thing could be said of the other perennial NL playoff teams, Washington and San Francisco.

While those teams have maintained a high standard year over year and the Cubs, Padres and Marlins have improved, the Mets have been characteristically moribund,  appearing sclerotic while their more nimble competitors gleefully restock their rosters and their fan’s expectations for the coming season.

It’s all spilled milk now, but I were Alderson and the Diamondbacks asked for Syndergaard in return for Didi Gregorious, I would have pivoted off of Didi and onto Chris Owings. Largely overlooked in this plethora of pitching prospects is that the Mets also have three centerfielders: Kirk, Juan Lagares and Matt den Dekker. I would be hounding San Diego’s AJ Preller almost daily about pieces of my centerfield and pitching surplus for Wil Myers. Yes,  I would trade Lagares. I think den Dekker can be almost as good defensively and he is a better leadoff candidate. How much different might we feel with Owings and Myers on board and Michael Cuddyer in the supersub utility role?

Maybe this changes when Alderson finally packages a bunch of prospects for that major offensive piece, or the Wilpons loosen the purse strings to allow a free agent signing.  Or if Snydergaard is so good in Spring Training that they start him in the rotation with Harvey, Wheeler and Jacob deGrom, while trading Bartolo Colon. But what in recent history leads one to believe that any of this is really going to ever happen? Because Alderson says they might?  Because the commissioner believes they would? And yes, I understand that there are non-prospect list sleepers like deGrom, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Counting on surprises isn’t a sustainable plan, plus baseball has a way of winnowing the flash-in-the-pan types from the  here-to-stay ones. I like having a good farm system, but treating my top prospects as if each of them is a 2036 HOF inductee is preposterous and is ultimately far more risky than moving a few of them for some proven and controllable help.

Yes, the 2015/16 Mets should have plenty of pitching. They probably won’t have much else. On and off the field, the Mets are just so flimsy, a product of broke owners and an out-of-touch GM. While it is nice to think that we are on the verge of another 1984-1990 run, with the wild card meaning more post season play, what I see is a repeat of the 1975–76 Mets, teams that bubbled up over 500, but never seriously contended. If you’ll recall, by 1977 the players had had enough of a parsimonious ownership and front office (sound familiar?) and rebelled, leading to a major talent purge and a long period of sub.500 baseball.

Let’s talk each other off the ledge.

In case you are not one of the Mets season-ticket holders who had the opportunity to hear Sandy Alderson’s explanation for why the Mets won’t be signing 19-year-old Cuban phenom Yoan Moncada, this is the pared-down reason: