So John Maine had a crappy outing Grapefruit League outing yesterday, providing everybody everywhere with reason to remember John Maine.

Maine, I think, often gets lost among Ollie Perez and Mike Pelfrey in discussions of the questions in the Mets’ rotation. We talk about the Good Ollie and the Bad Ollie and whether or not Pelfrey is crazy or just the victim of the horrible defense behind him, and Maine’s sort of forgotten, with the assumption that he’ll be pretty good if he’s fully healthy, and that he may never really be fully healthy.

I was a guest on The Happy Recap Radio yesterday and we discussed Maine a bit. The knock on Maine has always seemed to be his stamina, and so I speculated that if it didn’t appear to be working out for him as a starter, he could thrive in a bullpen role. He’s got a good fastball that’s a very effective offering for him in the past, and I figure if he could dial it up a notch in shorter bursts, he could be a pretty great setup man.

It’s funny, then, that it turns out Maine chalked up his rough outing yesterday to entering the game as a reliever. To his credit, it’s not something he’s had a whole lot of practice doing — Maine has made 216 starts in college and professional ball and only seven relief appearances. (And despite that, Maine has gone on record with his choice of closer music, one of the best reasons to like John Maine.)

Anyway, the THR guys and I also discussed Maine’s injury issues the last couple of years. I wondered on the show if Maine flourished under Rick Peterson, reputed as an expert in keeping pitchers healthy through sound mechanics.

I did a little investigating this morning to see if there have been any marked differences in Maine under Dan Warthen. I used June 17, 2008 as an end date, which I realize is a bit arbitrary since obviously it’s not like Maine completely shifted to all of Warthen’s philosophies the day Warthen took over.

Anyway, here are Maine’s lines with the Mets before and after the Tuscan tile replaced the hardwood floor.

Under Peterson: 362.3 IP, 154 ER, 321 K, 142 BB, 46 HR, 3.83 ERA, 4.25 FIP

Under Warthen: 140 IP, 70 ER, 107 K, 71 BB, 16 HR, 4.50 ERA, 4.68 FIP

What does that mean? Hard to tell. The biggest difference is that Maine was a lot better at staying on the mound under Peterson, but I’m unwilling to chalk that all up to the change in pitching coaches.

Pitchers get hurt, after all, and Maine could have been well along the path to injury by the time Warthen replaced Peterson. Since the differences in FIP aren’t massive, it’s likely the Maine’s uptick in ERA is more the product of some bad luck and terrible defense, not to mention the shoulder injury.

Of course, the Warthen/Jerry Manuel team, while paired with the Mets’ front office, hasn’t done a lot to inspire confidence that it can successfully coach players back from injury.

The grand conclusion? I’ve got none, other than that Maine was good enough in 2007 and when healthy in 2008 — and heck, in his final few starts after returning from injury in 2009 — that he’s certainly earned the benefit of the doubt for 2010. One Spring Training outing shouldn’t ever change anything.

I have a couple of posts I was hoping to get done this weekend but it doesn’t look like either will be finished today, so instead, read Brian Costa’s profile of Jenrry Mejia. It’s fascinating:

“I didn’t like baseball,” Mejia said. “I just wanted to make money.”

Only after Mejia turned 15 did he begin playing baseball, a decision fueled not by some newfound love of the game but by the same ruthless pragmatism that caused him to eschew it in the first place.

When Pedro Martinez signed a four-year, $53 million contract with the Mets in late 2004, Mejia realized what so many other teenagers in the Dominican Republic already knew: For the talented and lucky few, baseball is a way out.

Whoa. A lot to process here. First, and I recognize that this isn’t exactly breaking news, what does it say about the conditions in the Dominican Republic if Jenrry Mejia developed Major League dreams because they were relatively practical? I abandoned my Major League dreams because they were so impractical. (Also because I sucked.)

And it’s actually kind of refreshing to hear Mejia say that straight up, I suppose, and to read a feel-good story baseball story that doesn’t involve any treacle about some kid’s unyielding love for the game.

But the most interesting thing about the piece, I think, is the implication that Mejia only even took up baseball because the Mets signed Pedro to that big contract. I know we’ve heard a whole lot about how that deal improved the Mets’ standing with Latin American prospects, but here’s some concrete evidence of it.

Really takes the sting off Pedro’s final two injury-prone seasons with the Mets, doesn’t it? Jeez. If Mejia turns out half as good as people seem to think he will (and the Mets don’t screw it up somehow), Pedro’s contract becomes a steal in some bizarre way, like a gift that keeps on giving.

So that’s cool. I’m a big fan of the man, as you may know, and so here’s hoping Mejia can help Mets fans remember him in a more positive light.

Adam Rubin reports that Jerry Manuel “appears to prefer” going with 20-year-old Ruben Tejada over Alex Cora in Jose Reyes’ stead.

Though Rubin’s usually on top of these things, it’s just a report and so I don’t want to overreact. And I’m bored of killing Omar Minaya for signing Alex Cora to the deal he did when he did.

But if that’s true, that means that this offseason, coming off a season in which their starting shortstop got hurt, the Mets signed a backup shortstop that their own manager was not comfortable starting if their starting shortstop got hurt.

One more time: If that’s true, that means that this offseason, coming off a season in which their starting shortstop got hurt, the Mets signed a backup shortstop that their own manager was not comfortable starting if their starting shortstop got hurt.

I suppose that’s slightly overstating the case. For all I know, Manuel’s perfectly comfortable starting Cora and just happens to think Tejada’s great.

That’s a stretch, though, considering Tejada didn’t exactly light the world on first at Double-A last year, and he’s 20, and…

You know what? Screw it. No more on the Great Alex Cora Debate until the season starts, I promise. I’m certain you’ve already made up your mind on the matter anyway.

So I spent some time on Omar Minaya’s conference call with reporters earlier this afternoon, and found out that Jose Reyes will be home “watching movies with his family” for the next 2-8 weeks and cannot elevate his heart-rate or perform any baseball activities until his thyroid levels stabilize.

That’s bad. Not downright terrible, I suppose, given how strange the whole vague thyroid news was, especially since Reyes’ agent Peter Greenberg stressed that the condition will be treated without medication and that doctors are certain everything will stabilize soon enough.

But it’s bad because a 2-8 week setback means Reyes will very likely miss Opening day. And the problem is compounded by the fact that, instead of having one of the best shortstops in the Majors hitting third and prowling the middle of their infield, the Mets will most likely have Alex Cora there.

Maybe they could weather Alex Cora’s weak hitting if he could save them some runs on the field. Or maybe he could make up for all those extra grounders he lets roll by if he knocked a few balls out of the park.

None of those things is likely to happen, though. Instead, Cora will just go on being the league’s most overpaid and overplayed replacement player.

But hey, great guy.

The other option — and one Minaya alluded to on the call — would be to call up young Ruben Tejada to fill in at shortstop until Reyes is ready.

Tejada’s only 20 and he’s not a hugely regarded prospect, but he held his own in Double-A last year (especially considering his age), posting a .289/.351/.381 line and by most accounts exhibiting decent range in the infield.

The young Panamanian would complete the Seven-Nation Army situation I speculated about a couple of weeks ago, but I fear he wouldn’t hit very much at all. As decent as he was in Double-A last year, and even accounting for some improvement as he ages, Tejada’s only a year removed from a brutal .229/.293/.296 line in High A ball in 2008.

CHONE projects a .291 on-base percentage and a .316 slugging for Tejada in 2010 and a .318 OBP and .338 SLG for Cora.

Is Tejada better enough than Cora on defense to make up for the difference offensively? I don’t know. I can say that after seeing a couple of Spring Training innings with Cora and Luis Castillo in the middle infield, I’d rather see just about anyone else out there when Citi Field opens in April, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn Mike Pelfrey feels the same way.

It’s a bit more complex than that, of course. Tejada would have to be added to the 40-man roster, and though the Mets have an open slot now that Jay Marshall’s been sent back to Oakland, they may have been hoping to use it for someone like Hisanori Takahashi or, ugh, Jenrry Mejia. And I’m sure there are plenty of other mechanics at play that I’m not even considering.

Of course, none of that would matter if the Mets had signed a backup shortstop who could adequately back up shortstop. Certainly, no one could have predicted Reyes would miss time with a thyroid condition, but predicting Reyes to miss time didn’t exactly require a great soothsayer after the way his 2009 went down. And the Mets signed only Alex Cora to back him up.

But hey, great guy.