OK, one brief note on Mike Jacobs’ hitting: If he’s being used exclusively against right-handers, he’s not that terrible. In his career, against righties, Jacobs has a .263/.325/.505 line. I’d prefer a first baseman with a higher OBP, but the power is impressive.

It’s a little funny that there’s been little to no talk about Fernando Tatis slotting in at first in Daniel Murphy’s absence. I would guess this has to do with Tatis hitting right-handed, since the Mets will have fellow righties David Wright, Jeff Francoeur and Jason Bay in the middle of their lineup.

But Tatis has not demonstrated a particularly big platoon split across his career — he’s got an .816 OPS against lefties and a .777 OPS against righties — so though the lineup would be more balanced with Jacobs starting, it wouldn’t necessarily be better.

Tatis, after all, has a .340 career OBP against right-handers and posted a .338 mark against them last season, better than Jacobs’ .325 career and .311 2009 marks, albeit with less power, regardless of handedness.

As to what commenter steve wrote yesterday, I have been watching the Spring Training games, and I’ll grant that Jacobs has looked good defensively. The eyes can be deceiving, of course, and a few slick-looking diving plays can make up for a whole lot of lost range.

I try not to blindly follow any metric or line of thought, and I’ll certainly amount that UZR has its flaws and that measuring defense is a difficult thing to do. But both that stat and the Fielding Bible plus/minus place Jacobs among the very worst defensive first basemen in the Majors over the three years he played there regularly, and I trust those measurements more than I do my own eyes over a very small sample of Spring Training opportunities.