Make no mistake: The most notable thing about Boof Bonser is that his name is “Boof Bonser.” Technically his name is John Paul Bonser, but that name sucks compared to Boof Bonser and so we will never refer to him as such again.

The second most notable thing about Boof Bonser is that he was once traded with Joe Nathan and Francisco Liriano for A.J. Pierzynski.

The Boof was a pretty solid prospect for the Twins as recently as a few years ago, and enjoyed an unspectacular season and a half in Minnesota’s rotation in 2007 and the first half of 2008.

He was demoted to the bullpen for the second half of 2008, then spent all but one inning of the 2009 campaign recovering from labrum and rotator cuff surgery.

Bonser returned in 2010 and was pretty terrible both in Triple-A and in 25 spotty innings of relief work in the Majors.

The upside to Bonser’s 2010 season is that his fastball velocity was not far off where it was before his surgery, providing at least some hope he could bounce back. Of course, Bonser has never really been all that good in the pros, and reclaiming his 2007 form would not necessarily make him any better than Dillon Gee.

Still, since Bonser was once a prospect, showed promise early in his career and appears to be healthy at least for the time being, he’s a solid no-risk pickup on a Minor League deal for the Mets. At 29, he’s young enough that it’s still not too late to hope for some moderate resurgence, either out of the rotation or bullpen.

Also, he will be easy to root for, since his name is Boof. And as an added bonus, if he’s an optimist he might be able to convince himself he’s being vocally carried through his rough times whenever he’s booed mercilessly by the Citi crowd.

I was saying boo-oof.

Anyway, good topic of conversation came up in the office: Which baseball player has the best combination of awesome name and actual baseball skill? Oil Can Boyd is a more awesome name than Catfish Hunter, but Hunter was the better pitcher. How do you weight skill versus awesomeness of name when selecting baseball’s all-time best name guy. Should Bonser, Boyd and Hunter be docked points for using nicknames as compared to, say, our own Burleigh Grimes or Van Lingle Mungo?