The Mets made their first series of cuts today and Adam Rubin has the unofficial list.

There are no huge surprises here, though we can now put to bed the speculation that arose yesterday in some corners that Jordany Valdespin could slip his way into the second-base competition. Valdespin is supposedly a great defender at second, but he never, ever walks.

Specifically, he walked 10 times in 405 plate appearances last season and only twice in 117 plate appearances after his promotion to Double-A. Since it’s not like Valdespin is making a ton of great contact or anything — he hit .272 for the year and .232 in Binghamton — Major League pitchers would absolutely feast on the guy. He swings too much. He’d suck. Unless he made some massive, unprecedented adjustment over the winter, he’s just not anything like ready for prime time.

No-longer Teenage Hurting Machine Fernando Martinez got cut as well. This means he’s out of the running to replace Carlos Beltran in right field should Beltran prove unable to start the season.

That’s probably a good thing. Martinez, like Valdespin, needs more time in the Minors. Though he’s certainly closer to a finished product, he has a lifetime .325 Triple-A on-base percentage and probably needs more exposure to breaking stuff. It looks great when he connects and since he’s still only 22 there’s plenty of time for him, but Lucas Duda and Nick Evans, both 25, are the more polished hitters.

I thought there was some chance Manny Alvarez could sneak onto the roster, but he was a longshot to begin with and the emergence of Jason Isringhausen made that impossible. Alvarez rocked a straight-up ridiculous 9.5:1 K:BB rate in Binghamton last year, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him with the big club in the summer when one of the bullpen guys gets hurt or proves ineffective.