Nothing I can reasonably imagine him doing. He did hit a home run last night, which was nice. A hot month would go a long way to convincing everyone he’s not toast, but if Bay’s going to stay on the Mets through next March, his chances for staying with them through April depend a lot on what happens in camp. If he shows up looking rejuvenated, the Mets can’t find another — or a couple more — righty-hitting outfielders in the offseason and/or they endure a spate of injuries to outfielders in the Spring, maybe he cracks the club. That’s the idea of keeping him around, anyway. If there are five obviously better outfielders ready for the big leagues come Opening Day, they have to be past the point of giving Bay the benefit of the doubt based on his resume and contract.

There were a lot of questions about Jason Bay’s future with the club. My bet is the same as it has always been: He comes to Spring Training and we read all about how he’s in the best shape of his life and determined to make good on his contract once and for all, but the Mets bring in another righty- or switch-hitting outfielder anyway. Bay’s outplayed by one or more of the fringe roster candidates — Lucas Duda, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Fred Lewis if he’s around — and for a while everyone frets that Bay will make the club because of his contract and blame the Wilpons and Sandy Alderson. Then near the end of camp, he’ll be sent off — either cut or dealt in a Gary Matthews-type deal where the Mets eat most of his salary. Which of those outcomes probably depends on how he looks in Spring Training.

https://twitter.com/MitchNYM/status/236462601654136832

Massive disclaimer: I really don’t know what I’m talking about with prospects. I defer to Toby Hyde on all things Minor Leagues. Even if I sometimes disagree with his take on young guys, I assume he knows way more about them than I do and is probably, in truth, correct.

That said, I do think much of the SABRry side of the prospecting business has strayed a little too far away from using Minor League stats to predict success. Obviously there’s a ton of value in traditional scouting for prospects, but I suspect guys like Ruben Tejada get overlooked despite consistently strong numbers for their ages when they lack any overwhelming tools.

So to that angle, two Mets prospects I like are Jack Leathersich and Rafael Montero. I haven’t seen either throw a single pitch outside of a intrasquad scrimmage in March, but there’s so much to like about their Minor League numbers.

Leathersich has struck out 36.7 percent of batters he has faced in High-A as a 22-year-old. I understand that he’s supposedly relying on a deceptive delivery, but I just don’t think you can fake those results. He’s been hit a bit harder at High-A than he was in Low-A and short-season ball, but he’s also been victimized by a high batting average in balls in play. I guess I’d be more bearish on his prospects if anyone could find me some examples of lefties who struck out nearly two batters an inning in A-ball and fizzled at the higher levels — presumably they exist, I just don’t know enough about the Minors to know them.

Montero seems like he’s a bit more on the radar so I’m not sure he counts as a sleeper, but he’s got impressive control for a guy his age. Maybe he gets hit harder as he rises through the system, but I’d bet on him over a guy who throws harder but can’t throw strikes.

Pitching prospects be pitching prospects, of course.

Going with yes. Right now it’d be hard for the Mets to deal Santana without eating a lot of his massive salary for 2013. The only way that changes is if Santana pitches the way he did in the first couple months of this season in the first couple months of next season. And if Santana pitches like vintage Santana again, the Mets could be too good to want to trade off pieces. So the only way he looks likely to be elsewhere are if he’s great but the team sucks and they want to get back some value for him while they can, or if they’re so hard-up for cash that they’re willing to eat a lot of his salary just to part with the rest of it. Both those things could happen, but I’d say the odds are better that he pitches too ineffectively to be traded, he pitches effectively enough to keep the Mets in contention, or he gets hurt again and can’t be moved.

https://twitter.com/cormac_leddy/status/236462805069479936

Depends on how much money they have to spend and if they’re ready to bro it down, because Nick Swisher always wants to bro it down, 100 percent of the time.

I’d probably lay off, though, no matter how badly and how frequently I want to bro it down. Swisher’s a nice player, but he’ll be 32 by next Opening Day, he’s benefited from Yankee Stadium the past few years, and though he’s a switch-hitter, he’s got a pretty pronounced platoon split of late — and not the type the Mets could use. He’d be another guy in the lineup that doesn’t hit lefties well, and they’ve got plenty of those already.

In regards to actual September call-ups, I expect to also see Jenrry Mejia and Robert Carson return to the roster. And I hope to see Jeurys Familia as well, since most insiders I talk to think he could be a terrific closer rather quickly. It might also be smart to get 3B Zach Lutz some at bats at this level to see what he’s all about…

– Matt Cerrone, MetsBlog.com.

In addition to presenting the news that Lucas Duda has missed the last four games in Buffalo with “dental issues,” Cerrone predicts which young Mets will join the big club when rosters expand in September. That list seems reasonable to me. I’d guess Elvin Ramirez and Pedro Beato come back too, since they’re on the 40-man roster and have arms.

The other Minor Leaguers currently on the 40-man? Rob Johnson and Mike Nickeas, both of whom we’re familiar with, plus Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Wilmer Flores, Reese Havens, Juan Lagares and Cesar Puello. Nieuwenhuis is hurt and Puello hasn’t hit in A-ball, so neither of them seems likely to see lockers in Flushing.

Lagares hasn’t repeated his 2011 success in Binghamton in 2012, though he has been a bit better since the All-Star break and does hit right-handed, play the outfield and steal bases — three things the Mets might want to check out. Havens, depressingly, has missed the last week with a stiff back after hitting pretty well in Double-A since June. Flores has posted a very Murphish .297/.343/.434 in his first 48 games at Double-A, but he’s only 20 and still in the process of finding a home on defense.

Familia has been up and down (and more down than up) all season in Triple-A, but he’s made two straight strong starts (after three clunkers) and hasn’t thrown as many innings yet as he did last year. So maybe he gets a call and a taste of big-league action before he heads back to the Minors next year to work out his control issues.

The most interesting guy on Cerrone’s list is Mejia. What’s the deal with Jenrry Mejia?

Once compared to Mariano Rivera by people who should not have been making such comparisons, Mejia struggled in the Bisons’ bullpen. Supposedly he paces himself better as a starter and tended to overthrow in a relief role. The results suggest something similar: Mejia has a 5.48 ERA in 16 relief appearances at Buffalo and a 0.95 ERA in six starts. Tiny samples abound, though, and Mejia’s underwhelming rate stats have not been way different as a starter than they were as a reliever. Also, his ERA as a starter has benefited from seven unearned runs. I didn’t see any of them and I can’t say to what extent they’ve been the fault of his defense, but it seems safe to say he hasn’t been nearly as good as his ERA.

The big thing about Mejia, though — or one big thing about Mejia, at least — is that 2013 will be his final option year, meaning despite Mejia’s age, the Mets have limited time to figure out what to expect from him at the Major League level. That’s a shame, because it seems like more than anything he needs some reps: Mejia has thrown only 68 2/3 innings this season, has yet to throw 100 innings in any season at any level, and only has 86 innings across three seasons at the Minors’ highest level. By all accounts he has terrific stuff, but the stats say he hasn’t honed it yet.

That’s not all his fault, obviously, but he’s going to need to do so pretty soon if he’s going to make good on his prospect pedigree for the organization that signed him six years ago.

Although Jefferies was a disappointment compared to the hype he received in the minors, he did have a 14-year career in the majors, hitting .289/.344/.421 with a 107 OPS+. His OPS+ was better than league average every year until age 28 when injuries struck, and he had particularly good years in 1993 (.342/.408/.485, 142 OPS+, 5.5 WAR) and 1994 (.325/.391/.489, 130 OPS+, 1.9 WAR in the strike year). He stole 193 bases, was a two-time All Star, and posted a career 21.9 WAR.

– John Sickels, MinorLeagueBall.com.

It’s amazing to look at Gregg Jefferies’ baseball-reference page now and realize he was a pretty decent Major Leaguer. In my memory, outside of 29 games at the end of the 1988 season, he sucked.

Mets fans often reference Generation K and/or Alex Escobar when reminding each other of the way prospects frequently fail to match their surrounding hype. And I do that too, of course. But to me no former Met better embodies the distinction between expectations and actual performance than Jefferies, largely because I legitimately expected he’d end up in the Hall of Fame.

I followed the Mets in 1987, but 1988 was my breakout season as a crazy, full-tilt Mets fan. When Jefferies came up in late August of that year, with tons of hype surrounding his promotion, he was electrifying. In his first 13 games, he hit .462 with a .500 OBP and a .962 slugging. Small sample size, obviously, but I was 7 years old and knew nothing of the concept. I was watching this guy I had read about all season in Inside Pitch, and he was everything I had hoped he would be and more.

Ultimately he wasn’t, of course. But I can’t say I didn’t spend a significant amount of time that year trying to affect a permanent squint to make myself look like Gregg Jefferies. And in backyard Wiffleball games, I tried to imitate the way he frequently seemed to stumble over second base on doubles.

In 1989, Jefferies stunk it up out of the gate, and I guess my appreciation for him fizzled quickly. I remember a bunch of nonsense in the newspapers involving an open letter to Mets fans, but I can’t recall the specifics. By the time he was traded to the Royals in December, 1991, I was more upset about the departure of another favorite — Kevin McReynolds — than the loss of the 24-year-old Jefferies. And more than anything, I was excited about the All-Star cast the Mets seemed to be pulling together for the 1992 season.

Oh, baseball.

The Mets acquired Kelly Shoppach from the Red Sox today for a player to be named later. Shoppach, a right-handed hitting catcher that’s not half-bad offensively, fills a need for the Mets: He can spell Josh Thole against lefties without creating a hole in the lineup. He’s not Johnny Bench on either side of the ball and he had back-to-back woeful offensive seasons in Tampa Bay in 2010 and 2011, but Shoppach has been a patient hitter with some pop in his bat for most of his career. He doesn’t make a ton of contact, but all things considered he’s about a league-average backstop offensively and represents an obvious upgrade over the woeful hitting the Mets have gotten from their backup catchers this season.

What’s odd is the timing. Shoppach is eligible for free agency after the season, so unless the Mets believe he’ll accept arbitration, he doesn’t factor in their plans for 2013. And though he makes the team ever-so-slightly better for the next couple of months, he’s hardly enough to catapult them back into the Wild Card race from nine games out.

The Red Sox called up prized catching prospect Ryan Lavarnway a couple of weeks ago, and they too are more or less out of the race. So maybe the move is about clearing room for Lavarnway to catch more often, and the Mets’ angle is something along the lines of, “Hey — free upgrade, why not?” But a lot depends on the quality of the player yet named, obviously.

For now, the Mets get a little bit better, which is nice. I suspect the move will make a bit more sense at some point in the future.