Both Anthony DiComo at MLB.com and Adam Rubin at ESPNNewYork.com have taken stabs at projecting the Mets’ Opening Day roster. It is early and there’s still plenty of time for players to make cases (and injuries to change the picture), but both projections have the same bench: A backup catcher (Mike Nickeas until Ronny Paulino’s suspension is up), Chin-Lung Hu, Scott Hairston, Willie Harris and Daniel Murphy.

Both include Brad Emaus as the starting second baseman.

I’m thinking about this. If Emaus indeed wins an everyday job, Murphy, presumably, becomes a left-handed utility bat on the bench. If Murphy proves he can handle second defensively and the Mets opt to platoon Murphy and Emaus, then the only lefty slated for the bench is Willie Harris.

Everything you see and hear around here suggests Hu will be on the team as the backup shortstop and all-purpose infield replacement — the Alex Cora role, only with much better defense and significantly less scowling grit. Hu hits right-handed. Obviously the Mets will carry a backup catcher, and both Paulino and Nickeas bat right-handed. Hairston signed a Major League deal and comes with a pretty strong Major League pedigree, so he seems a safe bet to be on the bench. He also bats right-handed.

That leaves two spots, and I’m trying to figure a way for Nick Evans to wind up on the team. As Matt Cerrone wrote earlier this spring, Terry Collins speaks glowingly of Evans. Evans posted a .300/.371/.536 line across Double- and Triple-A last year and has experience playing all four corners. He is out of options, meaning if he does not make the Opening Day roster he will have to clear waivers to be assigned to the Minors.

Evans hits right-handed, meaning if he makes the team over Harris and the Mets settle on a platoon of Murphy and either Emaus or Justin Turner at second, they’d have to carry an all-righty bench on days when right-handed pitchers start. With lefty-hitting Murphy, Josh Thole and Ike Davis and switch-hitting Jose Reyes, Angel Pagan and Carlos Beltran in the lineup, the only situation calling for a lefty bat off the bench would be when pinch-hitting for pitchers against righty relievers. But then that does come up with some frequency, so it might behoove the team to have an available lefty hitter.

Thing about Harris, though, is he’s not all that strong a hitter against pitchers of either hand. He’s certainly better against righties — to the tune of a career .246/.334/.360 line — but that’s hardly the type of platoon production you’d hope for in your primary lefty bat off the bench. Harris has a reputation as a good defensive outfielder and could have a leg up on a roster spot for his ability to backup center field, but Hairston has actually spent more time in center than Harris has over the past three seasons — 915 innings for Hairston and 602 2/3 for Harris.

Hairston does not get on base against righties as well as Harris does, but, predictably, hits them with a lot more power. For his career, he has .227/.288/.402 marks against right-handers.

Evans, we know, mashes lefties. In his Major League career he has been terrible against righties, to the tune of a .169/.183/.270 line. But last year in the Minors, Evans rocked a .270/.333/.470 line against righties in 303 Double-A plate appearances and a .316/.396/.582 mark in 111 Triple-A plate appearances. (A huge hat tip to Craig Glaser and the guys at Bloomberg Sports for the stats.)

Did Evans make some real adjustment to better his hitting against right-handers last season? If so, is it something that will translate to the Major League level? I will ask around tomorrow, but in the interim, I’m wondering if at this point the Mets would rather have Evans up against a righty late in a game than the lefty-hitting Harris. Because if that’s the case — and the team feels comfortable with Hairston backing up center — it’s hard to justify carrying Harris over Evans just for the sake of his handedness.

Alternately, if Emaus or Turner wins the starting second base job outright, Murphy serves as the lefty bat on the bench and Hairston as the primary backup defensive outfielder, clearing a spot for Evans as a backup in the corners and pinch-hitter extraordinaire.

Of course, all these decisions are still a long way off and there are plenty of other factors in play. Just kind of rooting for Evans, is all.

If you hang around Digital Domain Park when the Mets take off for road games, you get to enjoy the site of Johan Santana doing stuff. Specifically: throwing.

Santana, recovering from offseason shoulder surgery, is not throwing hard. From flat ground, he’ll take a hop-step and uncork an easy overhand. About 60 feet away, young righthander Tobi Stoner receives and fires it back.

So how did Stoner end up Santana’s throwing partner? He, too, is on a throwing program, building up strength in his arm after enduring some shoulder soreness following August surgery to clear out bone chips in his elbow.

Stoner plans to start working with the rest of the Mets’ pitchers soon, but said he will start the year in extended Spring Training as he continues to recover. As for Santana?

“He’s taking baby steps, but he’s making them,” Stoner said. “His mechanics are great. And even from 60 feet, he had a little more zip on his throws today.”

Stoner added that Santana, who had surgery to remove bone chips from his pitching elbow in both 2003 and 2009, has been giving him tips on developing consistency in his arm slot and release point.

“Not everyone gets to throw with Johan Santana so often,” said Stoner. “I’m trying to take it all in.”

Newsday’s David Lennon snapped a photo of R.A. Dickey’s lunch earlier this week and Tweeted it. It looks like this:

So what’s on “The Dickster”? I asked everyone’s favorite eloquent knuckleballer today.

It’s a wrap (as you can see), with turkey, bacon, Havarti cheese, lettuce and mayonnaise. Not a bad combination, if you ask me. Obviously a distinguishing fellow like Dickey knows well enough to choose a fine sandwich cheese like Havarti, and, unlike at least one of his teammates, Dickey fears not the bacon.

The Dickster is prepared by the Mets’ kitchen staff. Dickey enjoys one every road trip.

With Oliver Perez sitting in the mid-80s with his fastball, I scoured Fangraphs to figure just how many lefties can live at that velocity. Since it’s still March 4, I figured, being generous, there’s still some chance Ollie gets his velocity up to averaging around 88.

The following chart lists all the lefties who threw more than 40 innings last season with an average fastball velocity of 88 or lower. I included their HR/9 — which can be fluky across small sample size, for sure — and their BB/9, just to see if there are any good comps for Perez.

Perez has a career 5.1 BB/9 and a 1.4 HR/9. The only soft-tossing lefty that mustered any success while walking more than four batters per nine innings last year was Pedro Feliciano, and Perpetual Pedro benefited from a 56-percent groundball rate and career lows in home runs per flyball and home runs per nine innings.

All of the lefties who managed to have any success throwing 88 or below in 2010 either demonstrated good control or kept the ball in the park, or both. Obviously there are all sorts of caveats here — for one, some of these guys (like Feliciano) faced primarily lefties, which would improve their ERA+s.

Straight-up: Barring some sort of major adjustment, Oliver Perez would get straight-up rocked in a bullpen role. There’s absolutely nothing he can do at this point that Pat Misch — a soft-tossing lefty with great control — cannot.

Anyway, draw your own conclusions. Small samples at play.

It’s Oliver Perez day here in Port St. Lucie. Both Terry Collins and Dan Warthen spoke about the lefty after his mostly effective two-inning stint against the Cardinals.

The main takeaway: Both the manager and pitching coach seem pretty much resigned to the idea that Perez won’t be regaining anything like his old velocity anytime soon. Collins recognized that the team is soon going to have to make decisions about the starting rotation to be able to stretch out the appropriate pitchers, and admitted that it will be hard for Perez to make a living as a crafty lefty because it requires location and accuracy within the strike zone.

Both Collins and Warthen praised the way Perez hit his targets today, and Warthen noted that Perez was pitching with a good cutter. Collins reminded the press that Perez does get lefties out and said that if and when Perez is eliminated from the competition for the rotation, he will see work out of the bullpen in situations that call for a lefty specialist.

My guess: A guaranteed $12 million buys Perez the opportunity to fail, but — again — he will ultimately be cut loose. Collins will defend Perez now — as a manager should — but it’s impossible to believe Perez can be more effective working in the mid-80s, even just as a lefty specialist, than guys like Tim Byrdak, Mike O’Connor and Pat Misch, who have way more experience operating without an overwhelming fastball.

The Mets, we hope, are now run by some pretty shrewd people, and I find it hard to imagine a couple of successful Grapefruit League innings, with no strikeouts and a strong wind blowing in, are going to convince anyone that Perez, throwing in the low-to-mid 80s, is a different guy than the one with the 6.81 ERA over the past two seasons. Perhaps I’m giving the new front office too much credit, but I really don’t think so.

Also, for what it’s worth: Collins stressed that the second-base competition is a four-man race (meaning Justin Turner is in the mix with Brad Emaus, Daniel Murphy and Luis Castillo) and said he’d try to get every player as many reps as possible until the Mets’ scheduled off day on March 14, at which point he’d like to narrow down the competition.

We’re going to roll out some video Minor League Reports in the coming weeks, but I mentioned Reese Havens a couple days ago and I wanted to follow up.

Two carryovers from 2010 still in the organization told me that the Mets hoped and expected Havens would be in camp competing for the starting second-base job this spring, and that only his injuries held him back.

I guess that’s really not shocking news, and now that there’s a new front office in place I’m not sure how much it matters. But Havens is 24 now, so there’s no sense holding him back if he’s healthy and producing. And it’s not hard to imagine a scenario wherein Havens establishes himself as the Mets’ best option to play second in the Majors by sometime around the All-Star Break: If Luis Castillo wins the job and hits like Luis Castillo, for example, or if Daniel Murphy and/or Brad Emaus wins the job and can’t cut it defensively.

Havens had offseason surgery to shave off a piece of rib that may have irritated his oblique injury in 2010. He will presumably start the year under the watchful eye of Wally Backman in Binghamton.