Every minor signing the Mets have made this offseason – and they’ve all been minor signings — I’ve liked. I see the upside. But do I like new guys because I think they’re good . . . or do I like them because the new front office brought them in, and I’m just happily drinking the sabermetric Kool-Aid?

– Patrick Flood, PatrickFloodBlog.com.

Patrick, who is smart and has a great blog that you should read daily, has grown concerned that his optimism about the Mets’ offseason is unwarranted, the product more of the men responsible — the sabermetricians hired to run the front office — than the actual roster moves. Specifically, he is worried, as I have been, that he is “drinking the Kool-Aid.”

Drinking the Kool-Aid. That phrase has echoed through Twitter and blogs and talk-radio this offseason. Whenever a Mets fan expresses any tiny shred of positivity about the Mets’ 2011 campaign, he is accused of drinking the Kool-Aid. Always like that.

The term, if you are not familiar, stems from the Jonestown massacre, the largest mass suicide in modern history. Cult members drank Kool Aid* spiked with cyanide, per the instructions of leader Jim Jones.

Yes: If you think people with knowledge of sabermetrics can help a team win with a limited budget, lace up the blue-and-white Nikes, bro, because you’re a brainwashed member of a suicide cult. If you even so much as suggest that the Mets might not implode and lose 120 games in 2011, you are just another mindless victim of a vast and evil conspiracy.

F@#$. That.

It is 65 degrees and sunny in New York, and 51st street smells like pizza and industry. Baseball teams are doing baseball stuff in Florida, I just ate delicious tacos, and I want to look forward to the Mets’ season without feeling like I’m some sort of chump and/or sucker.

Last I checked, these Ivory-tower nerds that have inspired so much snark are the same dudes I’ve wished could be running the Mets since I started reading Rob Neyer’s ESPN SportsZone column in the mid-90s. And this so-called sabermetric Kool-Aid I’ve been accused of drinking, that actually… that actually works, right? Isn’t that the point?

The Mets’ 2011 lineup will start with Jose Reyes, Angel Pagan, David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Jason Bay and Ike Davis. That’s good. Assuming Josh Thole and Ronny Paulino combine to make for a capable-hitting (or, hell, more than capable-hitting) catcher and the team can find someone who’s not Luis Castillo to man second base, the Mets are going to score a lot of runs this year. And for the first time in recent memory, they’ve actually got viable Major League-ready contingency plans at most positions.

Of course the pitching staff is a big dice-roll, and will be at best just OK. We know this. Jon Niese will have to improve and R.A. Dickey will have to avoid regressing and Mike Pelfrey will have to try to once and for all show he can be more than a league-average innings-eater. And whoever winds up in the back end of the rotation will have to stay healthy and effective enough to keep the team in games and the bullpen out of games until, fingers crossed, Johan Santana returns (if he ever does).

So pitching is not the Mets’ strong point. But here’s the fun thing: No team is perfect. Did you know that the Phillies had a league-average offense last year and that the now-departed Jayson Werth was their best hitter? Do you know that the Braves may actually start the season with Nate McLouth in their lineup?

Look: Would I bet money on the Mets winning the NL East in 2011? No, of course not. But the pitiful fatalism among the Mets fans and media certain that the team will be terrible (and sure that anyone who says otherwise has been brainwashed) is downright stupid. It’s baseball. There are still 162 games to play. That’s the whole damn point.

Is it such a terrible thing to enjoy optimism unbridled, even if it’s just for now? Is it foolish to think the Mets, for the first time in decades, might actually be in the hands of a capable front office, and that saying so is not tacitly approving of messy lawsuits or corporate espionage or Ponzi schemes or lord knows what else?

Now you may point out that I work here at SNY, and I am indirectly employed by Mets ownership, so perhaps I am being told to serve up a heaping helping of optimism in these otherwise tumultuous times. To that I say this: Piss off. Honestly. If you don’t believe that the thoughts and opinions contained in this blog are 100 percent my own, just go away. I don’t want to waste any more time than I already have couching for conspiracy theorists.

I am a Mets fan. Like, I presume, fans of the 29 other Major League teams, I am seeing all silver linings and no storm clouds these days. Baseball stuff is happening, and this is my last day at my desk before I head to Port St. Lucie on Tuesday to watch it happen. The Mets have not been good for a couple of years, they did not spend much money this offseason, and their owners are embroiled in a public legal nightmare. But even despite all that these are good and hopeful times, and I want to enjoy them without having to excuse myself.

*- It was actually a knock-off brand called Flavor-Aid, but this detail has been mostly lost in time.

More clearinghouse from Fantasy Camp. Busy day today, limited time for actual thinking.

Joe McEwing is precisely as energetic as you’d expect Joe McEwing to be. Before I interviewed him, during one of the Fantasy Camp games he was managing, he had taken hold of a camera from one of the camp photographers while simultaneously coaching first base.

TB: I see you’re taking up photography.

JM: I’m trying to broaden my horizons. I don’t think it’s going to be the best piece that they get.

TB: Well you played everywhere, maybe you can take over…

JM: Oh no no, I’m OK to stay on the field.

TB: Where are you going to be managing this year?

JM: In Triple-A with the White Sox, in Charlotte.

TB: Do you think you bring the same style do managing as you did to playing?

JM: Yeah, I try to take bits and pieces of everyone I’ve come across managing-wise and player wise and try to mold it into my own style. One thing I don’t forget is how hard this game is to play. It’s not an easy game to play. I go out there and treat everyone the way I want to be treated, and I think that has helped me a lot.

TB: Do you have your eye on managing in the Majors?

JM: Yeah, it’d be another dream come true and it’s something I look forward to. But for me, right now, I’m in no rush. It’s nice to see other kids’ dreams come true now.

TB: You played with some of the current Mets. Are you still in touch with any of them?

JM: I stay in touch with David Wright. We’re still good friends.

TB: Did you talk to him during the season at all?

JM: Yeah, we talk all the time, during the season and in the Winter. It’s a friendship. Mostly we talk about stuff off the field. He’s got enough going on with competing in New York and playing on the field.

TB: What’s your best memory from your time with the Mets?

JM: Oh, I had many. Obviously, playing in the World Series in 2000. Fulfilling a dream, being able to compete in the World Series, unfortunately we came out on the losing end. But I think the best was the relief efforts after 9/11. It was an opportunity to give back to the city and the whole world. To allow people to free their minds for a few hours, after that tragedy, that was special for me.

Look: I intended these quotes from Mets Fantasy Camp to be used for something a little more, ahh, journalistic. But then one thing led to another and I got all busy and now here we are and it’s Spring Training already and, you know, yeah.

I wanted to write about the way the players at Fantasy Camp, like many Mets fans on the Internet and apparently many of Backman’s Minor League charges, seem drawn to Backman personally. I think it has something to do with how he talks. He seems to love talking baseball, like, presumably, all of us do. He does so constantly, and he talks to even the most ill-informed fan like he’s a 30-year MLB insider. It’s kind of awesome, and it makes it really tough not to like the guy.

Watching his team’s games in fantasy camp from the bleachers, you can hear his gravely voice running throughout, even if you can’t make out the words. And his players seem to behave just a bit differently from those on Tim Teufel’s team and Doug Flynn’s team: they curse louder and more often, like I might have when trying to impress my older brother and his friends on the rare occasion I got to hang out with them. An opposing pitcher, from the mound, yells to Backman about the strain in his ass.

Anyway, here’s the portions of the taped interview I did with Backman that I didn’t post here:

TB: What changes in an organization at the Minor League level if the front office changes? Does anything change?

WB: It might change because we’re going to have a lot of new coaches. We’re going to have a new field coordinator in Dickie Scott, and he might have some different philosophies. The game of baseball is based on fundamentals, especially on the Minor League side, and fundamentals are pretty basic. The amount of time that’s spent on fundamentals, that might change. But there’s really not a whole lot that can change.

TB: Are there differences, in terms of strategy, in what a manager has to do at the different Minor League levels?

WB: I think, the managing side of it, the way the organization has been and I hope would continue to be, it gives you, as the manager, the freedom to run the game the way you feel it needs to be run. You know you’re not going to hit for your prospects –- that’s the difference from the Minor Leagues to the big leagues. But running the game shouldn’t change.

TB: The Mets were pretty candid: You were a finalist for the managerial position and didn’t end up getting it. Did you learn anything from that process?

WB: It’s the third time that I’ve interviewed. I interviewed when I was with the White Sox and Ozzie got it, then I had the whole Diamondbacks thing happen. I think you learn a little bit each time; but the questions always kind of stay the same.

TB: Do you mind if I ask, what are the questions?

WB: They ask about the team and what ideas you might have. Some of the questions that were asked of me were, for instance, what was I going to change about me because I had been a Minor League manager but had never managed in the big leagues. So, how was I going to change to the players in the big leagues. And my answer was that I’m not going to change. I played the game in the big leagues, I’ve coached in the Minor Leagues. I believe when you respect the players you get the respect from the players.

That was the first time that question had ever been asked of me, but that’s all the player wants. The player wants respect.

TB: Is there any part of your managerial game your working on, or are you set?

WB: No, I’m set.