Not actual rapping, sadly. Pretty impressive crew I ran into. The first guy told me about how the Mets shouldn’t have signed Alex Cora, the second gave me bacon.

Having some tech issues, so apologies for the lack of text-based posts. Also, watching a baseball game. And about to get food.

Not only did Jerry Manuel opt to start Gary Matthews Jr. over Angel Pagan today. He’s also batting Alex Cora leadoff.

There are so many jokes I want to be making here about Jerry speeding up the inevitable or ultimately reading the lineup card at Cringe Night at Freddy’s Bar in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, but I’m really, really trying to remain optimistic.

And the game hasn’t started yet and I’m trying to keep to my promise of no Alex Cora rants until the season begins.

Plus, as has been discussed this offseason, batting orders don’t really mean a whole ton, especially in one-game samples.

But I mean c’mon. The leadoff hitter should be the guy in the lineup who gets on base the most, and Alex Cora has a .313 career on-base percentage.

The terrifying thing, incidentally, is that Cora’s .313 is actually the median on-base percentage of the nine guys in the Mets’ batting order.

OK, sorry. Optimism. It’s Opening Day, and it’s beautiful out, and the press box is abuzz with old-man sportswriter voices.

I’m at Citi today. I’m doing video stuff for SNY.tv and should still be able to write a little before the game, but I figured I’d throw up one of these Twitter-post things so you could follow here what I’m saying there.

Also: !!!

To follow me on Twitter, go here.

Right-hander Kiko Calero, who failed to make the big-league club despite posting a 1.95 ERA with the Florida Marlins last season, is expected to remain with the organization. Calero did not have an “out” in his minor-league contract, but the Mets were not going to force him to pitch at Triple-A Buffalo against his will. Calero was 0-2 with a 5.68 ERA in seven Grapefruit League appearances spanning 6 1/3 innings.

“All indications are he is going to come back,” a team insider said.

– Adam Rubin, ESPN New York

Phew.

Today is Easter. On this day, Christians believe, Jesus came back to life after being executed on Good Friday.

(This is not a post about religion or religious beliefs. I’m not interested in discussing any of that here, nor in setting off the type of comments-section flame war that always seems to follow any hint of that talk. The Bible means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but it is inarguably a collection of interesting stories. Do not mistake any of the following for me thumping the Bible in anyone’s direction. Trust me, that’s not my bag.)

Because it’s Easter, and because I am with my family today enjoying some of the delicious trappings of the holiday (ie Cadbury Creme Eggs), and because absolutely everything makes me think of the Mets, I planned a brief post vaguely linking the Biblical tale of Thomas the Apostle to the modern-day Mets fan.

According to the story, Thomas, or St. Thomas, or Doubting Thomas, did not believe that Jesus came back to life on Easter. A bunch of people tried to tell him it happened, but Thomas basically said, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

So my original point was going to be about how so many Mets fans, with Opening Day a day away, are Doubting Thomases. We are skeptical of our team’s ability to compete. We are unwilling to commit blind faith. We will believe it when we see it.

But I realized it’s a terrible metaphor.

In the story, Thomas’ doubt is notable because Thomas knows Jesus to have healed the sick and turned water into wine and all that. Certainly, returning from death is above and beyond the things Thomas knows Jesus is capable of, but Thomas knows Jesus is capable of some remarkable things.

The Mets have performed few miracles in the last couple of years, and done little to inspire faith in their fanbase. Those among us that doubt their ability to succeed in 2010 are not skeptics at all, merely realists. We watched the bitter ends of the 2007 and 2008 campaigns and endured the misery of the 2009 one. We read the reports recapping every baffling trade and misguided free-agent pursuit. We lamented all the vesting options.

We hear the talk that this club features many of the same players that ran away with the N.L. East in 2006 and fell one game short of the playoffs in 2007 and 2008, but we know that the last three seasons exposed warts and occasional inadequacies in those players, and fluctuations in their performances that justify our tempered expectations. And we realize that the team’s opponents in the division have only gotten better over that time.

So we are not capital-d Doubters. We are just reasonable baseball fans with a solid sense of what makes a winning ballclub, and a strong feeling that an Opening Day lineup featuring Gary Matthews Jr., Mike Jacobs, Alex Cora, Jeff Francoeur, Luis Castillo and Rod Barajas is not that.

And it’s funny to me, then, that the Mets’ traditional lexicon is all wrapped up in near-to-downright religious terminology: Magic, Faithful, Believe, Amazin’, Miracle.

That’s the type of stuff, it seems, this club is relying on to carry it through until the injured players return and the starting pitchers work out their kinks and the bullpen roles settle into place, and until all the little things that the Mets need to happen to compete in the N.L. East that no one’s sure will actually happen finally happen.

And the messed-up thing — and I’ll stop writing in the plural now, because I don’t want to speak for all Mets fans here — is that I’m relying on all of it, too.

Opening Day is tomorrow, and somehow, despite all my realistic concerns about the Mets’ 2010 outlook, I’m clinging to the hope that there is some immeasurable intangible — some magic — that can thrust the Mets’ particular collection of underwhelming ballplayers to greatness.

I am the opposite of Doubting Thomas. I am the king of wishful thinking.

I mean heck, the Mets have stars, right? There’s Wright and Santana and Bay, and when they return, Beltran and Reyes. Can’t I hold out hope that five really good players can carry a team to glory, even without complementary performances from their teammates and even despite inevitable mismanagement from their bench and front office?

And the Mets, for the first time in a while, have prospects too! Can’t I believe that Niese and Mejia will succeed, and eventually Davis and Martinez and Tejada can come up and propel the Mets to victories?

Of course I can. Baseball, more than any other sport, inspires in me a sense of spirituality. I love football and basketball too, but those sports provoke a more visceral, emotional response. Baseball evokes something deeper, more meaningful — like those words Mets fans bandy about. Faith and belief and amazement.

So maybe they’ll amaze me this year, is all I’m saying. The day before Opening Day, that’s the most I can hope for.

Would I trade all that for a decent starting pitcher and a second baseman who could field the position? Of course. But this is where we’re at. This is why the realists have no faith in the Mets.

But baseball’s a funny game, and way crazier things have happened than a Mets team that looks downright crappy at the outset of the season looking outright dominant at the end of it. I’m not betting on it happening , but Opening Day is a time for optimism. Blind optimism, maybe, but optimism regardless.

And if all else fails, we can enjoy Citi Field’s new rum bar, and Sonny Rollins:

It took the Mets until the day before camp closed to settle on a mix of relievers. One wonders exactly what they were looking for in their final Spring Training games, since one of the guys they chose for their big-league bullpen, Sean Green, allowed four runs in 2/3 of an inning on Saturday. Whatever. Here we go:

The Major League bullpen in April: Green, Francisco Rodriguez, Pedro Feliciano, Fernando Nieve, Jenrry Mejia, Ryota Igarashi, Hisanori Takahashi.

Overview: In my senior year of college, I prepped a jazz-composition portfolio for credit. At the end of the semester, I sat down with the music department chair to review my finished material. He listened to the tracks I had recorded and hummed through the charts I had written.

“Inspiration — A; execution — C-minus,” he said.

I had good ideas, he explained, but it was clear I had bungled and botched and half-assed them all. He was right. I was a senior in college, after all. The work was done in a haze and a hurry.

Maybe you see where I’m going with this.

The Mets took precisely the right approach to building a bullpen in the 2010 offseason. They scoured the international markets, found upside arms on the scrap heap, identified useful internal options including converted starters, and avoided blowing resources on pitchers with closer pedigrees like they did the year before. Inspiration — A.

Then, once that collection of potentially valuable bullpen arms was in house and it came time to settle on the right crew for the Major League relief corps, the team proceeded to blow just about every decision it faced. Execution — C-minus.

Apparently blinded by sunk costs, the Mets opted to keep Ryota Igarashi and Green around, even though neither could get the ball over the plate consistently in Spring Training.

Apparently unconcerned about uncertainty in their rotation, the Mets opted to waive Nelson Figueroa rather than hand him a bullpen role, risking losing him to another team or Japan even though he likely represented their best option to replace the first starting pitcher to fall victim to injury or ineffectiveness.

Apparently unconcerned about the fact that three members of their Opening Day bullpen have never thrown a Major League pitch, the Mets reportedly will not force Kiko Calero to report to Triple-A Buffalo, even though, by all accounts, Calero needed only more time to strengthen him arm this spring, and even though Calero is a veteran of 302 2/3 excellent Major League innings, and even though he’s coming off a season in which he posted a 1.95 ERA.

And then there’s the Jenrry Mejia thing. I’ve said my thing on that thing. I refer you to this, this, this, this, and this. I’m kind of sick of shrouding the kid in negativity because he’s a homegrown prospect and I root for homegrown prospects, and now I’ll be rooting like hell for him to dominate in his bullpen role.

The funny thing is, so many people act — and I’m certainly guilty of this myself — as if it’s sort of written in stone that he will. There’s no arguing that he looked great in the Grapefruit League, but 17 innings of Spring Training ball and a rousing endorsement from Jerry Manuel do not necessarily portend Major League success. Big-league hitters — not to mention big-league scouts — are really, really good, recall, and I wonder if Mejia might start looking more like the guy who posted a 4.47 ERA in Double-A last year after the league has seen him a few times.

And then I wonder, of course, if that could ultimately be a ticket back to Binghamton for Mejia, and so a blessing in disguise. And that sucks. This has got to be one of the weirdest fanbase/management divides of all time. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any team’s fans putting up a more or less unified front urging patience and restraint against a front-office that seems to want no part of it. That’s why you never want your GM making decisions from the hot seat, I guess.

To make matters worse — or perhaps more ridiculous — the going sentiment among Mets fans and the media seems to be that the two sure things in the team’s bullpen are Rodriguez and Feliciano, and I’m not certain either will be that in 2010. The downright existential finish to the Mets’ 2009 campaign helped cover up K-Rod’s miserable second half. The well-compensated closer posted a 6.75 ERA with a 1.42 WHIP after the All-Star Break, and his rate stats in 2009 showed a continuation of career trends toward fewer strikeouts and more walks.

Feliciano, the reliable lefty specialist, could become way less reliable if the Mets make him less of a lefty specialist.

That leaves Nieve, a righty who pitched well — albeit far above his peripherals — in limited innings for the 2009 Mets, and Takahashi, a deceptive lefty long-man who appeared dominant at times in the Grapefruit League. Like Mejia, both are talented mysteries yet to prove they can consistently retire Major League hitters.

Could the Mets’ bullpen succeed? Absolutely. Perhaps K-Rod’s rough second half was just a function of the Mets not being in the pennant race, and Feliciano’s improved cutter will make him more effective against right-handers, plus Takahashi will continue to daze hitters like he did in Spring Training, Nieve will pitch to the potential that made him a top prospect in the Astros’ system, Green and Igarashi will work out their mechanical kinks and Mejia will be every bit as good as advertised and become the dominant eighth-inning guy the Mets seem to want him to be, development be damned.

And in all likelihood, at least some of those things will happen in 2010. All of them won’t, though, and the way the Mets so brazenly went about casting aside their best contingency plans could cost them in time.

The Major League bullpen in September: I’m not even going to try.

How they stack up: This is an exercise in futility, just like attempting to figure out who’s going to be in the Mets’ bullpen in September. There’s so much uncertainty and fluctuation in every bullpen every year that I shouldn’t even try. I’d joke that the Phillies got a head start because Brad Lidge will open the season on the Disabled List, but there’s a reasonable chance Lidge will be awesome again this year. That’s just how it goes.

The Mets are making this endeavor incredibly difficult. I’m trying to finish these previews, plus I’ve got some more writing I want to do before Monday, and they keep making strange moves to knock me off course. Also, I’ve got ribs in the smoker and I need to attend to them soon. I wish the team would consult me about when it was going to leak out information about weird roster decisions.

OK, excuse me for repeating myself and lots of other people in the following post. But what can I write about Jeff Francoeur that hasn’t already been written?

The Major League right fielders in April: Jeff Francoeur. There can be only one.

Overview: After a year and a half of abject suckitude in Atlanta, Francoeur joined the Mets and proceeded to mash the ball. No one is quite sure why. Many point to a change of scenery, or a difference in organizational philosophy. Some cite dumb luck. I’m as baffled today as I was a month ago, so you’ll find no answers here.

All that matters in 2010 is if that’ll continue.

The Mets seem to think it will. They avoided arbitration with Francoeur and will pay him $5 million for his services this season.

I’m skeptical he’ll provide an adequate return. As happy as I am for the Mets and the beat reporters that cover them to have a fresh-faced, charismatic leader like Francoeur, I imagine things will go South quick if he doesn’t hit. And players who do not take pitches rarely continue hitting.

Frenchy pledged to work on his plate discipline this spring, but he literally says that every year.

Will this be the year it happens for him? Maybe. He’s only 26. And hell, perhaps he can become one of baseball’s weird outliers, like the anti-Luis Castillo — a player who can get by and be an adequate Major League hitter without ever developing the ability to distinguish balls from strikes. I don’t see exactly how that would work, but who knows?

I wouldn’t bet on it happening, though. Outliers are called outliers because they lie outside the normal realm.

He earned his chance, though, with his 2009 performance in Flushing. So we will play the waiting game. And smart money says it will take the Mets and their fans quite some time to sour on the Frenchman, so he’ll be given every opportunity to succeed and prove that the late-season stretch in 2009 was no fluke.

The Major League right fielders in September: Fernando Martinez, Francoeur.

If the Fernanchise stays healthy and Francoeur cannot recapture his 2009 magic, the prospect should be in Queens by late summer. Since Martinez has been injury prone and is known to struggle against left-handers, Francoeur’s right-handedness and durability makes him the ideal caddy for the former Teenage Hitting Machine.

How they stack up: Tough to say, as it depends on which Francoeur you’re stacking up. If you’re bullish and using only the Mets’ version of Francoeur, he’s probably second best in the division to Jayson Werth, though there’s a non-zero possibility Jason Heyward could quickly be better than even the good Jeff Francoeur. If you’re bearish and using the full-year 2009 Jeff Francoeur or the 2008 and first half of 2009 Jeff Francoeur, he’s probably worst in the N.L. East.

Up next: I’m going to do a bullpen season preview, but it’ll come tomorrow at some point, as I’m still waiting to see exactly how the pieces settle before I write anything mean. Plus I have to take care of these ribs.

Right-hander Kiko Calero, who did not make the team out of spring training despite a 1.95 ERA with the Florida Marlins last season, is being given the choice of whether he wants to report to Buffalo. The Mets won’t force him into playing for the Bisons. Calero would earn $15,000 a month with Buffalo.

– Adam Rubin, ESPNNewYork.com.

Huh. I’m no expert, and I’m sure Kiko Calero’s a nice dude and all, and you probably want to do right by the guy, but the Mets did sign him to a Minor League contract, and he is the reliever in the organization coming off the best 2009 season and they are breaking camp with three relievers who have yet to throw a pitch at the Major League level.