For some reason, I was absolutely sure John Franco had flipped off the Shea Stadium crowd at one point or another — or maybe on multiple occasions — but I can’t find any documentation of it online.

All I can dig up is this story about Franco straining a tendon in his middle finger. I’ll just assume that happened when he was really viciously showing someone the ol’ state bird of New York, as Kevin Nealon once put it.

“I got your blown save right here!”

Anyway, though without the Internet’s support I cannot be 100-percent sure that Johnny has ever actually employed the gesture, I don’t imagine he’d object to being classified as one of the city’s great all-time middle-finger guys. He is, after all, a quintessential New Yorker.

Would anyone be that surprised to be cut off by a Camaro on Staten Island, only to spot John Franco behind the wheel, flipping you off? I wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t even mind. John Franco’s earned that right. Lord knows I’ve given him the same treatment after some of those blown saves.

I’m getting vague word that someone on WFAN has criticized SNY.tv for not carrying the full Omar Minaya interview from last night’s Mets Hot Stove, apparently suggesting that we’re somehow protecting Minaya.

Because, you know, that’s exactly what we do here at SNY.tv.

Anyway, I’m not sure if that’s actually true because I haven’t been listening, but if it is, the person in question obviously isn’t privy to the details of this network’s cable affiliate agreements. But whatever. Here’s what we do have from last night’s show:

And Jerry Manuel:

James Kannengieser ponders an interesting ethical dilemma at Amazin Avenue today. He polls readers on if they could root against the Mets, assuming that another bad season would mean a house-cleaning in the front office. He writes:

The apparent disregard the current regime has for utilizing all information available for player evaluation is unacceptable for any franchise, much less one with the considerable resources of the Mets. A change is needed, and the long-term benefits to the team and its fanbase would probably outweigh the 2010 disappointment. No more lectures about “false hustle”. No more absurd vesting options. It’s not a given that ownership would seek a candidate in the mold of Theo Epstein or Andrew Friedman — they could hire Omar Part Deux. However, dismissing Omar would at least give the Wilpons a chance to start over and right the ship.

In theory, hoping the Mets lose makes sense — it’s for the greater good. In reality it’s tough to root against individual players, and therefore nearly impossible to root against the team (for me, at least).

I voted no. I can not, in good conscience, root against the team. But it’s something I’ve struggled with in the past and I think it’s an especially pertinent question now, as the evidence piles up that it would be in the Mets’ best longterm interest to move forward with a revamped front office.

And I’ll confess that once — just once — in a similar instance, I felt a pang of disappointment when, as a Mets fan, I should have felt otherwise. It was so jarring and weird that I remember exactly the circumstances.

It was June of 2008, before Willie Randolph got canned, right in the thick of my campaign to get Val Pascucci called up. I’ll maintain to this day that he should have been, but whatever, that’s not the point.

I was living in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn at the time. I had been visiting my parents on Long Island for Father’s Day and they were driving me back. We were on Eastern Parkway, right where it bends — by the then-new Dunkin’ Donuts — coming into Crown Heights, listening to the Mets on WFAN.

They were tied up with the Rangers, 2-2, with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the sixth. Needing a pinch-hitter for Pedro Martinez, they called on Robinson Cancel, a 32-year-old third-string catcher with a Minor League OPS around .700 who, in my eyes, had no business being on the Major League roster.

I assumed Cancel would fail and I began writing in my head a scathing anti-Minaya, pro-Pascucci column for the following day. But Cancel, against all odds, drove a single up the middle that scored two runs and put the Mets ahead for good.

And for just one second, I was pissed.

Nothing made sense: Why was Robinson Cancel on the team? Who thought the Mets should be carrying three catchers? Why was Willie Randolph using Robinson Cancel as a pinch hitter? And by what freak happenstance should Robinson Cancel get a hit with the bases loaded in a big spot?

But then, the most confusing thing of all was that I was angry when I should have been happy. I grew up pulling for longshot heroism from underdogs — I’m a Mets fan, after all — and here, in the face of just that, I was disappointed. What the hell happened to me?

When I got back to my apartment, I sat down with a big glass of bourbon and spent some time examining my priorities.

Eventually, I resolved that Mets victories were far more important to me than justification for anything I might ever write or say, and that I should never again let what I believe about the way the team should be run interfere with the way I root for the team.

So, long story short, I voted no.

According to ESPN 1050, the Mets are thinking about Jarrod Washburn.

Now I’m not sure exactly what they’re thinking about Jarrod Washburn. Maybe they’re thinking, “hey, would you look at that, Jarrod Washburn has really put together a respectable, if unspectacular, Major League career.” Or maybe they’re thinking that he looks a little like Kiefer Sutherland.

If they’re thinking he’d be a nice fit for their team in 2010, as the ESPN 1050 item suggests, color me unenthused.

Washburn has been, pretty consistently, among the most fly-ball heavy pitchers in the Majors. This worked out extremely well for him while he was with the Mariners last season, since they were fielding an outstanding outfield defense behind him.

This would, presumably, not work out as well for the Mets, assuming Jason Bay and Jeff Francoeur can’t cover the ground that Franklin Gutierrez and Ichiro Suzuki do. Spoiler alert: They can’t.

Is Washburn the worst pitcher in the world? Far from it. He’s a guy. He’s just not particularly good either, and he’s 35, and he’s coming off two straight seasons shortened by injury.

And I’m not certain he’s much of an upgrade over any number of guys they already have in house.

Sam Borden wrote a nice column for SNY.tv about what Johan Santana’s 25-pitch bullpen session means, and the optimism it brings to Mets and their fans. He writes:

There is still nothing more pleasing for the Mets fan than seeing Santana back healthy. Nothing more pleasing than seeing their star with a smile on his face.

At the absolute minimum, he’s something exquisite to watch every fifth day, a distraction from the frustrations of losing. At the absolute pinnacle, he’s the lynchpin of a miracle run.

Right now, he’s just possibility. Optimism. Hope. That might seem crazy to some people, and maybe it is. But at the end of a long, hard winter, six minutes can feel like so much more.

I’m with Sam. And there’s something about Santana that seems to bring out the liveliest language.

When I think about the Mets’ offseason and outlook for 2010, I am gloomy. When I think about Santana pitching, I am happy. He makes me excited to watch baseball again.

Ben Sheets signed a one-year, $10 million contract with the A’s today.

Whatever. I didn’t want that chump on the Mets anyway. If he played for the Mets, he’d be hurt by May. You could mark that down. And he has no heart. Couldn’t handle the New York media. Wasn’t up to the pressure of the big city. Something something something.

Seriously, though, $10 million does seem like a lot for a guy who is such a huge injury risk. Of course, for the Mets, the danger in paying him so much is the chance he gets hurt, the team stinks, and you’ve flushed some payroll down the toilet.

And the Mets, without Sheets, seem pretty much destined to flush a whole lot of payroll down the toilet. It’s not my money, of course, but it was only a one-year deal — not the type of contract that would hamstring them down the road.

I advocated Sheets for the Mets because he was the type of gamble I hoped could yield a big enough return to launch the Mets into contention, even despite all the question marks in their lineup and the expected absence of Carlos Beltran.

And it doesn’t look like there’s a whole lot left out there that might make that difference.

Regardless, I wonder how much more on top of the $10 million it would have taken for the Mets to lure Sheets away from Oakland. After all, that club can also boast a park with a reputation for benefiting pitchers, something I thought could be a big selling point for the Mets.

And perhaps more importantly, the A’s lack that pesky notoriety — deserved or otherwise — for spectacularly mishandling their injured players.

Pure speculation, but I’d guess that factored into his decision. This is, after all, a guy who missed all of last season and parts of the previous four with injuries.

So maybe the Mets didn’t really have a shot at Sheets in the first place.

Whatever. What’s done is done. Ben Sheets is on the A’s and the Mets are still penciling Fernando Nieve into the back of their rotation. I’m still all for John Smoltz, and it seems like the Mets might be too, so, you know, good.

Every one of them¹ is beautiful and awesome:

¹– Sadly, not every one of them is contained in this video. I’m just assuming they were all beautiful and awesome, because Johan Santana threw them all.

Also, Kevin Burkhardt references Santana throwing a changeup and then yelling, “whatup!” which, sadly, is not contained in this video. I’d pay anything to watch that happen, especially in the midst of this long offseason.

I have no idea if it’s notable or if he’s just being nice, but Jerry Manuel said yesterday he’d be at least open to the idea of starting the season with Josh Thole behind the plate:

The one thing about Josh that is definitely different than Omir is that Josh kind of balances out the lineup. He’s a lefthanded hitter. We’ll take a look at him and talk to the people who saw him in winter ball and see how much progression he made and go from there. It’s not out of the question.

So that’s cool. Anyway, I figured a poll is in order:

[poll id=”3″]

I left the question intentionally vague. I guess I’m just trying to see how y’all¹ feel about Thole in regards to the other options, and in light of all the talk that he needs at least another year of Minor League seasoning.

Also, I didn’t include trade options, because it’s impossible to really judge a trade option without knowing what he’d cost in return. Granted, we don’t know exactly what Barajas or Torrealba would cost either, but it’d only be money.

¹– I really wish English had a word for the second-person plural, and it very much bothers me that Spanish does — vosotros — and most Spanish-speaking countries opt not to use it. I tried adopting it into English for a while, but it didn’t catch on, so instead I use “y’all” and sound like a dunce.

Somehow in all the hubbub the blogosphere stirred up about not signing Bengie Molina to a multi-year contract, it seems everyone forgot the Mets’ fallback plan at catcher. Aaron Gleeman makes an excellent point about ol’ Extra-Base Omir:

And before anyone points out that he was a rookie and is thus likely to improve, please note that Santos was a 28-year-old rookie who previously spent nine seasons in the minors hitting .258/.304/.348, including .256/.311/.325 at Triple-A. Guys who spend a decade in the minors posting a .652 OPS tend not to maintain a .671 OPS in the majors, so as bad as Santos was last season that was actually him playing over his head. Bengie Molina never looked so good.

The overwhelming consensus seems to say that Josh Thole needs a year in Triple-A to work on his game-calling and defense. I didn’t think Thole looked all that terrible behind the plate last year and Mets pitchers didn’t do any worse in small samples with Thole catching than with anyone else back there, but I’ll yield to the wisdom of the crowd and dismiss Thole as a possibility for either starting or platoon duties to begin 2010.

So that leaves Santos, Henry Blanco and Chris Coste. None is much of a hitter. Blanco is likely the best defender, though shoulder problems and advanced age should limit his playing time. Coste seems ticketed for Triple-A to school Thole in the fine art of staff-handling, but could hit the big club should Santos regress to his mean.

It’s rough when someone who posted a .298 wOBA* can be expected to regress, but, as Gleeman pointed out, Santos probably did play a little above his head last year.

That’s bad. Not as bad, mind you, as giving Bengie Molina a multi-year contract to play for a team without much realistic hope of competing in the coming season, but still bad.

So what options might be better than Santos? Rod Barajas and Yorvit Torrealba are still available as free agents. Neither appears primed to be a whole ton better than the Santos/Blanco tandem, but since they’ve both managed to hang on as poor-hitting catchers in the big leagues for a long while now, they’re both less likely than Santos to completely embarrass themselves at the plate — at least not any more than they usually do.

The Mets could also pursue a trade. I discussed Chris Snyder last week, and Dave suggested Dioner Navarro in the comments section. Either would be a nice buy-low acquisition if he could be had at a reasonable price.

The truth is, though, considering the Mets’ projected lineup and pitching staff, especially relative to what the Phillies and Braves will be fielding in 2010, it’s hard to imagine any catcher short of Joe Mauer catapulting them into contention.

That’s not to say, of course, that it’s reasonable to enter the season with Santos tapped to start. And to be honest, I’m nearly certain that all the talk that he will is bluster — misguided though it may be — intended to give the team leverage in some negotiation or another.

*- I noticed that the Daily News has been using OPS, so I’m upping my game. I use more advanced stats to inform my writing, so why not use them to enhance my writing? Anyway, a good overview of wOBA is here. (H/T to Patrick Flood for that link.)

People often ask me why I freak out so much about moves like the Gary Matthews deal or the now long-forgotten promotion of Abraham Nunez. Check out David Roth at Can’t Stop the Bleeding:

But the Matthews trade — Omar getting “his guy” in a deal that everyone else in the entire freaking world thinks is incomprehensible and ridiculous — is a reminder of how bizarrely bleak it is to be a Mets fan right now. The moves arrive out of nowhere, reflect no philosophy beyond an anarchically da-da absence of internal logic, and allow almost no commentary but this. That is, maundering, meandering wonderment. That is, bafflement, more than any sort of disagreement or — because it’s not 2005, and I’m not 26 anymore — aggrieved grief.

Roth is, by his own admission, overreacting. I did too. Sometimes that happens when you’re slapped in the face with absurdity, I think. And with the Mets’ front office, it often feels like an onslaught.