Context: Because the Mets appear distant longshots to take the NL East in 2012, because they’re coming off three straight losing seasons and because we live in a world with ever-shrinking grey areas, someone will inevitably suggest that the 2012 Mets will vie with their 1962 predecessors for the worst record in Major League history.

Barring catastrophe, the 2012 Mets should win way more than 40 games. The 1962 Mets were almost unimaginably bad, and unlucky on top of that.

The 2009 Mets won their 41st game on July 11, the 2010 Mets won it on June 23, and the 2011 Mets won it on June 29. July 9 this year marks the beginning of the All-Star Break. The game on July 8 will be the Mets’ 86th game of the season. Also, my dad’s birthday.

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Context: Josh Edgin is a 25-year-old left-handed pitcher in Mets camp who topped out at High A St. Lucie last year. He has turned heads in Spring Training with his mid-90s fastball and strong breaking stuff and appears to be in the competition to replace the injured Tim Byrdak in the Mets’ Opening Day bullpen. Edgin is not on the team’s 40-man roster.

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I tried to fool people with a Twitter poll based on this but most people were on to my trick: I plugged Ruben Tejada’s 2011 stats in Buffalo and with the Mets into the ol’ Minor League Equivalency calculator then added them up to see how he would have performed if he spent the whole season at Double-A Binghamton.

Obviously it’s not a perfect way to determine what would have actually happened, but Tejada’s Triple-A and Major League stats translate to a .338/.424/.426 line in over 500 at-bats at Binghamton. And Tejada would have been the youngest player on the team.

Remember that: Ruben Tejada would have been the youngest player on the Mets’ Double-A team last year. He’s seven months younger than Matt Harvey and Juan Lagares, more than two years younger than Matt den Dekker, and two weeks younger than Jeurys Familia.

Tejada’s one year and 10 months younger than Jordany Valdespin, who caught the eyes of many Mets fans with his .297/.341/.483 line at Binghamton in 2011.

Hak-Ju Lee, a shortstop in the Rays system that ranked No. 44 on Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects list, is a year younger than Tejada. In his Double-A debut in 2011, he hit .190/.272/.310 in 100 at-bats. Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons, a month and a half older than Tejada, hit .311/.351/.408 in High A ball last year and ranked No. 92 on the same list.

An .850 OPS would have put Tejada 19th among Eastern League players with at least 141 at-bats at the level in 2011. But of the 18 players ahead, all but four played primarily in corner positions and only one — Blue Jays catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud — is less than a full year older than Tejada. And d’Arnaud, born Feb. 8, 1989, is 10 months older than the Mets’ shortstop.

Point is, Ruben Tejada is very, very young. A variety of circumstances forced him through the Mets’ system quickly and into the big leagues in 2010 and 2011, but I suspect many Mets fans would be more psyched about him if he were a 22-year-old shortstop that tore up the Eastern League last year and they’d never seen play instead of a 22-year-old shortstop that performed adequately in the Majors for most of 2011.

So the other point is that many people overvalue prospects, which you probably know. What Tejada did in the Majors at 21 in 2011 is rare and impressive. It’s not a guarantee that he’ll turn out a big-league All-Star or even a capable regular, but it’s a very nice start.

Since yesterday’s bullpen odds post, the Mets have sent Chuck James and Fernando Cabrera to Minor League camp. I’m adjusting the odds accordingly:

Bobby Parnell (1:4): Technically, Parnell and the rest of the righties should get slight bumps today, since the departures mean there are fewer competitors in camp vying for jobs. But making the math work out is paramount.

Miguel Batista (1:2): Same story as Parnell.

Garrett Olson (3:2): All the healthy lefties in camp get bumps from the elimination of James from the competition. Olson is among them.

Josh Edgin (3:2): Edgin pitched 2/3 of a scoreless inning yesterday. That alone shouldn’t be enough to push him to even footing with the more veteran Olson, but it seems vaguely important that Collins brought Edgin into the game in the middle of the inning. The Mets.com homepage says Edgin will pitch again today. Assuming that’s true, that also seems important: If the Mets want to see how he fares in back-to-back outings, they’re probably not just keeping him around for a look-see.

Tim Byrdak (3:1): Since Byrdak’s odds of making the team are entirely dependent on his health, they’re unchanged by the cuts.

Danny Herrera (3:1): Herrera also benefits from James’ departure.

Chris Schwinden (14:1)
D.J. Carrasco (19:1)
Pedro Beato (19:1)
The field (14:1)

In keeping with an annual tradition that no one but me cares about. And this has come to be way more about my pet peeve with many amateur oddsmakers than actually predicting who will make the Mets’ Opening Day bullpen. But whatever.

For the purposes of this exercise, I’m assuming Frank Francisco, Jon Rauch, Ramon Ramirez and Manny Acosta are in. The first three represent most of the Mets’ offseason acquisitions. Acosta pitched well for the Mets after the Francisco Rodriguez trade last year, now has 200 2/3 strong Major League innings under his belt and, perhaps most importantly for his bullpen candidacy, is out of options.

Lefty specialist and expert videobomber Tim Byrdak would have counted among the certain ins if he didn’t have surgery on a torn meniscus last week. Sandy Alderson “guesstimated” Byrdak would miss six weeks, but Byrdak has said he thinks he can be ready for Opening Day, so he’s getting thrown in the mix. Whenever he returns he’ll join the big-league bullpen, replacing someone, rendering this list even more pointless.

Here we go.

Bobby Parnell (1:4): Parnell has options left on his contract, which preclude him from being a lock, but by all accounts he’s a favorite to earn a spot in the Opening Day bullpen. He throws really hard, he pitched very well in stretches last year, and he’s yet to allow a run in Grapefruit League play. Some worry about Parnell’s ability to succeed under pressure, but I suspect those issues have been at least partly due to heavy use, since his high-leverage opportunities have largely come in response to long stretches of frequent and effective pitching.

Miguel Batista (1:2): The 41-year-old Batista is nearly as interesting on the field as he is off of it. Batista’s peripheral stats generally look woeful: He doesn’t strike out many hitters and he walks too many. But Batista has finished 10 of the last 11 seasons with an park- and league-adjusted ERA+ that’s better than league average. The Mets seem to appreciate his versatility, and leaving him off the big-league club would mean paying him a $100 thousand roster bonus and giving him a June 1 opt-out clause.

Garrett Olson (19:11): If the odds seem strange there, they are to make the math work out and to reflect Olson’s slight leg up over Edgin in the race to replace Byrdak as the lefty in the Mets’ bullpen. Olson throws hard, has an excellent beard and has pitched well in Spring Training games.

Josh Edgin (2:1): Edgin, another lefty, was the first guy mentioned by both Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins when asked who might replace Byrdak in the bullpen. He hasn’t pitched above High A ball, but he has clearly worked his way onto the team’s radar this spring with mid-90s heat and a good breaking pitch.

Tim Byrdak (3:1): I’m saying there’s a 1 in 4 shot Byrdak recovers quickly and the Mets decide they’d rather let him rehab on the roster than figure out a way to get another lefty reliever onto the 40-man. Upon the news of Byrdak’s injury, Terry Collins mentioned that he once had Mitch Williams jumping around in his office two weeks after arthroscopic knee surgery, claiming himself ready to go. That sounds like something Byrdak might do, only he’d also be wearing a silly costume.

Danny Herrera (4:1): This site endorses Herrera, a diminutive lefty with awesome hair and a screwball. But Andy Martino reported in January that the Mets believed Herrera could lose effectiveness with too much work, then a couple weeks ago that Herrera is not a candidate for the lefty specialist role. Herrera has been much better against lefties than against righties in limited Major League work, though.

Chuck James (11:1): When the Mets signed James I figured he’d have an outside chance to crack the roster as a second lefty in the bullpen, but James has not pitched well this spring and seems like an afterthought in the southpaw competition. His odds are this high mostly due to his handedness.

Chris Schwinden (14:1): Presumably the Mets want Schwinden starting games in Triple-A and ready to get the first call if any of their starters go down, but I’m allowing the small possibility they want another long reliever on the roster early in the season to take pressure off Johan Santana and/or the rest of the bullpen if the other starters endure some April shakiness.

Fernando Cabrera (14:1): Not much has been written about Cabrera this spring, at least not that I can find. He pitched quite well in Triple-A bullpens the last two years, but since he’s right-handed, he’s likely ticketed for a return to that level until a need arises. For what it’s worth, he looks like he could be a soap-opera star.

D.J. Carrasco (19:1): Carrasco is hurt and hasn’t pitched since March 10. He’s owed guaranteed money, which could earn him a spot on the disabled list to start the season. But also seems like a candidate to be cut when the Mets need to add players to their 40-man roster.

Pedro Beato (19:1): Beato hurt his shoulder earlier this spring and didn’t appear likely to make the Opening Day roster even before that. He’s still got the live arm everyone raved about last Spring, but since the Mets can now send him to the Minors to iron out the kinks, they probably will.

The field (14:1): What have you got for us, Tabasco of the Mexican League?