Context: Justin Turner hit .260 last year with a .334 on-base percentage in 487 plate appearances. This year, he appears destined for a reserve role. Though the samples are small, the righty-hitting Turner actually hit right-handers better than he did lefties in 2011. Terry Collins, we have seen, tends to favor platoon matchups, but the Mets do not seem likely to have more than one left-handed hitter on their bench.
[poll id=”70″]
As I may have mentioned, I’m heading to Port St. Lucie tomorrow afternoon and I’ll be up and running from Mets camp on Wednesday. Which is awesome. BASEBALL!
OK. Things will slow down here between now and then as I deal with all the stuff I need to deal with before I leave, though there’ll still be a few posts so please do check back constantly and refresh and refresh and refresh and refresh.
I’ve got a few ideas lined up and some video responsibilities, but figuring that no one knows better than you what you want to read, here’s the ol’ Spring Training suggestion box again. Have at it:
[contact-form-7 id=”15378″ title=”Untitled”]
Context: Ike Davis has 26 home runs in 750 Major League plate appearances. He got off to a hot start in 2011 and was on pace to hit over 30 home runs for the season when he hurt his ankle in May and finished the year on the DL. Davis seems to be healthy now. He will be 25 by Opening Day, and, of course, the dimensions at Citi Field will be altered in 2012.
[poll id=”69″]
Context: Dillon Gee struck out only 1.61 batters for every one he walked in 2011. But across 437 2/3 Minor League innings, Gee posted a strong 4.05 K:BB ratio. The National League average in 2011 was 2.33. Gee will turn 26 in late April.
[poll id=”68″]
Context: Matt Harvey is considered by some to be the Mets’ top prospect. He finished the 2011 season in Double-A, where his 4.53 ERA belied strong peripherals. Harvey’s got 59 2/3 innings above A-ball on his resume and the Mets would likely want him to get a bunch more before they advance him. The back of the Mets’ Major League rotation should feature Mike Pelfrey and Dillon Gee, and behind them Chris Schwinden and Miguel Batista.
[poll id=”67″]
I’m in pretty woeful shape right now, and since a) Port St. Lucie offers mostly greasy chain food and b) the Brooklyn pickup baseball season approaches, I’ve been trying to eat healthy until I head south for Spring Training. Turns out it kind of sucks. I relapsed a little this afternoon.
The candidate: Chicken and lamb combo on pita from the Halal Guys cart on the corner of 53rd and 6th in Manhattan. There are often several Halal Guys carts on various nearby corners — the ones where the guys have the bright yellow shirts and the Halal Guys logo are all affiliated. Sometimes one will have a really long line while one of the others is practically empty. It’s the same food. Get on a short line.
The construction: A soft, warm pita topped with chunks of chicken and lamb, lettuce, white sauce and hot sauce. They put it together while you stand there so it’s fully customizable. Onions, tomatoes and barbecue sauce are also available, but the pictured configuration is the one I almost always go with.
Arguments for sandwich-hood: It’s meat wrapped in bread. Though it’s messy, it’s at least vaguely portable. The focal point is inarguably the stuff inside the bread, not the bread itself. The cart itself calls it a sandwich, and it is ordered that way to distinguish it from the platter.
Arguments against: There’s only one piece of bread stuff. Lamb meat on a pita is usually called a gyro. Also, it’s very messy, and inevitably a bunch of the inside stuff falls out onto your hands and desk and shirt and keyboard. You’d probably be better off eating it with a fork if you were some type of sucker.
How it tastes: Spicy. That hot sauce is no joke. I specified “a little” hot sauce while ordering — something I only know to do from experience — and still wound up with a lunch to clear the sinuses and scald the esophagus.
I’m on board with that, though, and this is a pretty awesome meal. The meats are both tender and peppery. The lamb in particular is amazingly seasoned, kind of like a peppery lamb meatball. And it all works well in conjunction with the slightly tangy, slightly sweet, creamy white sauce. The lettuce provides the crunch and a pathetic little nod to your recent health kid. The pita, which they heat on the grill before constructing the thing, is warm and strong, chewy and a little toasty.
My one quibble would be that there’s a ton of meat, which is awesome, but they only add the white sauce at the end, after the lettuce. So the effect is that you get a bunch of pure-meat bites with no white sauce on there, and a bunch of delicious white sauce wasted on the lettuce that falls into the foil. You can try to reconstruct it as you go, but it takes some effort.
Considering the price it might be asking too much, but I think to put this thing into the realm of the sublime they could lay down the chicken, then hit it with white sauce, then the lamb, then more white sauce, then the lettuce. No meat left unsauced. And then if you lose some lettuce, BFD.
It’s worth noting, I guess, that this particular cart has a reputation as the city’s best street-meat. It’s really good, but I think part of why it gets talked up so much is that many “foodie”-types aren’t willing to try just any street-meat cart, and if they were they’d find that many of them are also really good. This one’s definitely a touch better, but I think a lot of that has to do with the perpetual freshness of the meat that comes from the constant lines. It’s a positive feedback loop of sorts.
Also, while I enjoy food from Halal Guys all the time, it’s decidedly not the best street meat I’ve had in the city. That honor belongs to the “From Atlantis With Love” cart that used to be outside CBGBs. If anyone knows where that guy sets up these days or if he’s still out there, please let me know. He deserves a review here, if not the Nobel Prize for Awesomeness.
The verdict: With apologies to the B family of Rochester and Maryland, this is a sandwich. It’s borderline I’ll admit, but it is definitely still meat wrapped in bread that you pick up and eat with your hands, and its focal point is certainly the part inside the bread. Lots of sandwiches that are decidedly sandwiches are messy, so that issue alone is not enough for me to reject its sandwich-hood. That it’s a gyro shouldn’t change anything; I’d say that a gyro, like a hamburger, is a type of sandwich.
What it’s worth: The best lunch deal in these parts in a landslide. This thing costs $4.
In case you’ve somehow missed the news, Ruben Tejada is not yet in Mets camp. He is being delayed by visa issues reportedly stemming from a failed attempt to pick up his documents on a holiday. Tejada is still expected to arrive by Saturday, the mandatory report day for position players, but his inability to be at camp early has miffed Terry Collins and fired up some in the Mets’ fanbase.
Here’s the main thing: If Tejada plays anything like as well as he did in 2011, no one’s going to remember this happened by March 15. It’s likely being discussed now only for lack of other things to discuss.
Collins called himself “selfish” for being annoyed with his young shortstop, and admitted that he never told Tejada to arrive early — only suggested it. Plus, though Tejada will be paid handsomely to play for the Mets in 2012 and that implies some responsibility to the team, he’s obligated to show up Saturday, not before.
Also, here’s the other thing: Ruben Tejada is 22. Granted, I realize there are plenty of super-important, powerful and eminently responsible 22-year-olds, and we rely on people even younger than 22 to elect leaders and fight wars. But though I can’t speak for Tejada or any other 22-year-old, I can say that at that age, I:
– Nearly set my house on fire three different times.
– Tricked my roommate into eating dog food, filmed it and broadcast it.
– Racked up double-digit campus parking tickets that are, to date, unpaid.
– Tackled some dude at a party.
– Blew up tons of stuff in my backyard.
– Engaged a bandmate in some mild, unreciprocated knifeplay.
– Drove several months on a donut tire with a duct-taped back window.
– Destroyed much of the leftover furniture in my house with a baseball bat to spite the next tenants who were unwilling to pay us for it.
– Launched water balloons into the outdoor patio of a local bar, occasionally from an elevated train trestle.
– Countless other things I’m not willing to publicly admit.
If you are currently castigating Tejada for his failure to show up early to Port St. Lucie, I urge you to at least consider some of the dumb things you probably did at 22, and how innocuous a missed appointment seems in comparison. Yes, Tejada signed up for this scrutiny when he inked his contract, but 22-year-olds be 22-year-olds.
Also worth noting: When I first spoke to Tejada (through a translator) in Binghamton in 2009, I asked him what he found to be the biggest adjustment he needed to make in Double-A — expecting he’d say that the pitchers are better, like most players say. He said he was still getting used to being away from his family.
Today’s candidate is a chicken and lamb combo “sandwich” from the Halal Guys cart on 53rd and 6th in Manhattan. It is a combination of chicken and lamb meat with white sauce, hot sauce and lettuce, wrapped in a pita. Note that I put sandwich in quotes here because that’s what it’s called when you order it, distinguishing it from the platter (the same meats over rice). Don’t take the quotes to mean I’m implying anything about its sandwich-hood.
But is it a sandwich?
[poll id=”66″]
Things that seem really important to many baseball fans right now that probably won’t in a little over a month when actual games start happening:
1. Whether Ryan Braun was exonerated “on a technicality” or because of a legit claim that scientific protocol was breached
2. #CopterGate
3. Pretty much everything besides actual baseball games happening
Sorry if you hoped I’d have my ire up about either of the first two things on that list. I don’t. I think sometimes the reactions and overreactions and backlash and counter-backlash and counter-counter-backlash to every bit of news that hits the Internet get so overwhelming that they numb me to any real thoughts or feelings I should be having about whatever actually happened.
Ryan Braun is an awesome baseball player. I like awesome baseball players and I’m excited that Braun will be playing a full season in 2012. I’m even more excited that on Tuesday I’ll be flying (coach, not chopper) to Port St. Lucie to see some other baseball players doing baseball stuff.
Context: David Wright has an .887 career OPS. But from 2005-2008, when the Mets played at Shea Stadium, he posted a .921 mark in the stat. In the three seasons since the team moved to Citi Field in 2009 — whether due to that move or a series of coincidences — Wright has an .828 OPS. In 2012, the stadium will feature adjusted dimensions that many believe will benefit Wright’s offensive game.
[poll id=”61″]
Tedquarters 