Twitter Q&A-style product

I’m very tired. Here’s something:

Good question. You mean where is it right now, or where is it available from? I’ve been in the mood for a good grilled cheese since Ted Burke sent me that text from Bradenton. But to me the best grilled cheeses come from my kitchen, and I like ’em old-school, the way my dad used to make them when I’d come home for lunch in elementary school: American cheese on white bread, grilled golden brown on a ton of butter. If you want to throw bacon on there, I mean, obviously that’s cool, but it’s not even necessary.

I’m open to eateries with good grilled cheeses, though. Anyone know of any?

My take: He’s still Luis Castillo. I don’t want to sound mean to be fatalistic about this, but it’s the same dude who has been downright brutal for three years. I get that he’s in good shape and he lost weight and maybe that’s worth something, but how much? Is he suddenly going to be a rangy fielder for the first time since 2007? Is he, at 35, likely to do anything more than tread water?

I’m guessing no. And even if he is a better fielder than Daniel Murphy, Brad Emaus and Justin Turner, I find it hard to believe he’s so much better that it will mitigate the difference in offense. I mean, hell — even if Murphy’s downright terrible there and you take him out of the competition, Emaus and Turner have both played full seasons at second in the Minors. Turner has played shortstop! You’re telling me neither of these guys can provide the Mets more than Castillo can at this point? I’m sorry, I find that hard to believe. And no three Grapefruit League games are going to change my mind.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I wonder what it is I’m missing about Turner. Look at his stats: He has been good in every Minor League stop. Old for most levels, yes, but always solid on-base percentages with some pop. In fact, using the Minor League Equivalency calculator, Turner’s 2010 comes out much better than Emaus’, since Emaus’ numbers were inflated by the Pacific Coast League. Turner’s line in Buffalo translates to .280/.329/.420, while Emaus’ Las Vegas rates equate to .229/.311/.369.

So much. I know it’s bad form to complain about work stuff in these trying economic times, and really, I’m in no position to whine about any aspect of a job that occasionally pays me to watch baseball games. But pants are total b.s.

Seriously, I have to wear pants to edit a website? Really? And no jeans; that’s the rule. Every so often we’re allowed to wear jeans because it’s snowing or it’s Christmas Eve or a swarm of locusts has descended upon Manhattan, and even though that day should be massively inconvenient, it’s not so bad because I’m so much more comfortable. Confident too. I look better in jeans.

It was the Media Noche. A couple people asked me about my Spring Training sandwich picks so let Nate’s Tweet stand in for all of them. The Port St. Lucie sandwich scene is bleak. It is almost entirely fast food and chain restaurants. I tried the Angus Three Cheese and Bacon sandwich at Arby’s. It’s gross, I’m sorry to say. I ate a surprisingly decent buffalo chicken sandwich at Ruby Tuesday.

I did have a pretty delicious Jamaican beef patty at a place called Jerk City out on U.S. 1. I would consider a beef patty a sandwich, because I use a very liberal definition of the term “sandwich.” I understand that others would not call this a sandwich.

I’m going back to Florida for the last couple of Spring Training games and then the opening series in Miami. I understand I will have way more exciting culinary options in Miami than I did in Port St. Lucie. I look forward to it.

Hero

Not only is this shirtless man sax-bombing various hilarious locations, he’s doing it with my go-to karaoke song, Wham’s “Careless Whisper.”*

*- Not that I wind up doing karaoke all that often or ever, I just think it’s important to have something in the hopper in case the situation arises. There’s really nothing worse than someone getting forced into karaoke and choosing a song without realizing he doesn’t know the verses or that it’s out of his vocal range. My alternate choice is Blondie’s “The Tide is High.”

What killed the spitball?

Is there a connection in the game today to Frank Shellenback? Yes there is! The most notable connection is Phil Regan, who had a fairly good spitball. Regan went on to become a manager, coach and pitching coach, including coaching on the 2000 U.S. Olympic baseball team, with pitchers Ryan Franklin, Roy Oswalt, Bobby Seay and Ben Sheets*.

* Tin foil hat time, folks.

In many ways we can point the rise and fall of the spitball to one person: Frank Shellenback, the Sinister Minister of the Spitball.

Mat Kovach, The Hardball Times.

A good read from The Hardball Times about the history of the Major Leagues’ most reviled pitch. Kovach credits the resurgence of the spitball to Frank Shellenback, and — though he doesn’t say it outright — seems to suggest that as Shellenback’s legacy wanes, so does the spitball.

I wonder if spitballs, vaseline balls, snotballs, scuffed balls and doctored balls of all varieties are quickly becoming a thing of the past thanks to modern technology. It seems like with the number of HD cameras in stadiums now, a pitcher would need to be David Blaine to get away with it with any regularity. Of course, I guess some subtle sandpaper in the glove could still go unnoticed.

Trick long-snaps

This guy is incredible. Not just at long-snapping, but also at knowing when to use “Electric Avenue” for a YouTube video:

You may know that I played center in high school football, but I was not the long-snapper. I bumped out to end on punts and field goals.

I did, however, produce a montage of trick long-snaps with Redskins long-snapper Ethan Albright when I interned at Fox in DC my senior year of college. He was pretty awesome at it too, though we didn’t come up with quite as many ideas as this guy did.

We did have him snap it through a moving car window, and we used my 10-year-old Nissan Sentra. Funny thing was, my car had been broken into a few weeks earlier. The little corner window behind the back windows was all Duct-taped, so in the finished piece it sort of looked like Albright might have broken the window on one of the previous attempts. When I brought the footage in to the news director he was all, “You couldn’t have used a nicer car?”

Well, maybe if you were paying me, bro.

Something actually happens: Mets make first cuts

The Mets made their first series of cuts today and Adam Rubin has the unofficial list.

There are no huge surprises here, though we can now put to bed the speculation that arose yesterday in some corners that Jordany Valdespin could slip his way into the second-base competition. Valdespin is supposedly a great defender at second, but he never, ever walks.

Specifically, he walked 10 times in 405 plate appearances last season and only twice in 117 plate appearances after his promotion to Double-A. Since it’s not like Valdespin is making a ton of great contact or anything — he hit .272 for the year and .232 in Binghamton — Major League pitchers would absolutely feast on the guy. He swings too much. He’d suck. Unless he made some massive, unprecedented adjustment over the winter, he’s just not anything like ready for prime time.

No-longer Teenage Hurting Machine Fernando Martinez got cut as well. This means he’s out of the running to replace Carlos Beltran in right field should Beltran prove unable to start the season.

That’s probably a good thing. Martinez, like Valdespin, needs more time in the Minors. Though he’s certainly closer to a finished product, he has a lifetime .325 Triple-A on-base percentage and probably needs more exposure to breaking stuff. It looks great when he connects and since he’s still only 22 there’s plenty of time for him, but Lucas Duda and Nick Evans, both 25, are the more polished hitters.

I thought there was some chance Manny Alvarez could sneak onto the roster, but he was a longshot to begin with and the emergence of Jason Isringhausen made that impossible. Alvarez rocked a straight-up ridiculous 9.5:1 K:BB rate in Binghamton last year, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him with the big club in the summer when one of the bullpen guys gets hurt or proves ineffective.