With Oliver Perez sitting in the mid-80s with his fastball, I scoured Fangraphs to figure just how many lefties can live at that velocity. Since it’s still March 4, I figured, being generous, there’s still some chance Ollie gets his velocity up to averaging around 88.

The following chart lists all the lefties who threw more than 40 innings last season with an average fastball velocity of 88 or lower. I included their HR/9 — which can be fluky across small sample size, for sure — and their BB/9, just to see if there are any good comps for Perez.

Perez has a career 5.1 BB/9 and a 1.4 HR/9. The only soft-tossing lefty that mustered any success while walking more than four batters per nine innings last year was Pedro Feliciano, and Perpetual Pedro benefited from a 56-percent groundball rate and career lows in home runs per flyball and home runs per nine innings.

All of the lefties who managed to have any success throwing 88 or below in 2010 either demonstrated good control or kept the ball in the park, or both. Obviously there are all sorts of caveats here — for one, some of these guys (like Feliciano) faced primarily lefties, which would improve their ERA+s.

Straight-up: Barring some sort of major adjustment, Oliver Perez would get straight-up rocked in a bullpen role. There’s absolutely nothing he can do at this point that Pat Misch — a soft-tossing lefty with great control — cannot.

Anyway, draw your own conclusions. Small samples at play.

It’s Oliver Perez day here in Port St. Lucie. Both Terry Collins and Dan Warthen spoke about the lefty after his mostly effective two-inning stint against the Cardinals.

The main takeaway: Both the manager and pitching coach seem pretty much resigned to the idea that Perez won’t be regaining anything like his old velocity anytime soon. Collins recognized that the team is soon going to have to make decisions about the starting rotation to be able to stretch out the appropriate pitchers, and admitted that it will be hard for Perez to make a living as a crafty lefty because it requires location and accuracy within the strike zone.

Both Collins and Warthen praised the way Perez hit his targets today, and Warthen noted that Perez was pitching with a good cutter. Collins reminded the press that Perez does get lefties out and said that if and when Perez is eliminated from the competition for the rotation, he will see work out of the bullpen in situations that call for a lefty specialist.

My guess: A guaranteed $12 million buys Perez the opportunity to fail, but — again — he will ultimately be cut loose. Collins will defend Perez now — as a manager should — but it’s impossible to believe Perez can be more effective working in the mid-80s, even just as a lefty specialist, than guys like Tim Byrdak, Mike O’Connor and Pat Misch, who have way more experience operating without an overwhelming fastball.

The Mets, we hope, are now run by some pretty shrewd people, and I find it hard to imagine a couple of successful Grapefruit League innings, with no strikeouts and a strong wind blowing in, are going to convince anyone that Perez, throwing in the low-to-mid 80s, is a different guy than the one with the 6.81 ERA over the past two seasons. Perhaps I’m giving the new front office too much credit, but I really don’t think so.

Also, for what it’s worth: Collins stressed that the second-base competition is a four-man race (meaning Justin Turner is in the mix with Brad Emaus, Daniel Murphy and Luis Castillo) and said he’d try to get every player as many reps as possible until the Mets’ scheduled off day on March 14, at which point he’d like to narrow down the competition.

We’re going to roll out some video Minor League Reports in the coming weeks, but I mentioned Reese Havens a couple days ago and I wanted to follow up.

Two carryovers from 2010 still in the organization told me that the Mets hoped and expected Havens would be in camp competing for the starting second-base job this spring, and that only his injuries held him back.

I guess that’s really not shocking news, and now that there’s a new front office in place I’m not sure how much it matters. But Havens is 24 now, so there’s no sense holding him back if he’s healthy and producing. And it’s not hard to imagine a scenario wherein Havens establishes himself as the Mets’ best option to play second in the Majors by sometime around the All-Star Break: If Luis Castillo wins the job and hits like Luis Castillo, for example, or if Daniel Murphy and/or Brad Emaus wins the job and can’t cut it defensively.

Havens had offseason surgery to shave off a piece of rib that may have irritated his oblique injury in 2010. He will presumably start the year under the watchful eye of Wally Backman in Binghamton.

I kind of don’t give a darn about Perez, but this may be an interesting test of Collins. Martino notes that Jerry Manuel used to ruffle feathers on the team by talking publicly about a player’s job being in trouble, and casts Collins’ statement yesterday as a different kind of approach.

And it is. But isn’t it also the case that, if Martino is right and Perez is released, that Collins is either (a) undermined as a guy who has any kind of authority to speak about such matters; or (b) shown to have been something less than trustworthy based on his comment yesterday?

– Craig Calcaterra, HardballTalk.

Probably worth reading Andy Martino’s original story to which Calcaterra is reacting, too. It’s a good overview of the pending Ollie decision, and what it would say about the Mets’ ability and willingness to cut bait on sunk costs.

As for Craig’s questions, I’d guess that these things are probably all reasonably fluid at this point in the spring, and so Collins could just be reiterating the current plan — giving Perez until March 10 — even while knowing that the plan could be changed any day. And to be honest, as a fan I’d rather have a manager who guards or obfuscates information to protect his players than a manager who essentially airs all the team’s dirty linen to protect his own image.

I’ll say this right now: Barring either a miracle or a massive calamity, Oliver Perez isn’t making this team. The $12 million left on his contract buys him a few Spring Training innings, but nothing more. No sense fretting and whining about it on March 3 unless you happen to a clubhouse attendant annoyed by the extra laundry or a non-roster invitee eying a better parking spot.

I imagine if the Mets had any more certainty in the back end of their rotation or more proven lefty options for the bullpen, Perez would already be looking for work. Hell, think about it: The only team emissary that went to watch him pitch in Mexico this winter was the second-string bullpen catcher.

We can complain about Perez taking opportunities away from other pitchers this spring, but between split-squad games and Minor League camp there are tons of innings to go around. Collins himself said he planned to use his starting pitchers in Minor League games during the last week of Spring Training, rather than expose them to the Marlins, Braves and Nationals. The only good reason to hope Perez is cut March 4 rather than March 11 or March 22 is that then we can all stop talking about it.