So here’s this person, David Wright, adored equally by Broseph and little girls, who for years has come into my living room and suffocating dorm room and accompanied me over the radio on long car rides, and I’m not really sure I know that much about him. He never has a bad word for anyone, not another player, not an umpire. He always says the right thing, which can be horribly dull. He is never one to lose his composure either – maybe he would spike an occasional batting helmet, but that’s it. He reminds me of people encountered in life that are perfectly nice and no one has a bad thing to say about, but you just don’t ever take any interest in them because they are boring, at least to you. Wright comes on my TV and goes 3-5, and then does it again the next night and the next one and on into forever – his greatness is as easy to overlook as a skyscraper passed by daily. He is perpetually great, a droning of awesome. Wright is consistency, and consistency is monotony, and monotony is by definition difficult to notice.

– Patrick Flood, Exile on 126th Street.

This is an awesome, awesome post that says many of the same things I was, or am planning on saying about Wright in the season-in-preview piece later today, only more creatively.

Flood is spot on about Wright being awesome to the point of monotony, and so boring a superstar that he’s frequently overlooked. I fear the media has created this monster.

You watch Wright speak to the press, it’s like he goes into a zone — so focused it’s almost like he’s at bat or something. Like Flood, I don’t know David Wright, but it sure feels like he’s been exceptionally well-trained to handle the media. And perhaps the best way to handle the media is to never say anything interesting at all. That’s a shame, of course, but that’s probably the reality of it.

I’ve got to shorten these up or I’m never going to finish them. So here goes this:

The Major League second basemen in April: Luis Castillo, Alex Cora

Overview: Luis Castillo is my favorite player in the Major Leagues. I just decided that this morning, on my train ride into work, when I was thinking about writing this preview and thinking about Luis Castillo.

At one point, Castillo was a good defender. That’s no longer the case. At one point, he stole lots of bases. He doesn’t do that a ton anymore, either.

But Luis Castillo perseveres, because Luis Castillo is really really good at what he does. And what Luis Castillo does is get on base without any discernible batting power, no small feat.

Check it out: In this decade, a player has posted an isolated slugging (slugging average – batting average) of less than .100 with an on-base percentage over .350 in over 500 plate appearances 48 times.

That seems like a lot, I realize, but over 10 years, that means it only happens 4.8 times a season. And Castillo is responsible for eight of the 48 instances. No other player has done it more than four times.

For fun, keep the other qualifiers the same and knock the ISO down to .060, and it’s only happened 12 times in the aughts. No one but Castillo has done it more than once, and Castillo has done it five times.

Poke around the Fangraphs.com plate discipline leaders for the past few years. Every season he qualifies, Castillo swings at fewer pitches outside of the zone than nearly every other batter in the Majors, and makes contact with more of the pitches he swings at than nearly anyone else.

This, I’m certain, is all tied up with the lack of power, and it’s not something you need any fancy stats to identify. Dude has quick wrists and a good eye, and usually chops or slaps at the ball.

Because of his abject refusal to swing at bad pitches and his tendency to put good ones in play, Castillo has maintained a good on-base percentage even as the rest of his skills have eroded. And because the ability to get on-base is the most important offensive skill, Castillo is still a worthwhile Major League hitter, no matter how frustrating it is to know he’ll almost never put one past an outfielder, especially from the left side of the plate.

Castillo is a weird outlier among Major League hitters, and I love weird outliers in general. That’s why he’s my new favorite player.

That shouldn’t be misconstrued to mean I think he’s good, though. His near-hilarious lack of range in the field will hurt the Mets this year, as will his big contract the team is unwilling to see as sunk cost. But those are just two more parts of the Castillo mystique.

It’s a safe bet that as long as Castillo is “healthy” — a relative term, in his case — and on the Mets, they’ll be trotting him out to second base, where he’ll take a couple of steps and fall and flail in the general direction of ground balls hit his way. And at the plate, he’ll keep doing his thing, slapping at balls thrown over the plate, taking balls that are inches off of it.

The Major League second basemen in September: Castillo, Cora

There’s certainly a non-zero chance Castillo gets hurt and Ruben Tejada gets a look, but while I really like Tejada and think he’s an underrated prospect, he’s quite young and will probably be given plenty of time to develop as long as Castillo’s healthy. Plus, there’s that whole contract thing.

Reese Havens is a solid bet to be a quick-mover, too. But he’ll be playing his first full season at second base. Shouldn’t be a terrible transition from shortstop, but he’ll have to work on turning the double-play from that spot, hurdling over oncoming runners and Luis Castillo’s big contract.

How they stack up: Chase Utley is better than Luis Castillo in every conceivable way. Martin Prado probably is too. Dan Uggla might be the only second baseman in the Majors who’s worse than Castillo, but it’s pretty close, and he’s a better hitter. Adam Kennedy is a better defender and had a nice year at the plate for Oakland in 2009, but I’m not guessing that will continue.

So even with his impressive on-base percentage, it’s hard to call Castillo anything more than the second-worst second baseman in the division. And if the OBP slips, the defense gets worse or Kennedy maintains his 2009 offensive output, Castillo will be the worst.

According to Mack’s Mets, Val Pascucci has been released.

If I worked really hard, I could probably drum up a post about how he’d be a better fit at first base for the big-league club than Mike Jacobs, but I don’t actually think that’s true, so I won’t. It might be closer than you think, though.

If I were a betting man — which I am, but I don’t know of an outlet that takes bets on stuff like this — I’d say he returns to Japan, where he was a hero, to make some good guaranteed money and enjoy the sweet sounds of the familiar Hey Pascucci chant, embedded below.

But here’s hoping he stays stateside and lands with some team that isn’t already loaded up with Minor League mashers like the Mets are, and that team ends up with a need for some big-league bench power, and Pascucci produces. Oh, and that team is not the Phillies. I want to root for the guy, after all.

It’s funny that, by the circumstances presented by the 2008 season, I’ve wound up following Val Pascucci’s career so closely. I imagine some Yankees fans are now doing the same for Jon Weber. The pursuit of Major League dreams is a strange thing. Here’s to those guys for keeping on.

Actually, what made the Murphy news feel weighty was the timing yesterday, coming on the same day the Mets practically declared a level of panic over their starting rotation, announcing that Jon Niese is suddenly their No.3 starter when the season opens next week….

Jerry Manuel can try to sell it as merely a case of matchups, but if the Mets are so worried about Pelfrey facing the Marlins that they are already reconfiguring their rotation, it’s hardly a good sign.

And you get the feeling Perez is now No. 5 in the rotation only because there isn’t a No. 6.

– John Harper, NY Daily News.

I’ve mentioned this a billion times before, but fretting over the order of the rotation is a huge pet peeve of mine. Your five best pitchers start. You can worry about who is No. 1 and No. 2 and No. 3 if and when the playoffs come around, but in April? Bah. Whatever.

I’m not arguing with Harper’s point that the Mets’ rotation doesn’t look great coming out of Spring Training. I’d be a fool to quibble with that.

But who really cares if Niese pitches Thursday against the Marlins or Saturday against the Nats? By the end of the season, the pitchers who have stayed healthy and effective will have started 30-34 games, and those who haven’t won’t have.

I’m near certain the reason the Mets shuffled their starters had more to do with saving their bullpen than anything else. Does anyone think the Mets think John Maine is their second-best starter and want to reward him for it by trotting him out in the season’s second game? Likely story.

Smart money says the Mets want to space out Maine and Oliver Perez as best as possible to keep the bullpen as fresh as can be, and do their best to make sure Mike Pelfrey, who for all his warts can eat up some innings, and Johan Santana are pitching between them.