Fernando Martinez spoke to Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com at the Caribbean Series, and some of his comments lit the Mets blogosphere on fire:

“When [Carlos] Beltran had surgery, I thought I had a chance, and maybe they would give me a chance at center,” Martinez said. “But they get [Gary] Matthews Jr., and now I’m not sure where I am. I just can’t give up.”

“I know I’m a big league player, and I can perform at a high level,” Martinez said. “It’s in my hands, so I have to keep working hard and maybe earn a spot. Maybe I make it to the big leagues with the Mets or maybe another team, but I know I can do it. I just have to keep working and waiting for my opportunity.”

I’m not going to read too much into the quotes, because they read to me like, pretty simply, a confident 21-year-old speaking honestly about his situation. Would anyone prefer it if Fernando Martinez was all, “Did you see me last year? I suck! I don’t deserve to be anywhere near the big-league roster”?

Judging from Mets fan reaction, it seems like many see the comments as just that — appropriate confidence — while others have used them to deem him “the next Lastings Milledge” and other such expletives.

Either way, here are a couple of important things to remember about Fernando Martinez:

He’s still very, very young: We’ve been hearing about him forever, so it feels like it’s put-up-or-shut-up time for the outfielder. But in truth, Martinez was the youngest position player in the Majors in his stint last season, and has been the youngest or among the youngest at his level in every one of his Minor League campaigns. I’d guess a big part of the reason he hasn’t put up huge numbers on the farm is that the Mets have — for better or worse — promoted him so aggressively. A .772 OPS in Double-A, like Martinez posted in 2008, is nothing to write home about. It is for a 19-year-old, though. As John Sickels has pointed out, Martinez would have been a college sophomore last year.

100 Major League plate appearances are not an adequate sample: Sample size. Sample size, sample size, sample size. Now I’m not saying Martinez is certainly ready to produce at the big-league level, but his failures there in 2009 should not be taken to mean much of anything. They’re not a good sign, granted, but they fell so far below his expected Major League equivalency that it’s almost certain he would’ve picked it up at the plate with a little more experience.

Clearly, the biggest concern with the Fernanchise is his inability to stay healthy to this point in his career, not only because it could be a harbinger of more injuries to come, but because, as Keith Law (subscriber-only) points out, it may have already hindered his development by limiting his at-bats.

And I’m not arguing that Martinez shouldn’t spend more time in Triple-A. He almost certainly should. Plus, I’m not sure why I’m bothering to argue against the small contingent of Mets fans who seem to have given up on the guy when I know that, if and when he starts putting up Minor League numbers again, everyone will go back to overrating him as a prospect — as is customary.

But it’s a slow news day and I sometimes feel like I’m the last guy in New York still excited about the kid’s chances. And I’m psyched that, in an offseason that was practically begging the Mets to go out and trade a bunch of prospects in some myopic move, they didn’t.

According to BA’s prospect blog, the Mets have signed Val Pascucci to a Minor League deal.

Hat tip to the great Nate Freiberg and Bobby Valentine in the comments section for the heads up.

Nate is, I should mention, the person who first tipped me off to Pascucci’s existence in the first place, long before he ever signed on with the Mets.

Boss, if you’ll recall, is a large, right-handed three-true-outcomes masher that plays first base and the outfield corners. He earned folk-hero status among certain Mets fans — mostly me and John Peterson of Blastings! Thrilledge fame — by dominating Triple-A pitching in 2008 while the Mets were carrying Marlon Anderson as a bench “bat” all season.

By most accounts, he’s not much of a fielder, and since most of the higher-ups in the Mets organization didn’t seem to even bother learning his name the last time around, I can’t imagine he’ll see any time on the Major League roster in this one. But he’ll put asses in seats in Buffalo, for sure, and should he hit well enough and the Mets carry enough dead weight on the 25-man roster — spoiler alert: it’s a reasonable bet — you can bet I’ll be banging that drum again.

Pascucci endured a down year with Padres’ and Dodgers’ PCL teams in 2009, posting a .793 OPS for the season. But at 31, he’s probably not quite declining yet, and it’s reasonable to expect him to return toward his career Triple-A mean, an impressive .906 mark.

Also, when I tracked him down for a phone interview back in 2008, Pascucci tipped me off to this, a Japanese baseball cheer in his honor. So he’s got that going for him, which is nice:

I’m still trying to process this whole J.J. Putz thing.

The Mets’ much-heralded eighth-inning guy who wasn’t, the dude for whom they traded a slew of young players, came out yesterday and said that the Mets never gave him a physical immediately after the trade, despite the bone spur in his elbow that hampered his 2008 season. Putz called the exam he received during Spring Training “a formality,” and insisted that the Mets convinced him to pitch through pain rather than undergoing surgery recommended by Dr. David Altcheck.

The Mets, in turn, released this statement:

In our review of the player’s medical records in the acquisition of J.J. Putz, we were aware that he had a bone spur before the trade.  He had the same condition in 2008 and was able to pitch with it.  J.J. underwent an exam during Spring Training and an additional exam and MRI before he was cleared to play in last year’s World Baseball Classic.  Unfortunately the spur did flare up again in May, and he missed the rest of the season.

OK. For what it’s worth, Putz did spend time on the disabled list in 2008 with an injury in the elbow, probably the type of thing worth checking out when giving up so many players. But to the Mets’ credit, Putz did pitch pretty well after returning from the injury in late July, so most likely the Mets were guilty, once again, of looking only at the bright side.

It’s worth noting that Putz stands only to gain by throwing the Mets under the bus now. The Amazins have become league-wide whipping boys, so blaming the team for his struggles in 2009 is probably a pretty easy way for Putz to put his best foot forward for his new fanbase in Chicago.

After all, if Putz was in so much pain, why’d he agree to pitch in the World Baseball Classic?

Still, it’s hard to give the Mets the benefit of the doubt in the situation, since everything Putz says seems to jive with everything else we’ve heard about the way the Mets handled injuries last season.

More of the same. It’s Groundhog Day.

Anyway, while it’s certainly bad, it’s also certainly last year’s issue. It reflects poorly on Mets management, for sure, but just about everything from last season already reflects poorly on Mets management. As Matt Cerrone just pointed out to me, the real concern will be when this keeps happening, now that they’ve promised to make changes.

Still, that Putz was injured — and that the Mets knew he was injured — at the time of the deal only thrusts that trade upward in the ranks of epic Omar Minaya failures. Few criticized the deal at the time — I was ambivalent — but the most valuable cog the Mets ultimately got out of the trade was Sean Green.

And — and I’m not sure if the credit should go to Seattle’s scouting or Seattle’s good fortune here — one of the Minor Leaguers the Mets gave up in the deal, Ezequiel Carrera, emerged as a prospect. The outfielder posted a .441 on-base percentage at Double-A last year, and could be better than Gary Matthews Jr. right now.