In addition to rolling out Jason Bay today, the Mets announced that they signed Russ Adams, Mike Cervenak and Mike Hessman to Minor League contracts and invited them to Spring Training, according to a press release that I actually got during the Bay news conference.

Hessman’s name, I believe, surfaced earlier this offseason. I hadn’t heard Adams’ or Cervenak’s thus far this year, but maybe I wasn’t listening closely enough, or something.

Hessman is a big, right-handed three-true-outcomes masher in the Val Pascucci mold, only probably not as good a hitter as Pascucci. Adams was actually the Blue Jays’ starting shortstop in 2005 but has been mostly a Triple-A second baseman for the past three seasons, and Cervenak could probably best be described as the Ty Wigginton of the International League.

What’s most interesting about the three acquisitions, I think, is that all three bring lengthy International League resumes to their (presumed) new club in Buffalo.

Check this out: In the past three years, Cervenak has played a total of 374 games in the International League. In the past four, Adams has played 404 games in the International League. And over the past eight years — eight seasons — Hessman has played 899 games in the International League.

That means that today, the Mets added 1677 games of International League experience.

I imagine this is part of that whole “do better by the city of Buffalo” effort they spoke to last summer, when the Bisons (yeah, it’s plural) were trotting out one of the most embarrassing clubs imaginable. And pretty clearly the Mets have determined that the city of Buffalo wants to see familiar International League heroes prowling Coca-Cola Field.

I mean, far be it for me to understand the mind of the Triple-A fan. But hey, Buffalo: I hope you like Mike Hessman, because that’s what you’re getting.

If you only read one article about Jason Bay, ever, let it be this one, by Mark Herrmann in Newsday. And if you can’t use your one free Newsday article per day or figure out a way around Newsday’s paywall to read this, I feel for you. It’s so amazing and Canadian.

Herrmann catches up with former Islander Ray Ferraro, who used to hang out with Bay’s mother’s sister in tiny Trail, British Columbia. Check it out:

Folks in Trail realize the value of earning your way. It is an earnest hardscrabble village less than 10 miles north of the U.S. border. People think nothing of working seven days a week in a family owned cement plant, as Ferraro’s father did. Or working at Teck Cominco, a zinc smelting firm that also handled gold mining. That is where Bay’s father Dave worked.

Readers of this blog know I usually have little patience for praise lavished upon players for their “blue-collar” mentalities, which is exactly what this piece does for Bay.

But what separates Bay from Alex Cora is the actual ability to play baseball, so that’s good, plus — and this must not be understated — once the verb “smelting” comes in to play, all bets are off. His father is a zinc smelter? That’s badass.

Jason Bay: Officially a blue-collar, badass, hockey-loving Canadian who’d probably be smelting zinc if he wasn’t playing Major League Baseball.

I’ve already said my piece about Daniel Murphy this offseason, but I did that — I think — before his list of most similar batters through Age 24 on baseball-reference came out. So I figured I’d take a look at those and consider Murph’s future once more.

With some of these guys, it’s hard to tell exactly why baseball-reference deemed them reasonable comps — especially 1880s stud Harry Stovey. But I am not here to doubt baseball-reference.

Lee May — the top comp — had a season pretty similar to Murphy’s as a 24-year-old in 1967, then busted out to hit 162 home runs and post a 130 OPS+ over the next five seasons. Never did walk much, but I imagine Mets fans would sign up pretty quickly for that type of production from Murphy.

Bob Chance tallied 106 more at-bats in his career. Adam Lind broke out with 35 home runs for the Blue Jays as a 25-year-old last year. Stovey retired as the all-time leader in homers and stolen bases in 1893. Jeffrey Hammonds had a couple of nice seasons, but could never stay healthy for a full one. Norm Siebern took a step back at age 25 then earned three All-Star nods in the early 1960s.

Conor Jackson followed his decent but unspectacular Age-24 season with similar ones at 25 and 26 before falling victim to valley fever in 2009. Jack Fournier spent the rest of his career mashing in one league or another. Reid Nichols most decidedly did not.

What do these men have in common other than presence on Murph’s most similar list? Not much. Through roughly 600-700 plate appearances through age 24, they had all managed to not embarrass themselves as Major Leaguers, and that’s really it. Stovey, Fournier, and to a lesser extent Siebern and Ross had distinguished themselves by that age, and so probably are not the best comps for Murphy.

As for the rest? Well, no one could tell what the future held for them when they were only 24. And so it is for Murphy. Sure, May and Lind had better histories of Minor League production, but Murphy’s got that businesslike persona and disciplined approach everyone seems to like so much.

Based on the baseball-reference comps alone, eliminating the four guys that don’t seem right, I’d say there’s a 33 percent chance Murphy becomes a legitimate slugger, a 33 percent chance he really contributes anything, a 16.67 percent chance he becomes a decent but injury prone player, and a 16.67 percent chance he has two more decent seasons then succumbs to valley fever.

Of course, it doesn’t really work like that. The point is that, while it might seem easy to judge a player on his first 707 plate appearances, it’s just not.

I’m not certain Murphy is the answer moving forward for the Mets at first base, but since he’s young, inexpensive, and appears able with the glove, he should be given the chance to play himself out of the position in 2010. A right-handed hitting complement like Ryan Garko would be a nice acquisition, but Murph is too young to be given up on entirely.