https://twitter.com/Miss_Met/status/228884299250798592

That, Shannon, is an important question with a pretty easy answer: It’s R.A. Dickey in a landslide. The only identifiable sleeper candidate is Manny Acosta, who has in the past boasted the team’s most underrated hair. But if I’ve seen Acosta hatless since his return, I can’t remember it.

https://twitter.com/tpgMets/status/228884626251345921

At that rate? Sure. Hairston has done all sorts of valuable Scott Hairston things in his tenure with the Mets: He crushes lefties, he seems willing and comfortable working primarily as a reserve player, and he plays passable to decent defense at all three outfield positions. And almost all the Mets’ outfielders with a shot at a roster spot next season hit left-handed: Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Lucas Duda, Mike Baxter, Matt den Dekker. They’ve got righty-hitting Jason Bay and switch-hitting Andres Torres under control for next year, but it wouldn’t be particularly surprising if neither breaks camp with the 2013 Mets.

https://twitter.com/DanDotLewis/status/228884943546228736

This is really Toby’s department, but I’ll sort of bite: This might as well be a trick question, since the Mets appear to have about eight outfielders in the Majors and Triple-A who look capable of being Major League pieces but probably not Major League starters. At this point, it seems safe to figure that none of Hairston, Torres, Bay, Fred Lewis and Adam Loewen will be more than a Major League piece. There’s still hope for Duda, Nieuwenhuis and den Dekker to emerge as Major League starters, but they’ve all got warts to address before they do.

Duda will hit again, and probably hit enough to be a Major League regular in some form. It’s almost certainly not in right field at Citi Field, though, so for him to emerge as a Major League starter as an outfielder he’s going to have to take to left. Nieuwenhuis might have the best chance of anyone to wind up an everyday player, regardless of his recent struggles. He’ll have to cut down on the strikeouts and improve against lefties, obviously, but he looks good enough to play anywhere defensively and his offensive numbers look palatable if you consider his relative youth and all his missed time last season. It won’t take much improvement for him to become a low/middle-of-the-pack offensive center fielder.

https://twitter.com/TooGooden16/status/228885631395315714

I’ll guess no. Picking up Ramon Hernandez (if it’s only for money) seemed to make sense a week ago, but if the Mets want Johnson around to foster Harvey’s development, I doubt Hernandez’s bat is good enough to make it worth carrying three catchers. And I don’t think it’s time to give up on Thole. By most accounts, his defense has improved a lot this year. His offensive numbers have fallen off a bit, but he’s only 25 and his career Major League rates — the largest available sample — suggest he’s already nearly a league-average catcher.

A fierce storm pounded my neighborhood last night, violent enough to merit watching from my stoop under cover of the doorway. Rain pounded the street and sidewalk and kicked up so much mist that even the few parts of the air that weren’t occupied by raindrops seemed still somehow full of rain. Lightning strobe-lit the sky in sharp bolts and dull bursts. Thunder cracked… thunderously.

By an hour later when I walked to the grocery store, the streets were still quiet in the storm’s aftermath but the rain had subsided to a haphazard drizzle. I got home, made a sandwich, and sat down to watch Matt Harvey pitch.

Let’s talk about the weather: The Mets got caught out in an awful tempest after the All-Star Break, a storm like the one a couple years ago that dropped a tree into my parents’ living room and forced me to drive a half-mile in reverse on the pitch-black Taconic Parkway. Johan Santana and Dillon Gee went on the disabled list, David Wright hicupped for the first time this season and the team’s offense stagnated, the bullpen sucked to new lows, Lucas Duda got demoted, pitchers called out catchers, Terry Collins called out pitchers. Everything went wrong. Cats and dogs, you know.

Then Matt Harvey pitched.

Harvey probably isn’t all the Mets need to get through this. He’ll probably allow some runs this year, and he probably won’t strike out more than two batters an inning. At some point, even if he proves a clear upgrade over the Mets’ other options and a capable Major League starter,  he’ll probably show some evidence why some scouts insisted he wasn’t quite ready for the show. Hell, he probably won’t wind up the best pitcher in Major League history, and he probably won’t lead the Mets to a rash of World Series dominance.

But we don’t have any Major League evidence to suggest otherwise just yet, so we can revel for these next few days in undaunted hope. And even if we’re willing to be reasonable about it and accept right now that he probably isn’t all of those things, we can see the obvious signs of a strong big-league pitcher: a blazing fastball, a biting slider, a heartbreaking curveball. And we can imagine a near future with R.A. Dickey, Harvey and Jon Niese cementing the Mets’ rotation and recognize how it might become a strength. And then, holy hell, Zack Wheeler’s supposed to be better?

Even if the addition of Harvey isn’t enough to reverse the fortunes of the 2012 Mets, last night he established himself as must-see material, a reason to watch and dream on the Mets. 2012 was always supposed to be about 2013 and 2014 anyway, and now we better understand why.