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What a pleasure to see Mets baseball again. Some things I noticed:

• Wonderful to see Josh Thole throw out a runner early in Monday night’s game. At around the .700 OPS he’s been putting up in his career so far, he’s a slight liability with below-average defense. With above-average defense, he becomes a net plus, especially at such a low salary.


• Obviously, one spring outing doesn’t mean much. But considering that much of Dillon Gee’s success last year was built around a home run rate lower than you’d expect, the home run by Rick Ankiel certainly wasn’t great news.


• Really liked Andres Torres’ at-bat in the first, along with his stolen base. I think he certainly comes in with something to prove. Let’s hope the body is willing.


• Daniel Murphy looked just fine at second base

Today, Johan Santana gets his first spring start. It is hardly an overstatement to point out the massive value Santana holds for the Mets. He takes up about 30 percent of the payroll, and the difference between a typical Santana season, and a typical, say, Miguel Batista season is likely to be immense. You can see this at 1 p.m. on SNY. I know I’ll be watching.

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