Mets Morning News: Nothing like some spring training, off day applesauce

Meet the Mets

Marlon Byrd seems to be all but assured a job on the big league roster to start the year.

Lucas Duda's opposite field power may be in the best shape of its life.

Travis d'Arnaud, meanwhile, still looks likely to start in Triple-A Las Vegas but he's received plenty of on the job training and is confident that he'll be the starter by season's end.

Jorge Castillo writes about the strange, complicated world of Jordany Valdespin (The Man Right Now).

Bobby Valentine is said to be finalizing a deal with SNY to appear 10-15 times as a studio analyst. Cool!

Around the Majors

The World Baseball Classic came to a close last night, as the team from the Dominican Republic defeated the Puerto Rican team in the WBC Championship Game last night by a score of 3-0.

So MLB owners are moving towards eliminating pension plans for non-uniformed personnel because they're all evil or something.

When do prospects break out? At Beyond The Box Score, Chris St. John tries to find out.

Fangraphs continues their positional power rankings, taking a look at right field. Before you ask, the Mets are not last and a certain smiley, gritty ex-Met is. PROGRESS!

Chris Sale will open up the White Sox's season and he's really, really good.

Astros' lefty Xavier Cedeno changes his arm slot versus lefties and righties, an interesting idea in combating platoon split issues.

Yesterday At AA

Chris McShane has another edition of the Make-The-Mets-O-Meter for the position players. It was a busy day for Chris, as he dove into the Mets' bullpen, and also tried to recount the worst outfields of the last decade and whether the Mets can rival them.

The Cardinals dropped former Mets infielder Ronny Cedeno and Rob Castellano wonders if they should go back to the well.

Brock Mahan looks back at March 19th in Mets' history.