Mets morning news: Travis d'Arnaud has his cast removed, Jeremy Hefner is improving

The series against the Marlins wasn't a whole lot of fun, but hopefully the series against the Nationals will be a bit more fun to watch. Up first will be the improved Jeremy Hefner taking on Jordan Zimmermann of the Nats.

We're getting closer to seeing Zack Wheeler make his major league debut, and Travis d'Arnaud could certainly be up this year as well. The young catcher has been cleared to resume rehab, and hopefully will be back playing in the not-too-distant future.

Former Mets championship outfielder Ron Swoboda writes about Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle in the New York Times.

Yesterday at AA

While there wasn't a ton of Mets news breaking yesterday, there was still plenty going on at AA. We'll start with the 22nd episode of Amazin' Avenue Audio.

Monday's usually see the release of several performance meters, and we had pitchers and prospects for you yesterday.

This date in Mets history saw Darryl Strawberry taken with the #1 overall selection. It honestly doesn't seem like that was 33 years ago.

Jeremy Hefner has been getting better results of lat, so Rob took a look at what he's been doing differently in order to get more batters out.

Rob also highlighted some of the Mets-related stuff in Baseball America's latest chat.

Around the NL East

The Marlins seem to have the Mets' number in 2013, but they just stink against everyone else. Yesterday it was the Phillies that got to beat up on the minnows, winning 7-2.

With the Mets and Nationals having the day off, the Braves were the only other team in the division that played. They won, hitting a trio of homers against the Pirates in the process.

Around Baseball

The big news of the day was the debut of Yasiel Puig for the Dodgers, and it was certainly a good one. Puig got a pair of hits in the 2-1 win, and also had a big part in the game ending double play.

BtB took a look at how well the Baseball America lists picked out the sport's top players going forward, and it looks as if they've been getting a lot better at it over the past several years. Baseball Nation expanded on that idea a little, looking at drafting to see if it's been improving as well.

Dave Cameron looked at the draft and its failure to send the premier talent to the lowest revenue teams. I was under the impression that the point of the draft was to assure the bad teams ended up getting an injection of top talent, not the low revenue ones.

If you're worried you won't get to use the original troughs in the men's rooms at Wrigley Field after the renovations there, worry no more.

Speaking of the Cubs, Bleed Cubbie Blue is ready to let Carlos Marmol walk.

Finally for today, Baseball Nation compiled a list of all the draft prospects they've profiled thus far. With the draft beginning on Thursday night, this one will probably be of interest to many of you.