Mets Morning News: Mets' teammates thrilled to have Cespedes back, Alderson makes jokes at BBWAA event

Meet the Mets

Mets players are thrilled to have Yoenis Cespedes back. Jeff Paternostro wrote the Cespedes transaction analysis over at Baseball Prospectus.

The signing is a loud statement, writes David Lennon in Newsday. In the Daily News, John Harper writes that it makes the Mets favorites in the National League with the Cubs and Nationals lurking. That all sounds pretty reasonable.

The BBWAA dinner was canceled last night because of the blizzard, but a small awards ceremony was still held. Sandy Alderson walked through the snow to get there and had some good material about Matt Harvey and Scott Boras. There's video of Alderson at MLB.com, as well as some more quotes from Mets players.

There's also a piece at MLB.com looking at the optimization of the Mets' outfield now that Cespedes will be a part of it.

Over at Faith and Fear in Flushing, Greg Prince reacted to the Cespedes news as only he can.

The Mets bringing Cespedes back reminds Mike Vaccaro of the times that they retained Keith Hernandez and, a decade-plus later, Mike Piazza.

If you missed the blow-by-blow of the Cespedes rumors and signing, Tim Rohan recaps all of it nicely in the Times.

ESPN has a list of the ten most intriguing players in the National League East, and as you'd expect, several of them are Mets.

Around Major League Baseball

Mike Trout's passion for meteorology was on display when he called in a blizzard report to the Weather Channel yesterday.

Beyond the Box Score continued its look back at the performance of baseball's major projection systems for the 2015 season.

Yesterday at AA

It was peak Cespedes Avenue yesterday. We did a Cespedes podcast late on Friday night. Here's video of all of Cespedes's home runs with the Mets last year. There were Cespedes contract details and more on the fact that the Mets can give him a qualifying offer if he opts out after this season.

On top of that, the Mets' lineup looks great with Cespedes in it, and the 2016 payroll suddenly looks respectable, too.

Greg Karam continued our countdown of the Mets' prospects with our number three: Gavin Cecchini.