The Camden Riversharks announced today that designated hitter, Valentino Pascucci has signed a contract with the New York Mets organization. He will join New York’s AAA team, the Buffalo Bisens, of the International League.

“Valentino was a team leader for us. He came in as a former major league payer and worked hard to reprove himself,” Team Manager, Von Hayes said.

– AtlanticLeague.com.

Hat tip to Phil Hoops from NJ.com for the news.

You’re never going to hear me rail against Val Pascucci’s return to the Mets’ organization. I will go to my grave believing he should have been with the big-league club in 2008 when Marlon Anderson was getting so many pinch-hit opportunities, and that he could probably be a decent enough Major League hitter if given an adequate sample of at-bats, despite concerns about his ability to hit big-league breaking stuff.

And Boss is probably being called to duty in Buffalo because Chris Carter’s up with the Mets and Fernando Martinez is hurt, and the Mets and Bisons want a slugger beyond Mike Hessman and Mike Jacobs to put baseballs and asses in the seats. Organizational soldiers Jesus Feliciano and D.J. Wabick — neither of whom has any appreciable power — have been manning the corner outfield spots in Buffalo since the Fernanchise got hurt and Carter left town, so it’s not like Pascucci will be taking at-bats away from any prospects.

Still, now that the club appears to be progressing prospects through the Minors in the traditional fashion, it will likely want to find Triple-A playing time for at least one of several dudes crushing the ball in Binghamton eventually. Nick Evans, Zach Lutz and Lucas Duda are all maintaining OPSes around .950 or above, and all play corner positions currently manned by the likes of Hessman, Jacobs, Wabick, Feliciano and now, presumably, Pascucci.

Signing Pascucci doesn’t prevent any of that from happening, of course, and since I haven’t seen or been following the B-Mets that closely, I’ll defer to the Mets on the decision of when to promote any of those three. It’s early yet, after all.

Probably Daniel Murphy’s forthcoming rehab factors into the shuffling as well, and almost certainly forebodes more Minor League roster shakeups to come. If it’s true that the Mets will look to play Murph at multiple positions, it could be that they don’t want to clog up too many spots in Buffalo with guys that should be getting regular at-bats somewhere.

In any case, this is a good day for the city of Buffalo and fans of Quad-A mashers everywhere. Welcome back, Val Pascucci.