Man, so much of this “respect the other team” stuff bubbling up the last couple of days. I guess it’s that time of the Spring. Jon Heyman:

The Milwaukee Brewers are a young team, but they are growing up fast. They recognize that they are new school and not old school, but that they must go to school to avoid the mistakes of a year ago, when their youthful exuberance alienated their opponents.They will adapt. They will temper things. They will not pull out their shirttails after walk-off wins.

At least that’s the goal after a season of inventive celebrations earned them a fair amount of animosity.

I don’t know how anyone could call the Prince Fielder cannonball celebration a mistake. If that was a mistake, I don’t want to be right about anything ever. That was completely awesome.

So Barry Zito retaliated and nailed Prince with one of his blazing 82 mile-an-hour fastballs this Spring. Ooooh, respect the game, Prince Fielder.

You know how you respect the game? Playing as hard as you can to win, which I’m pretty sure Fielder does. That’s all. Showmanship is different from disrespect.

At SNY.tv today, Mike Salfino weighs in on Fernando Martinez’s ranking on the assorted preseason prospects lists. His big finish:

It’s human nature to be impatient after writing about a guy now for three years. And it’s quite uncommon for a guy to stay atop these lists for that long without demonstrating any Major League ability. However, that’s not Martinez’s fault, as he was just 17 years old when he first came on the scene. He was never expected to debut before this year and he appears to me and many others to be right on schedule with very little left to prove in the high Minors.

I generally try not to get too worked up about rankings on prospects lists, since they’re only lists. As I pointed out two years ago, Albert Pujols was ranked only the 42nd best prospect by Baseball America before his rookie season and Mariano Rivera never even cracked the top 100.

The lists are fun to examine, and they’re useful as quick-and-dirty indicators of a prospect’s reputation, but to me, it’s just not that big a deal if a player is 40th or 75th.

But Mike argues, pretty accurately I think, that Mets fans and certain analysts are close to giving up on Martinez simply because they’ve been hearing about him for so long and he hasn’t produced anything yet. I’ve beaten this drum before: He’s 21. No one should have expected anything out of him yet.

I agree with most of Salfino’s points, as I usually do, and I recommend checking out the column. I’ll quibble with a couple, though:

For one, some of Mike’s argument rests on Martinez’s impressive performance in Triple-A in 2009. But while his .877 OPS was certainly good, it was also only across a 190 plate-appearance sample, far from huge and not even terribly larger than his rough 100 PA stretch in Citi Field.

The other thing — and this is certainly the big thing with Martinez, and the reason he was knocked down all those lists — is the injury thing. Salfino points out that none of Martinez’s numerous injuries have been related, and that not many position players have lost careers due to the injury bug.

I wonder, though, how many position players have never even had careers due to the injury bug. Martinez has always been labeled a great prospect and so will likely be given every opportunity to keep playing, but I wonder how many teams have given up on a Minor League just because he couldn’t stay on the field?

And I wonder, too, if the injuries might be related after all. Are some people not simply prone to injury?

My buddy Charlie is one of the best athletes in my group of friends from high school. He’s a huge guy, easily 6′5″, and he was always among the first chosen in pickup games in every sport. He can dunk a basketball, he’s a dominant force at linebacker in tackle football games, and he’s a three-true outcomes masher in stickball.

But, perhaps as some sort of karmic tradeoff for his size and ability, Charlie gets hurt all the time. There’s no identifiable balky knee or troublesome shoulder, either. It’s all different body parts injured in all different ways.

And I don’t mean he has a low threshold for pain or anything like that — I’ve seen the bruises and the swelling and the x-rays; they’re real injuries. An ankle sprained while pitching. A finger broken by a bounce pass. A collar bone broken when he made the mistake of trying to tackle me.

So with guys like Martinez, or Nick Johnson or Cliff Floyd or or Pete Reiser or whoever, I wonder if they’re kind of like Charlie, and there could be something in their makeup that leads them to get hurt all the time.

Of course, I might have thought the same thing about Jose Reyes at some point in 2004, and he played in nearly every game from 2005-2008.

I’m still bullish on Martinez as a prospect, and I certainly hope the injuries are only a byproduct of a teenager growing into a man as he attempts to compete at an extremely high level.

What Mike points out, after all, is correct: Though few of the stats in Martinez’s history exactly jump off the page, that he’s performed as well as he has at the levels he’s faced at the ages he’s been is remarkable.

That’s not say he should break camp with the big club, of course, nor do I think that’s something being considered.

At the same time, I’m not sure I understand the common Internet idea that Martinez needs to stay healthy for a full year in Triple-A before joins the big club. I don’t see why it would be any more difficult for him to stay healthy in the pros than it would be for him to stay healthy in Triple-A, so if Martinez is performing and the Mets have a need, his injury history shouldn’t prevent a callup.

Smart money says K-Rod knows damn well who Goose Gossage is and pretended he doesn’t to further tick him off. And bully for K-Rod; it’s precisely the right way to play that one.

Really, who the hell knows what’s happening with Jose Reyes’ thyroid? The Mets say one thing, Jose Reyes says another.

This is not a direction I expected Curt Schilling to take, but it sounds pretty cool.

Finally, Joe Janish defends the orange slice in his beer. I’ve never really been a beer guy and, though I’ve since settled on bourbon as my booze of choice, I used to often have to make similar defenses of girly beverages. I don’t entirely get why certain alcoholic drinks are stigmatized, since they’re all really means to the same end. Anyway, this is for you, Joe Janish, from the Kids in the Hall:

I probably shouldn’t publish this, because it could very well end with me getting scolded about how all of our meetings are very important and I should be paying attention to learn all the crucial intricacies of our business for better leveraging low-hanging fruit in the marketplace of the…

See, now I’m boring myself. And meetings scheduled in the middle of a pretty busy day, when the Mets are playing — even if it’s an otherwise meaningless Spring Training game — are terribly frustrating.

I had one of those and I don’t have a DVR at my desk, so I missed a good hour in the middle of the game today. Cerrone’s got a DVR at his desk and wasn’t at the office, so I guess I could have used his. But his TV isn’t as nice as the one at my desk, and I really couldn’t bring myself to watch an hour of already-played meaningless baseball on a pitiful little screen.

So I missed Jack Egbert’s entire uninspiring appearance in the Mets’ 8-4 loss to the Astros. ‘Tis a pity.

I did see all of Johan Santana’s effort. I’m sure someone somewhere will make too much of the fact that he was hit hard, since Santana allowed six hits and four runs and couldn’t get out of the second inning, but it’s Spring Training, and Santana said he felt good after his first game action coming off arm surgery, and that’s all that matters.

If you’re tempted to think Spring Training stats should count for a whole lot, consider this: Astros first baseman Geoff Blum went 4-for-4 in the affair and is now hitting .538 for the Spring. And Geoff Blum has a .697 career OPS. Everyone’s at a different spot in his preseason conditioning, the competition is all over the map, players are tinkering with certain aspects of their games, and sample sizes are tiny. The output — the actual numbers produced in Spring Training games — mean nothing.

Calling the games entirely pointless, though, is likely a bit overblown. Since the managers and GMs and organizational scouts are, in theory, watching these games to assess the talents of the players on the field and will likely partly base roster decisions off those assessments, we can try to do the same. The problem is, without reliable stats to guide us, and without any actual training in scouting, our eyes have a tendency to see what we already believe to be true.

For instance: It certainly looks to me like neither Alex Cora nor Luis Castillo really has the range to be a Major League middle infielder at this point. And man is that frustrating, knowing what I know about how Mike Pelfrey has been hammered in the press for his supposed psychological issues.

The Astros rolled out some Double-A guy named Wladimir Sutil at shortstop who made a great diving play moving to his left to start a double play. Cora dove in vain for one that wasn’t even hit too hard.

That’s a miniscule sample. I’m just sayin’s all. It’s just frustrating. If you’re going to have backup infielders who can’t really hit, it’d be nice if they could defend.

OK, moving on: Clint Everts’ breaking ball moves a lot. So that’s cool.

Jason Pridie made a nice running catch in right field in the ninth, then turned and nailed the cutoff man, who clearly doubled off Kody Clemens at first base. Clemens was ruled safe, probably because his pops was in the house and the ump feared the Rocket’s rep. But the ump should have made the right call, since that story was a big misunderstanding and Roger probably wasn’t fired up for this Spring Training game.

Ike Davis hit a home run to straightaway center, and the legend grows. He also struck out thrice. That part will get glossed over by legend.

David Wright pulled a homer. Josh Thole hit a couple of warning track doubles.

Mike Jacobs walked twice, and has now walked five times in 13 Grapefruit League plate appearances.

Finally, Astros reliever Samuel Gervacio cracks me up. He does this weird thing before he starts his delivery — it looks like he’s showing the ball to the opposing team’s third base coach, like he’s about to perform a magic trick and is assuring the crowd that it’s a regular baseball he’s about to make disappear.

Then he abruptly turns to the batter as if completely startled by the fact that there’s someone standing there waiting for him to pitch, interrupting the magic show he’s performing for the third-base coach and the fans along the left-field line.

He’s pretty good; he struck out 11.2 batters per nine innings in the Minors and I imagine he’ll end up a closer eventually, so you’ll probably see a lot more of his strange performance. But it’s still novel now, so I’ll enjoy it until some team better than the Astros scoops him up and he’s using it to dominate the Mets in the future.

A huge hat-tip to Steve Lombardi for pointing out this column from Kevin Kernan in the Post today. Classic:

The bond of winning a championship together has created a tighter bond between Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter.

They drove here together yesterday from Tampa for the Yankees’ split-squad 6-0 win over the Pirates. And they left together. Before the game they played catch and long toss together, ran together in the outfield and even walked into the clubhouse together along the right-field line at 12:01 after they were done with their early work while a group of Yankees were still taking batting practice.

“They’ve definitely grown closer,” one Yankee official told me.

They are laughing and joking together more, and during Sunday’s workout in Tampa they spent a lot of time talking in short leftfield on a back field. They are enjoying being teammates.

Isn’t it just the sweetest thing imaginable? Remember that, in their halcyon days as bright-eyed young shortstops, long before their well-publicized falling out, when egos and contracts and world championships got in the way, A-Rod and Jeets used to have sleepovers five times a week.

Spring Training is a beautiful time for hope and redemption. Jeter and A-Rod’s friendship is in the best shape of its life.

I’m so glad I set up a Google News alert for Taco Bell:

March 9 (Reuters) – UBS upgraded the shares of Yum Brands Inc (YUM.N) to “buy” from “neutral,” and said it sees an “acceleration” in the Pizza Hut-owner’s refranchising and global expansion initiatives….

Yum Brands, which also owns the KFC and Taco Bell chains, is a dominant player in international markets, but has been struggling in the United States as factors such as high unemployment have dented demand.

Not to make light of the economic climate, but I’m actually a bit surprised that high unemployment would dent demand.

But putting that aside, I like the sound of “global expansion initiatives.” Demolition Man appears more prescient every single day:

“Watching Ankiel try to hit Chapman was somewhere between comedy and tragedy; you got the sense that if Ankiel faced Chapman 100 times, he would strike out 100 times”

A man everyone calls “Goose” thinks K-Rod is a clown. Robble robble robble.

The Big East Tournament starts today. The Big East is so much better than the other conferences in basketball that the winner should just gain automatic entry into the NCAA finals. That’s the only fair way.

Eric Simon’s got another installment of the Make-The-Mets-O-Meter.

I had some leftover ribs for lunch, so excuse the bags under my eyes. That’s the itis.

Also, regarding my snarky comment on Kerry Rhodes: I’ll allow that Rhodes is probably actually a decent safety. I recognize that he covers a lot of ground in the secondary, and I don’t think either Eric Smith or James Ihedigbo can do that as well as Rhodes.

But Rhodes is endlessly frustrating to watch because of the way he bails out on tackles so much and occasionally blows coverages. Brian knows I feel this way because I spent most of our prep time for these every week during the season complaining about Rhodes’ tackling.

So I’m fine with that deal, even if it feels like the Jets didn’t get a great return, just because I don’t want to watch Rhodes not hit people anymore.

Look: I do not aim to make light of the sexual assault accusations against Ben Roethlisberger. But something in the story caught my eye:

A 20-year-old student in the college town of Milledgeville, Ga., told a police officer that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger sexually assaulted her.

Hold on one second: Milledgeville? How is this the first time I’ve heard of this town? What a shame it should come up in these circumstances.

One of the big stories coming out of Port St. Lucie this year is the battle among a slew of pitchers to become the Mets’ new eighth-inning guy in the presumed absence of the injured Kelvim Escobar, who everyone thought would be the Mets’ eighth-inning guy.

I missed something here, something big. I missed when it became common, accepted fact that all teams need a dedicated “eighth-inning guy” to only pitch the eighth inning. Did someone make some decree? Was I blissfully burying my head in the sand?

I know about the closer. I know all teams, for some reason, need one guy who pitches the ninth inning when his team is leading by three or fewer runs, and that he should not be used in the eighth inning, and never, ever when the game is tied or his team is losing. That makes sense; every team needs someone to accumulate as many saves as possible, or something.

But only in the last couple of years have I learned of this other necessary component of good bullpens: the bridge. The Mets have been searching in vain for the bridge since Duaner Sanchez searched in vain for Dominican food that fateful night in 2006. Aaron Heilman was not the bridge. Roberto Hernandez was not the bridge. J.J. Putz was not the bridge.

Look: I recognize that pitchers — like anyone — prefer to know what job they’ll be asked to perform when they show up at work. And far be it for me, with my spreadsheets and calculators, to point to the days not too long ago when late-inning relievers would regularly throw upwards of 90 innings a season. Game’s changed now.

But it strikes me, as it has for a while now, that there’s got to be a better way. If I were managing a ballclub, I’d want my best reliever in the game in the highest-leverage situation. If that happened to come in the sixth inning, after the starting pitcher grew tired and walked a couple of guys in a tie game, would I be smart to bring in one of the worst pitchers on my staff because I’m reserving a better one for the eighth inning, when he’ll come in with no one on base?

Anyhow, putting that rant aside, as long Jenrry Mejia’s excluded from the big-league bullpen come Opening Day, the Mets will have taken a better approach to building a relief corps this year then they did last year, the offseason of Omar’s much lauded two closers.

Certainly there will be uncertainty. Ryota Igarashi has yet to pitch in real games stateside. Kiko Calero gets hurt a lot. Bobby Parnell is still pretty young, and walks a lot of guys. Who knows when Escobar will be ready? What’s up with Clint Everts, and Hisanori Takahashi and Fernando Nieve, assuming they don’t land in the rotation?

But in collecting a slew of relatively low-risk, high-upside guys — many of whom have potential for a lot of strikeouts, to boot — the Mets will likely be able to find a good mix of effective relievers.

And it’s not as simple as saying, “oh, throw enough [expletive] against the wall, some of it’s bound to stick.” They tried that in 2008, recall, and nothing stuck. It’s a matter of finding the right [expletive], and — and maybe this is blind, Mets-fan optimism — I think it’s a much stickier brand this year.

That’s gross, and I apologize. The point is, no matter how much speculation you read about how and where Pitcher X fits into the Mets’ crowded bullpen, know that the team is better off because of that crowd.

Some guys will crack the Opening Day roster, some won’t. I’ll probably obsess over it like I do ever year, but it won’t matter, since the front office will inevitably tinker until it settles on the right mix. What actually matters is that, if just a couple of the big-upside arms stay healthy and pitch to their potential, the Mets should have a better bullpen than they’ve had in several years.

And this, without having acquired two closers.