We gotta believe

This was the view outside my window this afternoon… it hardly seems possible, but baseball season really isn’t that far away.

In addition to our usual off-season silliness – articles about how the Mets should retire Mike Piazza‘s #31 to “steal the Yankees’ thunder,” Las Vegas oddsmakers’ predictions about how many games your favorite team will win, and Jerry Seinfeld still trying to get Bobby Ojeda‘s SNY job back – there were actual glimmers of baseball news from Port St. Lucie.

While Bobby Parnell won’t address the media until tomorrow, ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin says that the Mets’ once and future closer is only likely to spend the first two to three weeks of the season on the disabled list after having Tommy John surgery on April 8, 2014.

And while that’s definitely good news, I’m not all that concerned about Parnell’s absence even if it lasts longer. I’m confident that Jenrry Mejia, Jeurys Familia and Vic Black can handle the job. Parnell will just give Terry Collins another option. (If anything, I’m concerned about whether Terry can effectively balance the bullpen workload or if he will overuse “favorites” while failing to get enough regular work for others.)

I certainly like the attitudes of our bullpen guys.

“I think this is the year,” Familia told NJ.com’s Mike Vorkunov.

When asked about Matt Harvey‘s talk about the Mets winning a World Series championship, Mejia told Vorkunov. “I think that’s good because we gotta believe,” he says. “If we don’t believe about our team, we’re gonna lose.”

On February 17th with icicles outside my window, I agree with Mejia. We gotta believe that we’re gonna see baseball weather, that the Mets are gonna be good, and this really could be the year.