FanPost

Wednesday Applesauce

I'm going to be putting these together every morning, but as everyone knows, in order to be successful, a column/blog post needs to have a witty, clever, amazing nickname. Stay tuned as I hope for genius to strike. In the meantime, enjoy today's news.

Around Port St. Lucie

There's not too much to learn from yesterday's intrasquad game. Carlos Beltran and David Wright both homered and John Maine and Freddy Garcia contributed scoreless outings. The injury situation, however, was less rosy. Several reports have said that Garcia is not 100% and he threw no fastballs in yesterday's appearance. Knowing Garcia's injury history, I hope that Jon Niese is prepared to make a return to the bigs.

This approach seems to make the most sense to me in regards to playing Tatis. The guy won't embarrass himself in the field, but his right handed bat is the reason he's on the team. His ability to play multiple positions should allow Manuel to rest a variety of the Mets' left-handed hitters.

The Mets travel to Fort Lauderdale for their first spring training game this afternoon. If you're like me, you're hating the lack of television coverage, but are relieved to know that tomorrow's game will be on MLB.TV. There is radio coverage, but a muted television broadcast is much more effective at work than a muted radio one.

I've been seeing a few stories about Johan mentoring Oliver Perez that seem to have the goal of raising the expectations that Perez will suddenly flip the switch and become worth the $12 million/year contract. Count me as a skeptic. Was Santana not on the team last year? Why did this mentoring not have an effect then?

The lost slugger of the steroid era? I'm not sure we can ever conclusively say that any player is clean, but Delgado seems to be a good bet. It's pretty stunning that he has only made two all-star teams. He also has had the unfortunate luck of playing his prime in hockeyland and his less thrilling farewell tour in the media spotlight. I wonder if that's going to affect his Hall of Fame chances.

Faith and Fear in Flushing is hoping that the former Nationals' fourth outfielder will break the Mets' right field curse.

NL East News

The Nationals may be planning their replacement for Bowden.

Hanley Ramirez is USA Today's top fantasy player with Jose Reyes 4th and David Wright 7th.

The Marlins are having some difficulty finding a spot for former Angels' top prospect Dallas McPherson.

We are going to have to wait quite a while before the first Phillie pick in this year's first year player draft.

This post is a few days old, but it got me pretty excited at the prospect of seeing Hanley and Reyes on the same team.

Jayson Stark focuses on the Braves' offseason emphasis on pitching.

Former Met Jorge Sosa is having visa problems for the Nationals.

Around Baseball

How do you think Juan Cruz took the news that he was going to be classified as a type A free agent? Is there any doubt that this is why he's doing the dead man's float around the free agent pool? It would seem to me that this compensation system has be revisited in the near future.

Jose Canseco should apparently start hiring bodyguards.

Look for the Giants to make a big improvement on last year's 72-90 record. A starting rotation that includes Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Randy Johnson, and Barry Zito can keep them competitive in the NL West.

Philadelphia News

Philadelphia newspapers are no different than any others.

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