"And What's The Deal With Grape Nuts?" Applesauce: Sandy's Got Jokes, Picard's Got A Witness, Ottawa's Got the B-Mets?

Meet the Mets

More Wilpon/Madoff news. Late Thursday, Irving Picard filed papers in Manhattan federal court against the Wilpons. The star witness, Noreen Harrington, says that while she was the CIO of Sterling Equities (the Wilpon/Katz owned company) back in 2003, she explicitly warned Saul Katz of concerns that Madoff's returns may be fiction and that "he was either breaking the law or making up his stock trading entirely."

Sandy Alderson was back on the Twitter machine Friday afternoon and the third Tweet of his life was even funnier than the first two from Thursday. "Sandy Alderson: Twitter Troll" is probably one of the greatest developments of this offseason (though looking back, that's probably not such a good thing). Oh well...keep up the great work, Sandy!

Rumors flew on Friday that the Binghamton Mets are close to being sold to a private development firm, which would move the team to Ottawa after the 2012 season and try to line up with the Toronto Blue Jays once the Mets' Player Development Contract expires at the end of this season. B-Mets President Michael Urda, however, said "not so fast" to those rumors. For an in-depth explanation of the Binghamton/Ottawa team's future, as well as where the Mets AA team may end up playing in 2013 and why moving the AA team to Brooklyn isn't an option in the near future, check out Toby Hyde's excellent look into the rumors.

While you're at Toby's site, take a look at his continuing Mets' Top 41 prospects list, which featured a couple of very promising prospects--at #21, SS Philip Evans, the Mets' 2011 15th round overslot draft pick and at #20, SP Akeel Morris from the Virgin Islands (and 2010 10th round pick).

For more prospect love, Howard Megdal shares some of John Sickels' opinions on Mets' prospects from his annual "Baseball Prospect Book". Seedlings to Stars took a look at the best player in the Mets' system by position (with a few honorable mentions added at the end). And finally, Kirk Nieuwenhuis spoke with Anthony DiComo by phone and says that he's 100% for camp and is ready to prove himself to the big league club.

Around the Majors

It's officially baseball season! Well, for the Seattle Mariners, anyway. The M's report to spring training in Peoria today, the first of the 30 teams to do so. Don't forget, just another nine days until the Mets are in Port St. Lucie!

The Pirates are interested in acquiring A.J. Burnett from the Yankees, for some reason. It's too bad that some team doesn't want one of the Mets' albatrosses.

Former Mets closer Luis Ayala has agreed to a one year deal with the Orioles. Wait...let me try that again: Former Mets CLOLser LOLuis AyaLOLa has agreed to a one year deal with the OrioLOLes. That's better.

Finally, you may not realize this but Juan Pierre tied an all-time record last season and with some playing time in 2012, he could become the greatest player in MLB history at this one thing! Charlie Manuel, I beg of you: let him start in left field and let him hit leadoff, too. Oh and bunt a lot. That always works!