Santana Still Healthy Applesauce: Collins Targets Reyes, Braun Wins Appeal

Spring training is seemingly rolling smoothly thus far, and one of the biggest stories will continue to be the Johan Santana watch. Santana threw his third bullpen session yesterday without any sort of discomfort. The true test will probably be to see how he's feeling today, but this is definitely encouraging.

Tim Byrdak will be making some alterations to his throwing this season. I don't like when pitchers do this, especially ones who have actually been performing fairly well with the old slot. This just seems like a precursor to finding out his elbow has exploded to me.

Jason Bay is talking about having a good season again. If he can't return to his Red Sox form at the plate early on I really hope the club goes into full Bay-watch to ensure he's nowhere near reaching his vesting option. Thanks again Omar.

Terry Collins addressed the media yesterday and covered such topics as bunting, the back of the bullpen, and the leadoff spot. He also mentioned that he'd be attempting to toss popcorn down the shirt of former leadoff man Jose Reyes yesterday. I really hope those basketball tickets were freebies, I can't imagine the team can really fit those types of expenses into the budget.

A judge in Manhattan has deferred his ruling on several pre-trial motions in the Madoff case. His decision is set to be released by March 5th.

Toby Hyde released the next four players in his top prospects series yesterday. All four play the outfield, here's a look at #7, #6, #5, and #4.

Howard Megdal seems to agree with Ted Berg that it makes little baseball sense to traid David Wright this season. I do however worry about the financial aspect of the situation though. Speaking of Berg, he takes a look at Dale Thayer and facial hair at his blog.

Ryan Braun has won his appeal of a 50 game PED suspension. I doubt will see many writers backtracking over their initial outrage as the "it's because of a technicality" argument will hit the interwebs in full force today. Hopefully there are more pieces like this calling out the worst of the worst.

Elijah Dukes career has continued it's downward spiral this week. Dukes was pulled over and was found trying to eat his bag of pot while forgetting about the item tucked safely behind his ear. I wish I could say I'm surprised, but honestly, I'm not.

BtB took a look at a potential breakout player in the mold of Jose Bautista. Interesting, and I'm sure a few of us will be keeping an eye on him now. FanGraphs also took a deeper look at Chone Figgins.

Finally for today, Joe Torre and his group are now out of the running to buy the Dodgers. He's got a regular paycheck, so he's still a more likely savior for the Mets than the Wilpons are.