Meet the Mets

It was mostly a quiet day at Mets camp in Port St. Lucie on Friday. Terry Collins continues to be disappointed that Ruben Tejada is only going to show up to camp on the reporting date for position players. Rob Neyer summed up the whole situation pretty well over at Baseball Nation. Hey Terry--I understand Ruben's going to play an important role on this team but let's not forget that the guy is just 22 years old and living in a foreign country far away from home.

Mike Pelfrey, meanwhile, turned his ankle during fielding drills but had no problem throwing a bullpen session later in the morning. I've come to the conclusion that Mike Pelfrey is made up of the same indestructible material as Roy Halladay. It's just too bad that he didn't get anything close to HDay1's level of talent.

No need to panic yet, folks: Johan Santana's first Grapefruit League start will be pushed back to the team's second spring game on March 6th in order to give him an extra day of long tossing, which the team had initially forgotten to add into the schedule. As far as I can tell, Johan's left arm is still attached to his body and we're nearly a week into camp. Progress!

Gary Carter's memorial service was held in Palm Beach Gardens, FL last night and the Mets sent a large contingent of current and former members of the organization.

Should the Mets be rooting for Jason Bay to fail? Bay seems like a good guy so I wouldn't want to root for him to fail. Obviously, the best case scenario would be that Bay hits and helps the team win a lot of games or he hits well and Sandy Alderson is able to deal him and save a lot of money and/or acquire a valuable player in exchange. Either way, I personally doubt that Bay's a Met in 2013, mainly because of that looming vesting option and the young crop of outfielders making their way up to the big leagues.

John Sickels released his Top 120 prospects list over at Minor League ball yesterday and the Mets had four players make the list. The names shouldn't be too surprising but it's definitely nice to see a certain outfielder from Wyoming get a vote of confidence.

Around the Majors

The biggest story of the day was the continuing fallout from Ryan Braun's successful appeal of his 50 game suspension. The Brewers left fielder spoke to the media on Friday afternoon and came across well, speaking of integrity and how he was confident that the test was a mistake. Unfortunately, it looks like a bunch of anonymous Mets do not exactly believe Braun's testimony. Over at FanGraphs, Dave Cameron wrote about how confirmation bias can color judgment of Braun's situation.

Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman wants a contract extension and is hoping to have a deal in place by today.

File this one in the "not a surprise" category: Indians outfielder Grady Sizemore strained his back and will likely miss Opening Day. It truly is a shame how far he's fallen over the last few seasons.

Manny Ramirez is back to being Manny, this time as a non-roster invitee with the Athletics. If Ramirez makes the team, he will be 40 by the time his 50 game suspension runs out but it looks as if he can still hit.

The Angels' starting rotation is pretty ridiculous, what with a front four of Jered Weaver, Dan Haren, C.J. Wilson and Ervin Santana. Of course, their offense is pretty strong too, since they've got Howie Kendrick, Erick Aybar, Peter Bourjos, phenom outfielder Mike Trout and some guy named Pujols or something.

Finally, Matthew Carruth took a look at first overall picks in the amateur draft by actual record. Pretty incredible (or dumb) that before 2005, the first overall pick alternated by league every other year. Oh MLB and your archaic, nonsensical rules.