When Do the TRAIDS Happen? Applesauce: Interesting Prospecty Things, Only Eight Days Until the Winter Meetings

Happy Sunday, everyone! Here are some interesting links that I found on this slow morning. Hopefully these will get you through until the football games start (or whatever else you may be up to today):

Meet the Mets & Around the Majors

Here's a review of Chris Capuano's solid 2011 season. Cappy put himself back on the map and will likely price himself out of the Mets plans but if the price (namely his insistence on a two year deal) goes down, I'd certainly be open to a return engagement.

Mets starting pitching prospect Matt Harvey was named the #45 prospect on Seedlings to Stars' Top 100 prospects list. In the linked piece, Nathaniel Stoltz gives an in-depth look at Harvey's 2011 season and what we can hope for from the 2010 first rounder.

Over at Baseball Instinct, they've put up their Mets Top 10 Prospects list, along with some help from the always informative Mack's Mets. There are certainly some interesting insights included in each list and unsurprisingly, they are both headed up by the Mets foursome of pitching prospects.

The Blue Jays acquired infielder Luis Valbuena from the Indians for cash considerations on Saturday. The 25 year old Valbuena, who was designated for assignment last week, showed some promise with the bat in 2009 but a rough 2010 sent him back to the minors where, despite ripping apart AAA pitching at a .302/.372/.476 clip, he only accumulated 44 big league plate appearances in 2011.

Speaking of the Indians, they announced some minor changes to their uniforms on Friday. Taking a page out of the Mets book, they canned the drop shadow from the script "Indians" on their uniforms.

The A's completed their coaching staff by hiring awesomely-named former big league slugger Chili Davis as their hitting coach. I'd always wondered how he got the nickname "Chili" and after searching, I found out that he received the nickname when a friend asked him "How'd the barber cut your hair? With a chili bowl?" after Davis had gotten a bad haircut in the sixth grade. That's not nearly as awesome a story as I'd hoped for.

Peter Gammons took a look at the Rangers signing of Joe Nathan, which finally will send Neftali Feliz to the starting rotation. I understand wanting to have a shutdown closer but I still hate the idea of stunting the development of young pitching prospects in the bullpen, especially a pitcher with the talent of Feliz, who was a big-time starting pitching prospect just a few years ago. It's probably a leftover effect of 2010's Jenrry Mejia fiasco.

Finally, Rockies center fielder Dexter Fowler must have some inside sources in the NBA because he reported the ending of the NBA lockout before anyone else knew. So Fowler lobby to be NBA beat writer?