The big news of the day is the Mets will have to decide whether or not to tender a contract to Ronnie Paulino. Seriously, it gets a little dull right after the Winter Meetings as everyone must need a week or so to recover. All signs point to no on Paulino, as he has come under fire in the press for his preparation and attitude, and there's the whole thing where he hit .268/.312/.351 least year.. The Mets do need to lop someone off their 40 man, and this seems like as good a way as any to do it. It does, however, leave the Mets with only two catchers on the 40-man, and a less than exciting platoon of Thole/Nickeas to kick off 2012. The Mets will also have to make a decision on Mike Pelfrey, though it seems like a foregone conclusion that Big Pelf will get one more season in the Big Apple.
Greg Prince just can't quit Jose Reyes. You know, there's a non-zero chance I will be at a Mets/Marlins game this year. I go to a decent amount of games, and I don't plan going out of my way to avoid a tussle with the Fish. I realy don't know how I am going to react. I imagine the Rum Bar will be prominently involved, though. More Jose news, as over at MLB.com, Bernie Pleskoff takes a look at his impact on the 2012 Marlins.
Toby Hyde has a winter ball update for you. Not much to see here, unfortunately. But hey, at least Francisco Pena is hitting.
The Los Angeles Dodgers are interested in Daniel Murphy. It's so difficult to gauge Murphy's value, not knowing where he will be playing, and considering he missed all of 2010 with an injury. The Dodgers do have some interesting pieces in their farm system, none of which are Tony Gwynn, jr. I might target catcher Gorman Erickson or take a flyer on an upside arm like Chris Withrow.
Colin McHugh has a new blog post up and, as usual, it is quite interesting. I'm glad he didn't get selected in the Rule 5, as he may only have average stuff but he has a plus-plus social media presence.
Apparently Ryan Braun is more testosterone than man, at least according to the Daily News. You guys can keep the hand-wringing going in the comments if you like. Though I doubt you can do much better than Ken Rosenthal, who has actually argues that we don't know anything for sure yet, and THEN launches into a diatribe about the steroid era. That's impressive. There also seems to be some debate on whether or not anyone has actually successfully appealed a test result. MLB says no, but Jay Jaffe, who has done some outstanding work over at Prospectus, has sources that disagree. Frankly, I think this will all go away when the truth finally comes out.
With Rafael Furcal headed back to the Cardinals, it looks like J-Roll is running out of non-Philles options. That's fine by me, as they will probably overpay for his decline years, and keep the team suitably hateable.
Manny will always be Manny.
Finally, after signing fomer Mets prospect Lastings Milledge, the Yakult Swallows are making room for the Blastings era, by officially posting outfielder Norichika Aoki.