Friday Morning Applesauce: Harvey Invited To Camp, Dickey Returns

Not much has happened in Mets-land for the last 24 hours, but several items of note have occurred. Most notably the condition of Gary Carter has taken a turn for the worse. This is the kind of thing that makes the Wilpon situation look pretty trivial, and like all Mets fans I'd love to send my best wishes out to Carter and his family.

In more uplifting news for Mets fans, R.A. Dickey has returned to the United States after his expedition up Kilimanjaro. In the end the Wilpon family even gave a donation to the cause which helped Dickey to meet his goals. In what's been a fairly depressing offseason this has been a truly inspiring story.

The Mets officially invited top prospect Matt Harvey to major league spring training yesterday. An invitation also went out to outfielder Matt den Dekker. Spring training games just got a little bit more fun as that means we'll be able to see Harvey and Familia pitching to "major leaguers".

My AAOP just took an unexpected turn for the worst. Indians pitcher Fausto Carmona was arrested in the Dominican yesterday for using a false identity. It turns out that Carmona is actually a 31 year old named Roberto Hernandez. I have a feeling this won't be the last one of these we hear this season as it's not a seemingly uncommon practice at all.

MVP Ryan Braun had his appeal for his positive PED test heard yesterday. There is no word on how it went yet but I'm sure we'll hear in the coming days.

Grant Brisbee looks closer at the impending extension of Cole Hamels. I think I'd fall over laughing if the Jonathan Papelbon contract actually caused them to lose Hamels.

Finally for today, Fangraphs takes a look at Jamie Moyer. Hint: He's old.