Mets Morning News: Landon Powell Is Now A Member of the Mets So You'd Better Get Excited

Meet the Mets

The Mets continue to add minor league depth as they picked up 29-year old catcher Landon Powell. The former Oakland Athletic will likely serve as the backup to Travis d'Arnaud at AAA Las Vegas early on in the season. He'll be in spring training as a non-roster invitee.

After avoiding arbitration with Bobby Parnell on Thursday, the Mets swapped salary proposals with their other two eligible players Daniel Murphy and Ike Davis. Both players are within a million dollars of the team's offer, which should close enough to come to an agreement and avoid an arbitration hearing. With these updates, it looks like the Mets' payroll ends up sitting at around $95 million.

The 2013 Mets' ZiPS projections were released yesterday and they're not very cheery. ZiPS typically is a bit more conservative in their projections, so it wouldn't be a surprise to see some of these players surpass them (David Wright, for instance).

Despite being ineligible at the moment, Johan Santana hopes to pitch for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic. I don't see it happening but it's probably a good sign that Johan feels healthy enough to try.

Thanks to all of the Manti Te'o hoopla that's in the news, the Brooklyn Cyclones have gotten in on the fun by announcing a promotion called Fictitious Friday, based on Te'o's fake girlfriend and other hoaxes. Really, go read that press release. It is incredible.

Around the Majors

Some very sad news this morning as iconic former Orioles' manager Earl Weaver has passed away at the age of 82.

Arbitration numbers have been exchanged all across the league and here's the list of them. Meanwhile, many players avoided arbitration over the last few days and here's that list.

The Cubs and Diamondbacks have apparently talked about a Justin Upton trade but it sounds like the Cubs cut off those talks. I'm fascinated to see how this whole saga turns out.

Bad break for the Brewers, as Corey Hart needs knee surgery and will miss the first 4-6 weeks of the season.

Deadspin has a really cool piece called Breaking Down The Craziest Half-Inning In Television History, which focuses on a Mets game that was portrayed in the CBS show Elementary. A long read but worth it.

Yesterday At AA

Great stuff from Rob Castellano, as he completed his top 50 prospects list with #1-10 yesterday. Say what you will about what Sandy Alderson's regime has done at the big league level but the team's minor league ranks easily boast more talent than we've seen in years.

Matthew Callan reviewed episode three of the first season of This Week In Baseball.

Brock Mahan recounts some previous January 18th's in Mets history.