Around the Horn

Garth Brooks, secret part of Cameron-Nady trade?

A left hander AND a billionare!

Non-roster invitee Matt White, 29, made headlines this spring after discovering a $2 billion rock quarry on property he bought from an aunt three years ago. The left-handed reliever could become baseball's first billionaire active player, but it was his pitching he hoped would draw attention.

Some guys have all the luck. Lefthanded pitcher, pulse-haver, and accidental billionaire Matt White was reassigned by the Dodgers organization the other day. You could do worse. In fact, the Mets have. The best the Mets could ever do was invite Garth Brooks in 2000, which if I'm not mistaken, coincided with the beginning of the Mets awful years. Friends in low places indeed.

Note to Omar and Willie the funk-lover: White throws a side-armer.

That's a lot of Mustache Gel!

Stash has a spring training goal. To buy one of those little U-shaped pillows for bus napping with his immense salary?

No, that's not it.

[To] "Prove a lot of people wrong," he said. "They thought my career was over. Even myself, I thought it was over."

Stash will be paid. This could go badly for the Mets. This is how Omar runs the business. I'm not criticizin', just saying.

After sitting on the fringe of the roster for the first month, he got the job and played 94 games at second base, hitting .271 with 18 homers and 62 RBI. And he was rewarded with a contract worth $3.8 million this season, with an option for 2008 that vests with 400 plate appearances.

$3.8 Million smackers. I guess I knew this, but its still unsettling.

Uecker stalker must be in the front row!

It looks like Bob Uecker doesn't want just any attention.

A 45 year old woman, Ann Ladd, was escorted from a Brewers spring training game that Uecker may or may not have been at (he wasn't announcing that game).

The 73-year-old Uecker has said Ladd stalked him for six or seven years, seeking his autograph, sending him unwanted gifts and appearing at ballparks and hotels where he was staying.

You'd think the bar would be a little lower for attendance at a Brewer's spring training game.


Verducci: I guarantee Yankees will not win the World Series

Over at Sports Illustrated, Tom Verducci offers the following analysis and prediction. Teams with young legs win the World Series these days. And that means of course...the Dodgers?

It'll be all SoCal -- the Angels over the Dodgers. Why? Because the best team doesn't win any more; teams with young legs do.

Gary Matthews Jr.s Angels and Luis Gonzolas' Dodgers. Ok. Fair enough.

Hmm...What about teams with young legs and old necks? Here's what he says about the Mets' prospects:

Will I be right? Who knows any more? Last year I had the White Sox and the Cardinals in the World Series. If you're looking for sleeper teams, the Indians and Diamondbacks could get there if their young players pop at the same time. The Tigers might be even better than they were last year, though I worry about fatigue hitting their pitchers, coming off a seven-month season, just as it seemed to hit the 2006 White Sox. The Mets, like St. Louis in recent years, are dangerous because they put three or four MVP-quality players in the lineup every day, mitigating the shortcomings on the rest of the roster.

Instead of picking the Mets, he basically descibes them, attributing their salient dimensions instead to the Dodgers and Angels: an abundance of old or aging starters, questionable rotation, good pitching depth, and some great young talent to plug in the holes.

Basically, he thinks revenue sharing has changed the game; talent is well-distributed, team turnarounds are frequent, experience is not as much of a factor, and the best team on paper or record-wise doesn't win. This is all well and good as long as it doesn't lead you to pick, well, the Angels, once the entire team recovers from injuries ("Once Juan Rivera recovers from his broken leg"..."The Angels are fortified with a large enough inventory of pitching to allow starters Bartolo Colon and Jered Weaver to slowly work themselves back into shape.").

Do with that what you will.