Spring Training Update: Spring Training Still Lame

Soriano's in camp, and nothing was resolved. Really, the most interesting thing here is the difference between the fairly rosy picture of the situation in Ladson's not-subject-to-the-approval-of-MLB-or-its-clubs piece and Dave Sheinin's version in the Post, which has the inside skinny.

Although both sides did their best to appear conciliatory during Thursday's news conference, privately they are far less so. A source close to Soriano said the player is "very mad" and remains adamant about refusing the position switch. "It's going to be ugly," the source said, "because I'm telling you, he won't play."

Note that when I say "most interesting," I don't necessarily mean "interesting."

Who wins the forced smile contest? I say Frank.

Then there's Boswell, who proves that there is absolutely no situation in which he won't at least imply that Jim Bowden's a genius.

When the Nats got a chance to trade for Soriano, they not only saw it as an insurance policy at second base but also as a move that would ensure a motivated Vidro on reporting day. And that's what they got.

Wilkerson, Sledge, Galarraga and six million dollars is all it takes to get Vidro on the treadmill? It'd be worth it at twice the price.

Will Carroll's been embroiled in an imbroglio (that's a gnarly figura etymologica right there) about Mark Prior or something. I've mentioned it only in passing because it's kind of dull and doesn't lend itself to my usual point-at-the-moron polemical style. I mean, when bad writer Will says "stop blogging and start writing," that's easy. When chronic truth-mangler Will tells us to do some actual reporting or at least fact-checking, I don't even need to say anything. And if it's not easy I won't bother, which is why we've seen so little of Dayn Perry in these pages since he gave up the Imaginary Girlfriend of the Week. He's still noxious, but the effort required to point that out these days would make me feel a little bit obsessive.

The important part of the story is that Will made a claim about Mark Prior's health, got publicly beat up on it by people who have a much larger audience than some dude with a blog, and hid behind his source. It's a familiar MO to those us who have been punishing ourselves by watching the Will Carroll Show, and this particular incident is helpful because it's provided us with another all-time Classic Carroll Cuote. In the comments to this post, commenter tem213 breaks the bad news that a guy with a BBWAA card doesn't like Will.

Will, Paul Sullivan takes a nice little shot at you in tomorrow's tribune

Re: the Mark Prior injury report: "And because anyone with access to a Web site can pretend to be a journalist, they often do."

Just an fyi

Will's response:

Why do you think that's aimed at me?

We ought to be able to get a couple of months of snark out of that one.