Does This Spring Training Storyline Matter, Round 1

And it's time to play every baseball fan's fifth-favorite spring training related game (behind Will This Guy Help My Fantasy Team?, Is The Rookie I Never Heard Of Hitting .545 This Spring For Real, Oh Crap What's A-Rod Going To Say Next? and Whatever Happened To Jayson Stark's Epic 'Stache?), Does This Spring Training Storyline Actually Matter? Let's begin!

Storyline: The Braves Just Signed Ervin Santana
Does It Matter?: Yes
Why?: Because three-fifths of the Braves' proposed starting rotation came down with injuries this spring, and it's kind of hard to compete with a two man rotation. With two of their top five starters hoping to get a group rate discount on Tommy John surgery, the Braves went out and got the best pitcher left on the market because otherwise this season - which is one of the last seasons in which guys like Heyward, Simmons, and Freeman will be dirt-cheap - would have gone down the toilet. For the rest of us, it means we can stop hearing "Is the compensation pick hurting Santana's chance of signing?" The answer was, and always will be, yes.

It Doesn't End Here

Here's the sequence of events:

• St. Louis radio jock and ex-player Jack Clark goes on-air and claims that Albert Pujols' trainer told him Pujols shoots up with PEDs.
• Pujols' trainer says, "Wait a minute, I haven't talked with that guy in ten years and I never said that."
• Pujols says, "I'm suing you."
• The radio station that employs Clark and his partner fires both of them.
• Clark's partner makes some noise about how the radio station hung them out to dry,

End of story. Right?
Wrong.