This update is powered . . . by a song about Canada, sung in German, by animated cartoon characters:

• Curtis Granderson adjusts to life with contact lenses.
• Joel Sherman on the strategy behind the release of Chad Gaudin:

Instead the key date is March 31 at 2 p.m. That is the deadline to release players with non-guaranteed contracts and owe just 45-day’s pay. So if the Yanks are unable to trade Gaudin between now and then, they almost certainly will release him and pay him that severance, which will be around $720,000.

Since the Yanks are obligated to that amount, I would assume they would be willing to pay at least that much of his salary as part of a trade and, perhaps, a bit more. The one advantage of having Gaudin pass through waivers is that the Yanks can send him to the minors. But there is no chance they would pay him $2.9 million to begin in the minors. After paying the $720,000, they could re-sign him at a lower rate and send him to the minors, but Gaudin probably would not accept that since he likely can find major league work elsewhere if the Yanks outright release him.

• Can a wristband improve a player’s performance?:

The players using Burns’ product, the Power Balance wristband, are easy to spot with the naked eye. Even Bud Selig couldn’t miss the distinctive silver discs on the wrists of Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino, and Jayson Werth – as well as Nick Swisher, Curtis Granderson, and, it is said, that master of performance enhancers, Alex Rodriguez.

. . . Burns brings in Taylor Holiday, a former Yankees prospect, to explain the technology. The little silver discs are Mylar, similar to the material on a compact disc, and are digitally encoded with a frequency “that your body can tune into.” The two-year-old company was founded by brothers Josh and Troy Rodarmel (Josh played quarterback at Yale), who sought to do digitally what some believe can be done with crystals.

Burns and Holiday were in Clearwater, doing the strength and balance tests and handing out wristbands to Phillies. Within hours, a bracelet-wearing Wilson Valdez had slammed the winning home run in the bottom of the ninth (off Phil Hughes, who also wears a bracelet, but never mind that). A day later, the bracelet-wearing Howard and Victorino hit homers against Tampa Bay. Howard hit one to right and one to left.

“We like ’em,” Howard said, laughing at the idea that the bracelet triggered his two-homer outburst. “They match the unis.”

“It’s just some rubber and that little disc,” Manuel said. “I don’t feel anything, no. But you never know. When I was a hitting coach, if a guy thought he was having success because of something, I didn’t say anything. Let him think it.”

• Sadly, Dwight Gooden has another run-in with the law.
• Former Yankee coach (and Met heartthrob) Lee Mazzilli turns 55 today.

Back on Monday.