Rios Signed and Other Things to Simmer Down About

Players Don't Give a Shit About the Mitchell Report Either
It's been underreported, but Jordan Bastian did some typically excellent work at last Thursday night's distillery district shindig-- at which Vernon Wells, Dustin McGowan and Jeremy Accardo made appearances-- managing to score some candid reactions to both the Mitchell Report, and Gregg Zaun's involvement in the steroid scandal. Funnily enough, those guys appear to give about as much of a shit as anybody else-- which is none. Not any shit at all.

(Well... to be frank, judging by the picture above it would be hard for Wells and Accardo to give a shit about anything until their run in the West Cannington Dinner Theatre's production of Othello is through).

"I know in our clubhouse that we'll probably make a joke out of it and make fun of [Zaun] about it," Vernon said.

That's pretty fucking outstanding because, of course, baseball's sudden, Congressionally-inspired about-face on PEDs is exactly that. A joke. It's also outstanding because, if you're at all like me, you probably sometimes tend to forget that ballplayers are dudes like anybody else, so mercilessly giving their friends shit for things that ought to be off-limits is pretty much par for the course.

Wells also added some additional sense to the picture: "It's part of life and unfortunately it was a part of the game for a while. That's why we made a concerted effort to rid our sport of things like this and try to get to steroid use and hopefully there will be a test we can come up with for HGH and this won't be a conversation anymore"

I wouldn't go quite so far as putting the problem in the past tense, but I mean... yeah. Dull, isn't it? Frank Thomas might say differently, but yeah... pretty much. . . uh. Yeah.

No Seriously, Rios Signed
You see what I did there? I titled this post so it looked like it was going to focus on the Rios signing, and then didn't even lead off with that topic. Mostly that's because Parkes has already covered it, but a lot of that was also for the purpose of having a larf about that lame Othello-ish picture. And even more of it was due to the fact that the Rios deal is hardly news.

Because of baseball's system of indentured servitude, we knew he was coming back. And despite the hysteria that the fact he didn't sign a long term deal is going to cause among some of the more, uh... hysterical fans, this really isn't a big deal. A lot of morons will want to make a bunch of noise about how Rios must be offended that his name surfaced in trade rumours over the winter, but those tools would do well to give the player they think they're defending a little more credit. These are big boys, they understand it's a business. Besides, the fact that he's agreed to a one year pact doesn't mean they'll stop necociating on something bigger. So simmer down already.

Folk the Fucks at FOX
In his latest mailbag, Wilner enlightens us as to why the Jays have removed the bonerrific Saturday 4pm starts from their schedule. Well... at least, he enlightens me. Maybe you already knew all this.

He explains: "MLB doesn't set start times, the individual teams do. The only thing is that FOX holds the rights for Saturday afternoon baseball (post-all-star break), and they used to show their games at 1:00 pm Eastern, which is why the Jays used to have Saturday games start at 4:00 pm for half the season and 1:00 pm for the other half. Now, though, the FOX games all start at 3:55 Eastern, so the Jays can get their games in before or after, if they want them on television. So the Jays choose to do it at 1:00 as opposed to 7:00."

You know... I can fault a lot of people for a lot of things, but I don't think I can really fault the Jays for wanting to get their games on TV. And I guess I understand why FOX would want exclusivity for their precious Saturday afternoon baseball game-- though I'm not exactly why that would apply to a team in FUCKING CANADA. But no, I suppose that makes sense, because their opponents will be American. But regardless of why this is the case, it's a cruel, cruel punishment for anybody who knows how to do a Saturday up right.

I believe Wilner also referred to BJ Ryan as "The Beej". Solid!

Speaking of the Beej... and Hysterical Fans
You're probably already aware that it was revealed on Monday that BJ Ryan's rehab is going well and that he could start the season with the club. That's pretty fantastic news, despite what some of the doctors that frequent the various Jays messageboards would say. In their esteemed medical opinion (i.e because they once heard Jamie Campbell say that it takes a year to fully recover from Tommy John) they're concerned about Ryan being rushed. Except, replace "concerned" with "being blowhard idiots". Forgive me, but I'll take the word of the Jays medical staff over BlueandWhite4Eva69.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. This is what Ricciardi said to the Boston Globe (and classily, not some local hack): "It's been nine months now since the surgery. He threw his second bullpen recently. Until I'm told different, he'll be with us in spring training and ready to start the season. If we have to hold him back a month based on what we see, we'll do that."

What the hell is wrong with that?

Inmates Running the Asylum?
Interesting fantasy-focussed analysis of the Rolen-Glaus trade from Yahoo! this week, which basically says that both are useless as tits on a bull in fantasy terms. Or maybe that just means they're sleepers. Either way, I'm starting to get more and more confused over why I was able to initially convince myself that three years of Rolen is somehow better than one of Glaus. I dislike Joe Crede as much as the next guy, but it's not like dipping into free agency was the only option.

The idea that it comes down to optics-- that Ricciardi didn't want to reach the natural house-cleaning point this September, where the team was on track to lose Glaus, Burnett, Downs, Eckstein, Zaun, and possibly Thomas-- continues to intrigue me. You could throw Reed Johnson in there too. I imagine that list looks a whole lot more palatable to the casual fan when you have Rolen and Downs secured, but the team would almost certainly have been better off with the draft picks-- especially when you consider how quickly guys like Snider and Cecil are flying through the system. It's especially intriguing when combined with the fan-appeasing moves to bring in "dirtbags" like Rolen and Eckstein, and a catcher who can throw guys out in Barajas. No?

Even More Stuff to Please the Peanut Gallery
ESPN has come out with their fantasy preview of the Jays, and even though they're evaluating the team in fantasy terms, writer Christopher Harris seems to have struck a nerve with some of the... you guessed it... hysterical Jays fans. This particular passage seems to have drawn its share of ire:

A.J. Burnett, Frank Thomas, Scott Rolen, David Eckstein, Reed Johnson, B.J. Ryan ... this is a franchise begging for major injuries once again. When everyone is healthy, the offense looks pretty fierce. But will everyone be healthy beyond April 2? We don't think so. The Blue Jays got even gimpier over the winter -- they acquired downside-of-their-career guys like Rolen and Eckstein, stayed put despite question marks in their third through fifth spots in the rotation, and their back end of the bullpen still looks pretty shaky -- and their margin for error is razor-thin. Plus, this team plays in the "AL Beast," in which first and second place are almost automatically out of reach, and Tampa Bay actually seems to be emerging from its franchise-long funk. We're not expecting any surprises from Toronto.

Now, the Tampa stuff is obviously way premature, but otherwise I think it's fairly fair. I know everybody has boners for the bullpen and the youngsters in the rotation, but successful repeats of last season for Accardo, Wolfe, Janssen, Marcum, McGowan and Litsch, and returns to form from Ryan, League and Chacin are hardly sure things. Once again, you'll all need to simmer down.

Hey, it looks like Boston has a shitty schedule to start with!
Hey, it looks like Boston has a shitty schedule to start with!