Saturday Afternoon Grab Bag

As Parkes already mentioned, today is the beginning of a long weekend in Ontario. Frankly I'm surprised that Parkes even recognizes which day of the week it is, but it turns out he's right.

So naturally, I'm drinking. Not sure what for just yet, but I'm confident something will come up. Or maybe I'll just stay home drinking. Either way. The point is, because the long weekend is upon us, my intentions for the next three days are to be either far too incoherent to type anything or passed out. But before I get too deep into a stupor, here's a quick roundup of what the interweb has been saying about the Jays lately.

The Star Joins The Blogosphere
I know what you're thinking: here comes the big shitting on Griffin! But, no. It's actually sort of been so far so good with the Star's new blog. (Well... except that the fucking Star's main sports page spells the Jays' manager's name "Gibbins".)

Maybe this is just misplaced sympathy because the pictures on the left side of the new blog make the Star's writers look like a cadre of pedophiles, but I think the blog format kind of suits a guy like Griffin. I mean, bloggers are supposed to be full-of-shit blowhards talking out their asses (Wait... what?). Plus, the sheer frequency of the posts means that you can get away with being a lazy cunt about a topic here and there-- and as you may have noticed, that kind of bullshit doesn't fly when you're the baseball authority for one of the country's biggest newspaper.

Yup... I really think it suits him.

Layin' Down the Law
Keef Law was back to his regular gig this week, hosting another chat on ESPN Thursday. As usual, it was pretty good, however it paled in comparison to what was happening on his personal blog-- that being his rebuttal to Bill Simmons' answer to a mailbag question about who should be on "Mount Rapmore", the Mount Rushmore of rap.

Keith asserts that Rakim is far more worthy than a pair of Simmons' choices of the Notorious B.I.G. or Jay-Z. As uncomfortable as I have become agreeing with every fucking thing Law says, I completely fucking agree with him.

And fuck, as good as the post is (despite the lack of love for the RZA), it gets better when you factor in the outstanding comments section. And even better still when you consider Keith's response to the guy who said there is "nothing worse than a bunch of white guys discussing rap".

To wit: "I know one thing that’s worse - saying that discussion of a subject is limited to people of a certain race. That is much worse.

"Don’t worry - I’ll return to more white-people-appropriate topics, like books with words, in my next post"

Nails!

In other Law news, if for some reason you're interested in knowing whether Keith recommends that pitchers in short season ball use brown gloves or black gloves on days that are partly cloudy with at least 80% humidity and the opposing team has four left-handed hitters in the starting lineup in a park where the first base line runs anywhere between due east and east-northeast, there is also an excellent interview with him that was posted this week on Batter's Box.

OK, so are you finally ready for what Law said about the Jays this week? Not so fast, douche. He had some gems about other stuff, too.

Gray (Chicago): KLaw, do you think GMs may just stop dealing with the Orioles at some point? Seems as if it is just easier not to deal with the headache that is Peter Angelos.
Keith Law: (1:22 PM ET ) That Angelos story was ridiculous. He wasn't the holdup. It amazes me how stories like that just get passed around and around until everyone believes that they're true.

I'm not going to lie to you. I completely assumed that the stories were true that Angelos was the holdup, and I don't really know what Law is talking about here. I'm already too drunk to speculate on what might really be going on-- or why everybody is so quick to jump on Angelos. Weird though, huh?

Anyway, that wasn't even the best non-Jays comment. This one nearly had me pissing myself:

Jason (Denver): Even though you seem to be a Rockies hater, what do you think about Greg Reynolds?
Keith Law: (2:13 PM ET ) Jason, you must be new here. I hate EVERYBODY. I hate all 30 teams. I hate their GMs, managers, and clubhouse boys. I hate all prospects, I hate both sides of every trade ever made, I hate any contract signed for over the minimum. I hate fans of all thirty teams. And most of all, I hate YOU. Greg Reynolds is a 4th starter in the big leagues, but that's based on what I saw of him as an amateur and I'd like to see him healthy as a pro.

Gold! OK? We ready? Alright, then on to the Jays stuff...

Matt (Tor): Am I crazy for thinking that the Jays have a good shot at making the playoffs. The Sox and Yanks added nobody in the offseason. The Jays rotation, bullpen, and defense are all near the tops in the league. If Wells and Overbay bounce back the offense will be much improved. I think they can do it! Your thoughts?
Keith Law: (1:35 PM ET ) I'd give them about a one in four shot at a playoff spot. They're not as good as either of the two teams ahead of them, which is why I couldn't give them better odds than that.

Fair enough, though I'm still not entirely sure why the Yankees are definitively better than the Jays at this point. I mean, I understand that the Red Sox, with Manny, Ortiz, Papelbon and Beckett-- as much as I hate them-- are pretty fucking good. But the Yankees? I don't exactly see it.

greg (toronto): One of the arguments made for the Jays passing up on Tulowitzki in the draft was that they already had their SS of their future in either Adams or Hill. But, they had already 2 years to evaluate Hill and 3 years for Adams (and there were already questions draft day about his defense) to determine that they weren?t suited to SS. Did the Jays front office really think that they had that position filled and how big of an impact did that play in not drafting Tulowitzki?
Keith Law: (1:13 PM ET ) I don't believe anyone in the room thought Adams or Hill was the ss of the future. Hill was destined for a position switch, and there were already a lot of questions about Adams' throwing and his bat.

See, now this one intrigues me, because I've tended to defend the Jays decision to take Romero over Tulowitzki-- mostly on the basis that three shortstops in a row as the top pick would have seemed completely, ridiculously excessive, and JP was going to have none of that. But if they really knew that neither Adams nor Hill was the future at SS, what the hell happened here? Did they genuinely believe Romero was better, or did optics come into play? It obviously wouldn't have looked good-- on Adams, in particular-- to take a shortstop after having taken one in the previous two years. (I actually submitted this as a question to Keith during the chat, but I guess it didn't make the cut).

Shorter Randomness:
CNNSI's Jon Heyman gives the Jays a C+ for their off-season moves, saying: "I like Scott Rolen, acquired in a swap of third baseman from the Cardinals for Troy Lauds, for a team that's hoping to win with pitching."

Troy Lauds??? Meh. Close enough... now that he's in St. Louis.

There has been some will-he-or-won't-he chatter about AJ Burnett opting out of his contract at the end of this season. It's completely ridiculous. AJ is gone... unless his arm falls off. Check the Mockingbird for the comparison between him and Carlos Silva.

Lastly, check out our friend Joanna and her site Hum and Chuck for, among other things, an amazing pic of Josh Beckett. If only our Jays trained as hard as he does, eh?

UPDATE: In my drunkenness I forgot I was going to mention that, thanks to our ceaseless bitching about the Jays bullshit ticket plans, we won an Albert-- the good side of our pal John Brattain's weekly Pujols awards over at the Hardball Times. The flip side of the "Albert" is naturally the "Luis", which was handed to the Toronto Blue Jays for their "galactically stupid" ticketing decisions. Best regards John!