Quick Hits: Wednesday Afternoon

Wednesday Tampering
"The Red Sox are planning a major push for Blue Jays right-hander A.J. Burnett, according to a rival executive," says Ken Rosenthal, adding that, "Yankees owner Hank Steinbrenner already has revealed his team's interest in both Burnett and CC Sabathia."

Y'know, as much as I've grown to understand that I think Pete Puma is pretty fucking awesome, I don't think it would be that difficult to slip into that warm bath of hatred for him that most Jays fans seem to already be in.

And More Tampering!
Speaking of shit coming out of Hank Steinbrenner's mouth, Jon Heyman of SI writes, "The Blue Jays can't be happy about those comments, especially considering Burnett has a player option and isn't yet a free agent.

Well, luckily for Burnett, Hank is giving him enough hints to opt out. As if it isn't enough to have the most money, Hank makes it clear to a would-be free agent he'll do better by leaving his current team. Tampering is murky and basically unenforceable, but this was perhaps the clearest example of tampering in recent history."

Holy shit! So true!

Chad Beck: Scouting Report
AZCentral.com gives us a quick scouting report on Chad Beck, the player the Jays got from the D-Bags for Pluckstein, and whose age I can't quite seem to calculate: "He’s a right-hander with a pretty good delivery -- something he apparently worked hard to clean up -- who features a 90-94 mph fastball and a 80-84 mph slider.

A scout who saw him recently said he never really had a feel for a change-up or a split, but the scout liked his arm, liked the command of his fastball, liked the movement on his fastball.

From what I was told earlier in the year, he had only just begun to tinker with a split, a pitch that the organization thought might work for him given his arm angle.

He’s done well as both a starter and a reliever, but it sounds like people seem to see him in the bullpen down the road."

Griffin Being Griffin
Richard Griffin explains in this morning's paper why the Twins are a good model for the Jays to follow. Because, as he's made perfectly clear for years and years, Griff believes in stability at GM, regardless of results. Like how during Terry Ryan's first seven seasons in Minnesota, from 1995-2001, they didn't make the playoffs! Ol' Griff would be patient through times like these, because he knows the importance of letting people finish what they started, even if it takes a really, really long fucking time. And who cares that during all of those first six of those seven seasons, there were only two AL-Central teams other than Cleveland-- who did it every year-- that finished over .500? Griff, insightful baseball man that he is, knows that sometimes the fact a team misses the playoffs for seven straight seasons belies the strong core of players that they're developing. Classic Griff! Sharp dude!