Friday Everything
Well... OK. Not everything. Parkes beat me to the shit house for the latest installment of shitting on Marty York's bullshit. Fortunately he did not beat me to future Blue Jay Jason Giambi's mantastically veiny arms. (Yes, that's Bill Goldberg and Brian Knobbs with him, and no, I don't have a fucking clue who the fuck they are.)
And by "fortunately" I, of course, mean... holy shit Giambi, what the fuck did you do to your arms?!?!?
Handicapping The Field On Manny Handicapping Your Fielding
Tony Massarotti of the Boston Globe took a twirl through the teams trying to take home the prize in the Manny Sweepstakes. Of course, Tony Massarotti of the Boston Globe might possibly be an idiot, because he lumped the Jays in with the longshots along with the fucking Diamondbacks, Mariners, and Nationals-- behind "favourites" Mets, Phillies and Dodgers, and "the next tier", Yankees, Angels and... uh... Giants???
Regardless, he does make one interesting point, I s'pose: "The big question concerns the money, and the Jays don't appear to have enough. Nonetheless, we thought the same about Roger Clemens years ago, and we all know where he ended up."
Scoff at Those Waiver Pickups If You Will, But...
Fred Clair, longtime GM of the Los Angeles Dodgers, briefly goes through some history to point out that sometimes these seemingly-useless waiver pickups turn into something. Fat chance on these bums, though.
Jays in the AFL and Winter Ball
Jordan Bastian nails it again, keeping tabs on how Jays players are faring in those leagues that I wish someone could come up with just one damn word to describe, instead of forcing me to type out "the AFL, Dominican, Hawaiian and Venezuelan Winter Ball."
Obviously Loewen is the biggest story, and as yet, he hasn't exactly blown the balls off anyone in his bid to reinvent himself as a hitter. He's 3-for-15-- but! With a .381 OBP. Good eye.
First, the good news:
That Aaron Cibia guy is slugging .557 with 4 HR and 19 RBI in the AFL. Scott Campbell's OPS is .805-- .450 of that being OBP. Second baseman Bradley Eamus is OPSing .980 in Hawaii. And Les Walrond? I say more Walrond. The recent pickup has an ERA of 2.12 in four starts with 17 K.
And... the bad news:
Zach Dials sucks. Kyle Ginley sucks. Daryl Harang and Mike MacDonald suck. Ryan Patterson sucks. And Jonas Cuotto gave up three runs (one earned) on four hits, including two homers, with two strikeouts and two walks in 3 1/3 innings in his first appearance in Venezuela yesterday-- though, on the plus side, he did manage to tell Quaid to start the reactor.
Layin' Down the Law
And now a Jays-related roundup of yesterday's ESPN chat with our friend Keith Law, who sounds like he's actually spoken to Ricciardi at the GM meetings. (Wait. They're on speaking terms???)
Keith Law: Yes, I think Romero is likely to win a rotation job if the Jays don't keep Burnett or bring in a starter from outside. Purcey can beat the Rays, but against everyone else he's his usual wild self. Romero's going to throw more strikes and he has three average pitches, probably a 55 changeup. The thing I like about Romero is that the worst-case scenario is a plus pen guy because he won't have a big platoon issue.
Keith Law: They're going to go hard after Burnett, but they're going to come up short $-wise relative to the Yankees and they need to hope that Burnett takes less money to stay in Toronto and work with Arnsberg. Failing that, I think you've got their rotation [Halladay, Litsch, Janssen, Purcey and Romero], although maybe Downs or Cecil takes Janssen's place or they sign a lower-level FA.
Keith Law: Just to follow up, JP did mention to me that they don't want to rush Cecil after he moved so fast in 2008, so I wasn't implying that he'd be in their Opening Day rotation.
Steven (Toronto): Just too piggyback on the last Jays question, if were unable to bring back AJ and not add an impact bat, at some point does JP have to change the strategy for 09? into a rebuilding year? Move Doc for a ton of pieces and dump a contract like Overbay?s onto it? I mean were moving into Year 8 of the 5 year plan????
Keith Law: Like Houston, this is as much up to ownership (and the new President, still not chosen) as it is up to Ricciardi. I suppose he could try to sell them on rebuilding, but I don't think that's his preference anyway. Even with the shaky rotation they should bounce back enough offensively to stay in the low 80s in wins.
Keith Law: I'm on a small-markets kick this week. Both my notes columns from the GM meetings focused on clubs outside NY and LA. I went to talk to the lonely GMs - there were no local writers from Pittsburgh or Toronto there, just one from St. Louis, I think one each from Cleveland and Detroit, etc. Why go annoy Kevin Towers with 20 other writers looking for the same empty quotes when you can have a real conversation with a GM who probably wants to talk to you about his plans?
Seriously? No Toronto writers? Is that how little we care around here? . . . Oh.
Posts
41 rational and reasonable comments:
I have no idea if this guy is an idiot overall, but why is he an idiot for suggesting that Toronto is anything but a long-shot for Manny? He has them as 7th most-likely, and the only team above them that seems weird is the Angels. He's right, the Jays don't seem like they have the money to shell out for him. They might come up with the cash, but they probably won't win if there's a bidding war against any of those other 6 teams above them.
The Giants? The Dodgers, who have already pretty much raised the white flag? Lumping the Jays into the same group as the Nats, Ms and DBs? And I don't see the Phillies or Mets happening at all.
The Dodgers are still more likely than the Jays, and why are the Giants weird? He'd be a great fit there, and they have money, and an easily energized fanbase. They would go bananas for Manny there. Minaya says the Mets are going to concentrate on pitching, but Minaya says a lot of things. He "raised the white flag" on Santana last offseason at one point. I wouldn't put the Phils as the second-most likely, but I'd still put them ahead of the Jays if Burrell goes elsewhere and Manny is still unsigned. He's not really lumping them in with the Nats et al. since he ranks Toronto ahead of them. It's not that bizarre of a list.
On a related topic: Does anyone know if Manny wants to full-time or most-time DH? He isn't going to demand to play the field, or something, is he? If that's what it takes, I'd still be for the Jays signing him, it'd just be handier if he'd be fine letting someone else play left.
If Manny is looking for a long-term deal, he makes more sense for an AL team who can DH him full-time in a few years.
The Giants make no sense because they don't give big money to good players.
I took one look at that picture and thought NKOTB had gotten back together.
I wonder which one got to use the brain cell that night.
Best Regards
John
I can't imagine how any N.L. teams are going to want to get involved at 4+ years, which looks like the minimum of what it will take. If The Jays were in the N.L. I sure as hell wouldn't want them involved. However, they aren't, so I'm all for this.
Does anyone agree that it's going to come down to Boras wanting the cash and fast-talking Manny to sign with the Angels or Yankees, or Manny getting the freedom he claims he wants and signing in Toronto for less?
I see the Douchebags...where are the hot chicks?
This fucking post has been removed by the fucking author.
Manny wants big-time money. As in, $100M/4 years or $120M/5 years. What's the biggest contract that JP has doled out to a free agent? $55M/5 years to AJ? (I guess the $121M/7 years to Vernon sort of counts.) Anyway, my point is that there is no way Rogers will lavish that amount of cash on an aging slugger with clubhouse issues who can't play the field. Especially in the current economic climate. Even if Manny looks like he might have a couple of great years left in his bat.
Manny reminds me of a late-career Dave Winfield. Winfield had a great year as a 36-year-old (OPS+ 159), but was pretty average after that, with the exception of his WS year with the Jays, when he impressively hit 290/377/491 as a 40-year-old.
Manny would die of boredom after 2 years in Toronto.
Note: Manny (career OPS+ 155) has clearly had a superior career to that of Winfield (OPS+ 130), but the comparison isn't *that* far off. Winfield was sort of a Manny-lite. Manny will probably produce more than Winfield did in his age 36-40 seasons, but I think there is a good chance that Manny will start to slow down soon, making him very good but not stratospherically good. Not $25M/year good.
How the fuck does Law think R. Romero is going to be less wild than Purcey? Romero averages 5-6 BB/9IP at almost every level. It doesn't get much more wild than that.
All I know is I'm likely going to spend more time masturbating than watching BJ games if the cocksuckers can't throw strikes. It makes me fucking angry!
Is J.J. Hardy white?
Only on the outside
Manny has 3 great years left in him, and probably capable of being the best hitter on the Jays even when he is 40. Look at some other dynamite players who played till they were in their 40's back when they didn't have all the new health and workout plans they do now. Hank Aaron, Willy Mays just to name a couple. Bonds too, even though he cheated and I really dont like including him. They all produced till they were 40, then tailed off. I dont think it would be a mistake to sign Manny till he was 41.
Think of the lineup not even for next year but for the next 2 or 3 years
Rios
Manny
Wells
Snider
Arencibia
... Its nice to dream
I think the main problem, as usual, is payroll disparity in the AL East. The Yankees are going to spend a huge amount this off-season, likely nabbing two of Tex, CC, Burnett and Lowe. I'm not saying that Rogers or Steinbrenner is right or wrong. But the whole system is pretty messed. If the Jays had a $150-200M payroll they would be a massive powerhouse too, with 2-4 more "A" players to put them over the top. And the Red Sox have been playing virtually the same game, building around pricey key pieces such as Manny, Drew and Dice-K over the last several years (in conjunction with a productive farm system that ranks among the game's best).
To me, the whole thing is just so boring and predictable. If Cashman drops $300M on Sabathia and Teixiera, making insular Yankees fans everywhere drool, can we really say they merit the playoff berths that will likely result?
The Rays are an outlier because of their long run of #1 overall picks, although Friedman deserves credit for making a number of astute moves over the last few years. Eventually the Rays will fall back unless they come up with a much higher payroll (although they may sustain their success for a few years b/c of the accumulated talent).
Moneyball, indeed.
javy vazquez is available, 2 yrs at 23m. decent aj replacement..?
"We're still very interested in keeping A.J., but we've got to start exploring other things too."
(Ricciardi)
According to the ever-informative Sportsnet site,"exploring" meant talking to reps for Lowe, Dempster and Sheets.
Furcal and Giambi were discussed as well.
@plaing I would think so, but I don't know shit.
Dirty Darren!
I disagree. Javy is less AJ replacement, more AJ lite. He's older too. Walks were up this year. I'd stay away.
Plus Ozzie seems to have broken his brain. Nobody wants damaged goods.
Vasquez is a decent option, and he seems ridiculously consistent year to year. His WHIP was up a bit last year, but it was still close to his career average. The problem is that he's pretty mediocre. Statistically he and AJ are really close in career averages in WHIP and strikeouts, and Vasquez actually only walks about a third of the number of batters as AJ.
The probalem is Vasquez won't come free. The ChiSox think they're close, they'll move pieces but only for pieces back. Would Lind make that deal? Maybe...but they don't really need OFs, at least not ones with defense issues. They might have some interest in Lyle or Lind for 1b if they move Konerko.
Maybe they'd have some interest in one of our 'pen lefties so that they dont have to run Boone Logan out for another 50 games this year, and odds are Matt Thornton won't repeat a WHIP .400 below his career averaqe, but then I don't they'd move Vasquez for Tallet and who wants to give up Carlson? Downs, despite his ridiculous 242 ERA+, is probably too rich for a LOOGY on most teams, and I don't want him traded anyways.
Vasquez's walks were up this year, but only slightly up from 2006 and almost the same as 2004. Plus his K/BB is still way better than AJ.
Oh and he's older than AJ by like 6 months and comes on a 2 year deal, he'll only be 34 by the end.
as long as we're kicking around potential aj replacements, how about brad penny, scott olsen, or taking a flyer (flier?) on mark mulder? (since we don't have enough torn labrums around the clubhouse).
Look at Giambi's smile, somone is pokin him in the ass with a big syringe of roids as that pic was taken
The other thing about Vasquez (re: broken brain) he might actually relax and enjoy himself in Toronto. Lord knows the TO faithful are nothing like what he experienced in any of his recent stops.
@Yer mama...I am going to go ahead and take that as a compliment. At my age, I need help with my rep.
With league seeming to be up and running any chance Ryan and Overbay maybe get put into a package for something?
Marty York emailed us. He is a good sport. Damn!
arencibia and campbell are looking good so far in Summer ball
arencibia is a decent prospect, but needs to get on base more. Still, a C who can hit .250 and launch 20-30 bombs is valuable.
campbell looks to me like an inglett-type player. more grit than pure talent, little power, has to fight for a roster spot. could he be a starter? who knows? his offensive numbers seem to profile better at 2B, so the move to third will make it tougher for him.
His offensive numbers profile really well at short, and if he's got the arm for third, you'd figure he'd have the arm for short, but they haven't tried him there yet.
when i was in bantams i played some ss then they moved me to the outfield. fuckers.
but hey. its all good
Marty York emailed us. He is a good sport. Damn!
Damn indeed. Well you'll have to figure out a way to make him an icon. Good luck.
I know you said Ginley's been sucking at AFL, but I think he's actually done quite well considering he's playing a level-and-a-half above where he finished in the summer and he's recovering from an injury and hasn't faced live hitters in two months. He's had some good outings in the desert.
"His offensive numbers profile really well at short, and if he's got the arm for third, you'd figure he'd have the arm for short, but they haven't tried him there yet."
Every non-SS prospect in baseball has offensive numbers that profile better at short. The problem is that most of them can't play the position. Having an OK arm is only one component of playing SS (others include range, agility, soft hands and athleticism - presumably Campbell is lacking in one or more of these areas).
Well it's no longer sunday morning, but i still have beer shits - why aren't i reading about them.....did you blow your wad on friday?
blew their wads on each other
Fuck off Parkes
"there were no local writers from Pittsburgh or Toronto there..."
what, you assholes weren't invited?
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