Monday Grab Bag

Ugh. We’re really dealing with scraps here today, and frankly I don’t plan on getting really get worked up about any of this stuff. But for lack of anything better to post, here you go:

Brandon Phillips?

“If the Reds are serious about trading Brandon Phillips as has been speculated, the Toronto Blue Jays will be all over him. Blue Jays scouts think he has the arm to play third base – Phillips won a Gold Glove at second in 2008, but Aaron Hill’s not likely to be moved – and Phillips is well-known to both general manager Alex Anthopoulos and adviser Tony LaCava,” writes Jeff Blair for the Globe and Mail. “LaCava was with the Montreal Expos in 1999 when Phillips was chosen second overall, and as an adviser with the Cleveland Indians, he pushed for him to be included in the Bartolo Colon deal. Phillips has two years and $19-million (U.S.) left on his contract.”

The question that immediately comes to my mind here is, if LaCava and Anthopoulos know Phillips so well, don’t they know he sucks?

OK, OK, that’s harsh. Fangraphs actually suggests that he’s been a bargain the last couple of years, but that’s mostly based on his defence at second. Maybe that will translate to third—hmmm perhaps I should ask our comments section’s resident pretend footwork expert, JB—but… even if it did, so what? Paying that much money for two years of Brandon Phillips? Why? For fuck sakes, let’s tank this thing proper.

Of course, since this is just Blair’s own speculation, we needn’t be so scared. That is… unless you read about it on TSN, who’ve turned Blair’s musings into the much more concrete-sounding and semicolon-y “Report: Reds shopping Phillips; Jays have interest”.

A Look Back At The Wells Extension…

Great stuff from our pal Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors, who did some digging and found a few reactions to the Vernon Wells extension from way back in December 2006.

Of it, actual genius Nate Silver seriously fucking said: “Toronto did a good job of assessing Wells's value in the short term. As for the risks associated with a contract that stretches past the player's 35th birthday? Consider it a necessary evil for securing a premium player who likely would've fetched at least $150 million in next year's market.”

Peter Gammons—legend, this guy. Legend—wrote that “if you're going to give $18 million to somebody, you want them to be as diligent and as reliable as Vernon. If he went out in the market next year, with Andruw Jones, and Ichiro, and Torii Hunter, I really believe that at his age he might be #1.”

Amazing!

Dierkes also posted his own brief analysis, which is made a hundred million thousand times better by a quick stroll through the comments section. I fucking luff how incredibly fucking wrong the asshole who gets incredibly fucking assholish is. And yes, the irony of that is not lost on me.

Somewhat Quickly

MLB Daily Dish suggests the Jays take a look at Pirates catcher Ryan Doumit and his “big bat” to fill their void behind the plate. And when they say “big bat” they must mean that he literally uses a larger piece of lumber than most, because after taking a look at his numbers I just threw up in my mouth.

Insane, nostalgic Jays fans who refuse to hear anything bad about Joe Carter, even though he really, literally does have to his credit a few of the worst ever seasons for a full-time cleanup hitter and 100 RBI producer—like the .234/.284/.399/.683 turd he laid in 1997, thank you very much, Cito—will be pleased to know that Fangraphs has an award they call the Carter-Batista award (yes, that’s Tony Batista), for players whose offensive value is most overrated because of their RBI totals. This year it went to Ryan Ludwick.

Sticking with the Fangraphs love-in, I can’t remember if we ever linked to Marc Hulet’s review of Jays prospects over the 2009 season, where he reminds us of bright spots, like Carlos Pina and Tim Collins, before crushing us with a look at what Kevin Ahrens has—or hasn’t—been up to.

Once the front-runner for AL Rookie of the Year—which was just won by Oakland’s Josh Andrew Bailey—Ricky Romero faded badly down the stretch and ended up receiving no votes for the award. But he still learned a lot this year, or something uplifting like that. Meh. Jordan Bastian takes a look at how his season turned out.

Speaking of RR Cool Jay, Romero answers some questions from Baseball Prospectus.

Fake Teams talks to Alex Eisenberg of Baseball-Intellect, who is apparently a guy who knows things about stuff, and he mentioned Scott Rolen-bait Zach Stewart as one of his top prospects who aren’t household names, and as one of the prospects most likely to make an impact in 2010. “He'll be the Blue Jay's No. 1 prospect, so he won't be underrated but he's also not a household name. Potential No. 3 starter or top flight set-up man...two plus pitches, ability to miss bats and get ground balls,” he said, adding that he “should have an immediate impact if he starts out in the bullpen.”