All Your Base Are Belong to Rios

SITE DEAD!!! GO TO NEW SITE!

2010-09-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

The site is now dead. I shot it out back last night.

Please visit it's spawn: Toronto Sports Dummy.

Offseason Party

2009-10-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

I heard the Jays are having an offseason party hosted by new GM Alex Anthopoulos, it's going to be a Taco Party, and you're invited.

Has Wilner Jumped the Shark?

2009-09-27T11:36:00.010-07:00

I can't comprehend how Wilner thinks that this trade offer would be anywhere near as close as what Milwaukee would get if they put Prince Fielder on the market, but according to the normally realistic Wilner, the Jays should offer the Brew Crew this stinker of an offer:

Marc Rzepczynski OR David Purcey

Casey Janssen

Edwin Encarnacion

ONE OF Brad Mills, Daniel Farquhar, or Reider Gonzalez

for

Prince Fielder

JJ Hardy

Even if we are to assume that Hardy for Encarnacion is a wash (which is highly debatable, since Hardy probably has some value, while Encarnacion has absolutely no value, and they both have inflated salaries), the deal boils down to Rzep OR Purcey, plus Janssen, plus a slightly above average prospect for a 25 year old (looking to cash in) who has already hit 50 homers in a season, and currently has 43 homers this year and batting .300. Who cares if it's just a rental? If you're paying $2 for the rental, I'm sure some other team will offer $5.

Purcey is 27 and has done nothing in the majors or minors to suggest he will be anything more than a flamed out first round pick, and Rzep has all the scouts viewing him as a fourth starter.

Does Casey Janssen have that much trade value? Or did Wilner just have too much cough medicine the night he wrote this bizarre post??

Don't be made for a fool

2009-09-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

So recently, the new mantra of the Jays organization seems to be "Come down to see the team play... in doing so, better things will be provided in the future." We're down to the stretch drive, the team is well below .500, the stadium pretty much sucks, and with a straight face they expect people to pay cash, use their time, and head off to see their shitty team wrap up another shitty season?

Bill Simmons recently provided two options that football fans have this year to experience the game, but I found it pretty appicable for Jays fans going down the stretch. Modifying Simmons two door analogy to Jays fans, it would go something like this:

Door No. 1 (more expensive): Lousy seats, lifeless state-of-the-art multi purpose stadium, dead crowds, drunk/bitter fans, hiked-up concession prices, no escape for other forms of entertainment

Door No. 2 (less expensive): Sofa, HD, MLB Package, fantasy scores online, remote control toggling, gambling, access to scores, beer and food in fridge, no traffic

Yes, I'm purposely leaving out the Play-by-play announcing of the game, but you always have the option of the mute button and throwing on some tunes, and having the game as more of a background as well.

In essense though, I know why guys like Cito Gaston, Vernon Wells, and Lyle Overbay go to every Jays home game. They get paid to. What's the excuse for fans to head there? Do the Jays actually believe that Jay fans have no other options?

Baseball Twats

2009-09-06T13:23:00.000-07:00

Someone directed me towards Barry Davis of Sportsnet's twitter account, which is full of either Captain Obvious tweets or Canada Dry tweets. A sampling of perhaps the least insightful sports analysis on the planet, and what my response would be:

Barry Davis Actual Tweet: "I see Josh Towers still can't pitch. Hits Randy Ruiz in the face with a pitch. The dude is just brutal"

All Your Base Response: "Going up and in on a guy in a 0-2 count is pretty much the definition of major league pitching. Ruiz simply didn't pick up the ball. But hey, piling on Towers is pretty much par for the course in Toronto's media."

Barry Davis Actual Tweet: "Scott Downs on to pitch the 8th. His first appearance since August 1st"

All Your Base Response: Contrary to popular belief, Downs does not write J.M.J. (Jesus Mary Joseph) in the dirt behind the mound before he pitches. He actually writes the initials of his two children. Know what I did just there? Provided information about Scott Downs that is actually somewhat interesting.

Barry Davis Actual Tweet: "Travis Snider belts his 6th Homerun off windows retaurant and it left in a hurry. His 3rd since being recalled last week "

All Your Base Response: "Instead of following Gameday, why don't we follow Barry Davis' sporadic tweets which give little information, and random updates of rather trivial points of Jays games?"

Barry Davis Actual Tweet: "Roenicke in trouble in the 5th . After 2 quick outs he gives up a walk and 2 singles . Now 7-2 Rays

All Your Base Response: "Is this fucking serious?"

Rios Not Endearing Himself

2009-09-06T08:35:00.000-07:00

So Alex Rios isn't making many new fans so far in his new city. In 20 games, a shocking .440 OPS, Rios appears lost at the plate and in the field, and single handedly is sinking the team's post season chances.

Some comments from the Chi-Sox faithful's message board from fans on their new centre fielder:

"I tell you what. some big shots in Toronto are smoking cigars and drinking cognac and laughing over the pickup by the Sox... I honestly believe that. This is my first criticism of him and I just can't believe Toronto gave him that contract. Whats even more is Williams picked this guy up... with all the dead wood on this team in Konerko, Dye , Ramirez, this guy is the deadest of them all. "

"He's a lazy slob who does nothing but suck and cash checks!!!! His teammates think he's the devil!!!! Fire Kenny Williams!!!!"

"They hung 3 curveballs IN A ROW to him today and he was under every single one. Get a clue man."

"It's like he has no brains out there and cant communicate. The time with Quentin looked like it happened because no one called the thing! And then it also happened later on that made Dye look bad, but again it's because Rios in CF wasnt taking charge."

A Night At The Can Opener

2009-09-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

I went back to the Can Opener yesterday, not expecting much, and with these lowered expectations had a pretty damned good time. As promised, a chronicling of events that transpired last evening:

5:15pm: Meet my buddies Andy & Chad at Jack Astor's (their choice) for some pre-game food and drinks. Waitress, as per requirement, writes her name on our table. It's Nikki. After she leaves, I immediately bust out the "Cici... and Bret" which, on cue, Andy responds, "And don't forget Nikki!) (reference this Beavis & Butthead Poison viewing... [cue to the last 10 seconds])

5:49: Chad is overexcited thinking that Minka Kelly might be at the game watching Derek Jeter play. Little does he know that Jeter has the day off. And if Minka Kelly came to Toronto, it's much more likely that she would be in Yorkville than the Can Opener.

6:18: Superfast service allows us to leave the bar to head to the game. A limo pulls out infront of us, and 6 guys with Kid Rock t-shirts exit the back of the vehicle. It was a weird pastiche of cultural iconicity that made Andy certain that Kid Rock must be in that limo. None of us were concerned enough of this to investigate. Chad was really anxious to see Minka Kelly.

6:41: We buy our tickets at the ticket booth, and Chad is distracted. He points out that he notices someone familiar to him. He thinks he might be famous. Andy turns around to see who Chad is referring to. It ends up being some guy from Entertainment Tonight Canada. He's standing close to a guy who looks like T-Pain. Chad wants to ask the guy if he's T-Pain. I suggest otherwise.

6:58: Chad discovers that Jeter isn't playing. There is a single tear. Also, no sighting of Minka Kelly. I say it's doubtful she'll be sitting in the left field bleachers with us.

7:03: Some barbershop quartet is singing the anthems. Andy wonders out loud if the Backstreet Boys are the most succesful barbershop quartet of all time. I tell Andy that the Backstreet Boys had five members, so they can't be called a quartet. They'd have to be a barbershop quintet. Andy contemplates becoming the next Lou Pearlman and signing these guys. Chad reminds Andy that Pearlman is now in prison.

7:14: Joba is looking terrible, especially against this joke of a lineup. Chad is giddy thinking that Joba's pitch count and innings count could mark the promotion of Josh Towers soon... This would undoubtedly have Blue Jay fans heads explode having Hinske and Towers in the Yankee lineup at one time. Andy wonders outloud what has happened to Shea Hillenbrand. (Besides tending to his lemurs and minature horses)

7:19: Chad goes for a beer, and Halladay is mowing down batters. With a little bit of a lull, I pull out a trivia question for Andy (which I created from watching the flashback boards before the game). I ask him which five pitchers have the most saves in Blue Jays history. Andy quickly gets the top four (Henke, Ward, Koch, & Ryan), but can't think of the fifth. I give him three hints: (Primarily known as a starting pitcher, He isn't white, and he's currently in the AL West). He guesses Miguel Batista. He is wrong.

7:23: Chad gets back with his beer, Andy asks for Chad's help with the trivia question. He's given the three hints, and immediately guesses Miguel Batista. Still Wrong.

7:39: Halladay is still mowing down hitters. The bleachers are loving it. The game is actually pretty fun. I wonder if I should just simply go to Roy Halladay games. It's almost the only way to safely say that you might have a good time.

7:41: Chad says "Randy Myers?" I remind him that Randy Myers doesn't fit any of the three hints I gave him.

7:44: We realize that Rob Ducey is the Blue Jays alumni tonight for Flashback Fridays. Chad wonders if Paul Spoljaric had a previous engagement.

7:48: Chad says "Kelvim Escobar?" We have a winner.

8:12: I'm off to get a beer and notice a fairly attractive chick wearing a shirt that says "Please tell your Pants not to Point at me." Clearly, this is one classy broad.

8:26: Andy says, "Holy shit! It's a perfect game, so far!"

8:27: Halladay walks a hitter.

8:28: Andy says, "Well, at least it's still a no-hitter".

8:31: Halladay allows a base hit.

8:44: Two Yankee fans from Buffalo are pretending that there's actually a rivalry between Jay fans and Yankee fans. Blue Jay fans in the section are playfully chirping back at the Yankee fans. It seems like they are passionate, but it's hard to take the arguing seriously seeing that the Yanks are 20 games up on the Jays. Right now, it's akin to fans of Team Canada basketball chirping with Dream Team fans. "Oh yeah? Steve Nash is Canadian!!!"

9:03: Chad mentions how the Red Sox like stirring up community pride by blasting the Dropkicks in Fenway and asks if the Jays have a hometown song that riles up the Toronto fan base. Andy mentions that he's noticed that the Jays poor representation is this piece of merde.

9:56: Game was great! Almost worth the $36 tickets and $40 in booze! Off to make the best of the still young night. Contemplating going to Sunday's game.

9:59: Asked Andy and Chad if T-Pain could possibly replace Geddy Lee as the Jays #1 celebrity fan. Let's make it happen.

Diary Post Tomorrow

2009-09-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

I'm off to see the Jays and Yanks tonight at the can opener, and thought this would be the best time to actually do a Simmonsesque-diary post of the experience, which will at least now force me to stay past the fourth inning this time around.

Is anyone else just watching the games now just to see how awesome some of the Jays opponents young prospects are? Neftali Feliz looked like a total beast this week. Evidence below:

More Thoughts on the Future

2009-08-26T16:10:00.000-07:00

Another popular poster on John Sickels' site, Minor League Ball, named "King Billy Royal" is a friend of All Your Base Are Belong to Rios. Threw him a bunch of Jays/Baseball relations questions, and got these responses. Grab a hard drink and read:

What are your thoughts on recent Blue Jays draft signings Chad Jenkins & Jake Marisnick. Do these guys have the potential to be elite players at the major league level?

King Billy: I don’t think either guy can be an elite player, but both have the potential to be very good. I really like Jenkins. He has a great build for a pitcher and a 90-94 MPH heater to go with a plus slider. If he can improve his changeup he has the potential to be a solid #2 starter in the big leagues. Marisnick, while extremely raw, has tools to be a good centerfielder. His power, while decent, is still developing as he fills out and has potential to be a plus skill. He has good speed which, when combined with his strong defensive instincts, should allow him to be a very good centerfielder. His excellent arm should just add to his defensive abilities. I’ve heard Devon White and Torii Hunter comparisons and I am sure the Jays will be thrilled if he can become remotely close to either of those players.

What is the current view of next year's draft class. With the Jays having a boat load of picks in the first 3 rounds, will there be talent there for the Jays to build up the farm system? What names are popping out right now as potential stars?

King Billy: Personally I think it is too early to determine the talent level of next years draft class. Many of the names being tossed around right now for the 2010 first round class will move down the draft ranks by the time the draft commences [I’m looking at you Isaac Galloway]. However, there are some guys who look to be potential impact players. Obviously everyone knows about Bryce Harper, but who are the other potential impact prospects? Matt Harvey, a 2007 high school first round picks, returns to the draft after his college career. I could see him being a potential front line starter with a low 90s fastball and a good breaking ball and change. Bryce Brentz is another intriguing prospect. He has BIG TIME POWER to go with his amazing porn star name. Both are big plusses in my book. Will the talent be there for the Jays to build up its system? Sure. Will they actually accomplish this goal? That depends if JP remains in charge and whether ownership will give its general manager [Please No JP!!!!] the necessary financial resources.

If you could tear down the SkyDome and make a new stadium, which ballpark would you use as a blueprint?

King Billy: I would use AT&T Park in San Francisco. It has great sightlines, fantastic concessions, a unique look, lots of other attractions [gotta keep the wife happy] and a great view of the bay. Besides, what is more exciting then watching kayakers diving into the water after homerun balls?

Who should be Cito's successor? Are there any managerial candidates in the team's minor league system?

King Billy: Johnny ‘the Prime Minister of Defense’ MacDonald. Sure he can’t hit but who wouldn’t want to play for this scrappy guy!!!!

Yu Darvish -- When will he come to MLB. Any chance the Jays attempt to pay his posting fee?

King Billy: I expect him to come to MLB in 2013. I really doubt that his team is in any hurry to post him, especially when you consider that he has been quoted as saying that he has no desire to pitch in the major leagues. In regards to the second part of your question, no there is no chance that the Jays attempt to pay his posting fee under this ownership regime.

Are the Jays the worst franchise in the AL East? (Current state, future hopes). If they aren't, who is in worse shape?

King Billy: Sigh…. .it pains me to admit that the Jays are now the laughing stock of the AL East [go fuck yourself Baltimore]. The Jays have miraculously found a way to combine bad management, under performing key veterans [see Vernon Wells], with uncommitted ownership. Rogers has made it very clear that the Blue Jays are no longer in their future plans. Until they divest themselves of the team, I don’t expect the Jays to spend anything substantial on free agents, and they will be even less committed to the amateur draft [not signing 3 of their first 4 picks this year is not a good thing for a team that is rebuilding]. This is a team that will continue to get worse, before it gets better. Hopefully Paul Beeston can put a team together to purchase this team and get it back towards respectability.

Richard Griffin thinks the Jays should/will sign Chone Figgins? Should he be their #1 target?

King Billy: Hell No!!!!!!!!!!! I HATE when teams sign aging speedsters to long-term contracts. How many players, whose value is mainly due to their speed, age well into their mid/late 30’s? Not many. Teams are constantly let down by these players [see Rafael Furcal] as once their steals drop off, they are nowhere near the worth of their contract. If the Jays are looking for a third baseman they should try to ink Adrian Beltre to a contract. He would give them a decent bat and great glove for at least 3 productive seasons [not to mention that I love the fact that he will begin each at bat with one ball].

Geddy Lee Replaced?

2009-08-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

Know how I know how this is not a good year for the Jays? Minimal sightings of Geddy Lee! While some other franchises see faces like Alyssa Milano, Ben Affleck, or Kid Rock grace their stands, and root for their home team, Toronto's resident celebrity throughout the tough years has always been Rush's lead man.

Maybe I'm just going to games where Geddy is a no-show, but I seemed to see him a lot more in years past. Is it because of the loss of his #1 fan Gregg Zaun, or has this team simply frustrated their lifelong fan to the tipping point?

Hopefully this is just a poor observation on my point, and there is no difference between this year's attendance of Geddy and prior years. But if not, could the Jays be relegated to having a new #1 celebrity fan... perhaps Canadian Idol's Jake Gold!?

All Your Base Are Belong to _______?

2009-08-15T07:43:00.001-07:00

Time to bust out the sweatpants Jays fans, the relationship between the franchise and The Franchise is over, with the team inexplicably dumping their underacheiving superstar for "financial flexibility", which will allow the team to.... overpay for other free agents?

So now the most pressing question is, what becomes of the blog's title? In memory, shall it stay the same, or should the band-aid be ripped off, with a brand new player who will own the base? A poll will be up shortly with the candidates. Stay tuned.

A Look to the Future

2009-08-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

As promised, the next few posts will focus on the Jays farm system, to at least provide another level of analysis in the state of the franchise. Friend of the blog, "Dewey Finn" was kind enough to answer some questions in regards to the Jays system.

For those unaware of Dewey, silly pseudonym aside, he is one of the better minor league analysts I have come across. Controversial and popular with his opinions he puts on John Sickels' site, his insights unquestionably generate more discussion than any other contributer, arguably including John Sickels himself.

On to the questions:

Q1: What are your thoughts about Travis Snider. Is he as can't miss as they come? We've seen similarly hyped, similar body type guys in the past (including King Billy Royal himself, Billy Butler) come up and not produce as many expected. What are the odds that Snider can live up to the projected 30+ homerun .300 hitting masher he is projected to be?

Dewey Finn: The power is for real, no doubt. 30-35 HR seasons are in his future with that excellent loft in his beautiful swing. It is a very powerful stroke that launches baseballs. However, I personally do not see him as a .300+ hitter. A consistent .280+ average is more likely in my opinion. The strikeouts are a big concern along with his inability to play defense. He's very young though, so I do believe he can improve upon his Ks with more experience and ABs. It would be a shame if the Jays have to move him to DH permanently at such a young age. Hopefully he gets a long look at 1B or LF with the chance to improve, and Adam Lind playing in the remaining position. Bottom line though, Travis Snider will be a major run producer in the middle of the Blue Jays lineup for a long time.

Q2: Much was made of the Jays minor league stockpiling of talent in the 2007 draft, but two of the top Jay picks, Kevin Ahrens and Justin Jackson have really struggled thus far in the low minors. What are your thoughts about the futures of these two players?

Dewey Finn: I'm very disappointed in these two guys. When they were drafted, I read some promising scouting and draft reports on them and was very excited as a Jays fan. Justin Jackson supposedly oozed tools, and Kevin Ahrens had the potential to be a power-hitting switch-hitter. I even read some loose comparisons to Chipper Jones. The optimist in me says that they are still VERY young and are in a tough hitters league (FSL) for the second consecutive year (2008 in MWL - also extremely tough on hitters). Unfortunately, their numbers are downright awful, and its difficult to be hopeful of a 'breakout' anytime soon. It seems they have taken a big step back against more advanced pitching. I definitely think they should repeat the level next year (High A). If there is no improvement, not even the slightest, then I do not believe they should be considered in the long-term plans for the big club.

Q3: I was a big fan of Kyle Drabek when he was drafted by the Phils, but after years of shittiness, and then Tommy John, it seemed that his stock was at an all time low last year. All of a sudden, with good winterball numbers, and a big year this year, the Phillies regard him as an untouchable resource. Is this just a classic case of a team overrating a player? And was it stupid of the team not to sell the player at an all time high stock price?

Dewey Finn: I would say its a little bit of both. Drabek has sky rocketed up prospect rankings the past few months. He possesses an excellent fastball and hammer curve combo that he has used to carve up hitters all year. However, as with any pitching prospect, they carry alot of risk, especially ones with an injury history as Drabek (TJ surgery). I think the problem is that teams are worried about giving up the 'next big thing' when trading. Many refer to the Bartolo Colon trade that sent Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips, and Grady Sizemore to Cleveland from Montreal. More recently, the Erik Bedard trade in which the Mariners got fleeced for Adam Jones, Chris Tillman, George Sherill. In my opinion, Drabek should not have been a roadblock for the Phillies to acquire one of the best pitchers in the game in Roy Halladay. Even manager Charlie Manuel publically mentioned his preference for the 'horse' in reference to Halladay. However, Rudy pulled off a great deal in getting Cliff Lee for a significantly cheaper price. Lucky for him, he didn't have to face the wrath of Philly fans.

Q4: Is Bryce Harper the Lebron James of draft prospects? Is he higher regarded that Stephen Strasburg was at this time last year?

Dewey Finn: Fuck Bryce Harper. Yeah, that's right, I said it. Do people realize how young he is and how little he has proven? The hype machine is operating in full force and I am sick of it. Is he the Lebron James of draft prospects? Well with Sports Illustrated covers and featured articles on ESPN, Yahoo!, he is the LeBron James based on hoopla alone. With that in mind, I do believe he is more highly regarded than Stephen Strasburg was at this time last year. Is it justified? Absolutely not.

Q5: After Travis Snider, who is the Jays best prospect?

Dewey Finn: With Marc Rzepczynski now in the majors, I am gonna go with a personal favorite of mine, and that is 2B Brad Emaus. He is relatively unknown and very underrated. However, he plays solid defense at 2B and has an excellent approach at the plate. Heading into the season, Baseball America dubbed him as having the best strikezone discipline in the Jays minor league system. I believe there is also some untapped power potential in his bat that should eventually produce 15+ HRs. He is probably about 2 years away from being a real factor with the big club, but when he's ready, I think the Jays should put him at 2B and move Aaron Hill to his natural position of shortstop.

Q6: I think the Jays will trade Halladay to the Dodgers this offseason, and I don't think the package will include Billingsley or Kershaw. What kind of package would be acceptable for the Jays to move Halladay to LA?

Dewey Finn: If I were the Dodgers, I wouldn't trade Billingsley or Kershaw for Halladay either. However, even without Billingsley and Kershaw being involved in trade discussions, I still do think the Jays can receive an acceptable package in exchange for Halladay. Assuming we can only get prospects, I would be pleased with a return of Dee Gordon, Ethan Martin, Josh Lindblom, and Andrew Lambo. Although these names do not carry the same sex appeal as the prospects that JP wanted from Philadelphia, these are definitely valuable commodities. Dee Gordon, son of Tom Gordon, is an exciting young SS with tremendous speed. Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus made a loose comparison of Jimmy Rollins as his upside. Ethan Martin is a hard throwing right-hander who is still far away, but with a huge potential and a possible front-line starter. Josh Lindblom was a reliever in college, but the Dodgers transitioned him to starting and the results have been good. He does not profile to be an ace, but he is close to being major league ready, and could become a #2 or #3 type starter with 3 solid pitches and excellent command. Andrew Lambo is perhaps the most popular name in the package who has somewhat struggled in AA this year. Heading into the season, Baseball America listed him as the best prospect in the Dodgers system. He reminds me a lot of Adam Lind.

Q7: How do you rate Ricciardi's drafting history with the Jays?

Dewey Finn: I think JP has undeservedly received a lot of heat over the years for his drafting from the media, message boards, and bloggers. Simply put, prospects are hit and miss. Over the last 7 or 8 drafts that JP has been responsible for, I'm sure he has made some selections that he regrets. This is a common denominator for all general managers though, especially the Pirates. However, under JP, the Jays have developed some quality major leaguers, some of which who have the potential to be all-stars. These players include Adam Lind, Aaron Hill, Travis Snider, Ricky Romero, Shaun Marcum, Marc Rzepczynski, Brett Cecil, Jesse Litsch. There are some others on their way up through the system such as Brad Emaus, David Cooper, and JP Arencibia, all of which should have futures with the big club. Overall, I think JP Ricciardi has done alright.

A Lull in the Season's Narrative

2009-08-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday evening. The Jays were triumphant over the Orioles, and the Yankees are up on the Red Sox, 3-0. There is little else on television other than Mr. Perfect vs. Shawn Michaels on The Score, or Crossroads on MuchMusic.

I'm not heading out until later tonight, so it's a perfect time to pull a post out of the blue and put on here. Major problem. Jeff Blair is right... at this juncture, the narrative of the Blue Jays season is now in neutral. The team is lifeless (despite today's victory), and there is little drama in the short term future.

Because of this, now non-stories like this Alex Rios waiver nonsense is now frontpage worthy. Joe Inglett playing left field actually spawns actual debate amongst Jays fans still following the team. If there was an NFL team in Toronto, everyone's attention would be squarely on that right now.

So I've decided that the next few posts will be directed toward the team's long term future... specifically with regard to the team's farm system. The team developing superstars appears to be the only way out of the hole nowadays. With depleted financial resources and an fourth place squad, the rebuilding has to come from within. Look for some hardcore analysis in the coming days. For now, did I mention that this is on Muchmusic right now??

New Feature: Best Baseball Related Twitter Post of the Week:

If you replace "Yankees" with "police" and "Red Sox" with "protestors," the sentence, "The Yankees are beating the Red Sox" is horrible. - Michael Ian Black

September Callups are Coming Soon

2009-08-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

So what's there left this year to look forward to for Jays fans?

Answer: September Callups!!! Fuckin' eh!! Let's quickly take a gander at who we might see.

1. Travis Snider - The Tao says he's back and he's mashing some potatoes and eating them with gravy. Time to bring him back to Poutine Country, and get this Babe Ruth Sequel back in business.

2. J.P. Arencibia - So everyone on Minorleagueball, including Dewey Finn, hates this guy because of his inability to take a walk, and it looks like his pitch recognition is still pretty bad in Vegas. But he has power, so let's get ready for the Mickey Tettleton era.

3. Bubbie Buzachero - Just kidding.

4. Shaun Marcum (Pictured on right)- Possibly? Maybe? Perhaps? Toronto nighclubs, get ready, the party man could be back.

Yeah, so maybe this ain't so exciting. Maybe it's time to fire up Season 3 of Friday Night Lights.

Wikipedia Not a Fan of E-5

2009-08-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

Much has been said about how awful Edwin Encarnacion is with the glove. So, being the investigative site this is, I turned to Wikipedia to learn more about the newest hot corner Blue Jay. What's interesting is that on E-5's Wikipedia page, there is a disturbing amount of detail about his poor defense. Some highlites:

1. 'Defensively, he makes the difficult plays with relative ease, but botches too many routine ones and, in particular, makes ill-advised or errant throws to first base'

2. In 2005 he had the lowest zone rating of any National League third baseman: .741.

3. His 25 errors during the 2006 season tied him with Arizona's Chad Tracy for most errors by a third baseman and his fielding percentage was a National League-low .916

4. The 2008 season saw Encarnación commit 23 errors in 143 games

BONUS DIG: (In 2007) Encarnación was benched again at one point... for not running out a fly ball

Brian Butterfield and Cito certainly have their work cut out for them. But I think it's safe to say that Encanacion doesn't have one fan -- the Wikipedia.

Quickly

As touched upon briefly in a recent posting, the O's appear to be the next team on the brink taking the leap from pretenders to contenders, making the AL East that much more brutal. The Baseball Analysts broke down the future of the Orioles recently, which should provide some more misery for Jays fans.

What's the deal with Survivor contestants and Phillie pitchers? First Cole Hamels shacks up with Heidi Strobel, and now comes news that Kyle Kendrick has hooked up with Stephanie LaGrossa. Are we sure that Joe Blanton didn't knock up Elisabeth Hasselbeck?

I can't count how many people are not fans of Ricciardi, but Sports and the City have found at least one author who says the guy isn't the demonspawn that he has been made out to be.

With Bronson Arroyo's recent revelations about him probably being on the P.E.D. list, don't be surprised if this defense is used more often. Reason? It's actual true and makes sense. Says Arroyo: "Honestly, I would love to not take any of the supplements I take. I'd love to wake up in the morning and have some fruit and a bowl of cereal and have a good lunch, and maybe take a multivitamin for the day, but the reality is, I'm probably not going to be as good a major league pitcher if I do."

Poutini's defeats Smoke's according to this reviewers battle of Toronto's poutine joints.

Scott Rolen Set Free

2009-07-31T17:05:00.000-07:00

When Cliff Lee gets you Jason Knapp, Victor Martinez gets you Justin Masterson, and George Sherrill gets you Josh Bell, everyone had to be a little suspicious when early reports indicated the Jays would receive Edwin Encarnacion and stud prospect Yonder Alonso for Scott Rolen.

Those doubts were proven to be true when the official report came down the wire, and Alonso's name, unsuprisingly was nowhere to be seen. Instead, to accompany Double E on his way to Canada is right-hander Josh "Don't Call Me Jeremy" Roenicke and minor league right-hander Zach "Don't Call Me Dave" Stewart.

Encarnacion was in dire need for a change of scenery. Once a guy with real good promise a few years ago, he's still pretty young, and certainly a viable candidate to be an above average third baseman if his defense improves. His stock really seemed to have bottomed out, so I'll give the Jays credit for the gamble and getting some other live bodies in return for a player whose stock had nowhere to go but down.

To be perfectly honest, I've never heard of "Don't Call Me Jeremy" or "Don't Call Me Dave", but then again, I'd never heard of Jeremy Accardo when the Jays grabbed his then-electric arm from the G-Men. So we'll see how this all shakes down. It's certainly a nice first step in the rebuilding program, and hopefully if/when the Dodgers flame out in the postseason once again, they'll come to the Jays Brass this offseason will a desparate plea for Halladay that includes something resembling fair value for the ace.

Today marked the first baby steps in what should be a long road to recovery. This World Series hangover has been neverending. 16 years strong, what's another half dozen?

I Broke My Internets

2009-07-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

Somehow over the last six months, my computer skills eroded and I'm now a McCainesque luddite, so we'll have to just live with this shittastic template for the forseeable future until I can figure out how to make a better one. The colours have been Blue Jayified at least now.

I know I wrote I'd explain about the hiatus, and I will, with an unveiling shortly, but for now, let's get down and open up this coconut of a season and see what's to make of it.

I've been paying relatively close attention to this team for the past little while, which has included: going to a game (!), watching the team on the tube, and adding baseball writers to my twitter account. Needless to say, I am as well versed as Skip Bayless & Matthew Berry now.

In doing so, I have made three observations:

1) This team is much too old to be this bad. For the team's hitting future to be square on the shoulders of Adam Lind and Alex Rios is saying a lot. Travis Snider, despite the hype, is still an unknown commodity, and the development of top position picks Kevin Ahrens, Justin Jackson, etc. has not been going as people have expected.

2) The Baltimore Orioles are one of the scariest young teams in the majors right now. Yes, a lot was said of their young arms a few years ago, when they had the likes of Adam Loewen, Daniel Cabrera, Hayden Penn, etc., which blew up real good. But the trio of Tillman, Arrieta and Matusz looks really sick, and with the youngsters in the outfield, plus Matt Wieters, plus a sickly low payroll, this team could be in business real soon.

3) When did Kyle Drabek become an uber prospect? I've had this guy in my ridiculously deep keeper league since he was drafted by the Phillies, and up to this year, he was either a) shitty or b) hurt. So he puts it together this year in the low minors, shows promise while being promoted, and all of a sudden becomes the sticking point for the Phils to acquire the best pitcher in baseball? I'm no baseball genius, but something really doesn't compute here. As a quick aside, some of the reported offers the Jays have been making and are getting buffed at seem odd too. The latest was Halladay for Aybar, Wood and Saunders. And that was too rich for the Halos. Call me crazy, but does anyone in baseball actually still like Brandon Wood & Joe Saunders?

Anyways, good to be back. More explanations on the way, and more baseball chat. Go Expos!

Housekeeping

2009-07-29T17:13:00.001-07:00

New template, no more pseudonyms, an explanation of why this blog has been on hiatus, and more on the horizon. Stay tuned! (By the way, this shitty horrible tempate is not the new template, it's just a holding place til the new one comes along... somehow the old template got Kansas City Royally Fubared).

Shit just got real! All Your Base is Back for the stretch drive. What did I miss?

Fourteen Wins in Twenty Games

2009-04-26T18:04:00.001-07:00

That's a .700 winning percentage, and the best record in major league baseball.

Boys Beware! This team has some moxy, some grit, some balls out hustle and will to win -- and they are doing this without David Eckstein, Reed Johnson or Gregg Zaun. How is this possible?

Clearly, the return of Aaron Hill has been massive. Over the last little while, Jeff Blair has commented on the fact that Hill will soon be the cornerstone and face of the franchise. I was a little speculative of this assertion early on in the season, and while it's very premature, the dude looks Dustin Pedroiaish, and apparantly, being Dustin Pedroiaish means you are MVP worthy.

All you need to do is take a gander at Scott Downs' strikeout to walk ratio this year, and determine that he is now at the level of a shutdown closer, even though he doesn't physically look like one.

Serious concerns now face the rotation. The team can't keep up a first place click with Purcey, Richmond, Tallet, and Burress rounding out 2-5, so one begins to wonder how long the Jays can tide this over before the likes of Janssen, McGowan (?), Marcum (?) and Romero (!) return.

Analysis of First Ten Games

2009-04-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

After the first ten games, the Jays sit at 7-3.

First Place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!

That's beautiful. And even better now that Jesse Litsch is on the DL. Clearly, some of the early success the Jays have had can be attributed to the relatively minimal amount of scouting reports other teams have about the Jays lefty starting pitchers.

Add another lefty youngster out there, and the Jays should undoubtedly further their domination.

But seriously, this is probably the best it will be for Jays fans this year -- so let's savour it before we inevitably start to see the cracks.

Some glimmers of hopes: the Red Sox appear to have some serious issues this year, Papi looks awful, Dice-K is already tired, Ellsbury looks mediocre, their left side of the infield is brutal, and their closer might be hiding an injury.

Some not so glimmer of hope: the Rays appear to have a roster that is better than last year, and have David Price hiding in the minors right now.

Early prognosis (based on 10 games of watching MLB games): Tampa and NY seem primed for the AL East, but Toronto could conceivably be a better team than Boston.

Start the countdown before we start hearing about Roy Halladay going to Tampa for Tim Beckham and other prospects.

Season Starts

2009-04-05T11:55:00.001-07:00

Holy Shit! It's the 2009 season. Let's dust off the Internets, and bring this terrible blog back to life with some Frankenstein-like brutality. Hopefully, by the end of this post, Kenneth Branagh dies.

So what the hell has happened since we last saw the Jays back in 2008, when the team was pretty shitty? Well, the economy slid further down the shitter, employees got laid off, ticketsales presumably followed the downward trends, and the Jays did not sign one free agent to a guaranteed major league contract. AJ Burnett is a Yankee. Michael Barrett is a Blue Jay. Robbie Alomar (alledgedly) has Aids. Well fuck me. Good times.

This season is shaping up to be as brutal as a Montag video. And to top it off, I'm now hearing that Alex Rios might be shipped off this year? Fuck that!

So, I'll be up in the 500 boonies tomorrow for the home opener, which should be the highlite of the year. I thought about setting up a Twitter account, but remembered that Twitter is for people like this.

Silver lining for this year: every game other than the home opener should be pretty much general admission, as 90% of seats will have no bums in them. Problem: Annoying loud fans will be easier to hear in the cave.

Moneyball Casting Call

2008-10-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

The wheels are in motion, and apparantly, Brad Pitt is in negotiations to play Billy Beane in the movie adaptation of Michael Lewis' best selling book, Moneyball.

While Pitt is a curious choice, the real question is who should be cast in the minor role of J.P. Ricciardi... Mr. John Turturro, or Mr. Jeff Goldblum??

Big Head

2008-10-10T17:15:00.001-07:00

Watching TBS today, Ripken's noggin' filled up my whole TV screen, which seemed to shed a new light as to how he was able to recover quickly from getting banged up and have his ridiculous games played streak... a lot of Wheaties, for sure!

Does a Baseball Blend?

2008-10-06T19:09:00.001-07:00

The Answer May Shock You!

From Baseball America

2008-09-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

With the success of the Rays this year, other teams are thinking of scaling back their nicknames in hopes team turnaround...

A Look Ahead

2008-08-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

Finally, with mercy, the Jays have acknowledged that it is time to turn the page, with their trading of Matt Stairs, and the promotion of the over hyped phenom that is Travis Snider, the team is now trying to show fans that there is something to get giddy about.

Travis Snider. Your coming out party is tonight in Yankee Stadium. Don't fuck this up, or the Toronto beat will quickly dismiss you as another Russ Adams or Ricky Romero.

Let's see a 4/4, with 4 homer night. Anything less is unacceptable.

Hotel Post

2008-08-08T14:17:00.001-07:00

I'm in my hotel room and just found out it actually has Wi-Fi, so I'm busting out a post at warp speed before I head out for dinner.

Some quick thoughts about this past week of baseball:

1) The Joba injury really shouldn't surprise anyone. But let's not fool ourselves in thinking that this marks the end of the year for Yanks. This is the one team in baseball that's able to make superstar half seasons out of guys like Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small.

2) Yesterday, I was in a pub talking to a couple from Boston. Inexplicably, neither knew that Manny Ramirez had been traded. Which I thought would have been impossible living in a city so obsessed with the Sox. Apparantly, not so.

3) Family Feud is the best game show on TV. They should do a Baseball Special over the winter.

Ricciardi vs Zaun : TKO

2008-08-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

Gregg Zaun is still a Blue Jay. Much to the chagrin on Zaun, but moreso for the the Toronto Blue Jays organization.

When asked about why the Jays didn't move Zaun as per the backup catcher's request, "Ricciardi said there was some interest in Barajas, but none in Zaun."

For those wondering, J.P. Ricciardi draft pick, J.P. Arencibia, is coming soon, probably in September.

Arencibia's hit over 20 homers already split between High A and Double A, and it hitting in the .300 range. He's easily leapfrogged both Robinson Diaz and Curtis Thigpen as the Jays premier backstop prospect.

The Twilight Zaun

2008-07-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

Does hitting .243 with five home runs, with a below average gun behind the plate warrant being a back up? Fuck that! It's if the Jays have turned around and started not rewarding grit and baseball acumen that overflows in guys like David Eckstein and Zaunie, and all of a sudden resorted to actual talent and production to make their decisions in putting out the best roster available.

Laughably, Zaun has now resorted to going to the media in order to help grease the wheels for his way out of town, as if that helped Bengie Molina get dealt when the fat man was in a similar situation two years ago in Toronto.

Unfortunately for Zaun, he's seemed to have forgotten that guys like him, Jay Gibbons, Barry Bonds and others named in Mitchell's report aren't in real high demand on teams' list of acquisition targets.

Let Me Talk About My Fantasy

2008-07-29T17:35:00.000-07:00

No, not the one involving Rachel Weisz. My Fantasy baseball team in the league that I wrote about many months ago, involving the who's who of the Toronto Blue Jays Blogosphere.

The timing is perfect right now to write about it, because at this present time, All Your Base Are Belong to Rios is sitting atop in first place in the fourteen team league, surprisingly with little movement to the roster throughout the season. I've been sticking to my guns for the most part with my team that I've drafted with a few notable changes... notably, Carlos Delgado is out at first base, replaced by Mike Jacobs... the rest of the team is pretty much still there.

King Felix is quietly having a dominating fantasy season, while Brandon Webb, and Daisuke (when healthy) are certainly providing good numbers to my team week in and out. I've been relatively quiet on the waiver front, but was somehow able to get Joba midway through the year.

Everyone is preparing for David Price's September call up for the playoff drive.

Watching the Chiefs

2008-07-28T19:36:00.000-07:00

So I went down to Syracuse a couple of weeks ago, as indicated in my last post, during my hiatus from this blog, and witnessed a truly horrendous Triple A team that the Jays currently have. Granted, in recent years, teams have veered away from putting any talent whatsoever in their AAA franchises and let their studs marinate in AA, but still this was a truly depressing site.

I remember going to see the likes of Carlos Delgado smash bombs into right field... or seeing Chris Weinke fester year in and year out down in the Cuse, only to be recently rescued from his obscurity with a job quarterbacking the Carolina Panthers... but now... wow, it was pretty awful.

The Chiefs were playing the Durham Bulls, farm team of the Tampa Rays. So I was able to see a couple of their "studs"... Joel Guzman and Reid Brignac were the names I recognized from that squad, and neither looked remotely impressive. Guzman is a monster imposing figure but whiffed at pitches left right and centre... Brignac basically looked like he could eventually become an average to below average short stop in the bigs...

For the Jays/Chiefs... their Home Run leader for the team was their Right Fielder... he was hittng .215, but fans were very excited about his potential... it was Russ Adams. And he looked like the Russ we all knew. Interestingly, he didn't have one ball hit to him during the 9 inning affair. But their centre fielders Wayne Lydon sure did... a monster blast in the 6th or 7th inning where Lydon ran forward to grab it... unfortunately, the ball sailed over his head, and he cost the team a run with his bonehead defence... Lydon attempted to make up for his faux pas the next inning when he got on base... only to be picked off of first base...

Davis Romero pitched well, but it was a lost cause and the team lost.

Oh well, at least they've got Jesse Litsch now to save them.

On a side note, I heard on multiple occasions fans referring to JP Ricciardi as "a piece of shit GM." I thought it was hilarious.

Guess Who's Back?

2008-07-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

No, not Rakim. It's us!! Errr... me! What the fuck have I been doing? You probably don't care... but I moved, went on vacation, went back to work after vacation and had no life for 2 weeks, then finally got the internet back this week.

Which means a plethora of posts are on the backburner, stewing in my head over the month and ready to be shot out rapid fire. Hold on for a ride... get ready for some hot new shit.

Topics include: Jays Minor League Facebook Mania, Whose Side This Blog Is on in the ongoing Pro/Anti AJ Burnett war, My Recent Trip to see the Chiefs, and maybe a post on why this blog will never use the term Mancrush ever...

Going to Cooperstown?

2008-06-18T17:06:00.001-07:00

Planning a trip to Cooperstown, home of Baseball's Hall of Fame, and aren't sure what the can't miss things in town are? Never fear, Richard Griffin supplies us with his tips today in the mailbag. Listen up kids, here's what Griff recommends:

"Ask for Hall president Jeff Idelson, a good friend of mine, and ask him to show you the Robert O. Fishel Award and look for my nameplate"

Fun times! Griffin on a plaque!

Also, in this mailbag, according to Griffin: Zaunie, Fletch and Towers were Blue Jays for less than 2 years.

A+ for effort.

Chacin: There are Two

2008-06-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

Remember the news last month, when the Jays took Gustavo Chacin off their 40 man roster, making him available for any team to pick him up? Well, apparantly, nobody wanted Gus, so he's still in our system.

I decided this morning to pull up his numbers in Dunedin to see how ol' Gusy is doing. Will there be a chance for all of us to see the greatest smelling Toronto athlete once again? I went to Baseball America, and did a search on Chacin. Little did I know... there are two Chacins in professional baseball! Two!

Like our good friend Josh Towers, the other Chacin is in the Rockies system. Jhoulys Chacin is his name. And he's throwing in low A ball, putting up ridiculous numbers. 10-1 record. 2.10 ERA. 1.01 WHIP. So there appears to be a Chacin on the rise, the smell of Victory could be on its way eventually to Denver.

As far as our Chacin goes. Not so pretty. 1-7 record. 7.88 ERA. 1.84 WHIP in high A ball.

In summary: Gustavo = done. Jhoulys = The New Chacin!

First Round Report Card

2008-06-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

So the Draft was earlier this month, and the Jays took, with their first round selection, a projected sandwich/2nd round pick. A potentially poor fielding first baseman. Most probably a designated hitter.

David Cooper was so excited about being so highly coveted by a team with a mid first round pick, that he quickly became the first first rounder to ink a deal with his team.

It was a curious selection by a team that has historically had a farm system void of top shelf talent, but a team in the past two drafts altered their strategy into selecting more high ceiling guys.

In the two drafts previous to 2008's the Jays were lauded for their selections of Travis Snider, Kevin Ahrens, Brett Cecil, etc. The selection of Cooper, though, appears to be a regression in draft strategy to the team's philosophy prior to 2006.

Notably, most analysts suggested that the 2008 draft was a relatively weak class. That being said, when the Jays were on the clock, they had every opportunity to really roll the dice with selecting a player with perceived signability issues. And with a weak draft class this year, the worst case scenario for the team would be that the Jays wouldn't be able to ink a deal with the pick, and would be compensated with another first round pick for 2009's draft.

If the Jays gambled with their pick and snatched a high risk/big money demanding high school arm like Gerrit Cole or Jake Odorizzi, the team would conceivably have an arm that could have a major impact when Ricciardi is long gone. Instead, they took a lumbering designated hitter who will rise through the system relatively quickly. And back up Travis Snider.

David Cooper. Yippee.

Hazel Mae's Future Unknown

2008-06-14T20:09:00.001-07:00

After another pointless hiatus, All Your Base returns with this huge newstory that has transpired this past month in Boston. Hazel Mae is leaving NESN, and her future destination is shrowded in secrecy. Perhaps a return to Sportsnet to replace Jamie Campbell as the new play by play announcer for Jays broadcasters? Indeed!

Oh yeah, and I'll get a post up soon enough about the Jays draft, and other minor league shit that you might find somewhat interesting. I really can't stand watching the Jays lately, but I'll be going to the Cincy games, and might have something relevant to post after that experience as well.

Watch Out Star Wars Kid

2008-05-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

You've got some competition now. This charming young fellow wishes to show us all the weirdest batting stances in baseball. Enjoy!

Kindred Spirits

2008-05-11T08:33:00.001-07:00

Vernon Wells - Breaks wrist May 9th, put on the Disabled List
Jeremy Accardo - Injures forearm May 9th, put on Disabled List

Vernon Wells - Born December 8th

Jeremy Accardo - Born December 8th

Coincidence? Or some birthday Voodoo?

What's New on the Farm?

2008-05-08T16:18:00.000-07:00

With speculation rising already that the Jays could be using farmhands to acquire another big bat for the lineup, it seems logical to take a bit of a gander at the Jays system to see what's there that could be for the taking. We've already seen a glimpse of David Purcey, who made his best left handed Daniel Cabrera impression in his major league debut.

For all the grief the Jays have had over the state of their relatively weak minor league system, most baseball experts agreed that the Jays had a very good 2007 draft. With that in mind, let's see how some of the newer young Jays are doing this year.

In Low A ball, there are a couple of names that stand out, including the Jays highest pick in last year's draft, Kevin Ahrens. From what I've been able to gather in my relatively quick research, Ahrens is showing some promise for a guy drafted right out of high school. The switch hitting third bagger has yet to hit a homer, but is hitting a respectable .291 thus far and is 3 for 3 in stolen base attempts.

Sandwich pick Justin Jackson is one of Ahrens teammates in Lansing. Jackson was a guy whose stock fell quite a bit in last year's draft, as he was once projected as a surefire top 20 pick. Scouts were dazzled by the high schoolers defensive prowress at shortstop, but there were concerns over his bat. Thus far, it looks like Jackson has been making some great strides in the hitting department. Hitting .313, Slugging .494, and already with a long ball, the speedy infielder is also an impressive 6 for 7 in stolen base attempts. Batter's Box recently saw Lansing play and came off most impressed with Jackson. I think it's pretty safe to say that we should start polishing up his Hall of Fame bust.

A guy I've never heard of until yesterday on JaysTalk with Ricciardi, is pitcher Kyle Ginley. He's destroying low A ball thus far, and a promotion seems likely. The kid thus far is 5-0 with a 1.24 ERA, with 36 Ks in 36 innings.

Moving up to Double A, Travis Snider is shitting the bed thus far, but there is no need to panic, given the small sample size... and the fact he's just two years out of high school. Snider's knocked a couple out of the park in New Hampshire, and his average has nowhere to go but up. As a top 15 prospect in all of baseball, he won't be hitting .143 come June.

Recently promoted Brett Cecil has let up 4 runs in 7 innings thus far in New Hampshire, and his rise to the majors will probably be quite swift, as he, unlike the other kids mentioned in this post, is out of college.

Blog Resurrected

2008-05-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry. I think whatever readership this blog once had has now been decimated to none, because of the inactivity here without warning. Chalk it up to a number of not really great reasons, and this blog's been pretty much abandoned over the past three weeks or so. I hope to make semi frequent posts once again... and less time is spent at the ballpark, or other out in the city venues and more time at home... watching the games on TV... and saving a few bucks.

On to today's post...

For the working stiffs, like yours truly, who are unfortunate, like myself, to ride the TTC every morning, nothing is more frustrating than not being able to access the radio in the tunnels of Toronto, and listening to the same library of songs on the IPod every morning gets a little tiresome. However, I've found a nice little way around this problem: Podcasts.

Download these suckers in the morning, and you've got yourself some entertainment as you head to the office. Here's what I've been listening to lately, and give strong recommendations to download. Hopefully, this will make your morning's a little bit more tolerable.

1. ESPN's Fantasy Focus with Matthew Berry & Nate Ravitz. Berry & Ravitz are ridiculously entertaining. They podcast every weekday, and each show is about 20-25 minutes... just long enough to give you the baseball info you need, but not too long to get tedious. One of the show's strongest suits is its ability to not take itself seriously. Berry usually goes well off topic for the majority of the show, offering his insights of why Anne Hathaway is hotter than Megan Fox, and Ravitz was talking about figure skating the other day. But the meat and potatoes of baseball analysis is still there, and it's always entertaining to hear them pull their hair out trying to understand what's going on with the Jays' bullpen.

2. The Drunk Jays Fans Podcast - This came out of nowhere, and is a brand new podcast that I downloaded the other day. Based out of The Score studios in Toronto, the DJFers first broadcast showed a lot of promise. With their podcast cherry popped, there could be some listening gold on the horizon with this show, and is definitely worth a subscription. Judging by the length of the podcase, I am guessing that it will be a weekly show.

3. ESPN's Around the Horn - Yeah, it's mostly Bill Plaschke and Jay Mariotti sounding really stupid the majority of the time, but it's sports opinion, and it's not horrible. Like David Archuletta, it's got pep.

Big Hurt Released

2008-04-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

Frank Thomas has been released. Adam Lind will be called up and be the full time Left Fielder. Matt Stairs and Shannon Stewart will take over the Designated Hitter duties

It's a swift move that seemed inevitable 24 hours ago after his benching, but one that really raises eyebrows. Many baseball notables mentioned Thomas' loss of bat speed during Spring Training and early on this season, and there has recently been a noticable change in Thomas' plate approach to compensate for this deficiency. But, as everyone knows, Thomas has always been a notorious slow starter, and outright releasing the player obviously is more than a pure baseball decision.

After all, take a look at the line up treaded out today against the lefty:

D. Eckstein
A. Hill
A. Rios
V. Wells
R. Barajas
M. Scutaro
L. Overbay
G. Zaun
J. McDonald

Yeah, that's Rod Barajas hitting in the five spot. And Marco Scutaro in the six spot. Ouch.

Let the Barry Bonds rumours start percolating once again.

Weekend Blur

2008-04-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

I've missed the last couple of games... but the Jays have mustered a little bit of a winning streak (2 games!!) in my absense. Burnett tosses this afternoon, in a must win game for the Jays (according to some insane callers in to Jays talk). Win or pack it in.

According to Drunk Jays Fans, who've sourced the Fan590, BJ Ryan returns to the team today, and is ready to throw which is pretty fantastic, considering the moderate woes the pen has faced the last week. Even a recovering Ryan is better than an erratic League and a now hittable Accardo. There will most certainly be bumps along the way with Ryan's return to awesomeness, so let's not start jumping off the bridge after BJ's first blown save.

I've been digging up some really bizarre baseball related stuff the last couple of days, and will put it up here shortly. Also, a Shaun Marcum opinion piece is on the way. Hold tight, folks. Four series in, and the Jays could be a part of three sweeps. Things are a changin'.

Another Reason to Listen to the Radio

2008-04-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

Turn off the TV. Either go to the games, or listen to them on the Radio. Here's a sampling of today's great broadcast on the Fan.

(Wilner & Ashby talking about players forging their birth cirtificates so that team's draft them thinking they are younger than they actually are... Wilner mentions that there was a player picked up by the name of Isabel Giron, who used younger sister's birth certificate to pose as someone five years younger)

Ashby: In that case, they didn't need to forge the certificate.

Short Pause

Wilner: Well, except in one category.

Where's Brandon?

2008-04-06T16:37:00.000-07:00

Myseriously absent from any game situations thus far in 2008 has been Brandon League. Even Randy Wells and Jason Frasor have seen some action. This is quite distressing. We have put up an APB on the corner of this page to find out where he is.

Easy as 123

2008-04-06T16:20:00.000-07:00

A great weekend of baseball. With stellar preformances from some unlikely sources (The Big Hurt providing two huge hits in April already!?), and some great production from the new kids on the left side of the infield. The most encouraging signs thus far are the fact that Vernon appears to be back in 2006 form, Alex Rios looks ridiculously comfortable in the three hole, and Jesse Litsch & Shaun Marcum looked absolutely great.. particularly Marcum.

But let's keep things into a little perspective here... a lot of credit towards the wins can go directly to the players from Boston. The Red Sox looked absolutely beat this entire weekend. They were ridiculously sloppy on the field, and didn't muster any type of energy throughout the games. This is not the Boston team we will see later in the year.

All in all though, a great start to what should be the best season of baseball in over a decade.

Oakland's in town Tuesday to Thursday, and there should be around 20,000 there each game. It will be quiet, but it will allow me to actually focus more on the games now, rather than being distracted by 'fans' wanting everyone to watch their antics.

Games All Weekend

2008-04-04T21:14:00.000-07:00

Jays home for a while and that means live reports from the SkyDome.

There'll be a much more in depth report filed here over the weekend, but I'll address this one theme that seems to be consuming the Fan 590 tonight, that's compleletly fucking ridiculous.

To all those people calling in and complaining about how crazy and off the wall fans were at the SkyDome tonight, with there being no security and whatnot... Have You Not Been To A Home Opener In the Past 10 Years??? They are always fucking crazy, and off the wall. Factor that with it being against Boston, so all the Massachusetts boneheads coming down... also that it is a FRIDAY NIGHT game, if you were expecting tea time at Cullen Gardens, then yeah, it was a real eye opener.

Sanity returns for the rest of the season. Stop whining and bask in the win.

Go Jays.

Game One Thoughts

2008-04-02T15:16:00.001-07:00

After finishing my weekly Tuesday pick up basketball game, I ran to the closest bar nearby. I won't tell you what that bar was, but it was the shittiest bar I've ever been to in my entire life. They had the Jay game on for my first twenty minutes I was there, but after a group of stereotypical puckheads came in and asked for them to turn on the Leaf game, the bartender obliged to their request, and I was treated to a pointless hockey affair.

I quickly asked the bartender to please put one of the televisions to the opening day game of our beloved baseball team, and he obliged. I became the only patron situated infront of that TV. The rest of the patrons hooted and hollared for every meaningless Leaf goal.

Anyways, quick thoughts on the game.

Observation One: This game had an unbelievable atmosphere. Intense, and it really felt that the game meant a lot more than it actually did. Great television.

Observation Two: Despite the horrible settings to watch the game in, away games are still better to be watched in bars, because you don't have to listen to the commentators.

Observation Three: The Jays new uniforms are much better than their last incarnation. The numbers and lettering font is still not great, but a vast improvement over last season's.

Observation Four: Is it me, or does Overbay always seem really tense in late and close games? I don't have any numbers... for the statistically inclined, does anyone have Overbay's career numbers in late and tight situations?

Observation Five: Marco Scutaro is on pace for 300 stolen bases.

Observation Six: I don't get the Joba hype.

And... That Happened.

2008-03-28T15:57:00.001-07:00

He's the Cash Man

2008-03-25T17:02:00.000-07:00

Los Grandes Rios is ready to take over the city, folks. Freshly inked to a big money deal (65 million guaranteed), it's a win win for everyone. Rios has mo' money, and the Jays are doing cartwheels that they've locked up their best outfielder for half the money they forked out for their centre fielder just a year ago.

Some are speculating that there may be an out clause in this deal, which doesn't make a tonne of sense, since Rios was pretty much cost controlled anyway for the next couple of years... so giving him an opt out similar to Wells and Burnett wouldn't make a tonne of sense.

So Rios will be staying here a while, no more documentaries.

Quick Hits:

Made two small pick ups in my roto pool (which is a very deep keeper league). If you're in a similarly deep league (or an NL only league) I suggest taking flyers on these two under the radar talents: Jorge Cantu, who came off a huge spring and won the starting 3B job in Florida, and Eugenio Velez, who ran like mad in Spring Training and has taken advantage of the now vacant 2B job in San Francisco.
Yahoo put up a really good article this week on the impact of the Mitchell Report on someone who complied with giving names.
Canseco's new book comes out April 1st, get ready to camp out infront of Indigo!

Rolen Down

2008-03-23T17:46:00.000-07:00

Get your spikes shined up Marco, you're going in. Toronto's big offseason acquisition, Scotty Rolen, must have been jealous of AJ Burnett, and decided if AJ is sans fingernail, then he should be as well.

Rolen suffered a displaced fracture in a finger and lost a fingernail in what is described as a freak accident on the practice field earlier today. There is no timetable yet for his return, but Opening Day should be ruled out at the very least. Get the band-aids out folks, the number of hurting/hurt Jays is up to four now with Burnett, Janssen, Ryan and Rolen.

Bring Back Bush

2008-03-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

I know for certain that I'm in the minority with this belief -- but I was absolutely crushed when the Jays dealt Dave Bush to the Brewers a little over two years ago. Yes, it was heavensent that the Jays declined shipping Dustin McGowan for Overbay, and instead went with Bush & Jackson, but Bushy was a guy I thought was one of the most underrated arms in the whole game.

He put up really great peripherals in Milwaukee in 2006, and there was great optimism that he'd continue to ascent to his calling of a mid rotation pitcher in 2007, but the wheels came off, and now he's fighting tooth and nail to win a spot in a jam packed Milwaukee rotation arms race.

It seems foolish to believe that Toronto would re-unite Gibby with one of his detractors, and rarely are players traded away, then re-acquired in a trade a few years later. But the Jays seemingly need another starter to add to the mix... someone to go in if Litsch falters, if one of the top four goes down via injury. There doesn't seem to be much in the well right now, and Bush's price is now at an alltime low.

It's a fit. Gibby needs some fire put back into his belly. He needs an agitator. He needs Dave Bush.

Starting to Unravel

First Janssen gone for the year, and now BJ appears to be having some hiccups in his return. Stoeten cautions everyone not to react to this news similar to chicken little, but things are definitely not looking great. Despite the glowing reviews of Brandon League, the Hawaiian flamethrower is only topping out at around 94mph (as opposed to 2 years ago when he'd consistently throw 97-98mph). Add that to Accardo's post allstar break swoon, all of a sudden, the bullpen no longer looks that pristine.

Longest Draft Ever...

Mathis nabbed after the Angels waited weeks and weeks, seeing guys like Screech Powers drafted in the 214th round, and Bobby Rayburn taken in the 268th round.

Oops...

2008-03-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Not 24 hours after I write this, we get news of this. Crap...

Get well, Casey...

Love for Litsch

2008-03-11T01:55:00.000-07:00

Been a while, but I’ve got a bit of work that needs doing, so I thought I’d weigh in with a quick thought on spring training (funny how that works).

Yes, Jesse Litsch is still in the running for the 5^th spot in the rotation.

Jesus, I wish everyone would get off of this guy. Yes, his stuff is middling. Yes, he’s young. Yes, he’s a right-handed Gus who seems likely as anyone to be a flash-in-the-pan.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Much as it might echo the cliché, pitchers will be pitchers – which is to say, they tend to be batshit crazy and like to get themselves into tight spots…car doors, phone books and the like. Statistically, they’re incredibly volatile. For all the loving given Doc and the hate for poor A.J., it’s surprising how often we forget that it’s what’s behind the freckles that really matters, and that Litsch has already had one initiation-by-fire and survived it (albeit after a couple of weeks in AAA).

I know there’s a tendency to look at McGowan and see a hybrid of the best features of Doc and A.J. And I know those six-inning no-nos really teased us into thinking that Marcum is the real deal. And that Janssen added a couple of miles after rehabbing the back so that if he’s to be believed, ’07 was much more indicative of his talent than the previous season. I know all that.

But if Litsch earns the spot, let him have it. Stash Casey in the pen for a while if you have to and extend him on the side when the need arises. I know it’s inconvenient, and the Zambrano experiment cowed everyone to that line of thinking, but another few months in the bullpen won’t kill the guy if he’s got the stones to start in this league. Sure, Litsch might not outpitch Janssen this year, but that doesn't mean he won't outpitch Marcum, or McGowan, or even A.J (I wouldn't put my money on Doc, though). If the kid deserves it, then give the sod a chance.

Pithy Projections

2008-03-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

Research skills exhibited in this preview: limited. To paraphrase this video: Jays will come third because... well... because they are not as good as the Yanks or Red Sox. Thank you for watching. Actually, that's not paraphrasing. That's pretty much what he said verbatum. Also note that the announcer guy always wanted to Sing "Oh Canada" to the tune of an indistinguishable song.

Crystal Ball

2008-03-07T16:57:00.000-08:00

What will happen in 2008? Everyone has theories, and at the end of the year, everyone brings up the ones that actually came true, and summarily ignore all the ones that didn't come through.

With the season a mere weeks away, it's this blog's time to come up with some predictions. The hope is to be over 50% right, and no predictions will be made that are considered "obvious". So bookmark this, and in November there will be a re-examination of its contents.

Prediction 1: Nick Swisher will have a monster year. Remember Eric Byrnes' massive campaign last year, crushing dingers and stealing bases at will, lifting the Diamondbacks into the postseason? This year, Swisher will have a similar huge campaign... he'll be more aggressive, with a career year in homers, and he'll be swiping bases at a rate never seen before in his career. Surprising many, the White Sox will prove to be a pesky conteder to the likes of Detroit and Cleveland, thanks in large part to Swisher's production.

Prediction 2: By the allstar break, Jay fans will be calling in Mike Wilner daily about the team needing to get a first baseman to replace Lyle Overbay. Some will suggest the team bring up number one prospect Travis Snider already. This will drive Wilner close to the edge.

Prediction 3: Ben Sheets will be traded to the New York Yankees. The Yanks will find out soon enough that their pitching is not up to snuff. They'll quickly turn their attention to the Brewers' Sheets, and find the Brew Crew as a team open to making a move. Sheets will be in pinstripes to help the team continue their post season streak.

Prediction 4: Dusty Baker will have at least three quotes that borderline on insanity. (Note: the number is already at 1 with his recent criticisms of Joey Votto)

Prediction 5: When the Rays come to town, and Evan Longoria comes to the plate, you will hear a chorus of lame jokes in the Rogers Centre from fans who will compare him to a Desparate Housewife.

All Work and No Play

2008-03-02T07:41:00.000-08:00

A crazy week of work has limited time to devote to updating the blog here, but now looking back at the week that was, there doesn't seem to be a lot to comment on or review here. The Jays are on TV today, which is fantastic, but I'll reserve my praise until after seeing how CityTV handles the job.

Drunk Jay Fans will be providing a blow by blow analysis of the "event" today, so make sure you head over there to take part in the festivities.

Fun things to observe today:

1) Because it's spring training, there'll be a tonne of minor leaguers thrown into the game -- some starting, this is a great opportunity to see what talent is down in the well.

2) Tom Foolery -- The game is meaningless, and the team surely knows it's being broadcast in Toronto, so expect some hijinx during the game.

3) John Gibbons: Wordsmith -- There is no doubt that Gibby will be miked up during times of the game. Try to see if there is any change whatsoever in his soundbytes, or whether it will still be entirely positive and defensive.

We got a Team

2008-02-24T14:46:00.000-08:00

So All Your Base Are Belong to Rios participated in a fantasy baseball draft today with 13 other Jays fans/bloggers from all over the place and I think it went alright. There wasn't really anything noteworthy about the draft (no crazy picks off the charts...) but it was a different experience for me in that the format was unlike any fantasy draft I've participated in before.

The following twists were in this fantasy league: Batting average was thrown out, and we're using OBP and SLG as two categories, to make it 6X6 we are also using quality starts as a stat.

I'm used to the conventional categories. Also, it's a head to head, which I'm not familiar with either. I decided that I wanted to get good established closers. And I accomplished that. I suppose we'll see if that was smart or not. In any event, here's our squad:

Hitting

C - Ramon Hernandez
1B - Carlos Delgado
2B - Brian Roberts
SS - JJ Hardy
3B - David Wright
LF - Hideki Matsui
CF - Rick Ankiel
RF - Matt Kemp
Utility - Jeremy Hermida
Bench - Adam Jones

Pitching

SP Brandon Webb
SP Felix Hernandez
SP Daisuke Matsuzaka
RP JJ Putz
RP Jonathan Papelbon
P Mariano Rivera
P Mark Buerhle
P Andrew Miller
Bench - Scott Olsen

My favourite picks are Dice-K (taken 88th), King Felix (81st) and Kemp (144th). I'll update anything noteworthy that happens throughout the year.

Paint By Numbers Article Writing

2008-02-21T15:24:00.000-08:00

It looks like Mark Zwolinski got some new magnetic poetry writing for his fridge and decided to use it for an article. Using the same retreaded statements as a million past Eckstein and Matt Stairs articles past, what seemed most nauseating was the same rehashed points and quotes throughout the article.

Directly pulled from the article, I give you the following (bolding added by me):

'The sense of urgency that Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay felt was lacking somewhat in the clubhouse last season arrived here yesterday.'

'The sense of urgency – at least the Jays' attempts to facilitate it – is now on full display.'

'He looked at this season's acquisitions and felt the sense of urgency to win had certainly been upgraded.'

What's worse is the following. In one short article, Zwolinski throws in these two quotes.

"The key is for everyone to stay healthy..." - Stairs

"The key for me and for all of us is to remain healthy" - Stairs

Thanks Zwolinski, almost missed it the first time, and never even considered that a key for a team to be succesful was to be healthy. Great work.

A Hard Hittin' Fact

2008-02-19T19:21:00.000-08:00

Remember Hard Hittin' Mark Whiten? I sure do. I remember when he beat the shit out of Black Jack McDowell after he was hit by a pitch. I also remember when he hit 12 RBIs in one game for the Cards. He was pretty ridiculous. I was pretty pissed when they traded him for the knuckleballer and Turner Ward. Candiotti was shit.

Anyways, back to Whiten. I had thought that these two facts pretty much defined his career, but I found out something today that completely blew my mind: Mark Whiten pitched one inning of Major League Baseball. OK. Not a big deal. A lot of positional players do that. Frank Menechino did it for fucks sake. But.. Mark Whiten did something absolutely tremendous. While he walked a couple and let in a run, he also struck out the side. Which means his career K/IP ratio is 27.0!!

McLovin's AL East Preview

2008-02-19T18:14:00.000-08:00

I actually kind of enjoyed this little preview, despite the lack of actual insight on anything whatsoever. McLovin apparantly thinks Glaus has "a bigger bat" than Rolen. I would agree. Much bigger.

A Letter for Mr. Rios

2008-02-19T16:54:00.001-08:00

Couldn't find any contact info for you Alex. So decided to write to you here. With my friend, babelfish, I had it translated into Spanish! I am not sure if it now makes sense though, as I do not know Spanish. Oh well, enjoy reading this.

Hey Alex,

Escuche. Sé que usted está negociando un nuevo contrato ahora, y usted está intentando conseguir tanto dinero como sea posible. Entiendo eso. Pero si usted tiene cualquier se preocupa de jugar en Toronto, déjeme intentar poner ésos en la facilidad.

No se preocupe de J.P. Soy seguro que las cosas no son fantásticas entre los ambos usted, pero si usted firma un reparto a largo plazo, usted no tiene que preocuparse. Lo irán pronto bastante. Su mandato es ahora ganar. Ambos sabemos que es inverosímil. Palillo alrededor. Habrá un nuevo hombre en carga pronto.

Por lo que va Toronto, aquí están tres buenas razones de permanecer:

1) una azotea - usted juega en Detroit, él consigue frío. Tenemos una azotea, así que nunca es fría.

2) avienta - la cosa que escribí este invierno sobre ser feliz si le negociaron para Lincecum. ¡Embromaba! ¡Cada uno le ama!

3) familia - día recientemente introducido de la familia de Toronto. Soy seguro que usted concebirá a muchos niños aquí, y esto es un gran lugar para las familias. Tenemos un día para probarlo.

Tan Alex, hermano, usted tiene firmar. Toronto le necesita. ¡Consígalo hecho!

"Why don't you make like Tom Brady"

2008-02-18T11:21:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, so Alex comes to Dunedin sporting a 'hawk. Well, actually, it looks more like a traffic stripe than anything else, but that's neither here nor there. I've met and seen a lot of mohawks in my life, both faux and real, and I must say I don't know if I've ever met someone who manages to pull it off with such class. It's a little more Mr. Smith than Tyler Durden, to say the least; apparently the major concern is how it will affect his tan.

I must say, the 'do flies in the face of just about everything I thought I knew about our boy Rios. At the risk of being crucified for levying criticism at this site's namesake in just my second post, a lot of words have come to mind about Rios over the past four seasons and "punk" was never high on the list. "Talented" certainly was, as well as a few less choice words, "soft" being one of the more moderate. I've seen Rios as the guy who occasionally dogs it in the outfield, occasionally doesn't bother to run out a pop-up and on the odd occasion forgets how many outs there are when he's stargazing out there on second.

As recently as last season, I recall damning him as the two-time all-star still prone to rookie mistakes, and pointed to him as the crux of the problem with the Jays clubhouse. (I didn't do this in any public medium, but I think anyone who watched the team closely last year will know what I'm talking about - one particular image sticks out in my mind, of a hobbled Troy Glaus staring out across the diamond in disgust at a stupefied Rios, hands flailing).

On that note, I found Blair's latest insightful. Blair admits that he used to consider Alex a bit of a "slacker," but that he seems to have "matured" quite a bit since 2004, and is now one of Blair's favourites. If we take this insight for anything more than the usual February hyperbole (and given that it's Blair, and it seems to come as a raw moment of honesty, it's tempting to do so), then I'll go along with the sentiment and agree with the fantasy baseball masses in predicting a huge age-27 season. It does sound like he's mashing right now, and I must say, those forearms are HUGE.

Blue Jays Thriller

2008-02-18T07:23:00.001-08:00

A Spring Training video straight out of 1984, starring your Toronto Blue Jays. Fantastic.

Utilizing the Short Stop

2008-02-16T23:34:00.000-08:00

Back in around 1990 or so, my buddy called me to let me know that he convinced his parents to get a new game for him for his Nintendo Entertainment System. He said he was watching the home shopping network, and found a steal of a deal, it was a game called Ice Hockey.

Now, with me being a fan of Blades of Steele, I was skeptical whether this game would hold water. But after the game was delivered, I was pumped to check it out. As noted, expectations were low, as this was before EA Sports came along, before 16 bit systems came along, and revolutionized hockey video games.

My buddy put the cartridge in, and we started playing. I was impressed. The developers didn't have any licensing permissions, so there were only national teams you could be. No players had names. But the intruiging thing about the 4 on 4 Ice Hockey game was how you could set up your roster. You had the ability to chose from three body types that your players would have. You could have a fat player, and with him came toughness and a great slapshot. His weakness was speed. He was a slow fuck. Conversely, you could select a skinny guy. He was a sterotypical European-type of player -- blazing fast speed, but a complete wuss. The other guy was this weird middle of the road/average body type, who was moderately fast, had moderate toughness, but not really great at anything.

So you basically decided whether you wanted a team that would be great defensively, and prod along with your guys (by picking the fat fucks), or whiz all around the ice with your pussies, or play a mid level game.

The major problem was once you set your lineup, you couldn't sub players in during the game. So if you built up a lead with your skinny guys, you couldn't protect that lead by bringing in the fatties.

Where am I going with this? And what does this have to do with the Jays?

I find that Toronto is in a similar position with their situation this year at shortstop. Fortunately, though, the game of baseball doesn't leave John Gibbons with the same limitations I had when playing NES' Ice Hockey.

In this analogy, I am equating David Eckstein with the skinny European, Marco Scutaro is the average guy, and John McDonald is the fatty player. And I think Gibby really will give the Jays a nice little advantage by playing these guys the way I would have played the body type players if I was allowed to on Ice Hockey.

Let's forget Halladay starts, because it appears that J-Mac will start in all those games. Let's break this down with the other 4 starter games. It stands to reason that Eckstein will be starting all of these games. Like the skinny Ice Hockey guys, Eckstein provides much more offensive upside than The Fatty/McDonald or Average/Scutaro. His offense is really needed to get this team the needed runs to win.

But where the Jays have a great advantage, comes late in the innings. With the Jays up by a run or two, it's then, in the 8th, that Gibby really shouldn't hesitate, and start using the bench. Throw the defense out there to get the outs. Get McDonald in the field. If he ever comes up to hit, sub his no bat with the moderately better Scutaro.

There is great opportunity right here with three legitimite guys available to play short. Each has their own individual strengths and weaknesses. A true test for Gibby this year is to maximize the strengths, and manoevre around the deficiencies. With Eck and McDonald, as well, we'll know that Egos shouldn't be bruised here -- they're gamers who understand what is at play here.

Cockfighting & Housekeeping

2008-02-16T16:41:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, when I first read the report last week about a video surfacing showing Pedro Martinez at a cockfight, I didn't think much of it. But today, with some time to kill, I decided to see if I could get some more information about this, and came across this absolutely incredible article.

There are plenty of completely eye opening statements in it, but my favourite is this:

Chicago Cubs third baseman Aramis Ramírez is prominently featured in a recent issue of a Dominican cockfighting magazine, En La Traba, in which he is pictured with several roosters that he raises for fighting. Of roosters, he said in the magazine, “When I’m in the Dominican Republic, I’m dedicated entirely to them.”

Someone send me En La Traba stat. Best gift ever!

As an aside here, you may have noticed that we have some new blood here at AYBABTR. Here's hoping that will mean that we won't have the huuuuge delays between posts anymore. Hell, I've already got a new one almost done as we speak. With March around the corner, hope springs eternal, or something like that.

And have a great Family Day, Ontario readers, and may all your cocks be fighters... or something like that.

Line ‘em Up

2008-02-16T09:45:00.000-08:00

Well I’ve been invited by Robbie to contribute and I figure the first official day of Spring Training is as good a day as any to contribute my first blog post. The recent news about Doc’s mentor is terrible; hopefully it’s not the kind of thing that will affect him on the field, but I think we all know Doc a little better than that.

Now, I can honestly say I find all this “news” about who’s arrived in camp and who hasn’t (not that I don’t find Frank Thomas’s bright orange shirt incredibly compelling) only moderately more interesting than all that PED bull, which is to say not a lick. It is worth noting that Chacin and Barajas are the only two players late for camp, given Sal’s recent complaints about losing his job and the fact that Gustavo’s expected to compete for that 5^th spot – you’d think they’d be trying to make a good impression right about now, wouldn’t you? Well, being late for camp is better than getting arrested…

Anyways, I’m not here to discuss the latest Jays news in any kind of depth. What I was really looking to contribute today was to take another look at lineup construction from an incredibly unscientific perspective. (I don’t have the credibility to back this up, but I actually have a sniggling feeling that the notion of Overbay batting second grew out of a post I made at Batter’s Box about this time last year. Just saying…) As a devoted OOTP player and just general Jays obsessive, it seems the optimum time to throw ideas out there while Gibbons is still straddling the fence and the only other lineup out there (that I know of) is this terrific contribution from Southpaw, although there was a comment from Wilner about where to bat Rolen which Gibby had some fun with a while back.

Any reasonably detailed look at potential lineups from a fan’s perspective must of course take two key elements into consideration – how it should be constructed as opposed to how it might conceivably be constructed. So, for example, while I’m not a Eckstein-hater in general and don’t really have a problem with him batting leadoff, in theory I would consider other alternatives if it weren’t for the fact that it has been uncategorically stated that this will be the case.

So, at least versus righties, I’ve got Eck leading off. The number-two hole is an interesting one. My inclination, of course, is Overbay at 2, given that it was the role that I propagated last year and that he really didn’t get much of a chance to prove himself. I know the general consensus is that he bombed there before the injury, but really, it was two months, folks. Stairs or Rios slot in fairly well here too, but I’m expecting a decline from Stairsy (he doesn’t hit enough doubles anyway) and Rios…well, wouldn’t it be great if Rios could just take up the first three slots in the batting order? I mean, really, put Rios wherever you want. I’ll leave Overbay up there for now.

Number three comes with one big stinking caveat: not Wells. I’m not entirely sure where I stand on the issue of the real VW (is it the 2006 monster or the mediocrity from the year before that?), but I do know that watching him flail at high fastballs is possibly the most frustrating thing to endure as a Jays fan since Tony Batista left town. An argument could certainly be made for Rolen in this slot, but I’d like to get Rios as many at-bats as possible. I actually don’t mind Overbay as #3 and Rios as two, but I figure this is the more likely alignment.

That leaves Thomas, Rolen and Wells for 4-5-6. I imagine if Gibby were to go with the above 1-2-3, that the most likely alignment for the middle of the lineup would then be Thomas-Wells-Rolen, given that Hurt’s a “cleanup” hitter. The better alignment, I think, is actually Rolen-Wells-Thomas. I’m a big fan of high power/low OBP in the #5 slot and then slotting in OBP/speed guys at 6 and 7. And while Thomas might never steal another big-league base, you know he’s good for a .360 OBP and when I watched the Jays last year I know I for one did not see the masher we all wanted Thomas to be. He’s a big, slow, garbage hitter at this point – sort of a glorified Tony Batista with much better plate discipline. (Holy crap, did I just compare Frank Thomas and Tony Batista? Wow…)

As for the bottom of the order, well…line it up as you like. I like to split up those lefties, so I’d stick Stairs at 7, Hill at 8, and Zaun at 9. Come to think of it, I kind of like Stairs at 9 – it’s always nice to have a scary bat right before the order turns over. Really, though, the spot should go to the lowest OBP on the team, if only in order to maximize the number of times to order turns over at the beginning of the inning, and in that case that puts Zaun/Barajas at 9.

So…your 2008 Blue Jays lineup vs RHP:

1) Eckstein

2) Overbay

3) Rios

4) Rolen

5) Wells

6) Thomas

7) Stairs

8) Hill

9) Zaun

Versus lefties, slot in Barajas for Zaun, Reed for Stairs, swap Overbay and Hill and then Overbay and Johnson and you get:

1) Eckstein

2) Hill

3) Rios

4) Rolen

5) Wells

6) Thomas

7) Overbay

8) Johnson

9) Barajas

You could also drop Hill to #6 or 7 and move everyone else up a slot, but I’d kind of like to see how he fares in the #2 hole.

And there you have it – your 2008 lineups.

Programming Note

2008-02-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed, All Your Base Are Belong to Rios simply does not provide you with a lot of content. Posts are sporadic, and that's just not acceptable.

The only solution? Add more writers. With more writers, that'll mean more content. So that's what we've done here. A fresh new voice on board to provide more Jays opinion.

New names might be on board soon as well, and hopefully, when the season comes around, we'll be having posts on a very regular basis, and a dialogue may ensue as well with readers and posters. Things are being put in place, so it might take a bit of time to get everything all ironed out.

Quality will not be compromised. The writing will still be inferior to Drunk Jays Fans.

Another Angle

2008-02-10T16:56:00.000-08:00

WHY DID THE JAYS TRY SO HARD TO GET RID OF ALEX RIOS, THEIR ONLY ALL-STAR?

MY ANSWER: Because having a loaded rotation will give this team a chance to win. Hey, I like Rios as much as anyone else, but if you've got an opportunity to upgrade your team, you do it. Repeating Lincecum's numbers from last year, at age 23, in the big leagues: 150 Ks in 146 innings, Opponents BA: .226. You add him to a rotation that already has Halladay, Burnett and McGowan, and you've got a shot in the AL East. Simply, Lincecum figures to be more of a difference maker in the Jays' eyes than Rios is.

THE STAR'S ANSWER: Why do lemmings feel obliged to plunge off a cliff? It makes no sense, yet they do it year after year. When Carlos Delgado was their best player, the Jays couldn't wait to get rid of him. When Wells replaced Delgado as their top talent, the team tried for two years to pawn him off before finally giving up and signing him long-term. Now that Alex Rios has established himself, Toronto tried to trade him for Brad Penny in '06 and Tim Lincecum last season. Both efforts ultimately failed, so they will sign him long-term. The common thread is that none of the three were drafted or signed by the current regime.

The Ticket Scandal

2008-02-09T05:55:00.000-08:00

The shit has hit the fan, and everyone's chiming in on the Blue Jays new idea of targeting fans in Boston and Detroit, and soliciting them tickets to Jays games before fans in Toronto. Opinions are being formed, and they're all pretty consistent. People are pissed, and for good reason. For me though, the outrage is a little bit guarded, mostly because I am empathetic to the front office's objective.

The outrage, I believe is based on two main factors:

1. The Marketing of the Jays product to the “enemy” thereby filling the stadium with people actively rooting against our franchise

2. Giving these people access to tickets before fans and supporters of your product

I don’t have much of a problem with #1, but the 2nd is pretty shady and unnecessary.

But let me address why I don't have much of a problem with the first objection. Firstly, let's throw out opening day, because apparently this plan does not include that game. What we are talking about are all the other April/March games involving the Red Sox and Tigers. Here's my unscientific breakdown of people who occupy the good seats for these early Spring Games:

40% Season Ticket Holders
30% Single Ticket Buyers
20% Comp Ticket Holders (through Rogers promos)
10% People from 500 level sneaking in.

It seems reason to believe that with new scheme the team has undertaken, they will be trying to take people out of the seats that fall into those last two demographics, not to mention selling seats that have no bums in them at all.

Let’s take a look at attendance from 2005 when Boston came to start the year in Toronto.

Opening Day: 50,560
Game 2: 28,765
Game 3: 22, 845

So it’s not unreasonable to agree that having half the stadium empty, and having a clear disinterest from the city for those seats in April, that the team should explore other avenues to getting those seats filled.

The problem though, has it has been well expressed by the DJFers is the unusual policy of allowing visitors to go ahead of the line over locals. It’s something that makes no sense, and seems to be a short term solution that could bite the team in the ass pissing off their long term fans.

Time will tell, but it will be interesting to see what the backlash, if any will be.

Writers Revealed

2008-02-06T16:26:00.000-08:00

In a surprising development over at Fire Joe Morgan, the writers of the site have finally identified themselves. Unlike this blog, where a pseudonym is still being used, the writers of FJM are hiding no more. The biggest surprise, "Ken Tremendous", the site's main writer, and in my opinion, the funniest, is none other than Dwight Shrute's cousin, Mose! Wow! Mose!

Snow Day!

2008-02-06T13:27:00.000-08:00

The sweet snow falling in Toronto today meant a work day off! Which allowed me to catch up a bit on what's happening in Jay land. So.. what did I find?

Fuck all!

O.K. That's not technically true. The Jays and Alex "The Franchise" inked a one year deal which Richard Griffin believes has been constructed in a way that would make one believe a long term deal is on the way.

Also, in other Jay news, I'm not sure who thought this was a good idea, but The Toronto Star and Paul Godfrey worked together to show the world that the Jays' president holds true to his word. Appeasing the millions who asked for it, Godfrey was videotaped jogging around his stadium. Bizarre footage found here.

The National Post put together a somewhat interesting little article about the all of a sudden quiet Gregg Zaun. They really weren't able to provide anything really insightful about the circumstances surrounding Zaun, but noted that since the Mitchell Report has been released, Zaun has changed his phone number and has become inaccessible to the media. One wonders what the future holds for Zaunie, if he'll remain Jamie Campbell's buddy or go the way of Scott Downs. One also wonders what the reaction will be from his Zaunbie Nation.

In other ex-Jay news, Tony Fernandez is being inducted to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, and Eric Hinske is still unemployed.

Ain't No Party Like...

2008-02-01T12:10:00.000-08:00

... well not an S Club Party (whom by the way, have expanded to 8, and have a new roster, if you were wondering)... but a Jay party was in Toronto this week.

No, it wasn't hosted by this guy, but it took place at the Distillery, and was, from all accounts, a pretty decent affair.

Jordan Bastian recaps the event on Bluejays.com, but the highlite quote from this perspective is the one Bastian provides on his own site. When asked about Gregg Zaun being named in the Mitchell Report, Vernon Wells responds "I know in our clubhouse that we'll probably make a joke out of it and make fun of [Zaun] about it."

Hopefully, Zaun knows better not to ever mention the phrase "small ball".

Memo to Marketing Department II

2008-02-01T01:03:00.000-08:00

Not sure if this concept gets across fully with the comic strip representation, but ultimately it's as follows. Rolen is doing standup comedy... a heckler tosses a tomato, and then Rolen catches the tomato. Also, not seen in the comic strip, would have Rolen throw the tomato back at the heckler, though Canadian censors might find this part of violence not acceptable for our airwaves.

Jays Have the Bling?

2008-01-30T17:54:00.000-08:00

If you read Richard Griffin's article today, you'll notice quite a few pithy barbs thrown in. A few short, curt sentences that seem to indicate that Griffin thinks 1) Jays management are, on the whole, retarded, and 2) They are on even ground financially with their competition.

"It was not planned."
"No excuses."
"The heat is clearly on Ricciardi."

If you read the article carte blanche, it seems quite convincing. You'd think, 'Wow! 100 million dollar payroll? Griffin is right, these Jays should be kicking ass and anything less than kicking ass makes no sense. They've gone from 50 million to 100 million? That's a tonne of new money!! Kick some ass Jays!!' But Griffin leaves out some pretty key information.

The article seems to suggest that payroll disparity is now non-existant -- thereby no longer a mitigating factor in Toronto's quest for the postseason. It puts the Toronto franchise in a bubble, ignoring everything that is going on around the league, it's as if only Toronto's payroll has risen in the past five years. It makes one reading think that Toronto's ponied up the cash to even themselves out on stagnating franchises around them. While it is true they've opened the books exponentially higher since 2003, in pure dollars, they've pretty much held ground with the rest of division -- keeping the hole intact that has existed since 2003.

Here's what the article has not provided.

Jays Payroll:
2003: 51,000,000
2008: ~100,000,000

Red Sox Payroll
2003: 99,000,000
2008: ~145,000,000

Yankees Payroll
2003: 152,000,000
2008: ~205,000,000

So Yes. The Jays payroll has exponentially risen higher than the Yanks and Sox. However, 5 years later, they still remain, in hard cash, the same amount of money below the Yanks and Sox. 50 million less dollars than Boston, 100 million dollars less than the Yankees. Yeah.

No Excuses.

This is not to say that expectations shouldn't be warranted toward the franchise, but payroll parity shouldn't be used as arsenal against the incompetenc of the regime. Want to criticize Ricciardi? There are plenty of places to start, from putting too much emphasis on "character" guys early on in his tenure, abandoning international scouting, and poor instincts in evaluating pitching talent -- (though this can certainly be debated.), but to suggest having a payroll 100 million dollars less than a division rival as being merely inconsequential is... well.. odd.

Happy Trails Sal

2008-01-26T11:11:00.000-08:00

It appears that Brian Butterfield has more influence on decisions than I had first thought, there's no reasonable other explanation as to why the Jays decided to ignore their minor league deal just signed with Sal Fasano to get anti-Blue Jay Rod Barajas inked to a one year deal.

When asked to explain the reasononing behind the deal, Ricciardi provided a number of insights, but the one that reasonated with me was that Butterfield "had him over in Arizona and raves about him. He's going to be a nice addition."

Wilner meanwhile echoes the thoughts of pretty much everyone else on the planet about this deal though.

Rod Barajas > Sal Fasano? Probably, but very marginally. This seems to be the ultimate signing of business being business.

Presidential Doppelgangers

2008-01-22T20:30:00.000-08:00

It's a long offseason, with many days to fill the void between the World Series, and Spring Training. One can only write about Scott Rolen so much.

So I've decided to throw something together that draws parallels between those in the American Presidential race and members of the Blue Jays. Maybe it will help Americans choose their next President. So... Presidential Doppelgangers... let's roll....

Barack Obama / Vernon Wells - Tremendously popular, and have unassuming, but very appealing demeaners. Past results are a little overstated, but both are very good at what they do. Black.

Hilary Clinton / JP Ricciardi - Healthy egos, a propensity for doing all the right things on paper, but suffering from a disconnect with the average Joe. Polarizing individuals who have both ardent supporters, and equally strident opponents.

John Edwards / Shaun Marcum - Never taken as seriously as they would like, viewed as quality workmen, whose ultimate fate is destined to be a second fiddle, or a part of the machine rather than the head.

Dennis Kucinich / David Eckstein - Small, fiesty, scrappy, and appealing to the press. Should not be taken seriously as a difference maker, but sometimes, unusually is.

John McCain / Roy Halladay - Rarely a bad word written about them. Quality workrate, and histories littered with times of trouble, but both able to fight, and overcome adversity.

Rudy Giuliani / Gregg Zaun - Leadership qualities considered to be their strength. Glaring holes in other parts of their repitoire are summarily dismissed, and critics reminded once again of their leadership qualities.

Mike Huckabee / John Gibbons - Popular philosophies with the heartland, widely mocked by the urbanites.

Mitt Romney / Paul Godfrey - Working with money is the general forte. Everything else is questionable.

Become a Facebook Fan

2008-01-20T09:28:00.000-08:00

Help spread the word of our little site here by joining our Fanpage that has just been created on Facebook. Click here to access the page, and help spread the word to others. Photos and videos will be added soon to the page.

Thanks!

Memo to Marketing Department

2008-01-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

May I submit my first idea for a Jays commercial for the upcoming year. Starring new Jay David Eckstein and returning Jay Frank Thomas, a re-inactment of the famous David and Goliath story:

Jays Chances Hinge on Johan?

2008-01-16T18:20:00.000-08:00

It seems the bandwagon is in full force right now, with articles popping all over the place indicating that the Jays may, in fact, be a contender for the year 2008. Dayn Perry over at Foxsports provided some guarded optimism, which clearly puts things in perspective in his second last paragraph.

Says Perry: "In the East alone, the Yankees and Red Sox have better talent and vastly deeper coffers. Elsewhere, the Angels and Indians won 94 and 96 games last season, respectively, and the Tigers have drastically upgraded this winter by adding Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle Willis and Edgar Renteria to the fold."

This is true, however the Yankees roster, aside from Alex Rodriguez don't seem to be as intimidating as in years past... they need to acquire Johan Santana to put them over the top. While a lot of the Jay articles coming out indicate that the Jays have a shot at a wild card this year, they seem to all gloss over the state of the Yankees and focus on the health of the Jays. But it seems quite clear for the Jays to have a fighting chance this year, it all boils down to how the Yanks play their cards.

If Johan is a Yankee in 2008, the Jays have no chance. If they don't, then they've left the door open a bit, and anything can happen. Hopefully, the Twinkies give the American League a little bit of a break. Hopefully, the Mets understand the importance of having an elite starter.

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

2008-01-12T18:02:00.001-08:00

It looks official. The 2008 Blue Jays have incarnated the 2006 MLB Champion Cardinals roster to take over the left side of the infield.

Scott Rolen is a Jay, and my initial reaction is this: change is good. From a pure entertainment standpoint, Rolen gives the average fan a new attraction for the next season. Once regarded as the premiere 3B in the game, Jays fans have never really had the opportunity to see Rolen on a regular basis... a career National Leaguer, his defensive gems were largely not seen in Canada.

Granted, Rolen is not the same player he once was. However, after multiple surgeries on his shoulders, apparantly Jays brass, who have seen his medical reports, are high on his chances to return to greatness.

I suspected late last year that the Jays were desparate to unload Glaus, but didn't think there'd be any market at all for him. With the public fighting between LaRussa and Rolen, all of a sudden the Cards were a team that was desparate for a change at the position, and the Jays were happy to oblige, ridding the team of their own corner infielder that they obviously grew tired of.

Contracts aside, past production aside, this deal really boils down to a health issue. Which player do you think has the best chance to recover from past injuries and has the body to sustain the gruelling 162 game schedule for 2008 and beyond. It seems the jury is divided, but put me on the side of the Jays camp. After seeing Glaus "play" the last 2 years, it's hard to think that he'll be able to get his career back on track, even if playing on grass.

Keep Rollin'

2008-01-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Blue Jays are set to swap Troy Glaus for the Cardinals Scott Rolen. Check back for commentary on this development when the deal is more set in stone, and the financial peramters have all been set.

Still loading up that Pen

2008-01-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

As if a bullpen that consisted of Brandon League, Jeremy Accardo, Scott Downs, Brian Wolfe, Brian Tallet, and a returning BJ Ryan, weren't enough (not to mention the possibility of a returning Casey Janssen in the pen, Jason Frasor still somehow on the roster, and Davis Romero coming back to hopefully kick some ass), the Jays have been ridiculously busy this last week scraping arms off the free agent wire left right and centre.

First up was John Parrish, who I remember as a decent southpaw arm when he was with the O's a couple years ago. Then Lance Carter, who I never remember being good at all. And again today signing Shawn "This One Time at Band" Camp to another minor league deal.

Perhaps there is nothing to make of this string of signings. Probably it's just merely the team loading up on some insurance arms for their pen. Arms are always questionable, and it's never a bad idea to throw as many into the barn ready to be plucked from the farm when the major league guys show trouble.

But maybe the Jays are looking to see that if Ryan returns to his former self, they'll be able to use some of these pen arms, make them expendable, and start looking to address other needs (ie. catcher). It'd be hard for the team to improve in their backstop position. The Mets showed everyone that even an average catcher (Brian Schneider) came at a really big price. And all of a sudden, Bengie Molina and his fat contract are attractive to some squads. But one would think a trade within the division must have at least crossed the minds of Jays brass. The Orioles have Ramon Hernandez just waiting for his ticket out. The Orioles have a horrible bullpen. It seems a perfect fit. It seems a perfect storm is brewing.

But maybe it's just been this quiet month that's had strange visions coming to my mind.

The Future is Cloudy

2008-01-04T16:04:00.000-08:00

So I think I've got an official list of Baseball America's top ten Jays prospects a bit before they release it on their website. Apparently, they've already distributed their magazine which has the lists in there, and someone sent it to me yesterday, and the list looks pretty legit so I'm going to run with it, and pick it a part as best as I can.

Now, I'm not about to suggest that I will be able to pass better judgement on these rankings than Baseball America. They actually see these players on a regular basis, and are pretty astute at figuring out who projects as major leaguers and who doesn't. My basic research skills essentially pertain to reading a bunch of stuff about these players online, and finding pictures of these guys on their facebook accounts that resemble 13 year old Asian girl poses (see Arencibia, Cecil and Litsch pictured top right as an example).

Alright. Here's the list:

1. Travis Snider
2. Brett Cecil
3. Kevin Ahrens
4. J.P. Arencibia
5. Ricky Romero
6. Justin Jackson
7. John Tolisano
8. Curtis Thigpen
9. David Purcey
10. Ryan Patterson

One thing that's slightly depressing is the fact that Curtis Thigpen actually makes the list of top ten prospects in the system, which seems to indicate that the farm is much thinner than I had first thought. I mean, no offense to Thigpen, but he's really not a guy who projects any thing better than, at best, a really below average starting infielder or a really below average starting catcher, or an average back up backstop. And if this guy is the 8th best guy in the system, that's not a good thing to say about the system as a whole.

Of course, a significant amount of talent has already passed through the system in the past couple of years exhausting their eligibility for prospect qualifications, so that's something, but really, aside from Travis Snider, there doesn't seem, at the surface to be much here to have faith for the next decade in Toronto.

But there are a few glimmer of hope guys that I would consider to be underrated by the likes of Baseball America, and I guess generally scouts in general: Justin Jackson (pictured above left with some guy going after his ear) and Eric Eiland. Both have been said to be really athletic guys with a tonne of potential in their blood. I am hoping this scouting report is based on more than just the scout visually reacting to the fact that both players are black. I am assuming that these scouts have seen these guys making strides on the diamond defensively and offensively. But of all the reports I've read on the upper tier of Jay prospects, both of these guys' profiles definitely seemed the most encouraging. There are flaws in their games, both have trouble making consistant contact, which is troublesome considering they are hitting low A ball pitchers, but both are young as hell, both have wheels, and both are considered to be tremendous with the glove... which makes one think that Ricciardi's scouting mantra has twitched a bit for this year's draft class.

The other guy that seemed to have a lot of splooge-worthy scouting reports was the Jays #1 pick of '07, Kevin Ahrens (the dapper youngster pictured on the right). He's a switch hitting third baseman, who has good power from both side, which immediately leads to comparisons to Chipper Jones, which is really unfair, because Chipper Jones was pretty much a top ranked prospect in all of baseball since he was drafted. Ahrens is far from that. Nevertheless, he seems like a guy who could be a possible mainstay in about five years.

Baseball America's rankings seem pretty spot on. Unfortunately, they also seem to indicate the Jays minor league system isn't quite as strong as I had thought prior to investigating it a little more further.

Broken Hearts Club

2008-01-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

Not only will Eckstein be playing on the same field as Reeder, but they both will be on the left side of the field. With little David at short, and plugger Johnson in left field, any bloop between them will undoubtedly stir the hearts of the Jays faithful, wondering whose heart... whose grit... whose will to win, will grab that ball, and steal a hit away from the opposition.

Unfortunately, due to moderate talent, mediocre defense, suspect wheels, and a string of serious past injury problems, one would have to believe that despite the unquantifiably, but undoubtedly huge hearts of both Eck and Reeder, the majority of these balls will fall in.

I suspect there will be an initial endorsement from the fans with the play of Eckstein and Johnson during the first few weeks of the season, but that should end soon. With the probability of the entire left side of the infield going on the shelf by June, fans will have had their fill of appreciating grit and hussle, and steroid induced Glaus power, and then ride out the rest of the summer watching Scutaro, Johnny Mac, and Matt Stairs, three perfectly below average baseball players, ride the team to the sunset... how depressing.

Such doom and gloom this post... however, Baseball America will be revealing their top 10 prospects for the Jays this week, and we're going to be all over that, cause we love the Jays' system. Well, love is a strong word, but we certainly like it! We'll see what BA says, and then post our opinions shortly thereafter.

Gambling for Success

2007-12-13T19:23:00.000-08:00

There are a few things I am aware of in making this suggestion towards those in the Jays front office, whom I am sure read this blog on a daily basis, just waiting to read what exactly they should do next:

1) I am aware that there is no indication that the following free agent has any desire to come to Toronto, and in fact, would be willing to bet, if similar but less money was offered in a more desirable location for him, this free agent would be much more willing to go to that place (that place probably being New York)

2) I am also aware that the Blue Jays experiment of throwing a little bit of cash on what were considered "re-tread" pitchers last year yielded no favourable results from those low value acquisitions (though did result in very favourable results in the longhaul because of said failed experiment retread pitchers)

3) The media in Toronto does not like the idea of spending significant money on pitchers with long histories of arm troubles and questionable temperament (see: AJ Burnett), and would probably criticize the move from the get-go, not to mention if the money was eye opening...

HOWEVER...

The Jays should seriously blow the bankload on getting Mark Prior signed to a contract. Yes, there are plenty of reasons to suggest that Prior will give absolutely nothing in return. There is a laundry list of reasons: he hasn't pitched at all for a whole year, and a grand total of 9 games in the past two seasons. He hasn't pitched a full season really since his one great year in 2003. His fastball has also reportedly lost a significant amount of zip. He is a shell of a pitcher he was five years ago.

HOWEVER...

If the Jays really want to have a shot at overtaking the East over the next few years, they really need a lot of miracles to take place, and there's not a better player to encapsulate that idea than Prior. The chances of Prior reviving his once limitless career are almost nil. But with the Free Agent pool dried up, AJ Burnett seemingly on his way out after this year, and the Jays roster still lacking the punch of the Yanks/Sox, the move in integral. Ignore the medical records which seem to indicate Prior will return throwing at a velocity in the vicinity of yours truly, ignore that he won't be around until at least July recouperrating from serious shoulder surgery. Take the 1/1,000 shot and do the expensive gamble. There's nothing to lose, except .00004% of Ted Rogers' money.

Probable Results but Potential Results

The Eckstein Diversion

2007-12-13T18:11:00.001-08:00

Meet your newest Toronto Blue Jay: David Eckstein. Spunky, little, hardnosed, Reed Johnsonesque. Sadly he is a very mediocre player, but his Craig Grebek stature, and balls out play should be fun to watch for the 2007 season as the Jays sail to another patented third place finish.

The infield actually looks pretty fun now, with the very underrated Marco Scutaro and the very overrated, but still entertaining Eckstein. And thank fucking goodness that John McDonald will now be a reserve. Yes, his defence was spectacular, but bearing with him in the 9th spot in the order would have just been devastating over 162 games.

Now Gibby has the big question infront of him: scrappy hardnosed Reeder in the leadoff spot, or scrappy hardnosed Eckstein? I'm going to go with the obvious choice of Reed, and assume Eck will be hitting in the nine spot.

Oh yeah, in other news, Gregg Zaun was outed as a juicer. This should really shock nobody.

Don't Do Drugs

2007-12-12T17:30:00.000-08:00

So it appears all the talk eminating from the Winter Meetings are all for naught. No Paul LoDuca (verry nice!), but no Tim Lincecum either (too bad). Which leads me to believe that with no other top of the line young pitching available via trade that Rios could bring in, I wouldn't be surprised if Adam Lind's name starts making its way around the trading circles for the next few months.. as far as trading partners go... who knows.....

The Jays aren't really much of interest right now though, because the ridiculous investigation of past preformance enhancing baseball players finally is producing a document tomorrow! Yes, the amazing Mitchell Report, which for some reason feels necessary to publish all these findings of past players use of drugs.

Time to play a game. How many names can you guess who will be on the list before it comes out? Besides the obvious (Segui, Gibbons, Grimsley, Giambi, Bonds etc.) Here are mine:

Paul LoDuca, Brad Fullmer, Brian Roberts, Miguel Tejada, Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, Mo Vaughn... and of course... Pat Strange

The Return of BJ

2007-12-10T18:03:00.000-08:00

It's been pretty quiet the last few days which has allowed All Your Base's minds to drift, drift away to thinking about the return of the Beej. And how, in his return, he needs to be fresh, new, and exciting for the fans. The only way to do this, is to steal a page from the geniuses at the WWE, and return... with brand new music!!!

Now don't get us wrong... there wasn't anything necessarily awful about his old stuff.. the Slipknot tune with the flames burning through the JumboTron, but any Jay fan knows that before Beej was here, that tune always blared when Shitski came up to the plate, painful memories indeed.

So what could Beej come out to? Papelbon got the right idea in Beantown taking in the local flavour and picking a pretty kick ass tune from the Dropkick Murphys... Beej should follow cue and take a local Canadian joint to rock to... and after scanning the tunes... we submit this selection:

Baseball Writers Flame Warz

2007-12-09T14:11:00.000-08:00

Let's set this flame war up. I first read the news story on Fire Joe Morgan. Apparently,

"Eighteen web writers were nominated for membership in the Baseball Writers Association of America... Sixteen of the eighteen writers got in. Not bad, huh? But wait: who were the two unluckies who didn't quite cut the baseball-flavored mustard? None other than Rob Neyer and Keith Law, two men of reason." - Fire Joe Morgan

"Sixteen of the 18 nominations were recommended for approval: Scott Miller from CBS Sportsline; Jim Caple, Jerry Crasnick, Peter Gammons, Tim Kurkjian, Amy Nelson, Buster Olney, and Jayson Stark from ESPN; Ken Rosenthal from FoxSports; John Donovan, Jon Heyman, and Tom Verducci from SI; and Tim Brown, Steve Henson, Jeff Passan, and Dan Wetzel from Yahoo." - The Baseball Analysts

So to summarize: Keith Law and Rob Neyer, two of the most sound baseball writers out there will not be able to vote for MLB Awards, nor be granted access to press boxes, etc.

The response is unsurprisingly against the BBWAA. Many have figured that this is just another example of the old boys club excluding the new faction of intelligent writers who actually use data to back up their analysis, and basically are equipped to write some scathing articles that sometimes, piss off the old folks who are part of the ol' fightin' regime.

According to the head of the BBWAA, Bob Dutton, the BBWAA contacted ESPN and were told that attending live games were not integral to Law's and Neyer's writing, and that neither hardly attend live games at all... because of this, and being a main reason to be a part of the BBWAA, Law and Neyer were excluded.

Keith Law has his own thoughts and put them up on his personal blog. And it's pretty good reading. Writes Law:

First and foremost is that yes, I do attend MLB games on a regular basis. I couldn’t do my playoff advance reports without actually going to see the teams play live; on the season’s final Saturday, I hopped in the car and drove from Boston to Philly because I hadn’t seen the Phillies play and wanted to get at least two games with them before writing them up. I’m not even sure why this was in question, since I mention being at games all the time. (Seriously, did they think that I sat at home and pointed the radar gun at the television?) I watch games from the scouts’ section, not the press box, because the view is better, and I usually eat before going to the park, not in the press dining room, because the food is better.

Second, Bob Dutton, the president of the BBWAA, has said this:

Some board members informally contacted folks at ESPN with this question and were told neither Rob nor Keith regularly attend big-league games and do not need to do so in order to do their jobs.

To the best of my knowledge, this isn’t accurate. Jack O’Connell, the secretary of the BBWAA, has my full contact info (including cell phone #), and he has the contact info for the ESPN.com baseball editor, who submitted the list of nine names. Neither Jack nor anyone else on the seven-member committee contacted me or the baseball editor to ask if I attended big-league games regularly. We were also both in Nashville in the hotel at the time of the meeting, but again, we weren’t contacted. In fact, we can’t figure out who the board members “informally contacted” at ESPN, because there was no one else with the authority to speak about Rob and myself. I have expressed this concern to Bob, although I won’t reprint any of his private responses to me here.

There are various statements out there on blogs and in blog comments (by the way, thank you all for your support) saying that ESPN somehow told the BBWAA that I didn’t need to be a member. This is false.

Third, the rank-and-file were presented with a binary choice on the motion to admit these Internet writers: Yay, which admitted the 16 who got in and rejected Rob and myself; or nay, which would have admitted no one. There was a little floor debate, but the names could not be unbundled, and I was told by more than one member that they felt there was “no room for discussion.” Given that scenario, I would have voted “yay” as well. Better to get Gammons and Stark and Verducci and Passan and the others in than to get none in at all.

I only know two members of the committee: Dutton, whom I just met for the first time after the vote and who seems for all the world like a great guy; and Bob Elliott, whom I’ve known since 2002 and whom I respect as a person and a writer. I do sort of know Tracy Ringolsby, who isn’t about to nominate me for the Spink Award, but I’d like to give him the credit to think that his personal feelings about me didn’t affect his professional judgment here. I’m told he also voted against the general proposal to admit the 16 who did get in, so this is probably as much about the Interwebs as is it about me. I’ve only exchanged emails with O’Connell and with Phil Rogers (the latter exchange coming years ago), and have never had any interaction with Paul Hoynes or David O’Brien. I’m not sure if any of them would recognize me if they saw me at a ballpark or at the winter meetings or anywhere. Would it have helped if anyone on the committee besides Bob Elliott was more familiar with how I go about doing my job? Perhaps.

This is when Tracy Ringolsby goes apeshit, he does a couple of posts on Law's comment board, then goes by the handle "ballfan" on Baseball Think Factory, and makes a complete 17 year old girl out of himself. He ends up quitting on the discussion, and is pretty much lambasted by the online community, and also guys like Dayn Perry come to bat for Law and Neyer as well. If you have an hour, the comments are pretty entertaining, here's a few retarded Ringolsby zingers:

"There also is the possiblity that Keith Law is not being honest in his post. Having been there and witnessed the events, I can assure you that there are several issues which Law alleges that are flat out lies, but if he didn't use the lies he wouldn't be able to make his point. "

"There are plenty of things to dislike about what I do and I don't usually argue with it, but to have someone like Law accuse me of being anti internet shows that he once again is spouting off about crap he doesn't know about. There have been several times during the year I have questioned him on his facts and accusations and he has explained the mistakes by saying he is young and inexperienced and makes mistakes but people need to be understanding. Boy that's great crediblity. If Law had questions about the vote or my vote, he had plenty of opprotunities to ask me in Nashville, but never once broached the subject. Yet, he didn't hesitate to make accusations against me."

Neyer & Law vs Ringoslby

Things Are Picking Up...

2007-12-05T16:03:00.000-08:00

These winter meetings are 95% hot air, but with the dilution of the free agent market, it's really turning old school with trade rumors coming harsh and fierce, and now with the Internet at everyone's fingertips, the fun is non-stop 24-7.

We didn't expect to hear a peep out of Jays camp, but someone must've lit a fire up JP's ass, cause every national update has something going on with Toronto. A quick glance over the biggest news stories from the day from Jay land:

1) As mentioned previously, our boy Alex Rios may be heading out of town. Say it ain't so!! Unless, it's for Motherfucking Tim Lincecum!! There have been many variations, with other names dangled about in these San Fran/Toronto trade talks, but apparantly, it's now come to a one for one swap, take it or leave it deal, with would be Rios for Lincecum straight up. Which would be straight up sexy for the T-Dot.

2) Rumors circulated about Troy Glaus going to the Dodgers. Which would be quite ballsy if the Jays would ship out Rios and Glaus this offseason. Cause that's some serious power outage. It won't happen, but when reading the rumor, we read that the Jays covet Andy LaRoche, which is tight, because we love LaRoche too.

3) Jays are gonna sign Paul LoDuca for about 4 million bucks, on a one year deal. All Your Base hates fucking Paul Lo Duca, but are not against the signing out of necessity. In other words, despite his fucking doucheness, Lo Duca is a considerable upgrade over Sal Fasano.

In any event, let's say deal number one and deal number three happens, the Jays would certainly be the best team in the National League, and it wouldn't be even that close. Unfortunately, they play in a division with Boston and New York, and the American League also has the Tigers and Angels.

Shitty.

All Your Base Are Belong to Lincecum??

2007-12-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

Holy Fuck. There are only a handful of players I would be happy to get in return for the best player on these Blue Jays. But if the Jays are able to get Tim Lincecum for Alex Rios, my balls will probably explode. A rotation of Roy Halladay, AJ Burnett, Lincecum, Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum would be fuckin' A. Add that to a stellar bullpen with the likes of Casey Janssen, Brandon League, Jeremy Accardo, Scott Downs and a returning BJ Ryan. That is some good shit right there.

There have been conflicting reports of whom the Jays prefer, the majority saying the Jays are more interested in Matt Cain, due to his durability and more advanced track record. But Lincecum has one year's less service time, and IMO is a vastly superior talent. Cain is the bee's knees to many in the baseball world, and the Giants are more reluctant to deal Cain as well. Which is fine by All Your Base, cause Lincecum is the shit!

Some quick Lincecum numbers from last year: at age 23, in the bigs, had 150 K's in 146 innings. Opponents hit .226 off him. 1.28 Whip. Nasty fuckin' stuff.

Do it Sabean! Rios is grande!!!

Red Sox vs Yankees, Again!

2007-12-02T15:32:00.001-08:00

All Your Base's views on all the talk going on now....

Johan Santana for Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera and some mid tier prospect:

Our View: Melky is pretty shitty mediocre, and doesn't help a team at all if he's the lineup every day... but he doesn't hurt the lineup either. He seems very milquetoast. Which really should be his nickname: Milquetoast Cabrera. So this deal is essentially Johan for Phil Hughes. Hughes would be under control for a half a decade by the penny pinching Twinkies, and he's a top 5 pitching prospect. It makes total sense for the Twins to be all over this...

But some say the Twins might prefer:

Johan Santana for Jacoby Ellsbury, Jed Lowrie, and Justin Masterson

Our View: So the final two guys are basically at the level of Kason Gabbard who they dealt away for Eric Gagne. Basically, alright guys, maybe a bit higher ceilings. Obviously it's mostly just Ellsbury who is the highlite of the deal, and Ellsbury looks to be a good solid major leaguer. Johan is a top stud pitcher... worth way more than this deal. Twinkies are dumb as fuck if they prefer this over the Yanks offer.

So there's a lot of crazy talk going on now, but we haven't seen anything printed about some deal's we've heard from our sources, so we decided to put them out here, take a gander at these new rumors du jour:

All Your Bases' exclusive NEW RUMORS!!!:

The Blue Jays will be talking to the Giants to test the waters out for one of their young pitchers.
Mark Prior's days with the Cubs are numbered, with the Padres appearing to be his future destination. The San Diego native's stock is nearly at zero right now, but the Padres would be forced to give something of value for the still high ceiling but oft-injured talent. Former #1 overall pick Matt Bush is a possible exchange piece.
The San Francisco Giants are considering moving Tim Lincecum for Miguel Cabrera.

Offseason Fun

2007-10-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

The World Series is almost done, which means one thing, the offseason frenzy of moves is approaching. Pardon me for not commenting more on the World Series, but I work in the morning, and I don't feel it necessary to stay up until 1am every night to see the shitty Rockies play.

Unlike years past, this upcoming offseason appears to be one that will have little activity. Most teams have their superstars locked up, not looking to move them, and the free agent pool is very, very weak, with only A-Rod, Torii Hunter and I guess Andruw Jones being the premier guys available.

For the Jays, nobody is expecting a plethora of moves, and the biggest name Wilner has provided as a possible signing has been Brad Wilkerson.

However.

To tide us over will be George Mitchell's steroids report that is probably going to bury guys like Clemens and other future Hall of Famers. What should be most interesting is seeing whether the tide will turn with sportswriters, and their opinions of whether McGwire, Raffy, etc, etc, should be admitted with this new information available.

Post Season Post

2007-10-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

I've let this site slide over the last few weeks. No excuses. It's the fucking post season, and a bunch of shit is going on that's worthy of multiple posts, not neglect.

Despite the games being sans Rios, there are enough superstars, and there's enough good baseball to help lose the sting of it being without the beloved Blue Jays.

There's a lot of groud to make up here, but let's just try to highlite the main two stories thus far that have unfolded.

1. Yankees lose. Exodus of players? Fire Joe Morgan, as always, has been all over this development, particularly assaulting the scribes who have somehow faulted A-Rod for his production. No further commentary is needed, except this factoid: Scott Boras has said couple of things which lead me to believe that A-Rod's contract could be the most mind boggling holy shit contract of all time. A quick overlook at his two main arguments helping to drive up A-Rod's price:

a) the revenue in baseball has doubled since A-Rod's last contract. From 3 billion to 6 billion. More money in the bank, more money to the best player in the game.

b) Boras figures that A-Rod can play at the level he is right now for the next decade, and play at a high level until the age of 45, citing other well conditioned ball players smokin' through their mid 40s today.

Couple these two facts, along with "The Sexiest Baseball Babe's" uncanny history of avoiding any time due to injury, and his ridiculous consistency over his career, and you've got a recipe for insanity dollars. The only negative against A-Rod's value compared to his 252 million dollar contract in 2000 is that he is is considerably older now. Still, though, at at 32, and a ridiculously weak free agent class this year, with suitors out the wazoo, do not be shocked if A-Rod's deal is over 100 million dollars more in guaranteed money than his last one. Do not be shocked.

2. The Colorado Rockies' deal with the devil. There's no other reason to explain it. The team is halfway decent. Tulow, Holliday, and Helton can hit, but only supernatural reasons can legitimitely explain how they've been able to be unconscious in their last 20 games. The team simply isn't that great. They're basically a younger, slightly shittier version of the Blue Jays. The only other reason I can think of how they are winning so much is that they are playing not very good teams. But they've played the Arizona Diamondbacks and Philadelphia Phillies lately, two teams in the National League postseason, with players the calibre of Rod Barajas and Doug Davis!! Gotta be Satan.

At Least We're not Baltimore

2007-08-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Mike Flanagan and his group of merry men are coming to town.

Err.. once merry men. Miggy is no longer Jiggy like the mascot. He has morphed from the happy exciting sparkplug to a sluggish, disgruntled employee.

And he's representative of the team as a whole. Nobody seems to enjoy being an Oriole. And with very good reason. These are the days, When all that they can do is dream. And with Angelos still running things,fans have expressed the same running prognosis on the squad: There's no hope with [this] dope [in charge].

Things looking bleak here in Toronto? Just take a look at this squad coming in for the series. Outside of Eric Bedard and Nick Markakis, there's nothing.

But...

At least we know this fan will be on hand in Toronto, cheering on Eric Bedard, and inexplicably, Todd Williams. Todd Williams??

Barry the Blue Jay

2007-08-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but when Barry Bonds hit his record breaking home run this week, baseball bloggers throughout Canada reacted similarly to mainstream media throughout North America -- with disgust, and disdain that so much attention is being given toward, what they call "a cheater."

This just reaks of hypocrisy, because I am sure, 100% sure, guaranteed, that if Barry Bonds were to have played his last 10 seasons here in Toronto, he'd be the most popular and beloved athlete in this country. One reason is because Torontonians would all of a sudden embrace the fact that Bonds would absolutely crush a lot of the moronic beat writers of the city. Everyone would go hog wild as Bonds would chastise Marty York and Richard Griffin, but more importantly, everyone would be excited because Bonds would be helping the Jays win, and be putting on a spectacle every night, justifying the price for admission.

Let's also take a look at how Canadians have reacted to people who have actually FAILED drug tests:

Exhibit A: Silken Laumann

Silken tested positive for PREFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS. Sure it was something like Sudafed or something, but nevertheless it was a banned substance. Canadians still loved Silken... a CHEATER.

Exhibit B: Ross Rebagliati

Ross Rebagliati tested postive for weed. Which wasn't a banned substance, so he got to keep his medal. But weed is illegal, like steroids are illegal, which some say is reason enough why Bonds shouldn't have taken the juice even though it wasn't banned in baseball. But weed wasn't banned in the Winter Olympics, but is an illegal substance. And Canadians love Ross.

Let's not also forget that Jay fans had no problems cheering for teams a decade ago which had players such as Jose Canseco, Brad Fullmer, David Segui, Roger Clemens, Benito Santiago and Billy Koch on them. Just sayin'.

So everyone calm down. Bonds got the record. Enjoy him while you can. Watch him play. Envision him in a Jay uniform. Think what could have been.

Glaus is Going Nowhere Fast

2007-08-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

It has become increasingly more self evident that the trade value of Troy Glaus is much lower than when he was acquired just two years ago.

Even though he has less years on his contract left, and had, by all means, two very succesful campaigns since his move to Toronto, and he's still in his early 30s, his flaws have become more exposed than ever before.

He is, as people would like to say, an old 31. Which is very different than saying someone is an old 21. Lebron James is an old 22, because he looks way older than, say, this guy. Lebron physically looks like a 30 year old. So being called an old 22 is a positive.

On the contrary, it's also positive to say someone is a young 35. Like Jared Leto, people say he's a young 35 because its suprising to hear that he's that old. Yes, his music might be borderline shit, but fuck he looks young. And he likes blackberries.

But an old 31 is not a positive. Troy Glaus looks more warn down than 46 year old Julio Franco.

His injuries are mounting, as he's now, more than ever, showing he can't significantly contribute over a 162 game schedule, his body just breaks down and he swoons after the allstar break. Which makes him a guy the Jays would love to discard.

Publicly, their mantra has been that they are happy with him aboard. Privately, one must think that they'd be overjoyed with an offer, of any sort.

The jump to this conclusion is simple to amass. There have been reports stating that the Jays are open to dealing Glaus. The reason they haven't? Ricciardi has said it himself: they haven't got any offers. Which seems logical.

What are the advantages of Glaus? One dimensional power numbers for half a year at the corner infield position? Not really advantageous, plus it comes at an expensive financial price.

Let's be frank here. Troy Glaus is staying in Toronto, but it's not by choice. There are simply no takers.

He Hit Coconuts Far

2007-08-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited. And I'm not just excited because I saw Gary Beals rollerblading down my street today.

I'm excited because the Jays signed their 27th round draft pick today. Usually this doesn't illicit such fanfare, but the player has two major things going for him.

1) He's a Canuck, and he played right down the street this year for the Maple Leafs intercounty baseball team. That's tremendous! I don't care if he'll probably only make it to New Hampshire if he's lucky. He's signed sealed and ready to rock rookie ball now.

2) His name is Gilligan! How quirky! People in Lansing, get out your Skipper uniforms and pump this guy up. He's ready to roll. Sure, the low minors may be filling up with better talent, guys with boring names like Brett Cecil and Kevin Ahrens. But this guy, Kyle Gilligan, is surely the man to watch. Ahoy!!!

Josh Towers Dumb Decisions

2007-08-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

So now everyone seems to be jumping on this Josh Towers bandwagon. After beefing up his machismo last week criticizing his team's effort, and then drilling ARod last night, all of a sudden, in this lost season for the Jays, people are now gravitating towards Towers.

Fans are frustrated and it now looks like Josh Towers is coming to bat for them. Fans love seeing Towers rip his team for their lack of effort, because the fans think the same thing. Fans love seeing Towers drill ARod cause the Jay fans would love to do the same thing. But is this new Josh Towers, a vessell for Jay Fan frustrations for real? Or is there an underlining motive for his all of a sudden brush into the limelight?

His new persona of a trash talking, no nonsense fighter seems strangely out of character. Its reminiscent of the strange turn of Zach Morris in a late episode of Saved By the Bell, when out of the blue Morris becomes a tough guy and goes toe to toe with Slater. Very cool, but not really following his M.O.

So what's up with Towers? Did his agent give him advice that the more press he gets the more offers will come in when his contract expires this offseason? Does having a new tough as nails, trash talking persona make him a more attractive acquisition. Perhaps, however, if this is his objective, he's made a few mistakes.

Yes, he's getting out of the stable of the Jays fans whipping boy, a place he's occupied since the exodus of Eric Hinske.

But here's his main two problems:

1) He's ostrasized himself in the clubhouse. If you're going to rip your team, you gotta be specific. Otherwise, you've left this vague blanket criticism over all your teammates. You've belittled John McDonald, you've dissed Roy Halladay. They don't like this trash talking when they by association become a part of Towers ire. It's especially bothersome as well that it comes from a guy who was 2-10 last year. It's akin to Joel Madden being critical of the music industry.

2) Hitting A-Rod was fine. Belittling an old first base coach ain't such a tough guy move. I don't care if Tony Pena was smack talking you, you don't go out and start running your mouth off to the press about him, that's just weak. It's like Hulk Hogan just bad mouthing Bobby Heenan in a prematch interview rather than attacking Andre the Giant. Fans are like, 'what the fuck, pussy, go after the Giant!!!'

Clearly, Josh knows the writing's on the wall. And it looks like his trying to appease all the Torontonians before he hits the road. The question now is whether or not the new JT is making other teams take notice of him in a positive way. Take it away, Aretha!

What is Going On?

2007-08-08T15:10:00.001-07:00

I know, I know you have many questions. You feel like Joe Schmo wondering what is going on? It's a brave new world, and I don't want to waste what little time you have here with long winded explanations. However, one question I am sure which is swirling through your head is: What's with the title of this blog?

The Answer: While the reference is dated, it's meant to signify the convergence of the emerging Irreverent Internet Subculture with the game of baseball, particularly the Toronto Blue Jays.

Those unfamiliar with the former, here is an example of what I mean by the Irreverent Internet Subculture in which the blogs title is derived from. For a comprehensive analysis of the culture, read this primer. As for the latter, pretty self explanatory, the meat and potatoes is Blue Jays Baseball.

To best understand what this is all about though is just to keep reading. All Your Base is currently looking for more writers to join us on this blog. Anonymity is promised, aliases are used, and the only criteria is enjoying watching videos like this.