I've Got Nothing

Really, nothing at all.

Saw snippets of the game (including Lind's homer; he's now hitting .346 with 22 RBI in his last 22 games) before heading out to the pictures. The Dark Knight was, predictably, sold out, so we ended up at the late late showing of Wanted. Now, I have a pretty eclectic taste in film and was familiar with Timur Bekmambetov's work (a pair of visually impressive Russian vampire flicks with really weak story lines), so I knew what we were getting into. I admit to being entertained; generally speaking anything that exposes the tortured Russian psyche usually draws me in.

On a totally unrelated note, it would seem as though most JaysTalk callers are deliberately out to enrage Mr Mike Wilner, who we refer to as "The Oracle" around these parts. This is the list of sore spots, repeated as naseum:

* asking "how are you?"
* ____ is a .500 pitcher
* clutch hitting
* Scott Rollins
* attacks on JP's draft record
* attacks on AJ Burnett
* demanding more bunting
* " " small ball
* " that we blow 'this thing' up

If you are indeed one of our regular readers it's likely that you are a level-headed, handsome individual capable of expressing yourself rationally and logically without touching on any of the aforementioned Winer sore spots. If you happen to be one of the chuckleheads who does call in to harp on the same tired and wrong-headed arguments, then... I salute your tenacity? Really, we need these guys, the show wouldn't be half as entertaining without them.

-- Johnny Was

For whom the bell tolls

Over at Batter's Box, the learned elders of the Jays blogosphere have been debating whether JP Gibbons and his cohort John Gibbons should be escorted down to Pearson International and invited to never return to the Great White North. It's been an interesting debate and if you've got time to spare I'd highly recommend giving it a look in full.

If you don't, here are some of the highlights:

* most of the educated set (e.g. not your typical JaysTalk caller) are ready to see them both fired
* does the rot start with Paul Godfrey? Should he be shown the door as well? I've shared the suspicions of those who felt he forced the V-Dub extension on JP and catagorically refused to countenance bringing in Bonds after the Frank Thomas Fiasco, so maybe there's something to this
* 7 years in the same position with the same club is a very long tenure for a ML GM, to maintain one's job that long when one's club hasn't played a single meaningful game after Civic Holliday Monday in early August is pushing the odds. The early years were lean times, yes, but over the past 3 years he's had more money to play with than, say, Mark Shapiro or Kevin Towers, guys who've done more with less
* bringing in gap-fillers, cheap veterans, quality discarded bullpen arms is a very fine skill... for an assistant GM. Someone in JP's position can't always be nibbling around the edges without making the big moves that really make the club better
* if JP is better than average, he's still no better than average + and that's just not good enough in this AL East context
* and so on...

Is it a contradiction to preach patience with the club and simultaneously call for the GM's head? I don't think so, and yeah, that's what I'm doing and have been doing for the past few weeks.

Even The Oracle's legendary even keel-ism is showing signs of crumbling. He began last night's JaysTalk (linked to in his Fan590 blog) by telling JP as such as politely as possible before giving way to the callers who weren't going to be so diplomatic after the Jays dropped their 6th straight series.

Why summarize when you can plagarize? Here's The Oracle recounting their conversation last night in his own words:

He talked about how the lack of offense was completely unexpected, calling out Lyle Overbay (22 homers, 46 doubles, 92 RBI in 2006), Vernon Wells and Alex Rios specifically. He mentioned that some analysts had picked the Jays to be a playoff team and that no one he talked to in baseball in Spring Training told him they thought the bats would be a problem.

He said that everything has fallen apart offensively for the Jays. He can’t believe (nor can I) that his team is hitting 35 points below the league average with runners in scoring position. When asked about the status of his “plan”, he said that we’re supposed to be in the payoff portion right now - that they’d been hopeful of being a playoff team the last few years and that this year was supposed to be the best team they’d had. He did add that he feels the season is salvageable, but that there’s no big move in the offing.

Fair enough. But the fact remains that Wells and Rios are guys JP chose to extend rather than trade or that Overbay was his main trade target in the 2005 offseason. These are your guys, JP, and you're right to shoulder the blame when they don't perform to expectations.

And here's the doozy of the night as JP responds to a caller who asked if he'd bring Adam Dunn in:

Let me ask you something: what do you know about Adam Dunn? ... He's a great hitter? He's a lifetime .230-.240 hitter, who strikes out a ton and hits home runs.... You know the guy doesn't really like baseball that much? ... Do you know the guy doesn't have a passion to play the game that much? How much do you know about the player? There's a reason you're attracted to some players and there's a reason why you're not attracted to some players. I don't think you'd be very happy if we brought Adam Dunn here. I think you'd be one of the guys calling me on Wednesday night complaining about all the deficiencies the guy has. .. We've done our homework on guys like Adam Dunn and there's a reason why we don't want Adam Dunn. And I don't want to get into specifics but we've done our homework on a lot of the guys that you guys keep mentioning to us. We're way ahead of you guys in looking at the things and there's a lot of things and a lot of reasons why we wouldn't go get those guys. I appreciate, you know, the advice to go get these guys but we know more about them than maybe the average fan does.

Now, maybe JP doesn't like the cost of renting Adam Dunn for 2 months. I'm down with that line of thinking (mostly because I'd take Jason Bay over Adam Dunn 9 times out of 10). But do I care if Dunn sucks Satan's greasy cock when he's off the diamond or lack's passion for the game? Fuck no, it's the fact that he's pretty much a lock for 40 HR and a .900+ OPS year in year out that gets us salivating. Is he supposed to skip off the field after playing the first eight years of his career on crappy to mediocre Reds teams? Doesn't losing losing losing weigh on a man? This Brewers series has reminded us that team's are indeed permitted to hit the ball beyond the outfield fence unlike some recreational softball leagues and that power is a game changer. Fucking hell, this little word nugget from JP is more incredulous than the one he dropped a few weeks back about Jason Bay (144 OPS+) "not exactly tearing the cover off the ball."

I loved what JP did heading into the 2006 season (BJ Ryan, AJ Burnett, Lyle Overbay, Troy Glaus) because he'd given the club it's first chance of really contending since 1993. That was the high water mark of the JP era. His pre-2007 moves I wasn't so hot on. Frank Thomas was brought in as middle of the order insurance in case V-Dub didn't resign, but it defied common sense to go overkill and offer him a third (or even second) year. The V-Dub contract is a disaster in the making and I get sick to my stomach just thinking about it. Royce Clayton as your no.1 shortstop? Victor Zambrano/Tomo Ohka/John Thomson? These were all harbingers of the coming apocolypse.

Avoiding issues of character and PR optics, here's what's got JP on my Permanent Shit List this year:

* when JP cooked up the Rios-Lincecum deal last year, Giants GM Brian Sabean took a full week to mull it over before finally shooting it down. Could JP have tipped the scales by adding a player? I most certainly believe so. The name the Giants were rumoured to be interested in (according to MLBTR) at the time was Curtis Thigpen and would any of you shed any tears if he had been shipped off? Rock solid starting pitching is the one commodity we simply cannot afford on the free agent market--whereas corner outfields are easily attainable--and the opportunity to reel in a young, cheap stud passed us by. AJ Burnett was and is leaving after this year and we just can't buy an equivilant arm to replace him. Lincecum probably would've been both an improvement on AJ and his acquisition would've freed up more than enough cash to replace Rios. I cannot believe this one was botched and said as much at the time, even expecting Rios to be as good as he was in '06 and '07.

* recognizing that LF was a weak spot offensively, he abandoned creativity (spazz outcast Milton Bradley is hitting a not unpredictable .330/.452/.628 for $4 million for the Rangers) in favour of a low risk/low reward/low cost signing of Shannon Stewart, whose recent injury has given him a minor reprieve from an inevitable DFA. Will was Bradley's earliest champion and I can only assume he's been shaking his angry fist since January every time his name has come up

* after DFA-ing Frank Thomas for reasons that were largely beyong his control, JP didn't go out and replace him with the 800 lb gorilla who swings a much meaner stick: Barry Bonds. Any GM whose greatest priority is something other than winning, be it assembling good "character" guys or avoiding controversy, just isn't in the right line of work.

* sticking with Shannon Stewart through 200 ABs. Forget the gaudy AAA line; all of the projection models at fangraphs predicted that Adam Lind would hit far better than the sickly .622 line we've got collectively from our LFs this year. (Consensus there was he'd hit for a .770-ish OPS, Bill James figured he'd hit much better than that, about .850).

* a minor argument, but bringing David Purcey up for a second start against the Phillies (nervous young starter with flyball issues to face power-hitting club in sandbox park?) in which he got shelled worse than Warsaw in September of 1939 didn't do much to help his trade value. His sexy minor league line alone might've impressed enough to include him in a deadline package for a bat had that particularly ugly loss been hung on a veteran like John Parrish or Kane Davis instead.

And that's about it. I'm sure I'll think of other complaints to add to the list, but you get what I'm driving at. There's enough here to justify a personnel change, and yes, I can accept waiting until the offseason for that to happen.

It's getaway day in Milly-wah-kay. AJ Burnett takes on former Jay shitballer Dave Bush at 2:05 and let us pray once again that the flaky right-hander manges to stay healthy until the end of July. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there's no way they can lose this game, Dave Bush sucks the black rod that badly. The ESPN supercomputer is telling me to go fuck myself, that we've only got a 47% chance of victory.

Man v. Machine, the ultimate showdown.

-- Johnny Was

The Roundup

In the words of Mark McGwire, "I'm not here to talk about the past" (three games against the Tampa Ray Rays). Ok, I made that end part up, but I'm still not talking about it.

Scott Rolen will indeed be starting at the hot corner tonight as we kick off a 3-game road set against the Royals, another team that's not quite so lowly as they used to be. There is much talk that no one is expecting him to be the club's saviour, though quietly everyone is indeed expecting him to fill that role. Well, at least I am.

Shit... Dick Griffin writes that Rolen is the answer to the Jays shortcomings, which means that things can only go horribly wrong from here.

Blair is soliciting questions for a mailbag later today, so if you have anything you'd like to ask the old grump, fire it this way.

Adam Lind Watch: speculation grew mid-afternoon that he was on his way to join the Jays when he wasn't in the starting lineup for the Chiefs matinee with Pawtucket yesterday. Sadly, though, the hopes of dozens of like-minded nerds who actually have minor league gamedays open on their desktops were dashed when he came in to pinch hit (hitting a single) late in the game. Lind is now hitting a mere Tony Gwyn-esque .365, falling far short of JP's Ted Williams 1941 expectations for the young slugger.

Gibby responded to allegations that he's "abusing Doc" with a curt "go fuck yourself" (note: not his actual words). Bastian notes that Doc has averaged only 111 pitches over his past 3 starts, all complete games, and there's nothing out of the ordinary in that. I don't mind letting Doc finish games; in fact, when he takes the hill I'm actually expecting him to throw a complete game. It would be quite interesting to see how Cy Young voters would react if he was to put up about 15 CGs this year. How do you even measure the awesomeness of that accomplishment these days? We really should have his DNA sent off to a South Korean lab for human cloning.

Wilner invents the word "pathetictude" to describe the performance of the Jays' bats down in Florida. That's one of the things that I like about Wilner, how he makes up words like "Blue Jayically" and "bloggage". He figures that Lind will be in the lineup tonight, mmhmm... do go on...

Since nobody puts it in perspective better, here's the warm hug that is MW trying to soothe your jangled nerves:

All is not lost because the Blue Jays are actually a good team, all evidence to the contrary. They sit 4th in the league in on-base percentage and 5th in the league in ERA. Eventually all those runners, all those chances, will turn into some scoring. They’re hitting .260 as a team, but .234 with runners in scoring position. Worse still, just .216 with RISP and two out. I mean, that’s Yankee bad! But things even out over the course of 162 games, and by the end of it all, the Jays’ hitting in all situations should be about the same. Which means they’re due. Of course, they’ve been due for a six- or seven-game winning streak for a few years now, but that’s another story.

The power outage is what’s so hard to explain. Tied for last in the league in home runs, 11th in the league in doubles. It’s baffling, but I honestly don’t think there’s any reason to believe it won’t come around. Even without Frank Thomas, the Jays should get enough offense from Hill, Rios, Wells, Stairs, Rolen and Overbay to make them a better-than-decent line-up, and Eckstein, Zaun and (hopefully) Lind are all better-than-average bats at their positions. This is a team that should score, and not just against the Red Sox. And I believe it will.

Doesn't that feel better?

Ken Rosenthal concurs with JP's assessment that John Gibbons is an easy target and doesn't deserve to be fired. And yet that still might happen (for both men) if this slow start drags on much longer.

Frank Thomas claims to be quite happy to be back with the A's. I note without commentary that he was 0 for 3 with 2 walks in his re-debut (is that a Wilnerism?) with the Kelly Green and Golders. There you go, guy. An everyday gig. Prove the naysayers wrong.

Marc Hulet of fangraphs takes a look at rookie catcher Robinzon Diaz. We all know he's a bad ball hitter who rarely walks (or strikes out), but I found this interesting:

One other interesting knock on Diaz throughout his career is that he tended to take it easy and never really gave his all. People have said that he is a good player, who could be a very good player if he dedicated himself to the game on an everyday basis. As a result, Diaz could end up being a lot like Florida’s Hanley Ramirez, who has posted much better numbers on the center stage that is Major League Baseball, than he ever did in the minors.

Yes, indeed. If JP could move Barajas this summer to a contender short on catching (hello, Cincinatti), or just outright release him, we'll probably end up seeing more of Diaz in the second half. I prefer Brian Jeroloman in the long run, but we'll likely be going with a rookie catcher to platoon with Zaunner in '09. If Zaunner re-signs, that is.

Go Jays!

-- Johnny Was

The Roundup

If you'd like a terrifying mental image courtesy of Jeff Passan over at Yahoo, read on:

CHICAGO – In his hotel room only a night earlier, a sense of calm had enveloped Jim Leyland. Somehow, in this most embarrassing of times, he had managed to restrain his incendiary temper that, legend has it, once caused him to deliver a fierce tongue-lashing to his Colorado Rockies team in the buff, a cigarette with an inch-long ash dangling from his lips.

As tempting as it is to do a google image search for "angry naked old man with a moustache smoking a cigarette" to find a photo to accompany this morning's Roundup, I believe I shall pass on that, thank you very much.

Do you too get the feeling that once Leyland's woebegone Tigers actually start rolling they're going to lay out some of the most savage beatings in the history of the game? I reckon the Jays' four-game homestand with this lot at the end of the week will be their biggest test this month.

Last week I said I'd put a temporary moratorium on Orioles mocking as a hat tip to the club's decision to DFA half-goblin HGH user Jay Gibbons, so I must refrain from the turkey shoot that is pointing out Baltimore's many flaws as the Jays roll into town for a two-game set. Do go have a look at Camden Chat if you'd like some insight into how they've mysteriously ended up at 7-5 and in first place in the AL East.

On a positive note, why is everything coming up roses for the Jays?

* the tsunami ripple effect of the Beej's return (starters' confidence boosted knowing there's a lockdown closer at the end of the line, Accardo gets some lower leverage innings to work on his splitter, etc.)
* return to (mostly) good starting pitching after the blip against Oakland
* left-handed hitting Joe Inglett = platoon advantage at third
* League at least gets some innings in at AAA and should be tuned up when he gets called back to the bigs
* we're inching closer to Scott Rolen's return

Sadly, The Mockingbird is on hiatus until Thursday so we don't get the pitch f/x for Burnett's start yesterday. It looked like he was mixing in the curve much more frequently than in his last start against the A's, but it also looked like he couldn't throw it for strikes. Baby steps.

I really don't like disagreeing with Wilner, who's pretty much bang on about everything all the time, but really do think he's got blinders on when it came to his condemnation of the decision to have Hill bunt in the 7th yesterday. (There were runners on first and second with no outs and the team was down by a run).

Hill is a wonderful little ballplayer, an objective fact that we make note of quite frequently. He also has a career groundball percentage of just over 42 (that's damn high) and grounds into more double plays than pretty much any other regular in the lineup. A double play in the situation he was called upon to bunt in yesterday would’ve killed a rally while they were trailing by a run, an unpleasant scenario which must’ve been on Gibby’s mind. And while you can argue that Hill's been the hot hand so far this year, it must be taken into account has also been a crappy hitter at Rangers Ballpark (.256/.286/.308 in 42 PA).

In short, the manager was right to take the bat out of his hands.

"The Black Rod" Barajas (obscure parliamentary reference, sorry!), is day-to-day with a groin injury suffered running the bases yesterday. There's been some speculation that Curtis Thigpen would be called up today so he could sit on the bench as an emergency backup as Roddy convalesces, but I haven't seen word that any roster moves have been made.

Baseball-Reference.com just gets awesomer and more awesome by the day. If you haven't discovered it already, start checking out their gameday preview section.

ELSEWHERE:

* Is everyone outside of New York and Boston pretty much in agreement that the whole Bosox jersey thing at the new stadium is completly and utterly devoid of newsworthiness?

-- Johnny Was

Credit where due

Someone has to do it.

Someone has to stare into the maddening abyss and not only maintain their own sanity but try, against all odds, to impart some to the horde which assails him.

Someone - some lone, valiant, soul - has to sit behind a microphone and try to accomplish a task which makes herding cats look like child's play.

Someone has to listen to the ravings of the Chicken Littles among Jays fandom who call in the the post game show on Fan590, JaysTalk, and somehow, against all odds, NOT descend into a screaming slobbering rant at the insanity of it all.
That someone, that solitary heroic figure fighting a never-ending battle for reason, perspective, and logic is Mike Wilner. Your efforts, sir, do not go unnoticed or unappreciated. We here at The Southpaw salute you.

Yes, this has all the earmarks of a shameless cry for attention and a plug but, in all sincerity, it's not. I really do admire the job Mr. Wilner does. I cannot imagine that I could sit through some of the things he does and not say some VERY nasty things to the morons that call in to bless us with their "wisdom" about the Jays. Yes, the man has my dream job - but I have no trouble admitting that I really don't think I could handle it with as much class as he does.

A tip of the hat was the least I could do.



On another note, I for one confess to being mystified at the Jays' neglect of Brandon League. Fan590 is apparently reporting that Randy Wells has been designated for assignment after all of a single inning in the majors. In his place the Jays have recalled Jessie Carlson. Apparently the team seems to feel that their bullpen is a bit depleted after Accordo struggled on back-to-back nights and Downs went over 2 innings tonight.

OK, fine.

So if that's the case how come League only has one inning? How come Wells only had one? If Wells really can't be trusted to take up the slack (at LEAST as well as Jessie Carlson!) why did we keep him in the first place? And let's not forget last year's Lost Boy Jayson Frasor who, himself, has only 1 2/3 IP.
I have no big hard-on for Wells, though I think it would be nice if we bribed the Cubs to let us keep him, but I do submit that the Jays need to either trust the guys they have on their roster or change them. I'm NOT a Gibbons basher, I think he's more good than bad and I think the criticism of his handling of relief pitchers is overblown. But that said, I can find a rational that makes sense why we need to bolter a pen that has no less than three guys in it who are not getting hardly any work - at least two of whom we know are quality guys.

Accardo has pitched three days in a row now, and Downs isn't gonna be a lock after a hard night tonight. It will be very interesting to see if Gibbons uses the obvious man - Brandon League - if the Jays find themselves in a save situation tomorrow night.

~WillRain

Simmer down, ya'll!

This being the laptop/internet era, word travels fast and crazy rumours (started by irresponsible fantasy writers at ESPN, for example) can be quashed almost as soon as they start. Thanks Wilner!

Chalk the story Twitchy brought to your attention earlier today up as a "humourous misunderstanding" that resulted from a pretty bold assumption from said writers. Neither Marcum nor Burnett will be missing any time due to phantom injuries. Collective sigh of relief.

And, in other sweet news the roster has been "set". Cutting and pasting directly from Wilner's blog we have...

Pitchers (12 - what can I tell you):

Roy Halladay, A.J. Burnett, Dustin McGowan, Shaun Marcum, Jesse Litsch, Jeremy Accardo, Scott Downs, Brandon League, Jason Frasor, Brian Tallet, Brian Wolfe, Randy Wells

Catchers (2): Gregg Zaun, Rod Barajas

Infielders (6): Lyle Overbay, Aaron Hill, David Eckstein, Marco Scutaro, John McDonald, Frank Thomas (I guess this is where you put him)

Outfielders (5): Vernon Wells, Alex Rios, Matt Stairs, Shannon Stewart, Buck Coats

Disabled list (3): Casey Janssen (60-day), Scott Rolen (15-day), B.J. Ryan (15-day)

NOTE: by using italics I am signalling that yes, I have copied this material from another source, but no, this somehow isn't plagarism.

No surprises here. Coats gets bumped when Rolen comes back and probably Wolfe does so later to make way for the Beej. Things are unfolding as they should.

I'm kind of interested in Randy "R-Dub" Wells, who's a high energy guy and naturally pretty pumped about the prospect of tasting (?) his first taste of big league action. Buck Coats won't make us forget Scott Rolen (did we even get to know him?), but I guess that is a pretty cool name. I'm just saying nice things about everyone now, aren't I?

-- Johnny Was

Morning Roundup

Richard Griffin slaps a bunch of random factoids together and comes to the unlamentable conclusion that John Gibbons is on his way out this year if he doesn't somehow pull a 90-win season out of his ass. We know that Griffin has been grinding his JP axe for so long that it's now no bigger than a toothpick, so much of what's to come shouldn't be a surprise.

Gibby is not perfect. In three plus years on the job he's been learning as he goes and most would probably agree that he squeezed about as much as one would've expected from the talent at his disposal. He usually plays it safe by going with the matchup the numbers dictate, but he rides his starters--even TJ survivors--too deep into games. He has a reputation for being a players' manager, scraps with Lilly and Hillenbrand notwithstanding. He showed creativity in 2006 by moving Troy Glaus over to shortstop, keeping Hillenbrand's bat in the lineup at third, behind fly ball pitchers and in interleague games. And on the other hand he showed what might be a head-scratchingly vindictive side by using J-Mac as a pinch hitter last year with a healthy Alex Rios sitting on the bench. "I had my reasons," he said when questioned.

Just what his ceiling is as a manger I don't venture to say. He might get a little better than he is now, or he might not. He didn't do anything egregious enough last year to warrant a firing, but he didn't exactly cement his status here for the long term either.

Uncle Griff usually tests our credulity and doesn't disappoint this time around. Problem: how to compare Gibbons with the nine other managers who have longer tenure with their respective ball clubs? Solution: in a manner that's least flattering to JP's friend and personal hire.

Here's how Griffin proceeds:

The 45-year-old Texan has been at his job longer than 20 other managers and his total of 536 games managed in a Jays uniform trails only Cito Gaston and Bobby Cox, while his 270 victories are 11 behind Jimy Williams for third in franchise history.

As for the nine other managers currently with more service time in the same place, they are Cox (Braves), Tony La Russa (Cards), Mike Scioscia (Angels), Ron Gardenhire (Twins), Eric Wedge (Indians), Ned Yost (Brewers), Clint Hurdle (Rockies), Terry Francona (Red Sox) and Ozzie Guillen (White Sox)...

In comparing the accomplishments of the top 10 in terms of longevity, from No.1 Cox to No.10 Gibbons, five of them have won a World Series. Hurdle's Rockies went to the Classic and lost to Francona's Bosox in '07. Wedge last year made it to the ALCS with the Tribe, falling to Francona's Sox in seven games. Only Gibbons and Yost have prevailed this long without at least one post-season appearance.

Ok, so taking your club to the playoffs is the sole measuring stick for success when it comes to managers, which means Gibby (and Yost) are the worst of the bunch. Maybe they are.

But if you compared Gibbons' W-L record from his first three full seasons to those of everyone else on the list, you might come to a different conclusion. Gibby had two .500-ish clubs that couldn't hit (2005 and 2007) and one that flirted with 90 wins despite the best efforts of Josh Towers (2006). Two of those clubs had no shot of going to the playoffs, and the middle one did a fairly good imitation of a contender into August.

Bobby Cox and Tony LaRussa both had losing composite records in their first three years and they get kudos around the league for being great managers, deserved (Cox) or not (LaRussa). Scioscia got a ring in year three, but his first two clubs were uncompetitive. Gardenhire is a fantastic manager whose teams regularly outperform their pythag; he rang off 90 win seasons and AL Central titles in each of his first three seasons. Wedge took over as the Indians were rebuilding, but his clubs are usually bad on the pythag, the 2006 edition drastically so (11 games under). Yost had two crappy clubs and one .500 one, then regressed, then got back up around .500; he's playing with some phenomenal young talent (Fielder/Braun) in a weak division and has little to show for it--so far. Hurdle had five straight losing seasons and probably would've lost his job last year if not for the Rox improbable late season playoff run. Francona is probably--no, scratch that, he is--the best manager in baseball, but it didn't start out so beautifully in Philly. Guillen rode the Chisox to a WS victory in 2005 when the pitching clicked, but he's constantly running his mouth and making headaches for the club.

You can basically spin this however you like because there's good, bad and in between on this list. But Griffin likes to simplify things in a manner that fits his own worldview (must clone 1980 version of Ron LeFlore...), and he choses to tell a story that vindicates his own dislike of JP Ricciardi.

Forgive me for saying that line of reasoning is just dickish.

In other news, Stairsy has recovered from a minor ankle sprain and got into yesterday's game, going 0 for 3. The Beej is to throw simulated games today and Tuesday, with his first real fake game action slated for March 15.

AJ Burnett pitched well yesterday and Gibby is confident that he'll have his curve working by the start of the season. It might take a prosthetic nail, but he'll git'er done.

The Mockingbird really knocks one out of the park on the LF competition between Shannon Stewart and Reed Johnson. Blair's argument that that SS is the better player "Period", is faulty. Go have a look if you want to know why.

Wilner is getting a bit testy with the mental midgets who think the ship is on fire because the Jays aren't winning spring training games. He makes a good point here:

Will Machi giving up three in the ninth affect the Jays this season? Will Inglett and Ryan Patterson not being able to drive in a run with the bases loaded and one out in a two-run game? How about Ryan Ketchner giving up a four-spot in a game the Jays lost by three? Maybe it’s that the Jays had a perfect game thrown at them by the Yankees in a game in which 80% of the plate appearances were by Inglett, Lind, Coats, Snider, Pedro Lopez, Curtis Thigpen, Russ Adams, Matt Watson and Chip Cannon.

I’m hoping these examples are enough, but I feel like I’m beating my head against a brick wall when I read some of these comments.

I’ll close with this: The 1984 Detroit Tigers got off to the best start in baseball history at 35-5, barely breaking a sweat on their way to a World Series title. In the pre-season that year, they had the second-worst record in the American League at 11-17. In 1992, the Blue Jays won the World Series, an especially amazing feat because they had to overcome a 13-18 pre-season, the second-worst in the league. In 1993, they went 11-19 in games that didn’t count, and ridiculously, still managed to win the World Series again.

Seriously, the guy usually has more patience than a kindergarden teacher. Don't jump, Wilner!

ELSEWHERE:

* The Rays have pretty much made their peace with the fact that Rocco Baldelli, pencilled in as their right fielder, is going stay/get hurt and cause them massive headaches. External options would include Kenny Lofton, or there the possibility that Eric "Doug Heffernan" Hinske could do his awkward, rambling and always exciting impression of an outfielder. I'm pulling for Dougie. Same reasoning as the people who voted for William Hung on American Idol.

* Coco Crisp is cross at losing his job to wunderkind Jacoby Ellsbury, but of greater interest is the Boston Herald's use of OPS when listing a players stats. Just wishing the local papers would similarly provide the JaysTalk set with a little bit more context... Crisp suffered through various ailments last year and is probably the best 4th OF in the AL. He will get his ABs when Manny goes on his annual summer vacation. I've been awfully kind to the Beantowners in this paragraph, no?

* The Yankees are apparently worried that Joba Chamberlain is letting his new-found celebrity status go to his head. Where is my eye-rolling emoticon? He threw 24 major league IP last year. Rival clubs just might have looked at his game tape this offseason. But I'm sure a 0.38 ERA is something he can easily maintain over a 15-year career, because Joba Rulez!

* Daisuke Matsuzaka may or may not be able to accompany the Bosox to Japan for their regular season-opening March 25-26 set with the A's in Toyko because his wife has a little chavy to fire out later this month. Millions of Japanese fans will be gutted if he can't make it.

* A-Rod's got a sore shoulder that is temporarily limiting him to DH duties. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound serious.

Apologies to anyone who usually reads this in the morning. Blogger server errors prevented me from getting this up earlier

--Johnny Was