Brett Lawrie: It's all about the wood

It's probably unwise to bore people with Brett Lawrie updates. The B.C.-born Milwaukee Brewers bonus baby might have indirectly fired a salvo in the never-ending debate about wood vs. metal bats (which will be settled the day after we hash out, "Religion: What Is The One True Faith?").

"One advantage Lawrie has over his American counterparts is he has been using a wooden bat for a few years. Most American players use metal bats until they are drafted, making it difficult as they adjust to faster and better pitching. It's also difficult for scouts who project how metal bat players will transition to the professional game. With Lawrie, that wasn't a problem.

" 'It was big for me - using a wood bat at such a young age,” he said. “You really have to get a feel for the sweet spot. You can miss with a metal bat and still hit well. With a wood bat, you can't miss.' "

Lawrie, as you know, already has enough of an adjustment on his hands with the Brewers converting him to second base (no errors since May 9). His .279/.347/.497 batting line is pretty impressive for a 19-year-old playing in the Single-A Midwest League, where most of the players are 21 and 22 years old.

Basically, the argument for using aluminum bats is that it's cost-effective since they don't break. However, they now run up to $400 and often have to be replaced every year or two, while the wood costs $50-120. Amateur players probably don't break bats at as high as a rate as professionals, since both bat and pitch speed is slower.

The B.C. Premier Baseball League, which turned out Lawrie and several other Canadians who are in the minors, uses wood bats. Presumably, they would appreciate their graduate's endorsement of the policy.

And, of course, Brett Lawrie is not the most publicized member of his family this week, since his sister, Danielle Lawrie, was just named the NCAA player of the year by virtue of pitching the Washington Huskies into college softball World Series. She threw 396 pitches in one day during the regionals (and Dusty Baker isn't even her coach).

(Danielle Lawrie has joked with the media about why she dyed her hair from blond to brown, but it's still weird to see a sports story that refers to an athlete as "raven-haired." You wouldn't see that in a story about a dude.)

Related:
Fast track; Brewers' prospect Lawrie hopes playing 2nd was the right move (Rob Lucas, Beloit Daily News)

Zen Dayley: Ex-Lynx catches on with Bucs

It's great how someone else's good news can cause you to perk up: Case in point, Jason Jaramillo, the last starting catcher for the Ottawa Lynx, had a happy homecoming last night with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

" 'This is an amazing dream come true,' said the 26-year-old Jaramillo, a Franksville native who becomes the first position player from Racine County to start for a major league team since Case graduate Duane Kuiper started 18 games at second base for the 1984 San Francisco Giants. 'All the blood, sweat and tears, I guess they say, about battling and working hard to achieve your dream is coming true.' "

Jaramillo, 26, is starting for the Pirates and his manager for the Lynx, John Russell, and doing a bang-up job in Ryan Doumit's absence. The job is his to lose until Doumit's projected return around the all-star break and the Pirates are 11-8, with a NL-best 3.36 ERA under Russell and former Expos pitching coach Joe Kerrigan.

Jaramillo is mostly backup-catcher timbre, the catch-and-throw guy who can hold on to a major-league job just for a receiving skills and occasionally. It's mostly beside the point whether he and the Pirates can sustain such a start. It's just nice, for lack of a more original word, to see him get a chance to play every day. He represented the late and lamented Lynx in the Triple-A All-Star Game in 2007. The offensive numbers (he had the exact same on-base-plus-slugging, .711, in both '07 and '08) were depressed somewhat by pitchers' parks in both Ottawa and Allentown, Pa., so the change of scenery helped. It's a pleasant surprise, to say the least.

"And from a defensive standpoint — and defense is Jaramillo's forte — he has yet to commit an error and has thrown out two baserunners, one of which was a SportsCenter highlight.

"So delighted is Pirates manager John Russell, who managed Jaramillo with the Class AAA Ottawa Lynx in 2007, that he only could think of one complaint.

" 'The only knock I have on him is he's from Oklahoma State,” joked Russell, who was a catcher for arch-rival Oklahoma from 1979-82.

"Jaramillo has been no laughing matter. Wearing the No. 35 three-time All-Star catcher Manny Sanguillen wore for the Pirates from 1967-80, Jaramillo has filled a huge hole in Doumit's absence.

" 'I knew he was a good player when he was with the Phillies,' Russell said. 'He was a top prospect and they kind of rushed him through the system a little bit. But he struck me as a very good defensive catcher and he really became a student of the game with switch-hitting. He showed flashes of potential with his batting, as well, so he has a lot of tools.

" 'He made the team because of his defensive abilities, but some of his offensive skills are starting to show up.' "

(Link via Rattler Radio, which has regular updates on B.C. baseball phenom Brett Lawrie, who's playing for a Milwaukee Brewers' Single-A team.

Related:
Jaramillo reaches MLB's top floor (Peter Jackel, Racine Journal-Times)

Lawrie goes long ...

Canadian Brett Lawrie got his first professional hit, a home run, on Friday night in a Midwestern League game. Here's the radio call.

The Milwaukee Brewers prospect is with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, the same team that Hull native Phillippe Aumont made his full season debut with in 2008. Rattler Radio should have regular Lawrie updates so long as he's there (presuming the Brewers have him there all season and don't bump him up to Brevard County in the tougher Florida State League some time this summer).

Batter up: Milwaukee Brewers

It's that mystical, wonderful time of year where you commit to a baseball team who you know fully well won't win. This season, in honour of an popular Internet meme, we'll present 25 things about each team. At bat: The Milwaukee Brewers.

1. The Brewers could be 2009's version of Cleveland, going two steps back to move one step ahead. They didn't do a ton to upgrade after a 90-win season. They had youngest group of position players out of the four National League playoff teams, so there is time to develop a pitching staff and really give 'er in 2010.
   
2. A Brewers follower staking hope on "the Cubs will find a way to screw it up" is like assuming people will keep buying newspapers because they'll miss them when they're gone. Who in their right mind believes that? Ohhhhhhhhh. The Brewers probably end up second in the NL Central behind Chicago.
   
3. Leftfielder Ryan Braun, the Hebrew Hammer, is only due $12 million in 2015, the last season of his contract. That helps explain why Brewers owner Mark Attanasio would like a salary cap.
   
   Braun's PECOTA projection pegs him for 37 homers, 105 runs and 109 RBI.
   
4. Weight Watchers recommends replacing the bad choices in your diet, like drinking V8 instead of Coke. The Brewers are a good substitute for the Blue Jays. They have a Canadian GM and assistant GM, Doug Melvin and Gord Ash. They have a couple Canadian prospects, Brett Lawrie and sinkerball pitcher Alexandre Périard. They even have the same colours and their stadium has a retractable roof. Manager Ken Macha played for the Jays and Expos. Cecil Fielder's son is the cleanup hitter and there's even a player named Corey Hart.
   
5. Speaking of which, first baseman Prince Fielder evidently arrived at spring training in the best shape of his life, but who didn't? The Brewers only signed him through 2010, which means they only lurve him.
   
6. This veers close to "renovating the restaurant you don't own ... or spending the $200 million you don't have" territory, but it's tempting to think of the Brewers reprising the CC Sabathia trade to get Roy Halladay for a playoff run. (MLB Home Plate noted yesterday the Yankees have been calling the Jays about Doc, by the way.) They probably wouldn't give up their top prospect, Mat Gamel, even though they did that last season with Matt LaPorta. It's just tempting, since Gamel, if he can't handle third base, is blocked by Braun and Fielder.
7. There's a scenario that plays out much the same way, but it involves the Brewers including shortstop Alcides Escobar, who will never hit enough to dislodge J.J. Hardy.
   
8. Nominal No. 1 starter Yovani Gallardo should become a big deal, in time, but please keep in mind that '08 was a lost season for him due to injuries.
   
9. Righty starter Jeff Suppan gave up 30 homers in 177 2/3 innings last season. Suppan had a 12-12 record last season and a 10-10 mark the season before, which would make him a, wait for it, a .500 pitcher.
10. That does segue into the question but who the hell is their starting rotation: Gallardo, Braden Looper, ex-Jay Dave Bush, Suppan and Manny Corpas don't exactly put the fear of God into opponents.
11. And the bullpen? It had a 3.89 ERA this season. David Riske and Carlos Villanueva are the best of the bunch.
    
12. The Brewers played close to .600 ball (67-45 over the last 112 games) to get into the playoffs. They had 90 wins even though second baseman Rickie Weeks (.234/.342/.398) and third baseman Bill Hall (.225/.293/.396) never got untracked.
    
13. Catcher Jason Kendall caught more innings last season than anyone in the National League since Gary Carter in 1982 (Baseball Prospectus 2009, p. 299). Two of the team's top six prospects, Jon Lucroy and Angel Salome, are catchers, so burning out Kendall doesn't matter too much.
    
14. Please try to let all the trade rumours about shortstop J.J. Hardy and centrefielder Mike Cameron go in one ear and out the other, until something actually happens.
    
15. Nineteen-year-old bonus baby Brett Lawrie, who's from Langley, B.C., is trying to settle at second base instead of catcher.
16. Cutter Dykstra, Lenny's son, is a Brewers farmhand, a scrappy centrefielder just like his old man. With everything that's been written about his dad in the last six months, do you then cheer for him to become a success, or resent him for not being able to find his own identity?
    
17. Forty-one-year-old closer Trevor Hoffman is just hanging on to try to get to 600 saves (he has 554 and he is starting the season on the DL).
18. Ask a Brewers fan about Eric Gagne and you'll probably get the same response you get when you ask North Haverbrook about its monorail: "Go away! He never played for the Brewers!"
    
19. Prince Fielder is in fighting trim, but they still have the heftiest set of first basemen in the majors if 266-lb. Brad Nelson makes the Opening Day roster. Nelson grew up on a farm in Iowa, which means you're an A-hole if you ask him if he liked Field of Dreams.
20. Alexandre Périard bears following. He was in Double-A at the end of last season.
    
21. That 70's Show (get off your high horse, you know you watched it more than you care to admit) made occasional references to the Green Bay Packers and the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. It never referred to the Brewers, though. Maybe Red thought baseball was for dumbasses.
    
22. The Brewers made their first post-season appearance since 1982 last season. When they clinched, Wisconsin-based Rattler Radio celebrated the feat through the majesty of song.
23. Their fanbase will take success any way it comes. It would figure, then, that they couldn't celebrate a playoff berth until they had watched an out-of-town game on a video screen.
    
    
    
    
24. J.J. Hardy apparently has been been traded, at least according to wherever the National Post outsourced its deskwork.
    
    
25. All 93,228 views of the cheesy Remington commercial Ryan Braun did with Marissa Miller have probably come from the same 15 very lonely guys.
    
    

Zen Dayley: The burden is on the state

It's not unreasonable search and seizure when the defendant is a huge jerk.

Straddling the fence until the judge in Barry Bonds' perjury trial rules on the admissibility of his urine tests might e best, but what the hell. No less an authority than Shysterball is saying that the U.S. government is "relying on considerable amounts of hearsay" (dedicated Lionel Hutz legal scholars will note that's a kind of evidence) to build its case against the home run king. The Smoking Gun just outed the sketchy character who gathered much of the evidence that was used for the big bag of nothing that was the Mitchell Report.

(This is more interesting than learning the Blue Jays are about to add Kevin Millar, who slugged a mighty .394 last season? True, he used to be able to hit lefties very well.)

It basically means that most of what the media is reporting about Bonds is water off a duck's back, pending what happens later today in a northern California courtroom. However, most of the procedural decisions by Judge Susan Illston have gone his way so far. Also, as Gwen Knapp says:

"(T)he 2003 sample absolutely was taken under false pretenses. Its appearance in the trial would effectively make Bonds' employers agents of the state. That's not MLB's job."

The Smoking Gun just outed the sketchy character who gathered much of the evidence that was used for the big bag of nothing that was the Mitchell Report. Honestly, all of this seems so mired in sleaze and dodgy ethics that it's turning Bonds into Don Quixote -- no intention of burning.

Other stuff:

• Along with Millar, the Jays continued their raid of the Orioles by adding lefty Brian Burres, who at least was well-liked when he flung for the Ottawa Lynx a few years ago.
  
  That's three former Baltimores now with the Jays on minor-league deals. The Orioles are rebuilding and the Jays are adding their discards. Granted, it might make for a go
  
• It's always better to just talk baseball. Here is one promising report on Canadian Brett Lawrie, the Milwaukee Brewers' super hitting prospect. He might be their catcher or shortstop of the future.
• A portrait of the rightfielder as a younger man with the Jays' Alex Rios.
  
• One-time prospect, now suspect, Matt Murton is now with the Colorado Rockies. You know someone will overpay for him in a fantasy draft, now that he's at Coors Field.

Related:
MLB Bonds drug tests shouldn't be admissible (Gwen Knapp, San Francisco Chronicle)
Major League Snitch; Unmasked: How a white-collar Baltimore swindler turned secret FBI informant and ignited a Major League Baseball steroid scandal (The Smoking Gun)

Zen Dayley: Veni, vidi, vici for Vin

It's a trip, on a December afternoon, to watch Vin Scully speak outlined against the backdrop of Dodger Stadium.

Next season will be Scully's 60th calling Dodgers games, and judging from what he's saying, it could be the last one: "Certainly I'm very aware that the wolves are getting closer to the campfire, and I know that I've spent a lot of yesterdays and I have just a certain amount of tomorrows," he said. "I'm taking it day by day and year and year, so God willing, I will go through 2009 and then we'll just have to wait and see."

It's probably too glib by half to say that he is kind of the broadcast booth's equivalent to Johnny Carson, someone whom everyone knew and respected, even if they didn't tune into him all the time. In Scully's case, he even staked out Southern California 14 years before Carson, since the Dodgers moved west in 1958, 14 years before The Tonight Show.

Hearing Vin Scully string out the word "marvellous" brightens the day, that's for sure (hope this clip embeds properly). Broadcasters have to learn to read and write before they learn to speak (just like writers have to learn to watch and listen), and Scully, in his word, is a marvellous example.

Something is up

The cryptic sentence of the day, from Brew Crew Ball:"The Padres and Blue Jays both might sell for less than the combined contracts of CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett." (Emphasis mine.) What are you guys saying?


Very Brave

Bringing in the veteran Rafael Furcal and having him displace 26-year-old Yunel Escobar at shortstop seems too chancy by half.

Someone was bound to take a chance that Furcal can play a full season. Escobar, who's going to get moved to either second base or traded, drew good reviews for his fielding last season. His .288/.366/.401 slash stats would have looked better if he hadn't gone in the tank in July.

Furcal is the better player if he can play a full season, but that's a big if to contemplate.

This, that and the other

• Langley, B.C.'s Brett Lawrie is rated as the third-best prospect in the Milwaukee Brewers system. Minor League Ball notes that he was taken down a peg due to his lack of a defined defensive position, but the Brewers haven't done too badly with bringing along hitters and moving them around in the field (Ryan Braun, Bill Hall).
• If it's any consolation, Rob Neyer didn't like the Yankees giving a five-year deal to A.J. Burnett: "(Burnett)'s not reliable, and the Yankees have pretty obviously overpaid. Too many dollars, too many years. If the Yankees wanted an impressive fifth starter, they probably could have spent a little less money for a slightly better pitcher. But what's a few million dollars to the Yankees?"
• The Yankees probably still need to sign Mark Teixeira to really challenge in 2009.
  
• The best takedown you will ever read of the sportswriters who are lobbying for Jim Rice to get into the Hall of Fame.
• A six-word argument for why the Blue Jays should not try to trade Roy Halladay: "The Padres couldn't trade Jake Peavy."
• No word of a lie, Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers' mustache actually has scared small children.
  

Zen Dayley: Making sense of the Series sacrilege

That World Series half-game turned out to be not half-bad. It wasn't half-good either.

The question after the debaculous World Series -- sorry, but for a purist, Bud Selig making up the rules as he went along was a deal-breaker, even though no one says boo when the NFL plays fast-and-loose with the sport's integrity -- is what could be done to avoid a future recurrence. A shorter, 140-game or so regular season should happen; all the ball-and-stick leagues save the NFL should be playing fewer regular-season games.

The ex-manager Whitey Herzog is getting pilliored for his unearthing his pet idea for a neutral-site World Series (read the rebuttal at It Is About The Money). FOX Sports, to borrow the outgoing commander-in-chief's word, is "addicted" to those 8:37 p.m. Eastern time starts.

This is something where the only sane response seems to be to throw up your hands at the situation. A perfectly reasonable, albeit passive-aggressive recourse: If you really love baseball (and this is not wallowing in a game that never was), you could always just treat the league championship series is the true climax to the season. It's two teams who use the same rules for each game, home-field advantage is determined according to record and not a midseason exhibition game. Chances are, the two opponents might even have a long-standing post-season history, or have built up some enmity toward each other over the course of the season.

The preliminaries are often better than the main bout, anyways, just as in marriage and prizefighting.

Rays redux

• To the tune of John Denver's, "Please, Daddy, don't get drunk this Christimas," Please, Tampa, don't throw a celebration for a team which came second. It would have been amazing if the Rays had won the World Series a year after finishing in last place.
  
  However, throwing a party for a runner-up is a surefire one-way ticket to Lame City; that's just an opinion. Ottawa did that in 2007 for the Senators, enough said.
• Tampa Bay will be back. You're kidding yourself if you think otherwise.

Other thingamabobs

• The big Hot Stove League news today: Ken Macha is going to manage the Brewers (the Jays could have had him in 2007) and the Royals got first baseman Mike Jacobs from the Florida Lorias.
• It looks like the Japanese pitcher Junichi Tawaza is free to come to the majors.
• Brew Crew Ball congratulated ex-Brewer Geoff Jenkins for getting a World Series ring instead of just feeling sorry for themselves -- like you're supposed to, according to Toronto sports logic.
• Apparently jamiecampbell got a little too caught up in Barack Obama's speechifying, because he figured it was OK to bring up the Civil War in reference to the Rays' super southpaw David Price, who is, uh, African-American:

  "David Price is from Mursfreesboro, Tennessee, which in 1862 was the site of a famous Civil War battle that resulted in a narrow Union victory. He's obviously hoping for a Southern victory tonight."

  Are references to 150-year-old wars really appropriate to bring up with any ballplayer? Granted, that is no worse than the attitude parodied in The Simpsons episode when Apu gets his U.S. citizenship: "Finally, last question, what was the cause of the Civil War." ... "Well, there were many factors, economic and ..." ... "Just say slavery." ... "Slavery it is."
• Speaking of the Obama infomercial, a FOX Sports exec said, "we didn’t push back the game, it was really just about suspending the pre-game -- you know, Joe Buck." In other words, Obama-Biden meant America heard less of Joe Buck and, being totally tongue-in-cheek for all you literalists, if that doesn't convince people to vote for them ...
• Via Rattler Radio, comes word that Baseball America has called Brett Lawrie "the best Canadian hitting prospect in a decade."
• FanGraphs is also big on 19-year-old Reds right-handed pitching prospect Kyle Lotzkar, another B.C. ballplayer who was in Single-A ball this season. (Did he play with Lawrie with the Langley Blaze?) Keep his name on file.

(Herzog link via, who else, ShysterBall.)

Prince George Axemen pick ... José Canseco?

Today's straight-off-the-Ork cloud scenario: José Canseco playing senior baseball next summer for a team in Prince George, British Columbia.

Kamloops Daily News sports ed. Gregg Drinnan, on his Taking Note blog, reports that "an agent for Canseco has been in touch with organizers of the World Baseball Challenge." 

That would be the other WBC, an event will be hosted by the Axemen in the northern British Columbia logging town next summer. As best as can be figured out, it's some kind of senior amateur event.

There is that netherworld of organized sport that, to quote the writer Don Marks' description of the Allan Cup level of hockey in Canada, is "mostly a matter of some guy in some town in some province having enough money to cobble together the best players" outside of the pro leagues. Prince George is some town in some province. Canseco is certainly available.

It sounds crazy, I know ... but what's a broken-down, flat-broke ballplayer (recall that devastating article Pat Jordan wrote for Deadspin a while ago?) to do but to try to survive using his one marketable if socially irrelevant skill? It's kind of the plotline of Rocky Balboa come to life. It is not that far-fetched, to use Marks' point, to someone who has been exposed a little to this realm of sport, to think it could happen. Besides, everyone loves a whiff of having a celebrity in their midst. Remember that time in Kingston when everyone was convinced that "Mel Gibson's" boat was docked in the downtown marina?

Theoren Fleury playing in the Allan Cup with the Horse Lake Thunder after his NHL career ended comes to mind. Who knows, maybe Prince George isn't so desperate to win that they would risk an event that clearly means a lot to their community leaders becoming a sideshow centred around the erstwhile steroid-addled slugger. However, they do want to win, and even at 45 years old, Canseco could probably help. It's not clear what the calibre of ball is here, but some of the players lined up to play for P.G. don't have an entry at The Baseball Cube. One who does, a right-handed pitcher named Steve Nielsen, had an ERA above 7 in two years of college baseball and posted a mark of 5.23 in 2007 with the Grays, the erstwhile travelling team in the Can-Am League.

Here's Drinnan's exact report:

"Jose Canseco, profiled in a TV documentary — Jose Canseco: The Last Shot — that was shown earlier this week, is scared for his health, thanks to steroid use and abuse, and broke. Perhaps it’s because of the latter that an agent for Canseco has been in touch with organizers of the World Baseball Challenge, which is scheduled for Prince George, July 16-26. Canseco, 44, just may end up playing for the local entry in that tournament. . . . The WBC has seven teams confirmed with Bahamas the latest addition. The last spot will go to Cuba or Venezuela. . . . The Cubans were thought to be in but then some baseball players defected in Edmonton in August and Fidel’s baseballers now have cold feet. . . . Hey, Fidel, it’s one thing to defect in Edmonton, but P.G.?"

In all honesty, speaking as a certifiable Canadian-based baseball nut, I had never heard of this event until 30 minutes ago. The guys who play in it are obviously very good ballplayers, on some level, but five years ago former Angels reliever Dewayne Buice, at 45 years old, was striking guys out while playing for the Reno Astros, his summertime toy. Buice wasn't that good when he was twenty-five.

At first blush, it sounds crazy, but maybe it doesn't. It is José Canseco and hey, desperation is a stinky cologne.

Zen Dayley: Lawrie signs on dotted line, kneels in the dirt

Time is tight, so it's an all-bullet-point Zen Dayley today ...

Errata

• Brett Lawrie, the odds-on next B.C. ballplayer to be an impact player in the majors, has signed with the Brewers for a $1.7-million bonus. The party line is he will start his pro career as a catcher. He at least rates a chance to succeed or fail behind the plate on his own merit.
• Curt Schilling and Manny Ramírez nearly ended up throwing hands during a game back in 2005. Oh, try not to look so shocked. 
• Has Skimgate gained any traction with sports fans? It should be borderline bloody scandalous. A billion-dollar enterprise like MLB, in particular some of its richest teams, the Red Sox and Yankees, are enabling people to prey on teenage ballplayers who have no leverage and no means of defending themselves. (They're probably afraid if they do refuse to kick back part of their bonus money, or clam up over someone skimming from their bonus, they'll be ostracized from playing organized baseball.)
  
  The street agents, so-called, in the Dominican Republic, should be getting paid if they can help a MLB team secure the services of the next Miguel Cabrera. It needs to be aboveboard, so people aren't tempted to take advantage of the situation. This probably also helps form an argument for a universal entry draft. However, don't hold your breath on that happening. MLB has a consistent head-in-the-sand approach — what happens in Latin America, stays in Latin America — and powerful teams would stand to lose the most.
• A 30-win improvment by the Rays would almost be unprecedented, as evidenced by the list S.I.'s Tom Verducci compiled of the most improved teams since 1900. Any team from before 1920, when baseball wasn't that organized, can't be discounted. The 1999 Arizona Diamondbacks (100 wins from 65) don't really count, since they were a team that was built with free-agent signings. The 1962 Phillies (81 wins from 47 wins) also benefited from an expanded schedule.

Damn, the Jays

• One aphorism to apply to Roy Halladay after eight innings of one-run, four-hit ball vs. the Athletics on Monday: "Authentic art doesn't advertise." (Hat tip to Mordecai Richler.
• You get a little link, and you give a little link. The Tao was nice enough to link here last night. That led me to The Mockingbird, which leads to Baseball Analysts' fielding rankings.
  
  Long story short, Vernon Wells, the Jays' $126-million centrefielder, is listed as the second-worst defender in the entire majors. (Yankees rightfielder Bobby Abreu is the worst.)
  
  Alex Rios, in contrast, is listed as the best rightfielder in the AL. One reason not to switch him to centre is that when he plays there, he forgets his bat:

  When playing centrefield: .260/.301/.388
  When playing rightfield: .304/.356/.443

• The same company that overlooks the gameday operation at the Rogers Centre also does in Tampa ... of course, that has nothing to do with why a team who's 21 games above .500 is third-last in the AL in attendance. (Link via the awesome ShysterBall.)

Zen Dayley: Lordy, lordy, look at Lawrie

Brett Lawrie (pictured) is making a good argument for converting a few Canadians to Milwaukee Brewers fans.

Did you see what Lawrie, the Brewers' first-round pick, did yesterday at the AAA World Junior Championship in Edmonton -- a homer, triple and six RBI in an 18-7 rout of Puerto Rico? Canada is 3-1 heading into their final group game vs. the Czech Republic (a 7 p.m. ET start) and was one passed ball (by Lawrie, but long-term, he's ticketed for the infield, either third or second) from upsetting Cuba on Sunday.

He's something to behold, all right. Canada's in good position, 3-1 heading into their final group game vs. an unheralded Czech Republic team tonight. Korea and the U.S. are 4-0 in other pool, so they'll likely be waiting for the Canadians in the elimination round. It's regrettable that this event hasn't commanded much attention outside the city of where it's being played, but you can't blame the media this time.

It's unfortunate that The tournament's official website looks like something a Junior B hockey team would have had in 1999. It really has to be seen to be believed. It isn't even Web 1.0., it's more like Web 0.1. It's a real shame that Baseball Canada, which has some very professional people (there might not be a Can-Am League team in Ottawa if not for Jim Baba and Andre Cormier addressing Ottawa city councillors last fall), ends up looking bad.

Cam Tait from the Edmonton Journal took the organizers to task already. What's not to understand for the small-fish sports organizations? You want coverage, you want your world championship to get afforded 1/10th of the media exposure that was given to the FIFA Under-20 World Cup last summer or that the Canadian world junior team's summer development camp -- practice games! -- has received the past few days, you better have an easy-to-surf website with scores that get updated pronto. No one has time to check every station, but if the game scores have been appearing on any network's ticker, I must have missed it.

Lawrie racking Puerto Rico for six RBI -- or as a wire-service account put it, "scored six RBIs," like this was cricket -- is as big as anything Steven Stamkos or Jonathan Toews have done athletically for their country.

Anyway, getting back to the main point, following the Brewers is not a bad idea. They have Canadians in the front office, they have Lawrie in their system, they're not beating their heads againt the wall in the AL East and they're not media darlings like the Chicago Cubs. Sounds like the complete package -- not unlike Brett Lawrie.

(Major glove tap to Andy Grabia from The Battle of Alberta, his province's foremost baseball enthusiast. He furnished almost all the links for this post.)

Zen Dayley: It is possible we haven't seen Kevin Wench's black magic?

Five wins in a row, but...

What was that about how other teams' good moves can be seized upon to criticize Godcciardi, almost by rote?

It's safe to say that the combination of the Blue Jays GM's stubborn loyalty to his guys and Rogers Communications' habit of conspicuous consumption would never allow for a move like the Cleveland Indians' trade of overrated Casey Blake to the NL West-contending L.A. Dodgers for two minor leaguers. Eating the salary of a regular in order to get two players the casual fans wouldn't even know how to find information on? That never happens in Ted Rogers' neighbourhood, even if one of them (a catcher named Carlos Santana) does share his name with a famous rock guitarist.

It's hard not to feel a sense of envy that Cleveland, under GM Mark Shapiro, is thinking for itself instead of being slave to Toronto sports fan groupthink.

(Update: Fire Joe Morgan, by the way, has destroyed the trade from a Dodgers perspective.)

Cleveland's been closer to winning something of consequence with the group it has (93 wins in 2005, seven-game loss in the ALCS last season). They're willing to gut the place and renovate. J.P. Ricciardi would rather go shopping for some second-hand furniture -- proven hitters, he wrote, with disgust -- than take a chance on someone with room to grow.

Carlos Santana is an athlete-first, ballplayer-second who might end up being great for a team who can carry a defensive catcher. (He's hitting .323/.431/.563 in the California League, but it's his third year of Single-A ball.) The right-hander, Jonathan Meloan, has a power arm, even though his potential is obscured by his 4.97 ERA in the high-scoring Pacific Coast League.

The Jays, though, they like their low ceilings, even when they need to renovate. Maybe Molean and Santana might not amount to anything. Still, it means feeling jealous of the fans in Cleveland. It's come to that.

Errata

• Our man Andy Grabia at The Battle of Alberta had a nice post about the World Junior Baseball Championship, which opened last night in Edmonton. It probably won't get 1/100th of the media attention given to the World Junior Hockey team's summer development camp (which won't even decide who makes the team!), but there are several future major leaguers playing in the event, including Milwaukee Brewers first-rounder Brett Lawrie. Canada opened with a 7-0 win over Italy last night. It gets a little more serious tonight vs. Taipei.
  
  (Canada can do no better than fifth at the World University championship in the Czech Republic. That's too bad.)
• Ichiro Suzuki is 1-for-10 vs. the Jays (he got a single his last time up today to avoid taking the collar two days in a row). That 3,000th hit might not come in Toronto.

Damn, the Jays

• Dustin McGowan is going to have season-ending surgery next week.
• Drunk Jays Fans reports that there was a Vernon Wells sighting at the MLS All-Star Game. Perhaps he will be the Obama-like force who finally effects a truce between baseball nuts and footy fans.

Zen Dayley: Here's a cellular phone, call someone who cares

Brian Tallet in the 10th instead of Jesse Carlson or well-rested B.J. Ryan? These games count in the standings, you know.

• Anyone who wonders why Orlando Cabrera, a superior shortstop, is on his fourth team in five seasons should read this Sunday column in the Chicago Tribune.
  
  Even Cabrera's teammates on the White Sox apparently have little time for his habit of calling the official scorer after being charged with an error. Bob Verdi, the writer, also has a solution:
  
  

  "Most players are also notoriously frugal, so one way to fix this would be to charge them for ringing the press box. As it is, dugout phones are free phones. But ask these millionaires to fork over a quarter, and then watch them try to make collect calls."

  Anyone who's really obsessive about sportswriters will notice that Bob Verdi got a dig in on Jay Mariotti at the end of his column. Mariotti wouldn't be serving as an official scorer, since that might require (a) knowing how to score a baseball game and (b) actually attending the game.
• Everyone saw that Arizona's Brandon Webb pitched a complete game in one hour, 52 minutes? Bud Selig is right. Baseball games are too long.
  
  (There's some nice use of anecdotal evidence.)


• Shaun Marcum still leads the AL in WHIP after giving up 11 hits across seven innings in a no-decision vs. the Angels last night. That's how good Marcum has been.


• Joba Chamberlain starting aginst the Jays on Tuesday, when Sportsnet is airing the game, not Wednesday when it's TSN's turn, proves the existence of some higher power. You can already hear Rod Black pumping out the sap if he was calling a Joba start at Yankee Stadium. "Joba Chamberlain ... a young man of such vast potential ... wearing pinstripes ... in the final season at this historic ballpark ... in the Bronx." Goodness gracious, Jays fans suffer enough indignities already.


• There was major coverage of B.C. high school slugger Brett Lawrie by the Globe and Sun Media on Saturday. One almost hopes Lawrie goes before the Jays pick at 17th overall, just to remove the possibility of the know-nothings slagging the team five years down the road, even though the MLB Draft is a total crapshoot. (Minor League Ball's latest mock first round has the Jays taking Lawrie.)
  
  Lawrie, at 18, does seem like something special. Arizona State's Brett Wallace, at least according to his press clippings, also seems like the total package down around where the Jays are selecting.

That's all for now. Rest assured, something new is in the works for the Zen Dayley, to keep it fresh and well, actually appearing daily. Meantime, for anyone who might be interested, Chuck Klosterman's first novel is due out in three months and the GQ profile on Marston Hefner, Hugh Hefner's remarkably well-adjusted 18-year-old son, is worth a read.

Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.