Jusssst a bit outside: the Toronto Blue Jays preview

It's the time of the year when you sit on a couch for hours with a baseball preseason magazine, a bag of sunflower seeds and your old glove, at least until the manager of The Brick politely asks you to leave before he calls the cops. There aren't enough hours to chew over all the minutia of baseball, but duty calls to preview the MLB season. In the spirit of that, we'll have 30 notes and errata on each team (20 plus 10, eh), in reverse order of PECOTA projection. First up: the Toronto Blue Jays.

1. 'Lex saves the world. The 32-year-old rookie GM, Alex Anthopoulos, is right on time for a franchise who finally had a moment of clarity and realized it cannot build a winner from trades and free agency.
   
   Anthopoulos will have as much of a honeymoon period as he needs, since he's both Canadian and pretty smart.
   
   
2. So subtle: The Jays are running a series of TV and radio promos voiced by new play-by-play man Buck Martinez, who was a Blue Jays catcher and broadcaster during the glory days. It's hard not to notice that when Martinez points out "it didn't happen overnight," there's footage from the 1977 home opener followed by a clip of Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar's iconic home run off fellow Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley in the '92 playoffs.
   
   Judging from that 15-year jump in time, that must mean look out for the Jays in 2025. By then, they'll be in another division and manager Cito Gaston might even be ready to hit Travis Snider as high as sixth.
   
   
3. Lots more to come: Second baseman Aaron Hill (36 homers last season) and Adam Lind (35, plus a .932 OPS) deserve all the superlatives they get. This is not a set-up for a cheap joke about how between Aaron, Adam and a GM named Alex, the Jays are a great Triple-A team.
   
   Aaron Hill's most similar batter through age 27 is Michael Young. No irony there for a Jays fan!
   
   
4. Why they will not leave Toronto, in four words: They're. Cheap. Cable. Programming.
   
   
5. Why you're scared they will, in five words: Who wants to own them?
   
   Rogers Communication is a bad corporate parent, but outside of them, it's hard to imagine anyone stepping up to buy the team. (By the way, if you do a Google News search and see a Detroit News headline that says "no Rogers," don't get your hopes up.)
   
   
6. Pre-emptive attack on Vernon Wells: Gaston, whom The Tao of Stieb refers to only as The Manager, wants Wells to hit cleanup, where his career OPS is .772.
   
   
7. Pre-emptive defence of Vernon Wells: One can already anticipate what might get written during the dog days of summer if Wells is scuffling along like last season, when he on-based .311 and slugged .400. He would have a hard time being that bad again (although the power is gone).
   
   Let's just point out there's some irony in Wells taking heat over a bad contract signed during the reign of former Jays president Paul Godfrey, from journalists who collectively have been affected by deals brokered by Paul Godfrey. Yep, same guy.
   
   
8. You can never have enough young pitching: No one on the Jays roster has ever twirled, tossed or thrown 200 innings in a major league season. Funny, that same factoid came up last season with the Washington Nationals.
   
   
9. That's the Cito logic: Jose Bautista's career split vs. right-handed pitching is .260/.316/.366. That's what you want from a leadoff hitter.
   
   
10. What to look forward to: Lind winning another Silver Slugger Award. Whiny articles from dilettantes who need the "Joe Carter is not walkin' through that door" speech. Overhearing people at Rogers Centre ask if that's the same Alex Gonzalez at shortstop that the Jays had back in 2000. Following centrefield prospect Jake Marisnick's Twitter updates.
    
    
11. Better days: Imagine a Shaun Marcum-Kyle Drabek-Marc Rzepczynski-Brandon Morrow-Brett Cecil starting rotation someday. Don't forget Zach Stewart and Chad Jenkins.
    
    
12. Keeping us on the hook: Marcum and Dustin McGowan are said to be making progress in workouts after both missed all of last season following surgery.
    
    
13. Uh, oh: Left-hander Ricky Romero is in line to be the opening day starter. He's projected for a regression this season.
    
    
14. One Harper campaign which cannot wait. If the Jays are as bad as predicted, and if power-hitting phenom Bryce Harper waits to enter the draft in 2011, it could redeem the whole season. Any and all snarky alliteration (Bottom Out For Bryce?) will be entertained.
    
    Also, a Harper home run should be called a "Bryce rocket."
    
    
15. Details: Keep an eye Hill's walk rate. He tends to be see-ball, hit-ball.
    
    
16. Codebreaking 101: When a team talks about being more aggressive on the bases, it's code for admitting they'll try to be exciting while scoring precious few runs. Baserunning is about 2 per cent of what makes a winning team.
    
    
17. Brandon is out west: Mop Up Duty figures right-hander Brandon Morrow, the pitcher acquired from Seattle during the Roy Halladay deal, should start the season at triple-A Las Vegas.
    
    
18. ZZ tops: Multiple high fives to the first fan who shows up at Rogers Centre in a Zech Zinicola replica jersey.
    
    The Rule 5 acquisition would be just the fourth player with a Z surname to play for the Jays.
    
    
19. The phrase "AL East widower" is still not trademarked: The only low-revenue American League teams which have been able to make the playoffs consistently are the Minnesota Twins and Oakland Athletics.
    
    
20. Proof cheapness is not a sense: Five of the Jays' top seven prospects, according to Minor League Ball, were acquired from other organizations. That's what happens when your corporate parent gets rids of scouts and is slavish to the slotting system.
    
    
21. With that being said: There is every reason to be excited about Brett Wallace.
    
    
22. Save the date: Halladay and the Phillies visit Toronto from June 25-27. Would a Halladay return draw a larger crowd than the 24,000 and change which showed up for one of his last starts before the non-waiver trade deadline last July?
    
    The best pitcher in the game, the San Francisco Giants' Tim Lincecum, also visits for an interleague series in June.
    
    
23. Please, 300 at-bats for Randy Ruiz. Is it too much to ask that a guy who does nothing but hit get a chance to do it in the majors for a full season?
    
    
24. Worth noting: The Jays' Triple-A affiliate in Las Vegas isn't doing so hot financially.
    
    
25. More nostalgia: It's the silver anniversary of the Jays' first playoff team in 1985.
    
    
26. Can't let this slide: The lily-gild Martinez does in those aforementioned spots: "When Roy Halladay first came to Toronto, we didn't know how good he was going to be." True, other than the fact he was a first-round draft choice and made an Opening Day roster at age 21, no one had an idea Halladay would be a good pitcher.
    
    
27. No one gets out without a HIMYM reference: There's a recent episode where Marshall Eriksen travels back in time to punch out his 13-year-old self for smoking.
    
    That is just like is an alternate reality where 33-year-old Neate Sager travels back to 1990 to tell his 13-year-old self: "Oh, and in 2010, Cito will be managing the Jays and Larry Mavety will be general manager of the Kingston Frontenacs! Deal with it!"
    
    
28. And in case Paul Beeston reads this: Queen's 43, Western 39.
    
    
29. PECOTA says: 72-90, fifth AL East, 736 runs scored, 837 runs allowed.
    
    
30. In English, please: Jamie Campbell should be forced to come back and broadcast every game, as penance.

Zen Dayley: Rios' release is a payoff kvetch

Saying something is hard really is code for wanting an easy way out, hardly a human failing.

The cynical, snarky response to the hue-and-cry over the Rogers Jays letting Alex Rios go was, "Too bad they don't have a 21-year-old outfield prospect who has popped 14 extra-base hits in his last 45 at-bats in Triple-A. Wait, they do!" That is rather insufficient, on some people.

It is understandable why jettisoning Rios was upsetting to Jays followers. No talk of financial flexibility or how much God's Gift of Sunshine, Travis Snider, is smacking the ball around in Las Vegas is going to brighten the picture immediately, especially for a lower-revenue team. Rios getting the ax is a splinter under the fingernail.

It's right to be irrational and kvetch about the salary dump, for a day or two. There is no reason to buy a full-priced Rogers Jays ticket for the duration of this season, although there are the 20,000-30,000 diehards who keep turning out. The lone reasons to attend a game are to watch Roy Halladay and Ricky Romero pitch or throw support to the Tampa Bay Rays (who come to Rogers Centre Aug. 24-26).

If that smacks of being fair-weather, so be it. Being a sports fan is not supposed to be exceedingly difficult. It is supposed to be fun. Only a deranged few, guilty as charged, get their jollies peeling back the onion and trying to understand the how and why of a team being only-OK when people's vanity and egotism demands awesome. The rank-and-file have enough on their plates. Adding the burden of being emotionally involved with a ballclub which is trying to mow the lawn with a pair of fingernail clippers by playing in the AL East is a little much to ask.

"Toronto is not Cleveland, with its budget problems, Pittsburgh, with an organizational model that has been a complete failure, Kansas City, which is awful but still wastes money on second-tier journeymen who don't know how to win, or San Diego, which will check out of the contending business for the next couple of years until its farm system improves. Toronto's problem is that it is a good team in the wrong division. 'Good isn't enough,' Ricciardi said. 'You have to be great.' "

Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated, Aug. 4

In that regard, The Tao was nails for saying, "Then there is the 'fan' in us, who is totally irrational and has spent roughly about a thousand hours over the past couple of years irrationally feeding into the hopes and dreams and misery and agony of Jays fans through this very blog. And that part of us is really finding it difficult to root, root, root for the home team's corporate ownership's bottom line."

That is where good friend Dan Rowe got the idea of terming Rogers' approach to its holdings "uninterested ownership." (Jan. 18, 2008). There is scarcely little rebuttal. Jeff Blair's column was spot on: There is every reason to believe Rogers is trying to sell the team. It probably ties in with their NFL ambitions, since that league dictates that owners cannot own teams in another sport.

There is stability with having a corporate owner. Stability is close to stagnation and stasis in the dictionary. The playoffs are a pipe dream with the current ownership and divisional alignment, but the unknown could be worse unless Jim Balsillie is a secret Seamhead.

Within the past couple months, greater minds such as Ottawa residents Howard Bloom of Sports Business News and Pete Toms of The Biz of Baseball have each voiced some variation of "baseball is dead and dying in Toronto." Pete's point is supported by sociologist Reginald Bibby's findings that only one in 10 Canadian teens follows Major League Baseball, down from one in three in the early 1990s.

Rogers can sense the break of the waves. It might well believe Blue Jays baseball is being affected by what Business Week calls the "incredible shrinking Boomer economy" or has run its course as a consumer product in Canada. (That might not necessarily be right.) Stephen Brunt recently related the story about when the late Ted Rogers wanted to invest in wireless. The vote among his company's directors was however many opposed against one in favour, but Rogers was the one in favour. Now you know the rest of the story.

They might have decided to punt, the way so many Buffalo Bills possessions end. The fact the aforementioned Rays might be before to trade leadoff man extraordinaire Carl Crawford (Jonah Keri, SI.com) is an indication that baseball has swung back toward the unfair system it had in the late 1990s.

That being said, talk about the Jays being headed down the same path as the late and lamented Montreal Expos is a bit much. For that to happen, there needs to be a viable market for relocation. MLB already has one lame-duck franchise, the Oakland Athletics, which cannot move.

Toronto is stuck with a stadium no one likes, a corporate owner who does not seem to care and a stacked deck for a division. People can hardly be blamed for begging out of the situation.

As for Rios, the player was often accused of being a no-brainer. It remains to be seen with the move. Baseball Prospectus and Game of Inches thought the White Sox must be out of their minds for taking on Rios' contract. FanGraphs thought it was a steal for Chicago. Walk-Off Walk pointed out if you want to blame anyone, blame Paul Godfrey and Vernon Wells:

"Ricciardi's hand was forced because Rios' talents could not fully shine when an even larger bag of waste was blocking up the dollar flow. Blue Jays CF Vernon Wells is owed almost $100 million before 2014, at which point he'll be 35 and have a mailbox clogged with AARP junk mail. In a move reminiscent of Sophie's Choice, J.P. was stuck choosing between the two big OF contracts and ended up giving up the more attractive one. If Wells wasn't around, Rios could rotate into center. But Wells will be around, jingling the pocket change from his Albert Belle-esque contract without the Albert Belle-esque production."

Bottom line, the anger over Rios is understandable, but misdirected. Whether the Jays pried a player loose from Chicago is irrelevant. Since Kate Hudson was at Monday's Jays-Yankees game, you at least wish they could have got $50 and a case of Heineken, like in Almost Famous, but would people really feel any different if Dayan Viciendo was now in the Jays system? No, they wouldn't. No one wanted to hear about the players whom J.P. Ricciardi got in return for Scott Rolen. Try to be consistent, please.

The point is the obvious, it was right to give into emotion for a while. It's a little rich to start being doom-and-gloom and always blame Ricciardi, who is out the door in October. At the end of the day, the desire is to always want Major League Baseball in Canada, in the worst way. Hopefully that's not the way you'll start getting it in Toronto.

Vernon Wells tries to be transparent about his terrible hitting

Vernon Wells sure has delivered in terms of offering up grist for the few, the proud who are not PED-ed out by steroids-in-baseball talk. Who says he never comes through when the chips are down?

"The American League team’s union representative is among a growing number of players who are calling for the infamous list of 104 names to be made public.

" ... Wells said this is akin to water torture and is sullying the game's image with the steady prodding of adverse publicity every time a new name comes out.

" 'This all went down so long ago,' Wells said. 'It's just, let's move past this. Whether more names come out or they all come out at the same time let’s get past it so we can stop talking about something that happened six years ago.' "
-- globesports.com

Please forget that is a little Freudian that the Globe & Mail's guy used "water torture" as an analogy, considering what else went down in 2003-04 which is a little more shameful. America has always been good with obsessing over a sports scandal rather than face facts like their government destroying the concept of habeas corpus. That is neither here or there.

Wells' comments take on a certain light if you read Jeff Blair's Monday column that suggested MLB needs to "get in front of the news curve and fashion a blanket amnesty for players on the list." The man has between third and sixth all season while on-basing .301 and slugging .400. With slash stats such as those, it's almost like Wells is making a plea to be free of the jokes that Jays fans wish he could improve his production through pharmacology.

Point being, this has the droll side and the serious side. Jays fans, since they can't cry, will probably draw a couple laughs from Wells being the one to say release all the names. The way his season has gone calls to mind the story about Earl Weaver going to the mound to visit a struggling pitcher, "If you know how to cheat, start now." His park-adjusted OPS figures, season by season, since 2003, do set the mind to wondering:

'03: 132
'04: 105
'05: 104
'06: 129
'07: 85
'08: 121
'09: 84

Thing is, no one knows why Wells' numbers have cratered. He is projected to end up with Triple Crown stats of .259, 16 homers and 64 RBI. It might be noteworthy that he had a much higher line drive when he first became an everyday player. He makes a lot more flyball outs now. It's as if he hit home runs when he first came up just because he was so strong sometimes those line drives would carry over the fence.

On the serious side, Blair's suggestion seems pragmatic. Major League Baseball's labour agreement is up after the 2011 season, so it can't afford to have the steroid matzo ball hanging out there.

Meantime, it is too funny by half to see a Boston newspaper going on about how the Red Sox "need to be put on notice" when it comes to getting rid of steroids in baseball, as in, sure, now it's a big deal. Greater minds have no doubt said this and I said it once on Kinger's show, it's silly how much has hue and cry there has been over steroid use in baseball and Michael Vick running a dogfighting ring in the past couple years. Those have become defining events against a backdrop of Guantanamo, the Iraq quagmire and finding out the U.S. housing market ran on the principle "if you could fog up a mirror, and had a pulse, you were eligible for a fairly large mortgage" (stick tap: Make It Eight) and Bernie Madoff robbing people blind.

Sports scandals are benign and their leaders' job is not provide a moral compass, no matter how much its fits some columnist's 12-year-old worldview. It only matters if a sports story is symptomatic of a larger outrage, like the NHL being a water carrier for a plan to fleece taxpayers in Arizona.

That is off-topic. Point being, at least Wells is being honest, and at least baseball can get closure on the Steroid Era before hockey will on the Bettman era.

Related:
Wells wants baseball to come clean (Robert MacLeod, globesports.com)

Zen Dayley: A lot more numbers in that Church of Baseball

This is not about the Blue Jays specifically, but no doubt people noticed who was the first player quoted in The New York Times' piece on the new camera and software system Major League Baseball will be using to track baserunning and defensive play.

" 'It’ll be neat to find out what the numbers are,' said Toronto Blue Jays center fielder Vernon Wells, who is known for smoothly tracking down deep fly balls. 'It can be another tool to help you improve in areas of the game. People will learn about playing defense, which has gone by the wayside as people have cared so much about offense and hitting the ball out of the ballpark.'

"Not that all players welcome the new numbers. A few lockers down, Wells' teammate Scott Rolen — whose excellent defense and base running would presumably be evidenced by the tracking system — said: 'I don’t believe that baseball is a game that can be encapsulated that way. That’s the beauty of the whole game.' "

Be that as it may, what The Times is describing as "probably become the largest single advance in baseball science since the development of the box score" (emphasis mine) sounds like Seamhead brain candy.

"... a good deal of time-honored guesswork will give way to more definite measurements — continuing the trend of baseball front offices trading some traditional game-watching scouts for video and statistical analysts.

"Teams have begun scrambling to develop uses for the new data, which will be unveiled Saturday to a group of baseball executives, statisticians and academics, knowing it will probably become the largest single advance in baseball science since the development of the box score. Several major league executives would not publicly acknowledge their enthusiasm for the new system, to better protect their plans for leveraging it.

" 'It can be a big deal,' the Cleveland Indians' general manager, Mark Shapiro, said. 'We’ve gotten so much data for offense, but defensive objective analysis has been the most challenging area to get any meaningful handle on. This is information that’s not available anywhere. When you create that much data you almost have to change the structure of the front office to make sense of it.'

"... Bob Bowman, the subsidiary's chief executive ... said he preferred the data be more open so that statistically minded fans and academics could brainstorm ways to wring useful information from what would become petabytes of raw data.

" ... 'It will give fans other things to argue about and discuss, and highlight details of the sport that you hear about a lot but don’t know too much about,' Bowman said. 'It has broadcasting applications for graphics, things like that, and also has real-world applications to teams who have to evaluate players.' "

In other words, broadcasters might have to bone up on more than who won a Gold Glove several seasons ago when they talk about fielding. The comments from Wells and Rolen, with a combined 10 Gold Gloves between them, do shed some light on the ballplayers' attitudes.

It is refreshing to see Wells espouse a belief that such information can be helpful. Maybe some ballplayers who are raised in the information age would better accept the hard data if it was placed in front of them, showing what aspects of fielding and throwing they're deficient in. For instance, it might help a right fielder work on throws from certain angles, like after he's cut off a ball in the gap as opposed to charging in on a ground ball single.

It's sort of pertinent to Wells. He won three Gold Gloves in a row, but this season, his Ultimate Zone Rating is dead last among everyday outfielders.

Rolen, who is still an above-average third baseman, also expresses something about the game. Some people believe much of baseball is best left to the imagination. That's fine and dandy like sour candy. However, no one should be begrudged the desire to take things on more than faith.

Related:
Digital Eyes Will Chart Baseball’s Unseen Skills (Alan Schwarz, The New York Times)

Mornings with Mr. Canoehead

Well I woke up Sunday morning, with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt. And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert ... here what's not bothering you now, raisins off an Oldsmobile.

... The new Yankee Stadium after Roy Halladay was done out of a win Saturday. It's understood that the Yankees honour their history, but turning Johnny Damon into Lou Gehrig is going too far. Between its ridiculous hitter-friendliness — Damon has already hit 12 home runs there, hey, lots of 35-year-olds just suddenly become power hitters — and the super-extendo seventh-inning stretch, it's borderline cheating. The latter actually comes from Mike Wilner:

" Speaking of the 7th inning, and I hate to bring this up since the idea of signing God Bless America in the 7th inning stretch, especially on the 4th of July, is a lovely thing, but seriously. Does it have to be the extended dance mix of the song, a Yankee Stadium tradition? I would love to go back over the last nine years and see how many runs the Yanks have scored at home in the 7th inning after freezing the opposing pitcher for an extra five minutes while Dr. Ronan Tynan dragged out every last syllable of GBA.

"And maybe it’s me, but I just find it to be the overwhelming Yankee arrogance that carries over into Tynan’s rendition, since he’s the only one on the planet who actually sings the whole thing. It's as though the thinking is 'this is New York City, we’re going to be the only ones who do it right.' It would be like the Blue Jays stopping home games in the 7th inning stretch to sing O Canada and making sure to include the mysterious second verse about great prairies spreading and mighty rivers flowing."

The new Yankee Stadium calls to mind the late, great Dan Quisenberry's line about another stadium, "I don't know if there are good uses for nuclear weapons, but this might be one."

... two players on a Double-A team driving in more runs last night than Vernon Wells has since the first of June. No, they were not playing a doubleheader.

... Dany Heatley thinking it's despicable Sarah Palin won't honour her commitment to the Alaska electorate. Incidentally, if Heatley is coming to Ottawa for teammate Jason Spezza's wedding, they might need to hold the reception at the U.S. embassy, for the extra security.

... the irony of minor-league hockey player Robin Gomez being acquitted of assault on the same day that his team, the Oklahoma City Blazers, went out of business.

(Former Ottawa Gee-Gees goalie Jordan Watt was one of Gomez's defence lawyer.

... the Toronto Argonauts running radio spots calling themselves an "accessible team." The B.C. Lions deserve that appellation after the way their offensive line blocked on Friday (nine sacks allowed vs. Saskatchewan).

... Team-hopping football coach Nick Saban playing himself in the film version of The Blind Side. Apparently he wandered off the set in the middle of the shoot to take a role in another movie.

... knowing why it is not socially acceptable to say Formula One's Bernie Ecclestone got roasted for praising Hitler. You would be almost as bad as he is.

... not knowing Tyler Arnason was still in the NHL.

Mornings with Mr. Canoehead

It's all raisins off an Oldsmobile. None of this should have kept you up at night ...

... Any gut feeling that the Senators will end up stuck with Dany Heatley and have to pay him his $4-million bonus.

... People treating the story about Wimbledon putting better-looking female players on centre court as ribald. Sorry, but when the two Grand Slam events held in old Europe often schedule Serena Williams to play on a side court, it's not amusing. It's something else which rhymes with acism.

... wondering how long until it is OK to riff on Vernon Wells changing his at-bat music to Michael Jackson songs. It's a classy move, but it's as if Wells is trying to point out someone else has actually gone even longer without producing a big hit.

... feeling like you have taken the Hamilton Tiger-Cats' futility for granted for the past 10 years. (That's a great column by Stephen Brunt.)

... Whether to take the inaugural football Junior World Championship seriously. The joy of football is the journey, yet New Zealand, Sweden and France travelled all the way to Canton, Ohio to lose by a combined 184-7 to Canada, Mexico and the U.S. Did the French run the original Statue of Liberty play against the Americans, or did their quarterback's play wristband read, "Prenez un genou."*

(BT to the dub, proof the Creator does not throw dice. The Hockey Hall of Fame is in the heart of Canada's largest city. The Baseball Hall of Fame is nestled in the postcard-worthy Finger Lakes. The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio is right next to interstate highway.)

Columnists bellyaching about how bored they were by watching the NHL draft. There seriously has to be a better topic and whining about you doing journalism, isn't that what a blog is for? (Besides, Jack Todd wrote the definitive takedown of the NHL draft on Monday.)

(*That's French for, "Take a knee.")

Zen Dayley: Cito and the DH thingy

Plus more Vernon Wells vitriol and a short dissertation about tradition...

Just another day from the "Cito Gaston is not the brilliant tactician I thought he was" files. The same manager who complained about pitchers having to bat in National League parks after closer Scott Downs injured his big toe running out a ground ball almost ended up running out of pitchers on Thursday because he did not double-switch in the eighth inning in order to, wait for it, avoid the pitcher's turn in the order. As Mike Wilner put it:

"The Baseball 101, incredibly obvious, only correct move - especially since the Jays only had two pitchers left in the bullpen ... was to bring Rod Barajas in to catch as part of a double-switch, with (Jason) Frasor coming in to bat in the 8th spot and Barajas, the new catcher, batting ninth and leading off the ninth.

"Instead, Gaston only brought in Frasor, with the intention of having him lead off the ninth inning if he had been able to hold the lead." (The Phillies tied the game.)

" ... It was a ridiculous non-move to make, and almost cost the team the game. If Gaston didn't realize that the double-switch was the move, then one of former National League manager Nick Leyva or former National League coach Brian Butterfield should have been screaming in his ear. Just terrible.

You know the rest of the story. The Blue Jays ended up winning, 8-7, by the margin of Barajas' pinch-hit home run in the ninth inning (a fastball up and away that he hit over the centrefield fence 401 feet from home place). The dude who replaced the dude who was replaced by the dude who hurt himself running to first base (duuuuude, just say Jeremy Accardo got the save) ended up getting the save. The Jays won the damn game to complete a series sweep of the World Series champions (which was probably just an evenout since they could not be as bad as they were last weekend vs. the Florida Marlins), so what is it to anyone if the manager and his coaches flunked Baseball 101?

There is much less receptiveness for playing armchair manager when the team ends up winning the game. However, talk about a manager flirting with disaster The amusing part, speaking personally, was arriving at work shortly after 4 p.m., having forgotten the Jays had a day game and assuming it was over. It took all of 10 seconds to establish that the score was tied and, hey, what was regular catcher Barajas doing batting .in a day game after a night game? It seemed strange it had come to that point. It was even stranger that Gaston, after saying, "My pitchers don't take batting practice every day and don't run, so things like this are going to happen," would risk putting another pitcher in that situation only two days later. But hey, he is the manager.

To be fair, he did have a point

Gaston's rant did blow the dust off the DH debate. Whether it should be in both leagues, or just used for all interleague games (there is no political will to change it, since the AL is dominating once again in the interleague play contagion).

Not to over-intellectualize it, but one's position might hinge on a working definition of tradition. It seems like to some tradition connotes doing something the way you believe it's always been done just because. Tradition, though, means something is handed down, passed over to another generation. It's more like a trust to keep and if there's a way to improve on it without making a radical change, you do it.

Sun Media's Bob Elliott, to whom this author is very indebted, wrote a follow-up column on the skipper's comments. Elliott quite rightly pointed out that it was a bit of a CYA move to complain about Downs getting hurt. As he noted, the Jays knew interleague was coming. Downs had also hit before, plus running to first base should not be beyond a pro athlete's grasp. Plus, the Jays had left a lot of runs on the table.

"Gaston had every reason to be angry, but not at the National League designated hitter rules.

"He could have been angry at Alex Rios having a brain cramp and neglecting to tag with the Jays down 3-2 in the eighth when Marco Scutaro lined to left-centre.

"Or he could have been angry at the Jays hitting 2-for-17 with men in scoring position, or leaving 15 men on base in regulation."

Those were all good points. The rub is eight of those 15 stranded runners were a byproduct of starting pitcher Ricky Romero batting in a real game for the first time in his professional career. Romero struck out three times. On eleven pitches. José Bautista or Kevin Millar would have stood a far greater chance of driving in a couple of those runners.

The craw-sticker, though, was the closer, "Pitchers hit in the NL, and it's how baseball was created." That is very well and good. However, the counter to that is that the players would still go without gloves if everything was done according how baseball was created.

Games and sports evolve. Football pays a lot of lip service to tradition. However, with regard to specialized roles, they stopped asking the quarterback to double as a free safety generations ago. You don't see the starting split end (as wide receivers used to be called) coming off the field to get his kicking shoe on before he tries a field goal, straight-ahead style.

The best compromise as an American League guy is that the NL is free to keeps its antiquated rules. It's not necessary that the so-called senior circuit swings with the times. It just can't impact on any meaningful game affecting an AL fan's favourite team, or any game of significance. Sound fair?

P.S. ... about Vernon...

What was that about how Vernon Wells' production (his OPS is down to .676) might be about as good it gets?

"Of course, there was no mention of something most sentient Jays fans have already contemplated, that maybe this is as close to as good it gets for Wells. Five minutes of reading The Hardball Times or FanGraphs combined with a willingness to reason will show anyone that 40% of the way into a major league baseball season, a player's production has usually close to finding its own level, just like water."

Take it away, Fangraphs:

"ZiPS doesn’t see Wells improving all that much this season with the bat, ultimately finishing with a .254/.310/.400 line. The projected 15 HR and 18 SB help elevate the wOBA to .316, but a below average rate like that coupled with a UZR perhaps on pace to be worse than -15 runs makes Wells a replacement player. In a full season in 2007, Wells produced just 1.2 wins. He added another 0.8 more last year albeit in just 108 games. This year: -1.0 wins. Rios is proving that he can be a good, not fantastic player, while Wells is showing that he does not deserve a starting spot in the big leagues, let alone one at such an important position." (Emphasis mine.)

Fronts: Doherty could slip, but where did you read that

Please do not hold your breath waiting for someone to make the connection between the Kingston Frontenacs management structure and OHL Prospects' view Fronts d-man Taylor Doherty is the league's biggest "faller" for the NHL draft:

"(Doherty) went into this season as a guy with the potential to go in the NHL lottery. But Doherty never took that step forward, as was expected. Offensively, he had a disappointing season, failing to match his stats from his rookie year. Defensively, he was exposed as a poor lateral mover and an undisciplined aggressor. In many cases, Doherty took a step backwards this season, rather than forwards. This caused his drop from potential lottery selection to possible third round selection."

(Click through, because somehow this Kingston Frontenacs post turned into a rant about Vernon Wells. That's the kind of weekend it was for the Blue Jays.)

Perish any thought that Doherty's development might have been impacted negatively by the last stint Larry Mavety had behind the Frontenacs bench, from the 12-game mark on in 2007-08 through the first third of last season. That probably did little very to aid Doherty's progress.

As a general point, it would be nicer to see more analytical coverage like the above one from Brock Otten making it into the traditional media when it comes to junior coverage, hell, any sports coverage in Canada, please excuse the gross generalization.

The NHL draft is approaching (June 26-27 in Montreal) It is good a time as any to make such a point. Chances are, in almost any city with a major junior hockey team, you will read the same rundown of which players with a tie to the area has a chance to be drafted, with the potential draftees saying the same extemporaneous comments about how it is a honour just to be drafted. It is in keeping with what a journo friend once suggested would be the ultimate headline, "Athlete hopes to win upcoming game." Sometimes it's as if the writer is looks at the player more the way a publicist looks at a client. (It can be stressed enough this is a general concern. The spur to say it didn't even come from a hockey story.)

Newspapers are limited by finite space, other priorities and cut-beyond-the-bone staffing levels (especially anywhere in Ontario, and you know who to thank). However, they should not turtle when it comes to trying to provide critical analysis, trying to increase understanding or provides a more cohesive picture of what's going on. People already know Big Bobby Clobber Jr. would like to be drafted, the higher the better, since that is why he has been playing hockey since age three. Having that in there, of course, is based on the false premise reality can only be shown through someone else's quotes.

There are piles of empirical evidence which show people want more detailed info. Instead, you can look forward to hearing the same-ol'-same-ol' draft hopeful clichés over the next 11, 12 days. I'm excited ... it's pretty surreal ... I haven't really thought about what team I'd like to be drafted by.

With Taylor Doherty, there is more to the story than just him being drafted. There's the story of how he went sideways a bit as a player in the eyes of informed observers, which jibes with what TVCogeco's Tim Cunningham said on Kinger's radio show during the Frontenacs season.

(Incidentally, the Belleville Bulls traded former Front Luke Pither to Barrie for three draft choices. So Luke Pither and Josh Brittain, Kingston's first-rounders in 2005 and '06, have been reunited. Brilliant!)

(What brought this on? Blame it on one OMD's column about the Blue Jays' Vernon Wells which ran in a Toronto newspaper over the weekend. The writer, who shall remain generic, had plenty of quotes from Wells, saying how he needs to put in extra work in the batting cage to snap out of his horrid hitting funk (now 0-for-17 and 138 at-bats without a home run). Of course, there was no mention of something most sentient Jays fans have already contemplated, that maybe this is as close to as good it gets for Wells. Five minutes of reading The Hardball Times or FanGraphs combined with a willingness to reason will show anyone that 40% of the way into a major league baseball season, a player's production has usually close to finding its own level, just like water. Of course, that cannot be allowed to creep into the picture. Vernon Wells is confident he's going to come around and be a 30-homer, 100-RBI guy like he was in 2006, so by God, write what he said.)

A Jay A Day: Statistics say, keep Wells and Rios together, just much lower in the lineup

You can see by the look of Vernon Wells' numbers it's time to get into this again.

One wonders what was behind Wells having been written into the fourth spot in the lineup day after day. (Tony Ambrogio's Twitter says he'll hit third, with Adam Lind — finally! — hitting cleanup and Alex Rios dropping to the six-spot. Why did it take this long? Was it part of a power struggle, with Paul Beeston as the permanent interim president and J.P. Ricciardi trying to stay employed? Is it the cult of personality around Cito Gaston that kept Toronto baseball writers from saying, "My wife, she has been most vocal on the subject of Vernon Wells. Where is he hitting today? When are you going to move him out of the cleanup spot? And so forth."

The Jays are not dumb on the baseball side. Someone working for them must be aware that 274 plate appearances into the season, a player's numbers are pretty much are what they are. The upside of fan anger, best represented by Sports And The City's Vernon Wells Hatred Advisory System, is that at least there's a way to show leaving Wells in the cleanup spot on faith is unsubstantiated baloney, in the parlance of our times.

Baseball Musings has a lineup analysis tool which anyone can use to determine the best batting order. You type in the on-base and slugging percentages of nine hitters, hit the submit button and voilà, find out that yes, it is crazy for Cito (more like Sito, since he's sitting on his hands) to keep writing Wells into the middle of the order. The $126-million-dollar man has the worst slugging (.387) and second-worst on-base percentage (.307) among the Jays' everyday players, for pete's sake. This is the best possible Jays lineup that it returned, with each's players on-base and slugging percentages in brackets:

1. Marco Scutaro, SS (.400/.451)
   
2. Lyle Overbay, 1B (.397/.553)
3. Scott Rolen, 3B (.382/.455)
4. Adam Lind, LF or DH (.381/.562)
5. Aaron Hill, 2B (.346/.500)
6. Rod Barajas, C (.303/.408)
7. Alex Rios, RF (.319/.423)
8. Vernon Wells, CF (.307/.387)
9. José Bautista, LF or DH (.400/.368)

For argument's sake, the team's splits vs. lefties suggest that against southpaws, Overbay could be dropped to the sixth spot, with Barajas sliding into the 5-hole and Hill batting second.

In a run-neutral setting, that collection of data representing Blue Jays hitters would average 5.82 runs per game. The worst possible lineup, which would have Barajas, the paunchy catcher, in the leadoff spot with Wells batting second, would still average 5.25 runs.

The current Jays are averaging 5.03 runs (above the league average, 4.78). That's good, but it suggests they could be more productive if Wells wasn't dragging them down.

Another feature of BM's tool is that it shows outcomes for a number of possible lineups. The constants are Marco Scutaro hitting leadoff, some combination of the two lefties, Lind and Overbay, and the righty-hitting infielders, Hill and Rolen, in the 2-5 slots, and Wells being well down in the lineup. There were a few that show the Jays could get away with Alex Rios as the No. 3 hitter.

Data representing Blue Jays players does not fully capture their mental or physical well-being, or if they have just been hitting a lot of at-'em balls, or have a flaw in their swing which can be corrected. If you liken the baseball swing to a golf swing on another plane, Wells does not look like he was what golf nuts call "quiet hands," which makes it harder for him to square up and make solid contact. That might explain his low batting average on balls in play (.258) and why any improvement the rest of the way will probably be marginal.

The point is as a fan, either take it on faith that Wells will snap out of it or accept that in a snug-panted exercise in statistic memorization such as baseball (fist bump: Jay Pinkerton), there's usually a reasonable projection of how someone's going to produce. Wells is nearing 300 times at bat for the season. The water has found its own level. FanGraphs has Wells projected to end up with 15 homers and 75 RBI. Those aren't cleanup hitter numbers in any generation.

Meantime, the FAN 590's Mike Wilner said Gaston will consider making a change in "a month" if things don't improve. A month? We have seen enough already.

The bottom line is the sample sizes are big enough to know Wells will only improve somewhat over the last 100 games of this season. As The Tao of Stieb noted today, he has not produced to the point where it is costing the ballclub:

"In the 32 games since Vernon Wells last hit a ball out of the park (May 6th versus Anaheim), he has posted a .574 OPS and driven in a grand total of seven runs in 134 plate appearances. Each one of which, it should be noted, with him hitting fourth in the Jays batting order, just to beat that dead horse again.

"And dare we mention that Travis Snider was exiled to Las Vegas after posting an OPS of .686 in 108 plate appearances? If that sort of performance merits a demotion - and it did - then shouldn't Vernon receive some sort of demotion himself? Like maybe a week or two of hitting seventh or eighth in the lineup?

"Most importantly, the Jays have gone 14-18 in those games. We'd hazard a guess that not many teams would do much better with their cleanup hitter putting up numbers that could be bested by the fourth outfielder on their Triple-A team."

Personally, there was reluctance to get into this, since it would be running over some well-trod ground.

Most Jays and/or Toronto sports blogs have been harping about this for several weeks. It seemed best to just to fall back on the old standby adopted by office drones the world over, "You don't want to know what I think." However, there was a spur to speak up after hearing Gaston tell Jerry Howarth prior to last Sunday's game that he wasn't giving consideration to dropping Rios and Wells. The gist of it, from Gaston's point of view, was that "you don't want to panic." He also said you can't "hide" struggling hitters in the lineup, which did not answer the question of why he would keep them in the two spots in the lineup which get the most chance to produce runs, either by driving in the table-setters or. Now he's going to wait a month?

The irony is that there is a counter-argument that the Jays might be reluctant to take decisive action since Rios and Wells are perceived as their two highest-paid players. They would open themselves up to criticism if they take two players due to earn close to $200-million US through the 2014 season and hit them 7-8. (Technically, the Jays' highest-paid position players are actually Rolen and Overbay.)

However, there is a lot of cynicism in the Toronto sports market. Jays attendance is down a bit this year, although their TV ratings have risen about 7%. There is interest in this team, but not blind devotion. A demotion for Wells and Rios probably would be good from a bottom-line point of view.

A strong organization would ride it out and make the best of being stuck with Wells, instead of exacerbating the worst of it.

Jay a Day: It's veheming about Vernon Wells week

Although Vernon Wells is struggling at the plate he is also a very poor fielder. It's a small sample size, but he's the worst in the majors.

"Vernon Wells' days as a good center fielder might be over. Over the last three years: -14.3, -1.1, 7.5, so far this year Wells is showing no signs of bouncing back, and actually seems to be getting worse. Whether that holds up or not is another story."
— R.J. Anderson, FanGraphs

A true Jays fan is sworn to stand by the "putative cleanup hitter for life (who) hasn't driven in a run since May 6" (The Tao of Stieb). He is ours, thanks to that seven-year, $126-million U.S. contract he signed in late 2006 which was universally praised, present company included. The numbers don't lie, though.

Wells is always going to be the punching bag of first resort, thanks to his contract. Please don't classify it as Tall Poppy Syndrome, since he would firs thave to be a tall poppy.

The question is how to reconcile that Vernon Wells, as far as anyone knows, is a decent player who does and says all the right things ("I take a lot of responsibility for what's going on, and it's frustrating for everyone") but not a superstar nor someone who can be easily traded.

He is going to have periods where he hits very well and it will seem like the Wells of 2003 or '06 is coming back ... ah, yes, the real Vernon ... and then regress. He makes better contact than he once did, but it's not clear if that necessarily means he controls the strike zone better. Where once he used to strike out about every seven times at bat, it's now once less every 10. His walk-to-strikeout ratio so far this season is 1:1, but most players' walk rates improve as they get older. Most damningly, he hasn't had an opposite-field hit all season.

It probably will get tougher, from here on out, to justify Wells hitting cleanup and playing centrefield. Flipping him and lefty-hitting Adam Lind in the 4-5 spots could be a temporary salve, since Wells is historically most productive batting fifth or sixth. Alex Rios' fielding in right has raised some hackles, so having him and Wells switch spots might not even be salable.

Anyway, six-game losing skid or not (as soon as Cito Gaston went to Shawn Camp in the bottom of the seventh in the 10-2 loss to Atlanta, it was time to bounce), it's never as bad it seems when it is going bad, just as it is never as good as it seems when it's going well. June and July are typically Wells' best months offensively (career-wise, he was OPS-plused 116 and 122 in those months, compared to 92 and 101 for April and May and 88 and 91 for August and Sept./Oct.). In other words, relax, it's gonna be OK, provided Cito is open to some kind of decisive action.

All's Wells if it evokes an obscure, dated reference

The Tao of Stieb seemed put off by the discovery of a YouTube channel called ActionSeat, which seems to consist of two very blond young women asking allegedly off-beat questions to major leaguers.

One person's off-beat is one person's inane, but it seemed worth a toss. Every other Blue Jays blog is getting mileage out of the clip of the Jays' Vernon Wells deadpanning that teammate Aaron Hill is "racist." One of The Tao's commenters claims one of the interviewers, so-called, is a server in those primo In The Action seats behind home plate at Rogers Centre, which could get, uh, interesting if reporters choose to follow up instead of seeing it as benign.



Really, it's pretty benign. With the wrong kind of mind, one could even argue the one young woman saying to Houston's Michael Bourn, "I don't get baseball," is an homage — a modern re-imagining — of Bob Newhart's classic routine.



Every Seamhead has been there once, asked to explain baseball.

"You got a pitcher and a catcher. They throw this ball back and forth. That's all there is to it?

"All right. A guy from the other side stands between them. With a bat. I see. And he just watches them?

"Oh, I see. He swings at it?

"He may or he may not swing at it. Depending on what?

" ' If it looked like it were a ball.' Uh, what's a ball, Mr. Doubleday?"

"You've got this plate. Uh-huh."

Related:
Apparently, Aaron Hill doesn't like black people (The Tao of Stieb)

Batter up: Toronto Blue Jays

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 that are tangentially about each team. At bat: The Toronto Blue Jays.

1. Harry Leroy Halladay reduces journalism's Old Gray Lady to using normal-people language: "Halladay is just really good at everything."
   
   Now, please, don't trade Doc to the Yankees, but do realize that trading him this season would be wise, since he's in the second-last year of his contract and it saves a new GM having to do next season, should there be a change.
   
   Seriously, a Sunday New York Times feature called Roy Halladay "the best pitcher in baseball."
   

   "The movement on Halladay's pitches can be seen in numbers compiled by the Inside Edge scouting service. Batters swung and missed at only 15 percent of his strikes, about the major league average. But they made solid contact only 7 percent of the time, one of the better rates in the league — the pitches looked good, but they flitted from the bat barrel at the last second."
   

2. Only in Ontario: The Jays have been barred from selling beer at two early-season games, including the day-after-the-home-opener contest when there's not going to be anyone there. How are people going to wash down those $1 hot dogs?
   
   
3. The unofficial theme for this season: "This is what you wanted."
   
   The Jays actually are positioning themselves to try to build an organization instead of signing free agents to squeeze out another 83-79 season. Embrace it. This season is a write-off, but it will serve a purpose, getting back to inconspicuous consumption. It's what helped make the Tampa Bay Rays great.
   
   
4. Travis Snider, God's Gift of Sunshine, is Newsday scribe Ken Davidoff's pick for American League Rookie of the Year. The Globe & Mail's Jeff Blair noted that Snider squares up to the ball better than any young hitter he's watched since Vlady Guerrero, no faint praise.
   
   
5. Would it have really made sense to get tied down to a couple free-agent pitchers and have a surfeit of arms when Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan return from their injuries? David Purcey rates a shot at a full season in the bigs.
   
   
6. Left-hander Ricky Romero is in the rotation partially since the Jays can't afford to admit he was a mistake (never, ever, draft based on the current roster).
   
   
7. The relievers had a league-best 2.94 ERA last season. B.J. Ryan seems to have a dead arm. As for the rest of the group (Jesse Carlson, possible fill-in closer Scott Downs, Brandon League, Casey Janssen when he's healthy), they could be decent, emphasis on could be. The Baseball Prospectus 2009 says, "While it's great when a bunch of your marginal relief arms come through with a strong season, it's a bad sign for the following year, because they're likely to regress."
   
   
8. It's Alex Rios' and Vernon Wells' misfortune to play in a city (and it's like this everywhere) where there's no buffer zone between a marginal athlete scrapping by and a transcendent superstar. They're both complementary types of players, no more, and Wells didn't pay himself $126 million over seven years.
   
   
9. The marriage of convenience with Triple-A Las Vegas is off to a roaring start:

   "The Dodgers are one of baseball’s most famous franchises. Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Sandy Koufax, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Don Drysdale, Billy Grabarkewitz ... OK, not Billy Grabarkewitz (although he did make the 1970 All-Star team). But the list goes on and on.
   
   "The Blue Jays, on the other hand, are almost recognizable in Toronto. At least when hockey season ends. I mean, you can’t put Rance Mulliniks or Garth Iorg on a bobblehead doll, can you?
   
   " 'They haven't even retired anybody’s number,' sniffed a member of the 51s' extended family."

   The Jays honour numbers. The greatest coach who ever lived, John Wooden, didn't retire numbers when he was coaching UCLA. "What about all the other players who wore it?" he reasoned. That seemed to have worked out pretty well for everyone.
   
   The 51's will hold Blue Jays Tuesdays where O Canada will be played and discounted Canadian beer will be sold. Oh, and can they have the play-by-play guy drop the u in out?
   


10. What's more par for the course? Finding out that one of Toronto's most respected baseball writers once passed on watching the deciding game of the World Series to go to a Madonna concert, or finding out that in 1993, the Montreal Gazette didn't send Jeff Blair to a World Series being played in Philadephia and Toronto? (People in Montreal acting provincially? That's never happened.)
    
    It's all in good fun, Blairsy. You did what you had to do.
    
    
11. Former No. 1 overall pick Matt Bush was released two days before the release of the movie Adventureland, which includes a character who goes around punching people in the crotch for no reason. The actor who plays the character is also named Matt Bush. Crazy.
    
    Seriously, one hopes Matt Bush gets help.
    
    
12. The Tao of Stieb already has the post of the year, about Sportsnet analyst Rance Mulliniks getting kicked out of a game while coaching a college team:

    "Rance always struck us as a mild-mannered pacifist. Or maybe it only seems that way because he is being lulled to sleep by Jamie Campbell all season long."

13. On TSN just now, manager Cito Gaston just said, "We really don't have a No. 2 hitter." Second baseman Aaron Hill is going to be tried there to start the season.
    
    
14. Veteran Sun Media baseball writer Bob Elliott, who was on CFRC 101.9 with Kinger on Friday afternoon, related that a fellow journo on the Jays beat had claimed Marco Scutaro was the best shortstop the Jays have ever had.
    
    Tony Fernandez only won four Gold Gloves and hit .300 or higher four times for the Jays.
    
    
15. Brett Cecil is not the Anglo version of Gustavo Chacin.
    
    
16. It's just a gut feeling, but former second baseman Robbie Alomar is probably not going to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. This came on before that tabloid poop storm, by the way.
    
    
17. The Facebook group Brad Mills Will Pitch In The Bigs has only 76 members, but left-hander Brad Mills will pitch in the bigs, maybe in September. Please don't click to see who's the first person who comes up when you click to see who they are. Please don't.


18. Nicknaming backup shortstop John McDonald "McGlovin" never caught on. This pains me.
    
    
19. Catcher of the future Jonathan Paul "Good J.P." Arencibia will be up in September, when his free-agency clock will be turned off.
    
    
20. Pete Toms figures there is an ownership crisis in Toronto. Check out the piece he wrote in February for the Biz of Baseball.
    
    
21. The Jays' Las Vegas AAA team plays in a stadium which had a park factor of 109, very hitter-friendly. Try not to get too excited if Russ Adams is suddenly among the Pacific Coast League leaders in home runs. The park there also lacks batting cages. What do the players do, head down to Funland and feed quarters into the pitching machines?
    
    
22. Please stop mentioning that Jesse Litsch was a batboy for the then-Devil Rays like you're the first one to say it. This means you, Baseball Daily Digest.
    
    
23. The best advice for anyone who got on the Jays bandwagon in the halcyon days of '92-93 is to either like it and lump it, or shut your cake hole and realize no one cares which team you support. It's better to do that than pull an Adam Owen and write something embarrassing that you deserve to get asked about at every job interview you go to for the rest of your life:

    "Leaving the team you grew up with behind is more like falling out of love than anything else. Sometimes the breakup is messy, and sometimes it takes years to fully get over your first love. You feel guilty watching other teams or wearing other hats. You check the sports page regularly with both a sigh and a jealous groan, and you feel awful. It’s worse than falling out of love, though. You will never have another first, and you’ll never get over that moment; your hand in your dad’s, walking through the tunnel and seeing the green field or the white ice or the brown hardwood, hearing the growing roar rise exponentially as the walls around you abruptly end and the bright lights blind you and cover you in the purest of light. It’s like fucking, and you never forget the first time. It’s the closest thing you’ll ever come to losing your virginity before ten."

24. Anything you hear about two members of this site having a 20-dollar bet on whether the Blue Jays or Orioles finish last in the division is filthy, scurrilous lie.
    
    It's a 25-dollar bet. Get your facts straight.
    
25. If this isn't beautiful in a lame way, I will fight you:
    
    
    
    

Snark break ...

As you were camping out for Spinal Tap tickets. The sustain, listen to it ... I don't hear anything ... well, you would if it were playing.

Miami's chances of getting a MLS expansion team are deader than Jefferey Loria's prospects of a new ballpark for the Florida Marlins. In other words, great day to be a soccer fan in Ottawa or Vancouver who rooted for the Expos way back when (there have to be a few).

Barry Bonds' case: Everyone realizes this will never make it to trial, right? It's only the U.S. Bill of Rights, who cares?

Vernon Wells has one of the worst contracts in baseball. Try not to look so surprised.

Nashville wants to host a NHL all-star game. You are only a year too late to make jokes that this would kill the NHL in Nashville for good.

Baltimore Ravens defensive back Anwar Phillips should foreclose so well when he's on the field. None of this has been proven in court, but who knew someone could sink lower than playing for the Ravens?

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Tiger Stadium in Detroit might yet be saved.
• Anyone who has spent time around Belleville, Ontario, knows about the old Memorial Arena, which people love because it has no protective glass and the lowest sideboards around. It's too bad, then, that some fan had to get hit in the head with a puck and spoil it for everyone else.
  
• Last, but not least, try to work "bonehead gangster" into conversation at some point today.
  
  
  
  

That's all for now.

Seamheadedness: Even in a sim league, Poz has more talent

Nerd alert: You might remember that this proprietor of this site is the owner of the all-time Toronto Blue Jays team — the ATJs — in the Seamheads.com Historical Baseball Sim League. If no one objects, there will be some periodic updates.

Competing in the AL East is a cakewalk compared to facing teams that can draw from a history that goes back decades.

It was back to reality for the ATJs in their home opener, as they slipped to 2-2 after an 8-3 thumping in their home opener against Joe Posnanski's loaded Cleveland Indians. The 50,437 on hand at Rogers Centre expressed their displeasure through public intoxication and property damage and the Toronto sportwriters are already writing this team off.

For heaven's sake, it's four games in. In the words of Paul Maurice, "Go home. Drink some tea." Poz's Tribe has a top of the order of Napoleon Lajoie, Tris Speaker and Shoeless Joe Jackson. The ATJs have a third-base platoon which includes Rance Mulliniks. Let's have some perspective, shall we? Lajoie, the Grey Eagle and Shoeless Joe went 10-for-14, helping give ATJs starter Dave Stieb got an even rougher ride than he did from Cy Young Award voters in the mid-1980s, giving up six runs over an inning and a third.

The opening series in Seattle went a little better. Not unlike the real-life Jays, they took the first two of a series but couldn't get the sweep, as the all-time Mariners (ATMs) touched up Jimmy Key and Duane Ward in an 8-4 romp.

However, Roger Clemens — hey, a team which has only been around 32 seasons doesn't have the luxury of being selective — and Harry Leroy Halladay, were a more dangerous combination than Jack Daniels and I.W. Harper. Dumb and Doctor, as some wags have dubbed them, each held Seattle to a single, solitary run.

Doc pitched a complete-game, 8-1 win and even contributed a RBI single to open the floodgates (there's no DH in this league). George Bell, thanks to some fine table-setting by Roberto Alomar (.500 OBP with six steals in the first four games) and others, had five RBI with a double and a home run.

Clemens went eight strong, striking out 12, in the 3-1 win on Opening Day. He finished off striking out his last three hitters, Jay Buhner, Ichiro Suzuki and Edgar Martinez in home half of the eighth. The bluebirds responded with two in the ninth, working a double steal for the go-ahead run after Ernie Whitt worked a leadoff walk off shaky reliever Mike Schooler and Alex Rios went to third on Mulliniks' pinch-hit single. Rance's younger self took off for second and Rios scored when the throw sailed into centrefield, since Seattle shortstop Alex Rodriguez had failed to cover the bag after becoming transfixed by his own picture on the Safeco Field video screen.

The D-Rox (the Diamondbacks and Rockies) are off to a 4-0 start to take the early lead in the Expansion Three division, which includes the ATJs, Seattle and Florida/Tampa Bay Marlins/Rays.

Alomar has been on base 10 of his first 20 times up to pace the offence. The media has also questioned the choice to go with Lloyd Moseby as the Opening Day centrefielder and the Shaker, installed in the leadoff spot, is off to a 3-for-18 start. He seemed like a good compromise between no offence, all defence Devon White and some offence, some defence Vernon Wells. Moseby just needs a month to prove himself, gosh darnit.

Zen Dayley: Just in case the Jays trade Vernon

The dread word "financial constraints" appears in this Jon Heyman item about the Blue Jays trading Vernon Wells, the $126-million-dollar man.

It goes against the ass-talker code to add to the echo chamber by commenting on trade possibilities, but what the hell. This seems logical if you believe that Rogers Communications wants to make the Jays more attractive to a potential buyer by shedding payroll (hey, we're the San Diego Padres without close proximity to the beach!). The Jays should have an Adam Lind-Alex Rios-Travis Snider outfield by 2010 and there's plenty of options for the first bash and designated hitter positions.

The big question is how much Wells is going to hit. He OPS'd a very serious .932 after the All-Star break last season, albeit in limited time (189 plate appearances). His biggest comparable, as a 29-year-old player, though, is Reggie Smith, a star in the 1970s who was an absolutely devasting hitter in the era in some exceptional circumstances (Dodger Stadium, mostly).

Defensively, he struggled in centrefield, while Rios, at least by one measure, played the position superbly when circumstances dictated he move over from right. (Disclaimer: One seamhead friend of mine claims he'll never trust any defensive statistic, old school or new school, and he has a point.)

There's not much smoke yet. It goes without saying the Jays only have one untouchable. His name is Roy Halladay. No doubt there's a sizable chunk of Toronto sports fans who are down on Wells, who had a bad season in 2007 and then flew below the radar in 2008 since he was out for two months. He's not a superstar and his contract is a millstone. It would be difficult to move him, but some team.

This that and the other

• Poz did his homework and came up with some fascinating stuff about walk rates. It's required reading for the baseball flat-earthers.
• The New York Times classifies Tim Raines among one of the "statistical causes célèbre" among seamheads. It's a point well-taken, since they're arguing for letting Hall of Fame voters have another stab at considering Bobby Grich, Dwight Evans, Ted Simmons and Lou Whitaker, among others, now that the tools for evaluating them have gained wider acceptance.
• So much for the Jays bringing in Daniel Cabrera (a former Ottawa Lynx). The right-hander signed with the Nationals.
• Gut feeling: Manny Ramirez is going to end up with the Yankees. It cannot not happen.

Related:
Blue Jays fielding inquiries about Wells (Jon Heyman, SI.com)

He's like Yoda, only obsessed with on-base percentage

This post will become a full-bodied Zen Dayley, but first off: Mike Wilner wrote that on this, the final day of the season, "all that’s left is for ... (Vernon) Wells to try to take Jeremy Guthrie deep twice to have the Jays avid the ignominy of going through a full season without having a single player hit 20 homers."

Well, what do you know: Wells homered off the Orioles' Guthrie in the first inning, and homered again in the fifth to become the only Jay to hit 20 moon shots this season. It didn't happen quite the way Wilner called it, since the second homer was off Alfredo Simon, who's neither as good nor memorable as Alfredo Griffin or Simon & Garfunkel.