Archive for the ‘Bullshit Rumours’ Category

Public Service: No Devo At Rancho

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Bullshit Rumours on Mar 21, 2013

CMWthingFIXED

Right now Toronto is in the middle of one of its two annual take-application-money-from-guys-from-Winnipeg-then-make-them-pay-their-own-way-to-get-here-so-they-can-play-a-hopelessly-shitty-slot-at-an-awful-bar-for-no-pay-just-so-you-can-advertise-that-thousands-of-bands-are-involved music festivals. A quick glance through the guide book for what the organizers call Canadian Music Fest (and everybody else in the world, including 99% of their advertisers, still calls Canadian Music Week) provides far more fun than it should, only for the sheer fact that there are so many hilariously awful band names and kitchen sink genre descriptions– lo-fi experimental grunge indie pop funk!– but when thumbing through it last night there was one, pictured above, that stood out to me as particularly egregious, for at least a couple of reasons, but mostly in a misleading way.

Because… um… yeah, I’m pretty sure Kelly Gruber, Dave Winfield, Manuel Lee, et al. will, in fact, not be at Rancho Relaxo at 2 AM tonight.

I’m also pretty sure that somebody in that group probably should have seen the possible long-term copywrite trademark infringement can of worms that name opens, though, who knows, maybe they’re just doing it for a larf. Besides, I’m probably best leave the heavy criticism here to the fucking geniuses at Honest Reviews to get around to, while I maybe actually (eventually) get back writing about baseball.

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Blair: Jays Won’t Add an Expensive Pitcher

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Brett Cecil, Bullshit Rumours, Jeff Blair on Mar 14, 2012

Here’s a small nugget of a tidbit that was buried in Jeff Blair’s Henderson Alvarez piece for the Globe and Mail this morning:

“Sources maintain the Blue Jays will not add another pitcher with a significant financial commitment at this time; that they are more likely to add a stop-gap, innings-eating starter if Drabek, Cecil or McGowan aren’t up to it.”

If the statement weren’t made far less concrete by his suggestion that the club would be “more likely” to add a stop-gap, I’d suggest that it pretty much rules out the notion that the Jays are still pushing hard for Gavin Floyd, while wonder if Joe Blanton– at $8.5-million, minus a couple million that the Phillies have reportedly indicated they’re willing to kick in– counts as a “significant financial commitment.”

As it is, it’s just… well, it’s kinda what we ought to have suspected, but still nebulous enough to make us wonder just what the Jays are up to on this front that we truly don’t know.

Of course, maybe all this speculation is entirely unnecessary, as Blair notes earlier in the piece that “Brett Cecil has done well this spring, both in terms of results and adhering to the mechanical principles being stressed by manager John Farrell and pitching coach Bruce Walton.” The velocity, or lack thereof, doesn’t seem to be a big concern for the club, at least outwardly.

And, contrary to my nudges toward conspiracy theory, Gregor Chisholm tweets that the reason Cecil’s velocity yesterday was so shrouded in mystery was that– as I kinda suspected– pretty much all of the Toronto media was at the Canada wank in Tampa, having passed on the two-plus hour bus ride (in normal traffic) to Fort Myers. Fair enough. Gregor says he’ll have a follow-up piece on Cecil’s start later today.

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Jays Innuendo from Kenny Ken Ken and Heyman

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Bullshit Rumours on Mar 13, 2012

Yes, the Gavin Floyd bullshit appears to still be in full swirl, but fortunately for us there is a voice of reason cutting through from out there in the wilderness. And that voice belongs to… CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman?

Well, it certainly sounds right. But meanwhile, Heyman’s colleague, Kenny Ken Ken Rosenthal over at Fox Sports isn’t so quick to throw cold water on this. He suggests that the Jays “continue to look for rotation help,” as are the Royals, Tigers and “others.” He notes that there are a number of starters potentially available out there, including Floyd, Joe Blanton, the Nationals’ Jon Lannan, as well as the Rays’ and Rangers’ surplus. More interestingly, he talks about big decisions that lie in the Jays future, such as the possibility of moving Yunel Escobar and JP Arencibia as Adeiny Hechavarria– who he says is “enjoying a big spring,” which… yes, if you count having an OPS below Brian Bocock as “big,” he sure is*– and Travis d’Arnaud– who he figures is only a half season away. Not a bad problem to have, though… I don’t think the Jays quite have it yet. And I especially don’t think that Arizona’s Gerardo Parra, defensively awesome as he is, is quite the kind of return the Jays might want on Arencibia, which is what Rosenthal suggests the catching-desperate D’Backs might want, seeing as Miguel Montero appears to be steaming towards free agency. It’ll be an interesting situation for the Jays… eventually.

Oh, but Rosenthal’s not done yet:

Okaaaaay. Fair enough. But if we weren’t slowly entering the we’ve-run-out-of-things-to-talk-about, dead-horse-beating, non-story overkill portion of the spring, would this really be anything? I tend to think not. Things are gonna get awful routine for the next three weeks, I’d wager– like they always do– so this kind of stuff, with its tiny semblance of newsworthiness, is only going to get more and more airtime. Spring Training, everybody!

 

* I know, I know, spring stats are useless, it’s just… Bocock. Y’know?

32 Comments

Morosi: Jays Still Pursuing Gavin Floyd

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Bullshit Rumours, Gavin Floyd, Jon Morosi on Mar 12, 2012

Yep. This again.

According to Jon Morosi of Fox Sports, “the Toronto Blue Jays have not given up their pursuit of Chicago White Sox right-hander Gavin Floyd.”

He adds that “the Blue Jays and White Sox have had dialogue about Floyd since the start of spring training, one source said,” and notes that the fact that Alex Anthopoulos was recently spotted scouting the Phillies’ Joe Blanton lends credence to the suggestion that the club is still looking for pitching help.

Yes, the Jays have a certain kind of depth and a lot of intriguing young pieces to fit into the rotation puzzle, and you’d really like to see some of those guys get a chance. At the same time, you can’t be certain that Henderson Alvarez will continue to be able to get guys out without a third pitch, or that Dustin McGowan will be healthy, or that Brett Cecil and Kyle Drabek will figure it the fuck out.

But let’s not overstate the strength of these signs. Speaking on Brady and Lang this morning on the Fan 590 (audio here), Jeff Blair of the Fan and the Globe and Mail explained of the scouting trip for Blanton that ”somebody in the Blue Jays organization told me, ‘If he was pitching in Tampa, we wouldn’t have gone to watch him.’ I mean, he was 10 minutes away. He’s a guy who the Phillies have said they’ve got to make a decision on, they’re willing to kick in maybe $2-million to move him, so they went to watch him pitch.”

Not really such big deal. Floyd is certainly less of a question mark in terms of performance, and has a better contractual situation (he’s owed $7-million this year, and has a $9.5-million team option for 2012, unlike Blanton, whose contract ends after this season), but I just don’t get the sense that this is really a thing. I mean, it’s not like Alex Anthopoulos is in the habit of making deals that people see coming from miles away.

Perhaps he’s feeling out the market for Floyd to take a run at him later in the year, in the likely event that the rotation needs shoring up? I don’t know. I’d sure like to see the Drabeks and the Cecils and the Alvarezes and the McGowans of the world show they don’t belong before going after a guy like Floyd, not that having too much pitching is ever a bad thing.

And shit, if the White Sox want, say, Cecil in return– and I have absolutely no reason to believe that they might– I say go for it.

31 Comments

Elliott Brings Snider into BlantonMania

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Bob Elliott, Bullshit Rumours, Joe Blanton, Travis Snider on Mar 12, 2012

I’m not saying he’s wrong, I’m just saying, y’know, this makes me a bit queasy.

In his Toronto Sun piece on the possibility that the Jays have been not-so-quietly looking at Joe Blanton of the Phillies, Bob Elliot writes that “the Phillies like Travis Snider and have a need in left field.”

Because why have one Domonic Brown when you can have two, amiright?

I don’t know… it’s probably not worth getting too worked up over baseless speculation– especially on a guy who Elliott’s drinking scouting buddies say would slot in behind Brett Cecil, and who reminds them of Joey Hamilton (who we’re told was rather awesomely given the nickname “Brewster” by Shawn Green after getting a $17-million extension from the Jays in 1998, in reference to “the character in the Brewster’s Millions movie, starring Richard Pryor and John Candy, about the minor-leaguer who has to waste $30 million in 30 days in order to inherit $300 million.”)

Even “BlantonMania” is a biiiiiiiit of a stretch, huh?

That’s mid-March for ya, I guess.

29 Comments

Morosi: AA Leaves Phils Game Once Blanton Exits

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Bullshit Rumours, Gavin Floyd, Jon Morosi on Mar 10, 2012

File this one away, says Jon Morosi of Fox Sports. Um…

Dun dun dun!!!!!

More like dumb dumb dumb! HEYO!

Seriously. Joe fucking Blanton? At $8.5-million dollars?

Giving up some kind of non-bag of balls asset? For guy who was out with elbow trouble from mid-May to mid-September last year, and came back only as a reliever? Who hasn’t hit the 200 inning mark since 2007? Which was also the last full season in which he posted a sub-4.30 FIP? Who has the eighth-worst HR/FB rate, and thirteenth-worst HR/9 rate among the 139 pitchers who threw at least 200 total innings over the last two years?

To pitch for the Blue Jays?

Yeah… I think I can find a place to file that one.

 

UPDATE: 

Well now, maybe we should hold our horses on this “Blanton sucks” / “this is ridiculous” talk. A couple tidbits from Twitter:

@SMcEwen_eh points out that “Blanton posted a 2.96 bbFIP in 2011 in small sample. Latos posted 3.05 bbFIP.”

@NickdaNutz says that Blanton’s “extreme HR/FB rate is unsustainable = regression. Blanton developed a sinker which has led to success in 2011 and so far in 2012.” He points us to an interesting RotoGraphs piece from last May about Blanton’s focus on keeping the ball on the ground more. And he also notes the .362 BABIP Blanton posted in last season’s 41 innings– a far cry from his career (Oakland-influenced) .299 BABIP, or the .291 he posted in his first season with the Phillies.

Meanwhile, at the Fan590, Mike Wilner notes that “prior to the game, Jays’ manager John Farrell joined pitching coach Bruce Walton to check out Brett Cecil’s bullpen session. Farrell was only there to see Cecil, and left when he was done. Managers don’t usually watch starters’ bullpens, so maybe the Jays have some concern there.”

Hmmm. OK, I’ll grant that there could possibly be more to this than my initial reaction allowed for. Which was, y’know, to be entirely smugly dismissive, in case you didn’t notice. Hmmm.

41 Comments

Manny: Jays Said They’d Sign Me, Then Backed Out

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Bullshit Rumours, Manny Ramirez on Mar 09, 2012

Not really sure what to make of this, but Kenny Ken Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports spoke to Manny Ramirez recently (as passed along by MLB Trade Rumors), and the unretired A’s slugger told him that he “almost signed with Toronto.”

He didn’t sign because “There were doubts. At first they said yes. Then they said, ‘We’re going to have to think about it.’ ”

Alex Anthopoulos declined to comment on the story, according to Rosenthal.

Interesting. I mean, it’s not like– as we discussed many times around here– there wasn’t a definite use for Manny as a potential DH if, 50 games into the season (when Manny’s suspension is up), the Jays were ready to platoon Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion at first base, instead of having Lind keep flailing away against lefties. And it would have been a low-risk, high-reward play for them… at least on the field.

Did they get scared off by the potential PR hit? By fears of souring the clubhouse? Because they ran it by John Farrell who then recounted some of the horrors of his days in Boston alongside Manny?

Who knows? But as a baseball move, it kinda made sense– especially considering the deal Manny was willing to accept (he signed a minor league deal that’s worth about $500K in the Majors). If things work out for him in Oakland– hardly a given, and it’ll be a long time before we find out– Jays will really have to answer for this one.

Or… theoretically they’ll have to answer for it, that is. In reality they’ll just pretend it never happened and say nothing at all. And… actually, that’s probably the smart thing to do, huh?

 

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