Archive for the ‘Daily Duce’ Category

Leading off, as always (or usual), it’s today’s edition of the Getting Blanked Podcast– which for the duration of the season will be coming at you daily! We’re not double posting this year, but I’ll be sure to include the link in the first Daily Duce or Game Threat that follows the post going up over at Getting Blanked. Otherwise, you can find the podcast at Getting Blanked on iTunes, get it via the RSS feed we have setup, or like Getting Blanked on Facebook in order to get each day’s podcast straight into your news feed (if we bother to post it). While you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too.

Sad news for the Jays and their extended family, as word from the Dominican Republic came today that legendary scout Epy Guerrero passed away at the age of 71. Shi Davidi has a put together a piece on it at Sportsnet, and while the man who was so instrumental in bringing so many terrific young Dominican players to the Jays certainly deserves a remembrance in full over here, it goes to show, I think, just how unsung scouts are that I don’t know enough about him, beyond the vaunted reputation and the names of the many excellent players he was the first to take notice of, to say a whole lot. Our condolences and sympathies go out to his family and friends.

Guerrero visited the Jays facility in Dunedin back in March, prompting an excellent profile from Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun, which serves as a fitting tribute, I think.

Shi Davidi tweets that John Gibbons has confirmed that Sean Nolin will start tomorrow for the Jays. Chad Jenkins will go on Sunday, he says, taking Ramon Ortiz’s spot. A corresponding roster move will come following tonight’s game, which you have to assume is the D’ing FA of Ortiz.

In the Toronto Star, Brendan Kennedy talks to scouts, comparing young third basemen Brett Lawrie and Orioles phenom Manny Machado. “They’re both terrific players, any club would die to have them,” a rival scout told him. “Emotionally, it looks like they’re wired differently and right now that seems to be helping Machado more than Lawrie.” Uh… you think?

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Apparently there is no sign of the Getting Blanked Podcast as yet, so just head on over to Getting Blanked and keep refreshing– I’m sure it will show up shortly– or subscribe to Getting Blanked on iTunes, or give @DrewGROF a follow, and I’m sure he’ll tweet it out when it’s ready.

Blake Murphy of Bluebird Banter looks back on last night, and the controversial called strike that ended the game, with the Jays potentially in the throes of a comeback. The Blue Jay Hunter tweets an overhead view of Fernando Rodney’s final pitch, and honestly, that’s going to be a strike against a lot of left-handed hitters, I think. Doesn’t make it right, but that’s within the bounds of how they call it.

A couple others from Bluebird Banter, as Jays182 looks at the good and the bad of J.P. Arencibia, ultimately deciding that A.J. Jimenez is the future behind the plate, and that hopefully “everyone (even Gregg Zaun) can now agree that J.P. Arencibia should not be behind the plate with the Blue Jays going forward if they look to be a contending team.” Elsewhere, Nick Ashbourne looks at smoke, mirrors and Mark Buehrle.

Ben Nicholson-Smith looks at this afternoon’s lineup at Sportsnet, noting that Melky Cabrera will get a day to rest his sore legs, with Anthony Gose taking over in left field and leading off.

Brendan Kennedy of the Toronto Star wonders whether ex-Jays benefit from getting booed– often for nothing close to good reason– when they make their returns to Toronto.

To help with their woeful rotation, the Orioles have called up uber-prospect Kevin Gausman, and he’s going to make his big league debut tomorrow at Rogers Centre. Drew fills you in on all you need to know about this at Getting Blanked, while Baseball Prospectus gives some scouting report tidbits before their paywall takes over.

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Leading off, as always (or usual), it’s today’s edition of the Getting Blanked Podcast– which for the duration of the season will be coming at you daily! We’re not double posting this year, but I’ll be sure to include the link in the first Daily Duce or Game Threat that follows the post going up over at Getting Blanked. Otherwise, you can find the podcast at Getting Blanked on iTunes, get it via the RSS feed we have setup, or like Getting Blanked on Facebook in order to get each day’s podcast straight into your news feed (if we bother to post it). While you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too.

BlueJays.com tells us that Fred McGriff will represent the Jays at the Rule 4 Draft, which will take place on June 6th.

Not quite the blockbuster that the title makes it sound like, but Tom Maloney of the Globe and Mail writes that trade winds seem to be swirling around the Jays, as they continue to find it difficult to make up ground in the AL East.

Elsewhere from Maloney at the Globe, we hear that Alex Anthopoulos dismisses criticism of John Gibbons, and also get a deconstruction of the season so far, which… yeah.

And, for good measure, one more from Maloney, who looks at the fantastic at-bat Adam Lind had against Jake Odorizzi yesterday.

Interesting stuff from Marc Hulet of FanGraphs, as he wonders openly whether Sean Nolin is the next Jays saviour.

“A piece of paper on Gibby’s desk lists the starting pitchers for the next few games,” tweets Brendan Kennedy of the Star. “For Friday it reads, ‘Jenkins?’ ”

Kenned also tweets that Josh Johnson “will start again in Dunedin on Sat. Gibby says he’ll prob need a 3rd rehab start. ‘But we’ve been known to make some adjustments.’ ”

Speaking of tweets, earlier today @DrewGROF passed along this gruesome bit of news: “Brett Lawrie versus ‘soft’ pitches in 2013: .282 OPS. Oh Pee Ess.”

Think teams haven’t got that message yet? Think again. Gamereax has a nifty GIF of Hiroki Kuroda throwing Lawrie five straight sliders. Ugh.

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Leading off, as always (or usual), it’s today’s edition of the Getting Blanked Podcast– which for the duration of the season will be coming at you daily! We’re not double posting this year, but I’ll be sure to include the link in the first Daily Duce or Game Threat that follows the post going up over at Getting Blanked. Otherwise, you can find the podcast at Getting Blanked on iTunes, get it via the RSS feed we have setup, or like Getting Blanked on Facebook in order to get each day’s podcast straight into your news feed (if we bother to post it). While you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too.

At Getting Blanked, Parkes takes a break from tradition and gives Ten (Not So) Stray Thoughts On A Friday, and tells the story of the ten most influential moments on his fandom, including the retelling of how this blog began, and his turn to the dark side.

Great stuff from John Lott in the National Post, who talks to Brett Lawrie about his hands– specifically, Lawrie’s renewed focus on making sure his hands are in the right place when he’s ready to throw them. Lawrie, for whatever little this is worth, has six hits and a walk in his last four games, including a home run and a pair of doubles.

In another interesting piece, Lott talks to Casey Janssen about the hard work he does game-planning to face certain hitters. Whatever he’s doing, it’s obviously working.

Speaking of closers, Bill Lankhof of the Toronto Sun takes a look at what it takes to be one.

Gregor Chisholm tweets that Dustin McGowan has been moved up to Triple-A after a couple of scoreless performances for Dunedin. No word if Ricky Romero, who walked six in less than four innings yesterday, will be the reciprocal move– and, in fact, it hasn’t been rumoured at all. But… it’s just… y’know…

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The Getting Blanked Podcast is in the can and will be up shortly, be sure to keep checking for it over at Getting Blanked– it will be up shortly, as will today’s DJF Podcast, which is in the same boat!

Shi Davidi of Sportsnet talks to the seemingly-different Adam Lind, whose numbers look good, thanks to some excellent usage on the part of John Gibbons and a different approach at the plate. “I wasn’t being a smart hitter, I was being stubborn and for lack of a better word, stupid,” he says of the struggles of the past. This year his swing rate, especially on pitches outside of the zone, is down dramatically.

Elsewhere at Sportsnet, Davidi gets Brett Cecil and Mark Buehrle to make their second round NHL playoff picks.

Weirdness from the mind of ol’ Griff– and J.P. Arencibia– as he makes comparisons between the Jays’ backstop and the genuinely great Buster Posey over in the Toronto Star. Aaron Cibia needs to play in the playoffs to raise his profile, the title says. Yeah, still not going to make him Posey. “I feel like I’m a leader,” Arencibia tells him. “I feel like it’s something that you’re born with to be a leader. I think experience and stuff like that, the more you’re experienced, the more you can handle game situations. But I think that’s something you’re born with. You’re either a leader or you’re not a leader and I definitely feel like my actions on the field lead to wanting to win.” OK, but does anybody else think that? Honest question.

Interesting stuff from Marc Hulet, writing for MLB Trade Rumors, as he includes a nice section about the Jays in his recent piece on prospect depth behind the plate.

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Leading off, as always (or usual), it’s today’s edition of the Getting Blanked Podcast– which for the duration of the season will be coming at you daily! We’re not double posting this year, but I’ll be sure to include the link in the first Daily Duce or Game Threat that follows the post going up over at Getting Blanked. Otherwise, you can find the podcast at Getting Blanked on iTunes, get it via the RSS feed we have setup, or like Getting Blanked on Facebook in order to get each day’s podcast straight into your news feed (if we remember to post it). While you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too.

There are no new names on the Jays’ lineup card tonight, as per a tweet from John Lott, so if Jeremy Jeffress really is coming– and wasn’t just trying to inspire himself with that since-deleted tweet this morning– there won’t be a move until after the game.

As suspect, if there is a roster move upcoming, it won’t involve Melky Cabrera, whose MRI revealed irritation in his right quadriceps and left hamstring, though he’ll keep on receiving treatment and will play through it, according to a tweet from Brendan Kennedy. Seriously, look at the “weirdness” post from this morning for an idea of how thin the turf these guys play on is. Kinda fucked.

Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star fills Leafs fans in on what they missed with the Jays while Buds-mania had its short, strange trip in the spotlight this week.

Speaking of the Leafs, in a notebook post with a bunch of injury updates from yesterday, Evan Peaslee of BlueJays.com get reactions from Jays players regarding the Leafs’ spectacular (sorry) exit from the NHL’s playoffs.

At Sportsnet, Shi Davidi and Ben Nicholson-Smith give us a farm report, checking in on the progress of some of the most notable players in the Jays’ minor league system, including Sean Nolin, who may be in line for his big league debut in the near future, if the Jays’ rotation continues to have issues, and he continues to pitch well.

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Leading off, as always (or usual), it’s today’s edition of the Getting Blanked Podcast– which for the duration of the season will be coming at you daily! We’re not double posting this year, but I’ll be sure to include the link in the first Daily Duce or Game Threat that follows the post going up over at Getting Blanked. Otherwise, you can find the podcast at Getting Blanked on iTunes, get it via the RSS feed we have setup, or like Getting Blanked on Facebook in order to get each day’s podcast straight into your news feed (if we remember to post it). While you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too.

J.P. Arencibia is not short on confidence, and does some sabermetric cherry picking, “defiantly” telling Brendan Kennedy of the Toronto Star that “no one cares about strikeouts other than people that aren’t in the game. People who understand baseball understand that strikeouts, for myself, really don’t mean as much.” And he’s absolutely right that strikeouts alone aren’t as big a deal as they often get made out to be, it’s just… the astronomical K-rate combined with the absolute lack of anything resembling an ability to walk does not a productive offensive player make.

Arencibia is on pace for 38 home runs; a number topped by catchers just six times in Major League history, and by catchers not named Piazza, Bench or Campanella only twice. By that very imperfect measure, it would seem to me there’s a pretty decent chance his power doesn’t continue at even these levels (just nine qualified hitters in baseball posted a higher ISO last year than the .245 J.P. currently sits on), and yet that power has only “carried” him to 16th of 25 catchers with 100 plate appearances in terms of wRC+. Despite the flashy shows of power, and despite being right (sort of) about strikeouts, he’s just not a productive offensive player, even for the low bar at his position. Last year, too, he was 18th of 25 catchers with 350 PA in terms of wRC+ (Josh Thole, for those about to ask, was dead last with a mark of 60). Steve Slowinski wrote an interesting piece at FanGraphs back in 2011 about why, though the sabermetric argument is still essentially correct, strikeouts are still kinda bad.

More from Brendan Kennedy of the Star, as he looks at R.A. Dickey’s honorary doctorate from the U of T’s Wycliffe College, which he received yesterday. He also looks at MLB’s new home run derby app, which stars former derby participants, including Jose Bautista.

Elsewhere at the Star, Richard Griffin chatted with readers today, including one whose name you might recognize (though I can assure you it wasn’t really him).

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