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 (and while you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too).

Mark Zwolinski of the Toronto Star reports yet another incident between fans and security at Rogers Centre, as last night a pair of cousins were told they’d be ejected if they were seen having an additional beverage– which, according to their story, would have been their second each. Because, that’s really going to go over well, eh Rogers?

Dan Syzmborski writes at ESPN.com (Insider Only) about ZiPS-based playoff projections, which now has the Jays way down… to 26.3%. I’ll take the shit out of that, for sure. (They began the year above 60%, though.)

At Sportsnet, Ben Nicholson-Smith runs down a bunch of middle infield options from throughout baseball that the Jays could– and, let’s be honest, probably should– be looking at.

In a notebook post at BlueJays.com, Evan Peaslee looks at the struggles of Melky Cabrera, and the medical issues of R.A. Dickey (whose MRI came back clean today, aside from some inflammation) and Josh Johnson, who remain slated to start Friday and Saturday for the Jays. Ricky Romero, John Gibbons said today, is an option if DL time becomes necessary, but the club says they’d prefer to have him stay in the minors longer, ideally– more on this in tonight’s Game Threat!

According to a team release, the Toronto chapter of the BBWAA has named Edwin Encarnacion the Jays player of the month for April. Shocking, I know.

Mike Rutsey of the Toronto Sun tells us that Brett Lawrie is going to stay in the lead-off spot for a while.

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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 (and while you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too).

Ken Fidlin of the Toronto Sun looks at how Pinellas County politicians are attempting to keep the Jays’ spring home in the Dunedin area– including a plan that may expand the Phillies’ complex in very nearby Clearwater.

Elsewhere in the Sun, Mike Rutsey suggests that this week’s series with the Red Sox probably isn’t the time when victories are going to start coming for the Jays, given how the two clubs have played thus far. But that’s kinda the thing, isn’t it? Both teams are long overdue to start looking more like the clubs we thought they were in the off-season– and for the Jays’ sake, they’d fucking better.

Via MLBTR, it seems that there’s no love lost between Mike Napoli and  the Jays, as he was forced to cut a Mexican cruise short back in January of 2011 in order to rush to Florida to take a physical after he’d been acquired by Toronto in the Vernon Wells deal. ”It sucked, I’ll tell you that,” Napoli told the red and white pom poms of Alex Speier of WEEI.com, as he recounted the odd scenario– as we saw with Jose Reyes this winter, players usually get to finish their vacations before taking trade-related physicals (though I can understand why Alex Anthopoulos felt some sense of urgency to make the fleecing of Anaheim official)– and how nobody from the Jays’ front office contact him until he’d been dealt again, this time to the Rangers a few days later.

Great stuff from Chris Toman at gamereax, as he looks at what J.P. Arencibia still needs to do as a hitter, which is currently being masked a bit by his gaudy power numbers. Toman also makes the case for Josh Thole to replace Henry Blanco on the Jays’ roster, and while I have no lack of fondness for ol’ Machete, uh… yeah. Totally. It was the right time to do this, basically, in March. Maybe one day Alex will learn that giving valuable roster spots to unplayable veterans is kinda fucking stupid. Maybe…

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Leading Off…

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 (and while you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too).

The Key Read…

Bill Madden of the New York Daily News has some money quotes from Jays players, the manager and the GM, as he jumps onto the ever-deepening pile of people trying to figure out what’s wrong with the Jays. “Do you want me to go out and hit for them?” he quotes John Gibbons as telling reporters at one point, “with a trace of irritation. ‘I couldn’t hit when I played.’ ”

What’s most interesting to me, though, is how he writes that Mark DeRosa called a players-only meeting this week, “to reiterate a lot of what beleaguered Blue Jay manager John Gibbons said to the media the day before. (‘There comes a time in a every game where you have to make a big pitch or you have to get a big hit and that’s eluded us all year long. It’s frustrating. I’m giving you guys the same stinking comments every stinking night and I’m getting a bit tired of it.’)”

However, he then quotes DeRosa as explaining, “There’s just a bad vibe creeping in here and we need to address it.”

Almost sounds like two different things, doesn’t it?

Anyway, lots of good, hopeful/frustrated quotes in Madden’s piece.

Honourable Mention…

Lots more analysis– some of it decidedly more gloomy than my own– of the mountain that the Jays now have to overcome to even sniff the playoffs in the ultra-competitive American League East.

Dave Cameron, whose work from last week I leaned on in my piece, writes that The Blue Jays Are In Trouble at FanGraphs. “To win 90 games and give themselves a real shot at either of the wild card spots, they’d have to play .596 baseball over the remaining 136 games, which is a 96 win pace over a full season. That’s not impossible. Every year, three to five teams play around .600 baseball from May 1st to the end of the season,” he explains. “Those teams just generally don’t come from the pool of clubs that were lousy in April.”

Cameron also figures that the trade deadline makes things even trickier, as April will constitute 25-30% of their record by the time July 31st rolls around, not the 16% it will at season’s end, and they may not have made up enough ground by then to justify hanging on to Josh Johnson, et. al. Good point– also: ouch.

Jay Jaffe is on the same trip over at Sports Illustrated.

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Today’s Getting Blanked Podcast is one you’ll probably enjoy, as we focussed on umpiring and the epidemic #umpshow  activity throughout the league of late. It’s not up yet, but you’ll find it shortly at Getting Blanked. When it’s ready I’m sure @DrewGROF will tweet it out. It will also be at Getting Blanked on iTunes, you can 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 (and while you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too).

At ESPN.com, Jerry Crasnick has a lengthy piece up on the Jays’ shortstop situation with Jose Reyes out– including some hefty speculating on guys who might be brought in, which apparently is still a possibility despite Munenori Kawasaki being pretty OK so far (hasn’t walked in a while though!)– and the whole… y’know… less-than-desirable start thing.

“Because of all of the expectations and who we think that we are, it feels like we’re 2-17,” says R.A. Dickey, according to the New York Daily News. “Do I think we’re going to get it? You bet. Is it happening right now? It’s a little bit of a force, but it’s coming.”

Very interesting and Jays-related stuff on the mental aspects of the game from Anthony Castrovince at MLB.com, as he profiles Steve Springer, “both a pro scout and a ‘performance coach’ for the Toronto Blue Jays. His chief responsibility is working with the club’s Minor League position players on the mental side of their approach at the plate, on feeling confident when they take the field.”

Drew tackles what’s ailing the Jays over at Getting Blanked. In part, he astutely points out, “the holes and flaws are magnified, as there isn’t the same sort of hope that Maicer Izturis or Emilio Bonifacio will suddenly turn into good baseball players as there is a completely reasonable expectation that Jose Bautista will be fine at the plate.”

Elsewhere at Getting Blanked, Drew looks at A.J. Burnett and the fears he may not exert a positive influence on young Pirates arms, while Scott Lewis brings the Friday heat with the Getting Blanked GIFs Of The Week. (Parkes should have a Ten Stray Thoughts post up over there at some point too.)

Tom Maloney of the Globe and Mail looks at the success Casey Janssen is having, despite a dip in velocity. (The Pitch F/X on FanGraphs has him down two miles per hour from last year– which may be slightly deceptive, given the time of year and the injury he’s coming off, but still…)

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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 (and while you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too).

A theScore.com study of the internet reveals that Ben Nicholson-Smith looks at April success as a playoff barometer in piece featuring the results of “a Sportsnet study” of playoff teams and their records at the end of the season’s first month. Not a lot of clubs who finish below .500 in the season’s first month have made the playoffs this decade, which looks like some damning stuff for the panic squad to get their hands on, but it’s really not that bad. As I tweeted earlier, “2012 playoff teams with records at or below .500 in May: Oakland, Detroit, St. Louis, Texas, Atlanta, New York Yankees. Lucky for them April means so much more, huh?”

Chris Toman wonders at gamereax whether Brandon Morrow’s lack of velocity in the early going of recent games is worrisome or by design. Interesting note from yesterday’s Orioles broadcast: the only AL starters (minimum 120 innings) with an ERA below 3.00 last year were Verlander, Price, Weaver, and– yes– Morrow.

John Lott focuses on Morrow in his reaction piece in the National Post following yesterday’s big, heart-stopping win.

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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 (and while you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too).

“So, if that was what that was on a late-April afternoon,” a wise man tweeted this afternoon, “September baseball is going to kill all of us, isn’t it?”

Shi Davidi of Sportsnet wraps up this afternoon’s heart-stopping affair, providing some money post game quotes:

“Sometimes you’ve got to look at yourself in the mirror and say we’ve got to fix some things.” – J.P. Arencibia

“Basically I went out there to keep (Lawrie) from getting thrown out, and I asked the guy where was that pitch, and then he chucked me. You can’t argue balls and strikes, I’m not so sure I was doing that.” – John Gibbons

“I was going to have to get just completely run over to let that run go by.” – Arencibia on the Davis play

“Better this week. I did a little more pre-game warmup and felt looser in the first than I did last week.” – Brandon Morrow on his velocity.

At Getting Blanked, Drew reminds us that defence matters, showing off the MLB.com video of Rajai Davis’s great throw to get Manny Machado’s would-be game winning run.

Sportslogos.net has a rather nifty feature that show each club and each day’s uniform matchups, and a quick count shows that the 2013 Jays are now 7-6 when wearing their blue alternate jerseys.

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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 (and while you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too).

The Jays’ conspicuous game of waiver roulette continues, as they’ve brought Aaron Laffey back to the organization, at least temporarily, claiming him from the Mets according to a team release. Wheeeeee! Depth!

In lineup news, John Gibbons has pencilled Adam Lind and his newfound appreciation for walk into the second spot in the lineup tonight, with Melky Cabrera moving to the five-hole. I’m a little wary of Gibbers’ love of micro splits and things, but I like putting a guy getting on base in that spot, and a guy coming up with some base hits at five. Plus it’s not like he’s married to the idea, if it doesn’t work, which is great.

At Sportsnet, Ben Nicholson-Smith looks at league-wide strikeout trends, which are moving in the upward direction, with a small blurb about how this relates to a couple of the Jays’ most productive hitters so far. This relates to a piece of his from earlier in the month, in which he spoke to Colby Rasmus about the number of fastballs he’s been seeing so far.

Pivoting on Ben’s work, Jeff Sullivan writes about Rasmus at FanGraphs, noting how he’s both produced and actually been a complete catastrophe at the plate. He finds that Colby is seeing the lowest number of fastballs in the league– a rate that only will go down as long as Rasmus finds himself unable to do anything but swing through breaking stuff. Just about all of Colby’s success so far has been on heaters, and pitcher have noticed.

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