Not sure what to make of this one, as we’ve heard nothing of the sort from the club or the local media, but Jon Morosi of Fox Sports laid down this tweet earlier today, and I didn’t even think it warranted a Trolololosi GIF in response:
Blue Jays may not have Josh Johnson back until late May. They hope Ricky Romero can hold down the rotation spot until then. @mlbonfox
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) May 6, 2013
So… uh… yeah. 2013, you guys!
It’s not very much fun to be a Jays fan right now. The team that came into the year with such weighty expectations is now 3-6 with a mere 153 games remaining. In order to reach the crucial 95 win threshold, that means they can only lose 61 more times this season. R.A. Dickey and Josh Johnson only have 32 starts each in which to turn their seasons around. Only five-and-three-quarters months of the six month schedule remain.
Obviously things are dire.
But the early season is still such a time for hope that it seems awfully silly to focus so heavily on the negative just yet. There are lots of people who are probably pleased as pig in shit with the way that the season has started so far for the Jays. One that immediately comes to mind, for example, is Detroit-based, Toronto-lovin’ master baiter Jon Morosi of Fox Sports, who has surely already shit-eating-grinned his way through a number tweets designed to rile up the unwashed hoser masses.
To wit:
The forecast calls for tough sledding out there for rumour-mongering pageview whores for the six weeks until the World Series ends, which maybe explains why Jon Morosi of Fox Sports is hunkering down early, and sprinkling some seed in front of his den, in hopes of catching some wayward fans, starved of pointless rumour content.
And who am I to not pass it along, right? Especially when some of what he suggesting echoes exactly what I was saying last month, when I looked at the AL trade market for pitchers, and which starters may be available in free agency.
In other words, it’s kinda bloody obvious…
Moving on from this afternoon’s continuation of his Gavin Floyd-to-the-Jays obsession, Jon Morosi of Fox Sports turns his sights to another pitcher he claims the Jays have turned their sights to: Josh Johnson of the Marlins.
#BlueJays interested in both Josh Johnson and Hanley Ramirez. Source says they have stronger desire to land JJ because of pitching need.
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) July 24, 2012
Well, now this is just getting silly. I mean, of course the Jays are interested in Johnson– who wouldn’t be? Then again, the Jays are potentially interested in everybody, and yet we’re told nothing about their level of interest, what they might be considering moving, what a potential fit might be, or… anything.
And, I mean, it’s not like the club’s going to deny it if we just made it up? Why stop here?
In fact, Drew tweets an extra bit of dirt for us:
Morosi: Jays considering fielding nine players tonight v. A’s — Drew F (@DrewGROF) July 24, 2012
UNCONFIRMED REPORT! STAY TUNED!
Image via Mike Ehrmann/Getty.
Jon Morosi would really like you, the internet savvy fans of Toronto, to click on his latest ”purely speculative,” yet incredibly specific piece of trade-scenario building, which is “based on recent scouting activity,” and on which “certain caveats apply”– which is just a fancy way of saying that he’s totally making this up.
At least he’s honest about it, I guess. But… boy. That Morosi sure is a master baiter.
In the “purely sepculative” deal at Fox Sports, Morosi explains that the White Sox need a pitching upgrade to compete with Tigers, who made themselves better yesterday, acquiring Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante from the Marlins.
So what does he suggest? Chicago getting Zack Greinke by sending Gavin Floyd “to the Blue Jays for a package headed by Class A left-hander Justin Nicolino, then Nicolino and another piece – perhaps one of the White Sox’s young major-league relievers, perhaps one of their outfield prospects, Jared Mitchell or Trayce Thompson – for Greinke.”
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.
File this one away, says Jon Morosi of Fox Sports. Um…
Sources: #BlueJays GM Alex Anthopoulos scouted #Phillies game today and left after Joe Blanton exited game. File this one away.
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) March 10, 2012
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.
