| Batter | pLI | WPA | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reyes – SS | 0.78 | 0.029 | |||
| Cabrera – LF | 0.81 | 0.081 | |||
| Bautista – DH | 1.14 | -0.119 | |||
| Encarnacion – 1B | 0.86 | -0.093 | |||
| Arencibia – C | 0.64 | -0.064 | Pitcher | pLI | WPA |
| Rasmus – CF | 0.4 | -0.006 | Morrow – SP | 0.88 | -0.284 |
| Davis – RF | 0.79 | -0.064 | Cecil – RP | 0.24 | 0.025 |
| Lind – PH | 0.17 | 0.011 | Rogers – RP | 0.35 | 0.03 |
| Izturis – 3B | 0.67 | -0.069 | Oliver – RP | 0.12 | -0.017 |
| Bonifacio – 2B | 0.39 | 0.045 | Gonzalez – RP | 0.05 | -0.004 |
| Total | 0.71 | -0.25 | Total | 0.55 | -0.25 |
Bests / Worsts of the game after the jump!
Of all the days for me to be cooped up in a tiny car for eighteen hours– or if you’re a State Trooper, twenty-two hours– through the better part of full-on Appalachia and whateverthefuck produces that smell from just north of Savannah to somewhere around Jacksonville. It was picture day over in Dunedin! But fortunately, thanks to the power of theScore’s Getty Images subscription, we’ve got all kinds of gems to browse through… y’know, just as soon as we get over our shock at the fact that Ramon Ortiz is actually in camp with the Jays.
I didn’t put the day in the title of this post, because who the hell knows what day it is? And I didn’t use the new logo, because I figured it would be useful to show the thing we’re talking about in the first item in today’s afternoon links…
Paul Lucas of UniWatch at ESPN.com reveals the mostly not-racist new batting practice caps that all 30 MLB clubs will be running out in 2013, saying this about the Jays’ one, seen above: “OK, we get it that they’re MLB’s only Canadian team. Would prefer to see the jay’s head logo instead.” Uh… seriously.
Sticking with ESPN.com, Jim Bowden goes through the five best moves of the off-season yet to be made (Insider only), which are pretty fanciful (Giancarlo and Nolasco for Profar, Olt and Martin Perez?) but includes the Jays going after Rafael Soriano– something Bowden has mentioned more than once this winter. Yeah, not sure they’re going to be willing to take the bonus pool hit that comes with losing even their second-rounder.
Melissa Couto of the Toronto Sun looks at the Jays’ updated top prospects list, per Baseball Prospectus, which has Aaron Sanchez on top, followed by Sean Nolin, DJ Davis and Roberto Osuna.
John Lott of the National Post looks at the off-seasons of the Jays, Angels, Yankees and baseball’s changing landscape.
Minor Leaguer of Bluebird Banter takes a look at the peerless Mark Buehrle, while Marc Normandin reviews the team’s new rotation.
Among other things, in his latest mail bag at BlueJays.com, Gregor Chisholm writes that he figures Darren Oliver is leaning towards retirement.
Gregor also talks to JP Arencibia about the holidays and the Jays’ off-season.
Jonah Birenbaum wonders at Baseball Prospectus whether Jose Bautista is damaged goods.
The National Post is running a Hall of Fame ballot poll for their readers, which I encourage you to go and fill out, but– please– only if you understand how profoundly unfair and unintelligent it is to both go making assumptions about players based on nothing resembling tangible evidence, and to try to put all the sins of the Steroid Era onto a handful of players, absolving all the users who somehow avoided suspicion, and the entire rest of the industry that did absolutely nothing about it.
Lastly, as you’ve probably heard by now, former Jay (among several other clubs, most notably the Reds), and long-time Jays farmhand Ryan Freel committed suicide over the holidays. Awful news. John Lott of the Post has an excellent read on the sad story.
I’m out on the town, attempting to watch Dave Stieb throw a no-hitter against a sad September 1990 Cleveland lineup, and yet… here I am, passing along a tweet from Jon Heyman…
“at least #bluejays along w/ #rangers involved in RA Dickey talks. toronto thought unlikely to trade D’Arnaud. gose maybe.”
So… there’s that.
While we have your attention, as the festivities continue down in Nashville, allow me to give you a quick reminder that you totally should be following DJF on Facebook, to have all of our posts injected straight to your news feed as they happen. And don’t forget @DrunkJaysFans on Twitter, either– we’re closing in on 10,000 followers!
Now remember, the DJF Twitter is mostly just a feed setup to give you only links to the posts, and none of our arguing with various commenters and trolls out there in the Twitterverse. If you’d prefer to get all the links and to argue with us– or just a little of that human touch– follow us all individually:
@AndrewStoeten
@DustinParkes
@DrewGROF
@TheScottLewis
@ArchiZuber
@BradleyAnkrom
And there’s still more, because I’d be remiss if I didn’t encourage you to also subscribe to the places where you can find our content in its various multimedia forms: the DJF Podcast on iTunes, the Getting Blanked Podcast on iTunes, and as well as the Getting Blanked YouTube page.
Aaaand it would seem as though you can find DJF in the Blogs & Videos section of our fantastic theScore app, as well. Download it!
Stay tuned for a podcast today (I think!), thanks for your continued support, and welcome to those of you checking us out for the first time, waiting for the Jays to make their big move in Nashville. Though… um… don’t hold your breath.
For Shit sakes, can’t a man just watch Lionheart and get drunk without some supposedly significant news breaking?
Um… evidently not, because Sean McAdam of CSN New England tweets what we’ve been longing to fucking hear: it’s finally official, John Farrell will manage the Boston Red Sox.
Alex Speier of WEEI.com tweets that compensation won’t be announced for a couple days– thank fuck.
Earlier, MLBTR passed along Denver Post reporter Troy Renck’s tweet that Sandy Alomar Jr. is now the favourite to manage the Jays. Alomar was reportedly the runner-up to Farrell when the Jays searched for a manager two years ago– and can’t you just see them raping the corpse of ’92-’93 to help soften the blow by putting Robbie on the staff? Not that he may not be qualified, but… y’know… holy fucking cynical.
But hey, everyone loves Robbie– and that would certainly soften this PR blow. Or the PR blow that will come when the fans who know two players on the Red Sox find out we’re not getting either one of them.
Or maybe it won’t happen. We don’t know yet– or maybe I just don’t know, because I’ve spent the last 20 minutes typing this out on my phone, and all kinds of shit might be different by now.
I’ll update you if that’s the case, but until then, thank fuck it’s over. Let’s get drunk.
UPDATE: Jon Morosi tweets that the player the Jays will receive was a Major Leaguer in 2012, and is an infielder. Not Middlebrooks.
Hey, cryptic games for two days– just what we need!
Or, y’know, it’s fucking Ciriaco.
UPDATE THE SECOND: Or maybe it isn’t. Rob Bradford of WEEI.com tweets that Mike Aviles is coming our way. Hey, so do we have a second baseman, maybe? Sure, why not?
UPDATE THE THIRD: Obviously Aviles helps the Jays nicely in freeing them up to trade a shortstop, if so inclined. And seeing as that kind I stuff is by far the most important aspect to the off-season, it’s hat I complain.
Better still? Bob Elliott tweets that we shouldn’t be surprised to see Adam Lind also go the other way. Sure, fine.
This is your Game Threat! Deal with it!
