Short takes before a long weekend ….
Jayson Stark says there are rumblings that the San Diego Padres are about to start unloading players so I'm keeping an eye on shortstop Khalil Greene, and so should you. Greene went to the Padres with the 13th pick overall in the 2002 draft, on the selection immediately before the Blue Jays chose Russ Adams. General manager J.P. Ricciardi is on record as saying the team would have chosen Greene if he was available. Greene is an everyday shortstop, something the Blue Jays don't have. He'd also bring a touch of athleticism and energy to the offence (I'm not certain how he measures on the Johnny Mac-David Eckstein Grit-O-Meter, but I saw him get his jersey dirty once in a playoff game and I'm told he's “a good guy.”)
WHY THE AL STINKS
All I can say is thank god there are people who have no life so they can study the lack of offence in the American League so far this year. Now all we have to do is hope their numbers are right!
Just kidding. William Burke and Joe Sheehan and the folks at Baseball Prospectus have once again saved everybody a lot of work with their analysis of how and why the AL has become the weak sister of the two leagues when it comes to hitting and let's have a round of applause for CNN.SI for running their think piece.
Several conclusions have been drawn by the game's tall foreheads:
- pitching is better;
- performance-enhancing drugs are being used less often because of the Mitchell Report;
- there's an evolution toward slap-and-dash “small ball,”;
- the weather's colder, so there are fewer runs and some of those old, slow AL hitters can't get the kinks worked out;
- the ball has been deadened.
Each explanation has its plausible and implausible elements. (Dead ball? Look … if you really believe that Bud Selig and his boys ‘juiced'
the ball to create more runs why wouldn't they deaden it in order to say to Congress ‘See, our drug-testing is working?') But I wouldn't rule out the effect of the Mitchell Report (and, yes, I know that PED use by pitchers was equal to if not greater than its use by hitters.) I can only say anecdotally that there is a deeper understanding on the part of the average ballplayer about the importance of being “picky” about what supplement you put into your system. I'm sure there are guys in every clubhouse who are faking ADD in order to get their hands on stuff that helps offset the diminished use of PEDs and amphetamines and I'm dead-certain some of the games higher-paid players still have access to better chemistry than their peers. But, in general, I think we've seen the passing of the ‘any old pill or syringe will do' era.
NICE TIME TO BE AWFUL
Nobody starts looking at the standings until the middle of August at the earliest. But this season it's permissible to do so because the standings so far reflect just how out of whack the AL – particularly the East Division – has become.
Let's just come out and say it: the Blue Jays have picked a good time to be brutal. I mean, seriously. Let's consider what's happened since the Blue Jays lost to the Detroit Tigers on April 21 – a 5-1 defeat that left them 10-10 and 3 ½ games out heading out on a nine-game road trip:
