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:
- they went 2-7 on the road trip …. and lost just one more game in the standings;
- they won five games in a row … and didn't gain any ground;
- they lost four games in a row before winning the second half of a double-header in Cleveland – and that win left them 5 ½ back which was where they started;
The result of all this? Going into Thursday afternoon's game against the Minnesota Twins, the Blue Jays have lost ½ a game in the standings while going 10-12. In the AL East! That doesn't happen. Hey, last place is never a good place to be (the key to reading baseball standings is the number of teams between you and a playoff spot, because the more teams in front of you the more difficult the odds become) but considering some of the company the Blue Jays are keeping with their record I'm just about at the stage where I'm ready to toss out the first six weeks.
A READER WRITES
“The Mets are loading up on ex-Montreal Expos. Five played last night (Church, Schneider, Chavez, Vargas, Alou), one played the day before (Tatis), not counting Martinez on the DL and Armas in AAA waiting to be called up.
C. Simons”
That's the influence of Mets G.M. Omar Minaya, who knows a lot of these guys from his tenure as G.M. of the Expos when they were run by Major League Baseball. But, geez – Fernando Tatis? Who the hell knew he was still in the game?
MEMORIES OF WALKER AND VLAD
I'm presuming most of you saw Manny Ramirez high-five a fan Thursday night as he made a catch at the wall and then turned to double off Kevin Millar? I can't say it enough: I can go to a Red Sox game and simply spend the whole night watching Ramirez standing in the outfield. He is the best show in baseball. And on the same night he did that, Brad Wilkerson - who you're going to get to like in a Blue Jays uniform - throws out Demon Young at first base on a single to right. Wilkerson might have been channelling two other ex-Expos right-fielders, Larry Walker and Vladimir Guerrero, who did that during games (although it was an interesting twist having a hustling Gregg Zaun back up the play to make the tag.) And Ramirez's high-five and throw reminded me of the night Walker threw a ball into the stands at Dodger Stadium thinking he'd just caught the third out of the inning and, after realizing there were only two out, go back and get the ball from the kid he'd given it to.
DON'T BLAME IT ON RIOS
Part of the problem with the team-wide offensive woes of the Blue Jays is that it's causing people – in my humble opinion – to over-react to the hitting funk that Alex Rios has fallen into. It's a slump, people. It isn't the first of his career. It won't be the last. What concerns me about Rios is his passivity at the plate. That at-bat against Boof Bonser on Wednesday night, the way Rios just gave up on the third strike and could barely wait to get back to the dugout? Scary. But the Sportsnet crew – Pat Tabler in particular - did a good job analyzing it and was all over Matt Stairs pulling Rios to talk about the importance of tracking pitches. This is something to keep monitoring, but in the long run I wouldn't lost any sleep over it. Kid can hit.
DAVE NONIS IS INTERVIEWING FOR THE LEAFS JOB
Don't know if anybody's mentioned that lately ...
