Back to the Future

It's getting more than a little bizarre. Actually it passed bizarre a couple years ago. Once again J.P. Ricciardi has gone and tried to piggy-back on a Billy Beane good idea. The Jays are on the verge of signing former Jay and 75 year-old grandfather of six Shannon Stewart to a minor-league deal to ostensibly compete with Reed Johnson for the right-side of the left-field platoon.



Stewart had a bit of a return to form last season with the A's after being injured for significant portions of just about every season prior to it since 2001. He was a successful reclamation project just a year after Frank Thomas was a successful reclamation project with the A's before cashing in with the Jays last year. While Stewart is hardly cashing in, in fact it sounds like he had little interest elshewhere, it should at the very least be a good spot for him to showcase himself if he doesn't beat out Johnson.

What's this say about Reed though? Is his back really that screwed up? Is he on the block? If there's a problem with Johnson, and Matt Stairs comes back to earth after his solid year last year, then left-field could be a weak spot this season. We'll see. Sometimes it seems like Japes signs guys who are coming off injuries or who have question marks just to see if they pan out so he'll be called a genius. He was 0-3 with a walk last season(the three-headed pitching signings were bombs, while Thomas was good, but probably not worth the pay raise he got) so let's see how this one goes.

Running down a dream

Unless there’s a website that someone can point me to, or a “baserunning” bible that has all sorts of crazy new statistics that can evaluate a team or player on the art form, there’s really no way to tell if a team is good baserunning team compared to all the others. Most fans watch their own team 90% of the time, with little room for analyzing the habits and strategies of any others. Since I am like most fans, I watched most of the Jays games last year, and whatever other games between other teams that I could catch along the way. Despite my previous statements, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that the Jays definitely had some issues rounding those bases effectively last season. I’m not talking about the whole “station to station” vs “small-ball” debate. That’s been discussed and dissected more times that is worth bringing up at this point. Besides, it might even change come this season (doubtful). I’m talking about actually running the bases smartly and efficiently while the ball is in play.

Baserunning can be intuitive and an art, but it can also be taught properly, and good habits can be formed. For instance, from the time we first started playing all the way up until we were 19 year-olds working on beer bellies, we heard the old tenet “never make the first or third out at third base.” Seems reasonable. Why take a chance on killing a rally if there are so many outs to work with, and why kill a rally when there are so few outs left? This is just one example.

The Jays last season seemed to run themselves out of innings on a semi-regular basis. How often did we scream at the television because a Jay batter smoked one right at the first basemen, who promptly doubled up the man on second? Seems like bad luck, right? Maybe in some cases it was, but in many the runner on second hadn’t followed one of those old Peewee chestnuts: “Freeze on a line drive.” All too often, the runner had made a start towards the next base and wasn’t able to recover in time. Would it have mattered each and every time? No, sometimes runners get doubled off and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Bad baserunning can kill rallies and spoil games, but it’s barely discussed in game summaries unless a runner is thrown out or does something monumentally dumb like missing a base or passing the runner ahead of him. But not tagging up on second on a deep ball to right, and then standing there helplessly when the next batter hits a deep fly to centre that would have been a sac fly is just as damaging.

Since these things aren’t in game summaries, and I wasn’t taking notes last season, baserunning is something I’m definitely going to be focusing on during this coming spring training and season. It’s a part of the game that’s often overlooked, and for me, a part that is one of the most fun. Anyone witnessing Paul Molitor taking every advantage he could on the basepaths, or Aaron Hill’s swipe of home last season will probably agree.

First post....pretty exciting stuff

I'm not too technically savvy, so this blog might very well suck. We'll see. I think I have a lot to say, and hopefully people reading this will enjoy...if anyone does read it.  I'm old school baseball, I like dirty uniforms and spitting, but I do my best to figure out what the hell sabermetric geeks and fielding bibles and stuff are talking about.  Speaking of sucking, introductions suck, so I'll get right into other things....

As most Jays fans know, they finally picked up Rod Barajas after a whole year of trying.  In this situation, Barajas is a lot like what some friends and I would call a "discount girl."  She thought she was hotter than she was, but ended up with a guy she ditched way later after getting dumped by the dude she really wanted. As much as I disliked what he did to the Jays last offseason, the whole thing amuses me, especially since he's taking a pay cut and he's coming in as the supposed backup. Could this be a case of J.P. getting some payback? I sure hope so. The insurance Barajas provides(assuming he's healthier than last season) is important, since Gregg Zaun is hitting about 90 years old and may be coming off of the sauce after the Mitchell report outed him. 

The only problem with this deal is that we'll be seeing a lot less of Sal Fasano's flavour saver because of this.  Actually, that's more of a problem for the ladies heading out to the Dome this summer.