Drums Please
Sure, the days have been getting longer and the May long weekend has come and gone, but summer isn't really here until Steve Simmons starts writing dumb shit about baseball. So put your car on cruise and lay back because this is summertime:
... Poor J.P. Ricciardi. He can't seem to make any decisions that work out. He paid Frank Thomas big money to get lost and now it's May and Thomas has more home runs and more RBIs than anyone on the Blue Jays roster ...
I'm pretty sure that the decision to cut Frank loose was purely financial. If Thomas reached 376 ABs this season, his $10 million option for next year would kick in. Ricciardi took advantage of Thomas' slow start and kicked him to the curb, even though J,P. must have known that despite his early season woes, the Big Hurt would still end up with more dingers and RBIs than anyone else on the Jays roster. I seem to recall that the people who thought cutting Thomas was a great baseball move were local sportswriters. You know, the kind of people who write stuff like this:
The Blue Jays made the right move benching DH Frank Thomas yesterday. In fact, for their own protection, they need to do it more often. Never mind that he clogs up the base paths and the middle of their order.
Moving on...as we all know, this can't really be a dumb Blue Jays piece without the obligatory reference to the Bestest Blue Jay Outfielder of All Time Ever:
... I know this is getting old but can someone please explain Shannon Stewart to me. The guy is a non-factor. Reed Johnson has scored 24 runs in Chicago; Stewart has scored nine as a Jay ...
As Homer Simpson once said, people can use statistics to prove anything. Unless, of course, those people are named Steve Simmons and they use numbers that mean absolutely nothing. Like runs scored. Reed Johnson and Shannon Stewart are getting on base at pretty much the exact same rate (.342 OBP vs .340). In eleven more at bats (139), Reed Johnson has come around to score 14 more times than Shannon Stewart (128 ABs). Does this not suggest that the reason Reed has scored more runs is due mostly to the fact that players who hit after him tend to do a better job of driving runners in?
So, there you go: Reed Johnson is a better ball player than Shannon Stewart because Alfonso Soriano and Derrek Lee are having better seasons than Alex Rios and Vernon Wells. Thanks Steve. Now that summer is officially here, I've gotta hustle to the mall and get me a short set.
... Poor J.P. Ricciardi. He can't seem to make any decisions that work out. He paid Frank Thomas big money to get lost and now it's May and Thomas has more home runs and more RBIs than anyone on the Blue Jays roster ...
I'm pretty sure that the decision to cut Frank loose was purely financial. If Thomas reached 376 ABs this season, his $10 million option for next year would kick in. Ricciardi took advantage of Thomas' slow start and kicked him to the curb, even though J,P. must have known that despite his early season woes, the Big Hurt would still end up with more dingers and RBIs than anyone else on the Jays roster. I seem to recall that the people who thought cutting Thomas was a great baseball move were local sportswriters. You know, the kind of people who write stuff like this:
The Blue Jays made the right move benching DH Frank Thomas yesterday. In fact, for their own protection, they need to do it more often. Never mind that he clogs up the base paths and the middle of their order.
Moving on...as we all know, this can't really be a dumb Blue Jays piece without the obligatory reference to the Bestest Blue Jay Outfielder of All Time Ever:
... I know this is getting old but can someone please explain Shannon Stewart to me. The guy is a non-factor. Reed Johnson has scored 24 runs in Chicago; Stewart has scored nine as a Jay ...
As Homer Simpson once said, people can use statistics to prove anything. Unless, of course, those people are named Steve Simmons and they use numbers that mean absolutely nothing. Like runs scored. Reed Johnson and Shannon Stewart are getting on base at pretty much the exact same rate (.342 OBP vs .340). In eleven more at bats (139), Reed Johnson has come around to score 14 more times than Shannon Stewart (128 ABs). Does this not suggest that the reason Reed has scored more runs is due mostly to the fact that players who hit after him tend to do a better job of driving runners in?
So, there you go: Reed Johnson is a better ball player than Shannon Stewart because Alfonso Soriano and Derrek Lee are having better seasons than Alex Rios and Vernon Wells. Thanks Steve. Now that summer is officially here, I've gotta hustle to the mall and get me a short set.
Are "baseball" writers in Toronto still talking about Reed Johnson? You mean, the same Reed Johnson who is ripping it with a .261 average and a .344 OBP (which is atrocious for a guy who routinely hits at the top of the batting order)? The same guy who is hitting .144 with runners in scoring position and 2 out?
Here's a number for these so-called baseball gurus: 1. As in Reed Johnson "only" has 1 stolen base all year. And we all know the last thing the Jays need is another clogger on the basepads.
Toronto sportswriters are the real deal: Inquisitive, investigative, suspicious, pessimistic, unimaginative, trite.
WE MUST UNDERSTAND our glorious scribes (who hail mostly from places outside of Toronto) are upholding the time honoured principles of journalism... in Toronto. Its all about hating your own in the Centre of the Universe.
Sorry to make a hockey comment to one of your baseball articles, but I had to comment on Cox today.
I just knew that each and every GM candidate would become Scotty Bowman times Ken Holland times Confucius to DC Talk once they turn down the Leafs. And, indeed:
No wonder the rumour mill has Cliff Fletcher staying on to run the laughingstock Maple Leafs.
They can't get anybody else.
Yet another quality hockey man is off the Leaf list now, as sources say former Dallas GM Doug Armstrong has agreed to join the St. Louis Blues and has cancelled a meeting with the Leafs.
Now, admittedly, the following quote is from Berger, but it seems to cast at least a wee bit of doubt on Cox's Leafs-were-desperately-interested-but-the-wise-hockey-man-had-not-a-shred-of-interest-in-those-jerks-even-after-they-begged meme:
"To me, Toronto's the top job in the NHL and it would be an honour to be interviewed," Armstrong told me earlier today in a phone conversation from Halifax, where he is scouting the World Hockey Championships. "I've certainly thought about it a lot. Right now, I don't have a job, so anytime that one comes open [in the NHL], it's intriguing, and I go through my own mental gymnastics. But, I'm from Ontario. I grew up there. My father worked in the NHL and I spent a lot of time at the old Maple Leaf Gardens with him. Toronto is a great city; perhaps my favorite place in the league. It's vibrant, and when you add in what the Leafs mean to that city, it's the premiere job in hockey. I think Brian Burke was correct when he described what the Toronto Maple Leafs mean to the NHL."
Seems to suggest that maybe it was the Leafs who decided that Armstrong wasn't going to get the position, doesn't it? Never mind the fact that Armstrong-to-St. Louis makes it more likely that Nonis will join the Leafs, which is not exciting except that Nonis was, you know, Cox's choice for the Leafs GM position.
Anyway, anybody want to help me set up a press conference where I announce that Varry Galk is not interested in the Leafs GM position? I would love to have a Cox article telling me what a great hockey mind I have and how the Leafs are jackasses for losing out on me. Might be a good thing to laminate and show the grandkids.
I look forward to a Coxbloccer's take on Cox's writing off the Leafs' '08/'09 season as "terrible" (in May! Is that a record?), followed by a string of actual, factual, non-answers to his "mailbag", even when the letters were praising him for some reason.
Really made me want to kick him in the mailbag.
Toronto writers suck.