Friday, August 29, 2008

Join us for some taoist fence-sitting

So we pull the laptop in bed with us this morning, trying to enjoy the the waning days of our vacation by surfing for MILF porn reading some of our blogs of choice. Glancing upon the first few lines of Neate Sager's always funformative Zen Dayley column at Out of Left Field, we literally bolted upright.

Travis Snider called up? Matt Stairs DFAed? Matt Stairs to the Phillies?

Our instant analysis: Holy fucking shit. Son of a mother-shitting ass fucker. No fucking way.

Enjoy our vacillation
We've already stated in the past that we didn't see the need to bring The Great Big Giant Pasty White HopeTM Travis Snider to the bigs at this point in his career, mostly because we didn't want to see the clock start ticking on this guy this early. Of course, J.P. Ricciardi probably could give a rat's ass about what's going to happen five years down the road with Snider since the chances of his still being with the franchise in any capacity at that point is narrowing by the day.

We're a little less cynical than most, so our natural inclination isn't to assume that J.P. is bringing this kid up to save his job. If the Jays were going to bring any bat up from the minors, there probably isn't anyone else that you would put ahead of Snider in the queue. Russ Adams? Buck Coats? Wayne Lydon? None of those guys would do much more than take up space on the end of the bench.

At the same time, there is a part of us that suspects that J.P. would like to get Snider in the big league lineup and have him mash like a mofo for four weeks if only to demonstrate at least one excellent move that he has made to those who are pondering the GM's future.

And while there was a time that we were concerned about "rushing" Snider to the Majors, the degree to which a player who has manhandled opposing pitching at every level along the way is going to be scarred for life by striking out a few times against big leaguers. Besides which, this is a kid who saw his mother slip into a coma for several weeks a few years ago, so he probably has a little more perspective than your average bonus baby.

If it were up to us, we might not have made the call for Snider this soon. But it's not up to us, and frankly, we're as excited as a little school girl to see Snider dig in for the first time this weekend.

Further vacillation: Matt Stairs edition
Matt Stairs had pretty much reached the end of his usefulness in Toronto. He was a man without a position who was striking out too much and connecting far too seldom on his huge swing-from-the-ass-and-hope-for-the-best cuts.

Still, it was fun to have the man from Tay Creek, N.B., on the team for these past few seasons, and we certainly hope that he finds his way back to Toronto in some capacity in the coming years.

TGIF
The Ack, as always, is in for the weekend. We're sure that he's crapping his pants right now, wanting to jump in and make his views known on this unexpected player movement.

Show him some love, won't you?

4 comments:

The Ack said...

b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-ONERs.

I just don't want to hear any artarded Jays Talk speculation on the PTBNL, because it's not going to be Jason Donald or Lou Marson or anyone to get excited about. OK? OK.

yeah, I'll try and chime in later, but I'm fucked for time at work today, so maybe early evening. By then everything there was to say about Snider will probably be said in the ol' blogoshpere.... so I'll just do my usual and straight fabricate and/or speculate. Wait, I mean....justnevermindyoudidn'thearmesaythat.

as a primer though, fuck service time.

Anonymous said...

As per Buster Olney @ ESPN, LHP Fabio Castro is the player coming back.

Here's a bit about Castro:
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2005/12/rule_5_draft_re_1.php

Anonymous said...

Hey Ack,

Did you see the Damon interview on Sportsnet? Some chick was yip yapping while I was trying to watch it so I didn't catch it all but didn't it sound like Damon was trying to do some P.R for the Yankees? He did some serious A.J. ass kissing. And all this with baby Steinbrenner saying he is going to be looking at A.J. and C.C for next year.

Just saying, if you want some speculation to talk about...

The Ack said...

you know what - I didn't see it actually. I'll get my google on.