Left-handed compliments on the rotation

So the final cut-down came down, and the Jays are ready to head to Texas with a rotation that, according to Bastian, looks a little like this: Marcum, Tallet, Romero, Morrow and the Wild Card, Dana Eveland.

You have to admit that no matter what Eveland's performance in the spring might have been, he had a couple of pretty strong things in his favour: He's a lefty, and he's a gingerish, and the Jays can't ever seem to get enough of either.

(And somewhere, David Purcey sits sullen, applying SPF 160 sunblock, feeling less like the beautifully unique southpaw-gigner-snowflake that his momma always told him he was.)

We're actually kinda glad to see Eveland make the team out of camp, even if it means sending two other non-ginger lefties (Cecil and Rzep) to Vegas. We're big on both of those guys, and we're pretty certain that they'll be back and be better at some point this season.

But we're all for the Jays at least have a look in real game action at Eveland to see if they might have something of value in him. It worked okay in the case of two other scrap heap lefties (Scott Downs and Brian Tallet), and Eveland's run through the Fake Game schedule was pretty stellar, after all (1.23 ERA, 16 Ks vs 6 BBs in 22.1 IPs).

Speaking of Tallet, there has already been some discussion as to the order of the rotation, and where the lovable lug belongs in it. Bastian noted that, according those people he could catch up with (a very select group for the slow-of-foot beat writer), Tallet is, in fact, the number two pitcher in the rotation coming out of the Spring.

Our guess on this is that this reading of the situation is a bit too literal. We doubt the brain trust actually considers Tallet as the second best starter, but rather, the Jays would prefer to line up Ricky Romero a little further down the rotation. Dropping RickRo down a slot ensures that the Jays won't have many series in the early going where they go without a start from their two best pitchers.

Because as much as we might root for Tallet, Morrow, and Eveland, the notion of heading into Fenway or New Yankee Stadium with those three as your scheduled starters is more than a little scary.

A plethora of potentially somewhat vaguely useful arms

We're back! Did you miss "we"?

And while we hate to spoil our return by engaging in told-you-so's, didn't we tell you before we left for our much-needed vacation that the Jays were certain to pull off a major move or two while we were away? That's what always happens, and we were certain that Doogie Anthopoulos would celebrate our absence with some earth-shattering move.

And thus, enter Kevin Gregg. (And Dana Eveland. But more on him some other day. Let's focus on Gregg, because he's stuck in people's craw.)

We have to confess that we've had a bit of a hate-on for Kevin Gregg for a few years now, mostly due to the fact that we were waiting for him to cough up his closer role for the sake of our fantasy baseball teams. (Go Marmol!) Being the gentleman that he is, Gregg accommodated us both in Florida and in Chicago, and for that, we are grateful.

But now that this joker comes to town, toting with him his 16 blown saves over the past two years, we figure that we have to find some way to wrap our head around the signing and feel happy about it, because there are only so many members of your team's bullpen that you can hate in any given year. Seeing as how we've dedicated most of our disdain to Shawn Camp, we've got to dig real deep and find some level of sweet charity for this chucker who has lost some zip on his fastball and gave up 13 dingers out of the bullpen last year.

The best we've been able to come up with so far is this: He's got to be better than Kerry Ligtenberg. (He really does, doesn't he? Right?)

Our feeble defense of this signing
Okay, so we know that the Better Than Ligtenberg defense is the faintest of praise, and one that we use a little too often to help keep us sane. So we're gonna dig deep on this one and try to find something (anything!) to make it seem a little more palatable.

And here's what we've come up with: Tonnage. As much as there is talk of the sheer number of average-or-worse arms that the Jays are bringing to camp this season, and the crowded bullpen picture, we look back at the past three seasons and see the numbers of pitchers who were pressed into Major League service before their time. It was fun and all to see Brett Cecil and Bobby Ray and Marc Rzepczynski and Brad Mills last season, but we would have preferred to leave them in the minors to develop instead of having the Phillies lineup school them on the way the game is played up top.

We made this argument to Mrs. Tao as she tolerated us watching a few innings of the Caribbean Series (in Spanish on a Dominican station, which was a weirder experience than we can easily describe.) As I got excited by seeing Randy Ruiz's plate appearances, we got talking with the missus about just how many players it takes to keep a baseball system running. Once you get past your 25-man roster, plus a few injured players, then about 25 guys per team in your system, you're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 warm bodies to get you through the year, and not all of them are going to Chase Utley or Mariano Rivera.

What the Jays ultimately get in Gregg is a bullpen arm who has in the past posted sub-4.00 ERA's with a strikeout per inning over the past three seasons. He's a marginal, potentially useful piece who could be a significant part of the bullpen's back end if everything breaks right. At the worst, he's a guy who won't cost much (relatively speaking) and will be gone before any of us remember he was here.

And when it comes right down to it, that's not a bad play on AA's part.

Memories that we don't have
We don't seem to remember people losing their shit over the signing of Jaime Navarro back in 2001. Not that it didn't happen privately, but we don't remember it.

Scouting Randy Ruiz
So we got to see Randy Ruiz play a few innings in the Serie Del Caribe, which was just enough to stoke the fires of our Ruiz mancrush. We saw the big man whiff weakly in one at bat, but we also saw him hit a solid single with two strikes on him, go first to third on a sharply-hit line drive, and score on a single. Production!

Ruiz also looked very solid in the field, so if it comes down to it, we could imagine him taking a regular turn at first if he's needed there this year.

And finally, thanks and praise...
...to the Ack for a stellar week. We'll confess that we get a little jealous when we go away, and then something happens and the blog gets oodles of visits and they're not coming just for our witty repartee. And we have a notion some days that Ack is getting ready to shove us down the stairs, just like Jessie Spano did to Gina Gershon in Showgirls. Which is why we're taking off our thigh-high patent leather boots anytime we walk in front on him down a flight of rickety stairs.

(Which we don't do, seeing as how we live thousands of miles apart. But still, gotta keep these things in mind.)

But if someone's gotta be there to field the inquiries and keep the lights on, we're glad that we've got Our Man in Winnipeg on the job, because if he were writing for another blog, we're sure that it would be one of our favorites.

(Although if Ack starts to get ideas and a big head about this, we'd remind him that John Oates didn't do shit without Daryl Hall out front singing. And Andrew Ridgely's career evaporated when he wasn't standing just behind George Michael. So don't go making plans for that solo project just yet.)