Working for the weekend

Hey kids. Remember us? Your somewhat-less-than-dutiful-blogger? Yeah, that's us. Nice to see you again.

So, it's been one of those weeks, where suddenly just about every free hour of our day gets sucked into some sort of vortex of consultative stratgery and mid-management monkeyshines. Working for a living is a drag, and we keep pulling our eyelashes out to wish upon them that one day, a big sports-media conglomerate will come and whisk us away from all discussions of business plans and outreach and stakeholder relations.

(Although some relations with stakeholders sounds fun on a Friday night, youknowwhatI'msayin'?)

Anyways, we'll try to squeeze in some extra work this weekend so that we can get some regular infotainment posted throughout next week. We wouldn't want to have you all start coming to your own conclusions about the state of the Blue Jays, because what use would we be to you then?

There's a post on the staff ace, which has probably totally changed by now, although likely for the better. It seems like folks are already picking their sides, and aligning themselves behind one of the top three starters, but we really want to see someone make the case for the fifth starter, whoever that is this week.

Speaking of rotations...
The Jays miss Tim Lincecum in this weekend's series, which we suppose is a good thing. But instead, they run into Barry Zito (3.10 ERA, 4.71 xFIP), Matt Cain (2.05 ERA, 4.54 xFIP) and Jonathan Sanchez (2.78 ERA, 4.13 xFIP). That's pretty scary, and we don't even know what the hell an xFIP is, or where it grazes in the winter.

Moreover, the Jays will counter with Brandon Morrow (who's been better over the past month, with a 3.60 ERA), the Pasty Ginger Ghost of Jesse Litsch (we can't bear to watch, so we'll be FFing through his innings) and Team Marcum (who we encourage to make his case for acedom).

There's a part of us that wants to think that this weekend, those three Gigantes pitchers get their comeuppance, and start to realize that pitching in the AL East is different than soft tossing into the 7-8-9 hitters in a Quadruple-A lineup and in a cavernous NL West ballpark. We'd really love to see a few of the Jays scuffling hitters (JoBau, Hill and Lind, in particular) get dialed in and start peppering the 200 level outfield seats with scorching hot projectiles.

More xFIPpery
Did you know that RickRo is seventh in the Majors in xFIP? He trails only Cliff Lee, some cat named Holiday or something like that, Frank Liriano, Lincecum, Wainwright and Josh Johnson. Which is some pretty elite company.

More over, he's far ahead of chuck-and-duckers like Chris Carpenter, King Felix, Ubaldo Jimenez, or C.C. Sebaceous Glands.

A few more advanced metrics like this, and we just might find ourselves on Team RickRo by the end of the weekend.

A Friday Rock Out for Jonah Keri
The wise and sage Mr. Keri noted his undying devotion to Loverboy to us over Twitter last month, so we figured we'd make his day with an utterly appropriate Rock Out. Because when it comes right down to it, we have to concur with the words of Mr. Mike Reno:

Everybody's working for the weekend
Everybody wants a little romance
Everybody's goin' off the deep end
Everybody needs a second chance

Have a great weekend, y'all.

The Blue Jays finally lock up Shawn Hill

We say that they "finally" signed him, because the Jays seem to put a lot of effort into signing this guy who has put forth such underwhelming results over his five year career (218.1 IPs over five seasons, and he's a starter). Isn't this the second or third time they've tried to sign him?

Hill's coming off Tommy John surgery in June, and has missed significant time over his career to injury. And while he's rebuffed the Jays' advances in the past, the good Canadian boy now sees fit to bring his broken down carcass back to top side of the border. Welcome back, son! The Timbits are over by the chesterfield!

If nothing else, at least we won't have to hear Bob Elliot breathlessly describe Hill's potential and his super-duper Canadianess. But on the down side, his presence on the team would necessitate Aaron adding a letter to the back of his jersey to distinguish between the Hill boys. And frankly, we'd rather just toss Shawn on the scrap heap rather than having our aesthetic sensibilities offended by an "A. Hill".

Friday Rock Out - LCD Soundsystem, "Tribulations"
We like this song, because it is dancey, but in a way that we can handle with our lack of dexterity and our cro-magnon rhythm and flow. Happy weekend!


LCD Soundsystem

DFA Records | MySpace Music Videos

Get them to sign on the line that is dotted!

As Alec Baldwin's character in Glengarry Glen Ross noted, "Only one thing counts in this life: Get them to sign on the line which is dotted!"

And so, we follow along with the news of 2009 draft picks who are dragging out their decisions on signing until the last possible second, which is to say tonight. Or today. Whatever.

We're following the action over at Jim Callis' Baseball America Draft Blog, where most of the signings are being broken. If you've got better things to do than to hit refresh on a web page all afternoon, then check out our Twitter thingy (@TaoofStieb) and we'll probably be cursing and swearing about stuff over there.

Also notable: Stoeten of the Drunks has a good post summarizing what's happened so far (Jays going way over slot for later round picks), and what is likely to happen (Good Canadian boys don't sign with the Canadian team, even though they're good Canadian kids and the Jays should have been drafting lots of good Canadian boys all along because they're good Canadians and they'll make the good Canadians in the stands feel good about being Canadian, as we all revel goodly in our Canadianness.)

Friday Rock Out - The Gandharvas' "Downtime"

The Gandharvas - Downtime
Uploaded by UniversalMusicGroup

You'll have to excuse us for going back to the 90's Can-Rock well once again, but we couldn't resist with this gem. This used to be a standard entry onto mixed tapes that we'd make for friends, and was usually the song that they didn't know but would ask about.

We like it because it sounds like a nice Canadian version of Jane's Addiction without the ostentatious preening. You may choose to dislike for the very same reasons.

We also like it because it's pretty kick ass lyrically. "Some just want to smear themselves across something beautiful..."

Other stuff
We'd do a Friday link dump, but the Blue Jay Hunter already beat us to it. So go read his, because we would have just linked to the same articles anyways.

And don't forget to check in with Joanna at Hum and Chuck. Just because. You should.

Working over time
Having squeezed every last bit of energy out of the Ack, we've given him the weekend off to spend with his family. Which means that we'll have to post something over the weekend just to keep you all entertained and interested. We can't guarantee what sort of quality you'll get out of us, given that we'll be at some level of drunkeness for most of the next few days. Bear with us...we're only one man.

For those of you who prefer the Ack's weekend takes to our own, you'll have to wait another seven days before he drags himself back into work. Sorry.

The Jays' Dutch/Canadian Treat

Mister Baseball reported it yesterday, and Bastian confirms it via Twitter: The Jays are giving a tryout to Canadian-born Leon Boyd, the side-arming slider machine who closed for the Netherlands in the WBC.

(Actually, Blair confirmed it by tweet first, but since he doesn't follow us, we credit Bastian.)

We were pretty impressed with Boyd's stuff in the Classic, and figured he might actually be worth a look for some Major League team, but then again, we're no scout. As we've stated here before, we have an extreme weakness for relievers with funky deliveries. (Also, we find it hard to resist any song that contains handclaps. That's just us.)

Variable linkage
Various and sundry news and notes from around Blue Jaydom:

Hooray for Faint Praise! Baseball Digest Daily's Andy Spear tells us not to be surprised if "the Blue Jays do better than most people think". Rejoice!

Give us one good reason: Actually, Mop Up Duty provides five good reasons to follow the Jays. Plus, one gratuitous reference to The Wire. It's all in the game, yo.

More lists of lists: I Heart Halos, a blog for the fans of the Angels of one city and another, lists off their Fave 4 all time Blue Jays. We think that they might have a little too much love for Jesse Barfield, but there's no accounting for taste.

JoBau! JoBau! JoBau! The NatPost's John Lott figures that José Bautista (JoBau!) has the inside edge over Joe Inglett for the last spot on the Jays roster. (Nobody tell LJ.) If Bautista (JoBau!) does crack the roster before Inglett, we should pretty much assume that Voodoo Joe's spooky hoodoo will ensure that some bizarre injury befalls someone on the 25-man almost immediately.

Videologically idiotic: Toronto Sports Media posts that Nine More Outs video with the overly precious dudes doing mundane streeters outside the Rogers Centre. We've had the link sent to us twice by its creators and a few more times by readers, and frankly, we have yet to crack even the faintest smile at it. Maybe we're just not the laughing type.

Let's not go there: Eyebleaf ponders Jason Bay in a Jays uni. We're not even going there. Men go crazy at the prospect of those sorts of things, and they go even crazier when they see the results. Let's not forget that at one time, people pondered the same thing about Corey Koskie.

A.J. Burnett is a three-wins-over-.500 pitcher

In his last four starts, A.J. Burnett is 3-1 with a 1.32 ERA, 31 Ks versus 8 BBs.

So, Steve Simmons: You know what's frustrating about A.J. Burnett? That the Blue Jays don't have him locked up for the next two years yet.

Speaking of which, the decision by the Blue Jays to hold on to Burnett (at least, that seems to be the message today) would lead any sentient being to assume that they're going to try to sweeten the pot to buy out his option. We don't know where the $4 million figure that has bounced around our comments section (as well as the Drunks') comes from, but we suspect that it wouldn't be enough. We're guessing that it's going to take more than $5 million over those last two years to wrap him up, especially since he'd probably attract offers of more than $15 million per annum in the off-season.

But what the fadoo do we know?

On Canadian pitchers, petulant GMs, and the Olympics
Anyone catch J.P. Ricciardi in the scrum yesterday, discussing the recall of Canadian pitcher Scott Richmond? We're not sure what the question was that set him off, but Ricciardi went into full-on smarmy, snarky, you-gotta-be-kidding-me mode when someone seemed to question him on whether if he considered the implications of Richmond missing the Olympics for Canada.

"When you grow up playing catch in your backyard, do you dream of playing in the Olympics or in the Big Leagues?" Ricciardi scoffed.

We'd have to side with J.P. on this one, and we'd draw a clear distinction between this and Colorado GM Dan O'Dowd's bullshit move to keep Jeff Francis out of the 2004 Olympics. Richmond is a career minor leaguer who's getting his first shot at the bigs at 28. Francis was a prospect who was ordered to stay in the minor leagues and not join the Olympic team just because.

Oh, and by the way...fuck Jeff Francis.

Beautiful Lazy Sorta Long Weekend

We hope to god that most of you have had the good sense to make a long weekend out of this Canada Day tomfoolery. What sort of idiot would be at work on an utterly beautiful day such as today? (Well, aside from us?)

Celebrating our Confederation...in Seattle?
Seriously, this whole business of keeping the Jays out of Toronto on holidays (Victoria Day and Canada Day in particular) has gotten out of hand. Who do we have to blow in order to get ourselves a home series for the Jays over the weekend of our national holiday? Maybe Paul Godfrey didn't want to ask for such frivolities as he was angling for the All-Star Game (and settling for the World Baseball Classic, or Festival, or Jamboree or whatever the hell they are calling it.) Still, we miss the days when the Jays came out in sweet red caps and jerseys with "Canada" on the back.

Maybe we didn't appreciate the last Canada Day home game because on that day, the Jays wore quite possibly the ugliest uni's ever sported by the Toronto nine.

There's always next year, we suppose. Regardless, we fully expect that the Jays fans in beautiful British Columbia will make their way down to Safeco this week to represent. And possibly strip to the waist and make really bad puns on player's names. (This is what too many hours in front of collegehumor.com has done to our youth.)

Make us proud, left coast Canadians.

Afternoon Delights

Unfortunately, we're not able to listen to the radio broadcast of this afternoon's game, but we have our workstation's RAM revved up to the limit tracking the Jays-Yanks (up 7-6 in the 7th) and the draft.

Milwaukee ruined the Jays fun by picking Canadian Brett Lawrie, presumably because the Canadian-heavy front office in brew city wants to stick it to J.P. and the Jays. (We're actually making that up, but it would be fun if the finagglings amonst MLB GMs were like an episode of The Hills.)

So here's the Jays pick. (Drum roll!)...David Cooper, a lefthanded hitting first basemen from the University of California (via Cal State Fullerton). Steve Lyons, who doesn't know enough about baseball to keep a job as GM but knows just enough to fill the airwaves on ESPN 2, says that Cooper will hit about 25 homers and hit .300. If he's right, then he should be about on par with Lyle Overbay, meaning that we'll have another decade of JaysTalk callers complaining that the first baseman isn't enough of a power threat. Fun.

Sunday evening, coming down

There's a lot of dudes keeping a close eye on Armando Benitez in this picture, including J.P. Ricciardi in shorts and someone so short that it can't be anyone but David Eckstein.

Benitez committed six balks in his initial spring training bullpen session.

(Actually, the Jays' brain trust told the NatPost's John Lott that they liked what they saw. And they've never been known to be anything but forthright when discussing the state of the pitching staff. Right?)

The Old Grey Lady likes the Jays
The New York Times says that the Jays have a shot at the AL East. So it must be true.

Wonders of Spring Trainings past
Wilner drops the name of Canadian and former Blue Jays Spring Training phenom Simon Pond into today's blog post. Now there's a name that we'd managed to completely suppress from memory, and he serves as a helpful reminder that a good performance in a handful of fake games does not a star make.

Fake Game Stats: What Are They Good For?
Frank Thomas has generally sucked ass (2 of 28) in the spring, but says that he's still working on getting his timing down and not to worry. Of course, the Big Giner Bruiser said the same thing last year, and proceeded to be profoundly meh in the first three weeks. The Jays can't afford to carry that much dead wood from the DH in the early stages of the season if they are really, truly, honest to god for reals this time going to actually compete.

Looking for High Quality CanCon (Celine and Nickelback need not apply)

Let us begin by acknowledging two things:

• That the Celine/Nickelback joke was way too easy.
• That we are about to do that Canadian media thing that we hate.

And yet, heading into the Winter Meetings in Nashville, there are rumblings that both Erik Bedard and Jason Bay may be available for the right price. So would either of them be a fit for the Jays?

The O's are apparently looking for two young Major League ready players and a prospect for Bedard, which might be a bit too much to hand over to a division rival, while the Bucs might be ready to unload Bay and build around some of their own young prospects.

With so much emphasis being placed on teams pursuing Johan Santana this winter, Bedard's price might go up when teams fall out of that race. Still, we're guessing that it wouldn't take as much to pry him out of Baltimore, nor will he cost anything near the $25 million over five years that Santana is seeking. A quick look at their numbers, and it is hard to find why the gap between the two would be so great. (Bedard: 3.16 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 221 Ks versus 57 BBs; Santana: 3.33 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 235 Ks versus 52 BBs.)

Bay might come cheap, but he's 29 and coming off an awful 2007 season that was eerily similar to Vernon's (.746 OPS, 21 HRs, 84 RsBI, 4 SBs). The question with Bay is whether if that was a harbinger of things to come, or if his knee injuries held him back that much.

Maybe the most important question is whether if we'd give a flying fadoo about either of these guys if they didn't have a maple leaf on their passport.

Where's Corey Koskie these days?

"So, when you become a free agent, would you like to come home to Canada?"

Number of at bats it took Joey Votto to hit his first MLB homer: 2

Over/under on the number of months before a Canadian reporter speculates on Votto joining the Jays: 6

Over/under on the age at which Votto, now 23, actually joins the Jays: 35

Happy Canada Day

Too bad MLB wouldn't see fit to let Canada's only team play at home on Canada Day more than once every few years.

(July 2 Update: Paul Lukas picks up the fight at UniWatch.)

It's Official. Jays Back on CBC.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and the Blue Jays announced a formal two year deal that will see the public broadcaster carry 8 games this year and 20 to 30 next year. The CBC was the original broadcaster of Blue Jays games back in 1977, but hasn't carried a game since 2002. As a condition of the contract, the Jays must act 35% more Canadian. In order to pull this off the Jays will institute long waiting lists for access to medical staff and relocate the team to Fort McMurray.