Sunday quick-hitter: Links edition

Chasing down a few Blue Jay relevant links as we usher in the first working week of the New Year....

Personal fave Cathal Kelly brings it within this column profiling Alex Anthopoulos. Granted, Kelly could convince me that his cohort Griff would make an excellent GM with his writing, but in all seriousness, it's stories like these that have me believing the Jays are in good hands. The more I see and hear of Anthopoulos, the more I trust in what he's doing. Building, baby. Building.

Would the Jays really move Travis Snider? TSN's Daan (not a typo) De Kerpel would have you believe they might. It seems to me that this possibility has been kicked around and dismissed, but it's a scenario worth discussing, I guess.

While I'm vehemently against the idea, you'd have to think any deal would bring back an equivalent blue-chip prospect at a premium position for the team. Still, can't see it. I don't think De Kerpel is entirely off the mark, though - I do think AA longs to make one more major move, but I think it might involve dealing some of the young pitching the Jays have accumulated. It just makes too much sense.

Take a look at some of the names that could fill the rotation when Anthopoulos plans to roll out a competitive club: Marcum, Romero, Cecil, Morrow, Rzepczynski, Drabek, Jenkins, Mills, Ray....not to mention Litsch and McGowan, if they can get past injury issues.

And....there's the Chapman issue. I still think it's a longshot for the Jays....but you know that management has to have a plan in place if the scenario does come to fruition, right? The old saying goes that you can never have too much pitching, but it makes more sense for the Jays to capitalize by converting that surplus of arms into talent at positions otherwise lacking. Don't think AA is sleeping on this one....

The Tao's Links in Bulk

(Oh Sour Jubes...you are our kryptonite.)

Tim Johnson Rides Again
The disgraced former Jays manager has caught on with the Tuscon Toros of the Golden League. (Or so he claims.) For some reason, the independent league team decided to literally parade Johnson through town on a horse.

(And BTW...how good does Tim Johnson's 88-win season look now?)

Ernie Whitt for Manager! (Of Clearwater!)
The Phillies named Ernie Whitt manager of their Single-A affiliate in Clearwater. The Drunks mocked. Anonymous commenters went apeshit. Hilarity ensued.

Speaking of Anonymous Whingeing
In an article titled "All I Want for Christmas...for the Sports Fan" and credited to "Sun Media", some anonymous and angry copy desk jockey takes two gratuitous swipes at J.P., but refrains from telling Parkes to fuck off. (Not that there's anything wrong with anonymity, right?)

Cathal Kelly: Friend of P, Not of A.J.
It's a few days old now, but Cathal Kelly's takedown of A.J. in last weekend's Star is a dilly of a mythbuster on the enigmatic hurler. The Ghosties quite rightly noted that this is the sort of piece that we would like to see written when the malingerer is still in town, but never will.

Putting A.J.'s Departure in Perspective
Jon Hale talks Jays fans off the ledge at the Mockingbird.

Reed Johnson: Still Super-Awesome
Or so says MLB.com, as they use the signing of the diminutive outfielder with the effeminate gait by the Cubbies last March as a shining example of the sort of remainder bin shopping that many teams (like the Jays!) will have to do this spring.

Our Saviour: Rick Ankiel
The Southpaw makes the modest (and somewhat reasonable) proposal that the Jays trade closer B.J. Ryan to the Cardinals for Rick Ankiel. If nothing else, the trade would exponentially increase the likelihood of Will Leitch sightings at Blue Jays games.

Weekend primer: Blue Jay linkage

...and by "primer", I mean this might be all you get from me this weekend. Yeah, you all owe me one.

On to business, I was pleasantly surprised as I surfed through my usual hotspots for all things Blue Jay....some pretty entertaining links. So, rather than present any original thought whatsoever (probably for the best), here's some fantastic reading material to get you through the excruciating pain of a World Series involving yooouuuuurrrr Tampa Bay Rays!

Jamie Campbell - too much information

Our man JC checks in with a blog post of his own over on the home station. Now, I like to give Campbell a hard time like anyone else, but this blog post presents him in a COMPLETELY different light.

I strongly recommend reading the whole post, but if this doesn't grab you:

"The place was packed and I, admittedly, had a terrific beer-buzz. The floor seemed to rise when Dave Winfield hit the go-ahead double and exploded when the final out was made in the bottom of the 11th. I was so excited, I started making out with a female co-worker.Later, after hundreds of people spilled into the streets of Halifax, I tried to help a mob flip a taxi with the driver still in the car, two hands firmly gripping the wheel. "

...then nothing will. Now I'm left to wonder what a night on the town with Jamie and Rance would consist of. Whoah Nelly!

As an aside, JC makes an excellent point. The "Touch 'em all, Joe!" blast, as remarkable as it was, doesn't compare to the first one in '92. Is it just me, or has that season been completely overlooked in Jays history?

Jeff Blair continues to be Bad Ass

Full disclosure, there's not really much for Blue Jays news within this link to Blair's blog, but the next time any of you commenters disparage my hometown, I'll kindly direct you towards Toronto's (via Winnipeg) finest sportswriter.

You think he's messing around?

Cathal Kelly: Friends with (J)P

Big pat on the back for the underrated Cathal Kelly, for telling the World Series to fuck off and instead focusing on stirring the offseason pot.

Within this article, Kelly gives us JP's take on a plethora of potential winter storylines out of Jays camp, including:

JP on Manny:
"I've known him since he was 15, and I've liked him since he was 15. I also like a lot of other players that we're probably not going to get. As far as the talent goes, he's a very talented player. Who knows where it goes from there?" Ricciardi said.

JP on AJ negotiations:
"They're not going bad, they're not going good. They're fine," Ricciardi said of his conversations with Burnett's agent.

JP on BJ:
"It's not a priority for us right now, trading B.J. Ryan," Ricciardi said.

JP on the offseason in general:
"Anybody on our club that would help us get better, if it meant trading them, we'd be open to it," Ricciardi said yesterday from his home in Massachusetts.

.....so, to summarize: negotiations with Burnett are non-existent, JP desperately wants Manny but needs to convince the Beest to convince Ted Rogers, BJ Ryan is on the trading block, and so is Roy Halladay.

I kid, I kid!

There's no such thing as "minor" surgery

As nauseating as it was to hear the details about Scott Rolen's broken, ripped and torn up finger, we're having an even harder time keeping down our morning coffee with the news that he had surgery on the digit yesterday.

The estimates for Rolen's return are around three weeks, which sounds promising. But the notion that someone has opened up the finger and screwed into the bone with the intention of going back in to pull the screw back out in a couple weeks, and then everything is going to be just hunky-dory afterwards seems a bit overly optimistic to us.

We'd assume that Rolen won't be taking ground balls for three weeks, and won't face live pitching for at least as long. So what's his game going to look like when he gets back? How strong and accurate are those cross-diamond throws going to be? How is the hurt finger going to affect his swing?

We've got plenty of worry about how this is going to affect Rolen's offense. The injured finger is on Rolen's top hand on the bat, which is where power is generated. Rolen keeps both hands on the bat in his follow through, so there will be a lot of energy and torque exerted in that area. In the Cathal Kelly Star article, J.P. notes that how Rolen performs subsequently will depend on "pain tolerance". While we think that Rolen is a big burly manly man, we also see it as likely that he'll ease up or twitch through his swing, and his mechanics will go all pear-shaped for at least the first few weeks back.

We had really hoped and prayed that this year wouldn't feature another long series of bizarre and absurd injuries. It looks like those prayers aren't yet being answered.

David Eckstein is a March Masher

We're no fans of scrappy, gritty, slap-hitting middle infielders. Unless they can hit the long ball, like Mighty Masher David Eckstein.

Little X hit a monumental towering shot deep into left* for a grand slam in this afternoon's fake game versus the Pirates. (*Or at least that's what we've read into Cathal Kelly's description on his liveblog of the game.)

This might be a little optimistic and premature, but based on today's performance we're predicting 30 homers for Eckstein this season.

Also, Dusty Lambchops is getting roughed up a bit, but we're not going to read to much into it. After all, it is just Spring Training.

Blairsy turns that frown upside down
In his mailbag today, Jeff Blair acknowledges the critical role our little blog post played in making him reflect upon his crusty ways, and in helping him to go forth with positivity and enthusiasm in all of his future pursuits. Like Oprah might say, we're changing the world and changing lives, one beat writer at a time. (You're next, Elliot!)

The Return of the Evil Empire

As the Jays prepare to take on the Evil Empire in today's fake game, we'll say this about the Yankees: it doesn't matter how old they get, how inept they look, or how many poor player personnel moves they make in the run of a year. No matter how badly they seem to be screwing the pooch, you still pretty much have to pencil those guys in for about 90 wins.

Having said that, we're reaching a point in the Evil Empire's evolution where they are starting to get bogged down with some of the ill-advised contracts to yesterday's heroes, so maybe this is the year that it all goes to hell. We can only hope that Mike Mussina's spring debut (five runs on six hits in two innings) is the harbinger of awful things to come for the Bronx Boys. (And seriously, that Posada contract is a real head scratcher.)

Today's Jays lineup (courtesy of hip hop purist Cathal Kelly) should look like this:

Eckstein
Rolen
Johnson
Wells
Thomas
Overbay
Hill
Stewart
Zaun

Kelly also speculated that the Yanks would toss some scrubs out against Jesse Litsch (Roy Halladay's pick for the fifth starter), but the lineup posted on the LoHud Yankees blog looks pretty close to an opening day roster:

Damon LF
Jeter SS
Abreu DH
Rodriguez 3B
Giambi 1B
Posada C
Duncan RF
Cabrera CF
Castro 2B

Halladay to restore the faith

Roy Halladay takes the ball at 1:05 this afternoon, with a squad full of veterans behind him instead of yesterday's collection of scrubs and rookies.

Cathal Kelly reports on the Star blog that the lineup will look like this:

1 - Eckstein
2 - Rios
3 - Wells
4 - Thomas
5 - Rolen
6 - Stairs
7 - Overbay
8 - Hill
9 - Zaun

Kelly also cements his indie cred by sending out a long distance dedication of Band of Horses' awesome The Funeral as a thematically appropriate tune for today's presumed shellacking.

Scott Rolen is a paradox, wrapped inside an enigma, smothered in secret sauce

When Scott Rolen walks to the plate, he is serenaded of his own volition by Limp Bizkit's Rollin'. Which is a really bad pun, and an excruciatingly awful reminder of the earlier part of this decade.

When Scott Rolen goes home at night, he reads Upton Sinclair. (Which embarrasses us quite a bit, seeing as how we've been reading Bret Hart's biography and the Deadspin Home Companion.)

The dichotomy between these two things is dizzying.

Mandatory Cathal Kelly/Rentals joke
The Star's Cathal Kelly has been doing some boss work on the Star's baseball blog, including the Rolen link above. It's almost enough to make us visit the Star's site more than once a week. (Our doctor advised us against reading any more Dick Griffin Mailbags until the high blood pressure induced fainting spells stop.)

Plus, there's his whole indie cred that stems from his years as the lead Moogster of the Rentals.

If Cathal Kelly is friends of P, then he's friends of we.