Three thoughts on 50

Thought #1

We needed this. For this team's fan base, which before the season seemed to begrudge their own allegiance, this outstanding, season-long ride with an unexpected hero has been enough to shine a little light into the darkness, and create a bit of optimism for the coming year.

And don't discount optimism: Sports franchises are multi-million dollar enterprises that somehow need to create, harness and catalyze those sanguine feelings into something more palpable. And if this team is to be a continued an long-term success in Toronto, they need to get the turnstiles turning again.

Thought #2

We seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time trying to remind ourselves what a big deal José Bautista's season has been. Maybe we've all become willfully more numb to giant power numbers, and maybe we're just inundated with constant questioning around any impressive offensive stat. But it seems as though you really have to try to block out the noise and think about this differently.

It's not easy to block out the noise of the McGwire-Sosa-Bonds years (nor the high moral dudgeon that continues to be aired over those days). This makes it especially difficult to focus back to what we think is probably "normal" power outputs, and where JoBau belongs in that continuum. (And believe us when we tell you that we could argue in our own head for days on end about "normal" and what it means, if anything).

To try to fake our way to some sort of comprehension, we've been using Cecil Fielder's 1990 season as a touchstone as of late. We remember that year clearly, as Big Daddy returned from Japan and put up power numbers sick enough that they would make your stomach churn when he stepped into the batters box against you. And when he did slam homer after homer through the late part of that season, there was a certain level of elation of seeing someone put on such a display.

We'd like to think that we'll look back on JoBau's 2010 campaign in a similar fashion.

Thought #3

We've been thinking a lot about comps, as we consider where the Jays go from here in terms of signing Bautista. (And also because if we here Brady Anderson's name invoked one more time, we're going to drown a bag of koala cubs.)

There are two names that seem to stand out in terms of players who had this sort of season at this age and point in their career: Greg Vaughn and George Foster. (And please understand that we're not calling those performances completely analogous, so please don't pick this comparison apart through the marginalia before we even get started.)

We'll go into more detail on Vaughn and Foster soon, but here's the basic message that we get from looking at the years that succeeded their 50 homer seasons: That they didn't fall off the face of the earth, but that they had about three more productive seasons (even if they were less so) in them.

So if you want to start the discussions with JoBau at three years and figure out the price from there, we'd be happy to buy into that strategy.

Friday (Bleep Bloop) Rock Out: The Postal Service - Such Great Heights

This seems appropriate, even if we have to get over the idea of Ben Gibbard stealing away with our Zooey. Nevertheless...we're all grown ups here, right?

Enjoy your Friday, and the last weekend homestand of the season.

Tweet Bag! More of your questions, more sage answers

We're a little hung over, and a little tongue-tied today for reasons that we can't really get into. (Once again, we'll reiterate that we are, above all, a man of mystery. In part because the reality is ridiculously boring.)

So what to do when inspiration is lacking? TWEETBAG! And here we go:

@6thSens (awesome podcasters and bloggers, even if you happen not to be down with Daniel Alfredsson) ask: With the potential loss of three bullpen pieces this offseason (Gregg, Frasor, Downs), how would u handle offseason pen plans?

You're saying you don't think that Jeremy Accardo is the answer?

All kidding aside (momentarily), it's worth remembering that Gregg, Downs and Frasor were all marginal, under-the-radar pick ups, and went on to generally have good to great performances for the Jays. They've already made one move that we like in snatching former Rockies reliever Taylor Buchholz off the scrap heap.

Moreover, we're pretty certain that there will be value-priced relievers out there this offseason who could come in and help buttress the existing pieces (Buchholz, Camp, Purcey, Janssen), and that Gregg has pitched well enough for the Jays to consider picking up his option for 2011. Add to that Josh Roenicke, and you've got a pretty full complement in the pen.

It will also be worth keeping an eye on the Minnesota Twins bullpen this offseason, and what happens with the multitude of increasingly expensive bullpen arms that they have collected. Not to get all Bob Elliot on you, but Somewhat-Canadian Jesse Crain is scheduled to be a free agent at the end of the year, and may be looking for an opportunity to close, which the Jays could offer if they move on from Gregg.

Next! Let's get all historical up in this bitch!

@PdcD asks: If JBau reaches 50 hrs, where will he rank in Jays history as best single season stats by a Jay?

Wow. It's like you were in our head all Inception-style (is that reference already dated?), and you knew that we've been sitting on this notion that JoBau's season is moving upwards into the all-time pantheon.

We're sure that we need a good hour to pull that whole post together, and we plan to soon. But at first blush, we're looking at Bell's 1987 season, Delgado's 2000 and 2003 seasons, Olerud-Molitor-Alomar in 1993, and McGriff's 1989.

Currently, JoBau's 2010 WAR is sitting at 4.7 for the year, and it will take a 6.1 to crack the all-time top 10 for single season WAR. Tops all-time? It may surprise you, but Johnny O's 8.3 in 1993 sits atop that list. And the distinction is that while JoBau is smacking dingers like there's no tomorrow, his doubles total (32) is somewhat modest compared to some of that all-time seasons.

And if WAR ain't your metric of choice, JoBau's adjusted OPS looks on pace to settle in around third on the all-time list. So there's that.

We'll come back to this one at season's end. In the meantime, Pauly, stay the fuck out of our head. And watch out: Here comes the kick!

Finally, our main man Navin brings us back to the historical well once again: The organization has decided that you will select the next Blue Jay to be added to the Level of Excellence. Who do you choose?

Well of course they have! Have we not told you lately how tight we are with Beeston? And how the letters falling from the Level of Excellence was all a part of my plan (conceived with Handsome Tony Viner, naturally, when we were handsomely pissed as newts on a lovely bottle of Quail's Gate) to have the entire system of honours fixed to please us?

Ok, none of that happened. (And if it did, both of us would deny it anyhow.)

But back to the question: Up until just recently, we would have taken this opportunity to wax on about our all-time favorite Blue Jays pitcher: Jimmy Key. (And somewhere, Dave Stieb is like: "Hey! Wait a second!")

Key's career WAR with the Jays (27.8) ranks third behind Stieb (53.6) and that other guy who we can't remember (47.4), though Key piled his numbers up in just 1695 innings (versus 2873 and 2046, respectively). And we could go one about Key's ERA with the Jays (3.42, same as Stieb's and fractionally ahead of Old Ginger Beard's 3.43), and blah blah blah.

But all of that is pretty much academic if you look at what has happened in recent weeks with Carlos Delgado's hips. With both his hips now ailing, we'd say the chances of a return to the Majors for King Carlos is growing increasingly remote. And should the Jays all-time leader in WAR, OPS, HRs, RsBI, Runs, Total Bases, Runs Created, etc., decide to call it a career, we would assume that the franchise with whom he made the bulk of his hay would go out of their way to toss bouquets upon bouquets upon even more bouquets in his general direction as soon as they can.

But wait: You said this was up to me, and only I could choose?

Well fine then. Let's get Jimmy Key up there with great haste. Because you know what is better than one Level of Excellence Party? Two Level of Excellence Parties!

Thanks again for all your contributions. May the Schwartz be with you.

Friday Rock Out - The Black Keys
In recognition of our Twitter pals who suggested that we pick up the Black Keys' latest this week, and in view of a full week's worth of maddening discussions of sexism in sports, we offer up this tasty treat of a video clip. Avert your eyes if you must.

We're sorry. Sorta.

Is The Manager the Manager of the Year?

Okay, we'll give you a second to gather yourself after reading the title of this post.

You okay? Alright? Do you want a glass of water? Do you need some air? Here: Why don't you sit down for a moment.

Tweeter Kyle Darbyson (@starbyson, y'all!) suggested earlier that we make the case for The Manager to take home the hardware at the season's end as the league's best bench boss. And as we read it, we're not sure if he was being funny, or if he was completely earnestly looking for us to make the case.

And here's the weird thing: We think we might even be able to make that case.

Let's back up a second, and get something out there before we indulge in this excercise: We're actually not a big fan of this sort of award. Throughout all professional sports, the Coach/Manager of the Year award is generally given to someone who has a team that everyone presumes will kinda suck but that doesn't quite suck all that much. In some ways, it's barely even a reflection on the job that the person has done at all...It's mostly just an attempt to account for the difference between what was expected based on the team's perceived talent and what was delivered.

The answer to that particular bit of arithmetic is almost always assumed to be the non-player personnel who is closest to the game. In fact, you almost always hear this conversation start around two-thirds of the way through the season, with pundits saying: "I tell you what: You look at the job that Lindy Ruff/Eric Wedge/Sam Mitchell/Dave Tippett/Felipe Alou has done with this team, and I think you've gotta give him serious consideration for the Manager of the Year/Jack Adams Trophy."

(Seriously: At some point this February, Darren Dreger is going to look away from the dozen members of the NHL on TSN panel and stare gravely into the camera and say something almost precisely like the statement above, and act as though he doesn't make the same rote argument year after year. And then he'll light up a stogie with a five dollar bill and head out into the Agincourt night, doing donuts in the parking lot while checking his Blackberry. Prick.)

Sorry, we kinda lost track of ourselves there for a second.

If you wanted to take this from that typical point of view, then yeah, we think there is probably a good argument for The Manager to get...(clearing throat)..."serious consideration for the AL Manager of the Year." In the Junior Circuit, the Jays are probably the team with the greatest discrepancy between what was expected of them and what they've actually delivered. However, since the Jays are too far out of contention at this time, it seems unlikely that the Jays' skipper would get much more than a passing thought. Especially not when you have a ready-made triumph over coked-out adversity story that is probably already written for you if Ron Washington gets the nod.

Does the Manager deserve consideration? Well, here's what we can say about him...and believe us when we tell you that we've softened considerably on him the closer he gets to leaving the dugout for good: We think that The Manager has surrounded himself/been surrounded with an excellent staff, and that he deserves credit for empowering Brian Butterfield, Dwayne Murphy, Pappy Walton, Rick Langford and Omar Malave over the past year. We want to see the Jays bring each and every member of the field coaching staff back next year, and we hope that whoever they name as The Manager's successor will not feel the need to shake up the staff to suit his own needs.

Moreover, we're actually kinda impressed with the degree to which The Manager has shown some flexibility on the lineups, and that we haven't found his bullpen management to be over atrocious. (It took him a while to come around on David Purcey, but he got there in his own time.) Plus, seeing The Manager give as good as he got to Kevin Gregg, making the thin-skinned jar-headed closer's eyes well up and throat tighten in the post-game interviews was something of a highlight, and likely necessary to beat the delusion out of his pitcher's overgrown noggin.

So when you add up all of that faint praise, does the sum equal a Manager of the Year trophy? Probably not. Maybe. Really, who cares?

Friday Rock Out - LCD Soundsystem
Woop woop. Hands in the air. The weekend's here.

Travis Snider's productive rage

It occurs to us that it can't be a barrel of laughs right now for Travis Snider, as he follows along the slooooooooooow rehab process to get back to the Jays. At this point, he's strapped on his gear to play 19 minor league games through this get-well assignment, while only getting 33 big league games before the wrist injury.

We don't want to assume that Travis is playing angry now, because we know that the rosy-cheeked phenom has had to work on controlling the inner rage in the past. But in the last three games, Snider has knocked the snot out of the ball as if it had an impression of The Manager's mug on it. Three homers and 11 RBI later, maybe Sniderman is trying to send a message that he's no longer enjoying his return to Manchester.

And really, can you blame him? We're not pissing on Manchester or New Hampshire, because we're sure that it's totally peachy there. But after breezing through Double-A when he was barely through his teens, and making it all the way to the bigs by 20, it's gotta suck to get optioned back there to put in time while the team calls up Mike McCoy's limp noodle of a bat to fill in here or there.

We're sure the Fisher Cats fans are happy to see the returning hero, but if we were Snider, we'd feel like smashing something every day that we were stuck back there.

Friday Rock Out - Angry Young Man Edition
If we were an angry young man (as opposed to a grumpy old dude), we'd probably listen to something like The Offspring's "All I Want" and glare at everyone all day. Try it for yourself!

Have a great weekend. The Ack is away on assignment, and if Mrs. Tao will get off our ass for five minutes this weekend, we'll do an extra special weekend edition for you.

Friday Rock Out - The Godfather of Soul Edition

Somehow, we always feel like we're imposing our tastes on you kids when we drop some music into the Friday proceedings. But then when we spare you, we get a litany of comments moaning about the absence.

Seriously, people come up to us in person and say "Hey, how come there was no Friday Rock Out?" And we say: "Uh, 'cause. I guess. I dunno." While we crave your attention, respect and interest, it still kinda weirds us out that people other than friends and immediate family read the blog.

(And by the way: If you were in on the liveblog on Tuesday night, we now consider you friends and/or immediate family. So feel free to add us to your wedding invite list...and don't forget that we're crashing on your couch in a couple of weeks.)

The nominal second half of the season kicks off tonight, with a new shortstop and groovy energy. So here's a little something aspirational from James Brown to get you out of your seat and onto your feet, even if you are behind a desk in a high rise. Get up offa that thing, and shake 'till you feel better!

Awkward angry meetings with our exes

We've already wasted too much energy and too much digital ink waxing poetic, philosophic and nostalgic over Roy Halladay. So, on this, the first meeting in which our side faces its former ace in game action, we have one simple thought:

Fuck Doc.

Seriously. Fuck him, and fuck his "30 win season", and his postseason aspirations, and his perfunctory full page ads in the Sun. You wanna wear another team's laundry, then fine...but we hope our guys hammer you all over their borrowed "home field" tonight.

In this post-Halladay era, the supposedly hapless Jays sit at 39-34, four and a half games back in the AL East and the AL Wild Card race. Meanwhile, the unstoppable force that is the 138 million-dollar Phillies, armed to the teeth with Doc and an incomparable offense, sit at 38-32, mid-pack in the NL East. Behind the Mets. We're pretty sure that's the way that you all figured it was going to play out.

Look: We respect all that guy did for our team while he was in Toronto, so we don't wish anything painful or catastrophic upon him. We just want to watch his neck get sore as he's watching moonshots lofted into the Philadelphia skyline tonight.

Friday Rock Out - Sad Bastard Country Ballad Edition
In honour of our continued attempts to put our former ace out of our mind, we offer the greatest of all sad bastard country ballads, captured live on Canada's own Ronnie Prophet Show.

Friday Rock Out - Whitesnkake!!!!1

'Cause we know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.

Have a great weekend, and we'll be back, filling in for the Ack, who will be skulking around the Rogers Centre for the Yankees series. If you see him, buy him a tasty beverage. He's good people.

Welcome FredDotLew to the T-Dot-O

It's probably a pretty clear indicator of the extent to which we are so far gone in terms of our baseball obsession that we are completely geeked out over the Jays' acquisition of Fred Lewis.

Lewis is a guy who struggled to find a full time spot in a big league lineup, and when things went well for him, he managed a little bit of power, a bit more speed and a pretty-good-but-not-otherworldly OPS. And on defense, don't even ask us because we have no idea how to parse through the factors that allow a man to have both a +29.3 and a -59.9 UZR/150, as though some days he's Willie Mays and some days he's Pete Incaviglia.

Maybe this is overly glib, but given the description above, there's a part of us that keeps thinking of Fred Lewis as the Black Reed Johnson. (Although without Johnson's JV girls field hockey running style, which is a big plus.)

Still, this is a pretty snazzy deal for the Jays, who give up pretty much nothing and get a decent player who profiles well as a leadoff guy (.355 career OBP) and who can step into any of the outfield positions in a pinch. His presence immediately send Jeremy Reed back to Vegas, and gives the Jays some additional strength off the bench.

Of course, that's as things stand today. Where this acquisition gets really interesting is in a week or so, when Aaron Hill comes back from the DL. When the music stops at that point, who is left scrambling to find themselves one of the 25 seats? Is it Randy Ruiz, who is getting no love from The Manager anyhow? Does Travis Snider return to Sin City? Does Jo-Bau slide to third, leaving EE without a spot? Does Lyle Overbay get paid to sit at home and explore further adventures in facial hair?

And maybe the most important question that this trade raises: Is Ghostrunner on First's Lloyd the Barber a Savant, a Soothsayer, a Witch or a Double-Agent, sent by Alex Anthopoulos to infiltrate the Jays blogosphere.

FredDotLew is a social media monster
Love the story, as recounted by Big League Stew, of how Lewis broke the news of his trade via his Facebook page. That's so 2007! Lewis is all over the interwebs, so he may end up wresting the mantle of Most Beloved Jay on the Internet from the rehabbing Dirk Hayhurst. The Pinch Runner's Gospels, anyone?


Travis Snider is a lovable dude
Speaking of the Rosy-Cheeked Phenom, his bat flip on his first homer of the year gave us a little jolt of happiness in the depth of our cockles. Pair that up with a beauty of a diving catch, and our belief in Snider grew exponentially last night.

(Although someone might want to teach that kid how to lay out for a ball. We want to pat Snider on the back and tell him: It's cool and all that you're hard as fuck and you're gonna catch that ball no matter what, but landing shoulder first to catch a ball in an April game scares the shit out of us. Land on your chest and belly if you want to hit the turf, mmkay?)

Friday Rock Out - Because you miss them, don't you?
Since we've stopped tossing up random music clips, we get tweets and emails all the time suggesting this band or those guys who should make the cut. But today's selection is just for us: Cracker's "Low". We've been getting nostalgic lately, and this is a hat tip to our angry white boy days, when we'd pull on our torn denim and plaid and our Doc Martens, groom our goatee and get ready to take on the world with an arsenal of sullen looks and post-adolescent sarcasm. Enjoy.

The Closer Carousel makes us dizzy!

The whole idea of the Capital-C Closer role is something that has left us feeling conflicted in recent years.

Sure, we love the iconography of it: The Gunslinger! The Fireman! The Hammer! Mr. Lock-That-Shit-Down! We love the idea of some big, burly guy swaggering out of the bullpen in the ninth with some AC/DC or nu-metal anthem blasting as he loads it up and gets ready to put a final exclamation mark on a Blue Jays win. It's high drama, and great fun. It's the Ghost of Tom Henke, and it haunts us still.

The other side is that we can't entirely understand the whole idea of holding your single best relief pitcher out of the game so that he can continue to accumulate numbers in a mostly meaningless counting stat. If you're about to lose the lead in the seventh inning, we can't quite understand why you'd want to send out some mid-level reliever to get you out of the inning while your best relief guy tilts back in his folding bullpen chair, wiping sunflower seed detritus from his warmup jacket.

It's with this in mind that we consider the whole discussion of the 2010 closer situation.

We read this piece in The Sun this morning, wherein Kevin Gregg asserts his confidence that we will once again reclaim his rightful post as Major League Closer. Such talk makes us think that he needs to get a few opportunities soon before his membership in the Closer's Club lapses, and he's left emasculated by Alec Baldwin when looking to fulfill his daily caffeine requirements.

"Coffee is for closers."

This is where we start feeling anxious about Kevin Gregg stepping to the mound with a one-run lead, and the idea that the Jays are going to hang their hopes on this National League retread makes us really worry about the state of the bullpen.

But then, we set emotion aside and approach this rationally. And we get thinking about it, and we wonder if the Jays aren't better off giving him the role he wants, thereby leaving them with the luxury and the freedom to run Jason Frasor (for our dough, the guy with the best arm/brain ratio in the Blue Jays bullpen) and Scott Downs (who runs like a girl but gets outs when he doesn't hurt himself running) out to the mound in any situation and in any inning.

In a close game, with men on and the Jays in need of an out, we're fine with the notion of leaving Gregg out in the bullpen to clean his goggles and cool his heels while the big boys take care of business.

Even with the lack of a prototypical closer type guy, we're feeling like the Jays' bullpen could be as strong as anyone's this year. At this point, we're at least brave and/or crazy enough to think that we'll trade a few nervous ninth innings for some stability through the rest of the games.

...and finally, a Friday Rock Out memorial
Our favorite Big Star song. Thank you, Alex Chilton.

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

That funky four-hole

If there was one Jay that we felt pretty good about going into next season, it was Adam Lind. There's something about the ease with which he hits the ball hard that makes us think that his performance is the most likely to be repeated.

Some of that easy-breezy feeling just left our being with a big sigh when we read this article from Jordan Bastian on MLB.com, wherein Lind indicates that he'd rather not hit in the cleanup because "There's just something funky about that four-hole." Oh, dear.

What's worse still is that The Manager has also gotten into Lind's head on this. Rather than reassuring Lind that such thoughts are irrational, negative and unconstructive, and assuring the Jays' best hitter that he can do any goddamned thing he wants up there because he's an awesome hitting machine, The Manager has taken to reinforcing the notion:

"If that's in his head, then it's not a good place to put him. We have to find somewhere else to put him."

Would it kill The Manager just to let a little sun shine into his players' worlds? Does he have to feed into their own inherent negativity?

Although his math was askew, Yogi Berra had it right when he said that "ninety percent of this game is half mental." In the early chapters of Dirk Hayhurst's The Bullpen Gospels (which can be pre-ordered right here at Amazon.ca, and will be well worth your while, but more on that later), the Garfoose speaks at length about the debilitating power of his own negative thoughts, and the work that he had to do to battle back against his own self-doubt in order to progress and transcend into a better pitcher. It's a very revealing part of the book, and one that makes us worry a bit about Lind, the guy that we were so sure of.

(Mind you, if we we were making up the lineup, we'd hit Lind third anyhow. But there's probably no good for our own sense of well-being that can come from trying to make sense of The Manager's lineups.)

Friday Rock Out - The Hold Steady
To be honest, we haven't totally figured out what we think of the Hold Steady. But this is as good a rock'n'roll song as we can think of at the moment, so enjoy. Happy Friday, and congrats on making it through your first week of the new decade.

Friday Rock Out: The Clash - London Calling

It was 30 years ago this month that The Clash unleashed the greatest rock 'n' roll album of all time on an unsuspecting public. And three decades later, it still sounds pretty sweet.

Mark December 14 on your calendars as London Calling Day, and blast your eardrums into oblivion for the day. You'll be glad you did.

Your Tom Cheek Reminder
Tom's still hanging tough at the top of the leaderboard of the Facebook Hall of Fame thingy. We're not sure that the group of former honorees are going to give a fadoo.ca about the vote totals on this new-fangled website, but we still kinda think that if Tom walked away with half the internet vote, it would be hard to deny him. So hit the Facebook poll and click until it hurts.

And incidentally: If you run into Bob Uecker anywhere this winter, be sure to put in a good word for Tom to him.

Chill, baby. Chill.

It was something else to see the diversity of reactions to yesterday's signing of Alex (Not Alex) Gonzalez. (Wait a second. Didn't I do this bit yesterday? Nevermind.)

We don't mind the Gonzo signing because we actually think that he can provide plus defense and near league average offense. It might be a step down from what we got from Marco Scutaro last year, but then again, who the hell knows what Scoots would do next year in Toronto?

Sure, it would be nice to have someone who promises huge numbers at short, and third, and catcher, and first, and off the bench. But these days, we're thinking that some fans have to just calm the fuck down over the perceived weaknesses in the lineup. Every lineup if going to end up having its holes, and if Alex Gonzalez ends up as a .700 OPS, plus defender hitting 8th or 9th, it doesn't immediately make this team a 100 loss nightmare.

Cripes, the vaunted '92 Jays had four regulars (Borders, Gruber, Manny Lee and Devo) who posted an OPS under .700, and the offensively monstrous '93 Jays had two regulars (Borders and Sprague) and two players with 200 ABs (Henderson and Darnell Coles) who OPSed under .700. So a few weak spots in the lineup doesn't necessarily mean that the team is headed directly in the crapper.

(Although we still would have rather taken our chances with J.J. Hardy. But that's neither here nor there.)

Okay, fine. We're calling it here: The Jays, as they stand today, are an 83-win team. So stop putting on the poor mouth.

Travis Snider - No free rides, and no second helpings at the buffet
The first thing we thought when we heard Alex Anthopoulos say that Sniderman had to earn his way onto the roster was: "How much weight has he put on this off season?"

The Doctor is in
Big ups to my good friend and fellow blogger Devin on his Ph.D. defense yesterday. (Schelling? Who the hell writes on Schelling?) He's a cool cat and the epitome of a San Francisco Bay Area Liberal, and we love the guy for it. Also, he's an A's fan, which we totally respect. If you're so inclined, his smartypants scribblings can be found over here.

Friday Rock Out - Grandaddy, "Elevate Myself"
And in the new doctor's honour, who else could rock us into the weekend but the pride of Modesto?

We've got these Silver Slugging guys

For all the talk about the core going forward, it's pretty freakin' sweet to have two Silver Sluggers in the middle of the Jays lineup. That's something you can build on.

It's the third time that two Jays win the award in the same year (Carlos Delgado and Vernon Wells in 2003, Delgado and Shawn Green in 1999). Which might mean something.

Things that rhyme
Do you think that it makes Phil Lind, Vice Chairman Rogers Communications, feel good when he hears the names Hill and Lind together? Hill Lind, Phil Lind...Hmmm. We don't know what the hell we're driving at with this. We just want the Rogers execs to feel happy about the team and get off their wallet.

Friday Rock Out - The Rolling Stones' Sway
Because you deserve it. And because this demon life has got us in its sway.

The Rolling Stones Perform 'Sway' Live In Glasgow

The Rolling Stones | MySpace Video

Friday Rock Out - By popular demand

If there's one thing we've come to understand about this blog, it's that you give the people what they want.

Jet!

Speaking of giving the people what they want
We're of the opinion that the news this week that Paul Beeston will take on the President and CEO role for the next three years will actually result in the three things that would make us happiest: A larger budget, new uniforms and a new manager.

With the manager, we get that Beeston is a good pal of Cito's and defended him at the end of the year. But it seems that it is Beeston's nature to calm the waters in those instances. With Beeston working with the "newish" front office, we could see him casting his gaze towards the future, and asking his pal to work as a ceremonial advisor to Anthopoulos and Tony LaCava. Cito really doesn't seem to have any aspirations beyond next year, and he seemed to be getting much less enjoyment out of the position this year than he did in his triumphant return the previous year. (Which is probably a function of winning...but still.)

And by the way: How awesome is it that the Jays retained LaCava? It hasn't been mentioned that much since the reworking of the management team, but it was a pretty important move in our view. Frankly, we could have seen him take over the GM job, but to have him there as the Ant's right hand man let's us sleep a little bit easier at night.

Also, we couldn't imagine that the Beest is going to let the idiotic Godfrey black cap legacy live on beyond the coming season. Even if it means a nostalgic return to the 92-93 era unis, we'd be happy. Anything that helps us ditch the black is a good thing.

Friday Rock Out - Rilo Kiley "Silver Lining"

Rilo Kiley - Silver Lining

Because when things are going lousy, sometimes we just need a little bit of Jenny Lewis in our life. It does a man good.

The Ack is scheduled to be in over the weekend, but unconfirmed reports indicate that he may be drunk and incoherent, and possibly under heavy medication. If you see him anywhere in the Prairies this weekend, be sure to call the number on his collar and send him home safely.

Here's to a series win against the Rays. Cheers.

Friday Rock Out - The White Stripes' Little Bird

In honour of the man who threw down the cash to renovate a number of ballparks for the kids in southwest Detroit, we offer up a vintage bit of the White Stripes to kick off your weekend.

Enjoy, and hope for the best for our little birds (Tothian!) as they take on...well, whoever the hell the Jays play next.

Respect.

Friday Rock Out: Matthew Sweet - "Sick of Myself"

That pretty much covers it.

What can we say. It's been a hella-long season to this point, and as a commenter pointed out yesterday, we've lost it. We're in a bit of a slump. We're waving at the outside junk and getting frozen by anything inside.

Our weight transfer has a hitch in it. We're dropping our hands. We're slow getting to the ball. We're overthinking things up there.

Our footwork's all wrong. We're not reading the ball off the bat. We're not getting down on the ball. We're not following the ball into our glove.

We're opening our shoulder too much. We're elevating the fastball. We've got no control over our breaking stuff. We're nibbling around the edges. We're losing zip on our heater, and our breaking stuff is all flat. We're eminently hittable.

Who knew that watching five-sixths of a season of Blue Jays baseball would provide us with so many perfect analogies to describe the overarching funk in which we find ourselves?

Sorry folks. Next week, we'll be better.

Friday Rock Out: Buffalo Tom - "Tangerine"

"Just a little haiku to say how much I like you." Indeed.

By the time you read this, we will be gone.

On vacation, that is, just for a couple of days.

In the interim, we leave you in the capable hands of the Ack, who may have already posted something this morning, if he could have been bothered. But even if he wasn't...who could blame him these days?

(You can also follow him over on the Twitter by clicking on the link up on the right of this page. Or right here: @TheAck.)

Here's to an enjoyable final weekend of August for all of you and yours. See you in September.

Friday Rock Out - OutKast's "B.O.B."

In honour of its being named the best song of the decade by Pitchfork, we over up this incomparable blast of musical adrenaline to get all of you faithful Blue Jays fans off your back and on your feet.

Uno, dos, tres, it's on: It's the weekend. Have at it.