So much for our road trip to Buffalo

It seemed like such a great idea: the Jays move their Triple A farm team to Buffalo, and baseball fans from all around the Golden Horseshoe could take the short treacherous car ride to see the team's future prospects just across the Peace Bridge. Win-win.

There's just one small problem: The Mets, who are apparently ready to move their shit out of New Orleans and settle in the Paris of Western New York.

Syracuse was in an all-fired rush to sever ties after a 31-year relationship with the Blue Jays because of their extended run of futility. (We're sure that this is somehow J.P. Ricciardi's fault.) Now, the denizens of Onondoga County may now have the pleasure of dealing with the Washington Nationals or the Florida Marlins. Have fun with that.

In spite of Chuck Schumer's song and dance to get the Mets' top affiliate in Syracuse, it looks as though the Mets have decided that the culture shock of moving their prospects from a two-bit one-horse town to the Big Apple could have lasting and palpable affects on the team's prospects.

If not Buffalo, where?
The unfortunate thing about this turn of events for the Jays is that the other cities left open in this game of Minor League Musical Chairs are primarily Pacific Coast League teams. They are:

New Orleans Zephyrs: Had their final series wiped out by Hurricane Ike. And thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers, their home town will likely end up submerged again soon.

Albuquerque Isotopes: That Simpsons joke will be funny for about two more minutes.

Las Vegas 51's: Well, at least we'd know that Bob McCown will be up to speed on the progress of the Jays prospects. The only option with direct flights to Toronto.

We're not crazy about any of those options, and god help us, we'd probably rather go back to Syracuse. Of course, the PCL is an offensive league, so maybe we can get extra excited about some of the future Jays when they start cranking out dingers in the high and dry air of Colorado Springs or Salt Lake.

Of awe-inspiring comebacks and yawn-inducing callups

Comeback kids
For most of this season, a 5-1 deficit in the early innings of a Jays game meant either walking away and getting on with your day/evening, or sticking it out and watching the Jays roll over and play dead.

But in recent weeks, this team has shown the ability to continue to chip away at the lead and swipe it away in the late innings, as exemplified by last night's 7-5 win over the Twins. Maybe it's the warm dry air that's helping some warning track shots turn into home runs, or maybe Cito really does have some sort of mystical effect on this team.

Whatever the case, and no matter how strange this might seem, the team that we the faithful are watching now looks to us like the sort of team that can actually play in a pennant race. They're nine games over .500 since Cito's arrival, so just extrapolate that over a full season. (We know it doesn't really work that way...get off of our cloud.)

There are plenty of people who have been campaigning to blow this whole team to smithereens, from the front office to the field. Watching them hang tough over the past month against the teams ahead of them in the AL standings , we wonder if a tweak or two to the roster wouldn't be enough to put them over the top.

Callups? You call those callups?
Maybe we're paying a little penance for the Jays' having called up The Great Big Giant Pasty White Hope^TM Travis Snider last week, but the callups added to the expanded September rosters yesterday were a little underwhelming and a lot familiar. We were hoping for the future of the franchise to get the call, and instead, we get a bunch of familiar faces. Shaun Marcum, Brian Wolfe, Scott Richmond? Welcome back, fellas. Curtis Thigpen? It's been a while. Brevin Mencherson? Did you guys even leave?

A minor note
Goodbye Syracuse (and good riddance for that matter). Hello Buffalo?

You say goodbye, and we say hello

Goodbye, Jesse
And so it has come to pass. Our favorite round, pink and efficient member of the Jays' starting staff has been sent back to Syracuse to ride the buses and find his stuff again. After a an unbelievable 7-1, 3.18 ERA start to the season, our favorite round mound has been overmatched since the beginning of June (1-6, 6.12 ERA).

We like Lil' Litschy as much as the next guy, but this demotion is probably for the better. The notion that he was ready to be a permanent fixture in the rotation as a 23 year-old was likely a bit overenthusiastic on the part of Jays fans and the front office. Let's hope that Jesse can drop a little poundage with the Chiefs and gets himself back on the right track. Hey, it worked for Roy Halladay once upon a time.

(Incidentally, we don't mean for the weight thing to come off as a cheap shot. Alan Ashby noted on the radiocast the other night that this is a concern for the front office, and that although he had slimmed down before the season, he's packed the weight back on and then some.)

The Jays, in an effort to maintain the all-important Ginger Factor on their 25-man roster, have recalled David Purcey to take a spot in the rotation.

Hello, Ack
Some of our more eagle-eyed readers might have noticed a new name to the list of contributors to the blog.

Since we started the blog about 15 months ago, we've received plenty of inquiries from people wanting to contribute along with us. Usually, we ignore such requests, but occasionally, our advice to anyone wanting to contribute has been as follows:

1) Be desireless
2) Be a commenter
3) Be excellent

Having fully met these requirements, it is our pleasure to introduce The Ack as the new Weekend Editor.

(We're not sure about the title, actually. We were thinking Associate Adjuct Assistant to the Editor, but we'll settle these things before we order any business cards.)

Having demonstrated a keen wit, a sharp tongue and a willingness to agree with us no matter how indefensible our position may be, we believe that The Ack will provide you with the high levels of insight and snark that have become the hallmark of our blog.

Give it up for The Ack, everyone! He'll be here all weekend. Try the veal.

At least one Blue Jay got to start an All-Star Game

Even if Roy Halladay had to wait until the fourth inning to get into the MLB All-Star game, there's a slight amount of solace for us in seeing that Jays farmhand David Purcey got the start for the International League in last night's Triple-A All Star Game in Louisville.

Purcey pitched two strong innings, allowing no hits, no walks, and no runs while striking out three Pacific Coast Leaguers.

Though Purcey's two spot starts for the Jays this season have been something less than spectacular, he continues to pitch well for Syracuse and offers a glimmer of hope that there is something in the back closet for the Jays should the rotation's ranks continue to thin out through injuries and/or trades.

Purcey told a local Syracuse new channel that the experience of being called up has prepared him for his next opportunity with the big club. Moreover, he sounds as though he's maturing in his approach to pitching: "I'm finally starting to realize that I don't have to overthrow every pitch, and that I can stay in a certain range," Purcey told News 10.

If there is one thing that you could accuse Purcey of in his first two starts, it was overthrowing, as he walked 11 in 7.1 inning over those first two starts. Here's hoping that his stated realization translates into a palpably better performance when the next opportunity comes his way.

The Farm Fresh Report

After an ugly series like the one that just finished against Oakland, it's time to cast our eyes to the next generation of Jays, if only to keep ourselves from doing something rash. Like tossing ourselves out the window. (Then again, since we are like all bloggers and writing this from our parents' basement, throwing defenestrating ourselves out and up onto street level isn't a very effective way to deal with our frustrations.)

First, allow us to introduce the experts
You may have seen this posted elsewhere, but we'd be remiss if we didn't tip our retro caps to Dave Rouleau and Marc Hulet for the bang-up job that they are doing with their new electronic magazine Behind the Dish. Blogging for shits and giggles is fun, but the BTD dudes are doing an excellent job of taking on real reportage on the Blue Jays' farm system. You can find the first two issues here, and they are worth your time, especially as we try to determine who is going to get the call to salvage our hopes and dreams for a playoff season. We highly recommend it.

Adam Lind makes his case
Obviously, these are early days, but Adam Lind is flat out raking in the first week-plus of the season. With two homers, nine RsBI and a gaudy 1.259 OPS over the first eight games of the season, one has to wonder how long the Jays can keep him in the 'Cuse.

David Purcey might be a good pitcher
Making the case that he should be the first hurler to get the call when the inevitable pitching staff DL stint arrives, David Purcey has been stellar through his first two starts in Triple-A. In 12 innings, he's struck out 14 (against four walks), allowed two earned runs (for a 1.50 ERA) and is rocking a 1.00 WHIP.

On the other hand
There's that other left hander, Ricky Romero. Sigh. Yeah, sure, it was one bad game at Double-A, but still. Sigh.

Travis Snider can still hit
Three doubles and two homers (and a stolen base!) so far for our Great White Hope.

How are things on the farm?

• Syracuse: 3-5, taking on Rochester and Buffalo next week.
• New Hampshire: 0-6 (yikes), taking on Connecticut and New Britain.
• Dunedin: 6-2 (first place in their division!), taking on Tampa and Clearwater.
• Lansing: 6-1 (first place in their division too!), taking on Cedar Rapids and Burlington.
  

The kids get sent down

It's hardly a surprise that these guys are being reassigned to Syracuse, but the timing of the Jays sending down five guys who had at least remote chances of making the big club caught us off guard. We suppose this means that Gibby is going to take the next two weeks to work on setting up his regular lineup.

Blog favorites Robinson Diaz, Adam Lind and the otherworldly Buck Coats have all been handed the for rent section of the Syracuse Post-Standard and sent on their way. Also optioned: Joe Inglett and Curtis Thigpen. Who, if we're being completely honest, are not our favorites. Sorry! (Wow. We've been watching way too much American Idol for our own good.)

Emotional yo-yoing on the pitching staff
When Casey Janssen went down, we were all cool-like, stating that we weren't worried at all. The Jays were totally set as far as their pitching staff is concerned, right? But seeing Shaun Marcum get his "ears pinned back" (as Wilner so eloquently put it) in yesterday's loss to Cleveland reminds us that the number four and five slots in the rotation are hardly in a set-it-and-forget-it state. We were also a bit discouraged by putative bullpen saviour John Parrish's performance yesterday (3 hits, 2 walks, 2 earned in 2.1 innings). Yeah, we got worries.

Blair sings O Canada
Not-at-all grumpy Globester Jeff Blair has a nice piece on Team Canada, who he notes are not scrappy or gritty, but rather, are talented.

Adam Lind's moment of zen

Yesterday, Adam Lind told the Toronto Star that he was totally cool with the whole idea of getting sent down to Syracuse because there is no room in the outfield for him.

Today, he goes 3 for 4 with a double while the rest of the Jays shat the bed (2 for 28) in a 4-0 fake game loss to the Twins.

We don't want to read too much into Spring Training stats, but if Adam Lind made the big club this year, he'd hit 35 homers and drive in 120. Easily.

His name is Rios and he dances on the sand

What was all this 4-year/$40 million tomfoolery we were spreading last week? That's the last goddamn time we quote the National Post on anything.

We know we're the last to mention this, but Blairsy reported on the weekend that Alex Rios (seen above with noted artificial turf expert David Beckham) is looking for $5.65 million for 2008, whilst the Blue Jays are offering $4.535 million in return.

Obviously, with those sorts of numbers on the table, there's no great impetus for the Jays to break open the bank for the second time in as many seasons on an outfielder. Because it worked so well the first time around, right??

Neate-O Linkage
Out of Left Field's Neate Sager (who is retiring from sports blogging, just as soon as Jay-Z lives up to his retirement announcement) has two great posts up today. The first is an email exchange with the Great Wizard of Brunt, who 'splains hisself for not voting for nobody in this year's Hall of Fame balloting. (And as per usual, Brunt's email was engaging, poignant, and challenging...we bet that dude's post-it notes and grocery lists are better than our blog posts.)

The other is a takedown of an Ottawa Pet Trainer Citizen columnist who is perpetuating the myth that the Jays' AAA franchise has an icicle's chance in hell of moving to the Nation's capital next year.

Now, we'll admit that we've advocated for this in the past, and we'd love to see the Jays set up their AAA shop in Ottawa. But as Neate astutely points out, that would only work if Rogers were willing to cough up the cash to buy the International League franchise, move it to Bytown and eat the losses. That becomes much less likely when you consider that the very successful AAA franchise in Buffalo will likely need a dancing partner in 2009, and the Buffalo market would be as attractive (if not more so) than Ottawa to the pointy heads at Uncle Ted's Inc..

There's an argument to be made that moving a Blue Jays affiliate to Ottawa would work. (A New York Penn League team, perhaps.) But unless there's someone in the International League that is looking to unload a franchise - and remember that there was a franchise to be had on the cheap in Ottawa for the past five years! - there's no chance that the "Ottawa Blue Jays" will ever take the field on Coventry Road. No matter what sort of facile spin the crayon-eaters at the Citizen and the Sun try to put on it.

The Road to Third Place Is Paved With Catchers of the Future

We've got catchers on the brain today, what with the to and fro regarding whether if J.P. said he was going to look for a backup catcher in the coming weeks. (The Nat Post says yes, as mentioned in the comments from yesterday, but Jon Hale says J.P. said no such thing. And that the Post is full of shit.)

You have to think that this team doesn't see Gregg "Let me write you a cheque for that" Zaun and Sal Fasano as the long term answers behind the plate. Both are getting older, and let's be honest: Fasano's offensive prowess lingers somewhere around the Huckaby level.

There are options on the way, with both Curtis Thigpen and Robinson Diaz on the horizon. But having watched both youngsters last year, we don't get that "ready-for-prime-time" vibe off of either of them.

The same said Mr. Hale has also posted a link on his Mockingbird (Let's! Get! Mocking!^TM) blog to the Jays' non-roster Spring Training invitees, Among the catchers showing up in Dunedin (if only to catch soft-tosses) are 2007 first-rounder J.P. Arencibia (pictured above), Pal Sal, and Brian Jeroloman, a walks machine who posted a .421 OBP in the Florida State League last year.

There's catchers everywhere you look...so why are we still worried? Likely because we've seen one too many Jays Catcher of the Future turn to dust as soon as they get the call to come north. It's almost uncanny. (Maybe Ernie Whitt's sabotaging these up comers as a part of his evil plan to make Blue Jays fans eternally nostalgic for his squatting prowess and his extreme pull uppercut swing.)

The Graveyard of Catching Dreams
Check out the roster of the 2002 Syracuse SkyChiefs, which is a veritable smorgasbord of lost souls when it comes to the Jays future backstops: Josh Phelps? Check. Kevin Cash? Check. Jason Werth? Guillermo Quiroz? Joe Lawrence? Check, check, check. They may not have projected to be stars, but they were all supposed to be full-time Major League catchers at the very least.

(And Ken Huckaby is in there too, even if he was never a prospect to do anything more than separate Derek Jeter's shoulder.)

In the end, two of them (Werth and Lawrence) switched positions and never caught a game in the bigs, while Phelps caught four games this year. It was the first time in six seasons that he donned the tools of ignorance, but we suppose that when you're a marginal player on the Pirates, you do what you gotta do.

Guillermo Quiroz and Kevin Cash are now both doing the organizational two-step, hopping from one team to another. Cash did manage to land in Boston when the music stopped last year, just in time to bask in some of the refracted glow of the Sox' World Series glory.

So who's laughing now?

Happy Freaking Hangover! Welcome to 2008!

Ouch. Is it 2008 already? Maybe it was the Chicken Bone shots (Fireball and chocolate syrup...ganongy!), but we're having a hard time coming to grips with the transition into the New Year. You'll hve to excuse us if we sign our posts with 2007 for the next few days.

No news is...well, it's no news
While it's been a while since the last post, we have been combing around looking for something resembling news to comment on. Mostly, we're seeing a ton of year in review stories (yawn), pontification on Mitchell (blergh) and news about Canseco's sequel (ugh). We just can't get that interested.

Reaching all the way to Guam for anything resembling news
Pacific News Daily has brief on John Hattig, the corpulent Jays farmhand who in 2006 became the first player from Guam to get the call to the bigs. As you would expect, the hometown press is nicey-nice about why Hattig spent the year in Syracuse, and why he was removed from the 40 man roster. We, on the other hand, can tell you that from seeing Hattig play seven or eight times this year that he's fat, slow, and swings at just about anything thrown between first and third and the earth and the stars, and is a lousy fielder at either first or third. Still, you gotta root for the guy, don't you?

Great off-season blogging

• Tip of la casquette to the Fan 590's Mike Wilner, who shrugged off the MSG headache and dug into the mailbag on Christmas Day. Wilner, as ever, gave rational, thoughtful responses to questions...we're looking forward to seeing his blog in the mix in 2008, even if he does have a bit of a man-crush on John McDonald.
• The Drunk Jays Fans shamed us into getting off our fat duff with two monumental posts over the holidays. We're talking two posts of Brattainian length, covering a full breadth of topics, from the Doors to drunken meandering on empty Christmas streets. We laughed, we cried.

Wii Baseball News
While we spent a good part of the holidays getting our ass handed to us at Wii Sports by blog co-conspirator Shortwaveboy, we managed to avoid any nastiness like you see below.



(Thanks to Home Run Derby for the video)

Happy New Year!

Minor League Musical Chairs

There’s some chatter coming from Syracuse (specifically, the Post-Standard’s Matt Michael) that they’ve had enough of their affiliation with the Blue Jays, and their tradition of losing AAA teams. Moreover, they are salivating at the possibility of hooking up with the Mets for the 2009 season.

The Jays’ two-year deal with Syracuse expires after next season, and there will be a brief window in September when MLB teams and minor league cities can renegotiate their affiliation agreements. While many clubs have maintained their affiliations for decades, there has been a significantly higher degree of turnover in these agreements as of late. In 2007 alone, the Phillies, Yankees, and Mets all severed ties with their longtime AAA cities (Scranton, Columbus and Norfolk, respectively).

According the Post-Standard’s report, cities in play for 2009 may include Columbus (Washington), Buffalo (Cleveland), New Orleans (Mets), Rochester (Minnesota), Indianapolis (Pittsburgh), and Syracuse.

Obviously, the best fit out of those cities for the Jays would be Buffalo, but given the long-term success that the Bisons have had in that market, they might not want to hitch their wagons to a franchise which has produced 22 losing AAA seasons over their 30 year history.

If the music stops and the Jays are stuck with New Orleans in 2009, it would be nothing short of disastrous. A move to the Pacific Coast League would leave Jays prospects without exposure to their chief rivals’ prospects, and the expense and inconvenience of shipping players back and forth between New Hampshire, New Orleans and Toronto would be significant.

Then again, there is a AAA-level ballpark in a city with dozens of flights between it and Toronto that may well be vacant in 2009. Right Carl?

Hey A.J.! How's the arm?

That's what a drunken superfan yelled out at Jays' pitcher A.J. Burnett in the fifth inning of his rehab start for the Syracuse Chiefs in Ottawa versus the Lynx.

A.J., ever the yuckster, gave the heckler the thumbs up.

Burnett looked very good against a poor AAA lineup, giving up three hits and one run, while striking out seven in five innings in the Chiefs 5-4, 14 inning win. His curve ball was moving, and he seemed to have full velocity on the fastball.

Noticed this weekend
For one reason or another, Adam Lind stayed nailed to the bench all weekend. We haven't found his name on the minor league DL, although that info isn't always available. Lind hasn't played since July 29.

Meanwhile, with the Big Club
As we headed into the this week's Jays-Yankees series, our thoughts turned briefly to A-Rod and his "mine" or "ha!" tomfollies, perhaps because of Howie Clark's recent designation for assignment. We were wondering if it is way too late to throw at him, at least even just once? Wouldn't you know, Lil Litschy throws behind Rodriguez in the second inning of the Jays' 5-4 loss to the Evil Empire. Somehow, it all was way less than we would have hoped for.

An ongoing concern
Troy Glaus' season continues to spiral downward. Glaus's last homer was July 22 in Minny, and since then, the big guy has four hits (in 44 at bats). He also hasn't had multiple hits in a game since hitting two singles against Seattle.

Welcome back to our good graces, Frank

Maybe sitting through those games in Tampa stirred something in Frank Thomas, who with two homers and four RsBI today, has so far driven in six runs in this series.

Johnny Mac added three RsBI his own self in Toronto's 9-5 win.

We're complete ecstatic about this, but we'd still like to see some production on the road for the rest of the season.

Meanwhile, down on the farm
Veteran minor-leaguer Jeremy Cummings looked lights out for the Chiefs in their 7-3 win over the Ottawa Lynx. since opting out of his AAA contract with the Twins, Cummings is 2-1 with a 2.64 ERA and 27 Ks versus 12 BBs. Of course, there is very little chance that we'll see him with the big club anytime soon, since he's likely been labeled a "AAAA"-type player.

Also impressive were Robinson Diaz, who looks as though he'll push Curtis Thigpen for the back-up job next year. Sergio Santos drove in two, but also made an error. He looks to us like a guy who may be more suited to play third or even a Jeff Kent-like second, but maybe that's just his height that is crossing us up.

Is this sadly weird, or weirdly sad?
Howie Clark got the DFA routine on Friday to make room for Hector Luna. Luna's never struck us as much more than a National League bench guy, but he is versatile, and may be worth the flyer. Still, we're hoping that Clark slips through waivers and sticks in the Jays' system.

Well, mash our 'taters

It's a win! With runs! And they're driven in by Frank Thomas!

And yet again, Doc gets a win in a game where he (at least from what we've zipped through on the DVR) didn't seem to have his absolute best stuff.

Meanwhile, in our Nation's Capital
Fortunately, we've become immune to lousy offensive performances, otherwise, the next-generation Jays from Syracuse would have driven us nuts with their 5-0 loss to the Lynx. The Chiefs managed just three hits (two in the ninth inning) off of, oh, let's call him random prospect number 21. (Okay, it was J.A. Happ. But we had to look it up.)

Speaking of the letters "J" and "A", A.J.'s appearance in Ottawa has been confirmed.

Working over time
Just a reminder that we'll be doing some extra work over at Neate Sager's Out of Left Field blog while he's off on vacation. We'll probably be "repurposing" some material from here, but with a whole fresh twist. Also, we keep threatening to talk about hockey, but then we remember that trying to have a reasoned discussion about hockey with puckheads is kinda like trying to have an honest discourse on sophistry in Plato's Gorgias with an attacking grizzly bear. It's probably just better to get outta there while you can.

Fun on the Farm...woo woo!

It's not that we're giving up on the big club's season. At least, not as much as some of the Jays players seem to have. (Zing!)

But with the Syracuse Chiefs pulling into the capital over this fine long weekend, we'll be taking in the full series. If only so that we can mercilessly heckle Russ Adams.

All kidding aside, this is (for once) an intriguing Chiefs club that will be coming to town, with several actual real live prospects in the lineup. With Royce Clayton's recent DFA (or is that PFO?), the Jays have promoted Sergio Santos to AAA just in time for the weekend series against the Lynx. Santos tore up the AA Eastern League this year (17 HRs, 55 RsBI, .814 OPS), so it will be intriguing to see what the future holds for the former first round pick of Arizona, who came to the Jays in the Troy Glaus deal.

Also, while we love Sal Fasano as much as the next dude, we're looking forward to seeing Robinson Diaz catch. Also a recent callup from AA, the 23 year-old Diaz is (excuse the trite phrase) the "catcher of the future" for the Jays, and has hit well for average thus far.

Finally, it is at least plausible that everybody's favorite chili racer, A.J. Burnett, will jet in on Monday for a rehab start. No word on if his wife will hop in a Town Car for one of her dozen or so contractually mandated limo rides to offer moral support.

Oh yeah: Halladay versus Millwood. Can we get a "woop woop".

A little help, please!

When you're searching for any sort of good news, sometimes you wind up appreciating the small mercies more than you should.

Having said that, John Thomson makes his second rehab start for Syracuse this afternoon in Indianapolis, after going 5.2 innings with 2 hits and 1 run on May 3. And if you are willing to shell out $3.95, you can watch the game on MiLB.com.

It's amazingly sad how invested we are in the outcome of this game.

UPDATE, 2:47 pm: For reason's we have yet to deduce, Thomson ain't pitching today. Hmm...