Blue Jays Twitter Power Rankings - Second Half Edition!

It's been a while since we sorted the social media output of the fellas on the Jays' active roster, so we figured it was about time to reassess and re-rank the lot of them. Who's had a late season surge, and who's lapsed into late season doldrums? And more importantly: Who doesn't love Power Rankings? Noooo-body!

(Wow. Lastman's Bad Boy reference just fell out of nowhere there. I need coffee.)

1. J.P. Arencibia (@jparencibia9) - Followers: 40,017; Last Rank: 1
All hail the Jays' King of the Thumbs! Hangs onto the top spot through a combination of persistence (1,571 total tweets), and newsworthiness (his tweets provided go to quotes in the midst of the sign stealing story.) Creator of new and amusing hashtags (#bestslumpbuster,#awaybutfeltlikehome, #clown.) Provides frequent Family Feud and CMT Mornings updates. Authoritative source on all that is #pro.

2. Brandon Morrow (@2Morrow23) - Followers: 23,339; Last Rank: 2
Made valiant run at the top spot with post-start tweet jamboree last night. Apologized to player he beaned in the game. Seems quietly funny. ("Jersey Shore time with @LilyMorrow21...the fist pumping should help me get loose for tomorrow!") Squints-tribute ringleader. Only Blue Jay currently following yours truly.

3. Ricky Romero (@RickyRo24) - Followers: 42,243; Last Rank: 4
Earnest tweeter. If there were an emoticon for towel-waving-rah-rah-let's-go-boys! (and there should be), he'd use it often. Frequent straight man to Arencibia's monkeyshines. Far too generous with shout-outs and RTs.

4. Mark Teahen (@ESPY_TEAHEN) - Followers: 15,480; Last Rank: Unranked
New Jay now leads the team in career tweets with 1,810. Active and funny. ("Baseball from a ballgame is a souvenir forever but so are the shame & embarrassment that come with sprinting tackling & diving 2 retrieve it.") Answers a fair number of tweeted questions, and asks for local advice from followers. Set up account for his dog, but stole it back for himself. Vaguely Canadian.

5. José Bautista (@JoeyBats19) - Followers: 113,265; Last Rank: 5
Bilingual tweeter. Has taken up the food-obsessed #FEASTMODE slack from the demoted Lunchbox. Good source for Jays travel news. Ringleader. Cajoled other Jays into the Twitterverse. Unremittingly positive. Él no necesita un hombre con una camisa blanca.

6. Brett Lawrie (@blawrie13) - Followers: 31,994; Last Rank: 7
Wooo! Lots of emphatic exclamation! As pumped on his mobile device as he is in the dugout. Lots of strong high-fives for teammates. Presumably spikes his phone after particularly awesome tweet. Awful grammar and spelling.

7. Jesse Litsch (@JesseLitsch) - Followers: 19,627; Last Rank: 8
Strong Twitter showing, though emo fits threatening to quit downgrade him at least one slot. Generally, leans towards the inspirational. Still has the problem with the run-on sentences sometimes never place for commas or a second sentence too much to say alright lets do this!

8. José Molina (@Joeycatch8) - Followers: 7,566; Last Rank: Unranked
Probably much better than we realize, but is primarily in Spanish. Google Translate doesn't seem to do it justice. Loves his brother. A Twitter account to watch in the coming months.

9. Edwin Encarnacion (@Encadwin) - Followers: 7,168; Last Rank: Unranked
Just getting started. Account is as quiet and reserved as the man himself.

Deactivated List - Brett Cecil: Sadly, Squints isn't sharing his thoughts anymore. Something about a virus.

In the Minors - Travis Snider (@Lunchboxhero45): Will jump back towards the top of the list when he returns in September. Still enjoying meats.

On the Rise - Many Jays minor leaguers are frequent tweeters, and worth a follow, if only to realize how long their bus rides are. They include: Deck McGuire (@deckmcguire), Chad Jenkins (@Jenknutz), Justin Jackson (@JaxChillinONE), Daniel Norris (@DanielNorris18), Mike McDade (@MacDizzleMan), and Drew Hutchinson (@1DrewHutch), just to name a few.

Blue Jays Twitter Power Rankings!

It's not that we're bereft of actual baseball stuff to discuss. We've just wanted to do this for months now, and we'd prefer not to discuss Hawk Harrelson or John Danks, or whether if the One Man Gang could stand to chill in the middle of a blow out. (Though others might wish to go there.)

We'll note that unlike some others we know, we do not have a proprietary system which helps to analyze the influence and reach of each of these accounts. We're pretty much shooting from the hip. (Though we'd guess that we're smarter than your algorithm anyhow.)

Let's rank 'em up!

1. J.P. Arencibia (@jparencibia9) - Followers: 24,481 ; Following: 69

The Lowdown: Crown Prince of Blue Jays tweeters. Originator of the #beastmode hashtag. Instigator of Twitter tomfoolery. Not above commenting on the issues of the day (such as they are.) Uses the tool as it was supposed to be used. Seems like a genuinely fun guy. Asks followers for helpful advice on living in Toronto, Canada.

Will he follow you? Are you a hot chick?

Will he RT me? Maybe. Helps if you are a hot chick. Or if it involves children loving baseball.

Worth a follow? Absolutely. Above all others.

2. Brandon Morrow (@2Morrow23) - Followers: 12,681 ; Following: 35

The Lowdown: Literate, and legitimately witty. Creates anagrams just for fun. Doesn't tweet often, but is often re-tweetable. Ongoing dialogue between he and his wife (@lilymorrow21) is amusing, like the best episodes of Mad About You. (Okay, probably better than that. And there is a dog involved.)

Will he follow you? Probably not. Unless you are a teammate, baseball writer or a purveyor of hilarious comedy music video madness.

Will he RT me? Are you his teammate?

Worth a follow? Yes. But expect quality as opposed to quantity.

3. Travis Snider (@Lunchboxhero45) Followers: 20,273 ; Following: 74

The Lowdown: Early season Twitter MVP. Trip to Las Vegas slowed down tweeting output. Still has significant Twitter upside. Fully embraced #MeatsDontClash meme, and made it his own. Seems like a genuinely cool guy.

Will he follow you? Not likely. Sticks to circle of Jays, friends of Jays and other big leaguers.

Will he RT me? Yes, for a good cause.

Worth a follow? Yes, though his absence from the twitosphere may give you some sadness.

4. Ricky Romero (@RickyRo24) - Followers: 25,144 ; Following: 51

The Lowdown: That "Los Fearless" Nike ad he did? That's pretty much what you can expect from RickRo's tweets: Intensely inspirational. Pumps up teammates with #beastmode or #HustleandHeart hashtags.

Will he follow you? Are you the reigning Miss USA?

Will he RT me? Yes. Just ask for an RT for whatever reason, and he's happy to oblige.

Worth a follow? Sure. Just prepare yourself for the sad spectacle of people dumber than you begging for RTs.

5. José Bautista (@JoeyBats19) - Followers: 30,295 ; Following: 48

The Lowdown: Enthusiastic!! Enjoys the use of exclamation!!

Will he follow you? You should know better by now.

Will he RT me? No. And he's a better man for it.

Worth a follow? Who are we kidding. Of course you are following him already.

6. Brett Cecil (@CEC0208) - Followers: 13,298 ; Following: 71

The Lowdown: Happy (though homesick) dad. Enthusiastic Washington Capitals fan. Provides honest self-criticism following games. Occasionally takes on idiot trolls.

Will he follow you? Perhaps if you don't mind letting him beat you at NHL 11.

Will he RT me? Nope. Go beg for RTs from those prats from Glee.

Worth a follow? Sure.

7. Brett Lawrie (@blawrie13) - Followers: 8,392 ; Following: 14

The Lowdown: Dude. Party time. Excellent. Less interesting than his sister's tweets, though fewer emo moments as well.

Will he follow you? We're not sure he knows how.

Will he RT me? What's an RT?

Worth a follow? You can probably wait until he gets his promotion.

8. Jesse Litsch (@JesseLitsch) - Followers: 13,745 ; Following: 81

The Lowdown: Happy to be hear sometimes he uses words funny and run on sentences and stuff alright.

Will he follow you? As likely as anyone to do so. Helps if you're a chick. (Hotness not as much a concern.)

Will he RT me? Are you the MLBPA?

Worth a follow? He's agile like a kitty! How could you not?

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We suppose we could have added a few other minor leaguers to this list (@jakemarisnick for instance), but we're reasonably certain that you've already stopped reading by now. And if you have stuck it through to the finish: Hey there! Happy Monday, y'all!

In lieu of thoughts, 10 random tweetable whims

We'd prefer not to put too much more thought into last night's game. We're not even going to repeat the score or the details, because such a thing will only help the thought to take purchase in the soil of our mind. And so, we forget.

In lieu of any day after gnashing of teeth, we offer up 10 brief and random notions on the season thus far. We do this also because since we been on the Twitter, we can no longer shape or develop any cogent argument in a paragraph. We can only hint at the possibility of one in 140 characters.

(All hail Twitter: The End of Thought, The Triumph of Whims!)

1. We'd given up on Casey Janssen, but he now looks like he could throw a pitch past someone if he needed to.

2. Randy Ruiz is a big dude, but he can run the bases with fury if he needs to.

3. We like seeing Adam Lind in the field. It reminds us that he's going to play there when the Jays make it to the World Series.

4. Overbay complained in '09 about not getting regular playing time. We hope he's enjoying his 2010 so far. We're not. So far.

5. Kevin Gregg just looks like a closer. Like a big, jarheaded nasty shut-the-door closer. And that appeals to some part of us.

6. Frasor is about eight inches shorter than Gregg, but still throws harder. It just doesn't seem that way.

7. Ruiz has now scored more runs than Aaron Hill. And not in the good way we might have imagined before the season.

8. Hamstring injuries scare the shit out of us. We remember the first time Vernon pulled up lame with one.

9. A sign that this might be more than a hot start: In addition to his improved swing, Vernon is letting pitches off the plate go for balls.

10. The 51s are 6-1 so far. And Brad Mills' line looks like this: 2-0, 0.79 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 18 Ks, 1 BB.

A lot can happen in a meaningless game

Maybe it will make us look as tone deaf and overly earnest as a Rattle and Hum era Bono, but we wore out the floorboards, pacing through last night's thriller of an 8-7 win over the Red Sox.

Yeah, yeah. We should have perfected our disaffected pose by now, and we should have signed off on the season long ago. But when you check out and declare that you've given up on the team, you might just miss something special.

Like a troika of homers from Adam Lind. And José Bautista still killing it. And Kevin Millar turning a 6-5-3 double play. And six total homers for the good guys. And the bullpen handing back the lead. And Jonathan Papelbon reconfirming what an unmitigated douche he is. ("My bad", my ass!) And the Sausage King locking down the win and getting Kevin Youkilis on a called third strike that umpires would usually give to any Sox player in Fenway.

Some people get too wrapped up in whether if the game they are watching is "meaningful". (Ultimately, aren't they all kinda meaningless?)

But the great thing about baseball is that every day, there's a new game. It's always something new, and it's the greatest game there is. That might not mean anything to you, but it means something to us.

The Crux of our Tweets
We've been getting exceedingly argumentative over on the Twitter lately. Not sure what's up with that. But suddenly, we find ourselves unable to avoid engaging in verbal parries and thrusts, 140 characters at a time.

Here's the gist of what we were bitching about last night:

• We like José Bautista. Especially as a super sub who's the 24th or 25th guy on the roster. And we don't discount his seven homers and 15 RsBI and .932 OPS just because it's September. With regular playing time, he's gotten better.
• We think Adam Lind deserves some consideration for the MVP. Not ahead of Joe Mauer or anything, but maybe further down the ballot. But with his offensive explosion last night, Lind's offensive numbers are on par with Kendry Morales, who's been third or fourth on our ballot for the past few months.
• You don't hit a guy just to hit a guy back. Who do you think you are? Gary Roberts or some other jerk-off fake tough guy? You've got a one-run lead. You gotta protect that. Because moral victories come and go, but actual victories stay in the Win column forever.

If you're interested in watching us go on with this while Polyannaish routine and argue with people for the sake of it, follow us over at twitter.com/taoofstieb.

Never mind reasonable expectations. It's Brett Cecil!!!

And here we were, trying to be all reasonable and shit about Brett Cecil's first big league start. With less than an hour to go until first pitch, we're starting to lose it completely. We're pacing around the office and looking like a mad man. Strangely, the co-workers haven't noticed the difference.

We may take a long lunch today and see if we can sneak in at least the first half of the game somewhere, although we guessing that finding a bar with the game playing will be something akin to Diogenes' search for an honest man.

Points of reference
Dustin McGowan came up in a pretty similar situation in 2005 in his first start. In his July 30 debut against the Texas Rangers, McGowan went five innings, giving up one run and two hits while striking out six and walking three. That sort of start from Cecil would be more than welcome.

RTing ourselves
Mentioned this on our Twitter thingy, but for the sake of those of you not so inclined to follow our brain farts over there: Travis Snider, since his two homer game in Minny: .495 OPS, .254 OBP, .241(!!!) SLG. The Pasty White Hope is pressing.

UPDATE! Postgame madness!!
Jays win! Pennant!!!1

Seriously, that was totally frickin' epic. We're going to towel ourselves off.

For the next 30 days, Vernon Wells is gonzo, Alonzo.

Jordan Bastian tweets that Vernon Wells is out for a month with a hamstring thingy.

So we guess it's a good thing that he was doing all that gettin' in shape jive in the offseason.

But on the plus side, our misery began just minutes after it was announced...thanks Web 2.0 revolution!

More to come Update: Blair promises more to come on this...and he delivers. (Ain't it great to have Blairsy back on the Jays beat?)

Snappy notes that the injury has created some usefulness for José Bautista, who will get time in centre while Vernon recovers. Snider will play in both left and right, and Vernon might DH to start the season.

Is it too early on a Monday to go for a drink?