Because there's precious little out of which we could make a full blog post, here's a few randoms notions which have yet to be formed into an actual idea. (We might not even punctuate this stuff by the end.)Caravana!
So the consensus is that everyone is just so goddamned gleeful that that Jays have pulled a few of their players into the chilly north to go talk with the fans hither and yon across the country. And ain't it just darned swell that they've gone back to the olden timey days when they did this, and everyone got to know and love Ernie Whitt, and AWWWWW SHUCKS!
Don't get us wrong here: We're not really begrudging this marketing, promotion and PR blitz in the middle of the winter. But we also don't necessarily feel like the Jays owed us this sort of interaction, nor do we think that it is going to seriously move the needle on fan support this year. It's not to say that you don't do it, but winning is the primary thing that is going to get the team to a point where they're playing to something more than a half empty (HALF FULL!) Rogers Centre this year.
Anthony Gose invades my soul
With a lot of empty space to fill up the spot in our brain that obsesses over the Jays, we've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about Anthony Gose this month. The man who came to the Jays in the Brett Wallace trade (which we'll freely admit sent us into paroxysms of rage) seems to sit out there in the ether, like some distant treasure of unknown power and value that we'll only possess after a long an arduous journey.
(Note to self: Avert your eyes next time you see Lord of the Rings on TV. For Frodo's sake.)
The stats that Gose put up this year are pretty difficult to translate into any sort of tangible conception of his future major league performance, though we'll continue to spin the tale about how he had similar numbers to Carl Crawford at a similar age and level.
Lacking anything more concrete than that, we just go and watch this video of him on YouTube and admire the cut of his jib. (Maybe too much.) High socks! No batting gloves! Willie Mays' number!
We're reasonably certain that our Gose fixation is going to turn into a daily scramble towards the boxscores at...well wherever he ends up this year. (Dunedin? New Hampshire?)
Octavio, reconsidered
Maybe it was some Pollyanna notion that we had that, all things considered, Octavio Dotel wasn't a bad pickup and could close for the time being for this team. But the longer we think about his crappy numbers against lefties, and his propensity to give up the long ball, the more that we realize that this is an arm that was never meant to pitch high leverage innings in the American League East.
Sure, Kevin Gregg tried to throw around batters all year, with varying results. But the notion of Dotel pitching to Big Papi in Fenway or Mark Teixeira or Robinson Cano in Yankee Stadium gives us the shivers. It's made us unusually eager to see Brian Fuentes get signed, posthaste.
(Then again, we also have this notion that the Sausage King is going to end up closing this year anyways, so what's the big deal?)
