Thursday Bantering and Game Thread
by Tom Dakers on Mar 11, 2010 11:04 AM EST
in Game Threads
102 comments
I'm busy this morning so putting up the game thread early, might be back around game time.
The Jays are busing down to Port Charlotte to play the Rays. Shawn Marcum and Brad Mills are too pitch for the Jays. Mike Wilner points out that Marcum is all lined up to be the opening day starter if things continue as they are. Ricky Romero would be in the game 2 spot and they are moving Brandon Morrow next start to Sunday to put him in line for the 3rd game. There is a little ways to go yet, lots could happen.
Today's lineup:
Gathright CF
Hoffpauir 3B
Wallace DH
Ruiz 1B
Lubanski LF
Padilla RF
Emaus 2B
McDonald SS
Molina C
Nice to see Ruiz playing first. We talked in yesterday's game thread about Cito saying Lyle Overbay would play everyday. I'm choosing to not to believe that. Last year Cito platooned him and he didn't have as good a choice for platoon partner as Randy Ruiz would be. If Overbay plays everyday and Lind is DH everyday there wouldn't be a real role for Ruiz. Pinch hitter, I guess. Overbay doesn't hit lefties at all. Like Hugo said, John McDonald would be a better choice against lefties. I know Cito doesn't like to platoon but I can't imagine that he won't in this case.
Lind hasn't played in the field yet this spring. I'd like him to play out there some, he's too young to only DH.
I'm not sure when we should start worrying that Encarnacion won't be ready to start the season. We still have 3 weeks until opening day. Batters don't need a month to get ready for the season, 2 weeks should be plenty, hopefully he'll be ready to play in the next week.
We still have 29 pitchers in camp. It would be hard to get innings for all those guys. I don't think we've seen Sean Henn yet or Casey Fien. I'd imagine neither would make the team. I only remember seeing Janssen, Camp, Carlson or Roenicke in a game once each, though they may have pitched in one of the B games. I'd think that we'll see a large number of pitchers sent to the minor league camp in the next few days.
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It is nice to see Mills pitching. Why did they send Ray down so early?
I thought Ray would be a long shot candidate, but I thought he would at least get a shot.
I thought Ray would get a couple more looks
but then they have way too many arms in camp so some have to go down.
We still have 3 weeks until opening day
YAY!
"I've only been in love with a beer bottle and a mirror" - Sid Vicious.
by craig in calgary on Mar 11, 2010 11:29 AM EST reply actions
http://mlbastian.mlblogs.com/archives/2010/03/notes_from_game_7_and_b_game.html
The Travel Squad section
Ball.
I guess its too expensive to produce a Jays game vs picking a Yanks game up off the satellite
Still you would think that RSN would be showing more then one ST game to get people out to the ball park this year.
I just find it sad that RSN can have a trade deadline show the whole day for NHL. but can’t show a ST game FOR THE TEAM THAT THEY OWN!!
The only thing they'd like less than owning the Jays
is not owning them.
They're not just hitting home runs. They're doing the little things, like hitting doubles.
The cost of sending a team down there to produce a game and then show it in the afternoon on a weekday is probably not much greater than any revenue it would generate, and I would seriously doubt it would be anywhere near as profitable as just buying the rights to other programming (such as poker) and showing that. The thing is, baseball has a 162 game schedule. If seeing a game on TV is going to be enough to impact your decision to go to a game or not, than Rogers knows there is a pretty good chance if you own a TV you’ll flip past a baseball game at SOME point this season.
Lets be honest, showing ST games has nothing to do with marketing to non-fans, they have 162 opportunities to do that. It’s 100% about the hardcore fans, b/c those are the people who want to watch the ST games. We can sit here and suggest it would draw attention to the game, but realistically with 162 games to watch this year to suggest and extra couple of games makes a difference is a bit of a stretch. As a Jays fan who WOULD watch ST games, I’d love for RSN to show them. But from a business perspective, it’s a money losing idea for sure.
I thought they would do a couple of spring games just to get Buck up to speed.
I’d bet that he is calling the game for practice now anyway.
the fan base is pretty much all hardcore fans anyways. The casual fan stopped paying attention years ago.
Seeing as the hardcore base is all they have right now, they should be showing ST games cuz thats what the fan base wants.
My point was that if they used 25% of the NHL budget to show some ST games for the team you own, you might get those casual fans back.
Oh and you cant be sure that everyone gets RSN.
“My point was that if they used 25% of the NHL budget to show some ST games for the team you own, you might get those casual fans back.”
Okay, and I strongly disagree with that point. The reason being it’s a 162 game season. Showing and extra 2,3 … even 5 games just isn’t a huge impact, think about it. Your argument is much stronger if this was, say the NFL, where the season is short and 1 extra game is potentially a big deal. But to say that 162 games isn’t enough to attract someone, but if we could just get another 3 or 4 games on tv that will hook them … really? I mean you have to separate what you want as a fan (too see as much Jays as possible) from this argument, it just doesn’t add up to say 3 or 4 extra games is going to attract fans, or at least to attract enough fans to justify the cost.
So again, do I want the games on TV: absolutely. Does it make business sense to Rogers? I don’t see it.
showing your team as many times as you can will draw fans. NOT showing your team wont.
Saying that showing an extra 5 games doesn’t matter is a fail. RSN dos not even show all 162 games anyways. They dont want people to watch on TV they want them at the skydome spending money. People just wont show up going " I have no clue who is on this team. hey lets spend $200 and goto the game."
Aaaand
RSN sells off or just plain doesn’t cover a bunch of high profile games (How many times were you watching them play NY on TSN last season?)
Ball.
It has to do with your point...
Lets be honest, showing ST games has nothing to do with marketing to non-fans, they have 162 opportunities to do that.
Except they don’t take those opportunities, and it’s stupid. Giving away the high profile games has nothing to do with drawing casual fans. Showing all the rest of the games against lower-interest teams is all about appealing to the hardcore fans. So why not do it with ST as well.
Ball.
I don’t quite get what you’re saying here, maybe I missed something. How is selling off the games to TSN bad for the Jays? I can see how it’s potentially bad for RSN, but I’m not sure why it’s really bad for the Jays.
I think I made my point as to why not show ST games, so I won’t beat a dead horse, if you disagree that’s fine but I’ve stated my case already.
You are missing things… It’s not bad for the Jays, it’s bad for RSN. That’s the whole point of your argument against showing ST games, it’s bad for RSN. But they do it anyway.
If they stopped being half-assed about promoting the Jays, some fevor can be strummed up and ST games are the earliest chance for it. Why not promote the hell out of ST games, display the youth and up and coming stars of the Jays?
Time of the game stopped being a factor once people learned to record things.
Ball.
I'd do that too...
problem is Poker costs nothing to show, and that’s pretty much the bottom line for tv execs.
exactly. I’m not saying I agree with it as a baseball fan, but if the exec wants to keep his job he’s going to pay pennies to show poker to vs. thousands to produce and broadcast ST baseball.
So you’re saying that since RSN makes the bad decision to sell off games it should make another bad decision? I don’t buy that, sorry.
“Why not promote the hell out of ST games, display the youth and up and coming stars of the Jays?”
Have you looked at today’s lineup? Even if I bought the argument that 2 ab of Brett Wallace was going to convince someone to buy a ticket to a game Brett Wallace wouldn’t even be playing in, it’s not going to cover the cost of producing the game.
“Time of the game stopped being a factor once people learned to record things.”
So the casual fan, show isn’t going to go to a Jays game is going to record a ST game to watch it so he can be convinced to go to a Jays game. Sorry, I don’t buy this. Huge reach.
Thats what I would do...specially with the way people are spending money. Seeing as entertaiment is the first thing that usually goes when in a recession.
People want to make sure nowadays that they are spending the extra money they do have on something that they fell is worthy. Like I said before nobody is going to spend hundreds of dollars on a team they nothing about.
It’s only a bad decision to show ST because they don’t full on support the Jays. This is also why they sell off games that should be huge draws. They need to take the inititive to build up the product.
“Oh, there’s no interest, so we won’t show anything at all.” But also that they won’t show anything at all that there’s no interest. It’s chicken and egg. If they ram ads of the Jay regular season everywhere, people will be interested to see how the training is going, to see if there’s any hope. Only they can’t outside of highlights on Sportsnet.
Are you really going to focus down on just today’s game as your point? Nothing they show, not even regular season games can make anyone instantly go “I WANT TO BUY TICKETS NOW”. It’s all about slowly building interest. The more chances people have to see the Jays, the more interest can be generated.
If you promote the games and the team enough, people will be interested. If they’re interested they’re more likely to record a game to see what’s up. Huge reach to expect anyone to record a game out of nowhere? Yeah. But that’s not the point I’m making.
RSN should be about “Hey, look at these guys, they might have a chance to do pretty well!” not “How about them Yankees?”
Ball.
Looks like Marcum pitched a good first inning...
Hoffpauir made an error but that was the only base runner.
I'd like to think so too....
might not get the wins you’d like, since I don’t see us having a great offense.
Romero. I’m still quite worried Rzepczynski is too much deception, which generally doesn’t play too well for more than a couple seasons. I’m also really encouraged with all the positive reports about Romero’s conditioning, work ethic and effort.
Though if I’m being honest, I don’t think either is really has cornerstone potential. on the SP side, Morrow is a long shot, but his upside is immense. Ditto Drabek.
oh heck....
they could both become very good. Spring is for excitement, I wouldn’t bother to temper it.
Bastian Twitterates:
This is looking a lot like 2007 Marcum. Working fast, pounding strike zone, lots of movement on pitches
Would you read anything ...
into the absence of Snider at this game?
The Jays and TV:
The American League team is hoping to have all 162 games on Canadian television for the first time in more than a decade.
But there’s a catch – many could be on a channel that has yet to launch.
The team confirmed Wednesday it is hoping to get some games on a channel tentatively named Rogers Sportsnet Extra, which could launch sometime this year
.
Wonderful!
More Jays games on a channel I won’t pay for (or even get, being on Shaw) and being blacked out for viewing on MLB.tv. Sweet!
"Don't tell me it's impossible. Be honest and tell me you can't do it. Tell me you don't know how."
wtf
I just got TSN2 a couple months ago so I could get all the missing games from the Jays and Raptors.
Now another extra channel? God damn.
Ball.
Well my dad’s a hardcore Raptors fan, so he’s wanted it for a long time. I’m a fan of them too, but not enough to pay for TSN2.
For the Jays games though….
Ball.
seeing as I only get rsn east a whole channel dedicated to jays games would be cool and worth
Maybe they can bring back the season to. Like they had in 07-08
yeah sounds good doesn't it....
I’m waiting for the bad game….seems like every pitcher has a bad spring game every year. Tired arm sets in or something.
It's getting to be a tired story with RSN
The up in ticket sales this year
pay roll slash for the past two seasons
unwillingness to sign MLB caliber talent
a lack of quality production and representation of the team ( Jamie cambell/ rance mulliniks)
the era of new uniforms – no real identity
Alex f ing rios’s 60 foot wall shot hanging on the side of the dome during a game after we had released his overpaid no talent ect ect
lucas
by TorontoBluejays10 on Mar 11, 2010 2:17 PM EST via mobile reply actions
well, I do think that Rogers is willing to spend, they are just waiting to get some talent momentum with the crop of talent and then will add on the needed pieces from the open market — at least this is my understanding from AA comments.
As for ticket increases, I think they are limited aren’t they. Mostly there are a handful of season ticket prices that got upped and then the boosted 500 level prices a bit. The latter change made me chuckle a bit since almost everyone sits at the lower levels so I have a real hard time understanding how much raising 500 level ticket prices will have any meaningful impact on revenue.
and hoffpauir grounded into a dp with two men on to end the inning...
preventing wallace from getting an at bat with men in scoring position
i guess we'll see mills next inning?
and it looks like 5 of the hits he gave up were singles…could have just been getting unlucky. and he got 5 groundouts to 1 flyout. so not necessarily a terrible inning…its hard to tell from the boxscore.
anybody read mlbtraderumors about jorge julio ruiz and his fight with his agent?
Also says jays offered him 1.5 million, rangers 2 mill and red sox 2.5 mill but then the sox took back their offer after seeing him look terrible in workouts
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