Sunday morning and the good people in the house have left for church, leaving a quiet place for me to sit and surf the web for Jays stuff.
Vernon Wells got the Branch Rickey Award for the charity work he and his wife do. It would be hard to imagine a more deserving person.
Richard Griffin has a long interview up with John Farrell. It's a pretty good read. I like Griffin a lot more now that he doesn't have to bash JP in every piece he writes. I mean, he still does it, but it doesn't have to be every time out anymore. I think of it sort of like...if you hand me a guitar, my fingers automatically go to certain places, they have little bits that they play without me thinking. I can stop them if I try but that's the way it is. I figure that's the way it is with Griffin, you hand him a key board and his fingers are going to type 'JP is an SOB' before he realizes it. They have just been trained to do that. Anyway, he's much better when he fights that impulse.
Ken Rosenthal thinks the Jays are looking at trading for Dan Uggla from the Marlins. I think we'll be looking at every available infielder, since we are one short. Here is what he says about the Jays:
- Blue Jays. The Jays are in contact with the Marlins. Uggla could fill a void at third base, and the Jays are again willing to spend for the right players. They also have shown a willingness to carry potential free agents with the idea of collecting draft picks if those players sign with other clubs.
I can't see us trading for Uggla with the thought that he could get us draft picks. He is going to be too expensive a trade piece to take, unless we figure we can sign him for a few years. I would like him a lot, he's hit 31 to 33 homers each of the last 4 seasons and knows how to take a walk. The 130 OPS+ last year looks pretty nice too. Here are his career numbers. I don't think he would come cheap. The way Alex does things, I'm sure he's talked to everyone that might have an infielder to give up.
Baseball Prospectus has an interview with Lyle Overbay, most of it can be seen without the subscription. I liked this question:
DL: What is the most underrated part of first-base defense?
LO: I would say that it's [footwork] around the base. Guys will throw the ball up the line and if you don't take the right angle on it, you're not going to get that out. We'll see on TV that he pulled you off the bag, and while the second baseman or third baseman should have hit you on the chest, if you'd have taken the right angle to it, you would have been able to stay on the bag and get the out. On TV you see the first baseman coming off the bag and you think, "Oh, it's the shortstop's fault." Those are the little things that make a big difference, because you don't ever see it. You can only see it if you're here and you see the angle from where the throw is coming, and exactly what you're supposed to do as far as your feet. The footwork at first base is very underrated.
Also at Baseball Prospectus Marc Normandin (who wrote for this site a few years back) looks a the outfielders and the middle infielders (in separate posts) available on the free agent market. For middle infielders he suggests that the trade route would be a better way to go.
Baseball Prospectus has chosen an MLB All-Star team. One Jay make the team:
Right fielder: Jose Bautista, Blue Jays. While it says here his 54-home run season will go down as one of the great outliers in baseball history, the fact of the matter is that is how many he hit in 2010 and that gives him the nod over the Phillies' Jayson Werth, who can take consolation in the huge free-agent contract he will sign in the coming weeks. Bautista also had a .331 TAv and 69.3 VORP.
I'm not sure I agree that the 54 home runs with be a great outlier. I'll think you'll see him hit into the high 30's and 40's a few more times in the rest of his career. It sticks out now, but give him time,