Today Richard Griffin has two stories in the Star, one I like, showing off what Richard does well, about Anthony Gose and one that I don't like so much, about the way the Jays handled talking about Travis Snider's injury. So let's talk about the second one.
Richard gets upset because the Jays aren't all forthcoming about Travis' injury. You see, having not followed sports for the last several years, Griffin is surprised that sometimes teams don't want to disclose all about injuries to the press. I'm not really sure why teams feel the need to be secretive about injuries, especially at the start of spring, but that's the way it is.
On the first weekend of Blue Jays full-squad workouts came disturbing proof positive that despite all the uplifting feedback of this rebuilt AL franchise, it's not automatically going to be smooth sailing and a free pass for surprisingly secretive first-year manager John Farrell. He, like any rookie, seemingly has much to learn about dealing with fans, media and the concept of "need to know."
I'm not sure why a strained muscle hits the level of 'need to know'. We've all seen how managers work these days, I'm not sure it is a bad idea that they don't tell everything.
Granted, Snider-gate is not even close to equalling the flap caused by J.P. Ricciardi in May 2007, when he admitted in a radio interview that he deliberately misled reporters and fans about a spring training elbow injury to closer B.J. Ryan that eventually led to Tommy John surgery. He had said during the spring that Ryan did not participate in exhibition games due tightness in his back.
Oh for Pete's sake, is there some law Richard has to take a shot at J.P. every frigging column he writes? And can we retire the idea of putting 'gate' behind words. Watergate was 40 years ago now.
But the real issue is that this Snider thing was not the same as one of those turned ankles or sore muscles in the throwing arm or just giving a guy a day off. This was a case of the manager being asked a direct question and deflecting it over the glass out of play. If, as described by Anthopoulos, transparency - stepping up to outline injury issues when a player is going to miss time - is going to be the policy of the the Jays moving forward, then the manager and GM need to be on the same page.
Do you really think Alex could bring himself to care if his manager gives total information on rib muscle strains or not? I don't.
Anyway, the Ryan debacle still stings around these northern parts and this Snider injury was starting to quack like a duck. The crisis has been headed off. Snider will be back soon.
Really? Does it still ring? I honestly don't give it much thought at all. I guess I think that everybody lies, at least on occasion and I'd bet every manager lies about injuries. does it matter? Not to me.
Oh, and apparently Travis Snider took some ground balls today and could be swinging a bat by the weekend. Much ado about nothing.