Thursday Bantering: Soriano, Navarro, links

Diamondbacks GM Dave Stewart told MLB XM Radio that:

The first guy on my list of catchers was Navarro up in Toronto, that was the guy I had in my sights, even in the winter months and at the Winter Meeting.

But it doesn't sound like talks with the Blue Jays went anywhere and he ended up making the trade for Wellington Castillo. I can't imagine the Jays would have been interested in Mark Trumbo.

And Shi Davidi tells us this, I'd imagine the Jays will have people watching.

Per his agency Octagon Baseball, free agent reliever Rafael Soriano will have an open throwing session in the DR on June 11

— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) June 4, 2015

With Rafael changing agents, maybe someone will sign him soon. There are a number of teams looking for bullpen help.

Shi Davidi tells us that Jose Reyes wasn't exactly thrilled with Jerry Howarth's criticism of his abilities.

"I hate when people say, ‘He's having too much fun.' I've been in this game since I was 19 years old, did you see a different Jose Reyes? No. You see the same guy every single day, nothing changes. I can go 0-for-5, I can go 5-for-5, I'm going to be the same guy. I'm a happy guy, people have to deal with it."

I'll admit, I hate that stuff too. Bautista is no good because he's too intense. Reyes is no good cause he's too happy. If Reyes was depressed and down, people would complain that he's not a good teammate, that he's bringing down the team. All players should act just like the players did back in the 1950's, spend all their time so drunk they can't have facial expressions.

Can you imagine having to defend yourself for being happy?  What kind of world is that? Playing a kids game and the guy is supposed to be miserable. "You are not unhappy enough".

I understand, for those of us that are a little older, we romanticize the past. We want baseball to be the way it was when we were young. Players should have been raised with all the unwritten rules we learned. They should do things the way we were taught.

I'd like to think that, if I had been lucky enough to play baseball for a living, that I'd be a happy person too.

John Lott has a profile on Jays prospect Anthony Alford.

And John also looks at Felix Doubront.

Richard Griffin writes about how, with Marco Estrada pitching well, there is no room for a return of Dan Norris. No that I want to jinx anything, but I doubt that we'll have the problem of having too many pitchers for the full season.