Thursday Bantering: Happy Birthday Pedro Borbon

There really isn’t all that much for Blue Jays news. And there isn’t much in “Jays History” today.

There is a birthday, Pedro Borbon turns 51 today.

I don’t have much to say about Borbon, other than to complain about the stupid trade that brought him to us. The Jays had hired former manager Cito Gaston to be hitting coach and Shawn Green had bad memories of him as manager. Cito wanted Green to pull the ball, Shawn liked using the whole field and their relationship was not good. Green has a short autobiography that tells some stories about it.

So Green asked for a trade. I wasn’t a big fan. I figured a star player is worth more than a hitting coach. But Gord Ash had a different opinion.

Ash traded Green to the Dodgers for Raul Mondesi and Pedro.

Pedro was with the Blue Jays for 2 seasons, plus a month. A lefty reliever, he pitched in 146 games, had a 4.93 ERA. In 107.2 innings he allowed 105 hits, 16 home runs, 56 walks and 85 strikeouts. Kind of your LOOGY type but he wasn’t all that successful. His best season as a Jay was 2001, he pitched in 71 games and had a 3.71 ERA.

We traded him to the Astros in a conditional trade that didn’t net us much. He had a 9-year career, playing for the Braves, Dodgers, Jays, Astros and Cardinals. After his time with the Cardinals he was signed and released by the Padres, Expos and Angels without playing a major league game for any of them.

He played in 368 MLB games, all in relief, had a 4.68, 6 saves in 271 innings.

Mondesi would spent a couple more months with the Jays, before being traded to the Yankees. He wasn’t bad, hit .251/.328/.470 in his 2.5 seasons with the Jays, but he was being paid a lot and he was hitting .224/.301/.435 in 2002 when the Yankees volunteered to take him off our hands.

Happy birthday Pedro, hope it is a good one.

Blue Jays spring training tickets are on sale. If you haven’t been, going to spring training is a lot of fun. Dunedin is a pretty town, and Florida in February and March is pretty nice. f course, Florida traffic taught me not to complain about Calgary rush hour traffic.

I see they have ‘premium’ pricing for some games. I don’t know what would make a spring game a premium game. I’d feel ripped off if I paid a premium price and then the other team didn’t bring any of their regulars to the game. You can see the schedule here.

If you don’t want to go to Florida, there is the 2-game series in Montreal. The weather won’t be as nice, but it is a great city to visit.

If you are worried about the financial health of the MLB, don’t:

The Jays should be able to pay Vlad whatever Super Twos make, when the time comes, so no reason to leave him in Buffalo at the start of the season.

And: