Saturday Bantering: Most Influential Canadians in Baseball

Bob Elliot released his ‘Most Influential Canadians in Baseball’ list today. I don’t know how he ranks players vs. front office people vs. writers vs. broadcasters vs. coaches (and every job in between). But I always enjoy reading it.

At the top of the list is Joey Votto. I would have said he was the highest paid Canadian in baseball, until I looked at number 2, Edward Rogers. #3 if Farhan Zaidi, GM of the Dodgers. #4 is player agent Joel Wolfe, whose clients include Giancarlo Stanton, Yu Darvish, Brandon Morrow and Jake McGee.

Alex Anthopoulos gets the 5 spot. Larry Walker and Russell Martin follow. Jonah Keri moved up from 19 to 8, in part on the strength of his work to get Tim Raines into the Hall of Fame.

As you go down the list there are some interesting names. Don Cherry is #12. Bob McCown 14. Paul Beeston drops to 23.

Jerry Howarth is 23rd, but he asked Elliot to write about Jonathan Hodgson in his spot. Hodgson was the ‘voice of the Okotok Dogs’ and is now working for the Victoria HarbourCats. Hodgson is a terrific guy, it’s nice of Jerry to see that Jonathan gets some notice.

Vlad Jr is #33, the lowest you’ll see him on any sort of list this winter. It interested me that Tristan Pompey made the list, at #66 (while Dalton is an honorable mention).

Anyway go read the list. It is a long read, but, don’t skip the names at the bottom of the list. I (along with many many others) get an honorable mention. I’ll be smiling all day long.

Beyond that, there is depressingly little out there for Blue Jays news.

Jon Morosi tells us the the Jays are still interested in Andrew Cashner, but just for a 1-year contract. I’d be ok with that. I think we have a few guys close enough to the majors that going more than a year might be a mistake. Whether they can convince someone to take a 1-year deal is a different question.

Speaking of pitchers who are getting close to the majors, Sportsnet has a nice profile on Ryan Borucki. We seemed to go years with all our real prospects sitting in the low minors, it’s nice to have some just a step away.