Monday Bantering: Rumors

There isn’t a lot of news, even with the Winter Meetings going on.

Ted Simmons and Marvin Miller were elected to the Baseball of Hall yesterday. I never really thought of Simmons as a Hall of Famer but I’m just happy they didn’t vote in Don Mattingly.

Simmons did have a very good career. He played for 21 seasons, hit .285/.348/.437 with 248 home runs. At the time he was thought of as a good bat, poor glove catcher. He was moved off catcher to first base and DH in his early 30s. I’m not sure how fair the ‘poor glove’ designation was. He threw out an average number of base runners, pitchers seemed to like him. beyond that we’d have to go back in time to watch him.

Ted didn’t do well in the regular voting for the Hall. He was a one and out, getting just 3.7% of the vote in his one time on the ballot. That was unfair, he deserved a longer look. His teams only made the playoffs twice, which likely was a strike against him with the writers.

Marvin Miller should have been voted into the Hall while he was alive. There are few people that changed the game as much as he did.

Jeff Passan mentioned the Blue Jays in his post this morning. Under “who is spending” Jeff said:

Ten teams ostensibly fall into this grouping, though there are some caveats. The Toronto Blue Jays keep saying they’re going to expand their payroll, but the industry tends to collectively nod and say, “uh-huh” because they still haven’t.

He is right it is easy to say you are going to spend (and well, it should be easy to do too), but the team hasn’t yet. Until they do, it is more than fair to doubt that they will.

If they are spending I would be ok with this:

This was reported earlier but the Jays have made it official now, Jose Ministral has been promoted to head trainer. Congratulations Jose.

I know we want pitching, but I don’t think I would do this deal. I wonder if he will get what he wants.

If you are looking for that last minute Christmas gifts for your Blue Jays fans friends (or, you know, your favorite site manager), the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame is running a holiday silent auction and there are a lot of great items up for bid. Check it out here (but don’t outbid me on the Moseby signed jersey).

Use the comment thread to discuss any rumors that come up.