Tuesday Bantering: Rumors

It is the season for rumors. Well, rumors and getting irritated by Christmas music played too early.

Jon Heyman, on the Big Time Baseball podcast, tells us that the Jays have talked to agents for George Springer and Jackie Bradley Jr. I’m not going to get too excited. Most teams check into most free agents to gauge interest and figure out if there could be a possible match.

And our friend, Bob Elliot, tweeted that the Jays have interest in Andrelton Simmons. I’m thinking much the same as above, but they seem to understand that up the middle defense has to improve in both cases.

Cleveland.com has a story saying that Francisco Lindor would ‘like to’ play for the Blue Jays. Or at least that’s what they tell me it says. It is behind a subscription wall, and I’ve subscribed to many sites already.

Ken Rosenthal, in the Athletic, also suggests the Jays (along with the Mets, Giants, and Yankees) could be in on Lindor. I think that whoever trades for him will want to have an extension in place.

I’m not sure the Jays are really in the spot where they want to give up several prospects yet.

Also, in the Athletic, Kaitlyn McGrath (who suddenly seems like the only Jays writer on the Athletic) tells us the Jays are ‘aiming high on free agent starters’. I like this line:

“We feel good about our ability to cover innings,” Atkins said. “And now we’d like to increase our ability to prevent runs.”

Last winter, the focus seemed to cover innings, so it is nice that they are thinking of getting better at keeping the other team off the board.

The story also noted that Ken Giles and Anthony Bass are departing as free agents (I didn’t think that Bass was a sure thing to leave). The team could use a bullpen arm or two.

Not Blue Jays, but Tony LaRussa was charged with DUI the day before the White Sox hired him. Signing him was a move that had most of us laughing before this came out. The White Sox say that this will not change anything. There will be no discipline from the club. And that they knew about this before they hired him.

You would think a manager who wants to show he isn’t living in the last century wouldn’t want a DUI conviction.

Please, Tony, be careful. You have money, get someone to drive you to the bar.

Former Astros GM Jeff Luhnow is suing the team for wrongful dismissal. Two things stand out about this:

• Luhnow feels baseball has blacklisted him. If he thought he had a chance to get another job, there is no way he would do this.
• He thinks that baseball will settle because Manfred will not want to have the MLB’s investigation methods become public.
• $22 million is a fair bit of money, is he can get half of that in a settlement, it will be well work it. I would be happy not to work for the Astros for a third of that.

It has been apparent that baseball’s way of investigating these things is to pick out someone they don’t like and put all the blame on him. Baseball would much prefer the appearance of justice than to do the work.

Baseball would gladly pay to keep quiet how this investigation (and others like Biogenesis) were handles if you want to read about why get the book Baseball Cop.

MLB’s website has a rundown of Alex Trebek’s ‘Greatest baseball moments’.