Tuesday Bantering: Jays Links

Happy Tuesday.

Calgary is starting to ‘open up’. Some restaurants and hair cutting places opened yesterday. I’m of the opinion that I’ll give it a couple of weeks or so and see how the numbers look and then maybe I can get a long overdue hair cut. I do have a favorite bar that’s walking distance from my place and I’m hoping they can stay in business. We’ve been ordering takeout from them during the shutdown. I might go over in the afternoon sometime, if there aren’t many people in there. I’m not likely to go a meal time or in the evening when it is generally more busy. for a long while.

Shi Davidi has a story up about negotiations between players and owners.

While the union remains resolute on not accepting more pay cuts, one solution that might work for both parties is a salary deferral from 2020 to following years, according to Rosenthal and Drellich. But the league might still see a problem with that, the reporters say, since it could potentially only delay the current cashflow problems.

Then he talks about a player’s association suggestion that sounds similar, with the idea that the players would take deferred payments.It seems like the two sides proposals are close enough that they might be able to get a deal done.

Danny Gallagher, in the Star, has a story on a former Blue Jays minor leaguer who passed away due to COVID, Tim Kusiomko.

Although he was never identified in a report from York Region Public Health on May 9, the 57-year-old warehouse attendant was among 24 employees infected at the Saputo Dairy processing plant near Highways 7 and 427 — the only one who died.

Our friend, Andrew Stoeten, grades former GM Gord Ash in the Athletic. Andrew seems pretty fair-handed in his assessment of Ash, noting that he took over an aging team and had a very popular manager who didn’t care for Ash.

His conclusion:

But Ash failed to respond to the many challenges in front of him with any sort of creativity. He was so often undone by his own poor decision-making and faulty short-term thinking, that the lack of ownership support seems almost incidental. I don’t know if anybody could have made the Blue Jays a success during the Interbrew years, but I do know that Ash couldn’t.

Overall score: 6/16

It is a good read.

For me, Ash’s major problem was that he kept making ‘win now’ moves with a team that needed a major overhaul to be competitive.

Also in the Athletic, Matt Gelb and Meghan Montemurro tell the story behind Roy Halladay giving ‘Perfect Game’ watches to his teammates and Phillies clubhouse personnel and family and friends.

“I would bounce a name off of him, just to be sure,” Coppenbarger said. “Then, he gave me some other names. His agent. His family members. (Blue Jays scout) Bus Campbell. That’s how it was.”

By the end, it was two pages and 67 names long. It included Halladay’s sons, his wife’s family, even the influential sports psychologist Harvey Dorfman. Coppenbarger printed it, stapled the pages together and stashed it with his files.

They interview a handful of Phillies asking about the watch. It is interesting, some never wear, not wanting to damage it, others wear it all the time.

The picture in this tweet shows the back of the watch:

John Lott writes about Jays shortstop prospects Orelvis Martinez and Miguel Hiraldo.

This is interesting, about Hiraldo’s swing:

Here, Tinnish gets a tad technical, but to follow along, cock your hands in an imaginary batting stance and watch what happens when you lock, load and swing.

Tinnish explains: “You watch every hitter in the big leagues from the open side, and one of the things you’ll see is their front elbow at foot-strike – when they stride and are about to start their swing – their lead elbow will generally get to or slightly past the midline of the body.

“Miguel never got back that far. When you don’t go back that far, it seemed, at least to me, that it’s harder to generate bat speed and power. But he still was able to do it. And I was like, ‘Man, this guy has got to get longer. We’re gonna have to lengthen him out.’

Will Leitch reminds us that Carlos Delgado was ‘better than we remember’.