Saturday Bantering: Jays summer camp news

Hope you are having a nice Saturday. It has finally stopped raining here. We’ve had rain every day for weeks.

The Blue Jays had some of their outfielders arrive in Toronto, so we won’t be seeing coaches playing the outfield anymore. Two outfielders still aren’t aren’t in Toronto, Jonathan Davis and Lourdes Gurriel. Davis was put on the IL July 1st (along with Brandon Drury, Hector Perez and Elvis Luciano). Nothing has been said about why Gurriel hasn’t made it to Toronto.

Hazel Mae posted a lineup for today’s intrasquad game:

This might be very close to the opening day lineup. Maybe without Panik in left, depending on Gurriel’s status by the time the season starts.

So far the star of camp has been Rowdy Tellez. He has 3 home runs. I generally discount home runs early in spring training as pitchers are tending to throw a lot more fastballs than normal. I remember being very happy about Travis Snider having a great start to spring training a few years back, but then the pitchers started throwing pitches with spin on and it went downhill. I don’t know if this is what is happening for Tellez, but I won’t get all that excited about Tellez until the end of camp.

This is cool:

Mike Harrington tells us that the Jays are looking into playing the regular season games in Buffalo. They don’t seem as sure that Toronto will work, and no one wants to go for Florida. Mike tells us:

The field itself is of major-league quality but the Sahlen Field lighting is not. The Bisons installed a new lighting system in 2011 at a cost of nearly $1 million but it was done before the current technological standard of LED lighting for stadiums became prevalent. It is fine for Triple-A games but would need an upgrade for the major leagues – and for the accompanying television broadcasts, with 24 of the Blue Jays’ 30 home games scheduled at night. With less than three weeks to the home opener, a fast-tracked upgrade may not be possible.

Of course I’m thinking that ‘why not play day games?’ It isn't’ like we have to worry about attendance, but I guess they are worried about TV ratings.

The clubhouses are too small too, but with no fans teams can spread out.

I don’t know that there is a good answer for the question of where the Jays should be playing.

With players balking at the idea of quarantine in place, it is smart to be looking at Buffalo. I didn’t see this from Shaw:

In later tweets, Shaw said one issue is that he already has a paid apartment in Toronto that he can’t use because of the quarantine.

I’m glad it is paid, we don’t need another story about a Blue Jays not paying rent.

Personally, I think the players have to quarantine no matter where they are. I think they should be staying extra safe. I know it isn’t easy but if they want to play they are going to have to take extra precautions. They are going to be in Florida for the start of the season, I hope they wont’ be going for a walk there.

I don’t know whether to be happy they are taking it seriously or to think that yet another reason why they should be trying to play this year.

Let’s end on something fun: