Monday Bantering: Links

Some links for an off-day:

Will Leitch has a list of ‘players primed to for big futures’, one from each team and Teoscar Hernandez is his Blue Jays pick. Not a huge stretch.

The Jays had to send him down for a while in 2019 to straighten out his swing, and the improvement he showed down the stretch last year has more than carried over to this season. He’s currently on the IL with an oblique strain, but on a rate basis it has been him — not Bo Bichette, not Vlad Jr., not Cavan Biggio — who has been the best hitter on the team this year, by a wide margin.

Baseball Savant has a leaderboard up for infielder’s defense.

It lists four Jays infielders:

• Cavan Biggio: 2 outs below average.
• Travis Shaw: 1 out below average.
• Santiago Espinal: Right at average.
• Joe Panik: 1 out above average.

I really don’t see Panik as being above average, but I’ve been wrong before.

Best in baseball? Nolan Arenado is 5 outs above average. Worse Willy Adams 4 runs below average.

The Jays come out good in this chart.

Shi has a talk with Jonathan Davis and equality.

This was interesting. Baseball is a very conservative world. I’m sure some white players feel they have to blend in too, but I’d imagine it is more important if you aren’t white.

Asked about his own experiences in professional baseball and whether he felt being Black left him 10 steps behind in the game, he pauses before saying, “that’s a pretty tough question.”

“If you’re very talented, you will have a better chance at making it in this game,” Davis continues. “For a lot of us, though, we have to be on our P’s and Q’s. We have to look the part, you have to dress the part, you have to talk to the part. That’s just how it is. Not saying that shouldn’t be the standard for everybody, but I’m saying in terms of me as a Black man in our culture, I think it’s very hard for me to express who I am in this game.”

Phillippe Aumont has become a farmer. I can’t imagine how hard this would be, but best of luck to him.

“It’s the biggest risk I have ever taken in my life,” he says. “Stressful? It is. I’m not gonna deny that. It’s a big, big risk because, am I going to succeed? I don’t know. It’s not something I’ve been practising since I’m young.”

There is a line in a play called Wingfield’s Farm that says “Running a farm is like standing out in the middle of a field in a cold wind, throwing up twenty-dollar bills.”

I hope Aumont has a lot of $20 bills

Jon Morosi has a lot of good things to say about Alejandro Kirk. I agree that he’s going to be a cult hero in Toronto.:

John Lott pointed out this video of Munenori Kawasaki having his first at bat after coming out of retirement and joining a Japanese independent league team.

Our old friend Nick Ashbourne has started his own blog of thoughts on Jays games. Here is what he wrote on yesterday’s game.