Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Upside of Down

GRRRRRRMan, it's good to have Blair back on the Jays beat. Slurping Blair seems to be the bloggy move de rigueur this spring, luckily he brings the goods each and every day so we just keep on swallowing. Even if it's only temporary, his sweet truth seemingly comes free of agendas. Unfortunately, the Teller of Truths isn't imbuing me with a great deal of hope for the Blue Jays this season, dropping some somber quotes during his live blog today.
  • On the various ways the Jays big three prospects have been ranked: J.P.'s got too many enemies for that list to be legit all the time.

  • On Roy Halladay's future in Toronto. Will he re-sign, trade, or walk: I think he walks(!)

  • On Adam Lind: I'm not as sold on him as I am on Snider. I see him getting fewer at bats than we think.

  • On the outlook for 2009: I'll be honest: this could be the second-worst team in the AL, unless Snider goes off and Litsch wins 15 games. They need to replace a ton of innings from Burnett, McGowan and Marcum. He later added: Jays record in 09: too early. How about 70-75 wins?
Nothing we all haven't thought, but scary to see in print. A lot of talk around the team seems to gravitate to Adam Lind being traded, given Travis Snider's emergence. Another good quote from Blair regarding A.J. Burnett, whom he doesn't see as the big flake others purport him to be. My skepticism gets eaten my my cynacism when I read conflicting reports on player attitudes. It stink of the ancient Chinese proverb:
What's the difference between a slut and a bitch? A slut sleeps with everyone, a bitch sleeps with everyone but you.
As an aside, where do I sign for the Bryan Bullington bandwagon? I said a few weeks ago that I liked the signing, what with the high ceiling and all. If Arnsberg can reclaim him from the depths, is it safe to anoint him the miracle man? He looked today against a tough lefty lineup in Spring Training, so the jury's not even been summoned, let alone out.

5 comments:

  1. If McGowan comes back in June, won't he replace his own innings? And if Snider doesn't go off, will we really be any worse there than we were with Stew?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also, the problem with predictions like these are that he's basically predicting the Jays will be 150-200 runs worse than 2008, but he probably doesn't even realize it, or how hard it is to be that much worse when the offense was already as bad as it was and we have our bullpen and Halladay.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yea, I read the "Second worst" comment and rolled my eyes.

    He did say, though, that he thought the Jays could compete in 2010 and would do so with Halladay. His reasoning for Halladay walking (money), would become mute if the Jays did make the playoffs.

    1. Halladay would be ok with another hometown discount (though, one with a raise) if he thought he was on a team that could compete.

    2. Owners, it seems, would be more inclined to pay up if they thought they could make that playoff money, no?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've can't say it's exactly a bandwagon but the DAY Bullington signed I said it was an excellent move with a potentially nice upside. While everyone else was rumminating on Clement and some were actually entertaining the thought/dread of Mike Maroth, Bullington was always my dark horse (among the new guys)

    The reason I haven't been pimping him is because I still think Janssen, Richmond, and likely Cecil and Romero are in his way...and Davis Romero ought to be at least even with him but no one ever asks the big three (JP, Cito, and Arny) what they think of his chances.

    So even though I like Bullington, he still needs a lot to break his way to get in there.

    but i think his odds are better than Clement's and WAAAAY better than Maroth's

    ReplyDelete
  5. Blair is SO negative! I love it.

    And that ancient Chinese proverb is THE BEST.

    ReplyDelete

Send forth the witticisms from on high