The Next Level

via Geoff Baker's Marinerblog.
This is former Jays beat guy Geoff Baker doing two things at once. Firstly, Baker shows off his on-camera skills as he somewhat nakedly pursues a higher profile in the talking head sportsworld. Good for him, I say. Get those Baseball Tonight screenminutes.

Secondly, it shows the Mariners going where &mdash if they aren't already &mdash the rest of the baseball world needs to go. Especially the Blue Jays. Focusing on health and wellness and building better baseball players is nothing short of good business for mid-level teams unable to bury expensive mistakes in the dumpster behind old Yankee Stadium. The Mariners and Blue Jays have no recourse but to do everything in their power to keep Felix Hernandez or Aaron Hill on the field at all times. If they can hold off the decline phase of aging players until they reach free agency, teams are only maximizing their already razor-thin return on investment.

If stronger hips and cores allow Ricky Romero and Brett Cecil to pitch more effective innings sooner and sooner, the team MUST pursue every advantage they can get. Look at all the recent discussion of Vernon Wells' (perceived) weight fluctuations. Had the Jays stepped in and mandated a better, more holistic health approach, who knows if he'd suffer from the same nagging injuries that continue to plague him.

The Jays and their concrete jungle-playing surface need to make this their business about 10 minutes ago. Which isn't to say they haven't; Alex Anthopoulos doesn't seem like a guy to leave a single stone unturned. We can only hope the Jays recognize an opportunity to gain a minute edge before it's too late.

I, for one, welcome our new age of cyborg baseball players. Long may they reign.

The Extra G Stands for "Gaming the System"

Everywhere I turn the Jays acquisition of Kevin Gregg is lauded as a great "depth move" and appears to be a tidy bit of business: pick up hard-throwing right hander with mixed results in the past at a reasonable price. Hey, worst case scenario, you're buying a draft pick. So sayeth Mr. Wilner:

No, he’s not a great closer, and there’s plenty of debate that he’s even a good one, but that’s OK. He’s an established, durable guy with a good arm who is only costing the Blue Jays $2.75 million. And he’s all but guaranteed to be a Type-B free agent next season. So, at worst, the Jays just spent almost $3 million to secure themselves another top-40 pick in 2011

-snip-

When you can get a guy like Gregg - whose numbers are kind of enigmatic - for less than three million bucks, you do it, even if the only reason is to turn him into a sandwich pick a year down the road.

That line of thinking, while fiscally sound, bums me out. Rebuilding is one thing, playing kids and developing your talent is necessary part of the process. Grabbing a seemingly useless reliever solely for his ability to garner a draft pick is a little too cynical and a little too much a "fuck you" to the paying customers.

At no point do the people in the stands or watching on TV deserve to sit through The Kevin Gregg experience with a salvaged draft pick the only reward. Means to an end? You can't build Rome in a day but you can't build a dragon slayer out of middling draft picks. I may be intrigued as to how the sausage is made, but I don't make me pay for a front row seat on the kill floor.

There is no hope in routing for the Elias rankings to decide Kevin Gregg is among the top 40% of relievers, especially when the chance of a sandwich pick (Brett Cecil notwithstanding) contributing anything to the process is pretty slim.

Moves like this exhaust my ability or desire to "play along at home" like so many mother's-basement GMs. I don't have it in me to praise or even care for this move. Kevin Gregg sucks, and that is about it. He sucked before his velocity starting slipping and his began throwing his cheesedick curveball all the time to compensate. Kevin Gregg, the human sandwich pick, sucks the life from me and stretches my credulity more than the ownership trying to put the "multi" back into "multipurpose facility" ever could.

We shouldn't expect ownership to run the team like a toy; however treating the fans like pawns (Don't worry, it's a valuable depth move! Think of the sandwich picks!) is a little much. It's a business, yes. One contingent on the confidence an dollars of the consumer. You can only goad coins into the collection plate for so long before the parishioners demand a miracle.

Quick Thoughts on the Playoffs

Vanguard of the blogosphere Eyebeleaf of Sports and the City posted a typically passionate piece this week, hoping for a salary cap/floor in baseball to help level the playing field. While it remains true that spending money is the best way to reach the post season, it isn't the only way. I sincerely fail to see how a salary cap benefits anyone, as though it is the key to competitive balance and renewed hope for the downtrodden.

Without getting too deeply into the vagaries of why using the NFL as a model is reckless, why dictating organizations spending habits simply doesn't help, why stupid organizations will always be stupid, I wanted to address another point attached to this debate: opening the playoffs to more teams. This idea, as it relates to baseball, makes me sad.

The playoffs, as currently constituted in the NBA & NHL, are a joke. As I said in the comments of the SATC post, they're a sop to fans too distracted to notice they're now being charged double for games that are no more meaningful that stretch drive games in September for a competitive team in baseball.

When the Rockies were charging down the stretch in 2007, how is that LESS significant than the Raptors being summarily dismissed by the Magic each and every year? When the Jays collapsed against the Tigers in 1987, are we to believe that weekend series meant less than the Cavaliers dismantling the Pistons this past spring?

Occasionally the rare instance of a Warriors/Mavericks or an Oilers run to the Cup final capture all our attention, but again I point to unlikely runs by the Marlins or Twins, reeling in the fast starting Tigers in 2006. Those ARE the playoffs, 30 games at a time, and you just don't have to pay double to see them. The baseball season is 162 games long, that should be plenty of time to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The salary-capped and playoff-free-for-all NBA can be one of the most frustrating leagues to watch due to its nebulous salary machinations combined with teams outright desire to tank or rig their playoff positioning. Teams actively putting out an inferior product night after night to avoid playing a tough 4 seed, hoping instead to catch a weak division winner propped up by the various playoff bracket restructurings.

I'm not pretending to dislike the notion of "making the playoffs" as a good thing, but you can't convince me the Leafs "making the playoffs" this season automatically makes it a successful year. Wow, they finished 8th and got dusted in the first round? Awesome. My Habs looked like legit Stanley Cup threats last year only to falter to a first round exit. Guess what? I don't care that they made the playoffs, they were supposed to be good. They weren't, we move on.

The recurring Blue Jays blogosphere meme "PLAYOFFS!" was fun for one good reason: making the playoffs in baseball means something and represents a legitimate success. Hopefully baseball doesn't make the same pathetic stab at placating entitled fans eager to buy a mouthful of shit packaged as Grade A steak.

Brief Thoughts on the Business of Sports

Just a quick addendum to my previous post and some comments following the Tao's incredible take on the prospect of trading Halladay: I don't give a damn about business. I don't care if Rogers survives or fails (jokes, current employers!) and I don't spend much time thinking about the business side of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club. That said, we can't ignore it. We can bluster all day about passionate fandom and losing yourself in the game, but when it comes to brainstorming and/or spitballin' ideas for why JP should stay/go, we'd be fools to ignore it.

Which is why we must all promise to cease begging Rogers to dump the Laotian GNP into payroll or demanding Vernon Wells humbly reorder his contract for the good of the team. These are pie in the sky hopes and dreams that have nothing to do with the beauty and poetry of baseball. We're asking publicly traded corporations and private citizens to forsake millions of dollars so our favorite TV show has a better ending. Not going to happen. Let's focus on baseball instead.

Rogers to Paying Customers: "Fuck You"

Remember the first week of the season, when I encouraged the more entitled among us to relax about the inability to see every game or every highlight pack? As Neate points out, Rogers has sold the rights to a Jays/Red Sox series at the ROGERS CENTRE to TSN for broadcast on TSN2. Guess who doesn't get TSN2?

Who am I to stand in the way of a media conglomerate's power play? I simply source Rogers for my cell phone, internet, cable, and home phone. I attend dozens of Blue Jays games a year, subscribe to the MLB Extra Innings package and have BASICALLY CREATED A SHRINE TO THEIR BASEBALL COMMODITY ON THE INTERNET where I (and dozens or hundreds of people like me) devote hours a week freely and actively promoting their product. What the fuck else do they want from us?

Has Rogers simply taken a sweetheart deal from TSN or the shadow company that owns them too good to pass up? Could either of these monoliths show more contempt for the lowly denizens that prop them up? Should I officially start stealing cable or anything else branded by these two tax havens not tied down? Fuck. This.

If this game is somehow NOT available via the Extra Innings package, it will be fucking on. I don't riot when I'm charged a "monthly access fee" nor do I storm the "campus" when my cable bill goes up as carrier costs decrease. If somehow I'm blocked out from these games, on principal alone, I'll fuck shit up. Off the grid I'll go, and I'm taking shit with me.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Madison Guy

A Matter of Respect

Out of respect for a rich man that wasn't satisfied with mere comfort and endeavored to be truly wealthy, I don't have too much to say.

Out of respect for the 22 people that lost their sales jobs with the Toronto Blue Jays, I wish I had less to say. I get that fake-offering A.J. Burnett a $15 million dollar contract extension offers more return on investment than 20-odd sales managers does; but that doesn't make it any easier to take 3 weeks before Christmas. Despite my best efforts, baseball is not a abstract entity free of all the corporate trappings of horseshit business. Don't worry pro sports, once the golden goose has drowned in its own excess, we real fans will still be here.

The last word on respect goes to Rotoworld. When announcing the death of the owner, how did they choose to extend this information to their widget-loving public? Which player has the gravitas to to reflect the heft of a team owner and media magnate?