A Mild Smattering of Indifferent Hope

After all the scaremongering and doomsaying, it's nice to have a ray of light shine into your day. Last night I was ejected from the subway tunnels resulting in a forced march down Bloor Street. Turns out there was a a "security investigation" down the line that stopped the trains (Hey Broseph, I got a suspicious package for ya!). I stepped into a local confectionery to gaze at the magazine rack, where I encountered a sight more glorious than unexpected nudity in a movie of substance.



That's right, the Jays are the new Rays question mark. Big League Stew's been tracking everyone accused of being the New Rays, and it's pretty much every team that was awful last year. Nevermind that this magazine is the Jays season preview magazine, one that was designed for sales in Canada only (hello Morneau!). This is hope! This is a sign that they've got pieces in place!

Actually, this is kind of insulting. The Rays? Is this to say that the Jays were in the same sort of dire straights as the Rays? Fuck. That. The Jays may exist in baseball limbo, baseball purgatory, but they certainly do not exist in the seventh circle of baseball hell!

Love in the time of Hysteria

Times have certainly changed. There is enough analysis, anecdote, and prediction floating around these days to please the most devoted fans and most compulsive of gamblers. A lot of people fill their days reiteration the same facts or sucking the interest out of the quaintest of human interest stories. This competition for freshness lends itself to a certain amount of hyperbole, some understandable and some off the deep end.

Marc Topkin's article surely ranks near the giant slide and swinging rope end of the pool, as he stops just short of comparing the DevilJesus Rays' top three starters to the 1966 Dodgers. While this isn't unique to reporters unaccustomed to seeing actual big league players (Rios pounds BP, Jays to reinforce Windows Restaurant), it is clearly way over the top. Pitching staffs with more than 61 cumulative wins mentioned include the A's of the early 00's and shockingly the early 90's Braves. The Fuck? Tom Glavine is likely to go down as the last 300 game winner while Smoltz has 200 wins and 150 saves. Is that all? Perhaps you could compare Scott Kazmir with Steve Carlton? Matt Garza isn't a number three starter on a bad team, he's Bert Blyleven.

Scott Kazmir can pitch, but he reminds of one guy - AJ Burnett. Same plus stuff, same inefficiencies, same unquenchable thirst for Ks at any costs. James Shields? Meet Shaun Marcum. I'm sure you'll have a lot to talk about.

Purported clubhouse leader and caffeine-enthusiast Troy Percival took the story and ran with it, creating the shirt seen below. This clearly unstable man is being hailed a the saviour of the historically awful Rays pen. Surely his year off combined with a year of mop-up in the anemic NL Central makes him more than qualified to send dozens of people home disappointed every night.

Much like the New York Yankees, this sexy pick is going nowhere. Sure, they'll score some runs. That won't change the culture around the team nor will it retire batters or improve a porous defense. Not even the divinity/health of Rocco will guide this team past anyone but the shameful Orioles.

Greener Pastures

All the talk of scandal and greed, screw jobs and Massholes leaves me cold. Big companies make painful and heartless decisions every day; this one just cut a little closer to the bone. But the scenery is about to greatly improve for baseball fans. Money grubbing and rectal probing will be replaced by palm trees, sun, and guys in strangely-numbered jerseys having the time of their lives.

Baseball and sports in general are great because they offer opportunity to those who would otherwise be without. Brandon League, by all accounts, is not a genius. People of such diminished mental capacity are usually left to sad lives in the Jays ticketing department or supporting the Toronto Maple Leafs. Luckily for young Brandon, he can rush it up to the plate in a serious and sinking way. Which bodes well for his once budding, now question-marked baseball career.

Much was expected of Brandon League in the build-up to the 2007 season. He had been positively lights out at the end of 2006. He threw hard as balls and came complete with the kind of downward movement on his pitches that makes scouts drool. He was penciled in as the set-up guy going into 2007, leaving the Mullet and the Midget to pick up the pieces after the latest Josh Towers debacle or suffer similar indignities.

No scenario for 2007 considered the possibility of Brandon League losing his damn mind. Only in Brandon's pipeline-concussed brain do his reasons for ignoring the advice of the coaching staff lie, but somewhere in there he knows he fucked up. Large. He lost a year to injury and pissed off the Jays brass. He lost a great deal of zip from his fastball and the precious motion that helps separate the Mariano Rivera's from the Mark Wohlers'.

Fast-forward to this spring. Instead of having a predetermined role, he comes to camp fighting for those same 6th inning scraps. A return to form and initial visit to Sounddecisionmakingtown for League would give the Jays an enviable amount of flexibility. The Ginger Gangster could stay in the 'Cuse for a year of seasoning, Handsome Gus and JP's choice Casey Janssen could fight it out for the fifth starter's role. All the while a clutch of talented right handers would be vying for the chance to set up or step in for the rehabbing closer. Brandon League must be a part of the discussion and should play a key role in the Jays bullpen if they expect to repeat the success of last year.