Roundup - Killing Weeds For Decades

Saturday, April 03 2004 @ 10:35 AM EST

Contributed by: Pistol

Here's the latest & greatest Jays news.

* Orlando Hudson has been struggling lately with a strained oblique muscle. He's going to sit out the remaining exhibition contests in hopes of being ready for the opener Monday afternoon.

* The Jays and Reds apparently are jealous of the Yanks & Rays playing in Japan. They played to a 5-5 tie yesterday. Simon Pond continues to crush the ball hitting his 4th jimmy jack of the spring.

There's no tying in baseball!

* The Star is breaking out tons of coverage on the Jays today:

- The 'God of fantasy baseball players' was interviewed by Rich Griffin. That's the GM, JP Ricciardi, of course.

My favorite part is the introduction which includes this:

...Ted Rogers... placed (his) trust in a 42-year-old New Englander...with a long background in scouting.

and:

Since that time, two more major-league GMs weaned from the same non-traditional background have been hired, Theo Epstein by the Red Sox and Paul DePodesta by the Dodgers.

Anyway, it's a solid interview well worth reading. It also covers the Gagne rumors back from the Prokopec trade.

- Josh Phelps is feeling comfortable at the plate right now. Hopefully, he'll become as comfortable at first base. Our Bauxite Super Scout isn't so sure.

I see Phelps as one of the biggest variables on the team this year. You pretty much know what you'll get out of the other 8 spots in the lineup, but Phelps' results could be all over the place from below average hitter to top power hitter. If he really breaks out this team can close the gap with the Sox and Yankees.

- The newest Blue Jay, Sean Douglass, will be the team's long reliver. But don't make him put vinegar on his french fries.

- Anyone have any Opening Day Rituals?

- 35 Jays games will be broadcast in HD this season. If you don't have HD you'll get the black bars across the top and bottom of your screen.

Here in America, or at least with my cable, we have separate cable channels for HD and non-HD programming. So for ESPN the traditional broadcast is on channel 28 and the HD broadcast is on channel 711.

I haven't seen baseball in HD yet, but football broadcasts are incredible - you can see much more of the field. For other sports, and other programming, the main difference for me is the clarity of the picture.

* Defence or Defense? Either way you like it, the Jays won't be excelling at it on the left side of the infield. With a limited budget you can't be great at everything at every position. As the GM puts it:

"What we're trying to address right now is our pitching and our offence," Ricciardi said. "All you have to do is look at the (Los Angeles) Dodgers. They can pitch and play defence and we won more games than they did last year. Now they're trying to get as much offence as they can.

"I think defence is great but you have to be able to score some runs. From our end for what we can afford and how we're built, we'll take the offence and better pitching."


* Sun Notes - Hudson is out, Cat is having babies (or at least his wife is), Tom Wilson won't be returning to the Jays, and Kevin Cash is pulling his weight at the plate.

* Baseball Prospectus' Triple Play looks at the Werth / Frasor trade. They bring up an interesting point about lessing low (Werth) and buying high (Frasor).

Only 2 more days until the opener!

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