Song reference is lost on me.

Is anybody else getting sick of the Miguel Batista: philosopher/poet/genius angle? I just wish he'd hurry up and pitch the damn ball so they'd have something to write about.

The combination of pitcher and philosopher/poet/writer/rebel starts from my limited perspective with Satchel Paige and works through Fidel Castro, Jim Bouton and Bill Lee. I'm sure Craig could take it back further than that.

For myself, I'm just as happy that there are ballplayers whose interests go beyond, hunting, fishing, golf and country music. Satchel especially is a favorite of mine.

I noticed at the top of Fordin's article on McGowan it saays it was posted at 10 a.m. Eastern, March 3. I started reading it at 8:24 a.m. Central, March 3. Not to nit-pick or anything, but...are all the timepieces in my apartment wrong?

What's the over/under on when McGowan will make his major league debut?

The house is setting the date at August 1, 2004. Place your bets people.

McGowan will pitch out of the Jays' pen June 18, vs. the Padres. He will allow a walk and a hit in 1 2/3 IP, striking out 2.

(Or so my Magic 8-Ball says)

Everybody here please give me your thoughts.

I won't let you steal my thoughts this time, Moffatt!!! They're MINE, ALL *MINE*!!!!

Dustin McGowan makes his debut Saturday October 2, 2004 against the Yankees, who regretfully will have the opportunity to rest some regulars. Dustin goes 8 shutout innings, giving up 4 hits and 3 walks, while striking out 7.

http://economics.about.com
I won't let you steal my thoughts this time, Moffatt!!! They're MINE, ALL *MINE*!!!!

I stole your thoughts once, and trust me, I don't want them. You're one sick bastard. :)

Cheers,

Mike

My guess for McGowan: he will never pitch in the major leagues.

Not that I really believe this. It's just my guessing strategy.

The combination of pitcher and philosopher/poet/writer/rebel starts from my limited perspective with Satchel Paige and works through Fidel Castro, Jim Bouton and Bill Lee. I'm sure Craig could take it back further than that.

You also left off Dan Quisenberry who was a rebel on the field, a philosopher by temperament and a very accomplished poet. And Sparky Lyle, writer, rebel and pitcher.

Dizzy Dean is the white counterpart to Satch (and one of his biggest boosters)... Branch Rickey said that if there were one more like the Diz, he'd have to get out of baseball. Diz didn't write any books, but he had rebellion and poetry down pat.

They don't get any more of a philosopher/rebel than Monte Ward, who was a great pitcher (before an arm injury forced him to shortstop) and led the Player's League and Brotherhood rebellions. He also was a writer and a lawyer.

A little later than Ward, Christy Mathewson was a writer and a hell of a pitcher. A philosopher, a poet? Not really - Matty was much earthier than that.

Then there was Rube Foster... pitcher, rebel, philosopher. But more of an emperor than a writer. But a huge soul, no question.

Ward, Matty and Rube are all examples of a different type from the later guys. The later guys... Bouton, Lee, Paige, Lyle, Quiz... these are all growing out of the "pitcher as free spirit" prototype. Lyle's sitting on cakes is a mild 70s version of the classic nutty pitcher, the Bugs Raymond or Rube Waddell.

Ward, Matty, and Rube Foster are all exemplars of a different (and now largely lost) type, which is the pitcher as upwardly mobile Thinking Man. Clark Griffith is in this vein as well. Catchers have largely replaced pitchers in this regard. But it used to be that if you wanted an analytical persepctive on the game, you went most of the time to a pitcher.

The Arnold story is very interesting. John Sickels noted that Arnold's velocity was down at Syracuse last year. He wondered if Jason had arm troubles. Todays stories suggest mechanics were to blame. If that is true then Jason would move back into the Jays list of top prospects. It will be interesting to see how he does on Friday, and on into the rest of the spring.

Hey, did it disturb anyone else that Will Carroll watches Average Joe: Hawaii?

I guess you have to watch something on TV in the off season, but Will...AVERAGE JOE: HAWAII?

http://economics.about.com
Hey, did it disturb anyone else that Will Carroll watches Average Joe: Hawaii?

I've been reading his blog for awhile and the amount of crappy TV Will watches is disturbing... and this is coming from a grown man who owns a Transformers DVD boxset.

If I did watch crap like Average Joe, I'd atleast have the decency to blame it on my significant other. :)

Cheers,

Mike

Craig,

Thanks for the history, of which I knew only a small portion. I did not know that Quiz was an accomplished poet, but I guess it shouldn't really surprise me. Lee, Fidrych and Lyle...was there something about the 70s that worked its way on pitchers? I don't think it was the disco or the coke.

Tug McGraw's comment "90% of my money I spend on wine, women and song. The other 10% I waste." makes him a worthy addition to the earthy philosoper's list, I think.

I noticed at the top of Fordin's article on McGowan it saays it was posted at 10 a.m. Eastern, March 3. I started reading it at 8:24 a.m. Central, March 3. Not to nit-pick or anything, but...are all the timepieces in my apartment wrong?

Your time pieces are fine. I read the same article shortly after midnight last night. It looks like they just got posted well in advance.

It will be interesting to see how he does on Friday, and on into the rest of the spring.

It's too bad Arnold and Rosario aren't pitching on Saturday's Sportsnet broadcast. Not that there's anything wrong with seeing Hentgen and File pitch but I've seen them before. Rosario is a guy who might even be able to step into a closer role or super setup role in the majors by the end of this year if the Jays choose to use him that way. His numbers and scouting reports read similarly to a Rafael Soriano level of talent.

Long-time Ricciardi pal (and college baskeball coach) Kevin O'Brien has signed on as special assistant.

Long-time Ricciardi pal (and college baskeball coach) Kevin O'Brien has signed on as special assistant.

Does Bob Elliott know?

you "have a feeling Henske is going to have a monster year" ?

now that's incisive journalism.

now that's incisive journalism.

This is journalism?

http://economics.about.com
now that's incisive journalism.

I admit it, I'm a lousy journalist. It's almost 1 PM and I'm still sober.

Cheers,

Mike

I'm not sure if Mike Ganter's article on Arnold has been posted already:

Somewhere from the time the Jays traded for Arnold and last spring training his arm slot changed. He had gone from about 3/4 (2 p.m. on a clock) in his release point and had moved up so he was throwing more over the top (towards 12 o'clock).

Normally this would be noticed and an adjustment made by someone who had known Arnold from before. The problem for the Jays was only Bill Livesey and Tony LaCava, assistants to Ricciardi last season, had seen Arnold before he joined the Jays and they didn't see him at all last season.

"Basically, we had no one who had seen him who could correct him," Ricciardi said.

It's hard to find fault with much of what JP's player development team does, but I find it shocking that noone observed over the course of the entire season that Arnold's delivery had changed so significantly. That neiter LaCava, nor Livesey, had even watched Arnold pitch last year is surprising in itself. I'm looking forward to hearing more on the Dartfish deal, which could make a huge difference in the way the team monitors its top prospects.

Hijack: someone who has my aaron@bluejayscheerclub e-mail address and my aaron@photographcsolutions.ca address in their address book has a nasty little virus. If anyone is getting e-mail that says it's from "The (domain name) Team" and says that there will be a system outage or there's unusual activity on your account and then says you should click on this file to find out more...don't.

Bad news! Mike Wilner (Fan590) just reported that Ted Lilly has been shut down, and could miss opening day. So pencil Control Towers now as the #4, with Lilly possibly coming back as soon as the fifth rotation spot is required, most likely April 17.

I guess you could say Lilly will be a late bloomer this spring.

Okay, I promise I won't ever do that again.

I guess you could say Lilly will be a late bloomer this spring.
Ban that man's IP! :-)

I guess now we know why Arnold's getting that opening start.

Steve, I also had the same thoughts that it was odd when Arnold was struggling and his velocity was down that neither LaCava or Livesey who had originally seen him in person had occasion to look at him. Or that no-one in the coaching staff realized that that Arnold was supposed to throw from three quarters nor had access to video of him from prior years. You'd figure when you have a pitcher in your organization you'd know these little details about him but Arnold had to end up fixing the problem himself essentially in the off-season.

Oh well, as long as it worked out. These type of seemingly minor details I would think would be vital for a player development staff to know and pick out though. Especially with pitchers who can be thrown off by the slightest mechanical yips.

If there is a hole in the Jays' monitoring of their pitchers, let's hope that this leads to its fixing.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photos_from_the_field/2004/02/24/best/rook15.jpg
Any werd on what the problem is? I assume it's still the wrist and they're shutting him down to prevent him from ruining something else. Hopefully it's just some tenditis or something minor. Let's just hope that this doesn't derail Lilly's season before it starts.

OT: Check out the Tommy John scar on Branden Claussen. COMN. I have a scar like that on my butt from a mountain biking injury.

He reinjured the wrist while playing catch a few days ago.

http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/tor/news/tor_news.jsp?ymd=20040303&content_id=644419&vkey=spt2004news&fext=.jsp
The lastest from Fordin on the Lilly injury. COMN

Two more Jays were added to Dayn Perry's Top 100 Prospects list. With Rios coming, the Jays will comprise 10% of the list! Here are the Jays making up the bottom 80:

21. McGowan
25. Bush
40. Hill
43. Quiroz
47. Adams
51. Vermilyea
55. Gross
76. Chiaravalotti
80. Arnold

Also, Jim Callis answered some prospect-related questions, and clarified BA's criteria for labelling pitchers (i.e. No. 1: two plus pitches, one average pitch, plus-plus command; No. 3: one plus pitch, two average pitches, average command)

Unrelated to everyone elses thoughts & ramblings...yet still amusing:

Jose Cansecos arrogance. "I'm gonna focus on the acting thing now."
Yeah...good luck with that Jose...what a waste of a soul that man is...

Tug Mcgraw makes me laugh in a good way though..."90% of my money I spend on wine, women and song. The other 10% I waste." Aahahaha...brilliant....

Does anyone have a breakdown of the criteria that Dayn Perry is using to select his Top 100. I'm as thrilled as anyone that the Jays have 10 guys on the list but...
Baseball America has done a great job this year in providing their reasoning for a players placement on the list and then having a "chat" for people to question a players placement and as to why certain guys were not listed. Most of this is available for non-subscribers and Steve Z has provided a link above for one such article and there are others.

Jonathan O'Konis (editor for milb.com) has a look at Toronto's Top 10 Prospects.

Hey, now that we've seen it in action, can we get some props for the Jays' new logo? Their spring training look is pretty sleek. It's light years ahead of the T-Bird.

The problem for the Jays was only Bill Livesey and Tony LaCava had seen Arnold before he joined the Jays and they didn't see him at all last season ('03).

It's hard to find fault with much of what JP's player development team does, but I find it shocking that no one observed over the course of the entire season that Arnold's delivery had changed so significantly. That neiter LaCava, nor Livesey, had even watched Arnold pitch last year is surprising in itself.

Agreed. To me, this is kind of a big deal. If memory serves, from Ricciardi's hiring, I think Bill Livesey was brought on as a special assitant to 'look at other teams potential free agents, rule 5 possibilities' etc, so he may not have been on the same assignment gigs as when Arnold pitched. But, Ricciardi scouted Arnold in college himself and took in some Triple-A games last year, so some of this doesn't wash. They're not monitoring some guy here, say his name is..."Vinny Chulk" -- I think it should come as some surprise that they didn't have a better background on Jason to miss something like this. I mean he wasn't picked up to be bullpen fodder. "Mistakes" like this in the future mean losing a guy on waivers or in the Rule 5 draft. Toronto's got a strong minor league system, poor internal knowledge is one of the ways you lose Johan Santana's.

Which wrist is bothering Lilly? I seem to recall it was is right wrist, but I question whether a run of the mill non-throwing arm injury would be enough to keep him out until opening day. Does anyone have a link?

Thanks.

- Warse

It was his left wrist. One article inaccurately reported it as his right wrist.