Jays Roundup - Who's on the Seventh Floor?
Monday, October 11 2004 @ 11:02 AM EDT
Contributed by: Pepper Moffatt
Brewing alternatives?
What's in the bottom drawer
Waiting for things to give?
- "Hill headlines Jays' Fall Leaguers" by Spencer Fordin:
The Arizona Fall League has already started its session, opening its doors to some of the most intriguing young players in the game. The Blue Jays sent a talent-rich class headed by Aaron Hill, perhaps the top offensive prospect in the organization. Add a couple high-profile arms and the Jays have plenty of reason to watch the Arizona box scores.
That part won't be hard. The baby Blue Jays are all on the same team -- the Peoria Saguaros, helmed by Marty Pevey. That's a reassuring piece of info for Toronto's brain-trust as Pevey, the manager at Triple-A Syracuse, will make sure he puts the young Jays in the best position to succeed. He's already coached two of the players, and he'll see the rest next season.
Hill definitely leads this group, both in terms of name recognition and future potential. The shortstop was Toronto's first-round pick in 2003, and he's done nothing to diminish his status ever since. Hill batted .280 with 11 homers and 26 doubles at Double-A New Hampshire this season, helping lead the way to the Eastern League championship. He was also named an All-Star and the MVP of the 2004 Futures Game.
If everything works out according to plan, the Jays think the 22-year-old could join the Major League club by next August. Plate discipline is among Hill's noted skills -- he walked 63 times, contrasted by just 61 strikeouts.
- "Baseball makes gains in Canada" by Richard Griffin:
Speaking of Canadian baseball, it's been a wonderful building year for awareness and interest in this country. It's been a long dry spell. Ever since the strike of 1994 and the subsequent downturn in the fortunes of the Jays franchise, and with the Expos headed south to D.C., amateur baseball registration by young Canadian athletes has continued to decline since '95.
Change is finally in the air. In the wake of an encouraging 2004, Canadian baseball has a chance to rebuild. The spike in Canadian baseball interest was most certainly led by Team Canada's hustling performance at the Athens Olympics.
Even deprived of the services of two of its key players, cleanup hitter Justin Morneau, called to the majors by the Twins, and starter Jeff Francis, whose presence was inexplicably denied by the Rockies, the nation was excited about the Olympic team. If Canada had beaten an old Cuban squad in the semis, they would have faced Australia for the gold. They lost to a tougher Japan for the bronze.
Also important to the rebounding interest in Canadian baseball was the performance of possible NL rookie-of-the-year Jason Bay of the Pirates. Add the continuing presence of established MLB stars such as outfielder Larry Walker, third baseman Corey Koskie and bullpen closer Eric Gagne. Throw in the rise of A's pitcher Rich Harden and you begin to see a nice Canadian body of work.
- "Kydland and Prescott win Economics Nobel Prize" by Mike Moffatt:
The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2004 was just awarded this morning to Finn E Kydland and Edward C Prescott "for their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles". Details can be found at the Nobel Prize website. I think Prescott was a long overdue choice and predicted he'd be one of the leading candidates.
This was way, way overdue. Better late than never, I suppose. Kydland and Prescott's "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations" is probably the most important macroeconomics paper in the last 25 years. This probably would have come sooner if the Chicago-Northwestern-Minnesota-Rochester neoclassical macro cabal which Prescott belongs to hadn't already been dominating the prizes since the 1970's.
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