At this year’s first-year player draft (college and high school), the Blue Jays chose seven Canadians among the 55 they selected – more than double any other MLB team. And the team has nearly doubled the number of scouts on staff to about 30 to try to make sure no player, Canadian or otherwise, falls between the cracks.  Even then, Anthopoulos says, his top priority is not to make sure his team drafts all the top-rated Canadians.

In non-Jays related news, Seattle is calling up the number two pick of the 2009 draft, Dustin Ackley.  He is expected to play tonight at Safeco Field when the M's take on Philadelphia.  The Seattle Times' Larry Stone hopes he turns out better than the Mariners <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thehotstoneleague/2015337355_its_been_awhile_since_the.html?syndication=rss">first pick in 2005</a>.

Speaking of misconceptions, isn't it odd that Bautista hit like Babe Ruth when "protected" by the weak-hitting Rivera and Hill and has slumped while being "protected" by the scorching hot Lind?

These are all small samples, of course, but you'd think the little bit of evidence that refutes the idea of protection would be enough to get the broadcasters to stop speaking of it as an undisputable truth. But Martinez and Tabler are heavily invested in their cliches.

Speaking of interesting takes on the world, here are some metrics concoted by an ex-GM. Yes, OPSBIs. It's absolutely stunning.

Anybody else think it's more than convenient that the only right-handed reliever with options left is on the major league DL? 

"Hey Casey, would you like to spend the next two weeks in Vegas or in the clubhouse resting?"

Year   W  L    W-L%   ERA    G  GS  GF  CG  SV    IP   H  R  ER HR  BB IBB  SO HBP  BK  WP  BF  ERA+  WHIP      
2011   1  0   1.000   2.35  20   0   6   0   0  23.0  16  6   6  1  11   0  15   0   0   0  95  176  1.174    

Don't know where you're going with such a suggestion. Sounds like Deadhead thinking to me.

"But I think what irritates me most about losing Purcey is not so much losing David Purcey as seeing this kind of move made on the basis of, quite literally, one bad week"

But is it though? He'd been in the TO system for a long while, and still has major issues with BB's. So they moved on from Purcey a week into the season, instead of in the offseason. Seems ho-hum to me. Better pitchers were/are available for TO in their own system. Seemed fair to move on for everyone.

It's interesting to see Perez and Reyes both emerging as useful major-league pitchers at the age of 26.  Of course it's too early to be certain about either of them, but Reyes had another excellent game last night, and he was facing a very good team.  He's been gradually improving, with occasional setbacks, as the season wears on.  He's beginning to develop some consistency and confidence.  So I'm very optimistic about him.  (Who predicted that he would survive longer in the majors this year than Cecil and Drabek?)  Perez has had only 20 innings in the majors, so he's even more difficult to predict, but he's also shown that he can pitch at this level.  Lesson:  even if a pitcher is 26 and not beloved by the top-prospect lists, a smart group of scouts and managers can still find potential in them.  (Especially if they're left-handed.)

On another note: a lot of people automatically blamed Patterson for the inside-the-park home run last night, but look closely at the video, which is on MLB.com.  Patterson was calling for the ball, and he would have easily had it.  If he hadn't ducked away at the last minute, Bautista would probably be on the DL today.  Given a choice between one run (in a game the Jays ultimately won) and a highly dangerous collision that could result in the loss of your team's best player for weeks or months, I think Patterson made the right choice.  If Patterson can be faulted for anything, he could maybe be faulted for not yelling loudly enough.  But quite possibly the crowd noise was a factor, and maybe Bautista wouldn't have heard him no matter how loudly he yelled.

"Well, that's who he is. He walks guys"

Yip. And he was never able to improve on that, and now he's happily gone. Now he'll pinball around MLB with numerous teams growing weary of it too.

I wanted to see how often they faced NYY, Bos & TB.

TB is scoring 4.06 runs per game. The league average is 4.30. No need to lump them in with the league's strongest offenses. Pitchers should be happy to face the Rays these days.

In my view, they are blaming him correctly. Bautista isn't faultless on the play, but Patterson made two mistakes, in my opinion. The first was that he didn't repeatedly call for the ball. It's his ball and, if he's playing CF, he's got to have the confidence to be able to call for the balls he can field and rely on the others to get out of the way. Secondly, once he decided to defer to Bautista, he didn't commit to getting out of the way. He basically ducks his head and the ball goes just over his head. If he's going to get out of the way, he has to commit to do doing that and take a step or two forward. It seems to me like Bautista isn't sure what Patterson was doing. He had time to reach the ball, but he seemed as if he may have been worried about a collision and stuck his glove out towards the ball.

Patterson has to make a decision on one course of action or another towards the end of that plate and he did neither. Maybe Bautista should have deferred earlier, but as the play developed Patterson should have kept insisting he had the ball and eventually Bautista would have deferred. What happened yesterday is better than a collision involving Bautista, but it wouldn't have happened with Davis in centre.

My viewing of the video is a little different.  First, you can clearly see Patterson vigorously waving his glove at Bautista -- twice -- in a sweeping "get out of the way" gesture as he runs to the ball.  He is doing this from the beginning of his run to the end.   He is too far from the camera for us to see his face, but presumably he is yelling as he waves his glove at Bautista.  So I think he was being pretty insistent.  At the end of the play, he does more than duck his head -- he also shortens his step drastically and comes to virtually a full stop, allowing Bautista to go behind him (when Patterson realizes that Bautista is going for the ball).  The Reds announcer, on the video, says he can see Patterson calling for the ball "the entire time." He says the problem is completely due to Bautista who "gets in the wrong spot."

He is too far from the camera for us to see his face, but presumably he is yelling as he waves his glove at Bautista.  So I think he was being pretty insistent.

I agree. I really hate to play mind reader, but this looked like a case of office politics. Bautista has grown comfortably into his role as alpha dog on the team. Trouble is, he sometimes takes that attitude into the outfield. He doesn't seem terribly deferential towards Davis and he certainly overstepped his bounds with Patterson. Neither Davis nor Patterson seem willing to assert their captaincy when playing center field, and that's certainly not helping. Bautista needs to ratchet it back just a little and the center fielder, whoever it is, needs to remind Bautista who the boss is.

Cecil or Rzepczynski have at least as good a shot at being an above-average starter, in my view, than Morrow. The romance of upside continues to hold sway.

Cecil I'll agree on, but with Rzep I just don't see it in the pitches or control record. He has a wipeout slider that he uses 30%+ of the time, a sinker with good movement but charitably fringe-average velocity (in the rotation), and a shrug-inducing changeup. Out of the bullpen, his fastball has gone up 3-4 ticks while maintaining its movement, and allowing him to effectively junk what looks like a 4-seamer. That gives him the reliable two weapons he needs to be a good-or-better reliever. In the rotation, I don't see a true weapon vs righties, or the command to make up for it.

If he was being truly insistent, he would have caught the ball or there would have been a collision.

"With his innings being given to: a) older guys, who b) cost a lot more, and c:) haven't pitched as well, this season."

AA had already signed those veteran free-agent/traded for guys before he 'dumped' Purcey, so talk to him - once Purcey was out, no veteran/high $$$ took his place. Purcey's spot then, and later on this season will be filled with minimum $$$ guys out of the TO farm system ie. Perez etc. (and hey, I didn't say I was pro-signing Dotels, Rauch's and the like dude. Peace man.)

Two items of Jays news today:

The Jays have signed Yunel Escobar to a two-year contract extension at $5-million per year.  They also have club options at $5-million per year for the following two years (2014 and 2015) which would be his free-agent years.  Looks like a good bargain to me.

Also, they've announced that Travis Snider has a concussion (from being hit in the helmet by a pitch) and is seeing a neurologist today.