When I was much younger, my then-favorite team, the Cincinnati Reds mad a trade to acquire a starting pitcher you may have heard of, guy named Seaver. And for several years, every time he took the hill, I was confident (even convinced) the Reds were bound to win that day. He was the Jays' Roy Halladay, c. 2009 and before. He was, put another way, the anti-Mike LaCoss.
Now to be fair, LaCoss was not a bad pitcher; he won 98 games (and lost 103) over 14 years, cracked double-digit wins in a season four times, even made the 1979 All-Star team, ahead of his teammate Seaver. But LaCoss was a guy, in my young teen brain, who every time he took to the mound, disaster awaited. Not sure why I thought that, exactly, but it seemed inevitable.
So today's Question of the Day: What Blue Jays fit this profile in your personal history? Don't stick to pitchers, though they're probably the easiest to identify ... let's see if we can build an entire lineup, or even a full roster ... who are The Scary Jays?
In another thread, veteran Bauxite Mike Green intones, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Can we not talk about something else, like ...
- Perhaps the best pop song which adverts to September? The efforts of Kurt Weill, Rod Stewart, Earth Wind and Fire and Green Day come to mind.
- Or perhaps, the best Septembers by a ballclub?
- Or whether Lyle Overbay or some other defensively qualified first baseman should be signed during the off-season?
First person to answer all three questions by tying them together into a single, annoyingly hip Mad Men-ish advertising slogan wins the coveted Batter's Box No-Prize! But don't worry, if you're not first, the BEST such entry will win FIVE No-Prizes. Quintuple your winnings!
The Houston Astros have reached a player development deal with the Oklahoma City RedHawks of the Pacific Coast League and that means the Blue Jays and the Las Vegas 51's will still be together for at least the next two seasons according to the National Post.
UPDATE 09/21 @ 6:30 p.m. - The Jays have officially announced a two-year PDC with the 51's.
Baseball America will begin publishing their league top twenty lists this week. I thought I would take a shot at guessing which Jays might make the lists.
This is a tricky objective because I don't know all the prospects from other organizations nor will I be examining the non-Blue Jay rosters of all the minor league teams to see who should make the list. I will approach this purely from a Blue Jay perspective.
I’ve been a little under the weather the last couple days, so I’ve reached out to our pal north of the border to pinch-hit today. You might remember this guy from a couple entries he shared with us in 2006.
THE NOUVEAU-BERGERON REPORT
The tragic number for the Jays is now down to four. It would be a waste of time talking about tonight’s game in Baltimore or the weekend series in Boston. This isn’t a bad team – we’d be in second place in the AL West – but there’s plenty of work to be done if we’re gonna make any noise the next few years in the East. Let’s look at something two of the four teams who will be in the playoffs this year did in 2007 to help get them where they are now.
The POTD focuses on Kyle Drabek and his Cy Young Award winning father. They were spotlighted on JaysVision in between innings of Thursday's game against Texas.
With Kyle Drabek set to make his major league debut Wednesday night comes word that the man he was traded for will get to return to his old stomping grounds next season. According to bluejays.com, Roy Halladay and the Philadelphia Phillies will be in town for the Canada Day weekend.
With all these similarities, I'm surprised we haven't started calling them by a dumb hybrid name. Maybe Aram Lill just doesn't have the same ring as, for example, Freed Johnalanotto.