The Weekly Round Up

Consider this a must click link.

Consider this your required reading for the week.

Consider this your required viewing for the week. This one was a very close second place.

Consider this your required listening for the week.

Courtesy of Ken Fidlin:

Two years ago in spring training young outfielder Moises Sierra, coming off a good year at Class A Lansing, impressed a lot of people not only with his bat but with his strong outfield arm.

That arm has led the club to experiment with Sierra at third base.

“It’s exploratory,” said general manager Alex Anthopoulos.

Alright enough already. He`s on the 40 man roster and he`s never played above AA ball. Forget 3rd base. Forget hitting. Let`s see if he can pitch.

Courtesy of THT:

4. Toronto Blue Jays. Toronto got good in a hurry. There isn't a can't-miss prospect in the bunch, but it's a strong top 10, with the top five likely to appear in my top 100 prospects, and there is plenty of talent throughout the system that is waiting for recognition.
1. Brett Lawrie / 3B/2B/OF
2. Kyle Drabek / SP
3. Deck McGuire / SP
4. J.P. Arencibia / C
5. Chad Jenkins / SP
6. Travis D'Arnaud / C
7. Carlos Perez / C
8. Adieny Hechavarria / SS
9. Zach Stewart / RP/SP
10. David Cooper / 1B

Yet another top 10 list for ya. I`m waiting not so patiently for this one.

Courtesy of The 5th Starter:

Dear Brett,

I have already placed so many of my hopes for the Blue Jays future on your youthful shoulders. Your left-handed-right-handed swing gives me chills. Your youthful athleticism gives me comfort that you can adjust to an infield home, and offer significantly more value to the team going forward.

That said, I've just returned from your likely future home (Las Vegas, Nevada)

I've also realized that while you are in the aforementioned Vegas, you will turn the delicate age of 21.

Now, like a good Canadian boy, I'm quite sure that you are already drinking regularly (For those of you who are unaware, the drinking age in most Canadian Provinces is 19) and I'm sure you've developed an excellent tolerance. Your tolerance will count for nothing in the dry, desert heat. Your willpower will be tested (repeatedly) and you may even end up with more Eminem lyrics tattooed upon your juvenile limbs.

The 5th Starter sends an open letter to Brett. Fantastic stuff.

Courtesy of Mop Up Duty:

2011 Toronto Blue Jays Promos and Giveaways

Another pitiful season of Toronto Blue Jays giveaways and promotions. Outside of opening day, the Jays are giving away only 50,000 promo units ALL season!

The boys over at Mop Up Duty call out the cheap bastards @ Rogers for their weak giveaways and promo schedule for this year coming.

Courtesy of North of the Border:

Speaking of those B-Games, the Blue Jays released their schedule of extra contests. The club will play all three of their B games against Philadelphia, which makes sense since the Phillies play in neighboring Clearwater, Fla. The two clubs will take the field on Feb. 26, March 2 and March 17. The first regular game of Spring Training is Feb. 26 at the Florida Auto Exchange Stadium against the Detroit Tigers.

B-Games are the shit! (That means they are good) Normally they take place at remote high school like ballparks and they can't sell tickets for them. If anyone is lucky enough to be going down for Spring Training keep these dates in mind.

Courtesy of OOTP:

Around the OOTP offices, we're looking forward to two events in April: Opening Day and the expected shipping of Apple's second-generation iPad. It may not have been announced yet, but we all know the next iPad is coming, and one lucky fan who pre-orders Out of the Park Baseball 12 by February 28, 2011 will receive one.*

Our lucky winner will also take home a copy of iOOTP, which will bring the excitement and realism of OOTP to iPad, iPhone®, and iPod touch® when it steps up to the plate at the iOS App Store this spring.

Last year I got my hands on a copy and did a sim for the 2010 season. Click here to see the results. *Spoiler alert* it predicted the Giants win of the World Series. Hopefully again this year I`ll get the opportunity to do another sim and report the results prior to the game going on the market. Stay tuned for that.

Courtesy of Through The Fence Baseball:

My name is Ryan Shopshire and I will begin writing my blog exclusively at Through The Fence Baseball. This is my first time writing a blog so the more input that you readers give me the better. First I want to tell everybody a little about my baseball background. I am a so-cal boy born and raised in the most beautiful place in the states, Orange County California. I played my high school years at Orange Lutheran High School, a premier power house. After high school I accepted a scholarship at Long Beach State to play for the Dirtbags. My freshmen year there I experienced my first injury playing baseball (a stress fracture in my throwing elbow) and made me miss my entire season. At the end of the season exit meetings the coaches decided that Long Beach would not be my home the following season. This was a big blow to me because this was my first choice school out of high school.

Rock solid blog. One of our prospects is doing an exclusive with them. You should probably be following along.

Courtesy of Bluebird Banter:

An idea shamelessly stolen researched from James Kannengieser at Amazing Avenue. Baseball-Reference counts page views player and team pages and they list the top 200 pages here. Here are the Jays and former Jays that are in the top 200:

Rank	Player	Page Hits	Jays WAR	Career WAR
14	Roy Halladay	336245	47.4	54.3
16	Jayson Werth	316167	0.2	18.7
26	Jose Bautista	256654	7.6	5.9
45	Rickey Henderson	184966	0.3	75.3
62	Roger Clemens	160101	17.8	74.8
69	Roberto Alomar	151833	20.1	63.5
83	Ted Lilly	137041	7.4	25.1
95	Frank Thomas	127891	1.7	70.6
112	Scott Downs	114616	9.5	8.4
114	Fred McGriff	113753	18.9	50.5
124	Kyle Drabek	110531	0.1	0.1
135	Chris Carpenter	106164	6.8	28.6
137	Bengie Molina	105853	0.4	8.6

Kyle Drabek could crack the top 100 before the end of his first season in the big leagues. Lotta Buzz.

Courtesy of ESPN:

1. Joe Carter, 1997 Blue Jays: .234/.284/.399 (-25 rbat), 102 RBI

For Carter, 1997 was his last full season and his worst, but in addition to No. 1, he also occupies spots 11, 15, 47, 105, 129 and 139 on the list. Carter was a more athletic and longer-lasting version of Armas. The Jays plugged Carter into either the number three or four spot in 157 of their 162 games in ‘97, where he cost them significantly in runs and wins on both sides of the ball despite the RBI.

Shame on you stats dorks for hating on Joe. Why don`t you take this and shove it up your ass.

Courtesy of tampabay.com:

"What AstroTurf's press release didn't tell you is the real reason why Tampa Bay is installing their product — they are getting a free field."

FieldTurf says AstroTurf's three-year licensing deal with MLB Properties includes a provision that gives a free AstroTurf carpet to the Rogers Centre, the Toronto Blue Jays stadium in Toronto, plus a new field for the Rays at the Trop.

The Rays agree they're getting a freebie.

If I were the cost-conscious Rays, I'd grab that deal, too.

FieldTurf president Eric Daliere says his company was approached by Major League Baseball with a like licensing offer, but declined it.

"We were not willing to have them subsidize free fields or large royalty fees. When Tampa Bay and Toronto paid for turf, they chose FieldTurf," Daliere said. "We would encourage any clients looking to obtain a baseball field from AstroTurf to ask for the same deal that Toronto and Tampa Bay got."

So the turf was free after all eh? No shit. Check out the bullshit the cheap bastards @ Rogers were saying back then as to why they made the switch.

Courtesy of John Lott:

After his manager denied he was hurt, Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Travis Snider revealed Sunday that he has been held out of workouts for the past week because of a rib-cage injury suffered while playing golf.

In a media scrum a few minutes earlier, manager John Farrell alluded vaguely to Snider missing drills because of “a little bit of tightness in his overall core.” Asked if the tightness was the result of an injury, Farrell replied: “No, no, no. Just bringing him along a little slower.”

But after undergoing treatment in the trainer’s room, Snider told reporters he “tweaked something” in his left upper rib cage while playing golf about a week ago. It did not bother him immediately, he said, but tightened up the next day.

Both Snider, the Jays’ starting left-fielder, and Farrell suggested the injury was relatively minor. The 23-year-old left-fielder said his condition has improved, but “not significantly,” and he can neither swing nor throw at the moment.

“We don’t expect him to be way behind or certainly not delayed,” Farrell said.

No more golf kid. Baseball time.

Courtesy of The Canadian Press:

Manager John Farrell watched over the bullpen sessions of his pitchers Sunday and two of them caught his eye.

Left-hander Jo-Jo Reyes, a candidate for both the starting rotation and bullpen, and right-hander Jesse Litsch, a leading contender for one of the two spots in the back of the rotation.

"Jo-Jo Reyes continues to throw the ball very well," said Farrell. "A guy who was a highly touted prospect with Atlanta before being sidetracked with a knee injury, in the early sessions he's thrown the ball very well. ...

"I thought Jesse Litsch threw the ball well today. It's become more evident, just the repair of the hip and the surgery on the elbow a couple of years ago, he's been free and easy and is throwing the ball good."

I just wanted to point out that I picked these two guys to fill out the 4 and 5 spots in the rotation for the 25 Man Roster Challenge. I`m the only person to do so.

Courtesy of Husker Extra:

Nebraska baseball coach Mike Anderson said Tuesday that freshmanpitcher Logan Ehlers, still waiting for the NCAA to make a decisionon his eligibility status, will not travel with the Huskers to thisweekend's season-opening round-robin tournament at Texas State inSan Marcos, Texas.

At question is whether the left-hander from Nebraska City -- whoin August turned down $800,000 to sign with the Toronto Blue Jays'organization two months after he was drafted in the eighth round --violated an NCAA bylaw that pertains to the use of advisersthroughout the bargaining process. The NCAA allows such arelationship, but prohibits advisers from having contact withmajor-league organizations during contract negotiations.

Anderson said the school and sanctioning body have hadback-and-forth communication, but the NCAA has yet to provide itsruling in writing.

The Paxton Affair - which is still going on - now has some company. WTF is going on with kids that don't sign with us? Two different players in back to back years? Can't be a coincidence.

Courtesy of Jeremy Sandler:

Cosentino began working with the Blue Jays as a bat boy in 1987 and has been involved with the team in some capacity for most of the time since then. He will continue to work for Rogers on the network’s junior hockey broadcasts.

“I’m extremely disappointed that Rogers Sportsnet has decided to remove me from broadcasts,” Cosentino said during a phone interview Wednesday. “But in our most recent discussions, we’ve been talked about increasing my role and my exposure in hockey and I’m excited about that opportunity.”

The departures leave play-by-play man Buck Martinez and analyst Pat Tabler to handle the Blue Jays games.

I can deal without Rance always harping on our hitters to "be aggressive early in the count" but I think I'm gonna miss Sudden Sam. He brought some energy to the broadcasts.

Game 87 Recap: Live And In Effect

Yeah.  I just did that. 

So every year I do this thing for my birthday present with my God parents.  They order 4 smoking tickets in the second deck, the padded ones with the cup holders, early on in the winter for a Friday game of my choice.  Normally I pick a game vs either the Red Sucks or Evil Empire, just cuz I hate them most.  We meet prior to the game at Lone Star on Front Street and catch up over some fajitas and a couple of beers.  The deal is, I am suppose to bring whomever I am dating at the time for the evening.  That did not happen this year and it is definitely a story for another day.  In truth, my God mother was not able to be in attendance either so I was asked to find two willing participants to join us.  No sweat right?  Wrong.  Took some time but I was able to talk the postless wonder jaysaremy2ndfavoriteteam, who lives in Owen Sound and John Boon, who lives beside the SkyDome into coming.   
 
This year I picked game 87.  It turned out to be billed as a great pitching match up with our ace in training Rick Roll vs All Star LHP Jon Lester.  The 14 - 3 trashing your Toronto Blue Jays took on the chin tells a different story.  I guess that is why they play the game.

I'll spare you most of the details but I will say this: I SUGGESTED we leave the game in the 8th inning and I NEVER do that.  Like ever. 

The Good:

It was a nice evening and the sun came out at 8pm!

     
































The Bad:

I pointed out to my party in the 1st inning that being in the second deck kinda sucks for heckling.  You are way to far away from the field and the players can't hear you.  After 6 innings and 14 runs against I muster up the balls to yell a simple "you suck" at Lester after he gives up the bomb to Johnny Mac.  An entire family of Red Sucks fans sitting in the section beside us turned and looked at me in shock.  Mama bear stands up and glares, clearly with bad intentions, directly at me.  The 6 year old little girl who is proudly sporting a Lester jersey stands up, turns around, and points at the name on the back with the double thumb over the shoulder.  But the best reaction, by far, was the 4 year old little boy.  He simply yells at the top of his lungs: "No YOU suck"

The Ugly:

I was drunk tweeting the game.  Here is some of my work:

Intro
1st rally cry
A gloomy prediction
Now I'm just pissed off
Final rally cry
An observation
Now I'm really pissed off
Reality sets in

Conclusion:

As we were saying our goodbyes I asked my God father if it would be ok for next year that we pick a game against the Royals or Indians.  He smiled and nodded.

Note To Yankees: You're About To Be Rickrolled Bitches

“There was a guy here that did it really, really well,” Romero said. “You try to learn from that.”
But instead of reminiscing about the Halladay era, Romero reminded reporters of the new reality in Toronto: Halladay wears a different uniform and could face the Jays when Toronto plays the Phillies in late June.
So while Romero had plenty of praise for Halladay, he’s also prepared to face his former teammate.
“I’m sure everyone in here is happy for Doc, but we’ve got to take care of our business,” he said. “He’s our enemy now.”

	W	L	ERA	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	SVO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	HB	BB	SO	AVG	WHIP	GO/AO
	5	2	3.14	11	11	2	1	0	0	77.1	64	27	27	3	2	29	79	.230	1.20	2.39

Romero bounced back from his worst outing of the season against the Angels, where he went 5 1/3 allowing seven runs on 11 hits, with a stellar complete-game performance on Sunday, as the Jays defeated the Orioles, 6-1. The left-hander only gave up six hits and issued two walks for his second complete game of the young season. Furthermore, only two of his 27 outs were recorded in the outfield, showing his ground-ball and strikeout dominance. His seven strikeouts Sunday gives him 79 on the season, which is good for tops on the Blue Jays. Romero will go up against Rickroll the shit out of the powerhouse Yankees next start, whom he is 1-1 with a 5.94 ERA against over 16 2/3 innings.

OPPOSING HITTER	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Jorge Posada	9	2	0	0	0	3	0	5	.222	.222	.222	.444
Robinson Cano	8	1	0	0	1	1	0	3	.125	.125	.500	.625
Alex Rodriguez	7	3	1	0	0	1	1	1	.429	.556	.571	1.127
Derek Jeter	6	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	.000	.333	.000	.333
Marcus Thames	6	1	0	1	0	1	0	0	.167	.167	.500	.667
Curtis Granderson	6	1	0	0	1	1	0	3	.167	.167	.667	.833
Mark Teixeira	5	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	.200	.333	.200	.533
Nick Swisher	4	2	1	0	0	0	4	1	.500	.750	.750	1.500
Brett Gardner	3	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.333	.333	.333	.667
Ramiro Pena	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000