Weekly Round Up : Mar. 29 - Apr. 4

Consider this your required reading for the week.  Bloggers getting some ink in a major publication.  Right on!

 Courtesy of King Jordan:

JAYS SIGN LIND TO 4-YEAR EXTENSION

Contract Breakdown:

2010: $400K base salary, $600K signing bonus

2011: $5 million salary

2012: $5 million salary

2013: $5 million salary

2014: $7 million salary or $2 million buyout

2015: $7.5 million salary or $1 million buyout

2016: $8 million salary or $500K buyout

Guaranteed: $18 million over four years

Potential worth: $38.5 over seven years

Just in case you live under a rock, we extended our DH.  I think this deal is a good one but I will say this: he only plays half the game for us, which limits his chances of being injured but also lowers his overall value to the team.

Courtesy of Benjamin Hill @ MLB.com:

Indeed, the underlying message of The Bullpen Gospels is that success can't be measured in trophies and statistics. As Hayhurst remarks in the book's final chapter: "[A] man of integrity can make any profession seem heroic by how he lives while doing it."
This stance has led to no small amount of soul-searching for Hayhurst, who is clearly uncomfortable with the elevated standing of the professional athlete in modern-day society.
"I haven't passed a health-care bill or lobbied for peace or fought in a war or cured any diseases," he said. "What the hell do I do? I throw a ball past a guy with a club."

Dirk's book hit the shelves, so to speak, this week.  Go buy it and support our guy. 

Courtesy of ESPN:

Karl Ravech, Eduardo Perez and J.P. Ricciardi of "Baseball Tonight" break down the AL East, discussing what team had the best offseason, what players are primed for breakout seasons and who will will win the division.

This is the video that sparked outrage from Jays fans.  J.P. never said your Toronto Blue Jays had the worst off-season in baseball.  What he did say is we had the worst off-season in the AL East.  But he's a fucking jackass and deserves every bit of your anger, so giver nails!

Courtesy of Baseball Prospectus:

The Summary: It's the weirdest thing. The Blue Jays can't keep their pitchers healthy at all. It's the young and the old, the traumatic and chronic, the shoulder and elbow, the upper and lower, the left and the right, the majors and the minors; in other words, there's no pattern at all. Yet on the player side, there's nary an injury. It could be just dumb luck or a failing that everyone, including the Jays, is blind to. Dumb luck only lasts so long, and with this being year three of the trend, we can only hope that a new front office might bring new eyes to a problem. Another key will be how the Jays integrate in that long line of returning pitchers. There's no such thing as too much pitching, but figuring out both their roles and their health is a task that could determine if Toronto goes anywhere this year.
The Facts
Days Lost: 879
Dollars Lost: $5,317,695.11
Injury Cost: $17,784,583.33

A very interesting article.  Is this Arnsberg's fault?  Or is that just the easy answer?

Courtesy of Wedding Day Beauty:

This article appears in the April 5, 2010, issue of Sports Illustrated.

On new Year's night Alex Anthopoulos was on a conference call that lasted past 2 a.m. after a few hours' sleep the new Blue Jays general manager thumbed away on his Blackberry until 11 a.m.  At 1 p.m. he got married.  There wasn't much respite on his honeymoon in Hawaii, either: Anthopoulos, 32, worked whenever his wife, Cristina, was sleeping or sunning.  Yes, the task of running a club in the AL East is all-consuming, especially for Toronto, which hasn't reached the playoffs in the wild-card era. the Red Sox and the Yankees are primarily to blame, but it's the recent emergence of the low-budget Rays that has made the division baseball's strongest and proved that large-market cash isn't the only way to win. "Look at the brains in the division," Anthopoulos says. "That's a lot more challenging to me than the dollars."

Don't even ask what I was doing on this site.  Moving right along.....

Courtesy of THT:

The Blue Jays are by no means a crown jewel of the Rogers empire, from a business point of view. The sports properties (Jays, Rogers Centre, and the right to host NFL Bills games) that Rogers owns represent less than 1.7 percent of the revenue of the enterprise as a whole and the Jays are only a part of that. No one who matters at Rogers cares much about the Jays anymore, in a business run by accountants who are likely concerned about a team in decline on and off the field.

This is a no holds barred view of your Toronto Blue Jays and if a bunch of fellow bloggers didn't get published in the National Post, then this DEFINITELY would have been your required reading for the week.  I agree with the author that Rogers would sell the team in a heartbeat but have to distance myself from most of the other views in this piece.  I think if he didn't include some of the below the belt, childish cheap shots, than this post would have gotten some very valid points across.  Don't forget to read the comments, very passionate reactions from the peanut gallery.

Courtesy of Baseball America:

Paxton Affair Update

"There were a lot of different variables with the main one being the schedule," Carminucci said. "They wanted to see our schedule to make sure it was conducive to people seeing him pitch."
The AirHogs' regular season begins May 14 at home, giving Paxton roughly three weeks of playing time before the 2010 draft. Spring training will begin on May 2. Before spring training begins, the AirHogs and the Boras Corporation will map out a schedule for Paxton's appearances, but for now Grand Prairie is working to clear one final minor hurdle—getting Paxton a visa. As a Canadian citizen, Paxton can't come to work in the U.S. without it, although no one expects that to be an issue.
 
This clusterfuck shitshow seems to have flamed out.  James Paxton is an AirHog.  Perfect.

Courtesy of Jeff Blair @ Globe Sports:

Halladay's return, after all, is scheduled for the same time as G20 leaders are scheduled to be meeting at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, which is right next door to the Rogers Centre. Downtown blocked off? Protesters … toss in another, what 40,000 folks going to a baseball game? What's not to like?
It is hardly a laughing matter to Paul Beeston, the chief executive officer of the Blue Jays and the Rogers Centre. Nobody's suggesting the series be moved – although commissioner Bud Selig is being kept aware of the situation.
Getting people to and from the game with large swaths of the city purposely blocked off to prevent large groups of people from circulating will be a logistical nightmare.

Speaking of clusterfuck shitshow, the much anticipated weekend series is approaching and I will be there!  Got my tickets in the mail this week:

And very much look forward to being present for the festivities!