More Baseball!

Baseball is my favorite sport. I seem to be writing less these days because there aren't as many baseball articles. All that is being written under "baseball" on websites is about Clemens and Congress and some guy named George Mitchell who I've never heard of before yesterday (seriously though, anyone else getting sick of the Clemens saga?). None of those things have anything to do with VORP or SNLVAR, so my one-track sabermetric brain is too stupid to write anything meaningful about them (unless Howard Bryant (SMACK!) plays the race card). I have yet to decide whether this paragraph is primarily serious or sarcastic.

Anyway, Glaus and Rolen are swapping teams, that's pretty interesting huh? Jerry Crasnick said that it's good for both parties. I agree with him! But just for fun, let's see what bogus reasons he can spew at us in an attempt to write an article long enough for publishing, shall we?

Toronto manager John Gibbons had a couple of highly-publicized blowouts with Shea Hillenbrand and Ted Lilly two years ago. But if you talk to people around the team, they'll tell you Gibbons is a "player's manager" who creates a comfortable environment for his guys.

If you cut to the core of this paragraph, you get the meaning: "Except for dealing with problematic personalities, John Gibbons is excellent at dealing with people!" Wow, sounds like a super dude. Also, what moronic player is going to tell an ESPN reporter that the manager is doing anything BUT creating a comfortable environment for the team? You think they're just going to make waves and tell the public if there really is a problem? Most-to-all players will publicly say that they like their manager. Maybe you're right, Crasnick, and maybe Gibbons is pretty good at that, but ask any of LaRussa's boys over in St. Louis the same question, and you won't hear a different answer (except for maybe Mr. Rolen). This paragraph basically says nothing about the quality of John Gibbons as a manager, when you think about it.

That's a good thing for Scott Rolen -- the Blue Jays acquired the third baseman in exchange for Troy Glaus on Saturday -- because Toronto's newest addition doesn't have a particularly good track record with authoritarian types.

Let's try a syllogism based on these first two paragraphs!

Premise 1: John Gibbons has a history of having personal problems with players with confrontational personalities.

Premise 2: Scott Rolen has a confrontational personality.

Reasonable Proposition: Scott Rolen is likely to have a personal problem with John Gibbons!

Rolen's former St. Louis buddy, David Eckstein, recently signed a one-year deal to play shortstop for Toronto, so the Jays won't have to spend much time building synergy on the left side in spring training.

AAAAHHHHHH-CCCCHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

With extreme apologies to the writers of I, Robot, I must confess, Jerry, I'm allergic to bullshit. "Synergy on the left side?" Is that an important thing? Are Joe Crede and Juan Uribe best buddies (do they even speak the same language?)? How about Julio Lugo and Mike Lowell? A-Rod and Derek Jeter get to the playoffs every year.....because they work so well together, right? Is THAT how these teams are doing it?

No seriously Jerry, exactly how many defensive plays per year involve both the shortstop and the third baseman? It's a stretch to say something like this about the shortstop and the 2nd basemen, much less 2 people who rarely throw the ball to each other.

And although the three years and $33 million left on Rolen's contract scared off some clubs, the commitment fits right in with Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi's timetable. The Blue Jays are built to win over the next three seasons, with Vernon Wells, Roy Halladay, Alex Rios, Lyle Overbay and B.J. Ryan all tied up contractually through 2010 or beyond, and now the team won't have to fill a potentially gaping hole at third base.

So these are the components of a "built to win" team.

1) An overrated CF who collapsed last year and has turned in 2 notably above-average offensive seasons in his last 6
2) A legitimate ace (with a good amount of injury history)
3) An above-average corner OF
4) A pretty mediocre starting MLB 1B
5) A very good closer with significant injury problems.

Well, I'm sold. Watch out, Red Sox and Yankees. This sounds completely different than the Blue Jays who have been mired in slightly-better-than-average-itude for the past several years.

I'm truly disappointed, Crasnick. You should take this as a compliment, because I refuse to write this about mostly anyone else I scribble about, but you can do better.