Post-TG hangovering

Well I ate a shitload, and got sloppy drunk, but I still managed to lose weight this week.  Figure out if that makes sense.  I also managed to miss the whole TEX-DET game, and most of the STL-MIL one yesterday, the first games I've missed since the day the Red Sox died.  I'd like to point out the Nelson Cruz is really fucking good at baseball, and is criminally underrated.  I'm pretty sure I've written that on here somewhere before.

Anyway, there's a small spattering of Jays news on the intertubes lately, so...

Stuff


Paul Beeston sat down and had a chat with Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star.  MLBTR summarizes the chat well enough, I suppose, but the real meat is within the comment section, where two guys troll every single Jays fan on there expertly.  A note for idiots: Beeston says they're going to spend more money, starting either this year or next.  You don't have to complain for much longer!

Rumor has it, according to Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated, that teams are inquiring on Joey Votto.  And wouldn't you know it, the Jays are considered to be one of those teams.  When asked, Walt Jocketty, Reds' GM, said that they weren't going to trade him, obviously.  Because why the fuck would you ever say otherwise and drive the price down?  You wouldn't.  It's pretty tough to argue that Votto would look fucking awesome in this lineup, if for nothing else than to get rid of Adam Lind.  I'm not going to go off on this one, at least not yet-- maybe if this rumor picks up a little more steam, I'll tickle myself with a post dedicated to the awesome outrageousness that is Joey Votto, but I'm fairly sure that there won't be any trading and whatnot until after the World Series.

Related to Jocketty's claim that he's not trading Votto, MGL looks at the usefulness of such a claim, and whether it ever makes sense for a player to be untouchable.

Fangraphs/Rotographs writes something really open-ended about what Kelly Johnson should be expected to do next season.  They figure he bounces back a bit next year!  They also wrote something about Ricky Romero last week that I don't remember linking, but may have and will just have a repeat right here.  I really wonder sometimes if just anybody can write for fangraphs, because basically all these rotographs articles follow the same formula of finding someone with an abnormal [babip/fip/line drive%/etc.] compared to their career norms, and then establish the opinion that he's due for a regression next season.  No shit.

Keith Law wrote the other day, saying that Jays prospect Anthony Gose is pretty much a guaranteed superstar in the making.  It's an insider article (i.e. behind a paywall), but someone copy and pasted it on the internet, and as result, here you go (stuff in square brackets is mine):

Toronto Blue Jays centerfielder Anthony Gose took a major step forward this year with his performance in AA at age 20, showing patience and a little more pop, with a strong .254/.358/.444 line against right-handed pitchers. He does need to improve against southpaws, and his line was boosted by a good home park (especially for left-handed hitters), but given his athleticism and other tools, the hitting line and the improvements in his swing that caused it are really promising.

Out of high school, Gose started with a wide stance and drifted onto his front foot, almost without purpose, then generated most of the power in his swing with his hands, throwing the bat head at the ball with an inconsistent swing path and finish. Now, he's starting with a narrower base, striding forward to get his swing started, keeping his weight back longer and his back more stable, letting him drive through the ball and generate some power from his hips and legs while maintaining a much more consistent swing.

Gose is a 70 runner with a 70 arm [out of 80] (although the one game throw I saw was more of a 60, if you want to nit-pick) who should have plenty of range for centerfield, so the offensive baseline for him to be an average everyday player in the majors is pretty low. He still has a lot of improvements ahead of him to become a star but I am very optimistic about him reaching that. When the Jays traded Brett Wallace to Houston for Gose two summers ago, I didn't understand the deal, as Wallace was a polished, disciplined hitter while Gose was all tools but didn't have great performances or advanced mechanics. Wallace, it turns out, had a fatal flaw that was exposed in AAA and now in the majors -- he cannot turn on inside pitches, so he tries to go to the opposite field instead; with minimal defensive value and no apparent way to fix that flaw, he was expendable for the Jays. Gose, meanwhile, is no longer a tools goof but the kind of high-upside prospect Toronto GM Alex Anthopoulos has said all along that he wants in the organization. They took a risk, but right now it appears to be paying off in a huge way.