Anthopoulos Feeling the Slack!

Hey, has anyone read the Cathal Kelly piece in the Toronto Star?  Don't, unless you're ready for a good laugh.  Here it is, if you do want a laugh, but also because I'm going to make fun of it because of how retarded it is and you need a point of reference.  He begins:

Whenever a general manager is hired, a figurative collar is attached to his neck and a length of rope is strung out behind him.  Eventually, the slack in that rope gets used up — by losses and bad contracts and missed deals and the simple passage of time. Then the collar begins to tighten.  For the first time in his nearly 2 ½ years as GM of the Blue Jays, Alex Anthopoulos has begun to feel the tugging.

I would guess that he hasn't, but go on.

Anthopoulos arrived with an unusual amount of rope to spare, some of it due to the ill-tempered flame-out of his predecessor and most of it to do with a sharp contrast in personal style from one man to the next.

But he's run out of it... except that all he's done since he's gotten the job is make excellent trades, keep spending down, etc, which Kelly explains over the next 4 paragraphs, delving in to the Vernon Wells heist, and changing the Jays farm system in to a top-3 system in the game.  Kelly omits items such as locking up Jose Bautista to an incredibly team-friendly deal, extending Ricky Romero, signing a couple of "impossible-to-sign" draft picks, and acquiring a potentially top-shelf CF in exchange for a package centered around a mid-relief pitcher and 2 months of someone else's starter.

 If things begin going sideways — and they certainly haven’t yet — we will trace the first moments of unease to the winter meetings in Dallas. That was where he first referred to the ominous spectre of “payroll parameters,” subsequently amended to payroll “boundaries.” Whatever that actually means, it translates in the booster’s ear to, ‘We don’t have a whole lot of money to spend.’

As in "we're not going to be fucking retarded and spend money with wreckless abandon".

Fairly or not, the emotional bungee jump of the Yu Darvish posting further whittled away the supply of blind faith on offer. Again, from a communications standpoint, it was a disaster. If the club had any doubts about winning the Japanese pitcher, they shouldn’t have allowed the opposite storyline to dominate in the days beforehand.

MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE REPORTED THAT THE JAYS WON THE DARVISH BIDDING WHEN THEY DIDN'T, YOU FUCKING SQUARE.  THEY DIDN'T FUCKING KNOW WHO WON THE BIDDING, JUST LIKE YOU, AND JUST LIKE ME.  YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO, YOU STUPID FUCK.

There is still a great deal of slack in Anthopoulos’ rope. He earned it with the Wells deal and by stealing closer Sergio Santos from under the noses of 28 other teams this winter.

Which is it man?  If there's no slack left, he's feeling the tug; if there's "a great deal" of slack left, he's not feeling the tug.  If you don't know what "slack" is, stop using that fucking analogy.  Just admit that you didn't have dick-all to write about today when you came in to work, since you wasted your whole weekend doing god knows what instead of coming up with someone that's an actual story.

But while the Yankees have armoured over their only weak spot with the additions of Michael Pineda and Hiroki Kuroda, this year’s Jays look ominously like last year’s Jays. 

No it doesn't. The Jays obviously didn't have an impact bat that they were willing to move for Pineda, or they probably would have given it a shot.  Beyond that:

1. Corey Patterson
2. Juan Rivera
3. Aaron Hill
4. Jojo Reyes
5. Jon Rauch
6. Frank Francisco
7. Jayson Nix
8. John Mcdonald
9. Jose Molina
10. Mark Teahen

are all players who are no longer with the team.  Of that list, only FF and Jose Molina posted a positive WAR during their tenures (I didn't look this up, but if I'm wrong, it's only barely).  Replace that bunch with Brett Lawrie, Kelly Johnson, Colby Rasmus, Sergio Santos, and randoms like Ben Francisco.  It only looks "ominously like" last years team because all of the good players, plus Adam Lind and Jesse Litsch, are still here.

This storyline can be turned back toward the positive overnight. Anthopoulos is far too able to be blamed for the tight fists of his corporate employers. 

It wouldn't be negative at all if you didn't write this stupid fucking piece based on absolutely nothing.  Give him a fucking break.  It takes more than 20 minutes to turn a bad team in to a good one.