Random musings
Both the Leafs and the Raptors aren't playing today. That's my first "non-game day" since starting the blog. In other words, it's a "Oh man, does this mean I actually have to do some work in the morning?" day.
And guess what, I filed three articles in the morning and a couple more in the afternoon, with another one scheduled for the evening. So proud of myself.
I follow the NHL and the NBA, not just my two favorite/favourite teams. But even I can be a professional and put in an honest day's work when I have to.
Or, I can delve into topics other than the Raptors and the Leafs on days like this. Namely, the Jays.
1. It just happens that the annual Winter Meetings are happening this week in Vegas. The Jays have made a couple of minor-ish moves so far this offseason, trading Diaz and non-tendering Solarte, but it seems like we'll be a busy team in Vegas.
Shi Davidi of Sportsnet lay out what to expect from the Jays during the meetings.
Shi (pronounced 'Shy') is the main Jays guy there. I even ran into him in Korea during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics this past February, but unfortunately, never got a chance to say hello. I was sitting in this press room and Shi barged through the door, all out of breath, pulled out his laptop and started typing away madly. Maybe he was under a tight deadline, the time difference with Toronto and all.
I've always had this fascination about journalists who cover my favorite teams or cover North American sports full-time. When I was still a student, I looked up to those people. And now that I've become a writer myself, not that I consider myself as an equal, that awe-factor is gone. I now want to pick their brains or just want to hear their stories about their work. You know, like a day in the life of (fill in the blank). For example, what's it like to be a major league club house? In Korean baseball, club houses are off-limits for the media. Pre-game or post-game we're only allowed to talk to players in the dug out or in the hallways outside the club house, or during the formal press conference.
Anyway, Shi, if you ever read this, I was this bespectacled guy sitting across from you in that press room, with a Blue Jays keychain dangling from his backpack.
As much as I respect Shi's work, though, sometimes I have to take his or anyone else's reporting on the Jays on Sportsnet with a grain of salt. Both Sportsnet and the Blue Jays are owned by Rogers. They work for the same boss, which I guess makes them co-workers, in a way...??
So I wonder how critical Sportsnet writers can be of the Jays when situations call for some healthy/constructive criticism. I think they've often chosen to come to defend the Jays when other media were taking shots (and not in a bad way) at the team.
In that above piece, this sentence stood out for me.
I didn't so much mind Solarte and Diaz acquisitions last offseason. I knew they had been decent players. Diaz had even been an All-Star as a rookie with the Cardinals in 2015. But they clearly weren't pieces to take us to the postseason, if that's what the goal was.
Speaking of which, the Jays tried to convince what I think was the skeptical fan base that they could contend with the group of players they had in the beginning of 2018. The rotation of Sanchez, Stroman, Happ, Estrada and Garcia was supposed to be the team's strength. With a healthy Donaldson, who had a torrid second half in 2017, the lineup could still do enough damage. And so forth, so forth.
I, for one, didn't buy it. I felt we got way too lucky as far as the injury situation in our playoff runs in 2015 and 2016. Baseball Gods (here I go again) don't let teams stay that lucky for that long. I was disappointed and frustrated, but not surprised, that Sanchez, Stroman, Donaldson, Tulo and a slew of other players were hobbled by injuries from the get-go. Garcia was clearly not the pitcher that he was and that the Jays envisioned him being.
I feel that the Toronto media should have been a bit more critical of the way the Jays were trying to sell this "We can compete with the big boys in AL East" idea with that team, rather than just relaying whatever message the club was putting out there.
I understand the team had a responsibility to keep the fans hopeful, especially after the short, two-year playoff run ended, but I think they should also have been more upfront about their assessment of the club. Did they honestly believe they could hang with the Red Sox and the Yankees with the team they had? I doubt that.
2. Writing about Stroman and Sanchez reminds me of this bizarre feud between the two. They used to be inseparable, but as Stroman tells it, they've grown apart for some reason.
But hey, things happen between friends all the time. I've had a close friend kind of drift out of my life, though it's not like we had any ugly spat or anything like that.
Here's my take: you don't have to like each other to be teammates on a major league ball club, or any other sports team. As long as you keep things professional and civil and go about doing your job, things will be just fine. Not every one of those players can be friends with one another, anyway.
And I tell this to my co-workers all the time. We don't have to all love each other. But we just have to be "grown-up" about our relationships and keep the ship afloat. Look, you can throw three people into an office, and maybe they will hate each other's guts. But that doesn't mean they can't find a way to do something successful together. That's just my way of thinking.
Or I am trying to justify the fact that there are some colleagues that I like a tad less than others (hey, "hate" is a strong word).
Back to the Jays. I know both Stro and Chez have talent, but I think Marcus sometimes takes his fiery, chip-on-his-shoulder mantra a bit too far. He walks a fine line between ultra competitive and ultra annoying.
Sanchez is just two years removed from winning the AL ERA title. And as far as I am concerned, he hasn't pitched since that 2016 season. The 2017 season was a lost one with just eight starts, and though he did make 20 starts in 2018, it probably would have been better if he hadn't pitched that often. What's up with his finger trouble?
So both are apparently on the trading block. They're in team control for two more years. And it's become a trend in baseball now: dealing young players a couple of years from free agency before having to negotiate an extension or risking losing them in the open market. I suppose clubs want to deal these 20-something players with team-friendly contracts while their value is still relatively high and fetch some prospects in return.
Well, at least we're a rebuilding team. Clubs like the Mariners and the Diamondbacks, who either contended for a postseason berth or played meaningful games in October recently, are dumping assets. After the Cubs and the Astros lost 100 games before winning the World Series titles, now it seems like others want to get better by getting terrible first.
I don't think it's good for the game that so many teams are so blatantly tanking. We saw three teams lose 100 games in 2018. How many more will be there in 2019? What about fans in those markets? Are they going to be patient enough to live through those years, when there's no guarantee that the championship banner will be at the end of the tunnel? In a league already coping with declining attendance, this is surely a disconcerting trend.
3. So for a non-Jays take. Harold Baines is a Hall of Famer. In all my years of watching baseball, I never once thought Baines would be in the hall. He is a pretty underwhelming inductee, to say the least. Well, you gotta hand it to him for his longevity. He debuted in the year I was born and played for 22 years.
My very first major league game in person was on May 28, 1996, at SkyDome against the White Sox. I got two free tickets after purchasing a Detroit Pistons Grant Hill jersey at a sporting goods shop whose name escapes me (it was a promotional deal for purchases of over $50 CDN). Sat in the fifth deck, above center field, and I'll never forget that date and that game because Robin Ventura hit two homers in an 8-5 win, and that second home run in the eighth inning landed just below where I and my friend Sid were sitting. (Actually, Sid had gone to grab coffee and missed that second home run. How I remember these details, I have no idea.)
Anyway, I knew Baines was on that CWS team, but I had to look up the box score to see if he was in the lineup that night. He wasn't.
You can find all the handwringing about Baines' induction elsewhere. Me, I'd be happy to play this "If Harold Baines is a Hall of Famer, then (fill in the blank) should be in Cooperstown" game.
Just off the top of my head, Edgar Martinez and Crime Dog come to mind. But I bet there are a bunch of other players who posted better numbers than Baines but aren't yet in the hall.
Leafs (@Canes) and Raptors (@Clips) double-header tomorrow. I am glad I did so much work today and almost reached my quota for the week.
And guess what, I filed three articles in the morning and a couple more in the afternoon, with another one scheduled for the evening. So proud of myself.
I follow the NHL and the NBA, not just my two favorite/favourite teams. But even I can be a professional and put in an honest day's work when I have to.
Or, I can delve into topics other than the Raptors and the Leafs on days like this. Namely, the Jays.
 |
| "OK! (OK!), Blue Jays! (Blue Jays!), Let's (Let's), Play (Play), Ball! (Ball)!" |
1. It just happens that the annual Winter Meetings are happening this week in Vegas. The Jays have made a couple of minor-ish moves so far this offseason, trading Diaz and non-tendering Solarte, but it seems like we'll be a busy team in Vegas.
Shi Davidi of Sportsnet lay out what to expect from the Jays during the meetings.
Shi (pronounced 'Shy') is the main Jays guy there. I even ran into him in Korea during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics this past February, but unfortunately, never got a chance to say hello. I was sitting in this press room and Shi barged through the door, all out of breath, pulled out his laptop and started typing away madly. Maybe he was under a tight deadline, the time difference with Toronto and all.
I've always had this fascination about journalists who cover my favorite teams or cover North American sports full-time. When I was still a student, I looked up to those people. And now that I've become a writer myself, not that I consider myself as an equal, that awe-factor is gone. I now want to pick their brains or just want to hear their stories about their work. You know, like a day in the life of (fill in the blank). For example, what's it like to be a major league club house? In Korean baseball, club houses are off-limits for the media. Pre-game or post-game we're only allowed to talk to players in the dug out or in the hallways outside the club house, or during the formal press conference.
Anyway, Shi, if you ever read this, I was this bespectacled guy sitting across from you in that press room, with a Blue Jays keychain dangling from his backpack.
As much as I respect Shi's work, though, sometimes I have to take his or anyone else's reporting on the Jays on Sportsnet with a grain of salt. Both Sportsnet and the Blue Jays are owned by Rogers. They work for the same boss, which I guess makes them co-workers, in a way...??
So I wonder how critical Sportsnet writers can be of the Jays when situations call for some healthy/constructive criticism. I think they've often chosen to come to defend the Jays when other media were taking shots (and not in a bad way) at the team.
In that above piece, this sentence stood out for me.
"The Toronto Blue Jays have certainly been among baseball’s more disciplined clubs in recent seasons, spending methodically and carefully on free agents."Maybe I am reading too much into this, but I'll gladly replace "more disciplined" with "cheap" and "spending methodically and carefully" with "skimping."
I didn't so much mind Solarte and Diaz acquisitions last offseason. I knew they had been decent players. Diaz had even been an All-Star as a rookie with the Cardinals in 2015. But they clearly weren't pieces to take us to the postseason, if that's what the goal was.
Speaking of which, the Jays tried to convince what I think was the skeptical fan base that they could contend with the group of players they had in the beginning of 2018. The rotation of Sanchez, Stroman, Happ, Estrada and Garcia was supposed to be the team's strength. With a healthy Donaldson, who had a torrid second half in 2017, the lineup could still do enough damage. And so forth, so forth.
I, for one, didn't buy it. I felt we got way too lucky as far as the injury situation in our playoff runs in 2015 and 2016. Baseball Gods (here I go again) don't let teams stay that lucky for that long. I was disappointed and frustrated, but not surprised, that Sanchez, Stroman, Donaldson, Tulo and a slew of other players were hobbled by injuries from the get-go. Garcia was clearly not the pitcher that he was and that the Jays envisioned him being.
I feel that the Toronto media should have been a bit more critical of the way the Jays were trying to sell this "We can compete with the big boys in AL East" idea with that team, rather than just relaying whatever message the club was putting out there.
I understand the team had a responsibility to keep the fans hopeful, especially after the short, two-year playoff run ended, but I think they should also have been more upfront about their assessment of the club. Did they honestly believe they could hang with the Red Sox and the Yankees with the team they had? I doubt that.
 |
| Maybe the only reason why fans should follow the Blue Jays in 2019. |
But hey, things happen between friends all the time. I've had a close friend kind of drift out of my life, though it's not like we had any ugly spat or anything like that.
Here's my take: you don't have to like each other to be teammates on a major league ball club, or any other sports team. As long as you keep things professional and civil and go about doing your job, things will be just fine. Not every one of those players can be friends with one another, anyway.
And I tell this to my co-workers all the time. We don't have to all love each other. But we just have to be "grown-up" about our relationships and keep the ship afloat. Look, you can throw three people into an office, and maybe they will hate each other's guts. But that doesn't mean they can't find a way to do something successful together. That's just my way of thinking.
Or I am trying to justify the fact that there are some colleagues that I like a tad less than others (hey, "hate" is a strong word).
 |
| Why can't we all just get along? |
Sanchez is just two years removed from winning the AL ERA title. And as far as I am concerned, he hasn't pitched since that 2016 season. The 2017 season was a lost one with just eight starts, and though he did make 20 starts in 2018, it probably would have been better if he hadn't pitched that often. What's up with his finger trouble?
So both are apparently on the trading block. They're in team control for two more years. And it's become a trend in baseball now: dealing young players a couple of years from free agency before having to negotiate an extension or risking losing them in the open market. I suppose clubs want to deal these 20-something players with team-friendly contracts while their value is still relatively high and fetch some prospects in return.
Well, at least we're a rebuilding team. Clubs like the Mariners and the Diamondbacks, who either contended for a postseason berth or played meaningful games in October recently, are dumping assets. After the Cubs and the Astros lost 100 games before winning the World Series titles, now it seems like others want to get better by getting terrible first.
I don't think it's good for the game that so many teams are so blatantly tanking. We saw three teams lose 100 games in 2018. How many more will be there in 2019? What about fans in those markets? Are they going to be patient enough to live through those years, when there's no guarantee that the championship banner will be at the end of the tunnel? In a league already coping with declining attendance, this is surely a disconcerting trend.
3. So for a non-Jays take. Harold Baines is a Hall of Famer. In all my years of watching baseball, I never once thought Baines would be in the hall. He is a pretty underwhelming inductee, to say the least. Well, you gotta hand it to him for his longevity. He debuted in the year I was born and played for 22 years.
My very first major league game in person was on May 28, 1996, at SkyDome against the White Sox. I got two free tickets after purchasing a Detroit Pistons Grant Hill jersey at a sporting goods shop whose name escapes me (it was a promotional deal for purchases of over $50 CDN). Sat in the fifth deck, above center field, and I'll never forget that date and that game because Robin Ventura hit two homers in an 8-5 win, and that second home run in the eighth inning landed just below where I and my friend Sid were sitting. (Actually, Sid had gone to grab coffee and missed that second home run. How I remember these details, I have no idea.)
Anyway, I knew Baines was on that CWS team, but I had to look up the box score to see if he was in the lineup that night. He wasn't.
You can find all the handwringing about Baines' induction elsewhere. Me, I'd be happy to play this "If Harold Baines is a Hall of Famer, then (fill in the blank) should be in Cooperstown" game.
Just off the top of my head, Edgar Martinez and Crime Dog come to mind. But I bet there are a bunch of other players who posted better numbers than Baines but aren't yet in the hall.
Leafs (@Canes) and Raptors (@Clips) double-header tomorrow. I am glad I did so much work today and almost reached my quota for the week.
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