Jan 21 2009
Blue Jays State of the Union
Last night the Toronto Blue Jays held their annual state of the union address for season ticket holders. I was lucky enough to be there, and when not waiting in line for hotdogs or trying to drink as many open bar beers as possible, I listened to a panel of Ricciardi, Beeston, and Gaston (moderated by the great Jerry Howarth) answer fans’ questions about the state of the team.
There really isn’t a hell of a lot to report from this event- the fans want to know why the Jays don’t win, the brass say they’re optimistic, everyone chuckles at Paul Beeston’s wit and then rush to the open bar for the last half hour of service before driving home half in the bag.
A few things of note:
Paul Beeston was decidedly drunk, or at least well on his way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’d think that if I was going to address a group of my biggest supporters and try to explain why this team has underachieved in the past and will likely not be competitive this season, I’d probably put the sauce away until after I was done. Which leads me to my next point—
Not a single member of the panel sounded truly optimistic about this year’s team. While they didn’t go so far as to outright say ‘this is a rebuilding year, we won’t be very good, but we promise to be better later’, they all but said it in their over-arching ambiguously positive statements. The only person who said anything optimistic about this year’s Jays was a wasted Paul Beeston. Beeston has “just got a feeling” about this season being a good one. Now if that wasn’t insulting enough, he went on a tangent about a glut of pitching, and how we can maybe move some of those pieces for a big bat. Yeah, we’re real deep in our rotation, a rotation that might be starting Scott Richmond this year.
Taking a note out of Bryan Colangelo’s book, apparently J.P. is looking outside the MLB for some pitching help, speaking with a nameless pacific rim pitcher and a nameless Japanese pitcher. Since we know that all Japanese people love baseball and are in faact very very good at it, this is very exciting news!
When asked about player projections, Cito Gaston also sounded drunk. He said of Lyle Overbay thathe expected 20+ home runs and 90 RBIs. Lyle has gone over 20 HRs once, and over 90 RBIs once, so Cito sees a career year for the 32 year old Overbay. Cito also Projected Rios to have over 30 HRs this year and 100+ RBIs. Rios’ career highs: 24 HRs, 85 RBIs. Cito also noted, when asked about Rios’ hitting prowess “he has big hands. He comes to give the fist pump in the dugout, and I just put my hand up now cause I’ve got a couple sore knuckles”. Oh- and red-hot Scotty Ro-Ho is expected to pop 25-30 dingers this year while staying healthy and owning the 3rd base line.
GO JAYS GO!
The drunks have a report on Wilner’s report , and a hate-on for Ricciardi loving his family.
Morgan Campbell reports basically the same thing as above, although with more class and journalistic integrity.
