Thursday, March 31, 2016

So You Entered a Basball Fantasy Draft?


After an Invitation from Steve-O, a bunch of the fine folks who hang out here have decided to play some fantasy baseball this year. It's a lot of fun and will give us all some amusing ammo to fire holes into egos. (Especially mine)
We have chosen a simple online draft with time limits and a bot that takes over if an owner isn't present. Since those types of drafts are quick and painless I won't discuss them here.

I have a group of friends that take part in an in-person Rotisserie style Auction draft every year. It's a complex rotisserie auction with Fantasy Dollars, long lists of rules, and a 200 dollar entry fee.
In short, we're big baseball nerds.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

The Blue Bone of Contention

Image via Blue Jay Hunter

Suppose I popped out of a lamp and if you rubbed me the right way I'd honour your one wish.
Because I know you're a Toronto Blue Jay fan I already know what you want.
Poof.

I'll give you a new, young star.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Monday, March 28, 2016

Baseball Redacted

An introduction to the obscure and what baseball does to the human brain




Please note that this paper is being introduced only for study purposes and anyone that is not well versed in the field of 'Sports Fan Psychology' can definitely seek their own help. Let's begin.

Friday, March 25, 2016

Party weekend!



Every weekend is an open thread to shoot the shit. There will be a challenge each week but don't feel confined by it.

From the comfy chair


**UPDATE** Hang on, kiddies, thanks to GSMC we're moving to jaysinthehouse.com! Hopefully this fixes the mobile commenting problem. Stuff may disappear a bit as the migration happens so don't panic. I'll be panicking enough for everyone.

**UPDATE DEUX** Migration is complete. Welcome to jaysinthehouse.com!


Thursday, March 24, 2016

Contract negotiations are none of our goddamn business


In my post the other day, I found myself saying a couple of times in the comments this title phrase. So I'm going to say it again.

Contract negotiations are none of our goddamn business!

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

It's ok to be overly excited about Anthony Alford


Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way right off the bat: I’m not a scout. I sometimes read stuff that scouts have written, and I often read stuff that non-scouts have written about what scouts have said, but I’m not a scout. I’ve only ever seen Anthony Alford bat a handful of times, and even if I watched him on a regular basis, I wouldn’t really know what I’m looking for because... and I’m not sure how to make this more clear... I’m not a scout.

Now that we’ve got that caveat and the hilarious baseball pun out of the way, it’s time to talk about Anthony Alford.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Bob Elliot is being a garbage clown


But he's a HOF writer!

It's important to note that he was inducted for his work for covering Canadian baseball, which is stellar, not for his work on the Blue Jays beat. I'm also told that he's a lovely person.

But when he writes about the Jays, he's a garbage clown.

Monday, March 21, 2016

Gone too soon: John Cerutti



I'm writing this having spent the day at a friend's memorial. While preparing to go I was reminded of someone else who passed too soon - John Cerutti.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Why the new Sliding Rule may Be a Big Win For the Blue Jays





If you're a fan of baseball then at some point you've had a crush on Chase Utley.

He knows the game, he's great at the game, and will probably one day be a great teacher of the game.  (Provided the $115 million he has earned playing it doesn't deter his motivation.)

I think $115 million would probably deter me from 8 hour bus rides across the American Southwest. But from everything I've read Chase loves the game enough that he has discussed furthering his career as a coach.

Why are we talking about this?

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

The original hot dog



I was a kid when the Jays came to Toronto. I remember the names Roy Howell, Dave McKay, Doug Ault, Bob Bailor, and Pete Vuckovich but the first player that I can see in my mind is Rick Bossetti.

He was the perfect player for a kid. In 1979, he played all 162 games for the Blue Jays, hitting .260/.286/.362 (complete stats here) and leading all AL outfielders in putouts, assists, and errors.

He wasn't the greatest player but he played hard, was flashy and a prankster. He grabbed the imagination of the fans, who called him Hot Dog. What I didn't know as a kid was his habit of watering the field. During the game. Or that he hated clothes (something I can totally relate to.)

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Boston media the worst


I keep saying that Toronto media is the worst. And it's true. There's a lot of garbage clowns out there and they're dragging some former great journalists down to their level. (Cathal Kelly, I'm looking at you.) But Boston takes it to another level. They were the public face of the tampering the Sux did with John Farrell. They ran Francona out of town.

I want to talk about what they do with their women reporters.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Blake McFarland, artist



Friday we got a look at Blake McFarland. He's unusual in that he's an athlete and an artist. (Shoutout to Fowl for pointing me in his direction!) There's places that talk about him as a pitcher. There's a piece by Jeff Passan that talks about his intersection of baseball and art. Keegan Matheson at Jays Journal wrote a profile on him as more than a player right after the Passan piece. Cathal Kelly wrote a non-garbage clown piece for a change, profiling him at the beginning of camp.

So what more is there to talk about? How about the art itself? 

Friday, March 11, 2016

Party weekend!



If you haven't read the afternoon post, please make sure you do sometime this weekend. Thanks!

Every weekend is an open thread to shoot the shit. There will be a challenge each week but don't feel confined by it.

From the comfy chair



It's been a good week. So good to see everyone again! The first weekend open thread goes up at 6 tonight and I hope you'll all swing by at some point over the weekend and hang out.

The good news is some of us test drove Stoeten's new game threat commenting system and it worked pretty well. So game threats are over at Blue Jays Nation this weekend. He also did us a solid in the Daily Duce as well as putting up a ton of content yesterday, so check it out if you haven't already.

Joanna has a good response to the whole Gossage thing.

There's a few things I'd like to hear from you about.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

The argument for Junior Lake, who is terrible

Heading into the offseason, the Jays had something of a logjam in the outfield. Barring injury, Jose Bautista and Kevin Pillar were guaranteed the right and center field spots, setting the stage for a competition between Ben Revere, Michael Saunders, and Dalton Pompey. Rather than letting things play out, the Jays jettisoned Revere to Washington, reallocating his increasing salary to an area of greater need.

By trading Revere, the organization now has a clear top four in the outfield; Bautista, Pillar, Saunders, and Pompey.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Anxiety



After opening the Grapefruit League season playing against his old team, JP Arencibia opened up to the Philly press about his struggles with anxiety while he was a Blue Jay. Big League Stew wrote about it the next day, where author Mark Townsend disclosed his own battle with anxiety. JP then went on the Blundell show (of all shows, why?) and talked in more detail, which then sparked this article on Sportsnet.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

It's hard to let go



I've spent a bunch of time on Purple Row since the Tulo trade. Remembering what it was like when Doc left, I've been fascinated in watching their mourning process.

For an ex-player, they've written about him a lot. During the playoffs they were (mostly) rooting for us while commenting how happy Tulo looked. And when Tulo did a couple of interviews with Ken Rosenthal and Bob Nightengale at the beginning of spring training it sparked a few more:

Troy Tulowitzki says Rockies spring training more like 'a country club'
Is this a Troy Tulowitzki quote or Taylor Swift breakup lyric?
Troy Tulowitzki's cognitive dissonance, Rockies' broken promises make everyone miserable

I highly recommend reading all the articles and comments, but the last piece is the most interesting one. Matt Gross, the author, has been the most visibly heartbroken Tulo fan at Purple Row. The article is definitely worth a read but what really caught me was something he said in the comments:

Sunday, March 6, 2016

We're in the house!



Welcome to the house!

This blog came about as a product of two things - a desire to start writing about the Toronto Blue Jays and a location change for my long-time hangout, DJF/AS, now known as bluejaysnation.com. The move to The Nation network was so that long-time kick-ass blogger Andrew Stoeten could have a better situation to create content. (It's great content - give Andrew all the clicks!) But there's been major growing pains.

That really showed me that there was a thirst for interaction and friendship and community. And I started thinking about serving desert after Andrew's great meals.