Sporting Madness

One of the interesting aspects of the personnel shakeup new Blue Jays' general manager Alex Anthopolous conducted today is the role it gave to a CIS alumnus. Andrew Tinnish was named as the director of amateur scouting. He'd previously been in the pro scouting department. As reported over at fellow TheScore.com Sports Federation site Mop Up Duty , Tinnish was a rather legendary CIS baseball player and coach with the Brock Badgers. Tinnish played with the team from 1995 to 1999. During that span, he was named team MVP three times , and also holds team records for single season batting average (.500), at bats (146), hits (73), doubles (22) and RBIs (65). He's also the team leader in career at-bats (633), hits (239), doubles (47), home runs (25) and RBIs (210). The more sabermetric stats are not presented on the Brock baseball website, but I'd imagine he'd be up there in those as well. That's a very impressive career. The Badgers probably wish he was still...

Apologies for the delay in this Link Train post; I was planning to run it last night as per usual, but life got in the way and prevented me from finishing it until now. I should hopefully have another one ready at the normal time tonight, and perhaps even a piece of my own before then if all goes well. As always, leave links for upcoming editions in the comments, or send them to me via Twitter , Facebook or e-mail . Video Of The Day: Deep Purple - Highway Star One of the all-time great driving songs, this song also was one of the first real hits in the hard rock/heavy metal vein (along with Led Zeppelin's Communication Breakdown and Black Sabbath's Paranoid). It's the first track from Deep Purple's seminal 1972 album Machine Head, one of the most influential hard rock albums out there. Moreover, it shows off Jon Lord 's incredible use of the Hammond organ. If anyone ever tells you the organ has no place in rock, make them listen to Deep Purple for a while. My Lin...

One of the most interesting themes around the Blue Jays lately is the discussion of how their ownership has changed [ Stephen Brunt , The Globe and Mail ] since the death of Ted Rogers . Rogers CEO Nadir Mohamed recently said the company remains committed to the Jays in a conference call, but talked of " bringing costs in line " [ Jeff Blair , The Globe and Mail ]. Those comments, as well as the recent trade of Alex Rios for nothing [ Bob Elliott , Toronto Sun ] and Scott Rolen for prospects , have led to speculation that Rogers may sell the team, as well as plenty of indignation over the team being run like a business. However, that indignation is misplaced in my mind. There's nothing wrong with running a team like a business; after all, a business-driven approach led to Billy Beane 's Moneyball strategy in Oakland. That exact approach is more difficult to execute these days , but the business principles behind it of finding undervalued assets, developing them ...

So, Friday's Scott Rolen trade upset me (and many other Jays ' bloggers ) considerably, as you probably already know if you follow me on Twitter . I already broke it down a bit in my Last Call post at The Rookies Friday night, but I figured it was worthy of some further analysis. Without further ado, let's get to it. First off, let's consider what the Jays lost. Rolen was hitting .320/.370/.461 in Toronto this year with an OPS+* of 122. Looking at Baseball Reference 's batting leaderboards for this season, that's the 30th-highest OPS+ in the entire AL and the second-highest on the Jays (behind only Adam Lind ). Even more impressive is when you compare Rolen's OPS+ to that of other third basemen; only Michael Young (137), Alex Rodriguez (135) and Evan Longoria (127) rank ahead of Rolen among third basemen ( Kevin Youkilis is also ahead of Rolen with an OPS+ of 145, but he's only played 29 games at third this year and has played 59 games at fi...

Today's loss to the Tampa Bay Rays (47-39) dropped the Toronto Blue Jays (43-44) below the .500 mark for the first time this season, which, sadly, is probably a more accurate reflection of this team's ability than their 22-12 start that gave them the best record in the American League [ Jerry Crasnick , ESPN.com ]. That early start was largely piled up against weaker opponents, and was also aided by some incredible performances from unlikely pitching stars. Since then, the Jays have fallen back to earth. This still isn't a bad team, though. The Jays aren't the best team in baseball by a long shot, but they are a bit unlucky and have a knack of losing close games by a run or two, as this most recent sweep by Tampa Bay has demonstrated; the Jays fell 3-1, 10-9 and 3-2 in a series of very winnable games that dramatically hurt their record and their playoff chances. Their Pythagorean win expectation (which suggests what a team's record should be based on runs scored an...

Well, Rogers Cable finally came to an agreement [Fadoo.ca] to carry TSN2 shortly before Jaypocalypse Now would have occured next week when the Jays faced the Red Sox in games only available on TSN2 [ Neate Sager , Out of Left Field ]. No specifics have been released yet, but it's a good bet that Rogers caved in the end; TSN had all the leverage in this one thanks to their agreements with every other cable/satellite provider (which demonstrated that their terms can't have been all that unreasonable). Someone at Rogers' baseball division ultimately sold the cable side for 30 pieces of silver with the decision to put Jays-Red Sox on TSN2, as the great Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star noted earlier this week on his blog : "A deal has to be coming because, if it isn't, Rogers call-centre employees will have to show up for work that day with bulletproof vests and industrial-strength earplugs as they try to explain to angry Jays fans that they can watch the game on...

Well, I'm back from a crazy weekend of softball: played seven games over two days, and my trademark intensity meant that I left Revelstoke sore all over, with most of the skin removed from elbows and knees from various diving catches and slides, and bruised ribs, broken sunglasses and a black eye from a head-first dive into an outfield fence (I did catch the ball, though, so it was all worth it). The rest of the weekend was okay, but the frequent downpours made camping a bit less enjoyable, and the massive traffic jam we got stuck in on the way home certainly wasn't a great experience. Anyway, I'm back to the grind of the office and back to blogging in my spare time. Original posts should resume late tonight or early tomorrow, but to fill the gap, I figured I'd present another special edition of the Links of the Day with the other sports writing I've been doing (for anyone who cares). Here it is: - A piece on Nikki Wright, a striker for the Vancouver Whitecaps'...

Photo: Brett Lawrie batting for the Canadian junior team in Mexico (Photo from the Langley Blaze website ). Many of the eyes of the baseball world are on my neighbourhood these days, mostly due to the exceptional baseball talent cropping up in its backyard. The key player is phenom Brett Lawrie of the Langley Blaze, who has been high on many people's lists for a long time. Bob Elliott, the great baseball columnist for Sun Media, has had him as the top-rated Canadian prospect since at least April , and wrote an excellent piece on the weekend about how fast Lawrie's stock has been rising. The scouts Elliott quotes offer some very significant praise: "'He hits the ball with more authority than Justin Morneau in his draft year,' one scout said. 'He's the best high school hitter I've ever seen from Canada,' said another." That's just the beginning. Consider this passage from later in the article: "The highlight was a doubleheader sweep of...

In unbelievably perfect timing, Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas turns 40 today, and his Oakland Athletics take on the Toronto Blue Jays this evening. Everyone remember how shabbily he was treated by the Jays' organization, including being benched for the supposed crime of not producing in April (which probably had more to do with his contract , despite the denials by J.P. Ricciardi, who is known to be as truthful as Clay Bennett )? Well, I didn't like the move then , and wrote that I thought it might weaken the team this season for purely penny-pinching reasons. Also, the logic is somewhat stupid, as the Jays are now paying Thomas almost $8 million this year to tear up the league for Oakland, who got him for the bargain-basement price of $337,000. Anyways, let's look at some stats to examine the impact of the move. As I pointed out in my post on Thomas' release, April had always been his worst month, and he'd always come around. Before leaving the Jays, he...

Some interesting news came out today. The Vancouver Whitecaps, who have been trying for ages to give the city a privately-funded new showcase stadium (supposed to be paid for entirely by Vancouver multi-millionare Greg Kerfoot, the team's owner who has been a key financial backer of the growth of soccer in Canada) with little success, may have finally made the breakthrough needed on a stadium of suitable size to support their Major League Soccer ambitions. However, the potential breakthrough has come from an unexpected direction that may cause as many problems as it creates. According to local radio station CKNW, both the Whitecaps and Lions will be represented tomorrow morning at a news conference called by B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell , which is believed to be on the subject of a new retractable roof for B.C. Place. The Whitecaps told CKNW last week that they'd consider playing in B.C. Place with the new roof if it helped their chances of landing an MLS franchise. On the fac...

It sounds like the days of John Gibbons as the manager of record for the Toronto Blue Jays may be numbered. Consider the opening paragraphs of Jeff Blair's Globe column after today's 5-2 win over Kansas City: "John Gibbons had to do something because, let's be honest, there will come a time when the decision making is taken out of his hands. He knows it, and has become increasingly open about how much longer he will or won't have to manage the Toronto Blue Jays. He's down to the short strokes, in other words, so it was only right and proper that he pull off a massive lineup shuffle Sunday." This time, the lineup shuffle worked, the Jays came through with some key hits and the Royals gave them the game with several terrible errors. Thus, Gibbons may stick around for a while longer, but you can bet he's still on a short leash. I'm not entirely convinced firing him would make a huge difference, though. Granted, Gibbons has made several very questiona...

The Blue Jays released designated hitter Frank Thomas today, one day after he expressed disappointment at being benched. Jeff Blair has a great column up about how the real reason was due to Thomas' well-known contract, which would have automatically given him an extension for 2010 if he recorded 304 more plate appearances this year. Of course, J.P. Ricciardi, that paragon of truth , absolutely denied that the contract came into it. "That never came up," Ricciardi told the Canadian Press with regards to the contract issue. "I told Frank our decision is based on performance and his decision is based on not being able to be in the lineup." Pull the other one, J.P., it hath bells on. It would make these decisions a lot easier for Jays' fans to accept if their general manager would tell us the truth once in a while instead of lies that blatantly insult the fanbase's intelligence. I'm conflicted about this decision. From a financial point of view, it...