MW: No, they can’t. Encarnacion’s contract is guaranteed. I think I’d rather have Chris Snyder than Doumit. I’d rather have Figgins than any of the third basemen you suggested, though Abreu as DH isn’t a bad idea at all.

For clarification sake to the other readers – some of my post was deleted (I understand why) which would put my thoughts into better context. Really all I’m trying to say is if you are going to put yourself in a position to respond, I believe you owe it to people to do so with maximum effort. We all have aspects of our work that we find tedious – but there is a reason we chose to do those jobs. The boring stuff is important to someone…

I made a comment (deleted by MW) about how some callers are handled on the show. Again, if it is CONTENT you are trying to improve, caring about something as minute as how the caller begins their question is not important.

I’m not trying to disrespect here. But as another post said – just because someone else’s opinion is different than yours, doesn’t make it wrong.

Sincerely, thanks Mike for providing a forum to talk about Blue Jays baseball.

PS – I love WillRain’s stuff on MLBTR. I think you give a great Jays perspective to that blog. Good work man.

MW: I don’t think I’m giving any less than maximum effort here, and I think you really need to step back and realize about what you’re complaining.

i don’t understand this point. are you saying that kevin millar is here (or so mgmt thinks) to boost those clubhouse intangibles such as ‘heart’, and ‘chemistry’ etc?

if so, and if the person making the comment doesn’t seem to believe that the jays have any heart, despite millar’s presence, doesn’t that render him essentially useless (for lack of a better term)?

MW: Yup.

MW: We’ll have to disagree there. I thought Snider did make one awful throw last night, which runs counter to what I saw in his first go-round.

…if they Jays sign Chone, I’ll be the happiest fan in Toronto. I have both Figgins jerseys, and the collectors cap they handed out in the park when he broke the Angels SB record…and an autrographed ball!

“The suits now running Rogers could care less.”

That’s simply not true – I happen to know for a fact that someone who was VERY close to Ted and who has influence in the organization is a huge baseball guy. Look for an increase in payroll next year – as reported by Mr. McCown, Beeston declined additional support this year in lieu of a charge next year.

I love watching Ruiz hit – I’ve never seen someone swing at every pitch as hard as he does! I’m surprised that someone with a swing that long manages to hit a ball at all – I crack up every time I see him screw himself into the ground, I love the enthusiasm! It’s too bad that he wasn’t here sooner – JP might want to take a page out of his former mentor’s Moneyball playbook – everything (physique, etc.) takes a distant second to performance.

It’s good to see Snider back too. He’s good now, but when he hones his approach at the plate and learns to make adjustments, he’s going to be great. I think that the Jays were a little quick on the trigger in sending him down in the spring, but maybe it was for the best – Delgado went through the same thing (quick success, falloff, back to AAA, returns to the majors a better hitter).

I heard a comparison the other day between Alex Rios and Vince Carter, and I had a hard time disagreeing. I thought that Rios was phoning it in this year when I watched him play and I feel vindicated not only by some of the anonymous player quotes but by Jerry’s comments as well. As an avid fan and frequent attendee, I feel bitter towards and cheated by a player who’s paid responsibility to me and everyone else at the game is to do his honest best to win. Harsh, maybe, but that’s how I feel.

Ken Fidlin reported that ‘one of the knocks against RR is that he can’t hit a major-league fastball’ but he didn’t say where he’d heard that. CBS Sports made the same comment in almost exactly the same words. There’s a lot of similar chatter around the web, and it looks like someone said something. But I can’t find Ricciardi’s name attached to that comment.

Snider should play every day even if he struggles. He’s a minor-league superstar, but he needs to bat against pitchers who know how to adjust to him. When Delgado first came up he was banging hrs off Window’s Restaurant on a nightly basis. But then the scouting reports kicked in and pitchers made adjustments accordingly. It took a while, if I recall correctly, for him to become the powerhouse hitter he certainly was in his best years.

MW: It took a trip down to AAA in ’94 and another couple in ’95, yes. And Delgado was older. That certainly has been the knock on Ruiz, but I’ve never heard it from JP.

Really though, Law proclaims the Jays own the worst draft in the Majors and Baseball America puts them in top 5 biggest loosers of the draft category. This can’t be the way to try and compete in the future in the AL East. Help me understand this.

Jerry was saying in the broadast that in July Big Lyle drove in TWO runs, and Ole Vern THREE; not exactly the kind of production you expect to get when you shell out ca. 20 million combined for these two champs. Bet Lyle trotted down to first on a few walks, as he’s known to do… though pathetic as that is it’s probably more than Vernon accomplished… These deadweights certainly killed any vague hopes this team might have had left…

MW: When did you hear JP say that?