The girlies have a long weekend off from school, so we packed up the ol’ Vista Cruiser and hit the road to visit some cousins in the lovely metropolis of Detroilet.  Here I thought it’d be a relatively baseball-free weekend, but as we headed down the 402 on the way to Sarnia, I got a call from the Jays’ communications guru Jay Stenhouse asking if I got his e-mail about this afternoon’s conference call.

I didn’t - so it’s a good thing Jay is so conscientious about letting us all know when something is up.

Alex Anthopoulos had promised the media and the fans that he’d reveal his plan for the franchise before he left for the GM’s meetings in Chicago, and true to his word, he wanted to follow through.  I managed to get on the call (though I missed the second question because I was crossing the border - how inconvenient) and Alex revealed his vision for the franchise which was as I expected.

The Blue Jays will NOT load up for the 2010 season, failing to take advantage of their last year of Roy Halladay and the fact that they won’t have to give up a first-round pick if they sign any free agents.  Instead, they will build on what they have in an effort to build a perennial contender down the line.

It’s not a rebuild - they’re not going to break up the team in order to start all over again.  Alex said that the Jays have plenty of good, young players, just not enough.  He believes that the core of all the young pitchers, Aaron Hill, Adam Lind, Travis Snider, J.P. Arencibia, etc. is awfully strong, but not ready yet and that talent must be added.

This probably means that we’ve seen the last of Roy Halladay in a Blue Jays’ uniform, which is a real shame, but was probably inevitable.  The shame of it all isn’t that the Jays are going to trade arguably the best homegrown player they’ve ever had, and a potential Hall of Famer, but rather that they had him for eight seasons of awesome and couldn’t put a good enough team around him to do any serious damage.

If they’re not going to “go for it” this year, then trading Halladay is the smartest thing they can do.  Anthopoulos again said all the right things - the Jays would love to lock him up long-term, but his timetable for winning is likely different from theirs.  The truth is, as fantastic as Halladay has been and as much of a horse as he’s been able to be since the forearm strain that cost him almost half a season in 2004, you’re taking a big chance in locking him up for a ton of money for his age 34-37 seasons - especially when you’re probably not going to need him to be the ace of a championship staff until he’s 36.

We also heard that one of Alex’s goals is to put together the best scouting and player development staff that money can buy.  A worthy goal, no doubt, but one that he believes will take some time.  There are people currently working in baseball who Alex would love to hire, but some of them are beholden to other teams for a while yet.  Remember, the Jays had to wait a year to bring in Tony LaCava, and that’s a move that has worked out awfully well.

Alex said he’d be very active on the trade front.  That’s not to say that he’s going to make a ton of trades, but that at least he’ll be in on every discussion of every player who is on the market.  He talked to the Royals about Mark Teahen and to the Marlins about Jeremy Hermida, but there wasn’t a fit in either case.  I’m happy to hear this, because I still remember a conversation I had with Gord Ash back in May of 1998 when word got out that the Marlins picked up Mike Piazza just to flip him for prospects.  I asked Ash if the Blue Jays would try to deal for the all-star catcher (that was the Tim Johnson year, and the Jays were floating around the .500 mark at the time).  Ash told me that the Jays would have to have interest in Piazza, but that the Marlins were likely going to hang on to him for two or three weeks.  He was traded to the Mets three days later.

Free agency isn’t the way to build a team, said the new G.M.  He said that the best use of free agents is to bring them in when a team is ready to compete, when they’ll come in as the final pieces to the puzzle to put a team over the top, the way the Jays did it in the early ’90s.  The way to build a perennial contender is through player development and through trades.  Not necessarily through the draft - Alex noted that generally about 2/3 of players on active rosters didn’t arrive on their team through the draft - but that the draft is a good way to procure assets that can be used in future trades.

I don’t know about you, but I love a G.M. who is very active on the trade market.  If Alex is dealing prospects for young, provenish controllable players, then that’s a great thing.

The “build” mode also likely spells the end of Marco Scutaro and Rod Barajas as Blue Jays.  The Jays will pick up three extra picks before the second round of the draft if those two sign with other teams.  John McDonald doesn’t bring back a draft pick if he leaves, so he could very well come back.  Having Johnny Mac as the starting shortstop for a building team that doesn’t have a great shortstop prospect would at least make the fans happy, and that’s not a bad thing given yet another non-contending season.

As I’ve said before, this isn’t the plan I would have put forth (and did, actually, put forth back in September).  I believe that an infusion of cash could lead to some good trades for established-but-getting-too-expensive players from elsewhere and some strong free agent signings that could turn the Jays into a contender immediately.  Alex says he doesn’t want to sacrifice four years down the road in order to try to make a big splash next year.  Not only do I not mind sacrificing four years down the road, I don’t think you necessarily have to in order to make that splash.

It doesn’t mean that I’m right and that Alex is wrong.  His is, as well, a very cromulent way of thinking.  If he can build a sustainable contender, one that will spend with the Anaheims, Bostons and Chicagos of the world, then Blue Jays fans will be very happy in a couple of years.

The one thing that bugged me was that Alex mentioned a few times that the Jays were a 75-win team this past season, and it’s highly unlikely that a 75-win team picks up the 20 wins necessary to become a playoff team in the A.L. East in one off-season.  This is true, except for two things.  First, the Jays weren’t your traditional 75-win team in 2008.  They had a positive run differential (+27), which suggests they were really closer to about an 82 or 83-win team.  They have very good young pitching coming back and getting healthy, and they had to deal with an unexpected awful year from their 30 year-old supposed-to-be-marquee player.

Second, a 75-win team that raises its payroll by 50% and brings in five or six high-quality players via trades and free agent signings has a far better shot than most others to raise its win total into the mid-90s neighbourhood.

I’d have gone reload, but the Jays are going build, and I have a lot of faith in Alex that he’ll be able to follow through on his plan and build the Jays into a perennial contender over time.  It shouldn’t take that long, and I do agree with Alex that the fans will give him some time.  After a lost year, floating in the ether with no direction, the Blue Jays finally have a clear one.

I guess before I go I should say something about the Yankees winning the World Series, since I didn’t post after Game 6.  It’s disappointing, of course, but they most certainly deserved it.  The Yanks went 11-4 in the post-season and were never really threatened.  It’s amazing to see, though, that with by far the highest payroll in the game the Yanks still only had four pitchers they could trust (although that’s three more than the Phillies).  It hurts, what can I tell you?  I was surprised that Hideki Matsui was named World Series MVP, given that he only started three of the six games and had just 13 at-bats - the lowest total for any non-pitcher winner of the award.  I would have given it to Mariano Rivera myself or maybe (gulp) Derek Jeter.  Yep, I said it.

Congrats to the Phillies for putting up a reasonable fight.  As I said in July, were I Ruben Amaro, Jr., I’d have tried to deal for Roy Halladay even after I got Cliff Lee, since both deals were right there to be made.  Had the Phillies been willing to give up those prospects (and they used J.A. Happ for all of 6 1/3 innings in the playoffs), they’d likely have their second straight World Series and be well on their way to a third straight.

We had a fine hour-long WorldSeriesTalk after Game 6 to wrap up the year, and here it is, for your listening pleasure:

Download audio file (wspost-mw-20091107.mp3)

It was a frustrating and long year on the Blue Jays beat, but it’s in the rear-view mirror and better times are ahead (to quote the great John Winston Ono Lennon - “it can’t get no worse”).  I’ll be posting on the blog periodically throughout the off-season, as always, whenever the Blue Jays do something of note or whenever too much time goes by between posts.

By the way, just a note about the travel genius that I am.  Plotting out the map to Detroilet, it turns out it’s only two miles longer to go through Sarnia and cross the border there than it is to go through Windsor.  Also just two miles longer to take the QEW/403 through Hamilton/Brantford than it is to go along the 401.  And surely we’d make up a ton of time by going through the quicker border crossing and avoiding the 401 through Mississauga and K-W/Cambridge, right?  Of course right!  But we ran into brutal construction on both the 403 and the 402, costing us at least 45 minutes in total.  Argh.  I’m going home through Windsor.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome - comments that have been left since Game 5 of the World Series (and those that come in after this post) will be answered and posted by Monday afternoon.

In a departure from form from the previous administration, the Blue Jays sent out a release today actually volunteering information about player injuries.  It’s true - they came out and told us about Edwin Encarnacion and Vernon Wells’ wrist surgeries without having been specifically asked “Are Encarnacion or Wells or both having surgery?”  This is cool - glasnost under Alex Anthopoulos.  Or is it perestroika?  I’m going with glasnost, but either way, I like it.

So here’s the deal:  Last Friday, Encarnacion had surgery on his left wrist - a large bone spur was shaved off his hamate bone.  Wells will have surgery next week to repair cartilage damage in his left wrist.  Both players are expected to be cleared for full activity prior to the start of Spring Training.

We knew that Encarnacion had broken his wrist in April, and that’s the kind of injury from which it can take a good, long while to recover.  It seems as though the last thing to come back from such an injury is power, but Encarnacion hit seven homers from September 1st on, which augurs well.  In fact, after most Jays fans were looking to ride him out of town on a rail after his first couple weeks, he wound up hitting .274/.364/.547 in Sept./Oct.  That’s a .911 OPS that would have ranked second on the team over the full season, 73 points ahead of the third-place Lyle Overbay, behind only Adam Lind.

We knew that Wells needed a cortisone shot in his wrist prior to the season starting, but he wouldn’t admit to anything being wrong over the course what might have been his worst season in the majors (2007 will give it a good argument).  Now we find out that the wrist was obviously bothering him, and he’s going to have it fixed.  What does this mean?  Well, at the very least, it should calm the people who believe that Wells’ 2009 production is the new normal regarding his future level of production.

Still, though, it’s troubling.  This is two years in the last three that Wells has tried to play through injury “for the good of the team” while going out every day in a very important spot in the batting order and - for lack of a better word - sucking.  Is it his fault?  Doubtful.  It’s very difficult to blame a player for not wanting to come out of the line-up if he’s physically able to play (never mind play well).  It’s exceedingly rare to find a player who will step back and say “Not only am I not helping, but I’m hurting the team and embarrassing myself in the process.  I have to ask out.”  Don’t blame Wells for wanting his name written into the line-up everyday.

In 2007, the only reason we found out about Wells’ shoulder problems were because then-hitting coach Mickey Brantley spilled the beans in September.  (By the way, how crazy is it that Brantley, who was fired two years and one month ago, is the Jays’ FOURTH-last hitting coach?)  The Jays knew about Wells’ issues in 2007 - he was totally up-front with the team - so I’m assuming that they knew about his wrist issues this year as well.  Yet in 2007 he missed just three games before being shut down for good in mid-September, and only made nine starts outside the top four spots in the batting order (and those were all hitting 5th).  This past season, he only missed three games - and those were because of a stomach virus he had right after the all-star break - and all but eight of his starts came with him hitting 3rd, 4th or 5th.

At some point, Cito Gaston (and John Gibbons before him) has to be the grown-up, as it were, and tell Wells that he’s doing more harm than good trying to play in his condition and sit him down - or at least drop him to a far lower-leverage spot in the batting order until he gets healthy.

Gaston’s response to the batting order thing was always “if you’re not going well, you’ll come up in a big situation no matter where you’re hitting.”  I guess there’s some anecdotal truth to that, but the real truth is that you can organize your line-up so that there’s a great chance that better hitters will come to the plate with opportunities to drive in runs.

Hopefully the surgery fixes whatever’s been wrong with Wells (though he’ll still have chronic hamstring issues to deal with), but if it doesn’t, here’s hoping we don’t spend another season banging our heads against a wall trying to figure out why Cito won’t drop a struggling Wells in the line-up, or give him the occasional day off or two.

Marc Rzepczynski was our Blue Jay A Day guest on the pre-game show last night, prior to A.J. Burnett’s lovely implosion, and he was terrific.  Here’s his appearance, for your listening pleasure:

Download audio file (MarcRzepczynski-mw-20091102.mp3)

Also, it was pointed out to me that I owe you a rain-delay show from Saturday night.  Here it is:

Download audio file (raindelay-mw-20091031.mp3)

There won’t be a Blue Jay A Day Pre-Game Show prior to Game 6 on Wednesday, because locally in Toronto we’ll be joining the game in progress after the Raptors and Pistons, so if there’s a Game 7 (fingers crossed!), we’ll have our last guest for you then.  Remember as well, the phone lines are open for the post-post-game every night, about 45-50 minutes after the last pitch.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

The Yankees are one win away from their first World Series title of the 21st Century. Sigh.

A.J. Burnett is taking the ball in Game 5 and could conceivably be the winning pitcher in a World Series clinching game.  Heavy sigh.

Go Phillies!!!

John McDonald guested on the pre-game show tonight and was, as expected, phenomenal.  Here’s the audio evidence of the great job he did:

Download audio file (johnmcdonald-mw-20091101.mp3)

Adam Lind was fantastic on Saturday night’s show, too - you can listen to that one in the Audio On Demand section of this very website.

Monday night, prior to Game 5, Travis Snider is scheduled to join us to take your phone calls beginning at 7:00 PM Eastern, so make sure to tune in!

Also, I have been talking about Tom Cheek and trying to get the vote out so that we may end the long wait and finally get him the Ford C. Frick Award, which would get him into the broadcasters’ wing of the Hall of Fame.  I had thought that the online voting went through the month of November, but I was off by a month.  It starts December 1st, so please spend the next month thinking about how best you can budget your time to be able to vote for Tom in December as many times as you possibly can.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

It was really only a matter of time.

After all the news that came out of the Blue Jays’ clubhouse the last week of the season with regards to player discontent about Cito Gaston’s managerial and communication style and the schism in the coaching staff, there was no way that the staff would come back next season the same way it finished this one.

Tonight, the changes were made.  They were announced at 6:00 PM on a Friday night because there is an embargo on announcements on World Series game days, and the Jays felt that if they waited until Tuesday, something would have leaked - especially with the Astros announcing that they’d hired Brad Arnsberg.  They didn’t say anything about pushing back plans to take my wife out for her birthday dinner.  Sigh.

What it basically comes down to is that Arnsberg and Gene Tenace are gone.  One coach from each “side” moves on, and Brian Butterfield and Nick Leyva switch places.

Yes, Arnie and new Astros manager Brad Mills are really close and Mills wanted Arnsberg to join his staff.  The move was likened to that of Leo Mazzone leaving Atlanta a couple of years back to go to Baltimore to work with his best friend Sam Perlozzo.  I’m sure that had a lot to do with it, but there’s no question that Arnsberg was more than ready to go.  Gene Tenace is officially retiring, but it really smells like a one-for-one deal to keep everybody happy.

Leyva has a much longer history with Cito, and is a former big-league manager, while Butterfield showed to be a terrific third-base coach and will do well returning there.

The new coaches are Rick Langford, who preceded Arnsberg as the Jays’ pitching coach, and Omar Malave.  Langford takes over for Bruce Walton as bullpen coach, with the man they call Pappy moving into the main chair, taking over for Arnie.  Malave is a Blue Jays lifer, having managed over 2,000 games in the minors.  He’s getting his first shot in the big leagues and will take over as first-base coach with Dwayne Murphy moving off first to take over for Tenace as hitting coach.

Got all that?

I’ll miss Arnsberg a lot, a terrific guy and a great pitching coach,  but Walton is a fantastic human being as well, and really knows his stuff.  As Alex Anthopoulos said, Walton is very ready for the job, and has probably been ready for a few years, but has simply been blocked by the presence of Arnsberg.  Walton also has a good relationship with Cito, which will no doubt lead to better communication all the way around.

The Jays’ announcement about the coaching shuffle led with the fact that Cito has announced he’ll be retiring from managing following the 2010 season, and that he’s accepted a four-year deal to be a consultant with the team following his last year as skipper.  Gaston will advise and consult with the team in all areas of Baseball Operations, top to bottom.  The fact that he’s still going to be with the team means, according to Alex, that there’s no need to see Cito as a lame-duck manager.  It’s not as though he’s leaving the organization.  Bobby Cox has also announced he’s leaving managing after this year and no one’s trotted out the “lame-duck” appellation with him.

Anthopoulos was asked if he believes that Gaston might be too “set in his ways” to be an effective manager with this club this coming season, and his answer was a quick no.  He pointed to all the good things that happened once Cito came aboard in 2008, and in early 2009, and added a piece of revisionist history that’s becoming familiar.

There’s a message being sent that the 2009 Jays didn’t really fall off the table until early August, when Scott Rolen was traded and Alex Rios was let go.  It’s not the first time that’s been said and, to an extent, it’s true.  From the middle of May through the end of July, the Jays were more unlucky than bad.  They weren’t getting blown out - almost ever - they were dropping games by a run seemingly every other night, or losing in extra innings.  But for a bounce or twenty, they’d have been a lot better.  But they weren’t.

The Jays were 26-33 (.441) from the beginning of the ugly nine-game road trip in May to the day they let Rios go.  It’s tough to colour that as successful, although they were only four games under .500 overall.  From that point on, they were 22-30 (.423) - which really isn’t that much worse, though there was that 13-26 tailspin before they won nine out of ten games.

But Alex also did say that while he felt the way the player unrest was potrayed in the media was slightly overblown (it wasn’t - not in this corner anyway), the moves made tonight were part of the process to rectify that situation.

That is to say - keeping Butterfield gives the players what they want, moving him back out to third base also makes the players happy.  Making Murphy the hitting coach makes the players happy.  Keeping Cito Gaston as the manager keeps upper management happy, and keeps the players from getting absolutely everything they want.  Letting Arnsberg leave?  Well, that definitely makes Arnsberg happy, and it probably does the same for Cito.

So what’s the upshot here?  Cito is still the manager - which means that the Jays spend another year having to deal with the in-game managerial strategies that were so frustrating to have to watch at a lot of times this past season.  At least he won’t have Kevin Millar to try his best to get on the field as often as possible next season.

Murphy as hitting coach makes them better than they were, Butterfield out on the field makes them better as well - as does having Leyva on the bench, because Cito has the trust factor in Leyva that could make him more receptive to Leyva’s advice.

Again, I like Walton a lot - it seems as though his move to greater prominence should be pretty seamless.

The moves also likely mean that the Jays will not be ratcheting up payroll in an attempt to “go for it” in 2010, which means the Roy Halladay sweepstakes will re-start in a couple of weeks.

And, of course, the search for a new skipper is on!  Not now, of course, though I’m sure lists are being put together.  Alex said that everyone on the current coaching staff who has interest in the job will be encouraged to apply for it, and that he would expect Butterfield and Leyva, at least, to do so.  He also said that they’ll do an exhaustive search outside the organization as well.  I would absolutely love to see Butterfield get a shot at steering this ship in 2011.  I’m hoping that’s one of the reasons they kept him on.

Remember - Saturday night we’re on at 7:00 PM Eastern with Adam Lind on the line from Indiana taking your phone calls!  Here’s hoping that you’ll tear yourselves away from the Leaf game for a while and tune in!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

That’s right - starting tonight and for the rest of the World Series, we’ll have a real live Blue Jay on to take your phone calls before every game.

And yes, we’ve dropped one of the “pre”s, because we’re no longer leading into the ESPN pre-game, we’re pre-empting it.

Tonight’s guest will be Randy Ruiz, who took the American League by storm over the last third of the season.  He was the Blue Jays’ best hitter over the 50 games he spent in the majors, after winning the Pacific Coast League’s MVP Award, and yet there were times he couldn’t find his way into the line-up, stunningly.

Randy will join us at 7:00 PM Eastern on the Fan590 and here on this very website, and he’ll be taking your calls - so please flood the phone lines and make him feel welcome.

A.J. Burnett, who Ruiz took deep in his second game as a Blue Jay, is starting tonight for the Yanks - so maybe Ruiz will have some insight for us on how to beat him.

Saturday night, before Game 3, we’ll be joined by Adam Lind, and Sunday night John McDonald will guest prior to Game 4.  If the Series goes to a Game 5, Travis Snider is scheduled to come on on Monday night.

Well, probably not, but those of you who are frequent readers of this space and frequent listeners to the fine radio program that is often attached to these posts know that yours truly is a massive baseball geek.  Such geekitude generally manifests itself in the 200 some-odd JaysTalks/PlayoffTalks/Blue-Jay-A-Day shows that I’m lucky enough to be allowed to do every season, but it also comes out in my hardcore baseball simulation habit.

Currently I’m in two leagues that play using Dynasty League Baseball as the game engine.  DLB (www.designdepot.com) is a wonderful simulation.  The most realistic, true-to-life simulation that I have ever played.  They’re about to debut a new online version that will let people go to a central location to play the game against each other on the internet (which I understand is on computers now), and this afternoon I became one of the first dozen-or-so people to test out the new version.

I took on the game’s creator, Mike Cieslinski, in a World Series pre-play.  He took the Yankees and I took the Phillies.  Jamie Hall, who is the game’s Software Architect, gave Cieslinski a breather and took the Yankees’ reins for Game 3.

Now, the results of a simulated series don’t really tell us anything.  Beyond the painfully obvious; anything can happen in a short series, regardless of who is playing whom.  Such series are generally not about which team is the best, but rather which team is the best that week.

Still, this turned out to be a seriously one-sided series.

The Simu-Phillies swept away the Simu-Yankees, and they did it with boundless authoritah - outscoring the Yanks 33-13 over the four games.

The Simu-Series MVP?  Believe it or not - Phillies’ catcher Carlos Ruiz, who hit .571/.600/1.214 for the series.  A four-game OPS of 1.814.  He had three doubles, two homers and five RBIs - the same counting totals as Pedro Feliz, who was the other offensive star.

Just in case you’re interested:

Game 1 was a 7-4 Philly win.  They played home run derby the first two innings, with solo shots by Shane Victorino, Ryan Howard and Johnny Damon along with a two-run shot by Ruiz in just the first two innings.  The Phils led 4-2 after two, but Nick Swisher’s two-run shot tied it in the 4th.  It stayed that way until the 7th, when Ruiz led off with a double and the Phils loaded the bases with nobody out for Victorino, who stroked a two-run single.  Chase Utley followed with a sac fly.  Cliff Lee struck out 10 (just like he did in real life!) over 8 1/3 to get the win and Brad Lidge got the last two outs for the save.

Game 2 saw the Phillies jump out to a 5-1 lead through 4 1/2.  Howard had a two-out RBI single in the first to open the scoring, and added a solo shot in the 5th.  Ruiz tripled in the 5-1 run - the final nail against a shaky A.J. Burnett, who coughed up the five runs on nine hits and four walks in just five innings.  Pedro Martinez shut the Yanks down through four - pitching out of a 2nd and 3rd, none out jam in the 4th - but he ran out of gas in the 5th.  Alex Rodriguez sent him to the showers with a two-out, two-run homer.  J.A. Happ came on to give up a two-run shot of his own, to Jorge Posada, that tied the game 5-5.   But the Phils put together the game-winning rally against Phil Hughes in the 7th, with Feliz breaking the tie with an RBI double and Utley cashing a pair with a two-out single.  Ruiz doubled in a run in the 9th and scored on a passed ball to make the final score 10-5.

Game 3 saw the series move back to Philly, and Damon broke a 2-2 tie with a solo shot off Cole Hamels in the 4th.  It stayed that way until the 6th, when Howard tied it with an RBI single.  Then, with two out, Raul Ibanez doubled in the go-ahead run and Feliz followed with a two-run homer.  Happ got his second straight win with two perfect innings in relief of Hamels and the beleaguered Phillies bullpen held the Yankees hitless over four innings in a 9-3 spanking.

Game 4 was a tremendous pitchers’ duel between Sabathia and Joe Blanton (I figured the Phillies wouldn’t bring Lee back on short rest if they were up three games to none).  At least, it was until Blanton got hurt and had to leave in the third.  At that point, it was 1-0 Yankees thanks to a sac fly by A-Rod in the 1st inning.  Brett Myers came on to throw 2 1/3 hitless innings, but Sabathia carried a no-hitter into the 5th.  The only Philly baserunner to that point was Ibanez, who had walked in the second.  In the 5th, Ibanez walked again, and then Ruiz took care of the no-hitter, the shutout and the lead with one swing of the bat - a two-run homer.  The next hit the Phillies got was another two-run homer, this time by Feliz in the 7th.  The Phils rallied for three more with two out in the 8th, and Lidge came on to throw a perfect 9th and secure a 7-1 win and the sweep.

Is that’s what’s going to happen?  Of course not.  I mean, the Phillies could sweep, and they took a step towards that with their win tonight, but of course it’s not going to go down exactly that way.  It already hasn’t.  Still, it was a lot of fun to play, and it certainly shows that the Phils are nowhere near overmatched in this World Series.

If you were wondering about the Yankees’ big hitters in the series, here you go:  Derek Jeter was 3-for-17 and A-Rod 2-for-13 (though with a homer and 3 RBIs). Mark Teixeira was 6-for-18, but didn’t have an extra-base hit.

Back to real life now, and the Blue-Jay-A-Day pre-pre-game show will make its 2009 debut on Thursday night at 7:05 PM Eastern on The Fan590 and this very website.  I’m not yet sure who the guest will be.  Aaron Hill said no, Travis Snider said he’d love to, but can’t tomorrow - he’ll appear later in the series.  I have calls in to Marco Scutaro and Rod Barajas that have yet to be returned.

We’ve already had Adam Lind, Ricky Romero, Lyle Overbay and Scott Richmond on to take calls - that was back this summer on Baseball Today - and I don’t know if it’s fair to go back to those guys again (though I might).  John McDonald is a guy with whom you all want to talk, I’m sure, and I’m thinking that Brian Tallet and Marc Rzepczynski would be good, too, as would Scott Downs (who was easily the best guest last fall).  I know that neither Vernon Wells nor Roy Halladay will do the show.

I’ll come up with somebody - your suggestions are welcome.

So are your comments - rational, reasonable ones are always welcome!

Throwing away back-to-back sacrifice bunt attempts to end the season?  Stop me if you’ve seen that movie before.  Yep, the Angels “pulled a Blue Jays” in Game Six of the ALCS, paving the Yankees’ way to their first World Series berth since 2003 when they lost in six to the Marlins.

Somewhere, there’s a Yankees fan who turns nine on Tuesday who has yet to have his or her team win a championship in his or her lifetime.  He or she might not have to wait much longer, which kinda sucks.

Tonight, Joe Girardi amazingly made only two pitching changes, and three Yankee pitchers stifled the Anaheim bats.  The Halos  had a chance to take advantage of an ill-conceived idea of Girardi’s to use Rivera to nail down the last six outs, but they took care of that with their shoddy defence in the 8th.

Asking Rivera to get the last six outs of a playoff game isn’t unusual.  But asking him to do it with a two-run lead, with a Game Seven set for the next day if he doesn’t isn’t the smartest thing to do (I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Joe Morgan).  I wouldn’t have done it, but the Angels allowing the Yanks to score two add-on runs in the 8th WITHOUT BENEFIT OF A HIT made the point moot.

After pulling a “bend-but-don’t-break” routine in the 8th, allowing a run on a two-out single by Vladimir Guerrero, Rivera didn’t have to come out and protect a one-run lead in the 9th because Howie Kendrick couldn’t catch an easy throw from Kendry Morales and because Scott Kazmir couldn’t make an easy throw to first.

Instead, the Yankees have their 40th American League pennant.  Mazel tov.

And seriously, Mike Scioscia - Gary Matthews, Junior as a pinch-hitter with two out in the 9th?  Never mind the fact that righties hit Rivera better than lefties, that Mike Napoli’s OPS against righties was almost 100 points higher than Matthews’.  But it’s Gary Matthews, Jr.!  A guy who has perhaps had the best-timed one good year in the history of one good yearing!  The man was relatively useless at the plate prior to his out of character <cough>hGH<cough> 2006, and having been busted after signing the big contract, he’s been terrible as an Angel.  Now is not the time to try to justify five years and $50 million.  Sheesh.

Anyway.

If these playoffs have done one thing - besides highlight just how bad umpiring has become these days - they’ve put the lie to this “Twins and Angels play the game the right way” bogosity that had become accepted as gospel the last few weeks.

The Angels handed the first two games of this series to their Bronxular hosts with shoddy defense, they couldn’t run the bases (nor could the Twins!) and tonight, with the season on the line, their pitchers couldn’t throw strikes - either to the plate or to the bases.

The Yankees won the pennant despite a Blue Jaysesque inability to hit with runners in scoring position.  Actually, that’s an insult to the Blue Jays.  The Yanks hit just .183 with RISP for the series - 11 hits in 60 at-bats - and that includes the pop-up that Erick Aybar and Chone Figgins let drop between them in the first inning of Game 1 that really set the tone for the series.  Three of the four Yankee wins can be attributed almost completely to the incompetence of their opposition, and that’s not supposed to happen in the playoffs.

So we have the Yankees looking for their first World Series championship of the decade (2001-2010 - decades don’t start with the year that ends in zero, they end with them.  There was no year zero.  I will not debate this.) against the Phillies, who are looking for their second, and their second in a row.  If the Phillies win, they’ll become the first back-to-back champs from the N.L. since the Big Red Machine.

The Phils aren’t your typical National League team.  In fact, you’ll hear several pundits refer to them as an American League line-up that just happens to play in the N.L. over the next few days.  It’s true.  But even with a DH, whether it be Matt Stairs (for whom the new Yankee Stadium was built), Greg Dobbs or Ben Francisco (I’m assuming he goes to left and Raul Ibanez comes off the field to DH against lefties), their line-up still isn’t as potent as the Yankees’ (have you had enough of the parenthetical comments yet?  I’m just asking.).

The Yanks will likely throw a left-handed starter four times in the seven games - maybe five - and that’s not good news for Ryan Howard, who goes from being all-world to being John McDonald when a lefty comes in.  Seriously - Howard’s OPS against lefties was two points WORSE than McDonald’s overall OPS this season.

Surprisingly, lefty sluggers Chase Utley and Raul Ibanez were better hitters against left-handers this season, and having a lefty in there gives Jayson Werth and Carlos Ruiz each a huge boost.

The Phils will put up a good fight if they can throw strikes and take care of the baseball (I figured - football reference, I might as well talk like the football people).  The bullpens may wind up being the difference; I guarantee you we won’t see any six-out save attempts out of Brad Lidge.

Our first Blue Jay A Day Pre-Pre-Game Show will be Thursday night in advance of Game 2 because the Raptor game on Wednesday will lead to us joining Game 1 in progress.  I’m going to try to get Aaron Hill for that show, but if he does it, it’d be a first for him.  We’ll let you know both here and on Twitter who our first Jays guest will be as soon as we book him.

Also, before the World Series begins, I’m planning to pre-play it using the great Dynasty League Baseball simulation - with yours truly managing the Phillies while the game’s creator, Mike Cieslinski, manages the hated Yankees.  The results will be posted right here.

We may only have a week of baseball left this year!  If that’s it, let’s hope we see four straight Philadelphia wins!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

I know:  What a stupid thing to say, right?  Of course you can’t take anything for granted, and there’s no guarantee that if the Yankees lose tonight’s Game 5 of the ALCS that they’ll definitely win either Game 6 or Game 7 back in the Bronx on the weekend, so they need to put the Angels away whenever they have the opportunity to do so.

I’m not saying that they should throw tonight’s game or anything like that.

But……….the Phillies won the pennant last night, which means they now have an entire week off before the World Series begins on Wednesday (stupid MLB scheduling), and baseball isn’t a game that’s meant to be played on so much rest.  If the Yankees clinch tonight, then they’ll have nearly a week off too, and will be on the same feet-up footing as the Philbos.  If the Angels win, the two teams fly back to New York with a game to play on Saturday night, and maybe another on Sunday - less down time means a greater chance for later success.

I know it didn’t work that way last year, with the Phillies winning the NLCS in five over the Dodgers (that could never happen twice in a row, right?) and the Rays taking seven to take down the Red Sox, but that was different.  That was a “holy crap, we can’t believe we’re in the World Series” Tampa Bay team.  Time off at this point doesn’t help as much as it hurts.

That said, I don’t want the Yankees to win at all, so I’m hoping that A.J. Burnett has the playoff meltdown for which everyone is looking and then the Halos can pull off the improbable comeback over the weekend.  I wouldn’t bet on that happening, though.

So Tony Viner, the President of Rogers Media, was on Prime Time Sports with Bob McCown last night (the audio is still available here on this very website, check it out) and answered some important questions.  No, the team is not for sale.  He was unequivocal about that.  Yes, Rogers realizes how important the Blue Jays are to its other media properties and, therefore, to the company as a whole.  Yes, the goal is to build a winner as soon as possible and the financial resources are available to the Blue Jays if they need them.  No, he hasn’t yet had his meeting with Paul Beeston and Alex Anthopoulos to lay down a plan for 2010 and beyond - that should happen at the end of next week.

Hopefully, this will quiet the “Rogers has never said anything!  They’re getting their house in order to sell the team!” crowd, but I have my doubts.

Pat Gillick was on as well, and said that he has no plans to pursue a position with the Jays “at this time”, whether as a senior advisor to Alex or as President.  Those are three big words, though, “at this time”.  After the World Series, the Phillies’ season will be over and Gillick will be at another point in time in his career.  Maybe then he’ll consider it, because he’d be a perfect fit here as the wizened sage on whom Alex can lean when he needs to.

Congrats to the Phillies, by the way.  They’re trying to become the first National League team to win consecutive World Series since the Big Red Machine in 1975 and ‘76.  It was a blow out last night, and there were no huge blown calls (a rarity this October), but I thought Joe Torre made a huge mistake in that 8th-inning Dodger rally.  With the bases loaded, two out and the Dodgers having pulled to within five runs, Torre sent eighth-place hitter Casey Blake to the plate with Jim Thome on deck getting set to hit for the pitcher.  Which one of those guys would you rather have up in that situation?  Sure, you want Thome up with a chance to tie the game if he can, and if he walks (which Jim Thome is inclined to do) then you have to go to Mark Loretta, Juan Castro or Brad Ausmus as the tying run - but if Blake gets out, what are the odds that you’ll be able to put together another huge rally to get the tying run anywhere near the plate in the 9th?

Pretty damn low.  Thome had to hit in that situation - that’s basically why they picked him up.  If he goes deep, it’s a one-run game.  To hope that Blake can extend the inning so that Thome could be given a chance to tie the game was just foolish.

I find that a lot of managers manage that way - based on the idea that their moves will work.  There’s not often a lot of contingency planning going on.  You see the lefty reliever brought in to face a couple of lefties with one out, but there’s a ton of righties to follow and nobody is up in the bullpen.  That’s because the manager goes to the lefty thinking he’ll get those lefties out and we’re out of the inning.  Then one of the lefties reaches and all of a sudden we’re into “oh, crap” time, with stalling and sending the catcher out and going to the mound himself just so he can get his righty warmed up.  Same with last night - Torre sends Blake up with Thome on deck thinking that Blake will somehow reach, not thinking that if he doesn’t (and the odds were heavily against him getting on base) the inning is over and they’re down by five going into the ninth with their biggest bullet left in the chamber.

Tonight on the FAN590, a quick little pre-game show and then right into the Yankees and Angels, John Lackey against Burnett.  The game starts at 7:57 PM Eastern, so if things follow according to playoff form, I’ll be back on with the post-post-game at about 12:55 AM.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

3:23 PM Eastern

We begin our coverage of the League Championship Series on The Fan Radio Network tonight, so I figured now was as good a time as any to throw something up here about them.

First of all, we get the mystery third off-day in each series for (I think) the second year in a row - a panic move by MLB because of some rain-outs a couple of years back.  It’s ridiculous to never have to play more than two days in a row.  This is baseball, it’s an everyday sport, and a great part of the strength of a champion is supposed to be its depth.  How is depth tested when you only have to use three starting pitchers in a playoff series and your top relievers could potentially pitch an inning in every game?

Playoff series used to go 2-3-2, with two games in one park, an off-day for travel, three  games in the other park, an off-day for travel and then two games back in the first park.  That wasn’t ideal - still  too many days off - but it’s far better than just adding another day off after Game 4.  At least they get rid of the extra off-day when the World Series comes around, but thanks to those couple of extra days (and extra days off between rounds, too) the World Series can’t end before November 1st.  It’s the first time in history that the World Series was SCHEDULED to go into November.  Even in 2001, with the week off after 9/11, a four-game World Series would have ended on October 31st.

Now that I’ve gotten that off of my chest - to the games!

Obviously I’m not going to predict winners, I believe that’s a fool’s errand.  After all, look how much dumb luck changed the course of each of the Division Series rounds!  But for a dropped line drive by Matt Holliday, the Cards and Dodgers are tied 1-1 going back to St. Louis.  But for Joe Nathan giving up a home run with a man on base for the FIRST time all season, the Twins and Yankees go to Minnesota tied 1-1 (never mind Phil Cuzzi!).  The Red Sox were a strike away (with a two-run lead and nobody on) from forcing a game 4 against L.A. of A., and the Rockies were a strike away from forcing a Game 5 against the Phillies.

I will say, though,  that I would like to see the Angels come out on top in the A.L. and the Phillies in the N.L.  I’d like to see the Phils get a chance to repeat last year’s performance, and I’d love to see the Yankees get knocked out.

You really couldn’t have picked a better opponent for the Bronx Bombers than L.A. of A.  The Angels have had the Yanks’ number for a long time now.  They split the season series this year (5-5), which made the Angels one of only two A.L. teams not to lose their season series to the Yankees - the other was Boston, which also split (9-9).  The Halos are the only team to have a winning record against the Yanks since New York’s current dynastic run began back in 1995.

Jorge Posada should catch all the games in which A.J. Burnett doesn’t pitch, and in those games the Angels would be well-served to run him ragged.  Every baserunner (with the possible exceptions of Kendry Morales, Vladimir Guerrero and Jeff Mathis) should be stealing at every possible opportunity.  Posada must be broken.

As for the Dodgers and Phillies, the Phils have to work out their bullpen issues.  By that, I mean they have to get Ryan Madson pitching well and keep Brad Lidge pitching well.  If those two aren’t on their games, there could be trouble.  Both teams have good offenses and both teams have good starting rotations, although the Dodgers are going with Vicente Padilla as their Game 2 guy, which raises an eyebrow.

I know Padilla threw really well against the Cards in the NLCS, but he’s still Vicente Padilla.  21 year-old Clayton Kershaw will pitch tonight against last year’s NLCS and World Series MVP and brand-new daddy Cole Hamels.

Both the Phils and Dodgers are well-suited for A.L. rules should they advance, with Philly being able to DH either Matt Stairs or Gregg Dobbs and the Dodgers enjoying the benefit of getting Manny Ramirez off the field in the A.L. and putting Juan Pierre’s glove out there.

Seeing a freeway series for the first time ever would be pretty cool, but so would seeing a renewal of the Yankees-Dodgers rivalry of the 50s and, more recently, the late 70s/early 80s when they hooked up three times in five years (Yanks won in ‘77 and ‘78, Dodgers in ‘81).  The coolth factor would be raised even higher with Joe Torre running the show against the team with which he won four World Series and punched his ticket to the Hall of Fame.

Phillies-Angels would lack the lustre of either of those two Series, and of a potential Phils-Yanks get-together, but it’s the Series I want to see anyway.

So dig this - the entire paragraph below has been proven completely wrong:

I was going to wait until the World Series to say this, but what the heck.  Can we nip in the bud right now any misguided righteous indignation about the use of the word “World” in Major League Baseball’s Championship Series?  It’s not about arrogance and it’s not about a North American superiority complex.  The reason it’s called the “World Series” is because back in 1903, a newspaper called the New York World sponsored what became a series wherein the National League champion would play off against the American League champion in a best-of-nine to determine baseball’s best team of the year.  It has nothing to do with anyone declaring themselves “The Champions of The World.”  Thank you.

I still think that the righteous indignation is misguided, but it appears I have fallen for an urban legend, which sucks, because I pride myself on prying people away from such myths and into facts.  It was pointed out in the comments section, but you can see the truth at http://www.snopes.com/business/names/worldseries.asp

As I said off the top, we’re going to be providing complete coverage of the ALCS and NLCS across the Fan Radio Network, but it’s going to be a little touchy on the Fan590 and here on this very website.  Tonight, we’ll join Game 1 of the Dodgers-Phillies in progress at the conclusion of the Raptors’ pre-season game.  Tomorrow night, we’ll join Game 1 of the Yankees-Angels in progress at the conclusion of the Argo game.

The Blue Jay A Day Pre-Pre-Game Show will be back as well, but not for a while.  There won’t be any pre-games tonight and tomorrow, obviously, and because of FC soccer on Saturday and Bills football on Sunday, we’ll only have little-mini-pre-pre-games.  I’m going to see if I can get Andrew Tinnish or Dana Brown on one of them, though there won’t be time to take calls.

Next week, we should have some Blue-Jay-A-Day guests taking your phone calls.  Let me know to whom you’d most like the opportunity to talk, and I’ll try to get them.  Know this, though, neither Roy Halladay nor Vernon Wells will do the show - Doc never has, and knows that if he did it this year, the only questions would be about him being traded, and Vernon told me last month that he’s not interested in that sort of fan interaction anymore.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

The Blue Jays’ new General Manager made his first bunch of moves this morning, shuffling about the scouting and player development staff.

The biggest move is the firing of Dick Scott, J.P. Ricciardi’s Director of Player Development.  A member of the 1989 World Series champion Oakland A’s (OK, he was 0-for-2 in three games, but he has a ring), Scott came to the Blue Jays from  the Diamondbacks’ organizations where he’d been seen as a terrific managerial prospect before moving to pro scouting.  Scott was one of J.P.’s first hires and oversaw player development throughout Ricciardi’s tenure.

I didn’t talk to Scott a lot, he was generally around during Spring Training, at draft time and in September, but he was always willing to talk and always gave a good overview of what was going on in the minor-league system.

He’s replaced by a combination of (Torontonian) Charlie Wilson, who has been running the Jays’ minor-league operations for six years and Doug Davis (not the pitcher), who managed the Jays’ AA New Hampshire Fisher Cats in 2006 and spent this past season as a roving catching instructor.

Throughout J.P.’s tenure, the Blue Jays did a fantastic job in developing pitchers, but failed miserably in their attempts to develop a major-league calibre catcher and shortstop.

The other big change took place in amateur scouting, where Hamiltonian Andrew Tinnish takes over as the scouting director from Jon Lalonde, who moves to pro scouting.  Tinnish has moved through the scouting department since joining the team back in 2001, and had been Lalonde’s top assistant the last three seasons.  Jack Armstrong will like him, since he used to pitch for Niagara College.

Anthopoulos is really, really high on Tinnish, and though it sounds as though this move is a demotion for Lalonde, it really seems to be more of a lateral move.  The Jays will be placing a much larger emphasis on pro scouting, which would indicate that in the future they’re planning to be far more active in the trade and free agent markets.  Lalonde will be a big part of that, though Perry Minasian (who came to the Jays last year from the Rangers - I’ve never met him) will head up that department.

Also, Rob Ducey  and Mike Basso have been let go.  Ducey had been handling all the scouting in the Pacific Rim, but turned up Scott Richmond before he went east.  Basso managed for the Jays in Dunedin (FSL Manager of the Year), New Hampshire (won an Eastern League Championship), Syracuse and Las Vegas.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!