Questions from the Audience
Without getting into specifics, 2018 was not a great year for me. And when things aren’t going well, I tend to focus on the absolute necessities and neglect other things. “Other things”, in this case, include this blog.
Of course, it didn’t help that the baseball team was pretty terrible and the team whose fan base irritates me the most won the World Series, but there were other mitigating factors.
I’m ready to turn the page on this year and I wish each and every one of you all the best in 2019.
Yeah.
December 31st marks the 46th anniversary of the death of one of baseball’s greats
I don’t think MLB does enough to celebrate Clemente. I think he should have a day like Jackie Robinson has a day, to celebrate both Clemente on and off the field but also to recognize the impact of Latin America on the game.
¡Clemente VIVE!
In a rather lame effort to get inspired to write something, I put this out on Twitter:
And I got a handful of responses, including one, since deleted, to look at the new bench coach’s Twitter account.
I did. The best I can say is he likes Seinfeld, and I’ll leave it there.
ANYWAY!
The impulse I have is to say Bo Bichette but I think he’s going to spend the whole season in AAA, unless something happens to Devon Travis (trade or injury).
So I will go with my old favourite, Anthony Alford. I picked him to have breakout year in 2018, so let’s do that again. Alford has had injury issues that have impeded his progress, but I have to believe that someone with this many plus skills has to become something. IT HAS TO.
Alford also seems to be a nice kid. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s great looking.
Also,
I have not seen Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to his Oscar-winning Moonlight. The trailer looks gorgeous, it’s based on James Baldwin’s novel (that’s who is talking in the voice over in the trailer).
These are the movies I saw in the theatre in 2018, Black Panther and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse are the two standouts. Click on the pictures below to see all of them.
As for the second question, I think the Blue Jays would explore trading one or both of Stroman and Sanchez if the right deal presented itself. I don’t know if it’d be active shopping for either, but time will tell. I think it’s very safe to say that pretty much anyone not named Vlad Jr. is at least partially on the market.
My first baseball related memory was a hit ball that hit me in the forehead and my dad picking me up and taking me home. I had a goose egg.
My first MLB-related memory was this:
No! But I would very much like to. I lost my dog Emma to cancer in 2016 and the Blue Jays haven’t had dog events in about a decade, even though dogs/baseball seem to be a no-brainer when it comes to promotion, so I haven’t had the opportunity.
If you don’t follow Baseball Poodle, do it now.
Latecomer from the comments:
I have indeed blocked many people and have been blocked myself a few times.
Marty York is also on my list of blockers. Others of note include:
Dirk Hayhurst - I forget the context exactly but I think he likely wrote some pompous and wrong and didn’t like it when I challenged him on something. It might have been about Bautista or Stroman and “attitude” or something. There is something that comes up every once in a while where certain people on the internet want me to argue with them and get mad when I just give one word answers. Like, “No.”
Trevor Bauer tweeted a bunch of nonsense after that extra inning slog on Canada Day in 2016. I think it was a bunch of “U-S-A!” style emojis. When Cleveland lost the next game, I asked him to tweet me some emojis to sum up the loss. He tweeted some to me but then blocked me before I could see them. People sent me pictures. It’s no great loss.
And finally, Jonah Keri blocked me for reasons unknown. I’ve met Jonah Keri, we used to talk on Facebook semi-regularly. It was fine. I used to tweet him Vlad Jr stories. It was fine. He doesn’t follow me (which isn’t a big deal) but I only block people I don’t follow if I just don’t want them to see my feed: usually they are harassing me (in the various ways people can be harassed on Twitter) or they are generally racist, homophobic, sexist or otherwise gross. As for Keri’s reasons:
No big thing, just….weird.
This is an interesting one. If Stroman and/or Sanchez both pitch all season to their potential and a Borucki that continues to build on his 2018, the pitching could be fine, above average even.
Of course, I fully expect Jr. to come up and launch baseballs into the stratosphere. Throw in signing Bryce Harper (which USA Today totally suggests they do), and everything starts to look a lot better.
DO IT, MARK SHAPIRO. DO IT!
But, because he definitely won’t, here is another picture of Baseball Poodle:
The short answer is no. My general rule of thumb is for an MLB player is, “Can they hit or throw a 92 MPH pitch?”
Men generally have a physical strength advantage over women and professional athletes have an even greater advantage. Most men can’t play in the MLB.
I’m not saying that it’s completely impossible, but she’d have to be one hell of a powerhouse. Also, women’s baseball is very, very entertaining to watch.
I’m much more interested to see more women in executive roles in baseball, in scouting and even in coaching. More diversity in general wouldn’t hurt.