FloatnFly

my question is what does his bat have anything to do with what position he plays? all his bat does is determine where he bats in the lineup, he'll never be a top of the order batter, hes a 6-8 hitter, someone to turn the line up over.

you had aaron hill, then goins/kawasaki, kelly johnson and izturis, none of which have the arm for third base, thing is, lawrie has a good arm for third

Great article, this should be a must read for all anglers! The best point in the article was using the analogy that leaving a fish out of the water is akin to holding one's breath after running a marathon. One big complaint I have is the way most (yes I said most) TV fishing hosts don't handle fish correctly. They leave the fish out of the water way too long while they are yakking at the camera. I always say to myself "put the damn fish back in the water!" That's my thoughts for now.

I watched a show by Italo one day, he was fishing at the time a fairly unknown creek around new castle, not the willy, but a smaller one, he caught a nice steelhead, netted it, and had sitting in the net on the rocks for 5 minutes while he talked about his gear, pathetic

heres the episode, keep in mind this is supposed to be a profressional....

personally i like to use a rubberized net to land fish, keep them in the water 100% of the time and still have a little control for the release

I never liked him. He does not pose the power to be a 3rd baseman. When he was playing for the Jays I always wondered why he wasn't at 2nd base. He has the speed and the defence for 2nd base with a decent bat for that position. Other than that, if 2nd base doesn't work out, he should be sent down to the minors.

not sure why certain positions need to have cookie cutter build, ie 3b has to have a big power bat. Lawrie has great speed on the bases, and a great range, its like having 2 short stops on the left side, its rare to have a third baseman with that much range. He's a solid player, brings a lot of energy, hits doubles and singles, and can score from first base

look at the KC Royals in the playoffs last year, they're top HR guy had 5, but only 7 RBI, they had 11 HR total in the postseason, but hit 28 doubles, their opponents combined hit 19, they also stole 14 bases, their opponents combined stole 4. speed wins games in todays game

Who beat the yanks in New York on Monday?

jays did 6-1

The Jays are still in Dunedin, all Jays games can be caught on Rogers Sportsnet.

The biggest contract right now, Giancarlo Stanton, 325mil, 25mil per year, Miguel Cabrerra is the highest annual pay at 31mil per year

theres a few rivers in that area, just check the regs for open areas

remember what the Jays got in return for this guy?? why didn't they keep him!!!!!

http://sports.yahoo.com/video/hechavarrias-impressive-stop-010014337.html

Does anyone know how long it takes to roll up that turf and lay it down again? They must have done it when they held monster truck shows, there's no way they would put a load of dirt on top of it. If it doesn't take long, why can't they have natural grass, and lay the turf over top for things like football games? Covering natural grass for a day shouldn't kill it.

takes about 6-8 hours to pull it out, problem with the previous turf, was that all that sand in there compacted, and when they stacked it for events and football games, it made is compact even more and basically deteriorated the blades of grass so they didn't stand straight up anymore. its why after the first season, the field looked like crap and looked like patch work with different colours, its the way the turf blades layed. if i remember correctly, their longest piece was 170ft long and weighed over 12,000 pounds

they're looking at going to natural grass for 2018 the argos lease expires after the 2017 season, they need to retro fit the stadium for grass though, its not an issue of growing grass indoors, its an issue of can the stadium withstand having natural grass, its needs a drainage system put it, an irrigation system, a new humidity control system, since grass puts out a lot of humidity, they would also need to look at putting glass panels in the roof for the winter months when the dome is closed

those are some awesome pictures! love the laker and brown!

Its always good to have a reminder about safe fish handling at the start of open water season, and this article does a fantastic job of that

http://www.thecleanestline.com/2015/03/the-release-fundamentals-of-fish-and-path-to-responsible-angling.html

Hit a local creek yesterday for a few hours and caught 4. They are in there, just not super stacked up yet. Hooked and lost two nice bows also - one was a 10+. Was nice to fish open water for the first time this year! Thanks for the help guys, appreciate it.

you were probably at one of the 2 I have been fishing

They are enforcing the rule this year about batters not leaving the batters box between pitches, something that's always been there just never enforced.

 

And holding teams to stricter timing between half innings for warmups so there isn't 2 minutes of commercials for every 5 minutes of action (this isn't the NFL after all). One thing about the Jays is they have some of the fastest working pitchers in the league. If Mark Buehrle went up against Mark Buehrle every night games would be over in 90 minutes.

 

Another thing I think they could introduce is relief pitchers not needing warm-ups when they finish their bullpen warm-ups. There's no need for them to throw more once they get into the game.

 

I personally feel a pitch clock would be the worst idea ever because then pitchers would feel pressured to throw and quality would go down.

 

Aside from all that, a lot of this has to do with the way the game is played these days. Cy Young's 2 no-hitters had a combined 5 K's on the ledger while yesterday's Jays game Jays batters struck out 12 times, and a lot of people thought they batted well. 12 K's! Getting an out in 3 pitches takes a lot less time than a 7 pitch strikeout. On top of that, a lot of teams are coached to push pitch counts, since the entire league seems to be run on this obsession with pitch counts rather than looking at actual fatigue, or working towards longevity. Just go out and throw as hard as you can 100 times and worry about TJ surgery later. Then, as stated above, you have to use 6 pitchers (like the Yankees did yesterday) which slows things down even more...

this all has to do with the state of pitching now, batters are at the disadvantage for the first time in a long time, gone are the days of the Maddux's that paint corners with 85mph fastballs, pitchers now are painting corners with 95+mph fastballs, and then dropping 85mph curves and change ups in the mix, Aroldis Chapman for the Reds, topped out at 106mph last year

i think the 100 pitch count was developed to get the most out of your starters for the entire year, rather than going into september worn down, and then having to go into possibly late october. I agree that it seems like a low number, especially once you start throwing 10ks in a game, i mean thats 30 pitches right there, which realistically is more like 45-50 once you factor in balls and foul balls and thats only 3 and 1/3 innings of outs, factor in a couple of walks, and few base hit, you reach 100 pitches damn fast. I say give the older pitchers a pitch count, let the younger guys throw 120-130 pitches, their body can handle it. what was it stroman threw into the 10th last year and barely looked gassed

Pro's and Con's here. You're also out of the elements, you are able to "feel" for the game better than when its cold and/or raining. No Sun, wind etc.

 

It actually makes playing easier as the stadium is always consistent. Chances of getting a hit are increased from the fast surface, singles into doubles, doubles into triples. Runners are faster on turf, more steals etc.

 

I actually prefer grass but Im just saying there are pros and cons to both grass and turf. I doubt for one second any Pro out there is complaining about playing on any field though or making into a big deal.

 

I also think the game is way to slow, and their back and knee problems mostly stem from just standing around for 3 hours. I loved playing the game when I was young, but watching it puts me to sleep. A game much better played than watched IMO.

if this were the case, every player on every team would be complaining. they play on grass all through the minors, all through spring training, and then when they make it to the show, they have to adjust for a damn fast ground ball cause the turf doesn't slow the ball down at all. makes it harder for rookies to succeed.

the game is slow because pitchers and batters make it that way, very few pitchers get the ball back and toe the rubber right away, they take a few seconds and walk around the mound, then get set. theres no reason why a game should take more than 2.5 hours to get through, i mean growing up playing, would take an hour 45min to get 7 innings in.

they're done things like put a 30 second limit between pitches, i think that can be brought done to around 20 seconds, and maybe bring in the rule of if the catcher is on base with 2 outs, you can bring in a substitute runner so the catcher can go get suited up, we used to do that when i played......but that could a spirit of competition thing, where teams would have a special super fast runner just for that.

saw a couple caught today in the east end

another artical here

from http://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/2015/02/16/meet-the-man-paid-to-watch-the-blue-jays-grass-grow.html

Setting aside the lousy look of an artificial field, the turf also limits the Jays’ ability to attract free agents, who are typically embarking on the second half of their careers and wary of the turf’s reputation for pounding backs, knees and hips.

Too hard on their bodies? They play indoors during the colder days, and never have to deal with rain or any other elements lol. And what is the difference between Toronto, NY, Detroit etc. when it comes to weather/temperature. Having played in the Skydome/Rogers Center during my baseball days, its a great field, just very fast. The bounces are always true unlike playing on grass.

 

The game of baseball has changed in the past 20 years as have a lot of sports. None for the better. I liked watching ball during the 90's. What a great feeling the game had then! Phillies, Braves, Toronto, etc. every game was fun to watch.

the weather has nothing to do with it, its the field surface itself, artificial turf is not as spongy as natural grass, which can be made more giving by adding more water to it. fake grass is very hard on the legs, knees and back.

even pitchers don't like artificial turf, since the ground balls are a lot faster, a lot of outs on natural grass, turn into singles on turf. the counter to that is the infield plays deeper, but that opens up the possibility for bunt singles

heres an excerpt from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/baseball/field-of-dreams/article18955544/

The one thing most players agree on is that playing on artificial surfaces extracts more of a physical toll on the body. “Your back gets stiff a little bit,” said Blue Jays shortstop Jose Reyes. “And you also feel it in your legs, your knees.” Many players, including Reyes, soak in a tub filled with ice water for 15 to 20 minutes after nearly every game on artificial turf.

The Blue Jays are the entire MLB's farm team. Blue Jays groom them, they get too good and move on to win a WS or for more money. Jays are an 80-85 win team, at best; said it every year, and they never let me down.

 

Their management needs to change and frankly I'm surprised the team hasn't moved yet.

players don't want to play in Toronto because the field is crap and too hard on their bodies. we'll see how it works out this year with new turf, they took out the sand component in the fill which made the old turf heavy and very hard as is compacted

only 2 teams in baseball have artificial turf, Toronto and Tampa, guess which 2 teams have players that want to leave or can't attract big name players

 

team hasnt moved?

 

They have one of the best attendances in the entire MLB?

they have average attendance, sitting at #17 in the mlb last year at around 30,000/game

source:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance/_/year/2014

I saw something mentioning who they got for others that were involved in the deal. Doc was great but he wanted out. Considering how the end of his career went.

he didn't want out until he saw his name floating in trade rumours from our wonderful media, he thought he was going to play his whole career in Toronto, he loved the team and the city. he extremely competative, but extremely loyal at the same time

He was picked up on waivers by the white sox

so basically none of the prospects they got for Halladay stayed with the team, they traded one for Dickey, the other for another minor leaguer who we then traded for Gose, which they traded for Travis.

 

Dickey and Buerhle aren't the kind of pitchers who will win games, but they'll keep you in one. It's the job of the batters to step up to the plate and do their best to put some runs on the board.

the batter can put 20 runs on the board, but if the pitchers can't keep the other team in check, 20 runs isn't going to do any good. the pitchers job is to keep the other team off the board so you don't need huge offensive nights to win ball games, they're going to need at least 15 wins from both of those pitchers to justify their contracts.

We're in the age of the pitcher now, there's less homeruns, fewer runs scored per game, 5 runs should be more than enough to win a game these days

I'm cautiously optimistic. But with all the young fireballers in the rotation and bullpen, there's one pitcher's name I hope we don't hear: Tommy John.

speaking of T-J, what ever happened to Drabek?

columbia long sleeve t-shirt, with a buff, baseball cap and good pair of polarized glasses

if they stay healthy, they should do alright, dickey shouldn't have a problem, i mean age doesn't affect a knuckleballer, but buerlhes age might be catching up with him, i would expect 200 innings from him this year. there offense is one of the strongest in the league, their defense is top 10, the only question is their pitching.

the loss of stroman hurts a lot, hopefully the young fireballers in the bullpen can keep there nerves down and pitch strong all year

martin is a fantastic player, he may not be the strongest offensively, but what he brings with his defense and his ability to work with his pitchers and guide them is invaluable