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Toronto Blue Jays

Bang it Like Bautista

This song was in some serious trouble when it referred to Bautista’s cedar bat in the first line, but it more than makes up for that inaccuracy with a generous helping of vivid sexual metaphors. There’s also a clean version, but how can anything sanitary touch Shaker’s Rap?

8Jul2011 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

Analysis of the Travis Snider demotion

He should have kept the ‘stache.

29Apr2011 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

10 Reasons to call up Brett Lawrie NOW

1) AAA is bunk. Why do we even have all these stupid minor-league levels, anyway? Name me ONE hot Jays prospect not named Rios, Lind, or Snider that had any problems adapting to the majors after fast-tracking through AAA. Preparing for the major leagues via a carefully-planned and long-established series of steadily-increasing levels of difficulty [...]

17Mar2011 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

Into the Flow of the Season

I’m sure this has been posted everywhere already, but has anyone noticed how the path of “good” leads directly to the Jays? Apparently we are perceived as: soulful, caring, dedicated, realist, spontaneous, non-racist, non-violent, traditionalist, encased meat-eating and benevolent fans. Encased meat….mmmmMMMmmmm.

12Mar2011 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

Winning Sports Journalism from Toronto’s Most Repected Newspaper

Update: Today the Jays held a coaches meeting and actually announced the obvious about Romero, while stating that “The final two members of the staff likely won’t be announced until the final week of Spring Training,” as Farrell wants to see as much of them as possible before making a final decision. Boooo-ring. It’s bracket [...]

12Mar2011 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

Just enough, no doubt!

Ok, I lied about the photoshopped Bautista. I do have some more numbers, though. They’re kinda fun. According to Hit Tracker, Bautista lead the league in: “Just Enough” home runs – Means the ball cleared the fence by less than 10 vertical feet, OR that it landed less than one fence height past the fence. [...]

11Mar2011 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

A different look at BABIP

Boy, I had no idea there was such hate out there for BABIP. I’ve gotten some emails that even made it sound like I actually discovered something new here, when I was really just trying to tell the mainstream to go re-read their SABR manual. I do have something else to add that has been [...]

9Mar2011 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

An Open Letter to ESPN about BABIP

Dear poor intern who works at ESPN pumping out preseason player comments: I know it’s hard. You have to make some kind of bold prediction for every single player, with pretty much squat to go on other than what fans can already get from Fangraphs. You’re not a scout. You haven’t seen these players swing [...]

3Mar2011 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

Ump Roundup

Check out Mike Fast over at Baseball Prospectus dishing the latest on the way umpires call the strike zone and making me blush. As to reasons for why the zone seems to get bigger in hitters’ counts (among other situations) and vice-versa, I have a couple of ideas: Every so often, an umpire just doesn’t [...]

26Feb2011 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

Hardball Times Season Previews

The good folks at The Hardball Times have posted their highly-anticipated player forecasts for 2011. Along with the best statistics money can buy, you get comments on individual players from some damn good bloggers writing about the teams they know best — including yours truly seamlessly weaving cold hard pitch f/x truth and rampant unqualified [...]

14Jan2011 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

The One That Got Away

So you used to know this girl. A real knockout, hugely talented, tons of potential. She Was a little gawky and went through some ups and downs in her early 20′s (like most of the special ones do), but you held on to each other and worked through the rough times and it was worth [...]

7Oct2010 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

Strike Zone Control By Height

Strike Zone Control by Height Height: Called Strike Ball Foul Short: 16.8 37.0 17.0 Medium: 17.5 36.8 16.7 Tall: 17.1 38.7 16.3

3Oct2010 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued
BrettCecilMove

Cecil’s Other Offspeed Pitch

With Brett Cecil making his second major league start today, here’s a look at his first game – which was pretty stellar despite him drilling three people (he reminds me of me!). The pitch that Cecil is known for, his slider that was “major league ready” when he was drafted is in green, but it [...]

2Oct2010 | The Mockingbird | 0 comments | Continued

Jose Bautista Launches No. 50, 51, 52

On a historic day for Ichiro Suzuki and the Seattle Mariners, Jose Bautista had to go and steal the thunder at the Rogers Centre, not to mention spoil an outstanding pitching performance by an American League Cy Young candidate.That’s just how he rolls…

23Sep2010 | Babes Love Baseball | 0 comments | Continued

Jose Bautista is an Animal

Jose Bautista homered not once, but twice in his team’s 3-2 win over the New York Yankees Monday night.Count ‘em: that’s a big league-leading 40 bombs on the year for the Toronto Blue Jays slugger.This game was pretty intense to begin with. In the sixt…

24Aug2010 | Babes Love Baseball | 0 comments | Continued