Blue Jays have to win now

I haven’t written about sports or movies on here for a while, so today I thought I would rant a bit about the Blue Jays.

The Jays are currently 35-36, clearly a record that is not going to get them into the playoffs, but more importantly it is a record that will require quite an incredible run down the stretch to make the playoffs. The Jays sit 8.5 games back of Boston today; I would say that gap is too big to close.  The Red Sox are too good to go on a prolonged losing streak, so even if the Jays play great, there is little to no chance that the Red Sox will play poorly enough for the Jays to catch them.

The current wild card leader in the AL is the Tampa Bay Rays.  The Jays sit 6 games back of the Rays. Currently the Rays winning percentage is .580, which might be a little higher than they end the season at, but I feel confident in saying that the eventual wild card winner is going to have a winning percentage of at least .550.  The percentage works out to 89 wins, not a very high total, the eventual winner will likely have a couple more than that.  The Jays currently have 35 wins, there are 91 games left to play.  To reach 90 wins, the Jays need to win 55 out of the remaining 91 games, a winning percentage of .604.  That is not an impossible number to achieve, but it does mean winning pretty much every series from now to the end of the season.

Based on the above numbers I would give the Jays one, maybe two more weeks, before I totally right them off for the year.  Hopefully the Jays can play a little better over the next couple of weeks, and maybe make a move for some offensive help in early to mid-July, when they still might have time to salvage the season.  A.J. Burnett is great trade bait.  He has thrown some really dominant games this season, and some really trash efforts as well.  Burnett is still young enough, and still exhibits enough potential that he could be packaged with a couple of young pitchers for a real impact bat.  I think that Adam Dunn would be a nice fit, but would only be a rental unless the Jays think they could resign the impending free agent (he is likely to command too much money for the Jays to sign him to a new deal, and they already have lots of money tied up in Wells and Rios in the outfield).

I just hope that the Jays either play some winning ball in the next couple of weeks, or if they continue to hover around .500, that they can make some moves to dump some salary and maybe bring in some decent prospects.  Veterans like Kevin Mensch, Brad Wilkerson, Shannon Stewart, David Eckstein, Matt Stairs, and Gregg Zaun, could all either be moved, or take some time on the bench while guys like Adam Lind and Robinson Diaz get some playing time.  Maybe even Travis Snider will get a call up late in the season, just to give him a taste of the big show.

And one last thought, if the Jays season really is over by the middle of July, it would be nice to see them finally make the two key moves that they have repeatedly failed to make over the last couple of years and fire John Gibbons and J.P. Ricciardi.

No surprise that new owners fire Nonis

I guess it came of somewhat of a surprise when Dave Nonis, GM of the Vancouver Canucks, was fired today.  I expected that something would be done to try to right the ship, but I thought that Nonis was saying all the right things and that would be enough to placate ownership.  On the other hand, it should never be that surprising when a new owner fires the GM hired by previous ownership.  The Acquilini’s will surely want their stamp on the team and the surest way to do that is to hire a GM who wholly believes in your philosophy and vision for the team.

On TSN, Bob McKenzie was surprised that Nonis was fired, and thought that it was the wrong move largely because Nonis has only had 4 years to build the team and that was not seen as enough time to judge whether or not he has done a good job.  Nonis is given a lot of credit for acquiring Luongo for Bertuzzi.  Granted that was a good trade, but beyond that one move Nonis has not made any moves to improve this hockey team.  The Canucks went from a high powered offensive team that always brought a lot of excitement to the rink, to one of the more drab teams to watch.  Not only did the Canucks not score much, they were also not a dominant physical presence.  There was nothing to get excited about when watching the Canucks play.

I hope that whoever the new GM is they take the next step and replace Alain Vigneault behind the bench.  Vigneault focuses far too much on defence.  Granted defence is probably the strongest part of the Canucks lineup, but with a strong defence and a strong goalie you would think that you would let your forwards play an open, offensive style game.  Vigneault was too cautious on offence.  The Canucks should allow their forwards and defence to play a more open style of hockey and hope that Luongo can stop the good scoring chances that will inevitably result.

If firing Nonis leads to a more exciting brand of hockey in Vancouver than Canucks fans should all be quite happy.  I became a fan of hockey, and in particular the Canucks watching guys like Pavel Bure, Alexander Mogilny, and Markus Naslund.  Canucks hockey used to be fast paced and exciting.  The Canucks used to lose a lot, but we are losing now in far less exciting fashion.

Why does baseball open in so many cold cities?

I wonder every year why there are so many baseball games played in northern cities during the month of April.  I understand that scheduling 162 games for 30 different teams is a monumental task, but the many delays or cancellations, or poorly played games due to weather in April is a huge annoyance for a baseball fan who is excited for the beginning of the baseball season.

So far this year there has not been a series of cancellations, but it is only the first week, let’s see how many games have to be cancelled and rescheduled for later in the year by the time April is over with.  There are plenty of northern baseball teams that play in domed parks, or as in the case of Seattle a retractable roof.  Why not schedule the earliest games of the season either in domed stadiums or in southern cities where the weather is far more likely to be conducive to good baseball games than it is in the northern cities.

youtube is not necessarily lost ppv revenues for boxing

I read this on Boxing News today and I must say that I disagree with the article pretty strongly.  Basically the article highlights the large number of people now watching boxing matches, or portions of matches on youtube.com shortly after the fights are done (usually their are uploaded within a day).  Using the recent Pacquiao-Marquez rematch as an example the article says that potentially hundreds of thousands of pay per view dollars are lost when fans choose to watch the fight on youtube rather than purchase the fight for $50 to watch it live.  The assumption that many of the people watching on youtube would actually buy the fight if not for youtube is a weak one in my view.

A casual boxing fan is not likely to shell out $50 to watch any fight.  The casual fight fan might watch some highlights, might see a fight at a bar showing ppv sometimes, or watch fights available through regular cable channels.   Casual fight fans are also likely to check out some fights, or some clips on youtube on a regular basis.  By watching clips or entire fights on youtube that casual fight fan might even become a serious boxing fan if they like what they see.  Without youtube many boxing fans would never get to see many of the best bouts.  Most top boxing matches are put on ppv, usually at $50 or more for the card.  Only very serious fans will actually pay $50 a piece to see a fight, and only serious fans will manage to pool together several friends to buy the fight and watch it together.  Only serious fight fans will make a point of going out to a bar showing the fights on a Saturday night.

Youtube catches the attention of mostly casual fight fans, most of whom in my view would never consider buying the fights that they are watching.  It is my opinion that youtube might even lead to great ppv revenue as casual fight fans slowly become serious boxing fans as they are exposed to more and more great fights.

boxing vs mma, a draw in my opinion

These days it is hard to find any true boxing fans, especially in Vancouver. I have plenty of friends who are sports fans, and many of them follow mixed martial arts, primarily through the UFC, but none of them are real boxing fans. I can understand some of the appeal of MMA and the UFC. The top selling point is that top fighters are continually matched up against other top fighters. A loss is not a crushing blow to the career of an MMA fighter, whereas and undefeated boxer can lose most of their luster with a single defeat. What confuses me about most MMA fans, and their general apathy towards boxing is that the most popular fighters and the best fights tend to involve strikers and big knockouts. Boxing is all about punching, it is all that you can legally do in a fight. Most exciting MMA fights involve two guys who stand up and throw punches with perhaps a flying knee or a head kick thrown in.

I am not saying that MMA fans are wrong for liking the sport. What I am saying is that MMA fans should give boxing another shot. I think that largely due to the popularity of MMA boxing promoters have been forced to put on better fight cards. Top boxers are now facing other top boxers with increasing regularity. Last year was an outstanding year for boxing, and so far this year has been plenty entertaining as well. Pacquiao-Marquez II this past week was action packed, bloody, and brutal, a great fight. Even the generally lacklustre heavyweight division (which is still my favourite) put on a decent show between Sam Peter and Oleg Maskaev.

I think that boxing and MMA fans should stop arguing about which sport is better and start watching each other’s fights. I prefer boxing, but MMA offers a different brand of fighting that can be very exciting. For MMA fans who tire of too many long drawn out fights taking place mostly on the ground they should check out some of the big name boxing matches that have been and are continuing to take place. Even the heavyweight division, long the star of the boxing world, should get more exciting this year than in years past. Sam Peter now holds the WBC title and is due to fight Vitali Klitschko; they are both big punchers and Peter lacks almost any ability to avoid a punch. With fighters like Peter and Wladimir Klitschko at the top of the division there are bound to be some good slugfests coming up in the division.

Trade Luongo

I know that it would seem crazy to trade the Canucks best player and probably the best goalie in the league, but can we win with this team? I think that the answer is no. The Canucks clearly do not have the offensive firepower to be serious contenders. Granted we would be next to nowhere without Luongo saving the game virtually every night, but we would be able to get something very serious in return for Luongo.

Lots of Canucks fans, including myself, think that next year will be a better year. This year we have $9.2 million in cap space tied up with Markus Naslund and Brendan Morrison. If there were someone out there this summer to throw $9.2 million a year at then we might have a real cup contender for the 08/09 season. The only top notch unrestricted free agent this summer will be Marian Hossa. In my view Hossa is not worth $9 million a year. He is not even the kind of player that I would pay $6 million. If the Canucks are going to throw top of the league type money at someone it had better be a big dominant centre, not another flimy European player.  There are also no impending restricted free agents that the Canucks could throw a huge contract at.  That pretty much just leaves the trade route to improve the team.

Luongo is the biggest assets that the Canucks have.  He is there only franchise type of player, he is the only guy they have that they could trade and get a real bona fide star back in return.  I am not sure if we would have the goaltending to go it without Luongo, but Schneider will have get his shot at some point.  There is another problem of finding a team that has assets to move for someone like Luongo.  Tampa Bay seems like an obvious candidate, someone like Lecavalier would be a fare straight up trade.  With Richards gone now I think that Tampa might have to hold on to Lecavalier and hope that Mike Smith solves their goaltending troubles.

If the Canucks hold on to Luongo, and I think that they will, he would definitely be a prime candidate to trade in the 09 offseason.  Luongo has two more years on his deal after this year.  It seems almost certain to me that Luongo will not resign with the Canucks unless they are defending cup champions at the time, or perhaps were in the finals the year his contract was up.  Luongo’s wife still lives in Florida.  They have a young family.  It seems like Luongo would like to at least play on the East Coast so that he could be closer to his wife and young child.

I like the fact that Nonis went out and made the big deal to get Luongo.  I do not like the fact that since we have had such a great goalie we have completely lost our ability to play an exciting style of hockey.  I like to see the Canucks win, but watching them grind out one goal victories night after night gets very frustrating.  Even in games where the Canucks get a lot of chances they can never really finish teams off.  They need a scoring forward with the killer instinct to put away the good chances that they get.

Sign someone, anyone, please J.P.

Casey Janssen went from either an excellent option for a fifth starter in the Toronto Blue Jays rotation, or a good 7th or 8th inning man to nothing, he is gone for the season before the season has even started.  Gustavo Chacin is apparently not close to being ready for the rotation at the beginning of the season leaving only Jesse Litsch as an option for the fifth spot in the Jays rotation.  I like Litsch, he pitched well last year and should continue to improve but I see him better suited to AAA this year with the occasional call up to fill in for the injuries that are sure to affect the Jays this season.

The Jays strangely decided to sign Armando Benitez to a minor league deal yesterday, before they found out about Janssen being gone for the season.  Ricciardi said that Benitez was available, looked good throwing for the Jays staff, so they signed him.  Nothing wrong with having an abundance of good arms in camp.  Using that same thinking, Ricciardi should go out and get the Jays a fifth starter, or at least an option as the fifth starter, someone to compete with, and push Litsch.  Kyle Lohse, Freddy Garcia, and now Horacio Ramirez recently released by the Seattle Mariners are all available starting pitchers.   Garcia is coming off an almost completely lost season due to injuries.  Garcia might be a bit of a longshot, but he might be worth a look.  Lohse was looking to sign a big multi-year deal this offseason but so far has gotten nothing.  Lohse would probably demand a decent paycheque, he is has the potential to still be a strong starter, and at 29 should be entering his prime years.  I don’t think that the Jays should sign Lohse long term, but if they could get him for one year at $3-5 million I would take him in an instant.  Ramirez looks like a terrible option based on his awful 2007 numbers (8-7, 7.16 ERA).  The upside to Ramirez is that he is a lefty.  The Jays do not have any left handed starters.  Ramirez is a relatively soft tosser and would make a good contrast in a series where Halladay gets to pitch right after him.   Assume as well that Halladay and Burnett will both at least miss a few starts.  Inserting Ramirez in to the 1, 2, or 3 slot would allow the Jays to have a lefty thrown in to the mix in most series that they play.

Litsch might very well be the best option available to the Jays right now as a fifth starter, but is clear that the Jays starters are incapable of going through a season without some injuries.  Litsch would benefit a great deal from regular starts at AAA where he should dominate many hitters.  When someone in the rotation inevitably goes down Litsch would be a great call up.  Without Litsch as insurance the Jays would have to rely on some other young, untested arm.  Go out and sign some insurance J.P., the fans deserve it.