The never-ending god forsaken fucking winter is over, the stench of the Toronto Maple Leafs season is almost gone, and thank fucking Christ my beloved Toronto Blue Jays are back. Yeah technically they've been back for a month or so but Spring Training is whack as fuck, bush league stadiums, whacky uniforms, AA and AAA plugs you'll never see again in your life. The real action starts Monday when Drew Hutchinson takes the bump against the dreadful Yankees at Yankee Stadium.
2015 needs to be different for the sake of my own sanity. Injuries derailed the 2012 campaign and fuck face square jaw John Farrell bolted the team, then 2013 offered so much hope and that crashed and burned like the god damned Hindenburg. I had lowered expectations last year but a red hot May sent those expectations through the roof, but once again injuries and supposed club house turmoil led to the 21st fucking season in a row out of the playoffs.
As for 2015 I am going to have to side with Ricky here, I am very optimistic about the Jays chances this season. Yeah Yeah I know what you're saying I'm the same lummox who predicted that the Leafs would win the Stanley Cup this year...usually I just say that shit to troll Leaf haters who get their knickers in a twist about that. I am feeling very good about the 2015 Blue Jays, for fucks sakes if nothing else some god damned luck has to go our way.
image courtesy Andrew Stoeten
A lot of squids in the Toronto media and the assholes who listen to them are claiming this is a make or break year for GM Alex Anthopoulos (herein referred as AA because I can't spell his fucking last name yet...maybe one day not now)... which is completely absurd. I think AA has done a marvelous job as GM, especially with the corporate overlords at Rogers always tying his hands financially at every turn.
Go ahead Rogers, make a Stalin-esque statue of Uncle Teddy Rogers, pay $12 billion and offer horrific hockey coverage with the two-headed asshole monster of Glenn Healy and Damien Cox, charge people out the nose for your mediocre services, but heaven fucking forbid the Blue Jays take on any payroll.
Remember all the garbage clowns screaming at AA to make a move at the deadline last year?? Would you have been happy trading Marcus Stroman or Aaron Sanchez for a couple of months of Jeff Samardzija only to lose the Wild Card play in game? Of course not, that's completely absurd, but cretins like Gregg Zaun were all over that...remind me again what David Price did for the Tigers last season? Fuck all
I suppose it isn't his fault that he had smoke blown up his ass the entire time he was in the organization, based mainly on his passport. Remember Team Unit? What a fucking disaster that was. Anyways I am sure Lawrie will still have a great career in Oakland, and perhaps not being the pride of Maple Dicks everywhere will ease the pressure, but the guy is a fucking band-aid, and getting Josh Donaldson is a MAJOR upgrade.
The other major acquisition was free-agent Russell "Jussell" Martin. This was by far the biggest free-agent signing in AA's tenure as Blue Jays GM. I am pretty happy with the move, while I am not a big believer in intangibles I think his 'veteran presents' won't go unnoticed this year (mainly because I guaran-damn-tee Buck and Tabby will mention it at every fucking opportunity). But Martin is obviously a major upgrade on Dinner Navarro. Also he is a great addition by subtraction, because he can catch the knuckle ball there is no need for useless Josh Thole. My heart is aflutter over the prospect of Martin working with this young pitching staff I am expecting big things from the staff this year.
The pitching staff was dealt major blow this spring when the day after this adorable picture was taken Marcus Stroman suffered a freak injury and is out for the season.
I almost threw up when I heard the news.
Not just because Stroman has all the tools to be an ace, but he is such a great lovable guy. His social media presence, rocking the Raptors gear, embracing "The 6" (are fat, bald 30-somethings from Hamilton allowed to call it The 6 or will that just ruin it for everyone?) It's a heartbreaker for sure but it's certainly not going to sink the season.
The odd thing about our rotation is that there is nobody between the age of 25 and 35, it's either really young or geriatrically old, but fuck it I like the mix. Even without Stroman *another single tear* I like the looks of the rotation.
Drew Hutchinson "The Hutch" he's poised to have a break out year, remember that performance he had in Texas last season against Yu Darvish? Expect to see more of that this season.
R.A. "Knuckles" Dickey. A lot of garbage clowns continue to shit on Dickey (like fucking D'Arnaud or Syndergaard are going to be anything special). While he'll never repeat his Cy Young season of 2012 he is pretty dependable, albeit a bit of a princess.
Mark "Papa" Buerhle. Ol' Reliable himself, he had a great start to the 2013 campaign earning an All-Star appearance, but slowed down the stretch. Will always give you 200 innings, so with him you gotta take the good with the bad.
Aaron "I need a nickname" Sanchez. His best friend Stroman getting hurt could be the best thing to happen to Sanchez as he needs to take the reigns. He was in the bullpen and a lot of short sighted squids were screaming at him to become the closer.... come the fuck on. Give the kid a chance to be a starter before he's relegated to the fucking bullpen.
Daniel "The Hippie" Norris. Hey did you guys hear he lives in a van? That he shaves with an axe? I don't know if you read anything about that this off season, just making sure you know that. Regardless of his goofy fucking lifestyle, he has electric stuff and will be a wonderful addition to the rotation.
I am so happy the Jays are giving their young pitchers a chance to start the season not throw them in AAA and have some journeyman plug like Marco "Polo Erik" Estrada or fucking Tomo Ohka start.
The bullpen has two young new fire ballers who have had brilliant springs. Miguel Castro (aka Spiderman I guess) is only 20 for christs sakes but he has been turning heads all spring, the one chance I did get to see him on TV he did give up a couple of hits and earned runs, but for fuck sakes he wasn't going to have a 0.00 ERA. Robert Osuna is the other young reliever coming north with the team. I am very interested to see how they both develop.
Their promotion came at the expense of Steve Delabar, who had a miserable 2014 campaign after being an all-star in 2013. Apparently he threw a bit of a hissy fit, and My Boy The Zubes the head of the #playbald movement is investigating for potential baldism. But as far as I am concerned Delabar has had his chance, I am glad the Jays are giving the young'uns a chance at the big league level, a stark departure from years past. Delabar should take the great Jon Taffer's advice and:
Brett Cecil is the closer this year, I can see that working out... I hope to fuck it does, I can't deal with any late inning bullpen meltdowns, yeah it will happen a few times over the course of a 162 game campaign, but keep it to a minimum. Look at the Detroit Tigers last year, everyone had a circle jerk over their rotation but their bullpen completely imploded in the playoffs and it was all for naught. The bullpen they head north with to start the season could look completely different in 6 weeks, so there is no sense getting all persnickity about it now.
Look at those beauties. Sweet tunderin' Jesus watching these boys murder balls this year is going to be fun as fuck. I've already talked about Josh Donaldson but people seem to forget how great Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion are
Jose Bautista is the best... lock this guy up for the rest of his career PLEASE. Year in year out he has been the teams MVP, all the stats, both advanced and barbaric point him to be one of the best players in the game. Josh Donaldson has actually watched 1000's of hours of Bautista swings and models his own swing after his *swoon*. On top of that Bautista has a cannon of an arm in right field, nobody is going to run on him. Reserve his spot on the Circle of Excellence right meow.
Eddie will likely get off to his traditional slow start, especially with a bad back hampering most of his Spring Training, but come May 1st he is going to get the chicken wing out and take the parrot for a spin around the bases... time after time again. Hopefully he can stay healthy, that injury he had last season really fucked up the season.
image courtesy @captainlatte
I like the rest of the line-up too, there is a bit of the unknown but fuck bring it on. Jose Reyes when healthy is still a hitter to be feared, he lost a step on defense last year, but I think he was hiding some injuries. There is a couple of rookies in the line up with Dalton "Live At" Pompey and Devon Travis. Pompey had an incredible September last year taking the place of the sullen Colby Rasmus, but you can't judge someones September's performance, that's garbage time for a team out of the playoff race. I really don't know much about Devon Travis but he was the best prospect in Detroit's system. Michael Saunders is hurt, but I think once healthy he will have a career season. All in all this line up is definitely something to be feared. Yeah there is some question marks, but tell me a team in baseball that does not have any question marks.
All in all I am fucking pumped for the season, baseball is my favourite sport and the Blue Jays are my favourite team and I am so god damned happy when Opening Day rolls around. I legitamately think the Jays are contenders to win the AL East, and most certainly a Wild Card spot.
The Red Sox and Orioles are still forces to be reckoned with, but the Yankees are old as fuck and the Rays are going to be back to being the shitty cellar-dwelling Rays.
If they get off to a slow start so be it, granted there will be idiots like Squid Seixeiro trolling and riling up the garbage clowns to #FYREGABBOBZ!!!! But fuck baseball is a marathon, every team is going to win 60 every team is going to lose 60, what happens in those other 42 game is what matters. Even if they don't get off to a good start, or don't make the playoffs there is a solid foundation of young players that will ensure this teams success for years to come. The least I am fucking asking for is meaningful September baseball, give me a god damned pennant race for christ sakes!
One last thought....
Gibby the Best!! People constantly calling for his head are fucking morons, I have no idea why he is so unpopular amongst the garbage clowns.
I will be posting about the Jays in my weekly sports ramblings throughout out the season, you can also follow your boy on the Twitter @HDH2112 I usually tweet funny Jays related stuff out or re-tweet people with actual smarts like Andrew Stoeten or GROF
PS if you're not visiting AndrewStoeten.com on a daily basis and call yourself a Jays fan give your head a shake!
2 comments:
Nice Anthocolypse Now gif. That was made by yours truly,and it's good to see its getting some play. Too bad it says it's that piece of $shit$ Andrew Stoetens because it's not.
Gibby is shit and you know it.
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