Game 6 of the World Series now goes Thursday night, with Game-Seven-If-Necessary to follow on Friday.
Elsewhere...
...the Jays are reportedly not not interested in David Ortiz. The exact formulation in this case is "will not rule out," which, duh, I mean if I were Alex Anthopoulos I wouldn't rule out interest in anyone short of Babe Ruth (because he's no longer with us.) I don't imagine Ortiz is going to be super interested in signing for less than what he makes now, $12.5 million, and I'm sure multiple years would be nice. Papi has been good the last two years, but the market for 37 year old DHs can't be more than about five or six teams. So it's not immediately evident what he'll get paid, but lets say he's available for two years, $25 million.
On some levels signing him does make sense for Toronto, as Ortiz has the potential to be a very good hitter. The only thing is that it probably wouldn't move the needle very much. The team received a cumulative line of .262/.338/.432 from its DHs, and while Ortiz did hit a superb .309/.398/.554 this past year you would expect him to regress some. The team has Edwin Encarnacion on option for $3.5 million next year, and he probably won't be significantly worse than Ortiz (he is eight years younger and hit slightly better than that DH line this past year.) If Ortiz is worth 2.5 more wins than Encarnacion next year (about what the difference was this year; I think this is a bit generous), that is about the $9 million difference in their salaries. But the Jays moving from an 81 to 83 win team isn't worth much of anything, so the only real way this deal makes sense for Toronto is if they improve elsewhere as well. If the Jays, for argument's sake, sign Prince Fielder and CJ Wilson, they are probably improving by 10 wins off the bat next year, without getting into who might regress or progress. In that case it would make sense to sign Ortiz, but in that case the Jays probably don't have a spare $10 million lying around. So, I don't really see a scenario in which Ortiz signs with Toronto. Which isn't to say it won't happen, just that I don't know that there is a logical path to it happening.
Also in Red Sox mode, after recently stating that the team would give employees permission to speak with other ball clubs (no link, pretty sure it was the Globe), AA has reversed course and now says that they will not allow lateral moves [per MLBTR, albeit with no link, though I believe others, including Bob Elliot, have reported it.] I think this is the right decision, as what is the point of having an employee under contract if they can just go to another organization at their choosing. Imagine if the club let Jose Bautista do that... In any case, if the Red Sox really want John Farrell then the Jays should by all rights demand an arm and a leg. And if they got it, I would be fine with letting him go. It's in bad form a bit, I suppose, and the team would have to find a new manager, but I am reasonably confident that if the team got any sort of real players/prospects back from the Red Sox that their value would be greater than the value of Farrell over another manager. I think good managers can have a big affect, but it's not immediately clear that Farrell was a good manager (to be fair, it was his first year and I think he improved.) There are a lot of smart people out there that want to manage though, like, say, Terry Francona (maybe,) and I'm sure they would be quite happy to take the Blue Jays money. Anyway, Boston is a smart organization too, and I doubt they will spend to get Farrell from Toronto, so I guess this is a dead story.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=2011102700425253