It was so good to watch Marcum pitch - it looks like his location was its usual sharpness. It felt like Molina never had to move his glove.

Angel Guzman hurt in Cubs camp - will be looking for bullpen help - Come on AA, get Hendry to say the magic words

Hak-Ju Lee

Anyone know where I can find the minor league spring training schedule?  I've never made it to minor league camp but might check it out this year.

The schedule hasn't been released but I believe minor league games start March 20th and either the AAA and AA teams are at home or the A team or teams are at home.  So there is always a game or two on.

Bob Elliott has a detailed story about the Jays and scouting.  Yeah I know, big surprise.

Back in November, 2003 — after allowing their ranks to deplete from 105 in 1997, to 61 in 2002 and finally 32 — the Jays decided to hire nine new scouts.  “They were, what is known in the industry as, scout-school hires — young guys who management could teach and control,” said a scout from another organization.  These nine new hires had an average 4.2 years of scouting experience, including Tom Burns who had 13 years with the Angels.

The 14 new hires Minasian has made on the pro side average 12 years of scouting experience — led by Wayne Morgan in his 40th year and Rick Down who is heading into his 41st spring.   Minasian sifted through 85 applications (“Eighty-five with qualified backgrounds,” he noted), concentrating on scouts with at least 10 years experience.

Here are two more notable stories:

Ken Fidlin discusses who has impressed so far in camp.  JP Arencibia; Chad Jenkins; Mike McCoy; Jose Molina; Dustin McGowan and Danny Farquhar are Ken's picks.

John Lott points out a problem for the Jays, getting enough innings for all the pitching candidates.  With so many starting pitching candidates the Jays don't have enough innings to give them all a good look.  There are some B games scheduled but minor league games don't start until next week.  As the starting pitchers move up to 4 and 5 innings each the Jays won't be able to look at them all so they will be forced into making early decisions on some guys.

Agreed, would be great to see JP forcing his way onto the big team... I see the dilemna though as on a young pitching staff, having guys like Molina and Buck should theoretically help the development of several pitchers... but at the same time, they don't want to hold JP back if he's really ready for the bigs.  It's been a long time since we had a young catcher with promise to watch daily.

The Jays will surprise this year if JP, Snider, Ruiz, and Wallace develop quickly into average+ bats.  I'm thinking that 3 of the 4 have a good shot to be at least league average this year, and better in 2011.

Pitching wise, who knows maybe this year we get lucky and don't have major injuries to our top guys?  Imagine McGowan, Marcum, Morrow, Romero + Rep/Litsch/? all pitching injury free and consistent with their last healthy year?  Gregg/Downs/Frasor/Accardo a solid 6/7/8/9 inning lockdown combo!  I'll be living the dream!

"Want depressing just use the 'year born' feature at B-R.
Mine...
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1969-births.shtml"

Try 1951 for depressing ;)  Been along time since anyone from that year played in the majors.

Joe Nathan needs Tommy John surgery, that is a big blow to the Twins.  I wonder if his elbow was hurting him at the end of last season when he blew up in the playoffs?

The Twins might now join the Cubs in looking for a replacement in the pen.  The Jays do have Jason Frasor available, a bidding war would be nice.

And I think Mike Green, you badly need baseball games to start for real, it looks like you have too much time on your hands.  The song works well though.

Zach Stewart and Chad Jenkins have been sent to minor league camp.

John Lott had a feature on Jenkins today.

Jordan Bastian reports on Dustin McGowan's simulated game today.  McGowan pitched well but is slated for another simulated game on Sunday before possibly seeing game action next week.

"He just looked very, very good," Anthopoulos said. "The big test now is how does he feel the following day and the day after that. Does the soreness continue to go away? It's one of those things that, when he does throw, the stuff looks sharp, everything looks good. It'll just be a question of how he bounces back."

The last thing Anthopoulos wants to do is rush anything with McGowan.

"We're going to be very conservative with him. We really are," Anthopoulos said. "We're not going to try to accelerate anything at all. We'll be more conservative than anything."

Please please please put McGowan in the bullpen as a closer. He has shown his body can't hold up to a starter's workload, and he would be dynamite in the pen!

I dont get this way of thinking.

First off, whose to say that doesn't increase his chances of injury.

Second off, whose to say he would be effective as a reliever.

I'm not going to get excited about McGowan until I see some articles about where his velocity is at. Striking out the likes of Kenny Wilson, who can't hit low A hitting, doesn't excite me.

My point is just simply that McGowan was never exactly a finess pitcher, so he needs his velocity to be  effecitve. He works off his fastball,which generally sat in the mid 90s... If he sees his average fastball drop 5 miles an hour, then he`s no where near being the pitcher he was before.... If scouts looking at a guy any saying ``he looks good`` was enough to go on, then scouts wouldn`t be married to their guns.... And I love Wilner, but I have heard him make statements about pitchers like when he claimed Toma Ohka was a 4 on most major league teams 2 weeks into the 2007 season, that make me take his assessment of pitchers with a major grain of salt....

I hope McGowan turns out to be the same old guy, but I will reserve excitement until he I know he is or can be back to full strength..

While watching Sportscentre right now d'Arnaud just had a really great quote answering about being traded for Roy Halladay, I'll do my best: "Being traded for Roy Halladay... I'm going to work my butt off. I want to show that Alex Anthopoulos knew what he was doing and have a long successful career."

Wilner is a real asset to the Toronto sports media scene.

Actually, I find Wilner to be the J.P. Riccardi of the Toronto sports scene - an arrogant blowhard who is

condesending to callers/posters and is never wrong - the guy is still defending his buddy JP every time 

he gets a chance. My nightmare is his aspiration to be part of the Jays play by play radio team.

 ...even well into the 2008 season, to acknowledge that the Rays were a vastly improved team and organization).

Really?   I always though the Rays were a good team that got very lucky, so many career years.   From worst, to first and the Series, to mediocre, you were saying?

Actually, I find Wilner to be the J.P. Riccardi of the Toronto sports scene - an arrogant blowhard who is condesending to callers/posters and is never wrong

He often came across as a JP Riccardi supporter for correcting fans who would make stuff up because they had their preconcevied notions about Riccardi. Do you know how many times I heard someone call in the fan last summer and talk about how BJ Ryan was throwing 98 miles an hour before his surgery? At least 3 times.  It seemed to be some urban legend in radioland that perpetuated from hosts not correcting callers. I will take a host who is honest and isn't afraid to speak their mind, then someone with poor critical thinking skills who is encourages callers who say things like, "I have played ball for 20 years" or like to make arguments about things that can't be proven like intangibles. Wilner gives me something to look forward to after Jays games and although he sometimes can be a bit of cheerleader, I will take him over 90 percent of the hosts on the fan. 

Kyle Drabek pitched against his old team today.  Jordan Bastian covers it from the Jays perspective.

I told him that I was pitching against them," he said. "He just told me, 'It's just another team. He goes, 'Don't get too excited. Just go out there and pitch.' He was like, 'Don't try and over-do anything.' So that's what I went out and tried to do."

But was it just another team?

"Definitely not," Drabek said with a laugh.

Anthony DiComo covers it from the Phillies side.

It was definitely neat," Drabek said. "Cole's a great guy, so it was definitely fun to pitch against him."

And the Phillies may remember it, too.

"I look at him and I see a tremendous competitor," Manuel said. "But also I see good stuff. I see a lot of talent."

Since the trade, Drabek has been taking more and more advice from his father, Doug, on how to act and react in his new setting. His father told him to view Wednesday as just another game.

I get that he deals with ignorant callers most of the time but I personally just don't like the manner in which he chooses to deal with them. I find that when given the option, he'd rather insult than educate an ignorant caller.

Thats actually my favourite thing about him. I don't get why so many people feel the need to call in a sports talk show who have no idea what they are talking about. If you have the nerve to call in any show and make a bunch of untrue statements, you deserve to be made a fool of. It doesn't happen nearly enough on the fan for my tastes.

I don't know how many people listen to the fan on a given hour, but I would assume that during the day there are tens of thousands of listeners, and if you call in a show and say things that are just untrue you're wasting a couple of minutes of a lot of all those peoples time. The reality is, they need a better method of screening callers.

 But hey, at least it might make you feel better about yourself.

You're right, it makes me feel a lot better about myself.

Congrats to you and to Wilner, you guys are so smart, and so special,

Aren't you trying to make an argument about how it's wrong to insult people?

It doesn't seem right to put him on the same scale as a poster or a caller or other form of 'common man'. It is, after all, his job, for which he is trained.

At the same time, he's human, and gets frustrated when asked the same question over and over, or hearing hearing logical leaps that definitely took a header off a cliff. Personal attacks on players should almost always be met with some form of ridicule (which Wilner thankfully obliges), and other times it just feels like the only way to get the point across.

In the larger scheme of talk shows and other parts of the adversarial infotainment industry, however, he isn't particularly condescending. Also, at least a) he isn't glorifying the conflict itself like panels of any sort, political, sports, or other, and b) at least he's trying to say SOMETHING and not just spouting cliche and spin. It also doesn't hurt that he has a point of view I agree with a fair amount of the time.