They’ll slash payroll because they’ve already enjoyed a season ticket bump in 2016 and, again, this is a cell phone company. Their outlook is to be cheap but make it up on volume. The Blue Jays can be cheap and make money, so why risk doing anything else?
It’s now out that Shapiro apparently told Anthopolous mid year that he was stupid to make the trades he did; it wouldn’t work and you can’t trade prospects.
Interestingly, a possible candidate for Jays GM is now Tony LaCava, their assistant GM, who’s served as Shapiro’s water-carrier before.
I didn’t catch the whole game, because Halloween, but it seemed to me that the Royals won despite the Mets pitchers being a given a much more generous strike zone than their KC counterparts. Did anyone else notice that?
Question: Why, toward the end of Game 4, did the KC manager replace young Conforto with someone whose name starts with L, after Conforto had made history by scoring two home runs earlier in the game? Does it have to do with being behind by 2 points, and so needing base hits more than a solo homer? I guess I could understand that, but only if Conforto is also more prone to striking out, or making base-running errors, or something – but even then it seems odd to me.
The zone has been extremely inconsistent all series. I’m not sure if it’s favored any particular team over the course of it - but yes, I thought that the Mets were getting a number of calls that went the other way on identical pitches last night. That’s the way it goes - you gotta adjust.
Conforto is on the Mets, and was replaced by Lagares during a double switch. Lagares is a defensive upgrade in center over Cespedes, who moved over to left to take Conforto’s place.
In other news, Daniel Murphy gave the post-game interview answers that Jose Bautista couldn’t even conceive of. He said “my error” numerous times, and took full responsibility. I’ve really enjoyed watching Murphy in this series - he seems like a good leader full of personality that contributes to his team’s chemistry. I’m not sure he’ll be worth whatever he gets in free agency, but he’ll be an asset where he goes.