Thursday, May 10, 2007

Eight ways to salvage a sinking ship


In honour of the Jays eighth consecutive loss, we humbly offer eight suggestions to help salvage this wretched season, before it's too late
  1. Fire Gibbons - I don't think this requires that much explanation.
  2. Send Zambrano to Syracuse, or even Dunedin - As terrible as he's been, the Jays allowed him to pitch to big league hitters months before he was projected to be ready. He needs to go down and get himself stretched out and build up his arms strength gradually. (We're not even certain if they'd be able to do this without having him pass through waivers, but it's possible that he could go on a rehab assignment.)
  3. Designate Josh Towers - His contract is the only thing keeping him in the Majors. He's a lousy starter and even worse coming out of the bullpen. It's time to cut bait.
  4. Move Janssen and Marcum into the rotation - At the very least, they pitched better last year as starters than three-fifths of the rotation has this year.
  5. Play Jason Smith, or return him - J.P. has a habit of grabbing guys in the Rule 5 draft and holding onto them for dear life, even if they never really pan out. (Corey Thurman? Aquilino Lopez?) Smith had a tremendous Spring, but has been relegated to the role of a pinch hitter as of late, while Matt Stairs is allowed to lumber around right field with impunity.
  6. Stop screwing around constantly with the batting order - Is Aaron Hill hitting first? Seventh? Fifth? Second? Is Overbay second or sixth? What day is it? Gibby (or whoever replaces him) has got to stop jerking guys around the lineup and leave them as much as possible where they are comfortable.
  7. Scour the wires - Yes, you'll be grabbing the scrubs who weren't good enough to play for other teams, but just about any living, breathing biped with major league experience would be an upgrade in the Jays bullpen over Towers or Zambrano.
  8. Hire Ken Macha - He's available. He's won. He's turned Oakland teams that started slowly into playoff teams.
But hey, what the hell do we know?

UPDATE, 4:10 pm: In and amongst all of the sad, sad news of the demise of B.J. Ryan's ulnar collateral ligament, we see that J.P. has managed to check off item number 2 (Zambrano's on his way to the DL, and likely a rehab stint), and half of item 4 (Marcum will take Zambie's spot into the rotation.)

Hey J.P.! If you are reading this - and why wouldn't you? - then how about items number 1 and 8?

3 comments:

Jim Briggs said...

As poor as it was the way Macha went down, I happen to like this idea. Perhaps it's primarily because I like the chain of events which precedes it in your timeline, but nonetheless I think the team obviously needs some fresh blood from outside the organization that still has a rapport with Ricciardi. Macha is one such candidate.

Darren Priest said...

Hear, hear. As much as I hate to pile on Gibby, I agree with all eight points.

El Guapo said...

As a Mets fan, I feel really sorry for you guys suffering through Victor Zambrano. My heart goes out to the good people of Toronto.

Especially when you already employ Josh Towers. No team's fan base deserves that combo (except the Yankees and Braves, of course). Stay strong.