Toronto Star's Head Baseball Writer

by Buzz Bissinger on Dec 19, 2008 6:36 PM EST Comment 8 comments

Can you count the amount of crazy things found in this most recent mailbag question to Richard Griffin, the head baseball writer for Toronto's biggest newspaper? The only thing crazier than the question is Griffin's insane answer. My favourite insane thing is how Griffin says that he "loves Jurrgens" (sic). Complete idiot.

Q: Hello Richard,

The Halladay trade talk triggered me to go through some teams in the league and see what kind of package the Jays may be able to get for Roy. I basically took two players from each team to get a deal started. I'm going to post my favorites that I came up with and I'd like your opinion on each.

Atl - Jair Jurrgens & Yunel Escobar
Arz - Max Scherzer & Stephen Drew
Cubs - Jeff Samardzija & Felix Pie
LAA - Nick Adenhart & Brandon Wood
Cin - Homer Bailey & Jay Bruce
LAD - Clayton Kershaw & Blake Dewitt

These teams, with the exception of the Reds, IMO all have a shot at the playoffs next year. Any of these deals realistic enough to be pulled off? My personal favourite would be the deals with the Angels for Adenhart and Wood.

Mitchell DesRoches, Kensington, PEI

A: This is clearly the best time of the year for Hot Stove fever. If you realistically leave Arizona and Cincinnati out of the list that you composed, that leaves Braves, Cubs, Angels and Dodgers. I agree with you about the Angels deal being the best of the four. I love Brandon Wood as a future. Second on my list would be the Braves proposal you outline because I love Jurrgens. Then third is the Dodgers and fourth the Cubs – unless you’re planning on lending former Notre Dame wide receiver Samardzija to the Argos. That quick list you put together just shows that if Ricciardi acts aggressively and gets two or three contenders interested in one player (Halladay) then he can work some magic. The worst that can happen is they say no and he keeps the best pitcher in the AL. "

0 recs | Comment 8 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Clearly not a baseball fan...

I dont want to kill the guy, but its pretty obvious he doesnt follow baseball that much.

Im sure I would look just as bad if you asked me to come up with a list of guys my local hockey team could get in return for their star player…

by alskor on Dec 19, 2008 9:12 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Sadly

Griffen worked for the Montreal Expos for years in their public relations department before becoming a writer for the Toronto Star. He has been working or writing in baseball for over 25 years.

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
-Jonathan Swift

by King Billy Royal on Dec 20, 2008 3:44 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

As someone who reads the Star frequently

Never expect good articles, especially baseball in the sports section. From reading his some of his articles you can tell he has a pretty poor critical knowledge of baseball, at least in from what he writes. The Toronto media in general is pretty poor for intelligible baseball coverage which probably is what lets Ricciardi survive PR problems like the Dunn or Hillenbrand problems.

The Toronto Sun is known for having the only good reading for sports coverage, but baseball>sunshine girls.

by tdot mariner fan on Dec 20, 2008 12:33 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

He'd choose Adenhart and Wood?

Did this guy even bother to check any numbers, or was he going completely on memory when he made this pick? Seriously, you want the headline pitcher of a Halladay trade to be a guy who just got shelled this past season? And while I like Brandon Wood, he’s already spent 2 seasons at AAA and hasn’t impressed in ~200 MLB ABs.

Would any semi-informed fan even think twice about that package compared to Jair Jurrjens and Yunel Escobar? Jurrjens is only 7-8 months older than Adenhart and he just put up a very good rookie season in the majors, you know, as opposed to being shelled in AAA. While Wood certainly has more offensive upside than Escobar, he’s going to have to be a lot better with the bat to make up for Esocbar’s elite defense. Clearly Wood v. Escobar doesn’t even begin to take care of Adenhart v. Jurrjens. Oh and each of the Braves guys still have 5 years left until FA, so its not like the difference in years under team control makes a big difference.

by nixa37 on Dec 20, 2008 12:38 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

wow

I wouldn’t take either of those guys for anything worth a crap, bruce and kershaw are probably the top players available in that group, though I think the braves tandem is the best package unless you think a lot of bailey or unless you think kershaw is just that good (which he might be), escobar’s overall value with his defense makes him highly overrated in these cirlces considering the names that have been thrown about in regards to him and possible mlb trades

by IHateMitchMustain on Dec 20, 2008 8:51 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

one question

why would you think wood has more upside than escobar, wood hasn’t really even shown power in the mlb since he can’t put that wood bat on the leather covered ball of yarn, escobar could easily add some power to his good discipline, while people like wood will never learn discipline, they just don’t

by IHateMitchMustain on Dec 20, 2008 8:53 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

just more offensive upside

Wood has looked terrible in the majors so far, but he has walked a solid amount of the time in AAA and hit for great power last year. I’m not quite sure what to make of him myself, but I could envision him posting an OBP of .350-.370 in his prime while slugging over .500. I could also envision him never figuring it out at the ML level and completely flaming out.

Escobar on the other hand pretty much is what he is offensively. He’ll post a very good OBP for a SS, but I don’t see him ever slugging over .450 in the majors. I’m also a Braves fan, so I was airing on the side of caution in case of any underlying bias I may have.

by nixa37 on Dec 21, 2008 12:35 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Well

For one thing in todays trade market where the most a team like the Braves were offering for Jake Peavy, and the Mets gave up for Santana. I think it is insane to think that you can get two top prospects back in any deal for Halladay or a pitcher of equal talent. Teams are hoarding prospects at too large of a clip for that.

by CoolCat23 on Dec 20, 2008 5:30 PM EST reply actions 0 recs