20 days until pitchers and catchers report to camp! Thankfully, if Jeff Blair is to be believed (and I do), Mike Piazza won't be one of those catchers showing up in Dunedin to report for the Toronto Blue Jays. Here's a guy who's a shoe-in as a Hall-of-Famer, yet signing him at this point would be like casting Goldie Hawn in a romantic comedy with Heath Ledger: the milk's gone a little sour.
Besides, JP Ricciardi has shown so much savvy up to this point that to blunder in such a way would come as a total shock. Mike Piazza is an upgrade over Greg Zaun in name only. Last year, Zaun hit .251. Piazza? An identical .251 average. Zaun played in 30 more games than Piazza, and is an asset defensively, whereas Piazza is done behind the plate. Nevertheless, who do you think would command a bigger salary?
From a PR standpoint, I don't think you can excite the fanbase any more than it is. Friends of mine that can be at best described as casual fans are keenly interested in finding out what this newly assembled cast of characters can accomplish. Therefore, bringing a "name" like Piazza simply to sell tickets makes no sense.
Stick with Zaunie, JP - you've got us buying tickets already.
1 comments:
Hey Ottawa Sports Guy, welcome to the blogosphere and thanks for commenting on my post yesterday. I disagree with you on the WBC but am glad you loathe the Yanks. You didn't mention my Red Sox so I will take your opinion of the Sawx as ambivalence.
I like what the Jays did over the offseason to a certain extent. They paid way too damn much for BJ Ryan, but they oughtta have a pretty good team.
Re: choosing between Zaun and Piazza; I also agree, but Piazza for $4-5 million on a one year deal playing DH would be a steal. I think he could still hit you a pretty good number of home runs and drive in quite a few. I wouldn't offer anything more than $5 mill or anything longer than one year though.
(maybe I'll root for Canada in the WBC, you and the Conservatives winning up there inspired me)
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