Last week was interesting in that Jays fans found one more reason to hate JP Riccardi, and the Jays weren’t even playing at that time, they had lost 8-4 to the Indians earlier in the day. The catalyst for this latest feeling of dismay towards JP was Reed Johnson’s spectacular catch to rob Prince Fielder of a grand slam. This catch will be in the top 5 plays of the year on Sportcentre’s year end best plays list for sure.
Reed's spectacular catch (bottom video)
It was early spring training prior to last season that JP Riccardi, in a moment of true wisdom, decided ‘hey we don’t need this guy he doesn’t bring enough to the table.’ He’s only been a career .284 hitter and might be the best defensive outfielder in all of baseball next to maybe Ichiro. I think the guy we really need is Shannon Stewart, a guy we cut years earlier because his career was starting to decline. Why wouldn’t bringing him back at the tail end of his career, in favour of Reed Johnson be a good idea? Well that question was answered rather quickly when Shannon was released by the Jays half way through the season and Johnson made catches like this for the Cubs:
Of course, Adam Lind and Travis Snider, the future of the Jays franchise are the left fielders now, but who could have known that they would make such an impact last year after they were forced to come in after the Shannon Stewart experiment ended the way it did. Stewies numbers for the Jays last year? a .240 average in 52 games.
No comments:
Post a Comment