EMK19

Surprised to see Jason Heyward still at 3rd for RF considering the downturn he’s had since he went to the Cubs... but I guess it also shows you how good he was until that point. Though that’s a pretty distant 3rd... wouldn’t have thought RF position pool would have been that thin... speaking of which, surprised to see no Bautista on there, even with his poor post 2015 numbers? I’d have figured he’d have more than Heyward.

To be honest I always felt that Tony Fernandez in his prime years played just as good defence as Vizquel did (though admittingly I’m not sure whether that is statistically true). Plus Tony could hit so much better... When I think of Vizquel I always think of that Simpsons scene where Bart robs Milhouse by trading his Vizquel card for Millhouse’ Carl Yastrzemski card, lol.

It always sucks when your favourite incumbent is sent packing, especially as a kid. I recall after McGriff (my first fav Jay player; 19 in my username is my fav number which became so because of him) was traded for Carter I was depressed for days, and it took until October 23, 1993 until I truly accepted the trade (well, at least that portion of the trade... Alomar I took a liking to quickly).

Mr. ALL STAR Alfredo Griffin! (Speaking of Wins Above Replacements...)

While ‘93 will probably always be remembered by most as the best Blue Jay team ever, I do recall they actually had to struggle through most of the year until mid September, after which we proceeded to finish the stretch drive strong... we were lucky that the Yankees struggled over exactly the same periods that we did. Pitching had gone down to sh*ts for most of the year (Guzman was solid but Stew was inconsistent + missed some time, Morris declined rapidly and the back end was a mess... imagine if Hentgen hadn’t rose to the occasion), had a lot of injury issues and we had to rely on our offence to carry us through many of the games.

Some behind the scenes footage from the press conference taken from Daniel Kim’s Youtube channel:

Out of our 4 major “off-season push” post world series years, the 2013 attempt probably ranks about 3? 1997 Ash: Clemens signing, The Pittsburgh trade for Merced/Garcia/Plesac, Santiago, Person etc... this sh*t the bed the worst except for Clemens signing. 2006 JP: AJ, BJ, Overbay, Glaus, Molina... Ok I guess, we did have our best season since the world series year (though still nowhere close to playoffs)... didn’t age well though after that. 2013: AA Marlins trade, Dickey trade, Melky; really only salvaged 2 guys for our later 2015 run, (and I guess Reyes turned into Troy) and they still ended up being non-factors in playoffs. 2015: AA Donaldson, Travis, Estrada, Saunders Trades, Martin signing; still needed deadline help but worked out the best. We’ll see how 2020 works out.

This guy's apparently a 5-tool type player, 6 gold gloves... would be great if he comes here and solve our CF problem.

My only positively remembered moment with Bonifacio with our team is him being in the background during the legendary Munenori dance taking place in our dugout. Ironically Mune probably made more positive on field contribution than Bonifacio did during their time here...

We even made a jersey for the little one due for next spring: Market them baby merch

Haha yeah, I’ve been told many times how strange it is to see things like circles, triangle roofs and perpendicular lines used as an alphabet. Fun fact: if you want to experience how your native alphabet looks like to other foreigners who have no knowledge/past exposure to it whatsoever, flip it to the side/upside down (kinda like how I wouldn’t be able to tell if something in Arabic has been flipped upside down).

It’s hard for those guys that come from KBO, NPB, as they are already at an older age by the time they come here. Ichiro for example I believe always had a translator with him up until his retirement. But then guys like Chan Ho Park and Choo who developed entirely through the MiLB system here from young age ended up speaking and communicating in english 100% fine. Actually, from what I had read in Korean articles, he now understands english 100% fine and can communicate fine with his teammates, but still has a translator around to avoid any misunderstandings. It was the same I believe for Ichiro.

Interestingly, Ryu's gonna be right next to Vladdy in the locker room: Someone needs to make sure Ryu doesn't introduce Vladdy to the wonders of AYCE Korean BBQ....

So with Shun its 2 years 6.35 mil, no team options, 1.4 mil bonus if he racks over 170 innings. I only saw him for a bit in the Premier 12 tournament, didn't exactly impress vs. Korea in the finals... but seems a solid swingman type signing.

Korean idol groups are notorious for being signed to 10+ year slave contracts. Boras approves and is thus a fan.

Journalism research. Ask about life history. Win.

I love our home whites... so sharp. But Fvck the Nike Logo.

Yup, in Markham.

Dat contract tho. We're hoping Cavan Biggio can develop into a similar on-base with some pop kind of guy. Actually, if Jung Ho Kang remained in form as he did in his first few years in Pittsburgh, then he would have been someone that could have been useful for us right now I think (Playing decent 3rd/back up 2nd base with some good pop). Too bad he's all but finished though.

I think that bridge has long been burned with JD and won't be rebuilt anytime soon... though as it was with George Bell I'm sure we'll likely reconciliate once he retires. Plus I am kind of skeptical on how much longer he will be able to stay effective at third defensively.

Relative humidity should be higher in Seoul on average I think (could be wrong); especially more so in the summer though , one of those “I am sitting doing nothing yet I am sweating buckets” type. I specifically avoid mid summer trips there now. Winter cold feels more “to the bone” there somehow when temps really drop, though I don’t think it gets real cold (-10 and under) as often.

There’s that but the article did not mention the Kim incident in the wild card game; I think that may have even more influence on our negative image as it involved the player directly. I wouldn’t necessarily say we were the “most hated team” over there; for sure over those years we played the role of a heel, but after that we ended up going back to being largely ignored and forgotten. Plus, Choo is actually not universally liked over there nor nearly as popular (partially because he never played in KBO, and also due to the drinking and driving incident). Kang was actually many times more popular than he was, before he fvcked it all up by also drinking and driving + assault allegations. Oddly when Oh was here there was still little to no attention paid to us, unlike at his time at St. Louis that got decent coverage (probably because he always remained a middle reliever here; he closed for a while at STL iirc). Ryu though is at another level of popularity; starting pitchers over in both Korea and Japan are by far the most popular players.

I’d like to think he said that in jest, play on the stereotypical image of Canada to Koreans which is that it gets cold as f*** over here. As you said, Seoul does indeed get just as cold as Toronto over the winter months, sometimes even worse. It’s a different kind of cold though, as they have a lot more humidity over there than here... kinda hard to explain.

He has arrived. His first words out of the airport was apparently: “Cold, Cold!” Some Korean fans waited at the Terminal 3 for his arrival. Before leaving he made a short statement: “I’d like to thank the Korean-Canadian fans that came here today to greet me; knowing that there was a great Korean-Canadian community here in the city played a big part for us in deciding to come here”. Source: Korea Times Canada: https://www.koreatimes.net/ArticleViewer/Article/124900

Meet Ryu’s wife, Bae Ji-Hyun, formerly a sports announcer: https://www.sports-g.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/%EB%B0%B0%EC%A7%80%ED%98%84-SNS.jpg http://www.thefirstmedia.net/news/photo/201804/41737_23171_542.jpg Lucky bastard.