Quick Jays Quirps: 28 March ’10

Here are today’s big events for the Jays:

• Joey Gathright was released and will have to find a new home to play in for 2010. It made sense to release him since Darin Mastroianni is destined to play CF in AAA and there’s no way Joey was going to accept playing in AA.
• Brad Emaus was assigned to minor league camp. Chances are he’ll begin the season in AAA after a wonderful spring that had a lot of people wondering if he’d be able to earn a bench spot. His demise seems to be based on last season’s lackluster stats in AA.
• Chris Lubanski was also reassigned to minor league camp and will also head to AAA and will represent depth at the OF position for the Jays. That leaves utility Mike McCoy and Jeremy Reed left in camp, both vying for 1 bench spot.
• The Jays recently resigned RP Jonah Bayliss who will try his hand in AAA Las Vegas for the second year in a row, although he did leave for Japan for part of 2009.
• The Jays also signed 29 year old FA SP B.J. LaMura, who had last been with the LA Dodgers, but spent 2009 in the Independent league. He finished 2009 with a 10-10 record, 28 GS, 147 IP, 71 BB, 98 Ks, and a 4.95 ERA. Perhaps the Jays will look to turn him back into a reliever, because he was much better in that role between 2005 and 2007, although his walk rate has always been horrible.
• The Jays brought in Calix Crabbe, Manuel Mayorson, Kenneth Wilson, Jonathan Jaspe, Daniel DeLucia, and behold, they also brought in Welinton Ramirez, who I wrote a piece about and posted it today. All of these players will get marginal playing time, if any at all.
• Dustin McGowan has been shut down for 2 weeks after experiencing more shoulder issues. I don’t think we can count on much from Dustin this season, and if we do, it should be as a reliever in my opinion.
• Jesse Carlson, meanwhile, has fared much better with his knee issues and threw without pain in a minor league game March 26th.
• Jordan Bastien gives us his season predictions for the lineup here. Almost exactly as I predicted in February. I like it!

That’s about it for today, although with a rained out day, it could be just the beginning of a lot of moves!