Blue Jays Brew: Podcast Ep. 61, Harper nonsense, and more

The Blue Jays Morning Brew is back for a rare mid-day edition with the latest episode of the Jays Nest Podcast and more news as spring training nears

Pitchers and catchers arrive in Dunedin, Florida within the week. While this doesn’t necessarily signal day one of the baseball season, and many players have been in the area for weeks or longer already, it does bring fans a long-awaited reality.

Yes, baseball is coming back.

Jays Nest Podcast  –  Yesterday I joined our friend Shaun Doyle, senior editor and founder of Jays From the Couch, for episode 61 of the Jays Nest Podcast. If you’re not already subscribed, it’s the best $0.00 you’ll ever spend. Find it here for iTunes and Apple devices, or here for Stitcher and Android devices.

More from Jays Journal

• Matt Chapman has been exactly what the Blue Jays needed
• Blue Jays: The goalposts are moving in the right direction
• Single-A Dunedin Blue Jays advance to the Championship Series
• Blue Jays: Comparisons for Alek Manoah’s Second Season
• Blue Jays: Adam Cimber, the unlikely decision King

Shaun and I go unsponsored this week with the lack of number 61 jerseys through Blue Jays history, but after some post-Valentine’s banter in which I admit to my continued evolution in to a “big city person”, we tackle the handful of Jays notes from the week that was.

First up is the chatter that Bryce Harper would be a fit for the Blue Jays in 2019, and that the Blue Jays would themselves be interested. Shaun and I both agree: let’s have a chuckle, pump the brakes, and meet back here in a few years.

Along with discussing pitching coach Pete Walker and his impact on the young pitching staff, we look at how projection systems favour the Jays in the upcoming seasons. Players like Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Josh Donaldson are unique cases as they did not excel until their late-20s, making them difficult for projection models to handle. Their 2016 forecasts are moderately underwhelming, as one might expect, so we dig into the “why”.

Pillar, from another area code  –  A very cool piece here from Ian Hunter at Blue Jay Hunter, looking at a catch made by Kevin Pillar in 2015 that featured the most ground covered for any put-out in baseball. According to MLB Statcast, Pillar covered 117.5 feet for the catch at Tropicana Field and topped out at 32 KM/H!

Looking at The Nine  –  Andrew Arnold of Blue Jays Plus has an excellent piece here for both longtime Jays fans or newcomers to the addiction. Arnold looks at the nine major award winners in Blue Jays history, some of whom came before the time of Toronto’s new generation of fans. Any day I’m reminded of Eric Hinske‘s Rookie of the Year season is a good day.