Toronto,
Just stop it already.
Please.
There are several things to be worried about if you’re a Toronto Blue Jays fan, including the tattered state of the more athletic/younger/less right-hand dominant off-season plan.
Keeping Russell Martin and Troy Tulowitzki healthy and keeping Josh Donaldson happy would be up there, too.
But Aaron Sanchez hiring Scott Boras as his agent?
Uh, no. Sorry.
I mean, Donald Trump will be president in two weeks, so we could all be dead before Sanchez reaches salary arbitration, let alone free agency. Beyond that, Blue Jays president and chief executive officer Mark Shapiro is said to not have the same prejudices against Boras clients as did his predecessor, Paul Beeston.
Part of that might stem from the fact that Shapiro’s father, Ron, was as significant an agent in his time as Boras is now; he represented several of the games big names including Cal Ripken, Jr., when he was the biggest name in the game. Shapiro and Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins have done business in the past with Boras—tough business, too, waiting out Boras and outfielder Michael Bourn in free agency and signing the player to a four-year deal worth $48 million that was $20 million less than the player anticipated.
The fact is it’s on the Blue Jays to make it all work. I don’t know if Sanchez’s heart ends up in the same place as Stephen Strasburg’s did this season, when the Washington Nationals pitcher eschewed free agency for a seven-year, $175-million contract that put the lie to the notion that Boras clients automatically go to free agency.
Frankly, I doubt it—but that worry is a long way down the road. The only way this gets dicey is if Sanchez’s innings are a talking point this season (and don’t think for a minute last year’s drama was necessarily a one-off), which would force Boras to become another voice in the room. Boras was finicky about things like pitching workloads for his clients even before his intercessions with the Nationals and New York Mets about Strasburg and Matt Harvey turned discussion of such matters into in-season debates as well as off-season debates.
Besides all that, if Sanchez gets to the point where he’s commanding Strasburg money, it probably means four good seasons for the Blue Jays. So just stop it, OK?
FEAR THE BEARD
The Houston Rockets James Harden might have set a record Sunday night for slowest exit from the Air Canada Centre visitors locker-room, coming damned near close to being asked to turn out the lights. Based on the gingerly manner in which he walked to and from the shower, though, it wasn’t an act—despite the fact that he and his teammates had just blazed past the Toronto Raptors in a 251-point track meet.
Go off for 40 points, 11 assists, 10 rebounds, two steals and (just for yucks) two blocks, and what the hell: Dude, take as long as you want. A reporter told him the last two players to have that statline were “LeBron and Michael,” to which Harden raised an eyebrow and responded: “Michael who?”
Yes, he was kidding.
“Legendary, those two right there,” Harden said.
You know what I wonder when I watch Harden play? I wonder what might have happened had the Oklahoma City Thunder stuck with him, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. I wonder whether or not Harden’s run-in last season with Kevin McHale—one of the NBA’s grand old men—is going to prevent him from getting the degree of love to which he’s entitled.
Sunday’s game was Harden’s 13th with 30 or more points and 10 or more assists this season, most in the NBA. Even his 10 turnovers augured well, he believes.
“I’m trying to do intangible things to help us,” he said. “If we have 15 turnovers as a team and I have 10… I have the ball 90 percent of the time. Coach says to keep the turnovers to 15 as a team; I don’t care if all of them are mine.
“What’s happening is it’s becoming a different game for us. We see different defences; we see things like guards coming out to guard Ryan (Anderson) now. Once I get used to those defences, my turnovers will be less.”
The Raptors suffered their worst loss of the season—physically, intellectually, morally, whatever—on Saturday in Chicago and followed it up Sunday by giving up a season-high in points allowed. Forget beating the Cleveland Cavaliers or Golden State Warriors; the Raptors’ recent play has their fans looking uneasily past their record and starting to poke through the entrails of each loss. Worry is the flip-side of success (see: Blue Jays).
In the meantime, here come the Boston Celtics on Tuesday—the team whose trajectory in the NBA Eastern Conference seems destined to leave themselves and the Raptors as each other’s foil for the next few seasons.
QUIBBLES AND BITS
• The Detroit Lions are a pathetic franchise, so it’s no surprise that it’s taken the Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson just five years to have more post-season wins (eight) than the Lions have had in their 86-year history (seven). The Cardinals, New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cincinnati Bengals and Houston Texans have all also been either largely pathetic or, well, not around for all that long. Either way, Wilson has more playoffs wins than all of those teams, too.
• Perimeter shooting used to be the Memphis Grizzlies’ bugaboo but no more: For the 18th time this season they hit 10 or more three pointers in Friday’s 128–119 overtime win over the Warriors, tying their total number of such games in the past four seasons: seven last season; five in 2014–2015; and three each in 2013–2014 and 2012–2013. They came within one missed three of running that number to 19 in Sunday’s win over the Utah Jazz.
The Grizzlies also did something on Friday that hadn’t been done for more than half a decade: overcoming a 19-point deficit on the road going into the fourth quarter against the team with the best record in the NBA at that time. The last team to pull off the feat was the Philadelphia Warriors on Feb. 9, 1962, when they overcame a 19-point deficit through three quarters to beat the Boston Celtics 126–124, with Wilt Chamberlain scoring 48 points and grabbing 29 rebounds.
The Grizzlies will be a handful in the playoffs: They’re 14-2 in games where the margin is within three points in the final minute of regulation or overtime. What’s more, they might need to re-work that “Grind City” marketing theme: They do more than simply try to grind you down in the half-court. They’re easily capable of buying into what Raptors head coach Dwane Casey calls “the new norm.”
• Cincinnati Reds play-by-play voice Marty Brennaman is one of my favourites because he lets the courage of his convictions come through on air—I still remember the day then-Montreal Expos general manager Kevin Malone barged into Brennaman’s booth at Riverfront Stadium to take Brennaman to task for saying that Pedro Martinez and Carlos Perez “were going to get somebody killed” some day because of what Brennaman said was their, um, willingness to pitch inside with extreme prejudice—and he won’t avoid torching the home team, either. Brennaman was once again pointedly critical of Joey Votto’s contract during a recent edition of Reds Hot Stove on the team’s flagship station, WLW. Let’s be clear: He was critical of the contract and the way it hamstrings the Reds more than the player—in fact, he lauded Votto’s decision to forego playing for Team Canada at the World Baseball Classic to focus on avoiding another start such as last season’s, when he hit .229 in April and .200 in May. Votto, from Etobicoke’s Richview Collegiate, has eight more years and $185 million guaranteed left on a contract that takes him up to the age of 40. Continue to dream, Blue Jays fans….
THE END-GAME
Damien Cox and I had an interesting discussion with Canada’s Spengler Cup head coach, Luke Richardson, on Prime Time Sports last week. Richardson said that Hockey Canada had essentially put the Spengler Cup players on notice about possible involvement in the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang should the NHL, as expected, pull the chute on participation.
You wonder whether that message was aimed at NHL players. Their desire to play in the Olympics was recently used against them by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, who suggested an extension to the current collective bargaining agreement in return for ownership’s blessing.
From a business point of view, the players should hold the fort, since ownership isn’t likely dim enough to cut them a break on escrow in return. Beijing 2020 is where the marketing joy will be found, anyhow. And from an artistic point of view? The romantic in me wouldn’t mind seeing a jerry-rigged Canadian team play in a tournament of odds and ends. Channeling Father David Bauer and Fran Huck and all that stuff. Or maybe that’s just the contrarian talking….
Jeff Blair hosts The Jeff Blair Show from 9 a.m.-Noon ET on Sportsnet 590/The Fan. He also appears frequently on Prime Time Sports with Bob McCown.