Future Stars & Busts

This will be brief. Late last night, I was watching the Blue Jays/Mariners game and rooting for Marc Rzepczynski, who was starting for our fantasy team last night. A few thoughts came to mind that I needed to share with our brilliant readers...

1.) Rzepczynski looks like a very quality prospect. He may not be a fireballer who looks like the next big thing, but he does look like he can battle and throw strikes. He is the perfect example for why the Blue Jays should trade Halladay. They have more than five young starters who can compete in the Major Leagues. If they can get some hitters and more power arms in exchange for Halladay, how could they not be better?

2.) Scott Rolen looks like he doesn't care about anything except not getting hurt. In the second inning, he dropped a throw at third, when there was a chance to get an out with a good tag. An inning later, he executed a perfect Bill Dorn trot towards the ball only to see the Raul Chavez and the ball tumble to the ground a few feet in front of him.

3.) Please don't get me started on Alex Rios.* With runners on the corners and one out in the sixth, Rios decided to play a fly ball off the wall. The infuriating part of this, besides Rios' salary and attitude, is that the ball landed on the warning track before hitting the wall. In other words, he could have caught it.

*For a couple of years, I've been thinking about the dynamics of the Alex Rios/Vernon Wells era in Toronto. Vernon Wells for a while looked like one of the best young players in baseball. Toronto's GM used to have quotes in the paper about how he would get trade offers for Wells on a daily basis. Alex Rios is another five tool outfielder, playing for Toronto as a supposed younger and more polished version of Wells. They both had immense potential and trade value**, and the Blue Jays showed a lot of loyalty to the fans by giving them both big contract extensions. Now, they've become tremendous disappointments with albatross contracts. Really, Vernon Wells' deal is a franchise killer.

**Remember when the rumor was that the Giants were going to trade Tim Lincecum for Alex Rios? Could you imagine if that had gone through? I've been thinking about giving these guys their own post for a couple of months, but I'm worried about keeping it below 10,000 words.

What am I doing right now? Watching Mat Latos and Chris Tillman pitch against the Reds and Royals, respectively. I can't believe that my fantasy team is competing with this rotation...

Felix Hernandez

Tommy Hanson

John Smoltz

David Price

Rick Porcello

Mat Latos

Chris Tillman

The good news from last night is that Jank the Tank dropped Daniel Bard, and we dropped Marc Repczynski to get him back!