Blake Murphy Sports Writing

Title: Random Musings
Date: May 30, 2007
Original Source: The On Deck Circle
Synopsis: Just a few short thoughts on random news items at the time.

Just some random musings on recent sporting news…

Kobe Bryant Wants Out of Los Angeles
Obviously this is a big hit to the Lakers and their fans, but this has been a long time coming. Kobe has said now (and Shaq has corroborated the story) that Jerry Buss was the one who engineered Shaq’s trade without input from anyone else, saying he didn’t want to pay the aging star. This contradicts the long time media opinion that Kobe was behind that trade (a fair conclusion since he signed a contract extension the next day). Kobe also claims that Buss has misinformed him of the Lakers’ long term plans on several occasions, and Bryant is now 100% certain the team wants to rebuild, something the superstar does not want to deal with in his prime. Kobe’s trade demand should stimulate an awful lot of interest in the month leading up to this deep draft. With only a few marquee free agents and very few teams with cap space, trades and sign-and-trades will be all the rave this summer, and Kobe would easily be the biggest piece of that. If moved, Kobe’s change of team will have just as much an impact on the league as Oden and Durant. As for his destination…I have no idea, everyone is a candidate when the best player in the league is involved.Grizzlies Hire Iavaroni
This is just a fantastic move. The Memphis Grizzlies find their man on the bench in long time Suns assistant Marc Iavaroni. The Grizzlies’ personnel translates well into a run and gun offense, something Iavaroni has helped build in Phoenix. While lacking a true distributing point guard, Tarrence Kinsey and Rudy Gay play a nice Barbosa/Marion, and Gasol is agile enough to be the big man in that scheme. Stromile Swift could also thrive here, and Mike Miller is the long range shooting touch Phoenix has coveted in their system for a while now. With the fourth overall pick in the draft, Iavaroni and Jerry West can try to add the final piece (or pieces) to their offense for a 2007-08 season that just got a lot more promising.

Danny Ainge could move #5 Pick
What a surprise, Danny Ainge is going to make another dumb move. Boston lost out big time in the lottery, slipping to #5, and their GM has said he would be open to moving the pick. This could be funny since this is the same guy, remember, that traded last year’s number 7 pick (Randy Foye) for Sebastian Telfair. With Yi Jianlin a likely possibility at #5, expect Ainge to make a similar move to last year and trade the pick for the rights to Wang Zhi Zhi.

Blue Jays Go a Man Short
John Gibbons has found it best to go with an 8-man bullpen right now, despite having not used Josh Towers or Jamie Vermilyea in quite some time, saying the bullpen is worn down. Brian Wolfe, a righty dominating in spring training and at Triple-A, gets the call up, which I have no problem with. The problem is that the Jays now have a very short bench heading into a set of road games against national league teams, when you traditionally want a longer bench. On top of this, Troy Glaus is in and out of the lineup, and Royce Clayton may or may not have broken his foot last night. What all of this means is that you can probably expect two (because Halladay comes off the DL, as well) of Towers, Vermilyea, Litsch, or Frasor to be optioned to the minors in the next couple of days. But who to call up? The Jays have already wasted two options on utility man Ryan Roberts so far this season without playing him, so recalling him three days after he was sent down seems illogical (especially given his .077 career average). Other options include Roy Olmedo (a 26 year old switch hitting shortstop, hitting .298 with a .371 OBP at AAA) and Howie Clark (a long time MLB journeyman utility man, who Pennycook tells me is friends with Nate Robertson and is greedy, according to Baseball Mogul). Olmedo is a future option at short, so I’d like to see him get a try with the team. Clark has never been very good and is struggling to find his groove at Syracuse, having just been picked up two weeks ago. My nomination, however, is going to Russ Adams. Yes, that Russ Adams. Struggling with errors and his bat last year, Adams was sent to Triple-A and it was accepted that he may never see the majors again. Hitting just .247 with 6 errors this season, Adams seems an unlikely call up. However, I see a few reasons why he could be the man. Foremost, with the loss of Jason Smith we need another left handed bat off the bench (although Olmedo is a switch hitter). More importantly, though, is that Adams has been on a roll as of late. He hasn’t made an error any time in recent memory and is batting .325 over his last 10 games. At just 26, there is hope for Adams still, and he has played both at short and second this season so he could spell McDonald when needed. My heart pulls for Russ, but smart money is on Roy Olmedo or (ughhh) Howie Clark getting the call.

Aaron Hill Steals Home
Great play, unbelievable. If you haven’t seen it yet, find a way.

MLB Draft
The Jays have seven of the first 88 picks in the draft this year, so expect Riccardi to experiment with more younger players than usual, especially given the success thus far of Travis Snider (14th overall pick last year, hitting .344 with low class-A Lansing). The Jays pick 16th and 21st, and if you look back to a few days ago when I posted an e-mail from Erik Arnold and my response, I linked to an article about some draft possibilities for the Jays. The MLB.com mock has the Jays taking two high schoolers in the first round, a third baseman and a catcher. The draft goes June 7.