Lied about League

Evidently there’s a reason AAA newspapers and blogs haven’t been called up yet. After a number of reports that Brandon League had been promoted to the Blue Jays, he is back pitching for the Syracuse Chiefs. It’s a bit of a mystery what happened to him during the 9 days when he wasn’t on any team’s roster.

What’s worse is that JP made some troublesome comments that flew under the radar while everyone has been obsessing about what he said about Burnett. Earlier in the interview, Ricciardi said it “might be a situation” where League pitches in AAA all year and then “works on it again in the offseason”. He also avoided saying anything positive when asked if League was going to get his velocity back, and repeated several times that it was more important that he get back his normal sinking action (the lack of which has made his ground ball ratio around 2 this year in the minors as opposed to 6 last season).

So 91-92 mph, no movement, and no timetable for improvement this season. This is a far cry from the pitcher who was expected to come back towards the end of June, and had “turned the corner” not too long ago.

Oh and about AJ: JP said exactly the same thing about pitching through pain LAST year, and his second comment was taken (and mangled) out of context. He never said signing AJ was a mistake- he said we would not make such a big money, high risk signing with the young guys coming up as they are now. Which is pretty obvious, really…