Daily Duce: Tuesday, March 14th

Programming note: For those of you who use RSS readers for this site and have noticed the lack of updates lately, that’s because our RSS feed has moved! Point your readers to bluejaysnation.com/feed/!!!

Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun talks about John Gibbons’ upcoming contract extension — something that really is, apparently, uh… upcoming. Much praise from Ross Atkins in there.

David Price isn’t out of the woods just yet, as it’s likely the Red Sox ace-ish will begin the season on the DL, and Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald reported on Monday that Price admitted that they’d have told him to go for surgery if he was a younger pitcher. That said, he also tried to characterize the problems with his forearm that he’s dealt with this spring as being similar to a normal year for him, only a little bit worse. I’m still not going to root for an injury to one of the best and most entertaining and endearing players in the league, but if it happens…

Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet talks to Josh Donaldson and Devon Travis about their spring debuts in a minor league game today in Dunedin. So far so good!

Tim Mayza is making quite an impression in camp this spring, and though I wouldn’t bank on him going north with the club, that doesn’t mean that he can’t be a valuable piece down the line this season — and someone to keep our eyes on if he does end up in the minor leagues. Arden has another great piece about him over at Sportsnet.

Elsewhere at Sportsnet, though not exactly Jays related, Ben Nicholson-Smith continues (or maybe starts) a series taking a look around the majors, zeroing in on the Oakland A’s, who the title of his piece calls “directionless,” and says “aren’t close to contending.” Hmmm. I WONDER WHY?

And two more from Sportsnet, as Mike Wilner tries to predict the Jays’ Opening Day roster, and a piece credited to “Sportsnet Staff” wonders what fans can expect from José Bautista’s arm this year.

Hey, it’s two of my favourite people in one place *COUGH*: Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star profiles Mat Latos. (Full disclosure: I don’t know either of this people — perhaps they’re super cool!)

More from Rosie, as she tells us that Justin Smoak‘s gonna live or croak based on his stroke (only somehow she makes it more eye roll-worthy), and she also has one on Lourdes Gurriel, which is probably just as purple as all the others.

Great stuff, as always, from Kyle Matte of BP Toronto, as he looks at Roberto Osuna, and how the young pitcher’s cutter is holding his slider hostage.

Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs plays with some Statcast leaderboards — specifically data on catch probability. This is notable here because… well… Kevin Kiermaier sure looks a whole lot better than Kevin Pillar on first blush. As do a bunch of other guys, actually. However, “there’s still room for these numbers to be adjusted,” Sullivan explains, “so Blue Jays fans can continue to take some heart.”

MLBTR lists players who are out of options on every club, including the Jays’ own Ryan Goins, Ezequiel Carrera, Mike Bolsinger, Bo Schultz. Haven’t got around to scanning the list for potential left field options yet, but I bet they’re grim!

Speaking of trade rumors… sort of, Gregor Chisholm had an Inbox post at BlueJays.com this week, in which he says that it would be a “shock” if the Blue Jays made any sort of play for Brett Lawrie. Which… uh… yeah.

Over at Hum and Chuck, Joanna talks Josh Donaldson’s new earring, and his… everything.

Great stuff from South of the 6, as they go deep on the Jays’ options to lead-off.

Lastly, as I’ve been noting every time I do one of these lately, if you’re an aspiring writer looking for exposure for your Blue Jays content, I’d love to help you out in whatever small way I can. My advice: start your own site. Once you do that, send me the link (or if you already have one and I haven’t been linking it, send it too!). I can be reached at via email at stoeten@gmail.com (I will respond… eventually), or on Twitter at @AndrewStoeten. I will put your site in the RSS feed I use when compiling these posts. I will read what you write. If it’s good, I will point people to it. If it’s consistently good, we can definitely talk about having you do stuff for us. If we agree to work together and I don’t have it in the budget at that moment to pay for it, you’re welcome to do some things for us anyway, and if its gets good traffic and demonstrates value, I’ll certainly be able to make a business case to bring you on for pay.

I’ve been a little slow responding to some of these, because email is trash and I hate it, but I assure you I will!