Thursday, immediately following an extra-innings game against the Rays, the Blue Jays announced that they were promoting top prospect Brett Lawrie from triple-A. Lawrie will take over at third base while Jose Bautista will slide to the outfield to accommodate him, and Travis Snider is going away to create the necessary roster room.
Lawrie's arrival in the major leagues has been highly anticipated for a long time, so these are exciting days for the Blue Jays, and for a Blue Jays fan base that's always looking for another reason to get excited. Unfortunately, what these people don't understand is that Lawrie is doomed to be a disappointment. The signs are all there and there's really nothing anybody can do about it. Oh well!
The evidence:
Unimpressive statistics
Lawrie posted a 1.076 OPS in triple-A. This is incrementally higher than the OPS figures posted by Ryan Langerhans, Cody Ransom and Bryan LaHair, and lower than the OPS figures posted by Chris Davis, Wily Mo Pena, Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Blanks and Josh Fields. So Rizzo has promise, you say? Tell that to his .143 major league batting average! All of these players are terrible! Lawrie is terrible!
His name is Brett
Here are the best Bretts in major league history:
Brett Anderson
Brett Butler
Brett Gardner
Brett Myers
Brett Tomko
Brett Wallace
Three of those are pitchers. The other three have combined for 72 career home runs. One of Lawrie's big alleged selling points is his power but it is impossible to be a powerful Brett. George Brett and Bret Boone don't count. They are not the same kind of Brett. Also Brett Lawrie's last name sounds like a girl's name.
21 years old
21-year-olds are pretty much the worst. Lawrie is probably going to get too drunk and end up in jail. Think about all the 21-year-olds you've ever known. They've all sucked. Even you. Especially you.
Brookswood Secondary School
Lawrie was drafted out of Brookswood Secondary. Here are the other players who have been drafted out of Brookswood Secondary:
Ryan Lennerton
Jordan Lennerton
Jonathan Hesketh
Nobody has any idea who the third one is and the first two are clearly brothers. Or at least siblings. I've known girls named Jordan before.
Hiding something
One Brett Lawrie bio:
Born and raised in Langley, B.C., Lawrie joined the Blue Jays last winter in the trade that sent Shaun Marcum, the grizzled veteran of Toronto’s callow staff, to Milwaukee.
How impressive has Burnaby’s Brett Lawrie been?
Which is it, Brett? Langley or Burnaby? What are you trying to hide?
Danielle Lawrie
Brett Lawrie is the brother of Danielle Lawrie, who is a standout softball pitcher who played in the Olympics. Danielle is older and highly accomplished, and Brett will put too much pressure on himself to escape his sister's shadow. It's also worth considering that Danielle inherited a lot of the same genes and made her name pitching, which bodes poorly for Brett's future as a hitter. He might try pitching.
Bad attitude
It looked like Brett was going to get called up several weeks ago when he rather conveniently got hit in the hand by a pitch and sustained a broken bone. If Brett Lawrie didn't want to play in the major leagues he could have just said so, and this reeks of childish behavior and a lack of motivation.
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Overall
The Blue Jays and their fans are really excited about Brett Lawrie, but they shouldn't be, because he is a conniving young childish Brookswood graduate named Brett with bad statistics and an overachieving sister, and he is probably going to suck a lot at hitting.