Quote:
Originally Posted by moon
I think Jays Management likes him and that is why he played so much but watching the Jays there is zero doubt that he pissed guys off with his fielding. You could see that in their faces.
The teammates thing comes from guys like Zaun, Ashby and Rosenthal saying there is no way he makes it on the field with the Marricon writing on his eyeblack without teammates seeing it. There is a though that guys were tired of him and let him go knowing it would blow back on him.
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You're really reaching for narratives here.
Also as I remember it, the Escobar fielding thing was squashed pretty early on in the season. Was a few cases of him interfering with the outfielders, but you'd be hard pressed to find any incident of it happening or being brought up in the last 1/2 of the Jays season.
Disagree with the black eye paint as well. The latin players on the team all stood up for him, Vizquel even talked about how he didn't think what he wrote was wrong (Due to the fact that in the Latin culture, the word is used from such a young age and so liberally to mean something else then a mans sexual orientation) Considering he wrote things on his black eye paint from a lot before that, I don't think you'd see the Caucasian/English speaking players have any idea what it meant. That is a narrative that is really reaching in my opinion, I also think it's one that an incredibly small minority believe to be true, nor did many acredited writers/media type speak up on it.
In his time with Toronto no teamate has said anything bad about him publicly or has a manager. The narrative stuff is so overblown, especially with all the good things his teamates and general manager have to say about him. I don't think he's at an age where his skill set has regressed at all, and he's likely to return to somewhere close to the numbers he's put up his entire career. Yunel Escobar is a really good baseball player. He's not without his flaws on the diamond, and there is the though that if he could focus a little more he could make the jump to an elite short stop. I don't buy into the idea of him being a bad teamate, nor does it mean much to me. He's been able to produce more then he's failed on the field, I don't put much or any stock into trying to decipher off the field actions that is nothing but hearsay and usually narrative based.