Monday, May 27, 2013

Arrested Development: Blue Jays Edition

If you're not familiar with the TV show Arrested Development, you should be. It was a comedy that aired on Fox from 2004 until 2006, when it was cancelled mid season after the show could never pick up strong ratings. It was an award winning comedy though, and many believe it to be the best comedic show in the past 10 or so years. Anyways, the show was brought back for a 4th season exclusively on Netflix yesterday(Sunday May 26th 2013), with a 15 episode season. A few days before that, Halosdaily.com, an Angels blog site, published an article comparing characters from the "unofficial official show of baseball bloggers everywhere" to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. I read that article, and immediately thought to myself that I need to do the same for this site, but compare the AD characters with the Blue Jays. I talked over some of them with Ewan, and we came up with these. Thanks to HalosDaily for the fantastic idea. I hope you will get as much enjoyment from reading this as I had writing it. I will be using most of the HalosDaily's description of each character from the show(with permission from the author, Andrew Karcher of course).

***Don't read the first few and stop, because some of the best are at the end.(The best comparison is at the end).

George Bluth
The patriarch of the Bluth family, George’s meddling often runs his real estate firm, the Bluth Company, into the ground. Also, he ends up in prison and is the suspect of some Saddam-aided “light treason.”
This was definitely the hardest character there was too match. I came up with 3 people who could fit the bill, although none is as good as Andrew's comparison to interfering owner Arte Moreno. The first is Nadir Mohammad, CEO of Rogers, and the owner of the Blue Jays. The problem with this one is that he doesn't really meddle in the Blue Jays affairs, and gave Beeston and Co. the go ahead to increase payroll this year, when it made sense to do so. The second is the aforementioned Paul Beeston. I don't really like this one either, as he works together with AA, and has not run this team into the ground.EVER. The third and final idea I camp up with is none other than J.P Ricciardi. He ran this team into the ground, and the contracts he handed out to Vernon Wells, Alex Rios, and others, were criminal. He 100% deserved to be jailed for locking the team into such bad contracts for so many years.

Michael Bluth
Michael takes over the Bluth Company when George goes to prison and is entrusted to right the ship, ultimately achieving “not buy” success. Often though, Michael finds he lives in his father’s shadow and can’t run the company as he sees fit, even though he isn’t impervious to poor decisions.
This is obviously Alex Anthopolous, Blue Jays GM. AA took over for Ricciardi after he was fired, and his approach ever since is a "not buy" one in the Free Agency market. He was also entrusted to right the ship of the Blue Jays, just like Michael Bluth was entrusted to right the ship of the Bluth Company. Just like Bluth, AA often lives in the shadow of J.P because years of J.P's bad drafting has kept the upper levels of the farm system dry.
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Lucille Bluth
Luccile is George's husband, and Michael's mother. Now, from HalosDaily...
Cold-hearted, Lucille is a master manipulator, often pitting the Bluth children against each other to do her bidding. Always seems one step ahead of everyone and typically gets what she wants.
I also had a hard time coming up with this one, but ultimately decided on John Farrell(well, Ewan did, I couldn't think of one). He is a cold hearted jerk, who manipulated the entire city of Toronto to think that he truly wanted to be here! He caused turmoil in the clubhouse and in the Front Office, and was thinking one step ahead when he signed here. He truly is the exact same as Lucille Bluth.

Buster Bluth
Buster is the youngest of the 4 Bluth children. He has his hand bitten off by a loose seal, and needs to wear a hook as a replacement. Ewan and I came up with a few options.

1. Dustin McGowan, Josh Johnson, & Steve Delabar have all had their fair shair of arm injuries, just like Buster Bluth. The comparisons were just way too easy.
2. Brad Lincoln is the outside the box comparison for Buster, because of the "hook" they both possess. Buster, has the literal hook(on his arm), and Lincoln has the wicked curve ball, often referred to as "The Hook".

G.O.B (George Oscar Bluth)
He's the oldest Bluth child. His name is an acronym, and he's a magician. R.A Dickey is obviously his best comparison. Robert Allen Dickey is considered a magician by many with his mastery of the knuckleball, which, just like an illusion, the hitters cannot see.

Another comparison is J.P. Ricciardi, again. He has the acronym, but mostly, he is cocky, young, and doesn't have a clue. No offense, J.P.(actually, take offense).

Lindsay Bluth Fünke
Michael’s twin sister, Lindsay is often asked to accomplish tasks for the Bluth Company, the simplest of which she fails to perform. Her intentions are often good, as she takes up many a charitable cause. At a charity auction where the winner receives a date with Lindsay, the buyer wildly overpaid, as she was scarred and sunburned from a day saving the wetlands. Unfortunately, she also has a habit of irresponsibly spending the Bluth Company’s dwindling resources.
I came up blank on this one, and Ewan chose Travis Snider because he is a failed prospect. If you have any, let us know with a comment, tweet, facebook message, email, anything!

Tobias Fünke
Tobias is a never nude, and is always acting homosexual, even though he insists he is straight. J.P Arencibia is loved by the entire female fan base, and, deep down inside, he is just like Tobias. Well probably not, but it would be very ironic if he was.

Maeby Fünke
Often the quickest wit on the show, Maeby has a knack for excelling in multiple roles, whether that be running a movie studio or winning Inner Beauty pageants.
Maeby is the daughter of Lindsay and Tobias, and is unquestionably the best character on the show(well at least that's my opinion). She is a movie producer at age 15, making her parts on the show often the funniest. Like Andrew wrote above, she excels at everything. Her greatest comparison would be a 5-tool player, but because the Jays sadly don't have any of those, we go to the next closest thing in Jose Reyes. Reyes can hit, run, and throw, the equivalent of being a producer, winning pageants, and being 15 all at the same time.

George Michael Bluth
George Michael is the awkward, unathletic child of Michael who stutters a lot. Remind you of a certain left fielder? Yes, Melky Cabrera! He plays a horrible outfield, and last year after receiving the All Star GAme MVP, he said "thank you the fans", while stuttering and looking awkward as ever. A product of him not being fluent in English of course, but still a perfect comparison.

Ann Veal
"Her?" is how the characters on the show react to Ann, who is George Michael's girlfriend, and G.O.B's girlfriend at different times in the show. When Alex Anthopolous signed Mark DeRosa to be the 25th man, most Torontonians were saying "Him?" as most believe there were better fish in the sea(there weren't, by the way).

Annyong Bluth
Annyong. Adopted from Asia, the youngest Bluth became a regular part of the family.
 Munenori Kawasaki of course. Adopted from Asia(well the Mariners, but they adopted him from Asia), and the newest full time Blue Jay.

STEVE HOLT!
Holt is G.O.B's son, and is a cocky jock in high school. Basically the current version of BRETT LAWRIE.

Kitty Sanchez
Sanchez is George's former secretary, who, part of her body is artificially enhanced. Making the easy connection to both Melky Cabrera, and Marcus Stroman.

When Sanchez leaves Michael and the company, she flashes him, and says the famous line “Say goodbye to THESE, Michael!"

Just like Michael had to say good bye to THOSE, we had to say good bye to Noah Syndergaard & Justin Nicolino this past off-season. We miss you, boys. 

Oscar Bluth
George's hippy twin brother does a lot of drugs. Jeremy Jeffress does a lot of drugs, and especially likes to smoke "Sauteed Aspargus".

That's it. If you have any other comparisons, which I'm sure you do, let us know with a comment, tweet, email, facebook, whatever.

Big thanks to both Andrew Karcher for the idea, and Ewan Ross for helping out.

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