Friday BP: Kevin Gausman sends his regards

Good morning baseball fans! Sorry there are no real baseball updates to be had. But the baseball players have been making social media a more interesting place this week.

First up, Kevin Gausman posted a couple of tweets showing his appreciation to San Francisco Giants fans for the last two years, having recently signed with the Toronto Blue Jays. Great guy, great pitcher, excellent tweeter. He’s going to be missed.

On another note, last night MLB scrubbed all of the player photos off of its website, replacing them with the generic face of our favorite TBD pitcher, the gray anonymous avatar.

Which is hilariously serving to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to public perception of the lockout (which is, despite somewhat common belief, not being caused by the players themselves.) Players are what makes baseball interesting. Players are what brings fans to the ballpark to purchase $20 beers and $15 hot dogs. Removing their pictures from the website only goes to show how there is no baseball without the players. So I’m always going to be more sympathetic to their side than the side of ownership. Do not @ me, do not pass go.

Anyway, back to social media. Players began changing their Twitter avatars to match the anonymous version of themselves on the MLB website and then friend of the blog and co-host of the Giants Talk podcast, Cole Kuiper, created a new profile picture for Johnny Cueto and it was excellent.

Old, random MCC article for you to read

Rental Players and Hidden Fees (August 18th, 2011 - Grant Brisbee)

How many days until pitchers and catchers report?

Giants pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in only 76 days. Hopefully.