Direct all of your complaints about your fantasy team's production problems to the media from now on.
Texas Rangers backup catcher J.P. Arencibia - who posted a league-low .227 on-base percentage with the Blue Jays in 2013 - blamed unfavorable media coverage in Toronto for the organization's decision to release him.
“I learned the media controls a lot of things and the only question that you guys were writing in the off-season was what they were going to do behind the plate, when obviously the pitching was something that needed to be addressed,” he told Brendan Kennedy of the Toronto Star on Saturday. “But I was the only question because I was the villain of the team.”
The 28-year-old declined to specify to the Star which members of the Toronto media he was referring to.
“I think the media made me out to be a monster — I wasn’t. They changed a lot of things that I said or made up stories," he said. "So I thought that that was a big thing that went down. I learned how much media does control things.”
Arencibia signed a one-year, $1.8 million deal with Texas in the offseason after leading catchers in 2013 for passed balls (13) and errors (11). But that is probably the media's fault.