Speaking of rotator cuffs, Kris Benson of Baltimore just announced he is undergoing surgery for his an will miss the 2007 season.  There goes $8,000,000 up in smoke for the orange birds.

Now all we need is Jay Gibbons and Cabrera to go missing and the Jays are set for a season series sweep of the O's.

There's no risk, so I don't have a problem with it.

I went to the link regarding the signing of Pete Walker.  Once again a writer has commented that Ryan, League, Frasor, Downs, Accardo, and Tallet are locks to start the year in the Jays' bullpen.  I assume that unless Rosario completely bombs in spring training he'll be getting the last bullpen spot since he's out of options.  So it looks like Walker, Thorpe, Gronk, D. Romero et al., will be starting the season in the minors again.

But what's the deal with Brian Tallet?  I just don't understand what J.P. and Gibbons see in the guy, other than the low ERA he had last year which, based on his peripherals, seems to me to be a fluke.  Personally I'd feel less nervous with D. Romero on the mound.  Am I missing something?

I think they like the fact that no one can hit his pitches: He held batters to a .238 BA, and lefties to .220. He only gave up 1 home run in 31 innings after the All-Star break.

  Obviously he needs to improve his control some more, and it might be going too far to say he's a lock. But if you look at his splits  there's quite a bit to like.k

Team may not yet be finished adding some more arms;

The Blue Jays still have some interest in free-agent lefty Ron Villone, but agent Scott Boras is said to be seeking US$2 million for a one-year deal, about double what Toronto is willing to pay.

Is Tallet not the prototype of the "quirky, crafty lefty"?

Might as well see if he can duplicate last year. If he struggles in April, demote him, release him, no harm, no foul.

It's not like he's going to be out there in the eighth inning of a tie game with two men on...he's the sixth reliever.

I'm glad to see someone else likes Tallet too.

He had about three pretty rough appearances over the course of the season.

As he finally now has a real full season under his belt I wouldn't be suprised to see him turn in a fine season.

If he does, Ryan Day and I will be the only ones on record not following the crowd on Tallet.

 

On Pete Walker. Stick a fork in him.

But seriously, I would wager against him making the team or even getting called up. The likely reason for this signing is that he is a mature ballplayer, one who has beaten the odds getting back into the big leagues. Guys like that are nice to have around, especially when there are so many youngsters chirping for their shot. He'll keep things real in Syracuse.

Either that or he has something on JP. I'm still scratching my head on his million dollar 2006 salary.

A thread about bullpen usage might be interesting. Personally, I'd like to see Gibbons be a bit more conservative with BJ. I don't like the two-inning saves that much (once in a blue moon is OK). I also don't think he needs to pitch (or get up) every time we have a 3-run lead late in the game.

I'm sure it's tough to strike the right balance. And there might be even more of a temptation this year to use Ryan a lot (now that Speier's gone). But the Jays could really get burned if BJ gets burned out (or injured) trying to eke out an extra few saves.

I also don't think [Ryan] needs to pitch...  every time we have a 3-run lead late in the game.

Especially now. Relievers want those cheap saves, because saves are money. Saves are what you take to the arbitrator, saves are what you sell on the free agent market. But Ryan's got his contract. He doesn't need to worry about that stuff for a few years.

   This is a little off-topic, but I've been pondering the shortstop problem.   At the "state-of-the-franchise" dinner with Blue Jay season ticket holders last week, Ricciardi came under some criticism for his acquisition of Royce Clayton as the apparent starter at shortstop.   Here was his response to the criticism:  "I will remind you that you guys had a shortstop named Manny Lee when you won a World Series and I've been to Cooperstown and I haven't seen his plaque," Ricciardi said. "So I think you can win with an adequate shortstop...."

    So, this raises an interesting question:  who was a better shortstop -- Manny Lee or Royce Clayton?    I took a quick look at their numbers.  In career stats, Clayton performed better than Lee over the course of their entire career.  But in 1992, the year that Ricciardi was citing, Lee had an OBP of .343 and an OPS+ of 83.  Both of those numbers were much better than Clayton's numbers of last season.   If you go back to 2004 and 2005, Clayton's numbers were almost the same as Lee's numbers in 1992.  So, for Ricciardi's argument to make sense, Clayton will have to revert to his form of two or three years ago -- a tough task at his age. 

 

"So I think you can win with an adequate shortstop...."

I agree with this statement. Unfortunately, I don't believe that Clayton is an adequate shortstop. He may have been, earlier in his career, but he's not any more.

Every time Ricciardi tries to defend his moves (and I'm assuming his statements here have been accurately reported, they do sound like other times I've heard him speak), I think he knows a little less than I give him credit for. I know he's probably just "backing up his guys" in public statements, but it just sounds stupid.

The 1998 Yankees won with Chad Curtis in Left field, he of the .715 OPS. So clearly, the key to winning 108 games is matching your LF production as closely as possible with Chad Curtis. Or maybe try to be like the 2001 Mariners who won 116 games with David Bell at 3B (718 OPS), I bet we could still pick him up if we wanted. Or returning to the 1992 Jays, we should hope Glaus is injury prone this year and struggles at the plate, just like Gruber did that year (OPS+72). This is essentially what he's saying...great teams have won with a few bad players, so it's OK to have a few bad ones. Brilliant.


Also, from here:
His front office is very stats-oriented, focusing mostly on OBP and OPS. He noted that they keep an eye on the more advanced statistics available, although he was still skeptical about VORP.

Skeptical? I would expect a good GM not only to understand something like VORP, but be able to go from the generic league-wide VORP to one that takes actual replacement players available in the organization into account. Sigh...but I'm not cheering for the GM, so go Jays!

Unfortunately, I don't believe that Clayton is an adequate shortstop

I'm not sure the Jays think so either - they're still keeping McDonald around, and picked up Olmedo and Smith.

The 'good' thing about it is that if the Jays are in the playoff hunt that's one area where adding an average player will make a big difference.

I figure that what happened with Clayton is this.  The front office brain trust gathered around after last season, and people were lamenting that Russ Adams had a decent bat for a shortstop but not much of a glove, and John Mcdonald had a decent glove but not much of a bat.  Someone piped up: "I've got it.  We want someone with Russ Adams' bat and John McDonald's glove".  Unfortunately, someone else misheard him and went searching for a player with Russ Adams' glove and John McDonald's bat, and found Clayton.

A beautiful unfamiliar woman approached George Bernard Shaw and boldly announced that she wanted to have a child with him.  "With my looks and your brains, our child is sure to succeed".  Shaw replied drily that he feared that the child would end up with his looks and her brains.

Alberto Callaspo sits behind Hudson and Drew in Arizona, and they do need pitching, particularly relief pitching.

Ron Villone has signed a minor league deal with the Yankees worth $2.5 million if he makes the team plus $300,000 in incentives.

"I will remind you that you guys had a shortstop named Manny Lee when you won a World Series and I've been to Cooperstown and I haven't seen his plaque,"

We also had Pat Hentgen, Juan Guzman, Jack Morris, Al Leiter, David Cone, Dave Stewart, Todd Stottlemyre, Duane Ward, and Mike Timlin.

To say nothing of Molitor, Alomar, Olerud, Winfield, Carter, White, Henderson...

Skeptical? I would expect a good GM not only to understand something like VORP, but be able to go from the generic league-wide VORP to one that takes actual replacement players available in the organization into account.

Simply being skeptical of VORP doesn't necessarily mean that  JP doesn't understand it, he could be skeptical for any number of reasons (ie there's no measurement human aspects etc). I'd rather have a GM who was willing to ask questions and discuss statistical issues than to simply ignore them.

I see JP's comments about Manny Lee and Royce Clayton as simply a means to move onto the next question by the time anyone can actually look up their numbers. Does he think that Clayton is adequate? Probably not, but what else can he say? He can't just hang Clayton out to dry.

I did mention that the comment could be chalked up to not wanting to rip his players and having that get back to them, but I think JP is a lot more of a scout guy than I thought he'd be when he got the job. For instance:

He was willing to sign GIl Meche to a huge contract this offseason. Scouts have loved his stuff (mostly), but I've yet to see analysis that went beyond wish-casting (he could turn out like Carpenter! Because he shares the trait of not being very good at this point of his career.) that thought he was good. Or just better than the multitude of options already available within the organization.

I'm just being overly negative at this point because any mention of Clayton brings out an admittedly irrational dislike of the move. I mean, it hasn't even failed yet, JP has been right before. But Royce Clayton? Aargh (See, irrational)!

Eddie Feigner's web site is.. http://www.kingandhiscourt.com/index_home.html

He was a top softball pitcher who was clocked at 104 MPH and struck out those HOF'ers in a 2 inning exhibition game in 1967.

... and in other news, Carlos Zambrano takes diction lessons from Rickey Henderson:

"Whatever happens, I don't want to know about a contract during the season. I want to sign with the Cubs before the season starts. If they don't sign me, sorry, but I must go. That's what Carlos Zambrano thinks."

But what's the deal with Brian Tallet?  I just don't understand what J.P. and Gibbons see in the guy, other than the low ERA he had last year which, based on his peripherals, seems to me to be a fluke.  Personally I'd feel less nervous with D. Romero on the mound. 

I fail to see any reason for that. Romero has a grand total of 16.3 IP in the majors (and, though it's basically meaningless because of the small sample, he did no better than Tallet in that time). Between those two, I'd take Tallet.

Ryan: Hard on both
League: Hard on righties
Frasor: Hard on lefties
Accardo: Hard on lefties
Rosario: Hard on righties
Tallet: Hard on lefties
Downs: Hard on both

We have a pretty balanced 'pen...

John Walsh evaluates outfielders' throwing arm performance in 2006 in today's THT  using hold and kill rates, and finds that Alex Rios had the best overall numbers in the majors last year.

I was surprised to find that Shawn Green had the worst arm in the majors. Maybe that Gold Glove is clouding my memory and judgment (if Junior Cruz can win one..), but I thought that was a strength during his Toronto days. His assist total (granted, not a great metric) has dropped off from a high of 14 in 1998 to just one. Is there a shoulder injury in there somewhere I don't remember?

Yes, there is. He played through it in '03 but it sapped his power. At least that's how I remember it.

I don't want to make light of the SS situation as it does sincerely bother me, but I do believe the following:

A. JP has demonstrated at least some ability to pluck useful SSs from the replacement-level pool.

B. Clayton's not paid so much that this will turn into a season-long disaster or a huge sunk cost.

C. This isn't the case last year with Batista in Minny: i.e., there's no obviously better player in the organization necessarily and Clayton's been above replacement player his whole career.*

D. There are guys who could be aquired at or near the deadline should this really be the hold up to a playoff run, and for however much I've disliked JP's conservative drafting, there are a lot of chits for a Carlos Guillen type.

E. Just like 4th and 5th starters and last bullpen pitcher, there are a number of in-house candidates. If a Tallet or an Ohka or a Clayton blows-up the wrong way, there are guys on-hand to stop the bleeding while a more suitable replacement is scrapped together. I'm applauding JP's rotation depth aquisitions; I should do the same with SS.

*I didn't check, but I would be very surprised if he's had anything close to negative VORP in anything close to a full season.