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The destination was the same as ever. The route was certainly different.


Let's talk about injuries for a moment,  Yes, the projected "everyday" lineup  - Navarro c, Encarnacion 1b, either Goins or Izturis 2b, Reyes, ss, Lawrie 3b, Bautista rf, Rasmus cf, Cabrera lf, Lind dh - played exactly zero games together this season. None whatsoever. Bugger-all. Not a sausage. And I grant you, that is fewer than one would have hoped. Nevertheless, it's my view that the Blue Jays were not especially unfortunate. Compared to the Orioles and Yankees, I think the Blue Jays were pretty lucky overall on the injury front. As a rule, the lineup on the field consisted mainly of guys on the wrong side of 30.  And those guys stayed healthy for the most part. Jose Reyes (age 31) played 143 games - which is more games than he played in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013.  Jose Bautista (age 33), still the team's best and most important player, played 155 games; this after missing 70 games in 2012 and 44 games in 2013. Dioner Navarro (age 30), a veteran catcher, started 100 games behind the plate for the first time since 2009 and established a number of career highs for playing time. On the mound, the Jays lost just one starting pitcher to injury, which was quite an improvement on the three previous seasons.  Yes, Edwin Encarnacion missed 30 games, but the overall trade-off is one I can live with.  There were injuries to Lawrie and Rasmus (the two youngest players, naturally), and Lind as well - but  why would anyone be surprised when players who hurt themselves every year get hurt again? While the Jays may have encountered more injuries than they had the depth to deal with, that's not so much a matter of good or ill fortune as one of preparation. Which appears to be the lesson that the GM himself is taking from the experience.

Anyway - the grades.

A - Outstanding
B - Good
C - Average
D - Below Average (Replacement Level, more or less)
E - Fail
F - Epic Fail

As always, a great many players passed through town, but their appearances were so fleeting that we just don't care. No one believes more whole-heartedly in the Small Sample than I do, but some samples are too small to bother with. So the old INC for Incomplete is handed out this term to Chris Getz, Brad Glenn, Cole Gillespie, John Mayberry, George Kottaras, Daniel Norris, Kendall Graveman, Brad Mills, Jeremy Jeffress, Bobby Korecky, Kyle Drabek, and Sean Nolin.

Finding a grade for Mills would have been a challenge.

We begin with the guys who didn't play. Let's get them out of the way.

John Gibbons C
- There are people who just love John Gibbons, for reasons that completely elude me. I don't know what they're seeing. Obviously, it's not his record. Perhaps it's his bubbly personality. Anyway, the manner in which the 2014 Blue Jays totally collapsed after the disappointment of the Trade Deadline Whiff is not something I want to lay at John Gibbons' door. Obviously it's not a mark in Gibbons' favour. But  I don't think it was anywhere near as bad as what happened in somewhat similar circumstances in 1995, when Cito Gaston's team just checked out completely, and Gaston checked out along with them. And this year's team was able to regroup and put together a face-saving early September charge.... Anyway, Gibbons kind of strikes me as the J.A. Happ of major league managers. He's not exactly good, but he's certainly decent enough to hold the job. As a game manager, he's generally competent enough, not that I've ever regarded that stuff as a very big deal either way. (We've all seen the tactically incompetent - hello, Bob Brenly! - manage their teams to World Series championships.) I don't think Gibbons is the solution to anything, but I don't think he's a problem. As you read on, you may perceive that Gibbons did a few things that made me crazy. True enough, but this is what managers do. All of them. Every manager does things that make their team's followers crazy, on a fairly regular basis. As long-time minor league manager Rocky Bridges once quipped, there are three things every man thinks "he can do better than any other man: build a fire, run a hotel, and manage a baseball team."  And every man is wrong. There is only one absolutely indispensable attribute for any major league manager - everything else can be worked around, everything else is negotiable - and as far as I can tell, Gibbons has the respect of his players. They think he knows what he's doing. Even more important, they believe that he's the one who's making out the lineup cards.

Alex Anthopoulos C

- In the beginning it's so very simple. When you don't have much major league talent - and Anthopoulos began his tenure as the GM by trading Roy Halladay for prospects, which reduced the amount of major league talent on hand by quite a bit - the job is really, really simple. Acquire young talent. Acquire as much as you can. That's all there is to it. It's when the time comes to turn the talent into results on a major league field that things get complicated. That's when the rubber hits the road, that's when we separate the sheep from the goats, that's when the cliche metaphors start running right off the page. After this year's All-Star Break, Anthopoulos found his team contending for the post-season for the first time in a generation. There was genuine excitement in the air down at the old ball yard, also for the first time in a generation. Unfortunately, his team had some pretty serious holes, some of which had been there all along,  as well as the usual inconvenient injuries (which almost every team that fancies itself a contender has to deal with.) The Jays had spent two months treading water (27-26), giving up the lead they had built up with their May hot streak, but still holding on to one of the Wild Cards. But they badly, badly needed  an infusion of fresh talent. And when the GM didn't pull the trigger on anything to help them out... there's no looking away from what happened. The team went completely into the tank. They played themselves out of contention with dizzying speed. By the time September came around they were effectively out of the running.  What should we take from this experience?
- Hey, going for it is risky as all hell. It can blow up in your face, and haunt you for the Rest of Your Days. Ask any Expos fan about Dave Dombrowski and Mark Langston. And when you think about it, 366 home runs from a second baseman is an awful lot to give up for 7 September starts. If the Jays hadn't won in 1992, watching Jeff Kent's career unfold would have been almost 20 years of pain and remorse. But even so, at some point, you have to go for it or there's simply no point to being in the game at all. If you're going to sit at the table, at some point you have to place a bet. You can't just keep folding your cards, waiting for the next hand. Maybe Anthopoulos simply isn't as hungry, as desperate for a title, as Gillick was in 1992. Maybe this really wasn't the time. Maybe the price this time really was too damn high. Maybe Anthopoulos thought paying that kind of price was wasted on this year's team (which is not something he could say out loud, of course.) We can't actually know whether he's been cunningly patient or overly cautious or whatever. But at some point that price will have to be paid. And then... we'll see what's what.
- In other news, all the widely heralded kids began to make an impact at the major league level, and some of the pitchers look particularly exciting. Anthopoulos has decided to entrust John Gibbons with the job of transitioning these young arms into major league starters. In his first tour, Gibbons made first time starters (20 starts in a season) of Dave Bush (2005), Gustavo Chacin (2005), Shaun Marcum (2007), Dustin McGowan (2007), and Jesse Litsch (2007). Within two years, Chacin, Marcum, McGowan, and Litsch were all under the surgeon's knife. That could very easily be mere concidence. After all, most young pitchers look extremely promising the first time you see them, and most of them would probably be pretty effective if they didn't get hurt.  But most of them will get hurt. It's Chinatown, Jake. This is why, this is exactly why there is no such thing as a pitching prospect. But still... I hate those kind of coincidences.
- Anyway, the team heads into 2015 with all kinds of strengths marred by a few obvious, gaping holes. This is not a bad place to be - it's much easier to fill a couple of holes than it is to upgrade an entire roster of average guys. The obvious hole at 2b still hasn't been filled; one hopes that will really get addressed this off-season. Jose Bautista is the only outfielder under contract for 2015; even if the team re-signs Cabrera they will still need to find someone to play centre field. Hopefully, a lesson has been learned from the Ryan Goins experiment, and the team will not place its fate in the hands of Anthony Gose, Kevin Pillar, or Dalton Pompey. If one of these young players forces his way into the lineup, wonderful. But let's not assume that this is going to happen in 2015. Young players will always develop at their own pace, whatever that may be - what's convenient for the major league team seldom enters into it. The other major problem shouldn't be all that hard to fix  - the Jays had a lousy bullpen, yet again. It often appears that the team has settled on a policy of shuttling half the bullpen back and forth willy-nilly between the minors and the big team -  whenever someone has a bad game, or someone still has options, or some other mysterious reason. This needs to stop. There is no shortage of pitchers who can help you. Identify them, and give them a chance to do the job, without having to glance over their shoulders every minute.

Rogers Communications F

The Blue Jays are one of three major league teams with corporate ownership, and Rogers Communications is one fabulously wealthy corporation. They reported a second quarter profit of $405 million dollars this year. That's not revenue - that's profit, earned in three months. The Blue Jays play in one of the game's largest markets. and beyond that they are major league baseball's sole representative for an entire country. And they now have the longest streak of seasons without making the post-season of any team in the majors.  It's true that Rogers hasn't owned the team for the entire post-1993 period, but it makes no difference. Since Rogers took over ownership in 2001, every team in the majors has made it to the post-season. Every team but one. Until that changes, I see no reason to change this grade.

Enough of those guys. On to the people who actually play the games. The fun stuff.

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************



Jose Bautista A

- What a ballplayer. The man plays hard. He might be the most aggressive baserunner on the team. Only Reyes was more likely to score from first on a double or from second on a single. And no one else on the team, not even Reyes, was as likely to go from first to third on a single. Unlike Encarnacion, Bautista can actually help the team when he's playing the field. I think he's become a pretty good outfielder, although he often does look like a guy who only started playing the position in mid-career. Blue Jays right fielders - which was mostly Bautista - were second in the league in putouts, BaseRunner Kills, and holding opposing runners from taking the extra base. But Bautista is reaching the age where his progress as a defender begins to be cancelled out by the fact that he's beginning to lose some of his athleticism. He does turn 34 next month, and many people think his future is at first base. That may be true, and I certainly don't believe he's up to playing third base anymore. But Bautista plays so hard that I'd really rather not see him involved in every defensive play, which is what would happen if he moved to first base.  I'd rather he get to relax a little between at bats. That's always where we're going to love him best. (I know that no matter what else I might happen to be doing around the homestead while the game is on, I drop everything to watch Jose hit.) Someone can look this up, but I have the distinct impression that Bautista doesn't see nearly as many fastballs in the strike zone as he used to. That's one reason he doesn't threaten to hit 45 HRs anymore. There are good reasons for this, of course. Normally, pitchers are proud of their fastballs. That's why most of them are in the big leagues. They like to challenge hitters with them. But challenging Jose Bautista with a fastball is like challenging a gorilla to a wrestling match. You might do it once, if for some reason you didn't know any better. But then you know better.

Edwin Encarnacion A-
 - Missing 30 games reduces his value, and he's just an awful first baseman. Not Prince Fielder bad, but the next worst thing. He's fairly mobile, but if an infielder's throw doesn't hit his glove, Edwin just isn't going to catch it. But in the batter's box, all is forgiven. He's an absolute Beast. His last three seasons are basically interchangeable. Since his big step forward in 2012, when he was taken off third base forever, he's become a remarkably consistent offensive performer. And Buck Martinez was right - when Encarnacion is really going well, the bat starts flying out of his hands all the time. It's how you can tell he's locked in. What an amazing stroke. We're all familiar with Bautista's swing - Jose has his arms raised like he's about to hammer a spike into a rail, his timing kick, and then he whips his bat through the zone at the ball.  But  Encarnacion - he's just kind of standing there with his open stance, not looking quite ready at all - and then his bat somehow just explodes on the ball. The stroke is so short, so sudden, and so violent that Edwin has a lot of trouble controlling the bat if he doesn't actually intercept the baseball. He's beginning to remind me just a little of another Domincan born RH Blue Jay slugger with a really violent swing. Like George Bell, Encarnacion doesn't strike out as much as most sluggers; he's only cleared 100 Ks in a season once, and just barely that time (102 whiffs in 2008); Bell himself never struck out 100 times in a season. Edwin has more raw power than Bell - Edwin has more raw power than just about anybody - and since coming to Toronto he's become a much more patient hitter than Bell ever was. Bell did hit for a higher average and he was a much better baserunner and defensive player. And like Bell, Encarnacion has now played more than 1200 major league games, and has never laid down a sac bunt. Not a one. Jose Bautista has 23 of them (9 as a Blue Jay); even Adam Lind has 3.

Melky Cabrera B+
- Obviously, did much better playing without the freaking tumour. He's had such a strange odyssey through the majors that it's hard to know just who he really is. It's hard to believe, looking at him now, that this guy was once a slightly built singles hitting centre fielder. Cabrera's past season, however, was very much like his out-of-nowhere breakout season with the 2011 Royals. So perhaps he'll be stable at this level for the next couple of years. Cabrera's a switch-hitter with no real platoon split, which isn't as common as you might expect. By the way - lots and lots of teams need an upgrade in LF in 2015. Melky is going to get paid by someone this off-season.

Aaron Sanchez B+
- That was extremely impressive. But what he's been doing - throwing his fastball all the time, as hard as he can - absolutely will not work if he has to go through the lineup more than once. The fastball won't be as overwhelming, he'll have to start mixing in the breaking stuff, he'll start to walk a few people. He'd probably be a fine closer right now, but as long as he's got a chance to be a starter you need to give him a chance to become one. I'd much, much rather see him open next season in the Buffalo rotation rather than the Toronto bullpen.

Mark Buehrle B
- Buehrle lives at the extremes, where the normal rules do not apply and where paradoxes emerge. It's a basic fact that players with speed age more gracefully - a fast player can lose a step and still be fast enough to play. But when a player with average speed loses a step, he's got a problem. It's often the same with pitching. If you throw 96 mph, and you lose a foot off your fastball, you can still get the job done, throwing 92 or 93. But if you start out throwing 91, and the fall takes you to 87 mph... well, there can be Trouble. But none of these truisms apply to Buehrle, just as they didn't apply to Tom Glavine or Jamie Moyer. He's playing a different game. One of the keys to his season was a new-found ability to keep the ball in the park. He allowed just 15 HR all season - only once before in his long career had he allowed fewer than 20 HRs (17 in 2010.) Almost made it through the season without allowing a stolen base, but Javier Baez of the Cubs caught Danny Valencia playing too far off the bag and stole third in early September. Once you get past Buehrle and Dickey, nobody on this team is actually good at controlling the running game, and some guys are downright awful. (Ricky Romero and Kyle Drabek are both very good, but...) Anyway, Buehrle picked off 4 baserunners this season (the rest of the staff had 6), and now has 97 career pickoffs. He's worked 3084.2 IP, so that's one pickoff every 31.8 IP.

Marcus Stroman B
- As Buehrle's entire career has demonstrated, there is art to this pitching stuff, and folks, it's just a beautiful thing. Watching a pitcher set up a hitter -  changing his eye level, getting him looking inside and out, destroying his timing to the extent that he can't catch up with a mid-80s fastball.... well, it's like poetry. I love it to death. Some pitchers seem to have picked up this ability in the womb - Maddux comes to mind, Bret Saberhagen; others pick up some of these dark arts along the way. Many never do, of course. But there's a flip side to the poetry, and that's naked aggression. Throwing your best punch, in the unshakeable belief that it will knock your man down. Stroman is the most aggressive starter the Jays have come up with since Josh Towers was around. Y'all remember Josh, don't you? Like Stroman, Towers was an under-sized RH (Stroman is short, Towers was just scrawny). Unlike Stroman, Towers had a distinctly below-average fastball (oops!) and he couldn't change speeds to save his life (Big Oops!) His aggressiveness was pretty much all he had, and he still managed a three year run when he went 30-22 with an ERA+ of 109 for the Jays. Stroman has that same quality, and much, much more besides. Like a fastball and an off-speed pitch. And he can pitch a little, too. He's a ballplayer. Successful RH starters of Stroman's size don't come around very often, but this may turn out to be one of those times.

Brett Cecil B
- Seemed to be pitching in tough luck for a good chunk of the season. Which is tough, but there are no points for style and no rewards at all for the unlucky. Baseball isn't fair. But Cecil sucked it up, kept taking the ball, and kept pitching. Eventually his luck turned.  Cecil's strikeouts and walks both went up significantly in 2014 - his K/9 from 10.4 to 12.7, his BB/9 from 3.4 to 4.6 - I wonder if this reflects a reaction by Cecil to the game situations he found himself in. In his first year as a full-time reliever, Cecil usually came in with the bases empty. This began to change in September 2013, and continued through this past season. In 30 of his 65 appearances, there were men on base when Cecil came into the game. Only Aaron Loup was more likely to inherit someone else's baserunners. I think Cecil responded to the different game situations by trying to strike people out. It worked, and the extra walks allowed were the price, a price worth paying in my view. RH batters have generally had their way with Cecil in the past, and Gibbons has gone out of his way to protect Cecil from them. In 2013, Cecil took the Aaron Loup approach with RH batters (proceed with Extreme Caution) and naturally issued a truckload of bases on balls; this year he was actually very effective against them. I'm wondering if he's figured something out or if it's just a one-year blip. Until then I won't completely trust him to take on a larger role (although his role is pretty large already, come to think of it.) But because of his delivery and repertoire he's got a much better chance of getting there than Aaron Loup. Cecil doesn't have a great move to first, but until this year he had always been able to keep the running game under control. But in 2014 the opposition was basically stealing at will against him, which was kind of odd.
 
Chad Jenkins B
- Last year I called Jenkins the David Cooper of Jays pitching prospects (I'd already called Cooper the Rodney Dangerfield of the hitting prospects.) Why? Well, the man gets absolutely no respect.  None, I tell ya. And did that change this year? Well, let me give you a hint. Jenkins posted the best ERA on the team of any reliever not named Sanchez. While this was going on, the Jays sent him to the minors not once, not twice, not - oh forget it, we don't have all day - they sent him to the minors six times.  Was it because he's not supposed to be any good? So that what he actually accomplishes on the mound can just be disregarded? Look,  if you don't walk people and you keep the ball in the yard, you can get things done in this game.

R.A. Dickey B-
- A solid, better than average starting pitcher. He really needs a big park (and fast outfielders) to forgive the knucklers that forget to knuckle. And the RC ain't Citi Field. Was killed by the long ball in his first season here, allowing 35 HRs; he cut that down to 26 this season. The strange thing about that is that he gave up a huge chunk of those HRs in just one month - his HRs allowed by month are 3, 3, 10, 3, 4, 3 - and stranger still, he didn't really pitch that badly at all in June (1-3, 4.11), even with  those 10 HRs. Go figure. Like Buehrle, Dickey does all the little things he needs to do to support his game. He fields his position beautifully and he does a truly amazing job of holding baserunners. He's got 23 career pickoffs, 1 every 64.3 IP, which is quite good for a RH pitcher.  Despite the fact that his best pitch a) tops out at around 80 mph and b) is very hard to catch, Dickey allowed just 3 stolen bases against all season, in 215.2 innings. Aaron Sanchez allowed more than in 33 IP, Sergios Santos in 21 IP. Redmond, Loup, McGowan, and Cecil all allowed twice as many SBs as Dickey while pitching less than 80 IP.

Jose Reyes B-
- As a hitter, Reyes used to be pretty even from both sides, maybe slightly better hitting right-handed. Since coming to Toronto, however, he's been a fair bit better hitting left-handed. This is something that I've seen happen to other switch-hitters as their careers progress - I wonder if there simply aren't enough LH pitchers around to keep the stroke sharp. Reyes, of course, is the Blue Jays answer to Derek Jeter - a fine offensive player whose defensive range at shortstop has become... somewhat less than optimal. I think history proves quite conclusively that you can still win championships - lots of them, in fact - with that precise combination. I also thought Reyes' defensive play began to improve in the second half of this season - perhaps he's beginning to figure out how he needs to play on turf. But I do have some concerns, and they don't all involve the enormous amounts of money he has coming to him. Reyes has been nowhere near as durable as Jeter, and this is not something one would expect will improve as he gets further into his 30s while playing half his games on artificial turf.  Reyes is also nowhere near as sharp a player as Jeter, not as alert and aware. Granted, almost no one is that alert and aware - Jeter sets that bar extremely high - but Reyes isn't in the same ballpark. And Reyes takes more plays off in the average week than Jeter would in a decade.  Sometimes Jose is just being careful with his hammies, and that's fine by me. That's Jose being smart. But sometimes I just don't know. I also think Reyes' skills and his body's capabilities are changing on him, slowly and subtly. Which happens - he's not 22 anymore. He's almost as fast as he ever was - and that's really fast - but he's not as quick. I wonder if Reyes is just a little surprised by these changes, hasn't quite adjusted to them, and they've put him off just a little bit.

Adam Lind B-
- This was a thoroughly weird season from Adam, starting with the Ohmigawd-he-ate-Garfield beard. There was the injury diagnosed by his mum, which was certainly weird. It took him out of the lineup for more than a month - between that and the back injury that knocked him out for another month earlier on, he missed about 60 games. All that took a big bite out of his value and knocked down the grade. When he was able to play, he contributed a fine, productive year with the bat - but that was weird, as well. He accomplished this despite the complete and inexplicable disappearance of his home run swing for most of the season. His home run swing had been just about the only remotely useful thing about him during the dark times of 2011 and 2012. But weirdest of all - he has emerged as a reasonably competent first baseman. This is utterly shocking to me. I'd have been less surprised if he'd started stealing bases, or pitching right-handed.  In truth, it's probably just the contrast with Encarnacion that makes him appear that way. Because he's still quite the klutz, and watching him chase after a pop fly is just endlessly amusing.  But at least he can catch the damn ball when you throw it his way. Lind now played more games with the Blue Jays, without playing a single game for another team, than anyone in franchise history. Garth Iorg, stand aside.

Dioner Navarro C+
 - He was obviously a massive upgrade on the guy who held the job before him, both with the bat and behind the plate. But it sure looked to me like he wore down quite a bit as the year went on. Navarro hadn't played this much since he was 25 years old, and I think he could have used more rest. It seems very, very strange to me that he didn't get it, seeing as how the club was actually carrying three catchers for a considerable spell. It didn't affect his hitting, and there's certainly an argument to be made that playing practically every day was good for his bat, that it kept him in a steady offensive groove. But every catcher worth his salt will tell you that playing defense is the most important part of the job and Navarro looked positively sluggish behind the plate in the second half of the season.

Todd Redmond C+
- That was a pretty decent season. His ability to work multiple innings may have kept him away from being used in the late innings. He certainly would have been a better option than some of the guys who were being called on to get the ball to the closer in the first half of the season.  The role also made his usage patterns somewhat erratic - the worse the starters were, the more work Redmond got. When the starters were pitching well, he had trouble getting into a game. Like a lot of pitchers, Redmond was far more effective when he was being used regularly, and like a lot of sinker-ballers, Redmond was far more effective when he was being used often. He made 13 appearances with 0 or 1 days rest, and posted a 1.20 ERA in 30 IP.  (His ERA was 4.32 the rest of the time.)  Like a lot of sinker-ballers, he gets more double plays behind him than most pitchers (Buehrle led the team with 1 DP every 8.4 IP, Redmond was next at 1 every 9.38 IP.)  But like a lot of sinker-ballers, Redmond pitches to contact, and therefore he is not the guy you want to bring in when there are already runners on base. He allowed an unsightly 48% (10 of 21) of his inherited runners to score, by far the worst figure on the team (well, there were worse guys - Happ and Wagner - in miniscule samples.) Unlike a lot of sinker-ballers, Redmond had all kinds trouble getting outs on the grounders hit against him. AL batters hit .250 on ground balls in 2014; against individual Blue Jays pitchers they hit anywhere from .162 to .270 - Cecil (.229), Stroman (.241), Loup (.162), Buehrle (.270), Dickey (.191), Happ (.262), Hutchison (.267).  Redmond was the exception  - AL batters hit .320 on ground balls against Redmond.

Brett Lawrie C+
- Paul Molitor was drafted 3rd overall out of the University of Minnesota in 1977. He made his pro debut playing shortstop in the Midwest League (A ball), where he hit .346/.457/.504. The next spring, with just 64 pro games under his belt, Molitor was the Brewers Opening Day shortstop. In early May,  Robin Yount - who had been a) troubled by a foot injury, b) contemplating giving up baseball for professional golf, and c) holding out for more money -  got healthy, decided on baseball, and signed a contract. But Molitor had done enough to ensure that his minor league career was over. The Brewers moved him over to second base. He'd never played there in his life, but that didn't stop him from hitting  .322/.372/.508 in his sophomore season. But the next year, a rib cage injury knocked him out of the lineup for six weeks. Third baseman Jim Gantner, in his first season as a regular, filled in at second - and Gantner, another newcomer to the position, turned out to be a much more natural second baseman than Molitor. So the next year, 1981, the Brewers decided to make Molitor their centre fielder. This did not sit well with veteran slugger Gorman Thomas, who was being moved to right field, and Molitor did not take to the outfield naturally. The experiment ended soon enough anyway, as Molitor suffered a serious ankle injury in early May that took him out of the lineup for two months. By season's end, he was playing right field and Thomas was back in centre. In 1982, now 25 years old and in his fifth major league season, he was switched to his fifth major league position - third base. He stayed there for two healthy, uninterrupted seasons, until he suffered a serious elbow injury in April 1984. He missed 149 games, and his throwing arm was never the same. In 1986, he began tearing up his hamstrings on a regular basis. First while charging a bunt at third base, and later chasing a fly ball while playing left field, for reasons now lost to history. The hamstrings cost him another month out of the 1987 season, by which point he was serving as the designated hitter as often as he took the field. He managed to play more than 150 games, mostly at third base,  in both 1988 and 1989. This inspired the Brewers to switch him to second base for 1990. This was partially because Molitor now had serious shoulder issues along with the bad elbow, and his arm was no longer adequate enough for third base. That year, he missed one month with a broken thumb, another month with a broken finger, and finished off his year by breaking his arm in a collision with Gantner. Finally, the Sisyphean task of getting this man on the field on a regular basis was abandoned. In 1991, he became a regular DH and occasional first baseman. That's what he did for his last two years with the Brewers, and what he did during his three years with Toronto, and his career-ending coda in Minnesota. Over those final eight seasons, aged 34 to 41, Molitor hit .316/.380/.462, was the World Series MVP for a championship team, cleared 3000 career hits, and punched his ticket to Cooperstown.
- See? This can still have a happy ending!

Aaron Loup C+

- I like Loup, and I think any bullpen can use a guy who destroys LH batters. Loup's biggest problem is his manager, who still doesn't seem to understand the most basic fundamental truth about pitchers who throw the ball the from Loup's arm angle.  Hello? These kinds of pitchers always have huge platoon splits, always. So in Loup's case, pretty well any RH batter with a pulse is dangerous. But once again, Loup faced almost twice as many RH batters as LH batters. All this while Brett Cecil - who actually had a reverse platoon split this season - was being protected from facing RH batters. Again. As usual, LH batters were helpless against Loup's sidewinding stuff. Which leaves the other guys, the ones who have beat up on him in the past. This year,  Loup seems to have decided that discretion really is the better part of valour. He pitched to RH batters as carefully as he possibly could, circumstances permitting, just trying to avoid Real Trouble. They didn't hit him as hard as in the past, although he issued a ton of walks to them in the process (roughly 5.84 BB/p vs RH batters, roughly 2.49 vs LH batters.)  Probably a wise trade-off, all things considered. Interestingly, Loup, even more than Cecil, was Gibbons' go-to choice in the middle of an inning with men on base. That's surprising at first glance - you'd think Brett Cecil, a pitcher much more likely to get you a strikeout, would be the preferred option. But until Sanchez showed up in August, it was actually Aaron Loup who was the hardest pitcher on the staff to get a hit against (.207 BAVG against.) There were runners on base in 41 of Loup's 71 appearances - no AL reliever had to deal with as many inherited baserunners as Loup - and he did just as well as Cecil when it came to stranding them. The Jays bullpen allowed 28% of inherited runners to score, which is exactly the league average: Loup (23%) and Cecil (24%) were both a little better than that (the guys who were really good were McGowan and Delabar; the guys who were really bad were Redmond and Santos.) Loup is a little slow to home, which makes him fairly easy to run on - but he does have a helluva move to first, though. He picked off another runner this year, and now has 9 pickoffs in just 165 career IP. That's 1 pickoff every 18 IP, which while not quite Jerry Garvin level amazing is still extremely impressive.

J.A. Happ C
- Something doesn't quite add up.  It's as if all the pieces are there, but they don't fit together. He's certainly not bad as it is, and it's not like I was hoping for him to be an All-Star. I just think he ought to be a little better than this. Puzzles me. Well, if I knew what it was, I'd be a pitching coach, wouldn't I?

Drew Hutchison C-
- Still pretty green, still doesn't really know how to pitch. When his stuff is working, he can win, but that's true of most pitchers. When it isn't - and for most pitchers, this happens just as often - he doesn't really know what to do about it. Why would he? He's barely cracked 500 professional innings. He couldn't hold a baserunner if you gave him a lasso.  Like most young pitchers, Hutchison generally pitches as if he thinks the job consists entirely of making good pitches. Which is certainly important, but it's still only part of what's required. I really wish he'd had a chance to learn some of the lessons of his trade in the minor leagues, but that ship has long since sailed. Obviously, he's still becoming whatever he's going to be. Your guess is as good as anyone else's. Fun fact - Hutchison allowed 92 runs in 2014 and every single one of them was charged as an earned run. No pitcher in the majors pitched as many innings without allowing an unearned run (Hisashi Iwakuma was next); no pitcher in the majors allowed as many runs without allowing an unearned run (Mike Minor was next.) Stroman and Hutchison are both 23 year old RH pitchers (Hutchison is eight months older.) If you're having trouble telling them apart, Hutchison is the one who strikes out more batters and gives up fewer hits. Stroman's the guy who gives up fewer walks and fewer home runs. I'll let you decide which is better.

Dustin McGowan C-
- He was more effective coming out of the pen, because he was quite a bit harder to hit. He was still kind of mediocre, mostly because he had some trouble keeping the ball in the park.  As a reliever, he allowed 8 HRs in 43 IP, which led the bullpen, and not in a good way. But he was still okay. I think he would probably do better if he went into the season knowing that this is his role on the team and prepared himself accordingly. That hasn't been the Blue Jay Way for a long, long time (if there's one word I'd use to describe team management over the last two decades, that word might be flighty.)  Anyway, McGowan made it from April to September without hurting himself, which was good to see. Heaven knows he deserved it after his star-crossed history. McGowan is the anti-Buehrle in so many ways that it's practically spooky. It's got to be hard for two pitchers to be such perfect opposites.  One way Dustin expresses his anti-Buehrle-ness is by being just about the worst pitcher you will ever see at holding baserunners. At this point, it's just funny. I'd be tempted to try to steal against him, and I can't even run for the bus anymore. Are you wondering why? Well, besides not having a move to first base, or a useful slide step, he's extremely slow to home plate. McGowan's natural pitching motion begins with the rather slow and deliberate raising of his left leg. Which tells baserunners around the world that it's time to run. Marcus Stroman actually has a bigger leg lift, but Stroman is very quick with his (it reminds me a little of Stieb, actually.) The result is that no matter how much harder McGowan throws the ball - and he throws it much, much harder - Mark Buehrle will still get the ball to his catcher in literally half the time it takes McGowan. Which is why this past April it was a fairly big deal when McGowan picked Nick Markakis off first base, where he was then thrown out trying to make it to second. It was the first pick-off of McGowan's career.  It took him 416.1 IP to get one, but he's got one, and now it's Drew Hutchison with the most major league innings without a pickoff.

Colby Rasmus C-
- By far the most significant thing that happened to Colby was very simple, something which had been foreseen by one and all. His luck changed. Rasmus was exceptionally lucky on his Balls in Play in 2013; this year, his luck simply returned to normal. That's all. Along the way, he suffered his annual injury, didn't have a particularly good year in the outfield, and rubbed his manager the wrong way. Not the trifecta he was hoping for. So - see ya round, Colby.  Rasmus never became the star many thought he'd become. He never even became Lloyd Moseby, which is closer to what I was hoping for. He never developed from where he was when he made it to the big leagues. In the end, all the strikeouts simply swallow up too much of his offense. He has some power and some plate discipline, but he certainly doesn't have the kind of power and plate discipline that's required to make up for striking out in a third of his plate appearances. If his defense really has slipped to the point where he's no longer a viable centre fielder, hard times will be coming. I don't know if there's enough dependable offense in his bat for him to make it in an outfield corner. Which will be a shame, because I've come to find him quite appealing. Most great players are driven - some of them by furies, some of them simply  by the need to be great. That ain't our Colby, who'd rather just try to have a little fun playing ball, and that's probably why he makes his managers crazy. Incidentally, Liam swears that Rasmus has become by far the best baserunner on the team, despite being a guy with just above-average speed at best. That would make him kind of the current version of Eric Hinske, who was a wonderful baserunner for a guy with very ordinary wheels. It's true that Rasmus almost never makes outs on the bases anymore, although this year it was mostly because for the most part he stopped trying to take the extra base.

Casey Janssen D+
- If things didn't end badly, they wouldn't end at all. As everyone knows, Janssen pitched brilliantly in the first half of the season: (3-0, 1.23 14 SV. ) He hadn't walked a single hitter - not one - since walking the very first man he faced in his season debut back in early May. He had yet to allow a home run. After that kind of first half, it took a remarkable non-performance to drag his season down to this level. A six-week stretch when Janssen went 0-3, 8.47 with the opposition hitting .351/.395/.595 did the trick. You see, Casey took a little trip to the Dominican sometime during the All-Star Break, which ran from July 14-17 this year. Whatever happened -  a virus, food poisoning - Janssen lost 7 pounds in 10 hours. He spent almost two days being fed by an IV. He was too weak to pitch that Saturday (July 19), so Aaron Loup closed the game. But Janssen took the mound on Sunday, and pitched in five of the next eight games. And man - wouldn't you like a do-over on that last part? Don't you wish they'd put him on the DL for two weeks and said "Maybe you feel okay now, but you still need to rest and get your strength back." The player always wants to get back on the field, always, and sometimes it's in everyone's best interests to not allow that to happen.  Ah, hindsight! Where everything is so clear!

Munenori Kawasaki D+
- Kawasaki was born about 100 years too late. He would have been a wonderful player early in the 20th century. His Japanese record always suggested he was a much better hitter than his major league record had shown, and 2014 was when he finally began to figure out what he needs to do against major league pitching. This is who he was all along; what he did with the bat this year is much closer to what he was always capable of. But it's far too late, of course. He's 33 years old now, and he's clearly well on his way down the wrong side of the hill.  He's been a useful guy at the end of the bench, and he's lots of fun to have around, of course. He really shouldn't be anyone's starting second baseman at this point in his career - five years ago, sure - and the fact that he turned out to be the team's best option for most of this season is a little troubling. I kind of hope he's back, if only because his very existence seems to drive Jeff Blair absolutely crazy, and an irritated Jeff Blair is immensely entertaining.

Danny Valencia D+
- Back in August 2008, the Blue Jays decided that their injury-prone third baseman needed a regular caddy. So they swapped a minor leaguer to Pittsburgh for Jose Bautista, who had once been a regular but had fallen out of favour. That worked out pretty well. The acquisition of Valencia - once a regular, but someone who had fallen out of the lineup - was made for the same general purpose (once again, the Jays have an injury-prone third baseman.) It's still early days (hey, Bautista did nothing special for an entire year after coming to Toronto) but this deal is unlikely to prove quite so wonderful. Valencia is a bit more of a specialist than your modern bench player (see Steve Tolleson comment below.) He plays just one position (sure, they used him at first base some, but this team thinks anyone can play first and they don't actually need Valencia there.) However, back-up third baseman really is a genuinely important roster spot for the Blue Jays, more than it is for the other teams. Valencia didn't hit as well for the Blue Jays as his career record would lead you to expect - but he is a real, honest-to-goodness third basemen (unlike the other pretenders who filled in for Lawrie), and the team should be able to find some other uses for him during those periods when Lawrie is actually in the lineup. Obviously, it would sure help if he could remember whatever it was he was doing against RH pitching in his rookie year.

Juan Francisco D+
- Curious. John Gibbons did everything short of lighting his own hair on fire to indicate to the world, to his GM, and to Juan Francisco himself that he, John Gibbons, no longer had any use whatsoever for Juan Francisco on his baseball team. And yet, Francisco remained, his considerable girth taking up a considerable chunk of space on the bench. What was that all about? In May, Francisco hit .477 when he put the ball in play, which made him very useful indeed for that moment in time. But regression to the mean is a cruel, cruel mistress. Over the course of the season as a whole, Francisco struck out 116 times in just 287 at bats, which leads us into another dimension altogether, between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. One where Colby Rasmus and J.P. Arencibia are going "Dude - you need to make some contact once in a while."

Josh Thole D+
- Should have played more than he did. As I said, I think Navarro began to wear down, and Thole was a perfectly serviceable backup this season. I assume Gibbons was so utterly traumatized by Thole's brutal work in 2013 that he simply couldn't bear to write his name in the lineup. Hey, we can all sympathize. We saw it too. Thole started all of Dickey's games, but just 7 other times.

Rob Rasmussen D+
- A little LH, who had a fine year in AAA and acquitted himself rather nicely in his limited opportunity in the majors. I'm not sure what they didn't like about him, besides his height. Couldn't even get a September call-up.

Neil Wagner D+
- Pitched well enough in April (3.12 ERA in 9 appearances), but was sent to the minors anyway because... well, who knows? Maybe they wanted to show his agent who was boss.  Wagner came back a couple of weeks later and got shelled in one meaningless mop-up appearance (6 ER at the end of a 15-4 loss to Cleveland.) He was immediately sent back to the minors and never heard from again. He hurt himself, had TJ surgery, was released in September, and promptly signed with Tampa Bay.

Kevin Pillar D+
- Still trying to turn into the next Reed Johnson (more speed, less pop), which would make him downright useful besides being fun to watch. The jury is still out on whether he'll hit enough. I can't see it, myself. A guy with his power and plate discipline (not much of either) needs to be a .300 hitter in order to be a useful offensive part.  Pillar was able to do that in the minors. But in the majors, he's had too much trouble making contact to give himself a chance. He's striking out in 1 of 4 major league plate appearances - against both LH and RH pitchers - which is roughly twice as often as he struck out in the minors.  The deities of BABiP may let you get away with that for a while, but not forever. Pillar (and Gose) represent a trait in young contemporary hitters that utterly baffles me, so I'm going to get on my old fogey horse and vent for a moment. Pillar, you may have noticed, has no power.  Yet for some reason he (and Gose, and every other young hitter that comes along) grips the bat right down at the end and swings hard at the ball. What the hell for? So he can hit 10 HRs instead of 5? Whoop-dee-dam-doo. Sooner or later, some little guy with good speed and no power is going to come along and do it right - he'll work the count, just try to make contact, and let the laws of BABiP work for him, as he dumps soft shots between the infield and the outfield. And if he's at the top of a lineup with some genuine big boppers coming up behind him, he'll score 150 runs. And when that happens - and it will - well then everyone will want a guy just like him, and then maybe some young hitters with similar skill sets will try to copy what he's done. But in the meantime, the memory of Brett Butler (was Butler really the last of this type of player, or just the last one who comes to my mind?) grows colder and colder....

Anthony Gose D
- As a hitter, he's rather similar to Kawasaki at this moment - Gose's OBP/Slug was .311/.293; Kawasaki's was .327/.296-  he's just not as good. Kawasaki's singles are more useful than Gose's stolen bases. Gose is nine years younger, of course, and still has time to develop into more than this. I've long believed he would be a late, slow bloomer and I still think he'll be worth the wait. But the waiting is the hardest part. He may still be years away from being a good everyday player. I can see it taking him until he's 26 or 27 before it happens. Devon White has always been the player Gose is compared to, and White was a late bloomer himself - through age 27 White had hit .247/.295/.389 in 612 major league games, and had been traded away by his disappointed original organization. But at the moment, Gose still doesn't know how to put all his athleticism to use as a baseball player. I don't know how it's possible that Jose Bautista is more likely to take an extra base than Anthony Gose. But possible or not, it's true.

Dalton Pompey D
- It's as if Anthony Gose and Kevin Pillar were negotiating their way through a tight auto race, trying to keep pace with the other guy - and then this sleek, gorgeous machine just zoomed right past them, leaving them peering through the dust and muttering "What the hell was that?"  Pompey is a very exciting young talent - and partially because he is so young, his game hasn't yet shown us the evident holes that Pillar and Gose have revealed for all to see. I wouldn't want to count on him being the guy to take over in centre field next spring. He's still got fewer than 200 ABs above A ball. But it sure looks like he took a Big Step forward this year. I can't really grade him higher than this on 9-39 in 17 September games... but like everyone else, I really, really like what I've seen so far.

Ryan Goins D
- Good glove, no hit. Really, really, really good glove. But the bat, I'm sorry to say, is simply unplayable. Would an AL team really decide that they can afford to go without the DH and let the pitcher hit? I don't think so, and that's what playing Goins amounts to. He's Madison Bumgarner without the power, and he's certainly not as good a hitter as Mike Leake or Travis Wood.

Steve Tolleson D
- You thought Valencia had trouble with RH pitchers? Tolleson makes Valencia look like Miguel Cabrera. Guys like this, who can do pretty much everything, but don't do anything particularly well, aren't really my cup of tea. I always liked guys on the bench who did something really well. They're on the bench because they're not complete players, but you have them around to make use of that one thing that they can do. But that approach was probably best suited to the larger benches of the Days of Yore. It may be that the tiny bench of the modern game makes a multi-purpose mediocrity like Tolleson a more serviceable commodity.

Brandon Morrow D
- Sometimes, when you see him working short relief, with his fastball hitting 97 and 98, it's hard not to think - hey! He can do this! Maybe he can even stay healthy pitching just one inning at a time. The Blue Jays are thinking the same thing, but it's not going to happen. The Blue Jays are also looking forward, with almost unseemly eagerness,  to buying out his option, and Morrow still wants to start. If he doesn't think there's a real chance for him to do that in Toronto, he will find someone who's willing to give him a chance. I think that's the right thing for him. Morrow's fastball velocity has always looked impressive, but AL hitters haven't always been that impressed. Mere velocity simply isn't enough. Major league hitters can catch up with velocity, and Morrow's fastball doesn't actually do much of anything. So he needs to pitch to be effective - he needs to be able to mix the fastball with his other pitches - which is not something most pitchers are really able to do working in one inning spots. It's worth noting that while injuries have indeed destroyed Morrow's last two seasons, and took a sizeable chunk out of the one before that, he hasn't had any shoulder or elbow problems. Just a lot of misfortune. It's been an oblique muscle, a nerve in the forearm, and a finger that have put him on the shelf. He could easily be an upgrade on both Happ and Hutchison at the very least. I would definitely pick up his option, but I realize there's absolutely no way this organization is going to spend $10 million on the possibility. I mentioned the $450 million second quarter profit, right? Did I mention that the corporation was disappointed by that?
 
Steve Delabar D
- He's always had trouble throwing strikes - that's just who he is, you have to live with it - but it got totally out of hand early this season. They sent him to Buffalo to sort out his problems, and while he made a little progress, it wasn't enough to earn a trip back.  He should be in the running for a bullpen job next spring - there will be openings - but he's got to get the BB/9 below 5. If he does that, he's an effective pitcher. He'll always be on a short leash, of course. He's the type of pitcher who will drive his manager crazy - they hate those bases on balls with a fiery passion, every one of them. It's like a job requirement for managing a major league team.

Maicer Izturis D
- Last year, I suggested pretty strongly that he was probably washed up. In the first week of this year a few singles fell in, so he was carrying a decent enough .286 BAVG before season-ending knee surgery.  He's probably even more washed up now.

Eric Kratz D
- I assume he was only here because Gibbons went into the season terrified at the prospect of having Josh Thole as his only alternative in case Navarro went down for a day, or needed a rest.  Very little point to him being here otherwise.

Dan Johnson D
- Was making himself useful as a bat off the bench until he hurt himself. Curiously, his rehab program had the strange side effect of rendering him completely invisible to his manager, who seemed unaware that he was even on the team after he came back.

Nolan Reimold D-
- All he had to do, the one thing they brought him here to do, was be able to fill in for a couple of weeks in the field while Bautista eased his way back from a minor hurt. That's all. And he couldn't even stay healthy long enough to do that. If you can't play, it doesn't much matter how well you can play.

Jonathan Diaz D-
- He might be an even better defender than Goins. And an even worse hitter.

Esmil Rogers E
- I thought they gave up on him pretty quick, but in all fairness he was pretty terrible.

Darin Mastroianni E
- He's surely not this bad a player. But he managed to make 31 outs with 32 plate appearances, which is worse than useless.  It's downright harmful.

Moises Sierra E
 - Also not nearly as bad as he looked here, as he went on to demonstrate with the White Sox. But while he was here, he was even worse than Mastroianni. Made 34 outs with 35 plate appearances.

Sergio Santos F
- Yikes. It's got to be unusual for a pitcher to be a Three True Outcomes player, but almost half of the plate appearances with Santos on the mound resulted in a strikeout, a walk, or a homer. And almost half of the rest resulted in base hits.  Gruesome.
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John Northey - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 09:11 AM EDT (#294068) #
With the Jays 2014 season in the books now what do we see?
83 wins - same as in 2007 and 2000. 2 fewer than 2010, 3 less than 2008/2003, 4 less than 2006, 5 less than 1998.  So the 6th best year since 1993.
55 players - most in Blue Jays history with 4 other years in the 50's - 3 AA years plus 1999 (skipping his first year 2010). Think AA likes to rotate the team around a bit too much?
27 pitchers - 2nd fewest in the AA era (2010 was lower), more than any time in Jays history pre-AA.
29,2 - average age of the team, 29.6 for pitchers but a bit misleading given the number of high talent kids on the mound, upped by guys like Dickey & Buehrle.
13 back of the O's - just once since 1993 have the Jays been within 10 of 1st at seasons end - 2000 when they were just 4 1/2 out with a negative run difference and the same win total as this year.  Gord Ash did everything he could that summer, trading Michael Young for Esteban Loaiza, Brent Abernathy for Mark Guthrie and Steve Trachsel, Peter Munro for Dave Martinez, John Sneed for Rob Ducey who was flipped a week later for Mickey Morandini. What killed them though was second base (Homer Bush 33 OPS+ in 325 PA, Craig Grebeck 94 OPS+ in 270 PA, Morandini 58 OPS+ in 116 PA).  What is weird is Grebeck was healthy most of the season yet Bush & Morandini played ahead of him.  It didn't help that this was the year both Chris Carpenter (6.26 ERA 81 ERA+) and Roy Halladay (10.64 ERA 48 ERA+) decided to have by far their worst healthy seasons.  If either of them had a typical year for themselves the Jays might have made it (Carp about 2-3 wins off what would've been expected, Halladay 5+ wins off his norm in this his only negative WAR year).

Wow, every time I look back at 2000 I see such a missed opportunity but wonder what Ash could've done different to get those 5 more wins.

For 2014 checking BR you see a 100+ OPS+ for the regulars at all but 2B (Kawasaki) with Lawrie the top backup with a 101 OPS+.  You know troubles will occur when your top 3 at 2B are Kawasaki, Goins, and Tolleson.  All 3 nice backups but not regulars.
Mike Green - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 09:12 AM EDT (#294069) #
I agree with much of this fine piece, Magpie, but this one really caught my eye:

Pillar, you may have noticed, has no power.

Are we watching the same guy?  Maybe you are seeing a ballplayer who I have never heard of named Anton Pillar (go look him up on wikipedia if you've never heard of him!).  Look, there's a power scale with Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle at 100 and Duane Kuiper and Munenori Kawasaki at 1.  Anthony Gose is about at 25.  Right now, Pillar is somewhere between a 40 and a 55.  He's got more sock than Melky Cabrera. He's got quite a few things to work on as a hitter, but he's come a long way over the last year.  He is obviously a lot stronger.  I do agree that it is unclear whether he can be an everyday leftfielder.  I think he can. 

One additional comment about Anthopoulos.  Last year, he said the really stupid thing about acquiring two starters to fill out the rotation.  This year, his blooper was to say that he anticipates Sanchez will be in the rotation at the start of the year and will be a front-end starter.  There is absolutely no reason to create expectations like that.

And one other comment about Gibbons.  The notion that players will play for him isn't what I saw this year.  He had quite a few players who demonstrably were not at their best, despite the shining examples of Bautista, Encarnacion, Buehrle and Stroman (giving Chad Jenkins the same grade as Stroman is, um, unusual). 




Mike Green - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 09:26 AM EDT (#294070) #
If you're having trouble telling them apart, Hutchison is the one who strikes out more batters and gives up fewer hits. Stroman's the guy who gives up fewer walks and fewer home runs. I'll let you decide which is better.

Hutchison definitely has to avoid the walks. He's also got to figure out a better way of pitching with runners on.  Maybe it's as simple as conceding the stolen base to the fast baserunner and focusing instead on retiring the batter. He talks to Buehrle a lot, but I can't imagine what he could learn from Buehrle.  They are pretty much polar opposites in skill set, and what works for Buehrle is not likely to work for Hutchison.
John Northey - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 09:46 AM EDT (#294071) #
Funny thing is how often pitchers can learn from polar opposites.  I remember in university a left handed control pitcher (he could throw a strike on command) teaching a right handed power pitcher who had no clue where the strike zone was how to be more effective (always funny seeing those two as they were very different in all respects but worked well together in baseball).  Pacing yourself, hitting your spots, and the mental part of the game are all areas Buehrle could teach all kids on the staff.  He'd get tons of respect too thanks to lasting so long and getting 200+ IP every year.

Btw, reading AA's comments it seems very unlikely he'll trade Buehrle.  I'm wondering if Happ will find himself in the pen if any kids earn a slot in the rotation.

85bluejay - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 09:58 AM EDT (#294072) #
I have to disagree with the grade given to ownership - cot's contracts list the jays 2014 payroll @ 137m against 84m in 2012 - that's a significant increase & many teams have won with much less including Baltimore & Tampa - the fact is that AA spent that increase poorly - most posters agreed that the Marlins way overpaid Jose Reyes & Mark Buehrle, but magically many of these same posters were in love with those deals when the Jays got the back end of those deals while also giving up legitimate prospects - seeing the results of such a significant payroll boost, if I were in Rogers management I would be reluctant to give AA any more money - I would tell him to either move payroll to create flexibility or come to management on a case by case basis (of course as a fan, I would want rogers to give all kinds of payroll increase) - Also, at the trade deadline with the exception of the Brandon McCarthy deal I wasn't in favour of other moves involving giving up quality young talent especially I was against taking Martin Prado's contract.

I would give Gibbons a "D" & am disappointed he's returning - After the All-Star break, he couldn't get the team to overachieve & overcome injuries - he's just an okay manager and certainly not a leader- despite the terrible August, a good September, when every team ahead of them in the wild card race was backpedalling, would have resulted in a wild card spot - the team just didn't seem to play for him - I felt he completely banished Rasmus & Francisco too early & that seemed to indicate that the team was thinking about next year way too soon.
hypobole - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 10:17 AM EDT (#294073) #
One big problem with Hutch (and Happ as well, though to a lesser extent) was their fly ball tendency.

You had a guy in left with nothing defensively that could be described as a skill, a guy in centre who could get to, and misplay, more warning track balls than any centre fielder I can recall, and a guy in right who could be counted on to catch anything he could get to, but who's foot speed has slowed to a point where a lot more balls are sailing past him than before.

The CF issue is pretty well resolved. but as much as I'd like Melky to be back in the 2 hole, unless a spot opens up at 1st base/DH for either him or Jose, having Melky sign elsewhere would be best.
AWeb - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 10:39 AM EDT (#294074) #
Since you knocked other guys down a grade for health, I'm not sure how Lawrie doesn't get a D or F - he was barely around, and wasn't all that good when he was.

Happ reminds me of Al Leiter, Toronto version, but he had his first big year at age 29. Happ's ERA+ has improved three straight years, but so slowly, no one will ever notice.

I'd give McGowan a D - stopped striking people out, walks too many, homer prone. Pretty terrible year, really.

Mike Green - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 10:42 AM EDT (#294075) #
Hutchison's BABIP this year was .293.  His HR/FB rate was 9.7%.  Having a better outfield defence would definitely help him, but the main thing for him is improving his performance with runners on base. 

Striking out 9 and walking 3 per 9IP is usually a good base for a pitcher to succeed.  Fergie Jenkins' age 23 season was a lot like Hutch's.  Thieves were 18-1 stealing bases against Jenkins, but he still performed better with runners on than with no one on base.  That is what Hutch most needs to learn. 

bpoz - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 10:49 AM EDT (#294076) #
Thanks Magpie. I really enjoyed reading this.
I am still basically confused about this season.
Janssen seemed to be the key to the pen's success. If he does not get sick during the AS break, I think we may make it.
The other thing is that the offense had stretches of being bad, it seemed to me, in that you could not really expect to win. But I will have to look at details to be sure of this conclusion.
Mike Green - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 10:57 AM EDT (#294077) #
Lawrie a D or an F?  He didn't perform anywhere near where he can, but when he was in the lineup, he added an awful lot- miles more than Rasmus and a lot more than Reyes.  Actually about as much as Encarnacion in half as much playing time.  I don't know what half an A- is, but a C+ is within the range.
Dave Till - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 11:12 AM EDT (#294079) #
I didn't realize that so few teams had corporate owners. I guess there are a lot of American billionaires who want a sports team to play with.

When a corporation owns a team, the conflict between baseball as business and baseball as sport becomes most pronounced. Corporate management is normally expected to maximize profits, and baseball fans expect their team's ownership to maximize wins. It is unfortunate that, as the game is presently structured, profit can be successfully placed ahead of pennants. I suspect that Rogers is more interested in gaining TV or Internet market share, or in leveraging brand synergies, than in bringing a pennant home to Toronto at long last.

Worse still, I think that Rogers is more interested in improving the game experience for the casual fan than they are in spending money to build a winner. If they provide bobbleheads or other prizes at opportune moments, run entertaining contests, and play the right music on their in-sound system, high-school students looking for a night out, or a hard-working family looking for a daily outing, will keep considering the Blue Jays as an entertainment option. The Leafs have conclusively proven that Toronto sports teams can draw well without ever winning.

The last two years have been the hardest for me as a Jays fan. I don't think, now, that the situation is likely to ever change. (As Cathal Kelly put it in today's column: the Jays will never sign an expensive free agent ever again.) I'm getting discouraged in a way that I've never been in over 30 years of following the club.

Having said all that: I'd rate Rogers as an E, not an F. To earn an F, ownership has to be either engaged in active asset stripping or extortion of the city in which they live, or have to be actively and adversely meddling in baseball decisions. Rogers is doing neither of these things.
Dave Till - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 11:18 AM EDT (#294080) #
P.S. Great season summary. I really enjoyed reading this.
christaylor - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 11:22 AM EDT (#294081) #
Do Reyes, Buehrle come to Toronto if offered their exact contracts by the Blue Jays when they were in FA?

I'm inclined to say, "No." If the Marlin's overpaid, I'd hazard to guess that the Jays would have had to over-pay even more. Toronto has a lot working against it as a free agent destination, one factor working against Toronto relative to FL -- a lack of state taxes.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/11/14/traded-marlins-players-will-take-2-million-tax-hit-in-canada/
Mike Green - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 11:30 AM EDT (#294082) #
a hard-working family

Dave, can you please find some other phrase for that?  Every time Andrea Horwath uttered those words on the campaign trail, my blood pressure rose to dangerous levels- nothing frustrates me more than treating citizens as groups to be marketed to.

Your point is well-taken.  Rogers makes money on the Blue Jays even if they are mediocre.  The one caveat I suppose is that Rogers at some point may find itself under some threat from Netflix or Google or some other provider of this type.  You'd think that the incentive to create a brand based on top quality, as Turner did with the Braves, would be high.  There is however no sign of it here.  Alex Anthopoulos may be many things, but the second coming of John Schuerholz is not one of them.
Dave Till - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 11:37 AM EDT (#294083) #
Point taken, Mike. Peace.
Gerry - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 12:08 PM EDT (#294085) #
Great read Magpie, I really enjoyed it.

I am pretty much in agreement with your analysis, although I did think your grades were a little harsh on Pillar and Hutchison.

In your Pillar comment you said "sooner or later some little guy with good speed and no power will come along....and dink the ball between the infield and outfield". I immediately thought "Kawasaki".
bpoz - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 12:32 PM EDT (#294087) #
I really like the comments in this report.
Very interesting about Pillar hitting soft singles into holes to improve his BA. Manny Lee?
Hutch: I like what I saw about him this year and am very confident that he will get better. He had a great to good enough year for me, considering his inexperience and TJ surgery. He also never made excuses as far as I could tell.
He was clearly inconsistent to me. Why?
He is a young pitcher.
TJ had it's effect.
184.2 IP, 32 Starts, 100+ pitches in 13 games. This is very good durability.
I really like this guy.
greenfrog - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 12:37 PM EDT (#294088) #
Good read. Thanks, Magpie.

Rogers doesn't seem to be a great owner, but it hasn't been horrible. The Jays did have a reasonably competitive payroll in 2013 and 2014. The front office hasn't been all that efficient in converting that payroll into on-field value, in part because of a dearth of quality young (read: cheap) positional talent.

Also, I think Kelly is too pessimistic about 2015. There is some solid prospect talent in the organization, some of it apparently ready to contribute next year. And a lot of the major free agents he wishes the Jays would compete for turn into busts. Lots of people were upset that the Jays missed out on Prince Fielder. We don't hear much about that lost opportunity anymore.
John Northey - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 12:59 PM EDT (#294089) #
A fun thread to think about the season on.  So, lets think about 2015...
CA: Navarro/Thole is a lock, unless Dickey is traded.  They don't hurt or help much. Wonder if Kottaras will stick around as #3 or if Jimenez will take that role over.
1B: Encarnacion - lets assume he is here rather than DH, 150 OPS+ and $10 mil a year for 2015/2016. Sweet.
2B: err...uhmm... lets hope someone new.  Goins/Kawasaki/Tolleson decent backups, Lawrie was OK but -1.4 UZR/150 at 2B vs +14.6 at 3B suggests he should stay at 3B
3B: Lawrie, see above. Also need a solid backup, which Valencia could be I think. Francisco looked good for Apr-Jul but Aug/Sept killed that off.
SS: Reyes, various backups. Not perfect on defense but solid offense. Very expensive, but you won't get better right now
LF: Pompey/Mayberry - that is what it is right now at least
CF: Gose/Pillar - most likely for the start of 2015 with Pompey taking over at some point if another choice is found for LF. Both have potential and you hope they reach it here but who knows
RF: Bautista. $14 mil each of next 2 years and a bargain at that.
DH: Lind - might be traded if someone is interested so Cabrera could be resigned and moved here, otherwise likely to platoon with Mayberry
UT: Valencia, Goins, Kawasaki, Tolleson, etc.  Lots of choices, none are 'wow' but it is rare a bench guy is a 'wow' (thus why they are bench guys).

Hopefully Cabrera is resigned.  Odd are he'd be back in LF with Lind/Mayberry DH and Gose/Pillar in CF to start and Pompey taking over mid-season.

#1 priority has to be 2B.  It is a gaping hole and Valencia can back it up but I don't see him or any other internal option as ideal.  C'mon AA, lets see another rabbit!
John Northey - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 01:19 PM EDT (#294090) #
An interesting thought... can we make a team of guys we wanted here but aren't?
CA: McCann - 93 OPS+, makes $17 mil a year though 2018
1B: Fielder - 104 OPS+ in just 42 games
2B: Utley - 109 OPS+, yeah still would like him
3B: Chase Headley - 118 OPS+ for Yankees, many mad AA didn't get him, would've been a big help in August
SS: Escobar - 91 OPS+ and negative fielding by most measures after a great year last year
LF: Yoenis Cespedes - 110 OPS+ for A's/Red Sox, was a free agent anyone could've had for 2012
CF: Travis Snider - 118 OPS+ in 359 PA (140 games) - could he finally be the guy we all hoped for?
RF: Yasiel Puig - 145 OPS+ and hated by the media for attitude. Same as Cespedes, Jays could've had him for a reasonable price (it turns out)
DH: Carlos Beltran - many hoped he'd come, 97 OPS+ in 109 games suggest it might not have helped

SP: Yu Darvish 22 starts, 128 ERA+
SP: Scott Kazmir 105 ERA+ in 32 starts
SP: Jeff Samardzija 126 ERA+ in 33 starts but might have cost Sanchez and Stroman
SP: Ervin Santana: 31 starts 91 ERA+, dropped a lot after a hot start
SP: Ubaldo Jimenez: 22 starts, 79 ERA+ - ick

So a few who would've been nice, the nicest being very expensive in dollars (Darvish) or prospects (Samardzija).
Gerry - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 01:23 PM EDT (#294091) #
Melky Cabrera poll added, vote away.
Oceanbound - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 01:32 PM EDT (#294092) #
Sooner or later, some little guy with good speed and no power is going to come along and do it right - he'll work the count, just try to make contact, and let the laws of BABiP work for him, as he dumps soft shots between the infield and the outfield.

Pretty sure you're describing Jose Altuve
Dave Till - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 01:58 PM EDT (#294093) #
Two more thoughts:

- During the last few years, the Jays' farm system hasn't produced much talent. Before this year, Travis Snider, Henderson Alvarez and J.P. Arencibia were about it. (Lawrie and Gose were imports from other farm systems.) This is a legacy from J.P. Ricciardi - it takes about four years for a farm system to repopulate itself, and the Jays' system is just returning to life now.

- The Jays might have it bad, but the Yankees are worse off. Much worse off. The Yankees' lineup is geriatric, and I don't think they have anything coming up through the farm system. Their entire business model was based on outspending other teams for prime free agents - especially free agent pitchers. But other teams have a lot of money to spend now too. (The Yankees of old would never have been outbid for Robinson Cano. They would have re-signed Cano and poached King Felix along with him.) And, to top it all off, Derek Jeter, Yankee Icon, is no more.

To make things worse, the Alex Rodriguez Show will return in 2015. (Is he still suing the players' union?) Unless the Yankees spend a zillion dollars, they're in deep trouble. And the Red Sox aren't much better off.
Mike Green - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 02:10 PM EDT (#294095) #
To make things worse, the Alex Rodriguez Show will return in 2015. (Is he still suing the players' union?) Unless the Yankees spend a zillion dollars, they're in deep trouble. And the Red Sox aren't much better off.

The Red Sox definitely need some pitching, but they do have money to spend.  They do have quite a bit of young position player talent.  I wonder what they are going to do with Mookie Betts.  Castillo, Cespedes, Victorino and Nava are in the outfield.
PeteMoss - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 02:15 PM EDT (#294096) #
My concern with Rogers isn't the payroll level - it is fine. But you need a plan. I mean I suppose its possible that AA knew the bank was going to be locked and he saddled right up to the line and left the team with no flexibility. But more likely I believe that he thought there would be money available and then Rogers said no which puts the GM in a terrible situation.
bpoz - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 02:20 PM EDT (#294097) #
I just listened to part of what AA said on the FAN 590, Tim & Sid.
He has to be careful about what he says, so that he does not offend the owners or any players. I realize this and so whatever he says I consider as only part of his plan.
So he recognized the pen as not performing as well as expected. I am quite sure he said this.
I am not sure if he said the offense did well. Actually I do not know what he thinks of the offense. I did not understand.
Gerry - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 02:33 PM EDT (#294098) #
Bullpens, for unknown reasons, run hot and cold from year to year. In my 2014 prediction I assumed a down year for the bullpen.

On this basis we could assume some bounceback next year. The Jays do need to cover for some departures, Janssen, Santos, etc., but it's not the biggest job facing AA this winter.
85bluejay - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 03:05 PM EDT (#294099) #
If the Jays never sign another expensive FA, I would have no problem with that, most do not work out well - I prefer the Jays keep on the scouting/Drafting/developing path and use the money to keep quality players & acquire contracts of players having down years or teams moving contracts (e.g. Allen Craig) - Also, I'm in favour of moving a player a year too early rather than a year too late.

This offseason I would like the jays to move Jose Reyes both for the good of the team & Jose - With his Subpar defence likely to get worse, susceptibility to leg injuries playing on turf and salary - a divorce is positive for both sides - If they have the money to spend, I think the Mets would be a good landing spot - with Harvey coming back plus the emergence of DeGroom & Wheeler, Syndergaard is no longer central to the Mets future - say Reyes to the Mets for Syndergaard & Brandon Nimo? - The jays don't have to keep those prospects, they can trade them in other deals.
The Jays could target one of Arizona's young SS or sign Drew to 1 yr. pillow contract (Rogers Centre will help his OPS)

I would also move Lind (Seattle for Brandon Mauer?) & Mark Buehrle (NL)

I would also try to sign a veteran pitcher looking for a short term/pillow contract

Also, with Dee Gordon holding down 2nd, I wonder if the Dodgers would part with Cuban 2B prospect Alexander Guerrero (in a Buehrle deal)
dan gordon - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 04:03 PM EDT (#294100) #
I think Pillar is going to be a good major league player. Too much emphasis is being placed on his 1st 150 or so AB's in the majors in 2013 and 2014. He had only about 2.5 seasons in the minors when 1st called up in 2013. He moved very rapidly through the minors, and had a monster season this year in AAA, particularly when you look at what he did after an extremely poor start the 1st couple of weeks. He was probably pushed a bit too fast in 2013, so I'm willing to give him a Mulligan there. After being called up in August this year his mlb numbers were much better. He has been improving at a rapid pace every year, and is starting to show some power in addition to the speed and high batting average. I like Cabrera, and hope they sign him, but if they don't, I wouldn't mind having Pillar in LF, and using the money saved to bring in a high quality 2B. Factoring in defense, I don't think the drop off would be huge. I think Pompey is the guy for CF, maybe after a month or two in AAA, so Gose holds down the fort at the start of the season, maybe with bringing in a 4th OF who hits right who can play LF and move Pillar to CF against lefties, until Pompey is ready.

I don't think Rogers has been that bad an owner. The payroll is in the top 10 in the majors. Sure, there are better owners, but an "F"? I don't think that's right. There'd be an awful lot of F's around the majors if that's the standard.

It was disappointing the team didn't make the playoffs after being in first place by a fair margin, but on the other hand, this has been a tremendous development year for a lot of the young guys who could play important roles in the near future. Sanchez, Norris, Pompey and Stroman all took major steps ahead. Pillar had a great AAA season. Graveman came out of nowhere. Hutchison had a pretty good 1st full season after TJ, and showed flashed of becoming a very good starter. Many guys in the lower minors, like Barreto, had excellent seasons. I think there is a strong group of young talent already at or near the major league level here that bodes well for the future - alphabetically - Cecil, Graveman, Hutchison, Lawrie, Loup, Norris, Pillar, Pompey, Sanchez, Stroman; maybe Gose, although he's got to start showing some improvement in his hitting, maybe Nolin. Looking forward to seeing what they do in the offseason. Priority, to me, is getting somebody for 2B.
pooks137 - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 05:17 PM EDT (#294101) #
"The Jays might have it bad, but the Yankees are worse off. Much worse off. The Yankees' lineup is geriatric, and I don't think they have anything coming up through the farm system."

Dave, I feel like people have been forecasting the demise of the Yankees since the days of Giambi, Damon, Mussina, Clemens et al.

They obviously aren't the dynasty of old, but they still have remained competitive and over .500. They really haven't had any expected Red-Sox style collapses (although even that didn't work out, as even Boston won the dang World Series in between).

New York seems like the mythic Greek Hydra of yore, with each old, decrepit player being replaced by a fresh mercenary every year with reasonable success. Money can do wonderful things. Even the backloaded contracts of declining stars haven't really seemed to seriously hamper them in a meaningful way.
SK in NJ - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 05:21 PM EDT (#294102) #
I think any Reyes deal would be a salary dump or swap of equally bad contracts. I can't imagine the Mets would want Reyes at all at his current price tag, much less give up Syndergaard for him.

Nori Aoki is one free agent I hope Alex will go after. Probably wouldn't require a long-term deal given his age (33 next season), and has been a consistent high-OBP player (.353 lifetime) who can play multiple OF positions. I can't imagine it would take more than three years to sign him. I think that makes more sense for a financially strapped team than re-signing Melky does.

Sign Aoki and Drew (does he take another one year deal to increase his value?), and then focus on the pen.
Mike Green - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 05:22 PM EDT (#294103) #
True.  Odds are that the Orioles, Yankees, Rays and Red Sox will all be OK next year.  You've got to be better than OK.
Magpie - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 05:56 PM EDT (#294105) #
I just noticed that John Mayberry Jr made it to 30 ABs, which was my cutoff for position players. OK, John. You're a D. I can't believe there's a role for you on the 2015 team.

Right now, Pillar is somewhere between a 40 and a 55. He's got more sock than Melky Cabrera.

Pillar's hit 37 HRs in more than 1800 professional at bats, most of them in the minors, which doesn't suggest much more than a negligible level of sock to me. Cabrera's not a power hitter, but he's got more power than that.

giving Chad Jenkins the same grade as Stroman is, um, unusual

I know. Jenkins had an ERA+ of 154, Stroman's was 107. But I like short people, being one of them myself.

I have to disagree with the grade given to ownership

It was just an E for the longest time - every team but Toronto has made the playoffs since Rogers bought the team, I can't let that pass. And then I thought some more about the second quarter figures and I guess I just got angry... I admit it's a great and good thing we don't have to cope with Jeff Loria, though.

Since you knocked other guys down a grade for health, I'm not sure how Lawrie doesn't get a D or F

I think I'd have given him a B+ if he'd played the whole year at this level - about 25 HRs and excellent infield defense. Could have knocked him down further to C or C- I suppose, but I can't see lower than that.

James W - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 06:30 PM EDT (#294107) #
Finding a grade for Mills would have been a challenge.

I can only picture the old Simpsons clip: "Put it in H!"

JB21 - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 07:00 PM EDT (#294108) #
It's 4pm PST (7pm EST) and there's no Baseball on. Weird feeling.
ayjackson - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 07:04 PM EDT (#294109) #
Rogers does one thing for its baseball team, gives it a budget. This year, it was a pretty good one, so ownership should get a good grade.

PR, Communications, Planning/Strategy and all that other stuff lands on the desk of the President, Mr. Beeston.
greenfrog - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 07:29 PM EDT (#294110) #
One thing to keep in mind when excoriating Rogers for not spending more than $137m on the ML roster this year: even if the team had traded for (say) Headley and Miller at the deadline, they still would have missed the playoffs.

And Magpie, you should know better than to equate correlation with causation. Rogers didn't trade away Gomes, Dyson or Jeffress (or draft McGuire instead of, say, Chris Sale). Rogers supplies the cash; the front office decides what to do with it.
John Northey - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 08:08 PM EDT (#294112) #
The playoff situation is annoying but hard to see what can be done in some areas, namely the luck area.  The Jays have been double digits out of first place in all but one season since 1993.  That means in all but 2000 (4 1/2 out) they could've added Roy Halladay in his prime and still not won the division.  When JPR was hired the theory was 'moneyball' - to chase college kids in the draft and look for low priced quality elsewhere.  It didn't work as other clubs also were doing that thus it was a non-optimal plan (doing what others are doing is not likely to move you ahead).  Rogers gave him a big chunk of cash post 2005 and he used it on a closer (BJ Ryan), a starter (AJ Burnett), and a few hitters (Overbay, Glaus, Thomas).  It didn't work.  Why?  Lets check the 'luck' factor...

Pythagorean W-L vs reality...
2006: 87 wins, P 86, +1
2007: 83 wins, P 87 -3
2008: 86 wins, P 93 -7 (Gibbons fired, Gaston hired)
2009: 75 wins, P 84 -9 (JPR fired)
2010: 85 wins, P 84 +1 (Gaston let go)
2011: 81 wins, P 79 +2 (Farrell)
2012: 73 wins, P 74 -1
2013: 74 wins, P 77 -3 (Gibbons hired)
2014: 83 wins, P 85 -2

Look at that (#&*@( 2008.  The year the Rays came out of nowhere to win.  The Rays won 97 with a P of 92 - IE: the Jays should've been 1 game ahead of the Rays that year, instead the Rays went to the World Series.  Sigh.
Ron - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 08:09 PM EDT (#294113) #
Stroman for Betts, which teams says no first?

I wonder if Cherington is open to dealing Bradley Jr within the division? If I'm AA, he is the type of buy low player I'm interested in. While I don't think he will be a franchise player, I do see him as being a solid, young, cheap CF despite his 2014 nightmare season. Another buy low option might be Jason Kipnis. Lindor will be up sometime next season and they could slide Ramirez to 2B. If I was in charge of the Jays, I would have no problem flipping Sanchez for Kipnis but the Indians are deep in pitching.

If the Jays want to upgrade the roster without dipping into the FA market, I think Sanchez is the best trade chip to make this happen. While he looked great out of the bullpen, I'm still not a fan. The control is lacking and I feel like he will be exposed next season as a starter.
Mike Green - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 08:18 PM EDT (#294114) #
OK, Magpie.  Pillar has hit relatively few home runs over his minor league career.  He is now 25 years old.  He started hitting lots of doubles and triples at age 23.  This year in July and August, he hit 18 doubles and 8 home runs in under 200 at-bats in triple A.  You can check out the video and some of them are obvious screamers.  That home run that he hit against Rodney went 442 feet.  It was the longest homer of the week in MLB.  Cabrera's longest home run of the year went 421 feet. 

It really shouldn't be a shocker when a guy of Pillar's build and swing adds pop at age 25.  Cabrera himself was averaging about 8 home runs per year with an IsoP of about .110 through age 25 until he added more pop in KC. 
John Northey - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 08:29 PM EDT (#294115) #
I'd think the Red Sox say no.  Stroman had a great year but generally if you can trade a pitcher for a hitter you do it due to the fact many pitchers get badly hurt, far more than hitters.  Think back to the Marcum for Lawrie deal for a good example.  FYI: Marcum has made at least $15.7 mil in his 4 seasons since leaving after never making $1 mil in a season here while producing 3.3 WAR (almost all in his first year after leaving).   A reminder it is better to trade a year early than a year late.

Alex Obal - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 08:39 PM EDT (#294116) #
Pillar's hit 37 HRs in more than 1800 professional at bats, most of them in the minors, which doesn't suggest much more than a negligible level of sock to me.

Pillar's second-deck bomb off Fernando Rodney was a pretty loud statement, and he wouldn't be the first guy to see his home run totals increase in the majors, as he gets stronger and hits in more favorable parks.

This genius in 2008: "Tall shortstop ... Ben Zobrist has hit three homers in his very short stay in the majors. I would not be shocked to see his career high in homers turn out to be 3..." Hey, I was only off by 114 and counting. Zobrist had even less sock than Pillar in the minors - only 23 homers in 1647 minor-league PAs, and he was usually old for his league too.

Not that Pillar necessarily wouldn't be better off reinventing himself in the image of Ben Revere (or that Revere would not be even better than he is if he went full Brett Butler all the time, not just in two-strike counts)...
Richard S.S. - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 08:39 PM EDT (#294117) #
I don't like the Yankees. That said, the Baseball Players the Yankees usually acquire are the best available at that time, rich in talent and ability. By the time age conquers ability, their knowledge of how to play the game is extensive. Old doesn't mean ineffective, just not as effective. By the end of each year someone will no longer be a Yankee freeing up Salary. 2016 is the big year. Teixeira, Sabathia, Beltran and Prado have contract worth $73.0 MM end that year. So that's Toronto's window.
Mike Green - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 09:30 PM EDT (#294119) #
Butler had a different skill set, more like Youkilis and Pedroia, as a young player in the minors.  He walked almost twice as often as he struck out. 
Gerry - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 09:43 PM EDT (#294120) #

John Gibbons was on prime time sports today. McCown, who usually is plugged in to what is going on, started by asking Gibby about the clubhouse, how he hears that it's not a great clubhouse. Gibby answered that it wasn't a tight knit group and they need some fresh faces. They have tried it for a couple of years now and it hasn't worked. Some new blood would help.

Audio is at sportsnet.com.

greenfrog - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 11:20 PM EDT (#294121) #
I cancelled my Rogers cable and internet subscription not long ago. Not for any Jays-related reason, but it did feel good to move on. I'm also not disappointed that I chose not to attend any games this year. I've seen enough .500 baseball to sustain me for a while. I look forward to seeing a better product on the field - hopefully this happens next year.
1990Jays - Monday, September 29 2014 @ 11:24 PM EDT (#294122) #
I understand the ratings are subjective and all but my goodness.

A 22 year rookie that puts up a 3.17 xFIP in 132 innings only gets a B?

A just turned 24 year old coming off of TJS throws 185 innings with a 3.82 xFIP gets the same grade as the guy who put up a -0.2 WAR

Someone explain that to me, those are just a couple that stand out, there's others that are problematic as well
Alex Obal - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 01:56 AM EDT (#294123) #
I know there's 10,000 friggin words in the article, which is a lot and helps explain if not justify the implicit tl;dr in the comment above this one. But some of them probably touch on why Hutchison might underperform his peripherals, or how nobody is graded on a curve, or why McGowan might be a special exception anyway.
jerjapan - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 02:18 AM EDT (#294124) #
awesome post and great thread all-round.  I feel like I should re-read this before the start of next season so as to keep all the insight into each player fresh.  agreed fully on the grade for rogers - even if its not all their fault, we the fans deserve better and they can make that possible anytime they want to pony up.

I too feel the grades for Hutch and Stroman were a touch harsh, but aside from your love of Chad Jenkins, I see the logic in everything you wrote Magpie.  Or is he that magical creature that actually does pitch better in MLB than in the minors?

many posters mention that 2b is the priority, but i dont see it happening for us - there just aren't many good available options.  my preference is to go hard after zobrist - in his walk year at 7.5 million, he fits the budget.  kipnis is interesting - but who else?

im still guessing AA targets the pen for upgrades.  not my choice, but it fits rogers payroll parameters. 



1990Jays - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 03:22 AM EDT (#294125) #
And i intentionally ignored the Jenkins which is so self evidently ridiculous, there's not really a lot to debate
Magpie - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 04:28 AM EDT (#294126) #
The fact that someone underperformed their peripherals - hello, Drew - is an excellent indicator for 2015. Grounds for optimism!

But this is about 2014. No style points. Chad Jenkins got better results.
John Northey - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 09:08 AM EDT (#294132) #
An interesting interview with Jose Bautista at the Post.  He is very high on Pompey - "I’ll go out there and put this on the record and say that [Dalton] Pompey has had a great showing" then says it is due to his confidence, speed, other tools, low K, switch hitting.  He mentions Gose as "another guy that's in play" but no word on Pillar which is interesting.  High on Stroman and Sanchez (sees Sanchez starting) too.  Thinks AA might pull a rabbit out of his hat on the rotation too.  Likes Goins and sees 15-20 HR potential but wants Goins to stop striking out so much and feels Goins doesn't have a game plan when hitting it seems.  He assumes Melky won't return and thinks the Jays should've resigned him during the season to a long term deal.  Seems to doubt the Jays will pick up Lind's option too which is interesting.

It'll be interesting to see if AA is as high on Pompey as Bautista. 
Mike Green - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 09:17 AM EDT (#294133) #
But this is about 2014. No style points. Chad Jenkins got better results.

Even if you give Chad Jenkins full credit for his ERA (I don't agree, but it is reasonable), you do have to penalize him for getting hurt in the same way that you did for Lawrie.  31 innings of B level reliever performance is a C- or a D+.  I like Jenkins, and think that he should be in the bullpen to start 2015 in the Dennis Lamp role. 
John Northey - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 10:10 AM EDT (#294136) #
I see the 2015 pen as having a lot of ex-starters.  Cecil, Redmond, Jenkins, Sanchez (I suspect he'll be in the pen most of the year), McGowan if kept, Graveman (I see him as a reliever) plus pure reliever Loup.  Odds are a few filler guys will be signed to compete and maybe a high end reliever will be signed as well but not betting on it.  Still think it'd be a decent idea to get Papelbon out of Philly (owed $26 mil over 2 years if healthy, $13 next year only if hurt) and send them Romero to clear some of the salary plus send a prospect their way.  If we could pry Utley as well all the better as that'd solve 2B although he could be very expensive ($15 mil in 2015, $15 mil a year after that if 500 PA reached each year) and at 36 next year it could be a bit risky to take on that salary plus I suspect both have no-trade clauses (Philly is terrible for giving those out).

Still, the key is to fix 2B (or 3B if Lawrie goes to 2B) and figure out CF/LF.  The rotation is safe, the pen should be OK, CA/1B/SS/RF are set and DH is probably set (Lind/Mayberry) also.  I expect either Cabrera resigns or the Jays get someone new for LF while CF is a battle of the 3 kids.  I expect 2B to not be solved and we see Valencia/Izturis/Goins/Kawasaki/Francisco/Tolleson fight it out for a platoon setup of some kind (either at 3B or 2B).  Will that be enough?  It all depends on the pitching.  If Sanchez or Norris or Graveman earn a rotation role and Happ is in the pen I'll feel better about it.  I expect the rotation to be very good next year, it is 2B/LF/CF that is the big, big question mark.
bpoz - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 11:30 AM EDT (#294140) #
I like our pitching depth. Our 5 starters got 3 Bs & 2 Cs. They were healthy and pretty good. We also have talented close to ready youngsters in play.
Jenkins has options. That is probably the reason for some of the demotions. He was getting regular use in August, so maybe he was getting more respect. I agree with Magpie that he did not deserve those demotions, so who got called up, why and did it work.
Redmond, Jenkins & Graveman I think all have the same bullpen role. That of the long reliever. So in 2015 to get enough work to stay sharp I do not think they can all be in the pen at the same time. Graveman or Jenkins will have to go down and hopefully start rather than relieve. We will need about 8 starters next year, my guess, I can see us having some success with Graveman, Jenkins & S Nolin if they are stretched out.
JB21 - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 12:02 PM EDT (#294142) #
I'm also not disappointed that I chose not to attend any games this year.

I never really understood this. I mean, I guess I could see taking a stand against ownership in order to give them a wake up call in hopes to have some more money to spend but a) I don't see it working, and b) baseball is fun and so is attending a live baseball game with your friends/family.
greenfrog - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 12:36 PM EDT (#294145) #
It's a fair point. I've attended quite a few games over the last decade. I guess the mediocrity of the team, coupled with the high expectations of the last couple of years, has started to wear me down.
JB21 - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 01:13 PM EDT (#294146) #
Actually, that's one reason why I love going on road trips with friends to see other MLB parks. The stress-free environment of not having to really cheer for a team with the added bonus of outside baseball.
Eephus - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 01:57 PM EDT (#294147) #
Actually, that's one reason why I love going on road trips with friends to see other MLB parks. The stress-free environment of not having to really cheer for a team with the added bonus of outside baseball.

Absolutely. I was able to see a Yanks-Orioles game at Yankee Stadium last fall and the entire time I was cheering for whichever team was behind at the moment (See, I figured if it was a close enough game the Yankees would bring Rivera in to pitch.) Sure enough, the top of the 9th came around, New York was up by three and in came the Sandman himself to close it down.

It was one of the most thrilling baseball experiences of my life, seeing The Great Rivera in his final season notch yet another save in his Hall Of Fame belt, all while fifty thousand people give a standing ovation for the entire inning (myself included). It was one of those moments where you're not a fan of the Blue Jays or the Yankees or whatever: you're a fan of the game of baseball itself. To cheer Rivera was to cheer for that.

I always love the Report Cards. Something to look forward to at the end of the season, considering the frequent absence of Blue Jays baseball in October.    
Mike Green - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 02:11 PM EDT (#294148) #
Not much has been said about Kevin Seitzer and Pete Walker.  I like Seitzer very much (disciplined and sets the right tone), and think that he'd make an excellent manager.  He didn't have a great season from a developmental perspective- Goins and Gose stagnated, Brett Lawrie was a work-in-progress, Rasmus struggled and the rest were pretty much settled veterans. Nonetheless, his career record is good and I'd love for him to be around for Pillar and Pompey (and hopefully Dwight Smith and Franklin Barreto before too long). 

Pete Walker is a helluva nice guy, and has a damn fine jib or whatever.
eudaimon - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 02:55 PM EDT (#294149) #
It's hard to put any blame on Seitzer for Goins and Gose. Could anyone have reasonably expected them to play any better than they did? Rasmus I also expected to get a bit worse this season after getting a bit lucky last season. These guys are coaches, not miracle workers.
Ryan Day - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 03:08 PM EDT (#294150) #
There does seem to have been some decision for Gose to totally abandon hitting for any power. I don't know if that's achieved anything, since he's still terrible at making contact; at least before, he could hit a ball in the gaps every now and then.
Hodgie - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 03:26 PM EDT (#294151) #
One point potentially in Seitzer's favour, one has to go back to 2006 (5th) to find a Blue Jay team with a better OBP in relation to the rest of MLB than this season's team (6th). Between those seasons the team never managed to rank higher than 15th. Could be coincidence, could be a result of a better approach.
Parker - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 03:45 PM EDT (#294152) #
I wouldn't blame Seitzer for Rasmus either, as the only real difference between his 2013 and 2014 seasons is that his BABIP came back down to earth.

Seitzer and Walker both did solid work this year, in my opinion.
MatO - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 03:59 PM EDT (#294154) #
According to numerous reports, Anthony Alford has left Ole Miss to join the Blue Jays. I assume he's on his way to the instructional league. Could he play in the AFL?
John Northey - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 04:06 PM EDT (#294155) #
A good sign that Alford has figured out baseball is where he'll make his fortune, not football.  If he does succeed then that would be a big feather in AA's cap.  A 20 year old CF in A ball with top skills would be nice.  Interesting that he is 11-0 in SB-CS.  The K's are a big issue (31 in 110 PA, or a 169 pace over 600 PA) but 2015 will be key for him - if he progresses while playing everyday for a full season then things change fast.  If he flops then they change also but in a bad way.
Mike Green - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 04:35 PM EDT (#294156) #
For fun, I checked where Eric Davis was at age 20.  Strangely enough, he too was in the Midwest League.  He went .276/.354/.449 with 53 steals in 65 attempts and a 51/103 W/K in 434 at-bats.  He had dominated the Northwest League at age 19 after repeating the league.  He went on to star in the Eastern League at age 21.  Alford will be on an understandably slower path. 
Magpie - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 05:46 PM EDT (#294159) #
you do have to penalize him for getting hurt in the same way that you did for Lawrie.

Sure, but Jenkins missed three weeks, not three months.
uglyone - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 06:40 PM EDT (#294161) #
tough grade for hutch. all his peripherals say he was good, but unlucky. don't see how he can get the same grade as mcgowan, whose season was irredeemably bad.
Magpie - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 06:54 PM EDT (#294162) #
all his peripherals say he was good, but unlucky.

Sure, but there are no rewards for being unlucky. It's baseball - the unlucky are losers. Hutchison was a below average starting pitcher. McGowan was a better than average relief pitcher.
uglyone - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 09:08 PM EDT (#294165) #
(pace stats are laid out as 700pa for fulltime starters, 450pa for lefty platoon players, 250pa for righty platoon players, 150 for straight bench players)

RF Bautista 673pa, 6.3fwar, 6.0bwar, 6.2avg, 6.4avg/700pa ----- A+
DH En'cion 542pa, 3.6fwar, 3.6bwar, 3.6avg, 4.7avg/700pa ----- A-
3B Lawrie 282pa, 1.7fwar, 1.7bwar, 1.7avg, 4.2avg/700pa ----- C+
SS Reyes 655pa, 3.3fwar, 3.1bwar, 3.2avg, 3.4avg/700pa ----- C+
LF Cabrera 621pa, 2.6fwar, 3.1bwar, 2.9avg, 3.2avg/700pa ----- B
C Navarro 520pa, 2.0fwar, 2.3bwar, 2.2avg, 2.9avg/700pa ----- B+
1B Lind 318pa, 1.6fwar, 1.9bwar, 1.8avg, 2.5avg/450pa ----- C+
CF A.Gose 274pa, 1.3fwar, 0.5bwar, 0.9avg, 1.5avg/450pa ----- C
2B M.Kawasaki 274pa, 0.4fwar, 0.7bwar, 0.6avg, 0.9avg/450pa ----- D

IF D.Valencia 285pa, 0.5fwar, 0.3bwar, 0.4avg, 0.4avg/250pa ----- D
OF K.Pillar 122pa, 0.6fwar, 0.9bwar, 0.8avg, 1.5avg/250pa ----- B
IF S.Tolleson 189pa, 0.2fwar, 0.9bwar, 0.6avg, 0.7avg/250pa ----- C
C J.Thole 150pa, 0.0fwar, -0.5bwar, -0.3avg, -0.3avg/150pa ----- D

UT J.Francisco 320pa, 0.7fwar, 0.5bwar, 0.6avg, 0.3avg/150pa ----- D
OF C.Rasmus 376pa, 0.6fwar, 0.9bwar, 0.8avg, 0.9avg/450pa ----- D
IF M.Izturis 38pa, 0.2fwar, 0.2bwar, 0.2avg, 0.8avg/150pa ----- F
IF R.Goins 193pa, -0.6fwar, 0.1bwar, -0.3avg, -0.3avg/150pa ----- F



(SP paced over 32 starts, using only SP stats. RP paced over 70ip using only RP stats. * = guestimate).

SP M.Stroman 20gs, 3.2fwar, 2.2bwar*, 2.7avg, 4.3avg/32gs ----- A
SP M.Buehrle 32gs, 3.5fwar, 3.6bwar, 3.6avg, 3.6avg/32gs ----- A
SP R.Dickey 34gs, 2.1fwar, 2.5bwar, 2.3avg, 2.2avg/32gs ----- C+
SP D.Hutchison 32gs, 2.6fwar, 1.5bwar, 2.1avg, 2.1avg/32gs ----- B
SP J.A.Happ 26gs, 1.5fwar, 1.4bwar, 1.5avg, 1.8avg/32gs ----- C
SP B.Morrow 6gs, 0.3fwar, -0.3bwar*, 0.0avg, 0.0avg/32gs ----- F

RP A.Sanchez 33.0ip, 0.6fwar, 1.5bwar, 1.1avg, 2.2avg/70ip ----- A
RP B.Cecil 53.1ip, 1.2fwar, 1.4bwar, 1.3avg, 1.7avg/70ip ----- A
RP C.Jenkins 31.2ip, 0.2fwar, 0.7bwar, 0.5avg, 1.0avg/70ip ----- B
RP A.Loup 68.2ip, 0.5fwar, 1.2bwar, 0.9avg, 0.9avg/70ip ----- B
RP T.Redmond 75.0ip, 0.4fwar, 0.6bwar, 0.5avg, 0.5avg/70ip ----- B
RP D.McGowan 43.0ip, -0.3fwar, 0.7bwar*, 0.2avg, 0.3avg/70ip ----- D
RP C.Janssen 45.2ip, 0.1fwar, 0.1bwar, 0.1avg, 0.2avg/70ip ----- D
RP S.Delabar 25.2ip, -0.4fwar, -0.1bwar, -0.3avg, -0.7avg/70ip ----- F
RP S.Santos 21.0ip, -0.5fwar, -1.3bwar, -0.9avg, -3.0avg/70ip ----- F
1990Jays - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 09:26 PM EDT (#294166) #
that's an excellent methodology uglyone and there's nothing to disagree with there, i've enjoyed your posts all year BTW, don't post here a lot but always appreciate your insights.
Mike Green - Tuesday, September 30 2014 @ 09:29 PM EDT (#294167) #
Uglyone, those are pretty reasonable grades except for the relievers who are all too high by 1/2 a grade to a full grade.  It's a lot easier to throw 70 good relief innings than 180-200 starting innings. 
dan gordon - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 03:19 AM EDT (#294180) #
Thanks for the heads up on Alford. That's great news. I found an article that talks about the decision to give up football, and it paints a pretty dismal outlook for where he was at in the Ole Miss football program. He was the backup punt returner and had 2 returns for 8 yards. He was also a backup safety. They said they were having a tough time finding a position he could play, despite his natural athletic ability. Looking forward to seeing how he progresses as a ballplayer.
Jonny German - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 03:26 AM EDT (#294181) #
Dickey & Hutchison provide a nice illustration of the difference between his uglyone's approach (coulda-shoulda-woulda) and Magpie's (what actually happened).

Dickey threw 30 more innings than Hutchison with a better ERA and RA. But according to the theoretical stats, FIP and WAR, Hutchison pitched better.

Me, I don't think the theory is sufficiently advanced to hand out grades based on how things "should" have unfolded. What actually happened was that Dickey contributed more to the success of the 2014 Blue Jays than Hutchison.
Alex Obal - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 07:30 AM EDT (#294182) #
More precisely, the results of the plate appearances pitched by Dickey contributed more to the Jays' success than did the results of the PAs pitched by Hutchison. But whether Dickey or Hutchison objectively threw better pitches ('better' includes sequencing, artistry, holding runners, etc.) - and that is where their contribution as pitchers qua pitchers ends - we'll never know.  
SK in NJ - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 08:09 AM EDT (#294184) #
It's too bad Alford did not make this decision a year earlier, but at least he is committed to baseball now. Age is still on his side, though the lost development time will hurt a bit. Nice to have another high upside player in the system.
Paul D - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 09:20 AM EDT (#294188) #
You were happy that the Jays didn't win last year?

I wish that Oakland and KC hadn't been playing each other, as I really wanted both of them to win. At this point I'm not really rooting for anyone, just against the Angels, Giants and Cardinals. So it will probably be an Angels-Cardinals WS.
Paul D - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 09:21 AM EDT (#294189) #
Wrong thread, sorry.
85bluejay - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 09:42 AM EDT (#294191) #
Great news on Alford - Football still his 1st love but it seems a combination of lack of football progress, Jays aggressive 5 yr. offer & marriage seems to have swayed the decision - he may never make it but now we can stop thinking, What If?.
Mike Green - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 10:04 AM EDT (#294197) #
Dickey & Hutchison provide a nice illustration of the difference between his uglyone's approach (coulda-shoulda-woulda) and Magpie's (what actually happened).  Dickey threw 30 more innings than Hutchison with a better ERA and RA. But according to the theoretical stats, FIP and WAR, Hutchison pitched better. Me, I don't think the theory is sufficiently advanced to hand out grades based on how things "should" have unfolded. What actually happened was that Dickey contributed more to the success of the 2014 Blue Jays than Hutchison.

I agree.  It is easy to see the tangible ways that Dickey contributed to the club's success more than Hutchison above and beyond the walk, K and HR rates (holding runners would be an important one).  It should be noted that RA/inning were very close- Dickey at .47/inning and Hutchison at .5/inning. Hutchison's runs-allowed rate was pretty much typical for a starter in the RC context.  Dickey did throw 30 more innings than Hutchison.  I'd have them at Dickey as a B and Hutchison as a C+, with Buehrle an A- and Stroman a B+ (purely based on innings pitched).  If I was putting an order to the value of Dickey/Hutchison/Jenkins, it would be in that order, rather than Jenkins/Dickey/Jenkins (as Magpie had it) or Jenkins-Hutchison/Dickey (as uglyone had it).  You can't take either ERA+ (for relievers) or WAR or FIP (for either) too seriously.
Magpie - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 10:35 AM EDT (#294199) #
according to the theoretical stats, FIP and WAR, Hutchison pitched better.

To me, that suggests that the theory might need to go back into the shop for some tinkering.

I often think a lot of these analytical tools pay way too much attention to strikeouts. Which are absolutely a reliable indicator to future goodness, but in the here and now they are no better than a popout to second base, and often not as good as a groundball to shortstop. What is a positive marker for the future, and important to know, can be quite irrelevant when you look at what actually just happened.

Maybe Hutchison threw great, but he didn't pitch that great - 39 AL pitchers qualified for the ERA title and he ranked 33rd. I think calling that performance "average" is being generous. He gave almost .5 runs more per game than an average AL starter.
Magpie - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 10:52 AM EDT (#294201) #
Actually, I would agree that Hutchison was more valuable than Jenkins in 2014, even though Jenkins pitched better. All those almost league-average innings were more valuable to the team than far fewer better than average innings.

But it wasn't Jenkins' fault that he worked so few innings. He was available for more than five months. They knew what he could do. Jenkins was actually somewhat unlucky on his Balls in Play this past season compared to his previous work in the AL - but seeing as how all he gives up are singles anyway, he can still get away with it. Jenkins (and Stroman) demonstrate just how effective a pitcher can be if you don't give up walks or home runs.
Mike Green - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 11:26 AM EDT (#294203) #
Maybe Hutchison threw great, but he didn't pitch that great - 39 AL pitchers qualified for the ERA title and he ranked 33rd. I think calling that performance "average" is being generous. He gave almost .5 runs more per game than an average AL starter

Excellent starters disproportionately reach the ERA qualifying level.  Bad starters disproportionately do not.  AL starters gave up (if I haven't made a calculation error) 4.27 runs per game.  Hutchison gave up 4.48 runs per game.  And he pitches in the RC, which inflated offence about 3% this year.  You are right that I was generous to him, but not quite at the level you suggested.  I probably have all of the Blue Jay starters half a grade too high- Dickey at B-, and Hutchison at C.

Jenkins was available for 5 months, but he was pitching poorly in Buffalo (ERA of 4.70 in 45 innings).  ERA for a reliever over 30 innings is an awfully thin thread.


bpoz - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 11:49 AM EDT (#294205) #
Just some thoughts on Jenkins, Hutchison & Stroman. Both Hutchison & Stroman got to know the league by pitching so much this year. Jenkins maybe not even though he has 97 IP over 3 years. Would Jenkins make a decent starter?
I did not think to compare Hutchison to Dickey but... There are a few similarities 32-34 starts & 185-216 IP Hutchison to Dickey.
The biggest difference is that Hutchison had more bad starts 12 (37%) to Dickey's 8 (23%).

Magpie - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 12:13 PM EDT (#294207) #
ERA for a reliever over 30 innings is an awfully thin thread.

Sure, but they were legitimately good innings. I'm not going to say "Oh, that didn't really happen."
Dave Till - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 12:26 PM EDT (#294209) #
Chad Jenkins utterly mystifies me. His career ERA in AA ball is 4.35. His ERA in triple-A is 5.62 in 65 innings. And his career ERA in the majors is 3.25. In 97 innings over three years. How do you do that?

Maybe living the major league lifestyle causes him to step up his game. Or maybe it's just that he pitches a lot of innings during non-close games. If your team is winning 11-3 or losing 10-4, you might not be as focused at the plate.

For me, the red flag for Jenkins is his low strikeout rate, both in Toronto and the minors. In his major-league innings, he's dangerously close to the Michalak Line (one strikeout per two innings). This suggests that he's not fooling enough hitters, which is likely to hurt him one day. His margin of error may be thin. I don't expect anything from him in 2015.
Mike Green - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 01:17 PM EDT (#294214) #
Jenkins did pitch pretty well, although not as well as his ERA would suggest.   He did strike out more than in past seasons, walked very few and gave up less hard contact (his LD rate and HR/FB rates were both way down- I don't think that is an purely an accident) .  Nonetheless because of the way he pitches, he is highly dependent on his defence. To attribute all of "his runs allowed success" to his own work isn't really reasonable.  He happened to have very good defence behind him when he pitched, mostly due to pure luck.  Eephus' description of the Tigers' extra-inning game reminds us of how fickle defence can be- the same player can be great in one game and three months later or earlier can be terrible.

Jenkins actually pitched much worse with runners on base (as Hutchison did) and induced relatively few double plays. 

1990Jays - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 03:48 PM EDT (#294218) #
BTW, the people classifying xFIP or SIERA as coulda-woulda-shoulda are wrong and can be safely ignored. Just like ERA, xFIP measures past events, they just happen to be measuring different things.

And i love how stats with a long body of research to back them are only wrong when they go against our preconceived beliefs.

This doesn't mean fielding independent pitching stats are fool proof, given that we have two odd cases(even though they might literally be the only two exceptions in Baseball period) on our own team with Dickey and Buerhle but saying you don't believe in something that has a vast amount of evidence to back it up just justify poorly backed up rankings
Beyonder - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 04:10 PM EDT (#294219) #
"Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) measures what a player’s ERA would look like over a given period of time if the pitcher were to have experienced league average results on balls in play and league average timing. "

Does this mean fangraphs can be safely ignored? Because that sounds a bit like "coulda-woulda-shoulda" to me.
Chuck - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 04:15 PM EDT (#294220) #
Virtually all offensive metrics are devoid of context. Did the hits occur in low leverage situations? High leverage situations? As such, they are probably more analogous to FIP/xFIP/SIERA which also decontextualize the component measurements.

ERA, then, as a measure of what actually happened should probably be paired with offensive measurements that examine what really happened in context. Dave Cameron wrote a piece at FanGraphs making an argument that Hunter Pence as MVP candidate was not that absurd. He examined Pence's accomplishments in a what-really-happened context, fully cognizant that his over-achievements in high leverage situations were not terribly predictive.

1990Jays - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 04:17 PM EDT (#294221) #
That's the theory but look at what it actually measures, ERA evaluates a pitchers performance based on how many ER's he's charged with, FIP does it by just looking at K's, BB's and HR's. They're both measuring past events to evaluate effectiveness, one just happens to claim to be better at ALSO predicting future performance. But make no mistake about it, FIP numbers are just as "real" as ERA numbers, they're just measuring different things.
Mike Green - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 05:02 PM EDT (#294223) #
If we simplify it a bit, it might get clearer.  Imagine a relief pitcher who pitches 27 times for 1 complete inning each time. He strikes out 15 batters.  He walks 5 batters.  He gives up 2 home runs, 56 ground balls, 27 fly balls (2 of which are pop-ups),  and 14 line drives.  Nine runs score when he is on the mound and one is unearned.   A pitcher with these outcomes would ordinarily give up twelve runs, one of which was unearned.

That is basically Chad Jenkins situation.  We know that run prevention in general is not entirely the responsibility of pitchers.  We also know that pitchers who give up less of the three true outcomes have less of a share in run prevention than other pitchers.  The difficulty is magnified over the relatively small sample size.  Much of the problem is linguistic.  Chad Jenkins did not give 10 runs; Chad Jenkins and the defence behind him gave up 10 runs.  Chad Jenkins did not win the game.  Chad Jenkins pitched very well and the team won the game. 

Mike Green - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 05:12 PM EDT (#294225) #
And for what it is worth, my inclination in general is to attribute (for a pitcher of Jenkins' type) 1/2 of the difference between runs allowed and runs expected to be allowed to the pitcher and 1/2 to the defence.  I can be persuaded differently in particular cases.
Gerry - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 05:36 PM EDT (#294226) #
Jed Lowrie is a free agent and says he is willing to play second base. He would be a nice signing. Can we handle a Lowrie/Lawrie lineup?
85bluejay - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 05:50 PM EDT (#294227) #
I think Lowrie would be a good buy,but given his injury history, can we afford to have an injury prone infield of Lawrie/Reyes/lowrie?
Gerry - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 06:14 PM EDT (#294228) #
Lowrie has played a lot over the last two seasons, over 1200 PA's. Prior to that he was injured a lot.
Mike Green - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 07:58 PM EDT (#294229) #
Lowrie would be a good medium level pickup.  Izturis backs up and Lowrie can play short or third base if needed.  If you've got Izturis and Valencia on your bench, you've got a RH complement to Lind and good infield backup.  You have a second catcher and a 4th outfielder, and you have a 4 man bench with pretty good coverage.
Gerry - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 08:45 PM EDT (#294230) #
The Jays have removed Kawasaki and Dan Johnson from their 40 man roster.
electric carrot - Wednesday, October 01 2014 @ 11:54 PM EDT (#294232) #
I've always been opposed to Lawrie moving to 2nd -- but would be less opposed if it was the plan going into the season to give Lawrie time to adjust in Spring Training.  Also, it gives us a chance to trade for Donaldson.  With Lawrie at 2nd and Donaldson at third I think suddenly Reyes defense would get better and the pitchers would have nothing to complain about our D -- especially with a Gose/Pillar/Pompey centerfield hydra.
Jonny German - Thursday, October 02 2014 @ 03:07 AM EDT (#294234) #
"They're both measuring past events to evaluate effectiveness"

Not really. One is actual effectiveness, how much he succeeded in keeping the other team off the scoreboard. The other is theoretical, how much he would have succeeded in a "luck-free" environment.

Consider A.J. Burnett on May 12, 2001.

9 innings pitched
9 walks
7 strikeouts
1 wild pitch
1 hit batter
7 grounders
9 fly balls
1 line drive out
2 pop-up
65 strikes
64 balls

Was he effective?
jerjapan - Thursday, October 02 2014 @ 04:23 AM EDT (#294235) #
Jed Lowrie's a mediocre fielder and an occasionally above average hitter who's lost a lot of time to injuries.  He's injury free two straight years with the A's, but I'm not sure how big an upgrade he is.  given AA's reluctance to spend I don't know if I see a fit but perhaps his down year offensively gets a reduction in price. 

sadly, I could see Izturis getting semi-regular ABs for us at 2b. 
Mike Green - Thursday, October 02 2014 @ 09:49 AM EDT (#294236) #
Consider A.J. Burnett on May 12, 2001.

9 innings pitched
9 walks
7 strikeouts
1 wild pitch
1 hit batter
7 grounders
9 fly balls
1 line drive out
2 pop-up
65 strikes
64 balls

Was he effective?


Let's imagine that the team did not give up any runs.  And with that profile of balls in play and balls out of play, one would anticipate that a team would give up six runs.  In my view, you have to apportion the run prevention between the defence and the pitcher. If you do it 50-50, Burnett gets credited with the equivalent of giving up 3 runs per game and the defence as a whole gets credited with saving 3 runs.  If you use this theory, your total defence runs saved have to be equal (or at least very close) to the total individual runs saved. 

So, if the team gave up no runs, he was effective (3 runs per 9 innings is good).  If the team gave up four runs, he wasn't really (5 runs per 9 innings- the halfway between 4 and 6- isn't good).  In other words, unless there is some reason not to, we give pitchers some of the credit/penalty for base stealing prevention, out prevention on grounders/fly balls, sequencing and so on.  But not all of it. 


bpoz - Thursday, October 02 2014 @ 10:09 AM EDT (#294237) #
The Dickey effect was discussed in the past. Is there a way of calculating a value for the Dickey effect?
Does it really exist? The value should be expressed in baseball value not $ value if possible.
hypobole - Thursday, October 02 2014 @ 10:22 AM EDT (#294239) #
As far as the ERA/FIP argument is concerned, I used to be in the ERA camp for actual effectiveness, but there is real merit in using FIP as much more than simply a predictive tool.

There were 4 staffs that had ERA's much better than their FIP's - Orioles (3.44/3.96), A's (3.22/3.67), Mariners (3.17/3.61) and Reds (3.59/4.01).

Not surprisingly, those 4 staffs had the 4 best BABIP and LOB% stats. The A's and M's play in pitchers parks, which definitely plays a factor, but what about the O's and Reds?

Check the Team Fielding stats and 2 of the 3 best fielding teams this year were the Reds and O's (the M's and A's show as plus fielders as well).

I definitely see merit in Mike's suggestion that both ERA and FIP are taken into account when giving out the grades.

Richard S.S. - Thursday, October 02 2014 @ 02:01 PM EDT (#294242) #
So Anthony Alford is no longer playing Football (per MLB). Would he play Winter Ball if asked, or finish out the School Year?
Mylegacy - Thursday, October 02 2014 @ 08:45 PM EDT (#294248) #
I REALLY wanted to give this thread a massively detailed response...but ...I just don't have the time. I'm not unhappy about that because I absolutely LOVE what I'm doing that is taking up so much on my time.

However, I have to say this...

The news that we've got Anthony Alford back - a truly gifted athlete who gives our minors leagues another potential star - has put me over the top - I'm ALL IN on the Jay's being a team for the next decade. Even before the news about him I had reached an euphoric plateau and his addition to our depth has just reconfirmed my thoughts and emboldened my hope.

I have NEVER been so excited about the Jays minor league star prospects. I'm agog.

Our young starting pitching is scary good - best I've ever seen us have...Stroman, Hutch, Norris, Sanchez, Osuna, Graveman, Castro, Hoffman, Reid-Foley, Nolin (and a half dozen others) are the best collection of arms we've ever had at one time. Period. End of story. Pitching wins - with it anything is possible - without it no chance. 

Also we've a whole herd of offensive players some of whom might actually be stars. Whoda thunk it. Alford, Pompey, Pentecost, Nay, Barreto, Smith, Lugo, Dean, Jimenez, Urena, Burns, Tellez, Fields, McBroom, Thomas, Guido and others.

IF - we can get Cabrera back (or at least replace his very professional bat), keep LInd in a platoon somehow, and actually get Lawrie on the field for more than a tease - I'm even stoked about 2015. IF - AA can actually get just a tiny more extra blood out of the Rogers stone we could be - dare I say it - a contender! Been a long time coming.

Absolutely no question - we might have a decade of success. Time for a scotch.

John Northey - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 12:46 AM EDT (#294250) #
The minors are looking good.  What are some of the best years for the minors?  To go unbiased I'll check Baseball America....

All-Time Top 100 Prospects - Baseball America covers 1990 to 2014.  For that time frame...
  • 95 players for the Jays made the list (out of 2500 possible).  Over that time frame only the Twins (97), Marlins (100), Dodgers (100), Red Sox (101), and Atlanta (126) had more prospects on the lists.  The Tigers came in last with 53 which is an achievement given the Rays and Diamondback weren't around from 1990 to 1996 (had farm systems for 1997).
  • John Olerud was highest ranked (#3 as a LHP and 1B) with other top 10's being Carlos Delgado (twice), Vernon Wells, Alex Gonzalez (twice), Alexis Rios, Shawn Green, Travis Snider, and Jose Silva.  Dustin McGowan was highest ranked of current Jays at #18 in 2004 (and #36 in 2003, #48 in 2006, and #98 in 2002)
  • Somehow 13 times a Jays catcher made the list (Delgado three times, d'Arnaud three times, Guillermo Quiroz twice, JPA, Josh Phelps, Jayson Werth, Angel Martinez, and  Joe Lawrence) but seeing those names you can see few stayed behind the plate.
  • 33 RHP, 25 outfielders, 12 SS, 4 LHP (not counting Olerud), 3 1B, 3 2B, and 2 3B.
  • 5 times the Jays had 6 prospects on the list.  Using a reverse scale (#1 prospect worth 100 points to #100 worth 1 point) the best year is 1994 with 3 top 10's (Alex Gonzalez #4, Delgado #5, Silva #10, Shawn Green #28, D. J. Boston #66, Paul Spoljaric #99).
  • The other years with 6 were 1991 (Zosky, Whiten, Karsay, Moore, Timlin, Suero), 1995 (Green, Gonzalez, Silva, Stewart, Angel/Sandy Martinez, Chris Carpenter), 1992 (Derek Bell, Nigel Wilson, Alex Gonzalez, Delgado, Battle, Zosky), and 2004 (Rios, McGowan, Quiroz, Gross, Rosario, Hill).  So that mid-90's team actually had a ton of prospects in the system plus they were drafting at an amazing rate then (Halladay, Koch, Wells, Lopez, Rios, McGowan from 1995 to 2000).  Boy did Ash and JPR blow it.
  • 2012 was the last time with 4 prospects (d'Arnaud, Norris, Gose, Marisnick), which 2011 has as well (Lawrie, d'Arnaud, McGuire, Drabek).  The last 2 years were just 2 prospects each (Sanchez and Stroman both years - a nice pair to have).

So will the Jays have 7 this year?  Wouldn't bet on it but they have had a lot of good players.

FYI: the most anyone has had was 9 - Dodgers in 2006 and Royals in 2011.  5 times 8 was reached including by the Red Sox this spring (dang it).

jerjapan - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 09:43 AM EDT (#294251) #
Wow John, that 1991 list makes one appreciate how volatile a prospect really is - the best career of the 6 top 100 prospects was Mike Timlin.  Maybe trading prospects for veteran talent isn't the worst idea. 
Ryan Day - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 10:47 AM EDT (#294256) #
That 1994 list is insane in hindsight - Alex Gonzalez ahead of Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Derek Jeter (and many other notables). Gonzalez had a couple very nice seasons in the minors at a young age, but then completely stopped developing as a hitter in the majors.
Chuck - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 10:56 AM EDT (#294257) #
There's a reason detractors call this stuff prospect porn.

The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

Magpie - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 11:34 AM EDT (#294258) #
This is why us old guys tend to look at prospects with a jaded, cynical eye!

It occurs to me that it would be fun to compare the often quite excessive hype that surrounds almost every prospect with what that prospect actually delivered at the major league level. Say combine Dave Till's Buzz Factor with a 10 point rating of someone's career - counting down from 10 for HoF quality, 7-8 for good/All-Star, 5 for decent regular, and so on... Combine the two and PRESTO!

So someone like Carlos Delgado (Buzz 10, HoF quality 10) would score a perfect 100 (no other Jays prospect has so fully delivered to the highest expectation) and Sil Campusano would be about a 9 (Buzz 9, Performance 1). And a whole bunch of people in between...

I should get on this!
Hodgie - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 11:38 AM EDT (#294259) #
You don't think that Halladay could challenge Delgado for that belt Magpie?
bpoz - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 11:50 AM EDT (#294261) #
How about those Rule 5 picks, who did not blind anyone. Johan Santana, Kelly Gruber & George Bell. They may form a decent roster.
John Northey - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 12:00 PM EDT (#294262) #
I think Tony Fernandez would be close to a 100 as he was extremely hyped and I recall Bill James saying something to the effect of how is Alfredo Griffin blocking anyone let along Fernandez in one of his abstracts.  If Fernandez never left Toronto he might have been a HOF'er as he hit far better here than elsewhere - 106 OPS+ here vs a lifetime 101.  His only really good year outside of Toronto was his one year in Cincinnati in 1994 (106 OPS+ in 104 games during the strike year).
SK in NJ - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 12:41 PM EDT (#294265) #
This talk about minor league system raises an interesting issue the Jays will have to tackle. They obviously want to win short-term with Bautista, Encarnacion, and Reyes. They also want to avoid free agency due to cost and commitment, and have valued internal development since the recent financial restrictions. So how do the Jays win short-term and extend their "window" beyond 2016 simultaneously? Is that a reasonable expectation even with the high bust rate of prospects? Or are they so far deep that they need to choose one side (go for it now, screw later) or another (sell high on vets for the future)?

I ask because when I read that Josh Donaldson might be available, my first thought was to give Beane whatever package of prospects he wanted. But how do the Jays give up prospects (say, Sanchez and Norris) for Donaldson and still expect to win in 2016 when they have no SP depth anymore and no intention of using free agency to fill it?

It's gotten to the point where I think the Jays have to promote from within in order to build a sustainable playoff team in their current organizational philosophy. That means starting Pompey in CF or LF next season, hoping Andy Burns pans out at 2B some time in 2015 or 2016, going with young starters in 2016 (Hutch, Stroman, Sanchez, Norris), and so on.

I don't know if they can do that and win while the Jose's and Edwin are on this team, but I have a feeling we won't have a choice but to find out if they can.
bpoz - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 02:08 PM EDT (#294266) #
I thought about the future too. The Jays franchise should want to be pretty good.
So 78,88 or 98 wins in a season.
About 78 wins is something a teams ownership should be very worried about. All kinds of bad publicity & poor revenue numbers are to be expected.
88 wins is something to be happy with, there is legitimate hope, revenues are good and the future is looking good.
98 wins? Maybe once every 10 years or a couple of years when you are a powerhouse. If/when it happens, milk it.

I would think 88 wins has happened in half the Jays history or close to it. I cannot understand this recent history.
Magpie - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 02:57 PM EDT (#294268) #
You don't think that Halladay could challenge Delgado for that belt Magpie?

Dave's epic 2003 piece (which is where the Buzz Factor comes from) only looked at hitters. I don't know if anything comparable for pitching prospects (after all, There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect.) That noted, Halladay was indeed one of the most hyped pitching prospects in franchise history. Him and Steve Karsay. Those two would have scored Buzz Factor 10 if anyone did. In which case, Doc would match Delgado's score.
James W - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 03:16 PM EDT (#294271) #
Toronto has won 88 or more games just 9 times in 38 seasons: 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1998.
bpoz - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 04:47 PM EDT (#294276) #
Thanks James W. I did not realize things were that bad. Once in 21 years, 1998.
jerjapan - Friday, October 03 2014 @ 05:09 PM EDT (#294277) #
So how do the Jays win short-term and extend their "window" beyond 2016 simultaneously? Is that a reasonable expectation even with the high bust rate of prospects? Or are they so far deep that they need to choose one side (go for it now, screw later) or another (sell high on vets for the future)?

Great question SK, especially if AA's budget is indeed nearly maxed. 

If we gamble and trade prospects, AA seems to have done a good job identifying which pitching prospects to keep and who to punt - Sanchez over Nicolino and Syndergaard, first round busts like Kevin Comer in the Happ trade - although who knows if this is skill or luck.  John Northey's list really highlights the dangers of dreaming on prospects.

the urgency to win now likely comes from the crazy value inherit in the Bautista and EE contracts.  aggressive gambles may be the secret to competing in the AL east, so my guess is that we take this core one year deeper and that AA will do his best to improve this roster.  Last year's wait-and-see off season was reasonable if you thought the core underperformed, but clearly management thinks this group isn't going to win as-is - both AA and Gibbon's recent comments suggest change is coming. 

if the gamble - mid-tier FAs, possibly Melky, and a trade or two - doesn't pay off, we have tons of $$$ coming off the books for 2016 - Buehrle's 20 million, a 600k buyout on romero, 3 million on Izturis' option, 6.7 million on Happ (assuming his option is picked up) and 5 million for Navarro. 

leveraging the most wins possible next year is still the reason I think Sanchez could be used as a high leverage reliever, as much as I understand the argument against this.  wins next season have more value than wins down the road. 
Mike Green - Wednesday, October 08 2014 @ 11:15 AM EDT (#294370) #
I was thinking about the Rogers' grade here (F) and the comments up-thread about ownership's only obligation being to supply adequate payroll. 

It seems to me that ownership has three obligations- to supply adequate payroll within the overall revenue context, to be straightforward with the GM about future payrolls and to not meddle in GM decisions within payroll.  I would give Rogers a C- on supplying adequate payroll, an F on being straightforward with the the GM about future payrolls and a B for not meddling.  It all adds up to a C-.  I don't hold Rogers solely responsible for the last 20 years of disappointment.  A better owner would have communicated more clearly and accurately with the GM about future payrolls including uncertainties.  Creating a culture of competence and forthrightness begins at the top, and here the top is ownership. 

Mike Green - Friday, October 10 2014 @ 10:39 AM EDT (#294388) #
The Hardy deal signed yesterday might offer a bit of a signpost for Cabrera negotiations.  Hardy has been an arguably better player over the last four years (and over his career), but is two years older than Cabrera.  Most of Hardy's advantage over Cabrera has resulted from better durability. All things considered, you'd expect that Cabrera would sign for about the same amount as Hardy except that offensive contributions tend to be overvalued in relation to defensive ones.
bpoz - Friday, October 10 2014 @ 12:13 PM EDT (#294391) #
Hardy got 3 years $40 million. So the risk of offering $15 mil in arbitration is still a bit rich but maybe worth the risk.
John Northey - Friday, October 10 2014 @ 12:32 PM EDT (#294392) #
An interesting option just came up... it seems the Dodgers are thinking about trading Yasiel Puig.  Now _that_ would be interesting.  Not a free agent until after 2019, this guy is a game changer but also a major prima donna but maybe with Bautista and Encarnacion things could be kept in control.  Weaknesses in Dodger land are catcher (OPS+ sub 70 for all 4 they used in 2014) and, as with everyone, pitching depth.  The Jays have tons of young pitchers plus a kid catcher in Jimenez or could the Dodgers (in a 'win now' moment) go for Dickey/Thole and prospects?

What would you give up for Puig?  Realistically it would be a killer package.  Sanchez and/or Stroman?  What about kids like Norris, Graveman, and Nolan?  Buehrle or Dickey would be easy to give up, but how many and which kids?  Now that is the challenge.
Mike Green - Friday, October 10 2014 @ 12:45 PM EDT (#294394) #
Puig?  Sure.  I'd trade Dickey, Thole and Gose for him in a heartbeat.  Would that be enough?  I have no idea.

Puig's weaker IsoP this year is driven by a much lower HR/FB rate.  It's weird because his hittracker statistics (avg. distance, speed off bat) are almost exactly the same.  He was still hitting the 390-450 foot home run, but didn't have any shorter home runs all year.  It would be fun to see how he does in the RC.  He isn't really what the club needs, but if you can get good value, you ought to go for it. 

John Northey - Friday, October 10 2014 @ 01:08 PM EDT (#294395) #
Puig is a game changer and if the Dodgers are nuts enough to trade him then I say go for it but I seriously doubt Dickey/Thole/Gose would come close.  In their park Dickey would do well though, so a Dickey/Thole with Pompey & Norris could be possible but would you do it?  I would as a star like Puig is hard to come by.  Of course, Pompey & Norris could be great too so there is a risk but might be well worth it.
Mike Green - Friday, October 10 2014 @ 02:32 PM EDT (#294399) #
There is no way that I would trade Pompey and Norris and Dickey for Puig.  He isn't that good. 
John Northey - Sunday, October 12 2014 @ 05:09 PM EDT (#294418) #
Puig in 2 seasons had 4.9 and 5.4 bWAR, 4.0 and 5.1 fWAR.  Solid All-Star level with 5 years of control left and only entering his age 24 season.  That type of talent is VERY hard to get.  Bautista has 4 years of 4+ bWAR, Encarnacion just two (2012/3 - 3.6 this year).  37 times in Jays history a 4.9 bWAR has been reached by a hitter.  Bautista's 8.1 is the best ever. (31 times pitching, Clemens 11.9 in '97 by far the best).

Get Puig in a lineup with EE and Bautista and no one will want to face the Jays.  Pompey/Norris/Dickey/Thole?  I'd be VERY tempted.
bpoz - Monday, October 13 2014 @ 09:35 AM EDT (#294419) #
Y Puig is good DOB 1990. Joc Pederson is good DOB 1992.
LAD are in a window of contention. 92 wins in 2013 94 in 14.LAD are rich. They have to go for it now.
Looking at the LAD OF, they would be crowded with the above 2 plus A Ehtier, C Crawford & M Kemp.
IMO they should look to stack the team with guys that can win now. Not sure how LAD would feel if their neighbor SF wins another WS.
A 3B may help them. You can always use extra pitching. I do not know if they would want any of our starters, they seem strong in SPs. We do have 2 very good LH relievers in Loup & Cecil.
Thomas - Monday, October 13 2014 @ 01:04 PM EDT (#294422) #
If the Jays can't resign Melky, I'd be tempted to try to acquire Scott Van Slyke from the Dodgers. He gets a little lost in discussions about their crowded outfield, but he's not arbitration eligible for another year and is only a free agent after 2020.

He's known as a lefty-killer, deservedly so with a career OPS of .892 against lefties in 200 at-bats, but also has a career OPS of .755 against right-handed pitchers. He didn't show a noticeable platoon split in his minor league career.
Mike Green - Monday, October 13 2014 @ 08:33 PM EDT (#294423) #
Bad sabermetric analogies, v.5.  Today, it's investing.  The latest market inefficiency is journalists who can read and comprehend.  Tremendously undervalued.
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