Delgado bought a restaurant? Is it in Toronto?

The good news is he's 80 percent the hitter Manny is, with 100 percent fewer distractions. That in and of itself is a good reason why despite his defensive immobility and hefty contract you'd have to think thrice before saying he was anything but a bargain.

Carlos is better than 80% of Manny, but he's definitely not in the same tier as Manny and the few other top non-Bonds hitters.

I don't know about a bargain... at least Ash didn't offer some crazy Todd Helton contract (signed until 2011), because they're more or less the same player.

Here are their road splits for the last three years:

Delgado: .284/.408/.550

Helton: .297/.401/.534

Delgado gives you more raw power, a little more walks, and a lot more strikeouts, while Helton offers a better average.

Make your pick...

Nothing revolutionary here, but definatly nice to see our own impressions confirmed by somone with no vested intrest in overestimating the team. I'd like to see his opinion on the pitching staff to see if that, too, confirms the opinions of most informed Jays fans.

Aubrey Huff would indeed have been a nice pickup if the Rays were thinking about not keeping him at one time. Especially with the Jays having a lack of young corner infield power. The Rays did well to lock up Huff long term.

I also think Steve should check Hudson's platoon splits before he writes him off as unspectacular in any arena. We're talking a career .820 ops and .357 obp when he doesn't have to bat righthanded. That is most certainly worth quite a bit for a good fielder at second. It's true that you might as well pinch hit Roy Halladay for him against lefthanded pitching but that's fixed easily enough with a competent platoon partner. Believe it or not, the .701 career ops for Chris Gomez against lefties represents an almost 300 advantage over Hudson's righthanded batting.

yeah, I've read a lot about how effective a platoon can be. I think it was mentioned here something about oakland trying one... Also, we all know how good Kielty is against lefties and how horrible he is against righties... Yeah, so I totally agree on the 2nd base situation... simply start hudson daily except during a game against a LHP starter in which case you could go to gomez, berg, clark, or even cattalanato...

One more unrelated thought... Opening day tix are a complete and utter bitch to purchase. They won't sell them until the 28th or something unless you purchase a six game flexpack. By the end of the day on the 28th or 29th or something it is expected to be a sold-out game... I'll just check out batista or something....

Hudson has only had 148 career ABs as a RHB. The results have been brutal, but it's too early to give up on him ever having success from that side.

The issue of Hudson facing left-handers is hard to distinguish from the issue of Hudson hitting right-handed. The former is probably just a learning curve matter -- it is for most young hitters -- and as he sees more left-handers, he'll most likely learn to hit them better. The latter might be more of a problem -- some switch hitters simply never get entirely comfortable from one side of the plate -- but Orlando's been switching for long enough now that he should adjust here as well. The Jays have some very talented men in the dugout trained to see which, if either of these, is the problem.

The best way to find out which is which to give Hudson 500 at-bats against all sorts of pitching this year and see how he develops -- with his glove, he's still an asset even on an 0-for-4 night, and it's not like this is a make-or-break season for the franchise. Plus, if the Jays really do intend to flip Orlando next year to make room for Russ Adams, he'll fetch a lot more as a developing full-time player than as a part-timer. I'd be strongly opposed to platooning a young player with Hudson's skills and work ethic.

One curious thing about Hudson's stats hitting right-handed and Cash's abysmal stats is that neither had the K rate that one would normally associate with a .140 or .160 batting average. Both struck out in about 1/5 of their PAs. This combined with the fact that both have enough power that the outfielders cannot play as shallow as they might for a pitcher suggests that a good part of their ridiculously low batting averages in simply bad luck.

Delgado bought a restaurant?

Delgado bought a sushi restaurant?

Cheer Club meeting, anyone?

very interesting jordan... Maybe we'll see O-Dog take his offensive game to a higher level this year and turn into a solid 3.70 obp kinda guy... Quite a luxury if you can get someone like that at the bottom of the hitting order.

As for the article, whassup with the idea of 2'bagging cattalanato??? I know that Coach discredited that idea from the start, but still... seriously... We all even saw that atrocious act of starting cat at 1st. He played simply awful there (I have no stats, but seeing was believing for me...)....

But it is pretty funny to argue that someone should play 2nd base simply because the pitcher that day generates a lot of fly balls therefore making it unlikely that such a 2nd baseman would ever have to showcase any defensive skills....

As for what Jordan said earlier, thats a really really good idea... Maybe, once the jays fall out of contention they will decide to go that way for the long-term considerations of developing hudson's game, but if the jays manage to stay in contention for a prolonged period of the season they might decide to implement the platoon so as to gain better production from the position in order to adhere to short-term gains in the overall div. title race.... Your guess is as good as mine...

Oh how sick I am of speculating... bring on spring training already...

thats .370

My bad.... :)

There's no way I would put Cat at second. Good defence at second is important in preventing big innings.

First, against righthanders, Hudson is nearly as good a hitter as Cat, so what exactly do you gain by benchingf O-Dog?

Second, Gomez or Berg will hit at least as well against southpaws as Cat, and they can actually play second.

Third, the Jays only have 3 candidades for 3 outfield jobs with Werth pencilled in as the #4 guy. If/when Gross and Rios come up, that'll be the time to worry about shifting or reducing plating time for Cat and/or Reed Johnson. Gross and Rios will start the season in AAA, which means that at the moment there's no one who's competing with Cat for outfield playing time.

Fourth, there's simply no reason to trade Hudson right now. Platoon him, yes, if he can't improve his numbers against lefties. I disagree with the notion that he's worth more on the trade market as a full-time player (and so why not play him everyday). His terrible hitting against southpaws would drag down his AVE/OBP/SLG. He's better off putting in 450 PA as a platoon player and putting up a very good GPA.

robert,

yeah, but playing the splits is only relevant during times in the season while the jays still feel that they can contend.

I think if the jays go into a june swoon and realistically conclude their playoff aspirations at an earlier point in the season, than why not make hudson the everyday 2nd baseman? If he does finally get the hang of hitting left-handed pitching than he really does up his odds of being worthy of a long-term deal, or at least raise his trade stock....

A propos nothing, here are the probabilities that a hitter with a given true ability to hit for average would get 25 or fewer hits in 148 at-bats.

True BA  P(H <= 25)
  .170     0.54
  .180     0.41
  .190     0.30
  .200     0.20
  .210     0.13
  .220     0.08
  .230     0.04
  .240     0.02
  .250     0.01
  .260     0.006
  .270     0.003
  .280     0.001
  .290     0.0005
  .300     0.0002

It's pretty darn unlikely that Hudson is really a .250 hitter from the right side who's just had a run of bad luck, but he could be a .220 hitter.

I agree that it's time for him to give up hitting right-handed unless he's got some trick up his sleeve of which we are unaware.

John

John, it sure would be interesting to know what Orlando's splits were in the minor leagues. As Orlando had precisely 25 hits, the odds of him being a true .240 or .250 hitter are considerably higher than as shown in your chart.

That said, my own view is also that it's time for him to give up switch-hitting, unless there is good evidence that he was at least moderately successful at it in the minors.

I was at a game in August or September when Hudon actually hit left-handed against a left-hander and lined out to the right fielder. Did he have any more at bats against lefties left-handed? I wonder why they didn't continue the experiment? He looked in that one at bat.

It would have been a good thing for the O-Dog to go to something like the AFL this offseason to work on the lefty-lefty thing. It's probably not something you want to mess around with in spring training and the season is out of the question. Go-Dog, we need an adequate bat to fill out the lineup.

I had to add my favourite Gord Ash move,Tony Batista for nothing.

MatO, according to espn.com's splits stats, O-Dog had precisely one at-bat last season batting left against a lhp. I missed it, and it is promising to know that he lined out.