I voted for Lilly and Chacin. Lilly because he was the biggest positive surprise and Carlos can win this award next season. For the minors I wagered between Chacin and Ramirez but Chacin just had a dream season that should be honoured with the biggest price he could get: the Batter's Box Blue Jay Minor League Player of the Year Award

It was down to Ramirez and Chacin for me too -- I had no idea who to go with. I finally chose the AA player over the A-ball player, simply because Ramirez pitched in the FSL. Although Chacin did pitch at Gill Stadium...ah, who cares? I voted for Chacin.

Oh, incidentally, we won't use or store your e-mail address for anything at all. Votes (and e-mails) are deleted after being recorded.

I was with you guys. Pretty no brainer pick. Like Tom said, Chacin had the dram season and deserves the recognition. Lilly was one of the few bright spots in what we can all agree was a very depressing season.

I also voted for Lilly and Chacin for many of the same reasons.

Yeah, this was a no-brainer. Lilly and Chacin.

Incidentally, if you had stored our email addresses and sold it to a spammer of some sort I would have been horribly unhappy, but quite impressed. That would have been one of the most clever scams ever. Fooling us with a harmless, and disarming post, and then bam, taking advantage of the trust you have taken so long to gain. I think that would have placed you guys into the level of evil geniuses, a designation I have the deepest respect for.

I think Craig and Moffatt have reached "AAA evil genius" level already, but the rest of us can only aspire at this point.

Are there any specific criteria to this award? Is it intended to honour the Blue Jay who excelled the most throughout the league, or whom excelled at the role they were given?

Much obliged folks.

Yeah, this was a no-brainer. Lilly and Chacin.

Well, I voted for the O-Dog. And I can confirm that I have indeed a third of a brain, if not a half. :)

Yeah, I suppose O-Dog is a good choice too.

O-Dog was probably the closest to a stand-out performer on the team, but I voted for Mighty Mouse Menechino for his .301/.400/.504 line with 9 HR in 236 AB.

Chacin could end up being a unanimous choice, what a season.

I do indeed possess a complete brain but I prefer not to use it.

Man, it seems like I went a little against the flow and think I may have made an error in giving Aaron Hill the vote over Chacin...oh well, he deserves at least one vote; I was just so encouraged by his year.

Hudson got my Major League vote because of his solid season. I think this season was a significant turning point for him. I sincerely believe he's going to put up numbers just a notch below Alomar's Jays numbers.

http://www.evenementiel.qc.ca/coinmedia.html
I voted for Lilly for the same reasons. It's time for recognition.

Greg Myers has resigned with the Blue Jays. Terms not disclosed

Terms are actually in another thread, they were posted earlier today.

Minor League deal, 500K w/ a 50K bonus.

Shoot, 700K, sorry.

haha thanks braby21, i stand updated

I voted for Delgado, if only for the memories.

BTW, I am moving to TO with the wife soon. I hope the Cheer Club is ready for another member.

When will the season pass be available? Anyone know?

I don't think they're doing that this year

Jay, I've heard conflicting reports one way and the other.

For example;

#2624104 Posted 11/21/2004 05:59 PM by Vernon's biggest Fan:

Caino, according to my friend it is true. 81 games for 162 bucks. The seats are apparantly the same as last year (SkyDeck). One would have to go to about 17 games to get their money's worth. The Pass is basically a deal to get fans into the seats, and not a money making idea at all. By making the price double, they can double the minimum nimber of games someone would go to.

All this was provided by my friend not me, but I am assured is true.

// I haven't found any information to the contrary.

I received a call from the Jays asking me to renew my Seasons Pass for the new price of $162.

On one level I don't think I can argue against 81 games at $2.00 a piece. But on another level, I'm pissed they're trying to make double the money even though they couldn't give away all those seats in the SkyDeck if they tried (that may be slightly over-stating the case but you get my drift).

What the Jays will lose, however, is my second pass. I just can't afford to pitch $322 on Jays tickets. $162 is even stretching my limits if I can't be sure I'll have company to those 17 games I better get to next season.

Guys, please. This is the Player of the Year thread. Go complain and exchange news and rumors in Hijack Central.

I voted for Hudson and Chacin.
Like Nolan, I think Hudson is ready to break out.

Who's going to win, Lilly or Hudson?

Hudson got my vote and Chacin's the no-brainer.

I'd be interested in getting an 81 game pack, but would not make use of all of it. Anyone want to split one package of tickets (or are there any terms that truly limit the ticket to use by one person over the season? Let me know, or post if that's been a no-no with the ticket in the past.

I went with Delgado and Chacin.

I feel Delgado doesn't get enough credit because we all have such high expectations of him. Meanwhile IMO Lilly, who was good, was definitely no standout.

Meanwhile IMO Lilly, who was good, was definitely no standout.

For cryin' out loud! According to VORP, Lilly was the 10th best pitcher in the American League! Prefer Win Shares? He was tied with 4 others for 8th best! What more do you want from the man before you'll call him a standout?

What the Jays will lose, however, is my second pass. I just can't afford to pitch $322 on Jays tickets.

Umm, A, hate to be picky, but $162*2 = $324, not $322. :)

According to VORP, Lilly was the 10th best pitcher in the American League! Prefer Win Shares? He was tied with 4 others for 8th best!

I'll leave the discussion of whether Lilly was a "standout" aside, while noting that different people will have different interpretations of that term. But it should be noted that Delgado did outperform Lilly 17-16 in Win Shares overall.

This may be a silly question but do you guys actually give the player an award or is this more for blog and audience entertainment?

Smirnoff, the intention last year was to actually give an award to the players. That got lost amid the chaos of last March and April (don't ask).

I'm vowing that we won't make the same mistake this year, we'll get awards to the winners *and* we will make up for last year and get Doc and Alex their awards as well.

Yes, I understand that there are different interpretations. My query of what it would take to call him a standout was not purely rhetorical. And I didn't dispute that there's merit to naming Delgado.

Ted Lilly:
12-10, 4.06 ERA, 197 IP, 168 K's

Call me old fashioned, but my definition of a 'stand out' would at least have one of the following:
- 15 wins (while I know wins are a terrible stat for predicting success in the future, it is a good indication of success in the past)
- An ERA under 4.00
- at least 200 innings pitched
- at least 180 strike outs

Thanks, Craig. Another vote for Lilly and Chacin. Although it was tough to vote for Chacin after my wife and I attended the game where he gave up 10 runs and seven hits in 2 1/3 innings of work. I'll pretend my eyes deceived me.

Fair enough. I think absolute measures are inadequate, but it's your definition. You're old fashioned.

"Smirnoff, the intention last year was to actually give an award to the players. That got lost amid the chaos of last March and April (don't ask)."

So, let me get this straight. The 20 or so of you voted on these players, and then intended to provide some sort of Golden Mouse trophy to the winners. By March/April, it was still your intention to provide an award. However, chaos ensued. Not to mention the next season of baseball had begun. Or the fact that your Golden Mouse would likely be shunned. But hey...nice effort.

Actually, Damon, we had 64 votes last year, which was a bit disappointing but we rolled with it.

The plan, as I indicated, was to present the players with an award early in the following year, since they are not habitually in Toronto during the winter. Since we're all volunteers here, after we announced the winners in February (late as usual, a Box tradition) I went busily around looking for an appropriate gift for the winners. And then it got pushed back by something urgent. And then pushed back by something else. And pushed back... well, you know the story.

By the time I got back to the project, it was May and giving out awards for last year seemed a bit... well, pointless. So I shelved it. Hopefully this year we can follow through.

Incidentally, if it really were the "Golden Mouse", we'd have no choice but to give it to Menechino.

Perhaps we could gold plate Menechino and present him to the eventual winners (as it seems my vote is the only one for Mighty Mouse, making the potentially problematic and amusing event of trying to award Menechino to Menechino a non-issue).

But hey...nice effort

This has to be about the dumbest thing I have ever read on this site. This site is one of the best in the business and is run all by volunteers. To ask them to do anything is out of line. To criticise them for failing to give out an award is ludicrous.

I don't have a problem with you challenging an opinion that someone might have here if you do it in a respectful manner, but to challenge their effort ... you deserve a figurative punch in the head

the potentially problematic and amusing event of trying to award Menechino to Menechino

In that case, it's just a free gold-plating.

Would I be a bad person to vote for Menechino just to see if presenting Menechino to Menechino would cause the universe to collapse in on itself?

Someone to think about for Minor League Player of the Year: Brandon League.

He doesn't have the innings or ERA that Chacin does, but he was simply dominant in the AA playoffs winning the MVP.

Would I be a bad person to vote for Menechino just to see if presenting Menechino to Menechino would cause the universe to collapse in on itself?


What happens when a man goes through his own portal?

Perhaps we could gold plate Menechino and present him to the eventual winners (as it seems my vote is the only one for Mighty Mouse, making the potentially problematic and amusing event of trying to award Menechino to Menechino a non-issue).

LOL! Actually I voted for Menechino (and Chacin) as well. I know Menechino was probably not the absolutely best-performing player on the team last season (although he probably was very close to it), but I think he deserves it for filling his particular role so well while greatly exceeding expectations (at least my expectations), and just generally "Playing the Right Way".

Note: "Playing the Right Way" is a registered trademark of Larry Brown.

What happens when a man goes through his own portal?

Ew.

Quick Question?

Is the voting for the Tom Cheek thing done? When do we find out who's on the ballot?

DeMarco, I think the Cheek voting is still going on. The link is at the bottom of the story above.

What happens when a man goes through his own portal?

Many of our political contortionists pass through their own portals...at least up to the neck.

It was a Being John Malkovich reference rather than a scatalogical one, but both work, I suppose...

Actually, Rob, that's one of my favourite scenes from the movie. All Malkovich, all the time.

Sorry Craig. I posted the initial question on here be mistake.

[wins are] a good indication of success in the past

Disagree.

In any case, for me it's just that whenever I actually try and think of some games that were highlights from last year, I come up with these:

-Ted Lilly's two-hitter of Minnesota
-Ted Lilly dominating the Red Sox, before getting hit by a comebacker and leaving the game.
-Ted Lilly dominating the Red Sox ... again. Best Game Score in the AL for that game.
-That game where Carlos hit a walk-off off Guardado.

...

Yeah. I considered giving it to Carlos because he was quite good, but he was horrendous in the first half, and missed a month with injury, so I don't think he was the best contributer. I don't think you can give it to Menechino either when he only had about 200 PA's.

I just think that even though Lilly's number's weren't exactly mind-boggling, he was still the player that stood out the most to me. O-Dog is a close second.

RE: Ted Lilly's Record.

12-10 doesn't seem that impressive, but keep in mind the Jays only went 67-94 this year. Lilly's .545 winning percentage is a fair deal higher than the team's .416 mark.

Lilly started 10 games where he did not record a decision. The Jays record in those games? 2-8. His bullpen blew a lot of games for him and the Jays didn't have enough bats to mount a comeback. Give Lilly some bullpen and run support and he wins 17 or 18 games this year.

Matt Clement pitches on a 89-73 playoff team and goes 9-13 and teams are lining up to give this guy 7+ million a year. Makes you wonder how much Lilly would fetch if he was on the market.

Kelvim Escobar went 11-12 on a 92-70 baseball team that did make the playoffs (unlike the Cubs), that had a better offense than the Cubs, and teams would still be lining up to sign him this year.

Clement had 8 no decisions, the Cubs were 4-4 in those games. 6 of those games were decided by one run.

He had 7 losses that were decided by one run. In four of these games, he pitched 31 innings and gave up only one or two runs.

Sure, he might wind up being overpaid, but I don't think you can really bash him for his record. If anything, the concern should be his injury problems in August and September.

Ooops.. I meant to say "almost made the playoffs". I guess it's Tim Horton's time. :)

Or is Lilly's low win total a result of him only pitching 7 or more innings 7 times all year?

Don't get me wrong, I thought Lilly had a good year, I just thought Delgado was more deserving of player of the year.

Ryan Lind

I know by mentioning Ted Lilly's great games , as the games that stood out for you was a way in displaying why you voted for him,
however i think you missed a couple key games that had to eb highlights for every Jays fan......David Bush carrying a no hitter into the 6 or 7th innings against the A's i believe , that and a couple other starts of his had to be highlights !!

Bush brought a no-hitter into the 8th, I think. Miller broke it up?
He also shut out the AAAA Yankees at the end of the season.

Other things I remember from this season:
- GOMEZ HIT GRAND SLAM NOW
- the Ted Lilly Face, the best face in Toronto since Dave Stewart
- Matt LeCroy's grand slam
- Menechino pitching better than Ligtenberg in that blowout game
- that one game with a total lineup that cost about a million dollars

In fact, what was the actual game with the cheap lineup? Must be back in June or July, with Clark/Berg/Menechino/Gomez all playing at once.

I think we're going to be getting mileage out of GOMEZ HIT GRAND SLAM NOW for as long as Chris Gomez plays baseball. Maybe longer.

But it's telling that one of your (and mine) strongest memories of the season is a commercial.

mine = my

Still an ugly sentence. Ok, workday, time to end so NFH can sleep.

But it's telling that one of your (and mine) strongest memories of the season is a commercial.

LOL SARAH says the Garlic Poem Guy. Epson Cowboy agrees.

Lilly (honourable mention: Hudson)
Chacin (Ramirez, Hill, League, Tablado. In that order)

Amazing, isn't it? Completely out of the running were McGowan, Quiroz, Peterson, Banks...

I slept through the Dave Bush No-Hitter game. Damn living in the west.

Still, if Bush had pitched 150 innings he would be a candidate as well.

As for the other stuff...[Gomez's Grand Slam, Menechino pitching (which I also missed,) etc...] you're right, I forgot those. But I just think Lilly contributed the most to the team this year. And I don't see how you can argue the case of Delgado, who contributed negatively in two months, and didn't contribute at all in another, or Menechino, who contributed every third game.

But whatever, your vote, your choice.

Those are great memories, especially the Gomez one.

I vividly remember the "Return of the King" Delgado sign when he came back from being injured, that was a great game and probably my best memory of an actual event from this past season. Im great at remembering facts, but Im really awful when it comes to remembering events that I actually experienced.

And I don't see how you can argue the case of Delgado, who contributed negatively in two months, and didn't contribute at all in another, or Menechino, who contributed every third game.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't believe that Mouse contributed more to the team than Lilly; that's not why I voted for him. He got votes because he was a cast-off that did more than anyone could have imagined offensively, he's 3' tall but hit 9 homers, including one off 9' tall Randy Johnson, he pitched and he amused me greatly. There were no specific criteria for us to use as guidelines, so I don't know how you can dismiss any candidate. Even if we were to use the idea of contribution to the team, how can you dimiss a vote for Delgado when he had one more win share than Lilly?

Why, because he had three less points of VORP! :-)

Really, vote for whomever you want.

Fawaz is right. We don't have set criteria for the Players of the Year. We're basically asking people "who do you want to congratulate for their great year"? If Pat Hentgen won, it wouldn't bother us.

I thought about listing a set of criteria for the award, but eventually I decided that that wasn't what we wanted to do, because it tends to set off arguments that are unwinnable. So feel free to vote for whoever or whomever you like. In a sense, that's why we vote.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't believe that Mouse contributed more to the team than Lilly; that's not why I voted for him. He got votes because he was a cast-off that did more than anyone could have imagined offensively, he's 3' tall but hit 9 homers, including one off 9' tall Randy Johnson, he pitched and he amused me greatly. There were no specific criteria for us to use as guidelines, so I don't know how you can dismiss any candidate.

Fawaz, I agree. "Player of the Year" can be taken a lot of ways. I voted for Menechino not because he was the most spectacular or even most valuable player, but because he did such a good job in the particular role he was given.

I just voted for Tom Cheek at the BBHoF site. I hope having Don Chevrier's name beside his name on the ballot doesn't split the vote.

Voting will continue until at least next week.

I'll vote for Orlando Hudson and Gustavo Chacin

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/news/mlb_news.jsp?ymd=20041126&content_id=916578&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp
Lest anybody accuse anyone else of poor judgement in their selections, consider the Expos' POY vote. Our dear boy Tony Batista got 2 out of 10 first place votes. COMN

In fact, what was the actual game with the cheap lineup?

To answer my own question, I believe June 16 out in San Francisco was the cheapest lineup fielded by the Jays this year (looking only at the nine defensive players). At one point, the players were Phelps-Hudson-Menechino-Hinske, Berg-Rios-Johnson, and Kershner pitching to Cash. That's four million dollars total right there.

Me Grimlock vote for Carlos Delgado and Chacin.

So our exit polls have Chacin *dominating* and Hudson and Lilly tied atop the race with 6 votes each, Delgado with 3, and Might Mouse with 2...

Those exit polls aren't exact, but they're not bad. Turnout has been disappointing to date - only 40 votes recorded - we're hoping for a number of stragglers to get their votes in next week.

My vote goes to Hudson and Chacin as well.

Although had Bush been able to maintain his preformance levels throughout the year; he would have won my vote.

I actually took a girl to the Bush shutout of the AAAA Yankees on a first date and had a blast. Wow.... I just re-read that.... that's some good innuendo!

Master of Zubaz

So before Zubaz' vote the "exit polls" accounted for 17/40 votes cast ... almost half ~ should be relatively accurate concerning the race I guess. When does the voting close? People really should get their votes in to legitimize this as much as possible.

For those that haven't read, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats catcher from their Championship season, Paul Chiaffredo, has been signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

For those that haven't read, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats catcher from their Championship season, Paul Chiaffredo, has been signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Delgado. Chacin.

As a reminder, votes posted in this thread ARE NOT VALID. You must e-mail your vote to bbfl2@yahoo.com for it to be counted.

Lilly and Chacin. Lilly was the best overall part of the team. Chacin is really good, might be part of a winning team one day, but they'll need more money

Baseball sux, hockey rules

Baseball sux, hockey rules

You spelled roolz wrong.

I'm glad to see that our policymakers at the Toronto District School Board have such high standards of diction.

O-Dog and Chacin, although I would vote for Frank (Hey, youz wanna play some stickball?) Menechino as the most intimidating. At least his scoreboard photo was!