But Blue Jays people don't believe a deal for Matsui precludes a deal for Rios. As another National League GM said: "The Giants don't need one Alex Rios. They need three or four."

I had always assumed that if the Giants got one of Matsui/Fukudome/Rowand, they would be out on Rios; apparently the Jays don't believe that.

Oh and patagonia, Rios has 3 years service time. He is arbitration eligible for the second time, and as a super two, we control him for two years after 2008.

The Giants getting Matsui would increase the likelihood of a Rios deal. Rios on his own would have no protection but Rios with Matsui behind him would be more formidable and would make more sense for them.

I believe the longer the Giants GM waits to accept or not accept the deal increases the chances of the deal going through.

Dalimon5, you have to understand that given that SF is on the opposite coast and in the other league and that chances are that most of their fans haven't seen Rios all that much or know what he can do. For the most part, they see him as a mid 20's corner outfielder that will hit around .300 and 20-25HR (i.e. a nice player, but not something great). They don't know that Rios can play a pretty decent CF, that he has a good chance of hitting 30-30 multiple times, and is still improving in all facets of the game.

The Jays will most certainly offer a contract to Towers. As mentioned before, $3M is nothing for a starting pitcher, even one with as sorted a career as Towers. In a ptiching drought like MLB right now, you stockpile arms that can provide you with a stable role and can be moved without hurting the team. Towers is both of those things.

Even if Towers fails to produce this year, he becomes your blow-out long relief to rest your bullpen. He becomes a rotation inning eater when three starters go down in the same week. He's also a chip when another ballclub suffers similar injuries and desperately needs a replacement that can eat 15 starts in the 5th hole and are stuck overpaying for it with a half decent prospect in return.

On the upside, Towers has good mechanics and proven durability. On the downside, he's got appalling mental focus issues. Either the right coach is going to be convinced they can turn him around, the right situation will give us a more advantagous trade option mid-season, or Towers will click to some level to provide a useful contribution, even if its as the sacrificial arm out of the bullpen. In any of those scenarios, $3M is a cheap gamble for the Jays. 

Especially disconcerting is the SF fans distaste for Alex Rios across SF fan pages.

Why does this matter? Sabean is not likely scanning the blogs for opinions.

A Rios extension would be nice, but the cost will be a hard one for the Jays to swallow.

Why do you say this, John? Last year, Uncle Ted was looking to spend $10M per year on Lilly. Why not similar bucks for Rios? If the team is going to pay Towers $3M and was going to pay Lo Duca $4M, why not consolidate these loose bits of cash and pay for a real player?

Rios on his own would have no protection but Rios with Matsui behind him would be more formidable and would make more sense for them.

A Google seach on research into the notion of batting order protection would prove enlightening.

Even if Towers fails to produce this year, he becomes your blow-out long relief to rest your bullpen. He becomes a rotation inning eater when three starters go down in the same week.

This type of stuff is always said about Towers. If you've got a 7-man bullpen, you're going to have the arms for long relief, with or without Towers. And as for serving as a "rotation inning eater", he has averaged less than 6 innings a start the past two seasons. I think that deep down, Blue Jay fans still think a return to Towers v.2005 is possible. While I wouldn't suggest that it's impossible, I have little interest in seeing the experiment conducted.

A Google seach on research into the notion of batting order protection would prove enlightening.

This is a tad on the condescending side.  I know we all have our bad days, but couldn't we improve on our tone a bit (I'm often guitly too - I blame my wife) in our comments to established members of our community.

Chuck, I know you've taken me to task on many a comment ere this one, but you've usually done it in a more respectful manner.

This is a tad on the condescending side. 

AY, you're right. It certainly reads a lot more condescending than I was intending. I'd like to blame your wife as well, if she won't mind.

A couple of "protection" links: here (David Marasco) and here (David Grabiner). Also, one of Bill James' Abstracts from the early 80's features his analysis of the topic, provoked by the unsubstantiated talk at the time that Dale Murphy was unduly affected by the oft injured Bob Horner's frequent absence from the lineup, Horner providing Murphy protection and all.

If I remember the essay "Underestimating the Fog" by James correctly

For those who are interested, that Bill James piece is here. James briefly discusses protection on the last page:

"On (9) (batting ahead of a good hitter does not ordinarily cause anyone to hit better), I still believe this to be true. While this analysis relies on part on comparison offshoots, it does so in a more tangential way. I believe that a more careful study, steering clear of comparison offshoots, is still likely to demonstrate that hitters perform (essentially) independent of one another, except in a few isolated cases."

Two years ago, Da Box's Jordan commented on the essay.

I'd like to blame your wife as well, if she won't mind.

We can all blame my wife, provided she remains "in the fog".  That Red Maple on the wall, though, might lead her to the light - and me to the doghouse.

Mike Green,

it's nice to see you're still posting, even if you're not writing here anymore.

Why do you have Marcum as the third starter?  Do you see him as a more valuable pitcher than McGowan, or is it because you'd want to change the pace and give the opposition something different to look at between Burnett and McGowan?

What would make me happiest is to see the club move to the six man pen.

One more reason for Towers not to offer Towers arbitration. IMO, all this talk about Towers being salary arbitration is just posturing from JP (in order to get a better trade). I recall that JP said on more than one occasion (on Wilner's post game show) that the club wouldn't tender Towers arbitration after the season.

Blair says the Jays are not in on Estrada:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/baseball

"A murderous bullpen front-end of Ryan?, Accardo, Janssen and Downs (and Frasor but not)."

Bill James' 2008 projections have Frasor (3.80) posting a lower ERA than both Janssen (4.09) and Downs (4.17).  In fact, every member of the Jays' pen is projected to regress somewhat from 2007, except of course Ryan (3.06).  Janssen would make a great fifth starter and middle reliever, but his peripherals suggest that it's unlikely he'll have an ERA under 3.00 again next year.  If the projections are close then the rotation looks great in 2008, the lineup looks solid too, but the bullpen actually looks average.

When looking at the projection systems I'm more interested in their peripheral stat forecasts than ERA, especially for relief pitchers (for whom real-life ERA isn't really that interesting anyway). I also feel James' system tends to regress pitcher K/BB to the mean a little too vigorously, underrating young short relievers in particular, but that's a gut reaction that could easily be totally out to lunch.

Relievers are very volatile.  I think Accardo is maybe the only reliever I feel a lot of confidence in repeating because of his stuff and decent K numbers.  But there are a lot of young relievers (Crain, Wagner, League, etc) who put up a great year and then struggle.  So if these guys can struggle then the guys with iffier peripherals like Janssen and Wolfe certainly aren't locks.

http://media.knbr.com/knbr/1207sabean.mp3

In this interview of Sabean it sounds like he's trying to do a couple of things.  One is to add two good offensive players to make a real impact (though he did mention one could be added this year and one next year).  He also says they want to investigate options for a replacement for Lincecum if they end up doing the deal.

He still talks like there's a remote possibility of the deal happening and yet he admits his staff seems unilaterally against dealing Lincecum.  In other words, who the heck knows?

That's definitely an great interview for those interested in the ongoing Rios-Lincecum trade rumours. A couple of points I took from it that I haven't really heard elsewhere:

-Both the Jays and the Giants are higher on Lincecum than Cain and Cain hasn't even been discussed as a possibility. Sabean sounded like the Jays wouldn't do a deal without Lincecum. The Giants aren't concerned about Lincecum as an injury risk.

-It seems like the main reason Sabean is taking his time is because they are working at their end on ways to try and expand the deal to make losing Lincecum easier to swallow (whereas it seemed very unlikely that a straight 1-for-1 deal would conceivably happen). He talked about finding a "Lincecum replacement" in this context.

Thanks R Billie. That's possibly the best interview with a GM I've ever heard!

To point out the relative position of the Jays in terms of payroll, let's have a look. In 2001, the Yankees and Red Sox were around 110 million and the Jays at 76 (10th in the majors). In 2002, things got worse by merely treading water with NY at 125, Boston at 108, and the Jays at 77 (11th in the majors). For 2003, things looked bleak as NY jumped up to 150, Boston dropped down to 97, and the Jays plunged to 51 (21st in the majors). Again things became worse by treading water in 2004 with NY reaching 183, Boston jumping to 125, and the Jays still at 50 (21st in the majors). 2005 saw NY at a whopping 208, Boston at 124, and the Jays at 46 (25th in the majors). Two seasons ago NY dropped back to 195, Boston down to 120, and the Jays jumped up to 72 (16th in the majors). Last year, NY lowered to 190, Boston jumped up to 143 and the Jays made it to 82 (16th in the majors).

As one can see, the Jays haven't made it into the upper half of payroll for 5 straight seasons. Playing the unbalanced schedule is a significant disadvantage (and so boring) that cannot just be measured by a straight W-L comparison with the big spenders.In addition to this, the league minimum salary has basically doubled (IIRC) since 2001. That really can take a big bite out of the budget. I am not sure how we will get a great GM to come here because they have every disadvantage and are expected to win. Perhaps the most comparable team to Toronto is Baltimore (same division, similar payroll), and I am sure glad that I am not an Orioles fan. It could be much worse as we have seen.

In regards to JP, I am glad to see him pursuing a power arm. I truly hope that he learned this past season that he needs to play the young players and give them a chance to succeed.   JP should remain the team's GM (unless a top one is available) because a change for the sake of change will probably only disrupt the organization and at least temporarily set it back. The Jays will need to show a lot of life in April if Gibbons wants to stick around. By the trading deadline of next year, I think we will be in a much better position to see where this team is heading for 2009.

I agree that the Jays would have no interest in Lowry, even for a price exceedingly less than Rios.

Just guessing here, but I would imagine that Sabean sees Matsui-for-Sanchez to be plan B for Rios-for-Lincecum should he not elect to pull the trigger on the latter. And who knows, maybe he sees merit in pursuing both. One way or the other, the Giants ain't gonna do squat in 2008. It might be slightly more tolerable for their fans if they're scoring more than 2 runs a game and if Benji Molina isn't there best hitter.

I guess I've got betters things to do today than work...

From Griffen's oeuvre: "Without Rios, wherefore is the offence and team speed?"

Griffen makes a living as a writer. He should, therefore, know, umm, English. Wherefore means why, not where. His question, therefore, is the nonsensical: "Without Rios, why is the offence and team speed?". Did I mention that he makes his living as a writer?

When Juliet says "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo" she's not asking where he is, but why he is Romeo, why the man she loves is a Montague, the family feuding with her's.

Okay, I'm done.

For the record, my e-mail interview with Griffin that contributed to that series significantly was a pleasure. He was prompt and direct and answered everything I asked, no matter how stupid some of the questions were.

I don't read him enough to judge his writing, only catching something in the TO papers on the Web once in a Blue (Jay) Moon, but he was exceptionally forthcoming and willing to work with me, so I am, while not a reader of Griffin, generally pro-Griffin. For whatever that's worth!