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No real surprises with the team to start the season. Rolen and Ryan start the year on the DL and Buck Coats and Rule 5 pick Randy Wells benefit from that.

It does have to be a little frustrating for Jesse Carlson. The impression I got was that the Jays preferred him, but chose Wells so they could keep both players in the organization (as Wells would have to be returned to the Cubs if not on the major league team). But there's always injuries and he's likely first in line so it's probably more a matter of time for him right now.

Posted by Pistol on Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 08:29 AM EDT.

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Thomas - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 08:50 AM EDT (#181536) #

I agree there's no real surprises there, either. However, keeping Wells just to keep him in the organization raises the question of what will happen when Ryan returns. Granted this is assuming everyone in the bullpen is healthy (which may not be a likely assumption), but someone will have to go to make way for Ryan.

I suspect the Jays will make the decision when it arises, but I guess based on how well Wolfe and Wells are pitching, one of those two might be the odd man out. They've never seemed to be that high on Tallet, but he's been solid the last two seasons, was good this spring and is currently the pen's second lefty.

Mike Green - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 09:04 AM EDT (#181538) #

There is no ZIPS projection for Buck Coats that I can find, but given that he's hit .290/.350/.400 in 2 seasons in Iowa (a favourable environment) at age 24-25, I would venture .260/.300/.350. ZIPS had Johnson at .272/.341/.400. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

China fan - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 09:08 AM EDT (#181539) #

    (I put this on the other thread, but it should be on this thread:)

      Today I've been doing some thinking about the much-touted Adam Lind, and comparing him to the obscure and unheralded Buck Coats. A few months ago, if someone had told us that the Jays would dump Reed Johnson and still find room for 5 outfielders on the opening-day roster, wouldn't we have been astonished to learn that none of those 5 opening-day outfielders is named Adam Lind?   How did he manage to sink so low on the depth chart? Of course the easy answer is that the Jays preferred to keep Coats because he has the pinch-running and defensive capabilities to help the team in the late innings, especially since Stairs and Stewart are defensively weak. I suppose also Lind will benefit more from full-time duties in Syracuse, rather than part-time duties in Toronto. But still, just for the sake of argument, I decided to compare the numbers for Lind and Coats.
       What about their age? Not a huge difference there -- Coats is a year older than Lind. Minor-league career? Over their entire minor-league career, Lind certainly has a much higher OPS than Coats, and much more power.   Major-league careers? Lind has better numbers, but he's played only 107 major-league games. (Coats has 52 games in the majors, so he's not entirely unfamiliar with the bigs.)   Okay, so based on the career numbers, Lind would seem to be a lot better prospect than Coats.   In the BB poll of prospects over the winter, as I recall, Coats didn't even get close to the top 10, and some Bauxites even ridiculed the inclusion of his name on the poll.
      But if you isolate the 2007 numbers for the two players, the picture is a bit muddier.   Yes, the sample sizes are small, but bear with me for a moment. Both were pretty abysmal in their limited exposure to the majors last year.   Coats, for example, had a dreadful OBP of .263 in the majors last year. But Lind was not much better, with a dismal OBP of .278 with the Jays last year.   Now look at their minor-league numbers last year. Lind's batting at Syracuse was .299/.353/.471 with an OPS of .824.    Coats at AAA last year was .308/.366/.439 with an OPS of .805.     So, basically Lind had slightly more power, but Coats was better at getting on base.
      Okay, it was a relatively small sample, and Lind did spend most of last year in the majors (putting up mediocre numbers). But still, the record seems to show that Coats has been improving his batting every season in the minors, whereas Lind declined last year. The net result was that their batting last year was pretty similar. And in other departments, Coats is clearly superior, with much better defensive abilities and speed.   (Coats actually played 33 games in the infield as recently as 2006, and he spent most of his career at shortstop.)    So, maybe not as much difference between the much-touted Lind and the unheralded Coats as we might have expected.
      Now, don't get me wrong, I'd still have to agree that Lind has a better shot at a regular job in the majors that Coats does. And of course Coats is likely to be sent to Syracuse pretty briskly when Rolen returns to the lineup. But I just want to say that Coats might have won his opening-day job on more than just his pinch-running and defensive abilities. Despite his low ranking in our offseason poll, Coats might still have a shot at a long-term career with the Jays.

Mike Green - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 11:05 AM EDT (#181541) #

I ran into the ZIPS projection for Coats (it's in an Excel file available through BTF). It's .244/.291/.348. Yikes, John McDonald territory, and a little worse than my off-the-cuff numbers.

timpinder - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 11:35 AM EDT (#181543) #

I think the selection of Coats over Lind came down to the fact that Coats is viewed as a 4th outfielder, and Lind is viewed as an everyday player, whether it be LF, DH or 1B. The Jays weren't going to bring Lind up to sit on the pine and pinch hit against right-handers, they have Stairs for that. I displayed Lind's statistics in another thread, but trust that he can hit. Lind's problems are Travis Snider, Lyle Overbay and Frank Thomas. For Lind to be a regular this year or next he needs an injury to Stewart or Stairs, or for Snider to struggle in his exposure to AA and get held back a year (I hope not), or for Thomas to get 375 or fewer at-bats this year (I hope so). Otherwise he won't have a position and may become valuable trade bait, especially if he continues to hit (.317 AVG, .378 OBP, .506 SLG in the minors).

To compare Lind to Coats based on their 2007 numbers is unfair. Lind had the worst season of his minor league career with a .824 OPS as a 23 year old who struggled after his first long-term exposure to Major League pitching. Coats, on the other hand, had the best season of his career with a .798 OPS as a 25 year old in his second full season in AAA. Lind was still the better hitter.

ayjackson - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 11:42 AM EDT (#181544) #

Mike, take heart in the Marcel projections for Coats from Fangraphs:

.263/.327/.429 for an OPS of .757.

MrElbertBuffin - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 12:04 PM EDT (#181546) #

I'm wondering how the Jays are going to set up their rotation for the first week of the season (partially for selfish reasons, as I'm planning to attend the Sunday afternoon affair against the BoSox). It seems to me to not be entirely clear, as there may or may not be concerns remaining about Marcum and Burnett's status (trivial, perhaps, but nonetheless worthy of consideration if you can manage to give them an extra week). As well, if you were to trot out Doc, AJ, and Dusty in the three game set against the Yanks, then you are set to have Marcum on opening night at the dome. I mean no offence to Marcum, but it would seem incumbent on the Jays to have one of their top pitchers, if not their ace up on the mound for that game.

How would you set up the rotation?

I've looked around the threads a bit, but haven't seen discussion about this. Hope that I haven't just missed it.

James W - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 12:10 PM EDT (#181547) #

Based on tidbits I've heard or read, and my own figuring, I believe the rotation for the first week will be: Halladay - Mon @ NYY Burnett - Wed @ NYY McGowan - Thurs @ NYY Marcum - Fri vs. BOS Halladay - Sat vs. BOS Litsch - Sun vs BOS (I'm aiming to make it to the Dome for Saturday's game)

timpinder - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 12:22 PM EDT (#181548) #

I assumed that the Jays would use the day off on April 1st to skip Litsch. He's not heading north with team and will throw a minor league game to get his regular work in. My guess would be Halladay-Burnett-McGowan against NY, and Marcum-Halladay-Burnett against Boston. That way everyone would be on regular rest, except Marcum who would get an extra day off after throwing a minor league game on March 29th.

I wonder what they're going to do with McGowan. He's throwing today and would get 6 full days off before starting against the Yankees.

dan gordon - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 12:37 PM EDT (#181549) #

"That way everyone would be on regular rest, except Marcum"

No, Burnett would be pitching on 3 days rest if they did that. He is pitching game 2 on Wednesday vs NY. They will use Litsch on Sunday against Boston - no way are they going to start pitching Burnett on 3 days rest at this point in the season.

vw_fan17 - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 12:51 PM EDT (#181550) #

Saw this on usenet.. Not sure if it has legs, but it sounds interesting..

1) rumour was that Cubs were interested in R. Johnson (not 100% sure if this is true)
2) Jays claimed R. Wells in Rule 5 from Cubs
3) Jays released Johnson
4) Cubs signed Johnson for $1.3 (instead of $3.xx otherwise)
If Jays want to send Wells to minors this year, they have to "offer" him back to the Cubs first
Speculation:
5) If Jays were to offer Wells back to the Cubs, they would refuse to take Wells back as a "payback" for getting Johnson for $2M less

Thoughts? Would we have traded Johnson for Wells straight up as "mostly" a salary dump? Would that make it a little more palatable? Is this collusion by the GMs, or just being shrewd (if there's any truth to it)?

VW

Pistol - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 12:58 PM EDT (#181551) #

Those assumptions assume that Johnson was in on it too.

Because it falls apart if Johnson is offered a better contract from another team after he was released.

zeppelinkm - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 01:27 PM EDT (#181552) #

I've been saying this for days now, and maybe it really does mean nothing (just a typical spring training story maybe?) and hence the reason nobody has responded or commented on it in the slightest - with respect to Lind last year: He claims he got into a bad habit hitting. So he visited an old coach this off season who helped Lind work it out. He says he feels he's swinging properly again and should be back to hitting the ball the way he can.

I can certainly buy this: Last year was his first real full time style action in the majors. He got off to a slow start, so it would be easy to start putting a lot of pressure on yourself and possibly start pressing or shortening up trying to make better contact. ie, just start trying things to try and get on base or whatever, so you develop some bad habit, or you resort to an old bad habit.

Am I the only one who sees this as good news and think it's relevant? If Lind turns into what we think he should be, the Jays just got a whole bunch better, no? Then you can package some of your surplus outfielders with some prospects for a solid bullpen guy or a depth starter.

http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080313&content_id=2424864&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=tor

I find it exciting and relevant! I want the Jays outfield to be Lind/Wells/Rios with Stairs and Stewart as our 2 top bench players/hitters. Wouldn't that be better? Wouldn't that give us drastically better depth then if one of (god forbid) Wells or Rios DID go down? Or Overbay? Or Thomas?

Lind is an important player to watch, me thinks. The 5 guys throwing for us reguarly are the biggest key, but if we can get an unexpected break through from a guy like Lind, it could go a long way to trouble the double headed monster atop the AL East.

timpinder - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 01:51 PM EDT (#181554) #

Dan G,

you're right, apparently I can't count and Burnett would be on short rest.

So what does that do to the rotation? There's another day off on April 7th, so from the 8th - 12th Burnett-McGowan-Marcum-Halladay-Litsch go, all on an extra day of rest. The next day off isn't until April 28th, so that would be the rotation for most of April. Perhaps the Jays would be better served to just give Halladay an extra day of rest and have him throw game 3 against Boston on Sunday, keeping the rotation in order.

Geoff - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 02:09 PM EDT (#181556) #

What happens to all the aged pitchers that were brought into camp? I expect some will be sent off to pasture, but will a few be toiling in the minors waiting for one of Brian Tallet, Brandon League, Jason Frasor, Brian Wolfe, or Randy Wells to falter? I'm surprised that there is room for all five of those guys.

I certainly hope the Jays pinched their pennies wisely with Johnson -- it has opened the door of opportunity wide -- but Zeppelinkm has me convinced that Lind is now the key to the Jays success.

I don't particularly want to see Stewart as an everyday LF, spelled by Stairs. I'm expecting to see Stairs and Stewart split time and not strictly in LH/RH matchups. Would be ideal to see Lind and Stairs split time vs RH pitching.

That said, I expect Coats to excel or Lind to come back with extra motivation. I can't see how the Jays braintrust would do this move without aiming at one of those two goals. If Coats doesn't truly have the skill to perform well, it better be to serve Lind notice that he needs to go an extra mile.

Mike Green - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 02:15 PM EDT (#181557) #

Chone takes the middle ground on Coats at .254/.305/.367. That looks like the best of the projections to my eyes.

timpinder - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 02:17 PM EDT (#181558) #

Blair reports Rolen will be out 4-6 weeks (3-5 weeks once the season starts).

Matt Stairs is hurt too ("slim chance" he'll start season on DL)

UGH!

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

SheldonL - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 02:21 PM EDT (#181559) #

We have to remember that Lind is an exeptional talent and that last year's struggles was mostly because we rushed him along. He had a handful of AAA at-bats in '06 which is did very well with and his September call up was good.

That doesn't equate "major-league" ready but we sillily(if that's a word) chose to call him up because he was next on the depth chart. His early struggles in AAA were mostly because he was hung out to dry at the major league level - and we all know that mental toughness goes along way with hitters.

I don't think JP's sleighting Lind by signing Stewart and picking Coats as a bench player for a couple of weeks.

Lind had to understand that he had an overall decent year in AAA but we want him to kill it in AAA before we call him up for good - emphasis on "for good"!

I think it will happen this year, it might be June-ish but it will only be when he's ready.

I really hope that JP doesn't jump the gun and call him up early if Stewart and Stairs both start to stink it up - a possibility that I'm hoping doesn't happen but let's not forget Stewart's meagre stats vs LHP and Stairs' anomalous '07 season considering his age(he still strokes RHP well, ie. pre-'07).

PS: Jon Lester is Boston's number 2 guy?(Number 3 when Beckett returns)... I think we've found the Sox' achilles heel!

CaramonLS - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 02:42 PM EDT (#181564) #

So, our Opening day lineup consists of Eckstein, Scutaro, Hill, Overbay, Thomas, Rios, Wells, Zaun and Stewart.

... and that is our best "offensive" lineup too.

My goodness, find a way to get Lind up here, please.

timpinder - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 02:59 PM EDT (#181567) #

Bastian reports that it's likely Stairs will be in the lineup opening day:

http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080327&content_id=2461349&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=tor

Frank Markotich - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 03:00 PM EDT (#181568) #

AWeb - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 03:11 PM EDT (#181569) #

Cruising around the internet, the growing awesomness of fangraphs just got better, with leaderboards for 2007 based on the type of pitch thrown. For those who threw more than 100 innings, the Jays dominate the Cutter % list, with Litsch leading (40.6%), with Halladay and Marcum in the top ten. Also in the top ten was Toronto system product Dave Bush. Definite point of emphasis in the organization. Janssen also threw a lot of cutters. No one touches Cutter King Rivera (73.3% cutters), but the Jays are definitely the organization of the cut fastball, only Burnett and Tallet don't throw one. Perhaps the utter dominance of Rivera despite non-gaudy K totals has lead to some good ideas and the ability to exceed expectations (I'm looking at you, "doesn't strike enough people" Jesse Litsch).

gabrielthursday - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 03:23 PM EDT (#181572) #

With Shawn Camp, Jesse Carlson, Armando Benitez, Jordan de Jong, John Parrish and others all being viable 6th or 7th guys in the bullpen, and with BJ Ryan coming back, I wouldn't be surprised to see a trade to upgrade our starting pitching- with Jeremy Accardo and Brian Tallet getting the best value.

Radster - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 05:22 PM EDT (#181580) #

I haven't seen this posted, but I found an interesting little comparative study on the projected AL East starting rotations:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AviWFWZyyGqXPiZQyYzt.TSFCLcF?slug=sorrybosoxyanksrayshaveb&prov=tsn&type=lgns

Ryan Day - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 06:11 PM EDT (#181581) #

Adam Lind will be 25 in July. He's been rushed along pretty slowly. And while I believe he has a chance to be a good player, "exceptional talents" tend to become contributing major leaguers much younger than that.

Sometimes they do, but sometimes they don't. Just looking at the top 5 in OPS+ in the AL last year:

Alex Rodriguez: Young, superstar, blah blah.
Carlos Pena: Became a regular at 24, but was pretty mediocre for a 1b until he turned 29.
David Ortiz: Didn't play regularly until 24, didn't have a significant offensive season until 26.
Magglio Ordonez: Regular at 24 but was pretty mediocre; improved at 25.
Jorge Posada: Didn't become a regular until 26 (but catcher's don't always follow regular development)

You could also look at guys like Jack Cust, who floundered around for several years, or Travis Hafner, who didn't even make the majors until 25 or become a regular until 27.

ChicagoJaysFan - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 06:12 PM EDT (#181582) #

I haven't seen this posted, but I found an interesting little comparative study on the projected AL East starting rotations:

I like the study, but am not personally a fan of overall staff ERA's. What I think would be more accurate is to take each starting pitcher, project the number of starts and Tampa's record when said starter is in, and then sum all starters that way. You never get to send out your 2.5th starter (equiv. of overall staff ERA) in the rotation, let alone for 162 games a year.

For many teams, the overall staff ERA may not be so misleading, but not so for a team like Tampa, where there is a huge drop-off after Shields and Kazmir. The problem with overall ERA's in this case, is that the team's are rather entirely different depending on who the starting pitcher is (at least for 2/3 of the game) and that will have a great impact on wins and losses. It's like looking at the Jays overall OPS+ last year and ignoring the fact that they're completely different when they face righties versus when they face lefties.

For full disclosure, I'm not a fan of Garza at the MLB level (yet!), as is K/9 was bolstered to the level of mediocrity last year by his high WHIP; his K/BF was less than stellar

Tampa may win 65+% of the ~60 games Kazmir and Shields start, but through the rest of their rotation, for ~100 games, I think they'll be lucky to win 40% of their games. 65% and 40% were not completely pulled out of the air, they were based on the winning percentages of Kazmir, Shields, and Sonnanstine in their starts with Tampa last year. That record of 79-83 is significantly worse than they would likely do if they could toss out a (Kazmir+Sonnanstine)/2 pitcher.

The key to a rotation is not to prevent runs, but to position you to win. Using the Blue Jay right/lefty comparison again - the extra runs the Jays score against the lefties doesn't help when a righty is on the mound - and Kazmir and Shields don't prevent the other team from scoring when they're on an off day.

HollywoodHartman - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 06:53 PM EDT (#181583) #

Rosenthal has Roy winning the Cy Young. Let the good times roll!

HollywoodHartman - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 07:45 PM EDT (#181585) #

Sorry for the double post, but we have an update on old friend Troy Glaus.

La Russa says that they may rest him once a series. That would mean he'd only play around 110 games. That's even without a major injury.

timpinder - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 09:09 PM EDT (#181586) #

Thomas - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 10:17 PM EDT (#181588) #

Here's a good article by Jeff Pearlman on Jami Kennedy and how she's trying to cope with the tragic death of her husband, Joe Kennedy. It's better written than most articles on the human side of baseball are and it shows a widow, understandably, struggling to deal with the death of her husband and best friend. Go read it and help Jami keep the memory of Joe alive.

ChicagoJaysFan - Thursday, March 27 2008 @ 11:30 PM EDT (#181589) #

I believe tthat history will prove that the Jays won this trade. Rolen is easily the better defender, and on top of that he is arguably the better hitter too (.879 career OPS vs. .858 OPS). Rolen's finger injury is a fluke, while Glaus' problems seem chronic.

I do think the Jays will win this trade, but I think that Glaus' future is pretty much irrelevant to who the winner is. If Rolen is unhealthy - that contract kills the Jays and it doesn't matter if Glaus is healthy or not, they lose. If Rolen is healthy, which from what I've heard his injuries were acute, so he likely is to remain healthy, then the Jays win the trade regardless of Glaus because Rolen is a clearly better player.

vw_fan17 - Friday, March 28 2008 @ 02:00 PM EDT (#181602) #

Those assumptions assume that Johnson was in on it too.

Because it falls apart if Johnson is offered a better contract from another team after he was released.

True enough. Except, IMHO, JP probably had a pretty good idea as to who was interested, and for how much, etc. I think the answer was: at $3.x, no one. At $1.3M, the Cubs. At $400K, probably half the league..

Not saying 100% it happened this way, but.. it's interesting to think about, IMHO..

Chuck - Friday, March 28 2008 @ 03:58 PM EDT (#181610) #

That's a whole lot o' conspiracy just for Randy Wells.

timpinder - Friday, March 28 2008 @ 06:03 PM EDT (#181622) #

Lineup revealed:

Vs. RHP
Eckstein
Stairs
Rios
Wells
Thomas
Overbay
Hill
Scutaro
Zaun

Vs. LHP
Eckstein
Stewart
Rios
Wells
Thomas
Hill
Overbay
Scutaro
Zaun/Barajas

That's pretty much as expected. I'm sure that'll change when Rolen returns near early May.

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

ChicagoJaysFan - Friday, March 28 2008 @ 06:30 PM EDT (#181624) #

That's pretty much as expected. I'm sure that'll change when Rolen returns near early May.

Wow - based on those line-ups, I would expect the return of Rolen to drop Thomas down to 6th in the batting order. That's not bad when you can have that.

It's been said many times, but you know, so much depends on health with this team. We could have 5 guys getting significant at-bats that have OPS+ over 120 (Rios, Wells, Thomas, Rolen, and Stairs). At the same time, aside from Rios, it wouldn't be surprising at all if any of those guys had an OPS+ less than 100.

The Jays this year are one of those teams where the phrase, "that's why they play the games" actually means something.

timpinder - Friday, March 28 2008 @ 08:32 PM EDT (#181627) #

Rolen, Wells and Overbay all looked good in spring training. I think and hope that they're healed. With Rios and Hill continuously improving, this could be a very potent lineup. My concerns are with Thomas and Stairs, who are both getting older. Thomas has been terrible this spring, but Tabler said he was hitting over .300 in his last 6 spring training games, so let's hope he has more in the tank.

Marc Hulet - Friday, March 28 2008 @ 10:24 PM EDT (#181631) #

The problem with the Johnson/Wells 'conspiracy' is that the Jays could have just traded Johnson to the Cubs for the rights to Wells, which would have allowed them to send Wells to the minors at any point in the season and would negate the Rule 5... rules.

CaramonLS - Friday, March 28 2008 @ 11:53 PM EDT (#181632) #

I wonder how much of a leash Vernon gets in the #4 slot vs. RHP? Is this a mgmt decision or does Gibby honestly think this is the best move going forward?

Geoff - Saturday, March 29 2008 @ 01:06 AM EDT (#181636) #

But if they traded Johnson, he would be getting his full salary. Unless I'm missing something, he is not going to receive full salary after being released before the season begins.

grjas - Saturday, March 29 2008 @ 01:01 PM EDT (#181650) #

"I wonder how much of a leash Vernon gets in the #4 slot vs. RHP? Is this a mgmt decision or does Gibby honestly think this is the best move going forward?"

I'm not sure so many Box writers are down on Wells. He has averaged, approximately, 25/100, 4 of the past 6 seasons, and in the other two he was hurt. Rios on the other hand seems to be the golden boy has never once achieved 25 hr's or 100 RBI's (or even 90). True he is younger and (hopefully) continues to improve, but Wells is still under 30 and so far this year, has looked pretty good.

Here is a comparison of Wells first 6 years with Joe Carter's:

WELLS

hr rbi slg 23
23 100 0.457 24
33 117 0.55 25
23 67 0.472 26
28 97 0.463 27
32 106 0.542 28
16 80 0.402

155 567

Avg 26 95 0.481

CARTER

25
13 41 0.467 26
15 59 0.409 27
29 121 0.514 28
32 106 0.48 29
27 98 0.478 30
35 105 0.465

151 530

Avg 25 88 0.469

Pretty similar, and Wells was 2 years younger.

Plays great centrefield, never whines. Come on guys, last year was frustrating, but Wells deserves some slack.

Thomas - Saturday, March 29 2008 @ 06:51 PM EDT (#181669) #

scottt - Saturday, March 29 2008 @ 07:41 PM EDT (#181678) #

Unless I'm misreading things, it seems pitcher Mike Gosling got an at-bat at DH in yesterday's exhibition game against the Phillies after he pinch-ran for Frank Thomas earlier. I guess the team must have used up all the bench players on the trip, as that's an unusual sight, even for a game at the end of spring training.

It's cold in Philly right now. The regulars were removed early--same thing today.

Hill and Overbay have been hot this spring. The lineup should be solid, even without Rolen. Scutaro was a pretty decent pick.

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