Reyes is ranked dead last on the team in Baseball Reference WAR. The WAR figures seem to suggest that an accurate assessment of Reyes' contribution, depending on how much credit/blame you assign to pitchers for homer avoidance/hit non-avoidance, probably lies somewhere in between 2nd best and 17th best. I'm not sure I could have figured that out myself.

Given how dramatic the shift has been the last two years, I think it's fair to suspect some monkey business with the balls. As far as I know, I think the 1987 offensive explosion is generally accepted to have been due to the balls. Most of us have seen the HR contest and the livelier balls used there (BP fastballs should not result in the longest HRs ever hit in some parks). In both cases, MLB has denied anything was "up". When offense changes a lot, in just a few years, I think the most reasonable explanation is the equipment, rather than the players. I would apply this to the late 90's explosion as well, actually - although some other stuff was going on too..

The specifications for usable baseballs are written down in the rules, but there is enough wiggle room in the acceptable range for "hardness" to manipulate things a lot, and not many people would need to be in on it.  I know, it sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory, but I honestly don't believe the players have changed that much in the last 2-3 years.

Aside from suspecting something is up with the equipment, I think other changes are - organizations mostly realizing that groundballs are preferable and focusing pitchers to aim for them (but has MLBs groundball rate changed?), and also that defensive contributions can be as good as offensive ones - I think this has mainly affected the OF spots, where there seem to be fewer of the "should be DHing" types around.

What Dave Till said about Bautista really can't be emphasized enough. The guy has missed over a fifth of his team's games so far and still has a 0.6 lead in WAR over #2, Joey Votto. He leads MLB in WPA too. Heck, if you looked at his 2011 WAR per game and compared it to Barry Bonds' best season, Joey Bats wins again. What we've seen from Jose Bautista over the last 6 weeks (and dating back to the end of 2010) has to be one of the greatest all around performances in MLB history.

Lubanski is out of affiliated baseball, but he is still playing. On May 3, he signed with the Chico Outlaws of the North American Baseball League as a player-coach.

Lets just hope we don't get as sad a few years later as Cubs fans did.

Jose hasn't bulked up the way Sosa did.  Haven't seen anything other than splinter fly when Jose's bats break.  There is nothing to suggest one is like the other besides the stats. It's just that Sosa did artificially what Jose has done through hard work and good coaching.

Hoping to see some more moon shots from EE in Target Field.

Rivera`s in the four-hole, with his .529 OPS over the past 14 days.  Remember when he was heating up?  Or did I dream that?

Farrell said that Lind remains day to day.

So they had EE and Rivera in the lineup instead of Cooper because of these silly batter/pitcher numbers in very small sample sizes?  Well. how did it work out?  EE and Rivera were a combined 1 for 6 and the 1 hit was a single.  Why doesn't somebody check these things out and show that IT DOESN'T WORK?  In this case, you're not exactly benching a star, but still, you'd think you'd want the lefty in there. 

What happened on the botched squeeze?  Did EE miss the squeeze sign, or did Escobar see a sign that wasn't given?  Patterson continues to amaze me on the bases.  On the play where he scored, he almost stopped at 3B as he was trying to turn to go home.

Actually, EE and Rivera were 4 for 10

Actually, you are missing the point.  I am seeing how these guys did against Pavano. As I said, Rivera and EE were 1 for 6.  The only hit they got vs Pavano was a single by EE.  My point is this nonsense about guys being in the lineup against a pitcher because they have hit him well, and should therefore hit him well again, is, well, nonsense.  The 4 for 10 was for the whole game, and is irrelevant to the discussion.

Actually the flaw in your argument is using a tiny sample size to disprove the hypothesis

Actually, that's not what I'm doing.  I've mentioned a few times that somebody should do a study to show that these lineup decisions based on small sample sizes are invalid.  The 6 AB's tonight are just one example of the falacious nature of the arguement that lineup decisions should include such small sample sizes of previous hitter/pitcher results.  With the number of different pitchers a hitter faces over the course of his career, random fluctuations in performance are bound to occur.  Thinking that a hitter is going to do well vs a pitcher because he has had good results against him in 10 or 20 or 30 AB's is, I strongly suspect, utterly meaningless, and yet teams continue to make lineup decisions based on this.  i would love to see a proper statistical study done on this, and it amazes me that no team has ever done it. 

i would love to see a proper statistical study done on this, and it amazes me that no team has ever done it. 

Many teams now employ analysts from the world of sabermetrics. Any studies they underwrite would be proprietary and not  be available to the public. Who's to know what studies teams have done? 

I know the Bauxites generally have a good opinion of Gregg Zaun's baseball analysis, but will they have as high an opinion of him when they read his quotes in today's National Post on the subject of our earlier-discussed question of "pitching for the win"?   Zaun says he would have voted for Sabathia for the Cy Young last year, not Hernandez, and here is his explanation:

“I’m a big fan of won-loss record.... You can point to ERA … but there’s a lot of guys whose numbers are half a run higher or a run higher, and they seem to get the wins. They pitch well when it counts. In my experience, the guys with a low ERA but a bad win-loss record don’t pitch well when they absolutely have to.”

I'm anticipating some scathing reactions from Chuck and others....

I'm anticipating some scathing reactions from Chuck and others....

As Magpie pointed out, Zaun's stance is not unusual for a player. It's not enough that W-L record has to reflect ability. Apparently it also has to reflect character. Given that athletes see themselves as warriors, I suppose his point of view is an inevitable by-product. The war metaphor gets a good and thorough workout.

In his current book, Bill James has stepped back from his stance that deviations in actual W-L from the expected are due entirely to run support. In contrasting the careers of Mike Morgan and John Burkett (and others), he comes around to the position that some pitchers do rise to the occasion and win more than they should, and some do the opposite. He has developed new techniques for measuring these effects.

All that said, when comparing Hernandez and Sabathia, you have to start with run support: 3.75 for Hernandez, 7.31 for Sabathia. The enormity of this gulf cannot be nickled and dimed away with the consideration of other factors, like ability to pitch to the score. Give Hernandez the 7.31 and just watch what a character individual he is, winning 20+ games.

Like many ex-players, Zaun's micro analysis is terrific and his macro analysis not so terrific. He is a keen observer of aspects of game play and can well articulate his observations, educating the viewers. I'm sure I will continue enjoying that aspect of his commentary. When Zaun weighs in with broader analysis, however, I find myself often disagreeing with him. This is disappointing, but not surprising.

It`s been a tough schedule so far too.

Mac, Molina, Patterson and Nix would be a pretty good bench.  Pop and speed from both sides of the plate.

If we were to call up Nix and Thames right now, and set Rivera and a reliever free, we`d have a pretty good squad.  Lawrie could replace EE, in due course - and Snider, Cooper.

Cooper should go down to make room for Nix, even though I like Cooper's potential and I've seen some positive things from him in his major-league debut.  Nix should be the starting 3B, with EE becoming the full-time DH.  Cooper should compete for the 1B/DH slot in 2012, when EE is probably gone.

I don't think the Jays should demote a reliever at this point -- not until the starters are getting into the 7th or 8th inning more regularly.  I might be in the minority on this one, but I think the 8-man bullpen has helped the Jays a lot in the past few weeks.  The Jays have 8 good relievers (if you include Dotel), and the bullpen depth has helped enormously in situations like yesterday.  Despite all the relievers that were used yesterday, the Jays still have several relievers available for today, because of their depth.  And there have been many other cases where the 8-man bullpen has helped the Jays win.

As for Eric Thames:  there's a good case to be made that he should be promoted at some point this year.  But I wouldn't make him a full-time starter ahead of Patterson or Davis at this point.  For all his base-running faults, Patterson is hitting pretty well.  As for Davis -- he defeated the Red Sox practically single-handedly in two games last week.

I feel comfortable saying he will be heading to the all-star game.

Whoa! Careful there out on that limb.