Pena is only 19 years old and he is an excellent defender.  Here are some pictures of Pena that I posted earlier this season.

Pena's bat has been better in July but he hits like a Dominican, one walk, 16 K's in July, and he has little power.  

Because Pena is only 19 he is doing well to be in the Midwest League.  If he can continue to hit, and develop some plate discipline, he could turn into a prospect.

I have a couple questions:

1. Any reports on how the signing of draftees are going?

2. How many blown saves have there been this year?  If we would have saved 80% of those, what would our record be?

BTW, nice start by Cecil.  If rounds into shape with Morrow, and Romero, they could get interesting.  If we had a closer, we would have taken 2/3 from the red hot rangers.  We also could have took 3/4 from the Yankees.  But we don't....

They were talking about blown saves on the broadcast a couple of days ago.  At that point (before Saturday's blown save), the Blue Jays had 16 blown saves in 14 games (twice they had 2 blown saves in 1 game).  In those 14 games, their record was 5 wins and 9 losses.  Add in Saturday's and they have 17 blown saves in 15 games, with a record of 5-10 in those 15 games.  Not sure how that compares with other teams, although I'd think it would be below average.  Of course, you have to consider the number of successful saves, as well.  You shouldn't just look at the blown ones and say, well we should have won a cetain percentage of those, without considering the successful saves, too.  If you redid things, maybe they wouldn't have succeeded on some of those.  The relevant stats would look at save percentages compared to other teams.  What is their record when leading after 7 innings or 8 innings compared to other teams, etc.   Again, I would think the Jays wold be below average in those departments.  A closer is a big need for this team.

The Jays have had a few problems in the pen, but the annoying part is lately they have been wating until the end of the game to blow it. Blow it in the 7th and it's a blown save, but no one notices.  On the year, the Jays pen has been pretty average, with the main issue being that it has been used a lot due to the starters not being very good. fangraphs has a Shutdowns (SD) vs. Meltdowns (MD) stat they made, showing large changes in win probability for the pen. The Jays are at 84:40, which seems to be pretty middle of the road.  The issue remains that the bullpen is too often being asked to get 3-4 innings, and if one of the 3-4 guys fails, that's a blown save. But 3-4 innings of bullpen work should be expected to give up a run or two...

Thames rocks. 

Luis Perez had a 21:0 K:BB ratio vs. LHB. I guess I didn't notice his LOOGYness because of the HRs served up to Utley & Hafner.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/pitching/sort/savePct/type/expanded/order/true

These are the SV% numbers for MLB. You can see Toronto at 54% in second last place. If the Jays had an 80% SV%, they'd have 9 or 10 additional wins...if they were league average (68%, seems low, no?), the Jays would have 5 extra wins.

5 more wins would mean 56 wins, 7 GB (this doesn't count the fact that those wins could be against BostonNY)

9 more wins would mean 60 wins tied with Yankees.

I was thinking about this last night.  The fact that the Jays have used thier bullpen more than anyone else, tells me that the starters have not been good enough.  After Cecil's start, and Morrow starting to come on, I would conclude that the starting staff is starting to shore up.  If that happens, I think the bullpen might not be a stretched out and might have higher quality outings.  That is just a theory, but I am encouraged.

They wouldn't have 9 or 10 more wins with an 80% save %.  Blown saves aren't necessarily losses.  The analysis has to be a lot more complex than that.  As I indicated previously, they have 17 blown saves, but in 15 games, not 17 games.  Two games each had 2 blown saves.  Then you have to look at the team's record in the games they have a blown save.  The Jays record in those 15 games is 5-10, not 0-15.  If they successfully saved 80% of those 15 games, that would be 12 wins and 3 blown saves.  Say they also win 1 of the 3 games they blow the save and they would have 13 wins, or 8 more than the 5 they actually won.  But then you have to look at the games where they had a save opportunity and didn't blow the save.  Their W/L percentage in those games must be 100%.  If you make their save % in those games 80% as well (which you have to do if you are looking at an overall save % of 80%), you'd lose a few of those games that you won.  Looks like they are something like 19-0 in games where they don't blow a save, so if they blew 4 saves (roughly 80%) in those, and lost, say 3 of those 4,  that would be 3 more losses, meaning the net impact if they had an 80% save % would be roughly 8-3 = 5 more wins.

Still, it's an area where a major improvement can be made to the team's record.  It would be difficult to get into the post season with the status quo at the back end of the bullpen, and I suspect a disaster waiting to happen in the post season if they managed to get there.