Odorizzi (0-2, 3.83)

No relation.

Lefty vs. Lefty.  Ace vs. Ace.  Guy with Many Pitches vs. Guy with Pitch that does Many things. It would be nice if the Jays channelled their rage over yesterday's game into this series.  No mercy, gentlemen.

yeah the narrative is just there begging them to write it.

now's the time, boys.

New narrative, same as the old narrative.

Not really. This new narrative involves terrible starting pitching.

maybe buck and pat can give the "whole new happ!!" narrative a bit of a rest at least.

The Jays look so flat tonight. Yeah,the poor start by Happ is a new wrinkle, but not getting an opportune hit to score multiple runs early is an old one.

Happ was due for a bad start after starting the season as well as he did. Can't really get mad here. The SP in general is going to fall back down to earth a bit. Unfortunately, the pen is still not dependable and the offense still comes and goes. We haven't seen this team hit their stride yet, but the further they fall behind, the more of a hole they'll have to dig themselves out of when they do.

This was the year I expected the Jays to start the season where they left on last season, and certainly the SP gave them every opportunity to do so, but no such luck.

oh great buck is talking red sox AGAIN.

way to keep us interested, bucky.

Lord help me, but I'm arguing with Curt Schilling on Twitter about Tamir Rice.

This is what happens when the score reaches 11-1. Look at the bright side- no Storenophobia.

On the bright side, Biagini is looking like an asset.

ha that's hilarious. twitter is the best.

Biagini for #7 starter?

These are big games. The Rays are going to go on a massive winning streak in July or something when they get back to full strength. They can't be buried deep enough.

Tried finding your argument with him but there is so much crap on his feed it is hard to find anything. Schilling really is clueless isn't he?

I actually kind of like Schilling. He's a right-wing blowhard, and I'm not (I don't think I'm a blowhard - I'll cop to "irritating smart-ass" but not blowhard. No siree. Says the guy who holds the all-time Box record for 10,000 word pieces.) But so many athletes have always spoken in perfect sports-speak clichés that it was always refreshing to run across one who didn't.

Anyway, he posted a picture of a police funeral with a caption that irritated me, to the effect of "all lives matter, but you get killed breaking the law. We get killed defending it." So I asked what law Tamir Rice was breaking. Silly of me, I suppose - twitter is not the ideal place for a nuanced discussion of anything.

And then I set off to work, which is a 75 minute ride that I spend with the headphones on, listening to tunes. Except every five minutes I'd get a text alert (and on my phone, it's the opening bars of "Ticket to Ride") that someone else was chiming in with their two cents. That's what got really tiresome!

At the quarter-season mark, the team's jugger-not offense continues to sputter, ranking 9th, below league average.

The team's pitching/defense ranks 5th. BBRef has the SP ranked 5th and the RP 11th.

There is plenty of time for the offense to heat up but it's going to take some fancy dancing for the team to rank at or near the top come season's end, where many assumed it had to be for this team to be playoff-worthy.

For a multitude of reasons, I have not had the opportunity to watch a great deal of Jays' baseball this season, but I'd be more than happy to clear my schedule and jump on the bandwagon should things turn around. It is difficult to be optimistic when you're grinding away just to stay at .500, but of course we all went through this last season (albeit with Pythagoras then telling us that good fortune lay ahead, unlike this season).

For now, I will, with no small amount of difficulty, heed Douglas Adams' advice: Don't Panic!

40 games in.....

Starting Pitching

SP Estrada 7gs, 6.2ip/gs, 22.9k%/10.1bb%, 42.9gb%, 70era-, 86fip-, 105xfip-, 4.6awar/32gs
SP Stroman 8gs, 7.0ip/gs, 18.2k%/6.7bb%, 62.3gb%, 85era-, 81fip-, 87xfip-, 4.2awar/32gs
SP Sanchez 8gs, 6.5ip/gs, 20.9k%/9.8bb%, 59.2gb%, 79era-, 86fip-, 84xfip-, 4.2awar/32gs
SP Happ 8gs, 6.3ip/gs, 15.6k%/6.8bb%, 43.1gb%, 82era-, 104fip-, 107xfip-, 3.4awar/32gs
SP Dickey 8gs, 6.0ip/gs, 16.8k%/7.9bb%, 45.7gb%, 104era-, 96fip-, 104xfip-, 1.2awar/32gs
SP Hutch: 1gs, 5.2ip/gs, 22.7k%/13.6bb%, 42.9gb%, 77era-, 180fip-, 111xfip-, 0.0awar/32gs

TOTAL: 40gs, 6.4ip/gs, 18.9k%/8.3bb%, 51.0gb%, 84era-, 93fip-, 97xfip-, 3.5awar/32gs

Pretty great.

10.9hr/fb% and 73.9lob% are both very sustainable numbers to boot.

the .270babip is a little low, but not extremely - and our pitching staff does seem to be a legitimate babip-suppressing staff.

40gms in.....Relief Pitching


RP Osuna 17gms, 16.0ip, 28.6k%/7.9bb%, 32.5gb%, 41era-, 61fip-, 86xfip-, 2.0awar/65ip
RP Floyd 14gms, 18.0ip, 29.4k%/5.9bb%, 47.6gb%, 48era-, 79fip-, 83xfip-, 2.0awar/65ip
RP Biagini 10gms, 13.1ip, 17.9k%/10.7bb%, 57.5gb%, 16era-, 70fip-, 102xfip-, 1.2awar/65ip
RP Girodo 8gms, 7.0ip, 14.3k%/3.6bb%, 72.7gb%, 62era-, 111fip-, 78xfip-, 0.5awar/65ip
RP Chavez 15gms, 14.1ip, 27.0k%/7.9bb%, 45.0gb%, 76era-, 134fip-, 87xfip-, 0.0awar/65ip
RP Cecil 16gms, 10.1ip, 17.3k%/5.8bb%, 40.5gb%, 126era-, 90fip-, 109xfip-, 0.0awar/65ip
RP Storen 16gms, 13.0ip, 22.6k%/4.8bb%, 48.8gb%, 183era-, 116fip-, 80xfip-, -1.5awar/65ip

RP Loup ---
RP Morales 2gms, 0.2ip, 0.0k%/0.0bb%, 0.0gb%, 0era-, 77fip-, 139xfip-, 0.0awar/65ip
RP Venditte 5gms, 3.2ip, 9.5k%/19.1bb%, 42.9gb%, 193era-, 155fip-, 202xfip-, -0.9awar/65ip
RP Antolin 1gms, 2.0ip, 9.1k%/9.1bb%, 22.2gb%, 325era-, 242fip-, 183xfip-, -3.3awar/65ip
RP Tepera 3gms, 2.1ip, 5.9k%/17.7bb%, 54.5gb%, 286era-, 180fip-, 217xfip-, -4.2awar/65ip
RP Leon 2gms, 2.1ip, 18.2k%/9.1bb%, 50.0gb%, 202era-, 212fip-, 119xfip-, -5.6awar/65ip


TOTAL: 40gms, 2.6ip/gm, 21.6k%/7.9bb%, 46.8gb%, 91era-, 101fip-, 98xfip-, +0.3awar/65ip


Not good enough. Remember that league average fip/xfip might be good from a starting staff, but not for a bullpen. And the lower era is countered entirely by all the inherited runs they've let score. And their below average performance is made even worse by remarkable unclutchness, with a -1.70wpa the third worst in mlb.

The biggest culprit I think has been the longball.

All that being said, Osuna is even studlier than he was last year, while all of Floyd, Biagini, and Girodo are showing real promise as above average relievers. and Cecil and Storen should turn it around too. While Morales and Loup should bolster the depth as they come back from injury.

Pretty great... 10.9hr/fb% and 73.9lob% are both very sustainable numbers to boot.

What may not be sustainable for most in the rotation is usage rate (and, quite possibly, health). Each of Stroman, Sanchez, Happ and Estrada is on pace for 200+ innings. I don't know the organization's plans on who will be allowed to handle such a load, if their health permits. I imagine Sanchez is on the shortest leash of all.

So yeah, so far so good in starting pitcher land. But to ask for a whole season of this sounds greedy.

40gms in.....Hitters..

3B Donaldson 179pa, 12.8bb%/20.1k%, .284bip/.260avg, .253iso, 140wrc+, 6.2awar/650pa
CF Pillar 162pa, 2.5bb%/13.6k%, .302bip/.270avg, .132iso, 91wrc+, 5.8awar/650pa
1B Smoak 96pa, 17.7bb%/29.2k%, .447bip/.308avg, .167iso, 157wrc+, 4.4awar/650pa
LF Saunders 139pa, 9.4bb%/27.3k%, .422bip/.317avg, .206iso, 150wrc+, 4.2awar/650pa

RF Bautista 175pa, 18.9bb%/18.3k%, .243bip/.223avg, .223iso, 128wrc+, 2.4awar/650pa
SS Tulowitzki 157pa, 10.2bb%/26.8k%, .213bip/.197avg, .204iso, 85wrc+, 1.9awar/650pa
DH En'cion 172pa, 8.7bb%/22.7k%, .273bip/.239avg, .194iso, 101wrc+, 0.4awar/650pa

C Martin 115pa, 7.0bb%/34.8k%, .262bip/.165avg, .010iso, 14wrc+, -4.2awar/650pa
2B Travis ---

UT Barney 62pa, 3.2bb%/19.4k%, .391bip/.322avg, .068iso, 107wrc+, 4.7awar/650pa
OF Carrera 48pa, 6.3bb%/20.8k%, .441bip/.356avg, .133iso, 147wrc+, 2.7awar/650pa
C Thole 40pa, 10.0bb%/25.0k%, .208bip/.171avg, .086iso, 41wrc+, 0.8awar/650pa
IF Goins 110pa, 4.5bb%/20.9k%, .190bip/.163avg, .096iso, 22wrc+, -2.1awar/650pa

UT Burns 5pa, 0.0bb%/40.0k%, .000bip/.000avg, .000iso, -24wrc+, -2.7awar/650pa
UT Dominguez 8pa, 12.5bb%/37.5k%, .000bip/.000avg, .000iso, -66wrc+, -12.2awar/650pa
UT Colabello 32pa, 6.3bb%/28.1k%, .100bip/.069avg, .000iso, -41wrc+, -10.2awar/650pa


TOTAL: 1510pa, 9.7bb%/23.2k%, .287bip/.238avg, .158iso, 96wrc+, +2.0awar/650pa


The offense has been thoroughly mediocre so far. Which obviously is nowhere near good enough.

Basically 4 starters have played well, but 2 of them haven't used as compeletely fulltime starters so far, and both are likely riding unsustainable babips anyways. Donaldson and Pillar at least are the 2 fulltime starters who are playing to expectations.

Then we have Bautista, Tulo, and EE who are haven't been useless but are underachieving significantly.

Then we have Martin who has been an horrific liability, and Travis' injury has been compounded by his primary replacement being a similarly horrific liability.

I guess it speaks well of our lineup that what we see as major struggles actually is just mlb mediocrity - but that's not much solace - they have to be one of the best in the league if we want to do anything this year. At least there's more reasons to believe in positive regression than negative regression....but at the same the lineup hasn't exactly been bereft of overachievers, either.

True, Chuck.

But there's a caveat there - imo pitches are more important than innings, and the Jays have averaged 97.3 pitchers per start. That's not a lot at all - especially considering that they've rarely had to be pulled early due to suckage.

The biggest culprit I think has been the longball.

The Blue Jay bullpen is 10th in MLB with a 13.5% HR/FB rate.  The BABIP is .312, 4th in MLB.  This is a really bad number given the quality of the defence.  The only thing I can see to ameliorate the situation is to reduce shifting particularly with Brett Cecil on the mound (opponents are 15/33 over the last 2 years with a shift on).  It's been an ongoing problem since he became a reliever and it keeps getting worse.  With the shift on, more and more hitters are going the opposite way against the curveball.

The major problem that the Jay bullpen have had with the longball is timing.  Two outs, nobody on in extra innings is bad timing.  Two runners on, up by two is bad timing.  The bullpen has had more than their share of poorly timed home runs surrendered.  There is a time to nibble.  Sly Stone had it right- it's not about the time, it's about the timing.

yeah that's a better analysis than mine I think. I'd agree with that.

And you can say the same thing about their offense too. Last year the Jays scored a ton of runs. Part of it was that there was a lot of good hitters on the team, but part of it was performing better with men on base. This year we're just performing worse at the plate and not situationally performing either. The pitchers (relief specifically) are performing poor situationally, but that has been the same for Gibbons regardless of who is back there.

Now actually that I don't really agree with. True that last year they were especially good in clutch hitting but this year they haven't been particularly bad, not matter what buck and pat keep nattering on about.

Bases Empty: .235avg, .312obp, .158iso, 94wrc+
Men On Base: .241avg, .329obp, .158iso, 100wrc+
With RISP: .230avg, .341obp, .149iso, 99wrc+

They've just been thoroughly mediocre, in all situations.

Okay so they haven't been poor in relation this year with their regular results, if anything performing slightly better. Just that last year the difference between with empty and men on was really big and last year they were going from a much higher baseline. (I don't know all the numbers but I think last year the avg overall was .269 and with runners on it was .281 or something)

I'd be curious on the numbers on Jays pitchers with relievers. Especially with a split between pitchers brought in to start innings or brought in to fix someone else's mess. As Mike said the relief pitchers numbers aren't bad overall, it is just that they've been really bad in all the memorable times.

no you're right - last year we were huge with runners on base (#1 136wrc+) and with RISP (#1 124) while being just good with the bases empty (#5 102). this year we're just mediocre in all situations - bases empty 94wrc+ (#19), runners on 100wrc+ (#15), w/risp 99wrc+ (#14).

And the RP numbers even overall aren't very good now - superficially they look mediocre (#14 era-, #18 fip-, #15 xfip-) but considering they've pitched the fewest innings of any team in mlb that's actually not even mediocre.

3B Donaldson (30): 1585pa, 141wrc+, 7.2awar/650pa
2B Travis (25): 238pa, 135wrc+, 6.4awar/650pa
SS Tulowitzki (31): 1066pa, 122wrc+, 5.2awar/650pa
RF Bautista (35): 1514pa, 151wrc+, 5.0awar/650pa
CF Pillar (27): 912pa, 93wrc+, 5.0awar/650pa
C Martin (33): 1082pa, 114wrc+, 4.7awar/650pa
LF Saunders (29): 438pa, 127wrc+, 4.4awar/650pa
DH En’con (33): 1338pa, 144wrc+, 4.1awar/650pa
1B Smoak (29): 700pa, 103wrc+, 1.1awar/650pa

UT Colabello (32): 612pa, 112wrc+, -0.7awar/650pa
OF Carrera (29): 313pa, 96wrc+, 0.3awar/650pa
IF Goins (28): 731pa, 60wrc+, 1.3awar/650pa
C Thole (29): 242pa, 59wrc+, -1.3awar/650pa

UT Paredes (27): 449pa, 98wrc+, 0.4awar/650pa
OF Pompey (23): 146pa, 88wrc+, 2.5awar/650pa
IF Barney (30): 354pa, 88wrc+, 3.8awar/650pa
C Sanchez (28): 89pa, 94wrc+, 1.8awar/650pa

that was the previous 2yr hitters' splits with this quarter season added on top.

now here's the same for pitching:


SP Stroman (25): 32gs, 79era-, 4.8awar/32gs
SP Sanchez (23): 19gs, 84era-, 2.9awar/32gs
SP Happ (33): 65gs, 98era-, 2.7awar/32gs
SP Dickey (41): 75gs, 97era-, 2.3awar/32gs
SP Estrada (32): 53gs, 96era-, 2.2awar/32gs
(SP Floyd (33): 9gs, 73era-, 2.3awar/32gs)
(SP Chavez (32): 47gs, 103era-, 2.3awar/32gs)
(SP Hutch (25): 61gs, 123era-, 1.3awar/32gs)

RP Osuna (21): 85.2ip, 59era-, 1.6awar/65ip
RP Cecil (29): 118.0ip, 70era-, 1.4awar/65ip
RP Storen (28): 124.1ip, 72era-, 1.2awar/65ip
RP Floyd (33): 31.1ip, 56era-, 1.4awar/65ip
RP Loup (28): 111.0ip, 92era-, 0.4awar/65ip
RP Morales (30): 86.2ip, 88era-, 0.2awar/65ip
RP Chavez (32): 41.1ip, 73era-, 0.1awar/65ip
(RP Biagini (26): 13.1ip, 16era-, 1.2awar/65ip)
(RP Girodo (25): 7.0ip, 62era-, 0.5awar/65ip)

8gms for Odor

The rankings are in - the Jays are crowdsourced at 31st out of 32 TV broadcast teams at Fangraphs - even with the 30 games that Shulman gets.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2016-broadcaster-rankings-tv-intro-and-31-32/

Odor is also getting a $5,000 fine.  Deterrence to the max!

Gibbons is apparently getting 3 games.  Who will argue the strike zone and get turfed for that?

Bautista gets a game too, for some reason. Leiper as well.

Bautista gets a game too, for some reason.

The MLB release says for "his actions during the incident" and his post-game comments. Other players merely got fined for "aggressive actions" during the incident - note the adjective, which was not applied to Bautista. But he pointedly criticized the umpiring crew afterwards.

As for Leiper, he returned to the dugout after being ejected.

Wow. Love how Fredi Gonzalez found out he'd been fired. He got an email last night telling him his flight to Atlanta had been booked for Tuesday afternoon.

The Braves are in Pittsburgh through Thursday.

Bautista gonna take his game off vs minny?

Stroman is looking like he's still in North Carolina. Sure hope this isn't a sign of the starting pitching joining the hitting and the bullpen in mediocrity.

Bautista gonna take his game off vs minny?

Good question. The appeals are normally heard when a team visits New York, and the Jays don't go there until August. If he wanted, he could just wait until some day when he's feeling banged up and drop the appeal then.

Of course, he might also think that he should win his appeal and will let the process play out for that reason alone, on general principle.

Does anyone know if the appeals process still works that way? Because it was always a great deal for the Yankees. Teams would come to town, appeals would be heard and denied, and teams would play the Yankees shorthanded as the suspensions kick in.

I hadn't noticed that Steve Delabar has resurfaced with the Reds. He walked 5 tonight, in 1/3 of an inning, so he may not be a Red for very long.

[Delabar] walked 5 tonight, in 1/3 of an inning

A leopard doesn't change his spots?

Has the Man in White defected to Tampa?

Even if the starting pitching hadn't decided to crap itself this series they'd still not get many wins scoring 2 runs.

positive run differential in danger of disappearing

there it goes...

It might be time to call up Drew Hutchison from Buffalo.  With Floyd in the high leverage relief role and Chavez suspended/ineffective, they can use someone in the long relief role.  Hutch now has 9 career double A starts and 13 triple A starts and has succeeded pretty well at both levels. 

Between Vince Carter and now Stroman, if any other Toronto athlete decides to graduate from a Tobacco Road university, I'd suggest they wait until the off-season.

At least when we get blown out it gives Storen the opportunity to pitch and give up some stress-free home runs.

Ben Revere: 106/157/170

Drew Storen: 8.36 ERA

Fair trade so far.

I like to think of Storen in a blowout like me at the driving range, just getting out of the house and basically killing time out there.

This is why you don't invest money on (non-elite) relievers. Storen was coming off two straight 1.0+ WAR seasons and looked like a fairly dependable reliever, but then comes to Toronto with a slight decrease in velocity and becomes completely unusable. He has an unsustainably high HR/FB and .400+ BABIP, so he's getting a bit unlucky, but hard contact is pretty much all he is giving up. The velocity drop has destroyed him.

Tough to win when the other team scores in double digits (Jays are 31-423 all-time when that happens.) Good news? There is no good news.

Well, they've only allowed double-digit runs in three straight games once in their history. There's that, I guess.

Delabar's work tonight still has my mind boggled - four consecutive walks with the bases loaded? Four? Has that happened before?

It's happened seven times before, as best as I can tell - but no other pitcher has been allowed to do it. The manager always comes out with the hook at some point. So Delabar is the only guy to ever walk four in a row with the sacks full. Immortality! You has achieved it! The Hall of Fame wants... I dunno? The rosin bag?

While four in a row is impressive, once upon a time the Kansas City A's (who else) walked eight men with the bases loaded. In the same inning. It happened in April 1959 against the White Sox. Three pitchers were involved and as they mixed in a HBP (with the bases loaded), a K, and a force at home, they never did walk across four in a row.

In that inning, the White Sox scored 11 runs on one hit, and left three men on Base. April 22, 1959.

".....This is why you don't invest money on (non-elite) relievers. Storen was coming off two straight 1.0+ WAR seasons and looked like a fairly dependable reliever..."

I would disagree with both of these statements.  The Jays didn't invest much in Storen, and he didn't look like a fairly dependable reliever when the Jays acquired him.  The investment was fairly small because they traded Ben Revere for him, allowing them to dump Revere's salary ($6.25-million this season).  So the net investment in Storen was only $2-million.  And why were the Nationals willing to trade him?  Because he didn't look dependable at all. His ERA in August and September of last season was 7.56. In that stretch of games, Storen gave up 17 hits and 7 walks in just 16.2 innings. (That included 3 home runs, by the way.)  In fact, Storen's numbers in 2016 are approximately as terrible as they were in the last two months of last season -- he has allowed 21 hits in 14 innings this year -- so it looks like he is simply continuing his bad performance of late last year.  He also injured his thumb at the end of last season.  Quite possibly the Nationals knew that he was at considerable risk of remaining a bad pitcher this year, and that's why they dumped him in exchange for a surplus outfielder who was due to be paid $6.25-million this year.  In retrospect, it looks like the Nationals were doing a salary dump there, and the Jays agreed to help them, in the hopes that Storen would recover his lost glory.

Of course most of us (including me) believed at the time that the Storen trade was a good one.  We thought he was the Storen of the first half of 2015, rather than the Storen of the second half of 2015.  But we are not professional scouts or evaluators.  In hindsight, there were probably issues that the Jays could have detected in Storen's performance of last August and September, especially the worrisome decline of his command, that should have made them more cautious with him.  He continued to seem mediocre in the pre-season games this year.  I remember watching him in pre-season games and being concerned about him.  He didn't exactly look like a closer-in-waiting.  Still, the Jays kept him in a high-leverage role for the first few weeks of the season, and obviously that was a mistake in hindsight. Perhaps they could have avoided that mistake if they had assessed him more rigorously before the trade.  Having acquired him, with his history as a closer, the Jays clearly felt that they had to give him a high-leverage role.  They should have been more skeptical. 

Of course I'm being a little unfair with some of the above statements -- you can always find flaws in a team's decisions if you assess them in hindsight.  My main points are these:  Storen was not really a "dependable" pitcher when the Jays acquired him; and if you are going to "invest" in relievers, make sure you are choosing the right ones to invest in.

Looks like the bloom may be off the rose as far as the starting rotation is concerned.
I wonder if Eric Wedge has started measuring the curtains in the manager's office.
How long before pending FA's start musing about where they will be come August - the Jays could be big players.

Storen: 16.2 IP, 4.99 FIP, 10.26 K/9, 3.78 BB/9, 1.62 HR/9, 30.6 Hard%
Osuna: 12.0 IP, 6.97 FIP, 6.75 K/9, 3.0 BB/9, 3.0 HR/9, 36.8 Hard%

Those are Storen's Aug/Sept 2015 numbers against Osuna's 2015 Sept numbers. Without the proper context (velocity, injury, etc), you can look at any relievers monthly splits and find a bad month. Whether that is a sign of things to come or just a bad month is hard to tell.

Storen's Aug/Sept of 2015 could have been the start of his decline as a RP, but whether that was predictable is a different story. His vFA during those months was 94.4, peaking at 95.1. This season it has been at 92.2, peaking at 93.4. A 2 mph drop in velocity for a reliever can be huge, and it has been for Storen. Unless he was showing signs of velocity issues in Washington (it didn't appear that way, at least not this extreme), then I think it's unfair to say it was something that could have been predicted prior to the trade. He's been hit very hard this season. When a reliever loses velocity, and can't compensate for it, there's really not much that can be done.

As far as investing a lot in relievers, I meant in general, not the trade itself. If the Jays signed someone like Storen in the FA market, it would have been seen as a solid signing depending on the cost. My point was unless you are signing someone that is or looks elite, it's always a gamble. Relievers just don't bring the certainty that other positions do, so tread carefully.

Yeah have to agree with SK here. The narrative going last year was that Storens issues were mostly mental in losing his job to Papelbon to no fault of his own. The numbers underlying the late season struggles showed that his velocity was still there, just his command/composure was off due to the situation there,. Which is a big difference from the velocity drop he's seen so far this season. So no I don't think anyone could have predicted Storen turning into a pumpkin and certainly not something I'd blame the front office for.

I wonder if Eric Wedge has started measuring the curtains

The rumour is Bud Black, actually.

Storen reminds me a lot of Bill Caudill - someone who showed up in a trade but left his fastball behind him.

For the record: the last time a new Jays GM inherited a manager, it was J.P. Ricciardi inheriting Buck Martinez. He lasted 53 games (20-33) before getting the push. So that's approximately the amount of leash that Gibbons has.

The Jays will bounce back, of course. No team is ever as bad as it looks when it is slumping. But they'll have to snap out of it soon.

this is no fun.

Delabar's work tonight still has my mind boggled - four consecutive walks with the bases loaded? Four? Has that happened before?

It's happened seven times before, as best as I can tell - but no other pitcher has been allowed to do it. The manager always comes out with the hook at some point.

After reading your post, I looked up the game on mlb.com. It looks like he walked all four of the batters on a full count - he got to two strikes on all of them. I'm sure that's never happened before!

I have an MLB.TV subscription - sometime, I am tempted to go to this inning and see what happened.

Of course most of us (including me) believed at the time that the Storen trade was a good one.

I believed so as well. I'll also own up to believing Chavez should get his turn in high leverage spots a little while ago; at the time he had the same KK/B ratio as Osuna and a strikeout off of Floyd (16:3).

Some of those $4M - $6M relievers that were gobbled up in the winter are thriving and some aren't. As always, you hope your scouting, analysis and luck hold up where others don't.

Blame me! Any idiot who honestly projects his hometown team to win 102 games needs to have his head examined.  I am officially retreating from that position.  Their mean projection is 101 wins, with a 10 win error bar on either side. 

I'm not a Gibbons fan, but firing him likely won't amount to much. This team is going to live or die on the performance of their star players, all of whom are in their early-to-mid 30's. Gibbons can control which relievers to use, which will have some impact on the outcome of games, but in the long run, if Bautista (to a lesser extent), Edwin, Tulo, and Martin keep playing the way they have, then it's not going to matter much. They might as well keep Gibbons until the end of the season and reassess based on how the team does. I'm sure the FO would prefer bringing in a new manager to manage "their" roster rather than the one they inherited.

What will be interesting to see the rest of the year is whether Shapiro/Atkins decide to trade vets at the deadline if the Jays are out of it or around .500. Prospects in the upper minors provide much greater value than comp picks, and the Jays need as much talent as possible for next season and beyond with all the impending FA's and no prospects (other than Pompey) ready to take over. It's too early to make that call now, but it's something to keep in mind if they keep struggling.

As much as its sucked that the pitching has blown up the last two games they weren't going to win the games with even average pitching. Jays did after all only score two runs each game. Jays were never expected to have better than average pitching. And they've had above average starting pitching and below average bullpen. But it remains the offense of this team that has sucked consistently since season start.

What will be interesting to see the rest of the year is whether Shapiro/Atkins decide to trade vets at the deadline if the Jays are out of it or around .500.

Bautista and EE are 10 and 5 players, so they can't be traded without their permission. The last time the Jays were in this position was with Delgado, and he refused to waive his no-trade rights despite calls for him to take one for the team.

I don't think Dickey, Tulo, or Martin would fetch much in a trade if they keep playing the way they are now, unless the Jays would be willing to eat some salary (which I doubt).

"positive run differential in danger of disappearing"

I prefer a negative run differential (at this point).

It would be more frustrating for me if the Jays were +17 and 3 games below.

I'm not a Gibbons fan, but firing him likely won't amount to much. This team is going to live or die on the performance of their star players, all of whom are in their early-to-mid 30's. Gibbons can control which relievers to use, which will have some impact on the outcome of games, but in the long run, if Bautista (to a lesser extent), Edwin, Tulo, and Martin keep playing the way they have, then it's not going to matter much

Managers can influence the tone of a season (see Jimy Williams, 1989).  Has Gibbons lost the players?  Maybe. Donaldson making errors on consecutive plays might be a random thing, or it might be a symptom of a broader problem.  At this point, the team is grossly under-performing in my view, and the manager is not setting the right tone which is certainly not helping.  A little more calm determination and a little less bluster is in order.

They might be open to waiving their 10/5 rights if the team is out of it at the deadline, both to go to a winning team and to eliminate the QO from their free agency. Sure, they could reject a trade to play out the rest of the season in Toronto as Delgado did, but in that case, hopefully they see the writing on the wall as far as their future in Toronto (the FO wants to move on) and the benefits of going to free agency without a pick attached to their hips.

As far as the other trade chips, I meant the impending FA's like Dickey, Saunders, Floyd, Chavez, Smoak, etc. I'm not sure you can trade Martin for anything with the money he has left on his deal, and Tulo will almost certainly require salary being picked up in addition to trading him somewhere he'd actually accept. I think the Jays are stuck with those two.

Silver linings:

Bautista and EE's prices are dropping fast.

Sk you are so hilariously eager for the jays to suck and rebuild for years on end.

On the contrary, I am eager to see the Jays have a sustainable long run as a winning team; not a team that makes the playoffs one time and then ages dramatically in six months because of short-term roster construction.

Oh yeah we certainly want to spend 15 million a year on them through their late 30 seasons. :p Although tbh its not the price that bugs be about what they're demanding. I'm totally happy giving them something similar to what Beltre just got. (which is 18 million a year) The key is the term, anything over 4 years is a no go and both of them are wanting 5 or more. So I'd be fine giving something like 3/60 to Jose. Just not 6/120 (or really 150+ which is what he's seeking)

Nah uglyone its your golden boy who did that to the Jays. SK is just trying to see a way out of it.

April Hitting:


Donaldson: 111pa, .323babip, 181wrc+
Saunders: 81pa, .380babip, 160wrc+
Bautista: 107pa, .262babip, 153wrc+
Pillar: 98pa, .316babip, 88wrc+
Encarnacion: 104pa, .304babip, 87wrc+
Smoak: 48pa, .368babip, 83wrc+
Tulowitzki: 99pa, .189babip, 69wrc+
Goins: 79pa, .218babip, 22wrc+
Martin: 67pa, .300babip, 6wrc+

Carrera: 33pa, .400babip, 138wrc+
Barney: 31pa, .318babip, 110wrc+
Thole: 29pa, .222babip, 44wrc+
Colabello: 32pa, .100babip, -40wrc+
Dominguez: 8pa, .000babip, -65wrc+


May hitting:

Smoak: 52pa, .467babip, 203wrc+
Saunders: 62pa, .485babip, 134wrc+
Encarnacion: 72pa, .233babip, 127wrc+
Tulowitzki: 61pa, .256babip, 109wrc+
Bautista: 71pa, .214babip, 105wrc+
Pillar: 68pa, .263babip, 82wrc+
Donaldson: 72pa, .220babip, 60wrc+
Martin: 51pa, .243babip, 22wrc+
Goins: 34pa, .115wrc+, 9wrc+

Paredes: 1pa, 1.000babip, 498wrc+
Carrera: 15pa, .556babip, 165wrc+
Barney: 32pa, .458babip, 97wrc+
Thole: 11pa, .167babip, 34wrc+
Burns: 5pa, .000babip, -24wrc+


Saunders has been the only starter who's hit well consistently this year. Carrera and Barney have been pretty consistently good off the bench.

Bautista and Donaldson were great to start but mediocre to poor lately.

Tulo, EE, and Smoak were bad to start the year but good lately - though Tulo and EE still haven't hit like they can even with the improvement.

Pillar is Pillar. Good enough for an elite defender - but please god no more Pillar in the leadoff spot. Just stop.

Thole is Thole. Ungood. A crappy Robin to an old Batman.

Martin and Goins have been impressively consistent in their unfathomable awfulness this year. For Goins, this should already have earned him a full time ride on the bench while Barney gets a legit chance to start for a while. For martin, we wait.

The "bench bat" spot has also been useless so far - Cola sucked, Dominguez and Burns sucked too. Now we try Paredes - who really should be a decent usable bat in that role.


For me the most annoying choices we've made so far are 1) Goins starting and 2) Pillar leading off. There really was very little reason to think those were good ideas from the start, and absolutely zero reasons to continue thinking they are good ideas now.

"On the contrary, I am eager to see the Jays have a sustainable long run as a winning team; not a team that makes the playoffs one time and then ages dramatically in six months because of short-term roster construction."

What's your rush? you have years of sucking I mean "sustainable rebuilding" to look forward to.

"Nah uglyone its your golden boy who did that to the Jays. SK is just trying to see a way out of it."

see a way out of what?

shapiro inherited 2 longterm committments, and nothing is stopping him from drafting. There's nothing to see a way out of.

Oh yeah drafting. That's when you get players for your team that help you 3-4 years down the line right? Guess what they need players now and next year. Draft picks aren't going to help them much, which is why SK is bringing up the possibility of trades for near major league ready prospects, which we have a grand total of one in the system in Pompey. We sort of traded the rest of them. Nice watching a generational talent in Syndergaard btw lighting it up in NY.

So your comment should be "Shapiro inherited 2 longterm sinkholes, an otherwise old roster and a minor league system bereft of major league ready talent. Nothing that 2-3 years of drafts and promotions won't fix." And that drafting is not going to help supporting an old team based around Donaldson, Tulo and Martin. They won't be ready in time.

They might be open to waiving their 10/5 rights if the team is out of it at the deadline, both to go to a winning team and to eliminate the QO from their free agency.

That's true, of course. A lot of it depends, I think, on how settled they are in Toronto. Have they bought property here? Do their families live here during the season? Do they have kids in school somewhere?

I'm startled to realize how many of the 2016 Jays are free agents after the season. Many of them must be thinking of the possibility of future paydays - how could they not? And there's a real possibility that the Jays will be starting basically from scratch in 2017: they'll likely have a number of holes that they won't be able to fill using free agency, and the farm system hasn't been replenished enough to help.

(By the way, I think this would likely have happened anyway, even without the 2015 trades. The Jays had a surplus of pitching, and used it to get other stuff. They still have a reasonable quantity of starting pitching, but haven't had any decent hitting prospects other than Pompey for some time.)

you realize that trading vets for "near mlb ready prospects" will not make us a better team in the shortterm, right?

I'm not sure I agree that they have a reasonable amount of starting pitching. We're basically at this point betting on A ball or lower level helium prospects rising fast. Greene and Reid Foley are the only two pitching prospects up in the higher minors even doing reasonably well. We saw that Shapiro had to go and commit 40 million dollars over multiple options/3 year contracts to even build a major league rotation this year, something many people here weren't happy with. (not to mention the AAA rotation was pretty much empty too) If we had strong or even surplus starting pitching coming up from the minors that wouldn't have been necessary.

And yeah I agree with you on minor league development of hitters. AA's first round hitting picks have been pretty much whiffs so far and Pillar is really the only guy who's worked out. I hope this is something Atkins/Shapiro are looking at fixing.

Stroman, Sanchez, Osuna, Hutch, is not only a reasonable amount of young starting pitching, but an extraordinary amount.

In fact if Osuna and Hutch weren't being blocked by vets, that might be the best young rotation in baseball.

Nothing at this point (other than reversing the effects of aging or going up to 200 million payroll) is going to make us a better team over the next 1-2 years. Tulo and Martin are not going to hit some mid 30s renaissance. Even if resigned Jose and EE are going to suffer the same. Even Donaldson will be in decline soon. IT's all about making this period of suckiness that's coming up shortly last as short as possible, since I don't believe a long term rebuild is anything the Jays should be seeking.

oh dear lord. writing off some of the best players in baseball after a bad month in their early 30s. get a grip.

Aging is a thing and at early 30s the drop can be pretty steep. Here is a good article on it. Even if Tulo and Martin rebound to not being completely sucky, the long term prognosis does not look good. This is also why resigning EE or Jose is a very risky deal.

http://www.fangraphs.com/library/the-beginners-guide-to-aging-curves/

Also btw throwing Osuna, a guy who hasn't started in what 3 years and Hutch a guy who has shown himself below average at major league level as anything close to the best young rotation in baseball is somewhat humorous. Sanchez and Stroman are good but depth has to run more than 2 deep before you can compare yourself to teams like the Mets or White Sox or others.

I agree with you guys, AA is an evil genius.

Nah, just a mediocre GM with a flair for making big moves. Some of which worked out, some of which didn't.

If only we had these "MLB Ready" guys AA traded last year...

SP K.Graveman (25): 157.1ip, 4.46era, 4.91fip
SP D.Norris (23): 67.2ip, 3.86era, 4.80fip (AAA 135.1ip, 4.71era, 3.26fip)
SP M.Boyd (25): 62.0ip, 6.97era, 6.41fip
SP J.Hoffman (23): (AAA 47.2ip, 2.45era, 4.21fip)
SP C.DeJong (22): (AA 36.0ip, 3.75era, 4.91fip)
SP J.Labourt (22): (A+ 148.1ip, 4.73era, 3.98fip)
SP J.Tinoco (21): (A+ 13.1io, 14.85era, 6.32fip)
SP N.Wells (20): (A 37.0ip, 4.14era, 3.72fip)

RP M.Castro (21): 23.2ip, 4.94era, 5.20fip (AAA 35.1ip, 3.82era, 5.62fip)
RP A.Tirado (21): (A 47.1ip, 6.66era, 5.58fip)

IF F.Barreto (20): (AA 156pa, .283babip, 69wrc+)
OF W.Becerra (21): (A+ 125pa, .438babip, 154wrc+)
IF D.Lugo (21): (A+ 425pa, .276babip, 81wrc+)

Ignoring Osuna, who has incredibly been one of the best relivers in mlb at ages 20 21 is even more hilarious.

and i guess you're counting 27/28yr olds like Sale Quintana Degrom Harvey as "young".

Boy is the doom and gloom high around here right now.

Reminder: 2015 May 18th in the morning: Jays dead last in the AL East 5 games out, 17-22, Yankees in first and looking strong with the Rays 1 game out. Only 3 teams doing worse than the Jays in the AL. Texas was one of them. Jays went 76-47 after that, Texas 72-52. Hardly time to panic.

Chris Sale was drafted two spots behind the amazing Deck McGuire. (he only got drafted in 2010, not that long ago)

I don't ignore Osuna btw, he's just not a starter and you can't include any discussion of best young rotation in baseball with him in it. Because he's not a starter yet.

As for that list, well I think like Dave Till said that the Jays have a problem with minor league development, especially in regards to hitting. They really need to fix that. And I don't think any of AA's drafts were great, but early on he did get a lot of quantity which worked.

Look AA is a nice guy, a canadian boy and all that. But many of us have been shouted down over the years because of our objections to how he ran the team like a Fantasy baseball team. But no he got all stars. Look at how awesome Reyes is. Or Josh Johnson! Dickey is a Cy Young award winner. Oh look we got Martin. And Tulo he's certain to continue his hall of fame run here.

The idea that the AA critics are a "shouted down" MINORITY is the most hilarious thing you've said today.

Yes, AA is a nice canadian boy with both a stellar draft record and the distinction of being the 2nd GM in jays history to get us to the playoffs.

So if I follow uglyone's logic correctly, it shouldn't matter that AA emptied out the farm system in exchange for rentals and contracts that look like they may be albatrosses, because all those players (which he drafted and developed) are terrible any way.  Duly noted.

As Kasi mentioned, getting 'near mlb ready prospects' for veterans at the deadline is not to get better short-term; it's to potentially make the transition period shorter. As much as I would love if the Jays started winning as early as 2017, reality is with the amount of holes they have to fill, the dearth of prospects in the upper minors, and a weak free agent market coming up, it's not something I'd bank on. Prospects are much more appealing assets than draft picks for a number of reasons including likelyhood of reaching the Majors and also potentially being able to field a roster that will peak at the same time. So if the Jays can convert some of their impending FA's into prospects, then it not only increases their asset base, but also potentially gives them cheap/effective options to fill holes in 2017-beyond. The Jays don't need to do a scorched earth rebuild, nor would ownership let them, so this would be the next best thing (again, only if the 2016 team is out of it).

I know it's not fun to think about taking a step back after just recently ending a painfully long playoff drought, but no one "wants' to do that. Some, including myself, just see it as unavoidable, and are suggesting ways to expedite the process. Of course, if it's July, and the Jays are holding down a playoff spot, then you try to win in 2016. This scenario only exists if they are out of it.

"So if I follow uglyone's logic correctly, it shouldn't matter that AA emptied out the farm system in exchange for rentals and contracts that look like they may be albatrosses, because all those players (which he drafted and developed) are terrible any way. Duly noted."

Correct. Trading high on prospects is a very smart strategy in general. Prospects are the most overvalued assets in general, as their failure rate is rarely properly considered.

That being said, you can't make the mistake of trading the underrated prospects, like Syndergaard.

But keeping the right ones - Stroman, Sanchez, Osuna, Pompey, Hutch - while trading the overvalued ones - Hoffman, Norris, Castro, Gose, Molina (and especially the hot nobodies like Graveman and Boyd) - is an excellent way to run a baseball team.

Also, prying away the right undervalued ones from other teams - like Lawrie or Travis - is a big help as well.

"I know it's not fun to think about taking a step back after just recently ending a painfully long playoff drought, but no one "wants' to do that. Some, including myself, just see it as unavoidable, and are suggesting ways to expedite the process."

again, what's your rush?

you'll have plenty of years to enjoy your rebuild either way.

I'm not in a rush. I'm saying if the Jays are still playing like this in July, then they should start planning on trading vets for prospects. If they go on a run and are holding down a playoff spot by the deadline, then go for the playoff spot. That doesn't change what I expect to happen in 2017, but one scenario (trading veterans) becomes pretty important if the season continues to go south. It could make a huge difference for the franchise going forward.

AA was incredible at building the farm system.

But he didn't spend his prospect capital as well as he could have.

Its like back in the day when the mets had a high payroll but didnt spend their $ capital as well as they could have.

AA pretty much had enough prospect capital to buy anyone that was for sale.

Having said that I liked all of his moves at the time except for the Dickey trade.

Uglyone, I have to give you a lot of credit. You're like a good Timex watch. A select few are bound and determined to grind you into the ground and break you but no matter what, you just keep on ticking. :)
p.s. I had a good Timex watch like that. Took way more abuse than it had a right to expect but always kept time for me.

As for that list, well I think like Dave Till said that the Jays have a problem with minor league development, especially in regards to hitting.

Strictly speaking, I just said that they didn't have any good hitters coming up except for Pompey. Not sure how much of that is their fault.

My own belief is that prospect development requires a good deal of plain old luck. Example #1 is Mike Trout: he was the 25th pick in the 2009 amateur draft. 21 other major league teams could have had him, but picked somebody else (some teams had more than one pick before #25).

While we are on the subject of the value of prospects, in the big off-season 2+ years ago, the Jays traded Syndergaard, d'Arnaud, Hechavarria, DeSclafani, Alvarez, Marisnick, and Nicolino (I won't count guys like Escobar and Mathis since they were MLB'ers).

Since the trade, and including 2016 performance, those prospects have combined for a $/WAR of 151.3 (WAR of 18.8). Only Hechavarria and Alvarez make above the minimum currently, and they all have many more years of team control remaining.

Over that same span, the main parts of the trades on the Jays end (Dickey, Reyes, Buehrle, and Johnson) have combined for a $/WAR of 155.1 (20.2 WAR). Only Dickey remains from that group, with more prospect capital having to be traded to flip Reyes for Tulo.

In other words, the Jays spent over $100M more over a three year span to get slightly better production from 30-something veterans than a bunch of prospects have been able to produce in their big league infancy. When you include Escobar (who was on a bargain contract at the time) and also factor in future value, the Jays will end up losing tons and tons of value in those trades. It will be very lopsided. That's not even including Yan Gomes and David Carpenter, two guys that AA threw away for nothing in one convoluted set of moves to end up with Esmil Rogers.

His trades did get better in 2015 (Donaldson), but in that scenario he wasn't trading for a 30-something on a free agent contract. He was trading for an arb eligible player in his prime. Even if the Jays included Sanchez and Norris in the Donaldson trade, I would have been fine with it. The issue is when you trade for guys that are being paid market value for past performance rather than projected future performance. That is a slippery slope. Unfortunately, that's where Tulo and Martin reside, and where Bautista and Encarnacion will be after 2016.

Prospects have value. Yes, most fail, but with the way to assess value nowadays (defense, speed, etc), a good GM can extract value from young talent in different ways.

The negativity is indeed high right now. It's times like this that I usually take a break from reading the box. We're only a quarter of the way through the year, so any conclusions anyone makes about the year are still based upon small samples sizes. I find the writing off of players like Martin and Tulo as liabilities after 1.5 months especially hard to take seriously. Criticizing stuff like AA's choosing of Deck over Sale is just silly, since any GM in the game is guilty of similar "offenses" at some point.

Regardless, the last thing I want to do is enter that debate. Hopefully this team starts to play better soon, as they've been painful to watch as of late. Travis returning could provide a bit of a spark, as Goins has underperformed even our lowest expectations thus far. We might also want to cut bait on Storen, who's looked like a disaster. Otherwise, hopefully the vets can figure things out. Tulo has been better lately at least. And Martin has only stuck out in 3 of his last 16 ABs, which constitutes as an improvement at this point. The solution to the team's issues might just be the elimination of our offensive black and grey holes.

heh i actually tried to take a break from the box today too, eudaimon. but one skim of this thread and it pulled me right back in.

I actually don't want to argue against the negativity much - the way they've played, we should be more negative than positive right now.

That being said the "blow it up" vibe I was getting was a bit much to take.

The $/war analysis is good, but limited.

Do I really care that we don't have Hechavarria or Alvarez when we'd want to replace them if they were here? no.

Isn't under- or over-rated something one can only do with either a) hindsight or b) in reference to some standard (i.e., a prospect list generated at the time)

The strategy you outline above is akin to "buy low and sell high" -- everyone wants to do it in theory but in practice, it is difficult.

That said, I think there's something to the general idea that prospects have been valued (especially among those on the interwebs) too highly in recent years.

well, yeah, you have to be a good talent evaluator to do it before the fact. And we fans can only measure it in hindsight. AA seems to look pretty good at this so far, with the main exception of Thor, and I guess Yan Gomes as well.

I guess I may be being presumptious on guys like Norris and Hoffman, but in reality their current performance does probably already mean they're not rated as highly as they were when traded.

But, at the risk of tooting my own horn, I do remembering arguing at times before we traded them that guys like Hoffman and Norris, and before that guys like Wallace, were good sell-high candidates. Of course, to mute my own horn, I also said the same about a guy like Sanchez, while being upset about trading "undervalued" guys like nestor molina.

I do believe, though, that if you made a habit of trading any top-25 prospect you ever have for proven impact players, especially those with a notable flaw or two, you'll likely come out ahead for the most part.

Everyone wants to sell high and buy low. You can only guess at how that will turn out, especially as you trade players further from the majors where they're more of an unknown.

I'd like to echo SK's point in that Donaldson was very different from the other trades, because they traded for a guy with multiple years of control left. Even if Donaldson flopped it didn't matter too much long term because they could just let him go. Trading prospects though for 30+ year old MLB players, well that is called the Yankee way. And that stopped working for the Yankees too. Trying to emulate the Yankees of 10 years ago is futile when ownership isn't planning to back it up financially.

Mike Green had a good post last year about the makeup of acquisition types (Trade/FA/Prospects) amongst recent successful teams. Toronto's numbers are very atypical in that they have very low contribution from home grown talent. Now recent world series winners have spent on FA and have made trades, but they also got roughly 50% of their WAR contribution from internal talent. That is something we're lacking here, and going on and on about the 4 guys we do have (Stroman, Sanchez, Osuna, Pillar) doesn't absolve the issues Toronto seems to have with developing minor league talent.

I don't think deciding who to "sell high" on is purely a guessing game. From my perspective, AA seems to have done a good job knowing which players to ditch while their value was high. Whether that's thanks to good scouting, or whatever I'm not sure. He traded a lot of prospects, and Syndergaard is the only one I really miss. Considering his proclivity to the blockbuster trade I think his track record is actually pretty good. A couple of his early trades don't look as good in retrospect, but I'm personally willing to think of them as his learning on the job.

From their own system, the Cubs currently have 2 regulars, 2 bench players, and 1 reliever.

They must be screwed.

Anyone who blasts the Jays and any GM, even Gord Ash, for missing top prospects should first look at our HOF GM Pat Gillick who missed many HOF'ers and near ones - 1983 taking Matt Stark when Roger Clemens was taken 10 picks later
1982: the infamous 2nd overall pick of Augie Schmidt leaving Dwight Gooden for the Mets 3 picks later. Duane Ward was also a top 10 pick that year. I suspect for almost every year in the 70's/80's I can find a much better player in retrospect than Gillick picked in the first round. Of course a lot of that is forgiven when he got Dave Stieb in the 5th round, David Wells in the 2nd, Jimmy Key in the 3rd, etc. He also nearly drafted Wade Boggs in the rule 5 draft but decided against it at the last minute. Imagine how good those 80's teams could've been with better 1st round drafting and Wade Boggs.

And I don't think any of AA's drafts were great, but early on he did get a lot of quantity which worked.

Kasi, you've been barking up the wrong tree on this for a long time.  You complain about the prospects AA traded - ones he drafted - and then deny that he was an excellent drafter in the same thread?  Come on man. 

Nah, 2010 wasn't great ... it only yielded, in your own words, a generational talent in Thor.  PLUS Sanchez, Pompey, Dyson and some of those prospects you aren't supposed to trade who yielded significant returns - Nicolino, Asher Woj and Sean Nolin.

2011 - Pillar, DeSclafini plus more legit trade capital in Musgrove, Norris and Comer.  Not to mention some C list prospects still in the org like Andy Burns, John Stilson and Dwight Smith. 

2012 - Stro, Alford and some fringe prospects - Smoral, Nay, Davis.

2013 - Boyd, Graveman, Greene, Tellez, Hollon, Girodo, Dan Jansen,

2014 - possibly AA's worst - Hoffman, Pentecost, SRF, Nick Wells

2015 - pretty early, but Harris,  Hissey, Pruit, Bergen, Espada, Maese and Wise all look good thus far, plus some long shot overage types like Guillotte. 

Criticize AA all you guys want for trading prospects, but at least acknowledge that he was great at acquiring him.  Didn't MLB actually change the comp rules to prevent him from gaming the system as effectively as he was with comp picks for type B free agents? 

As you probably realize, the division of labour around here is somewhat casual. In our defense, the Powers That Be are somewhat casual about compensating us for our labours. I believe I've mentioned that before. Oftentimes the cuttlefish, virtual or not, are late in arriving. Anyway, what typically happens, is - the Jays are opening a series against someone. Oh gosh, we should have a thread. And someone tosses one up.

Far too often this year, I have been that someone. And I seem to have Bad Mojo in 2016. The Jays have only been swept once this season. That was my doing. All told, the Jays are now 10-14 in games where I was the one who put up the series thread.

So clearly, this is all my fault.

Whereas when #2Jbrumfield puts up the series thread... things are just great. I realize he's also doing lots of fine work with the minor league updates, and it's probably not fair to Ask For More. But desperate times, and so forth.

I promise you all - if they lose tonight, I refuse to start another series thread until they're at least four games over .500, and thus have sufficient margin to Deal With my Participation.

I'm nothing if not a team player.

Playing the part of Wally Pipp, Josh Donaldson?

I don't mind trading prospects for Donaldson types. You have to differentiate the free agent contracts from the arb eligible contracts. Trading for Donaldson in 2015 when he had four years of cheap arbitration left is different than trading for Donaldson in 2020 when he'll likely be in the midst of a $30M a year contract in his mid-30's. One scenario is far more beneficial to the team acquiring him than the other.

No one is suggesting that the Jays fill the entire 25-man roster with homegrown guys. Prospects are simply too unpredictable for that, and even the best drafters are going to miss on impact talent. The point is, you should have a foundation built around cost effective young talent that ideally will peak at around the same time (ex. the Cubs, Mets, etc). Whether you drafted them, traded for them, whatever. At that point you supplement with free agents to surround the young talent. If your core is guys in their 30's, many of whom required tons and tons of prospects to be traded in order to acquire them, then you're limiting your window substantially.

If AA never made those trades in 2013, then I truly believe this team would be way better off today, even if the Donaldson trade never happened in that alternate universe. I will give AA credit for being able to take advantage of the CBA at the time and build up an asset base of prospects. His issue was not being able to (or not wanting to) develop them, but rather using them as capital to get expensive vets. If those trades never happened, then sure, maybe the Jays don't create a buzz in 2013, but by 2015, they may have had a team capable of competing while still having Bautista/Encarnacion under their team friendly deals. Or maybe they would have traded them at peak value for more young talent. Either way, it would have been better than a two month run followed by praying to have one more year of success (2016) before a retool/rebuild.

The $/war analysis is good, but limited.

Agreed. The problem isn't that the prospects we traded aren't good in some way, it's just that most of them are not "good enough" to keep. You could take 25 position players, each a 1-WAR rookie, all making league minimum, trade them for 3 older 5-WAR players making $25M/year each and fill your team out with replacement level players, all making league minimum. The more efficient/affordable team, in theory, would not win as many games. The problem isn't simply limited to keeping the best players - you also have to juggle logistics.

For example: the fact that we've traded/released/non-tendered/whatever the following catchers in the last few years: D'Arnaud, Buck, Mathis, Gomes, Blanco, Kratz, Nickeas, JPA (ok, maybe more than a few), <insert others I forgot> doesn't mean you can add up all their WAR and then say "they had 9 WAR combined over the last 3 years, and Martin only has 5". You can only play one catcher per game. So you can take the best of the bunch you traded and then see if you kept the best one, based on overall production, or $/WAR, or whatever. I suspect Travis D'Arnaud has had the best $/WAR run over the last couple of years since Gomes signed an extension - but do you want him as your starting catcher?? He barely makes it onto the field.

That super-slo-mo was pretty useful there. You could see the knuckleball spinning - spinning too much - on the ball Morrison hit out, as compared to how it barely spun at all on the better ones.

OK, let's see this one.

Jerjapan like others have pointed out, all those prospects AA drafted and traded weren't any good, so I think I'm justifying in criticizing his draft record. (considering the cupboard is rather bare at home too)

I also feel that AA did a poor job with first round talent. He missed on signing a couple of them and the ones he did sign have turned out to be rather poor in Davis, Smith, Deck, etc.

Like I said AA did a good job, especially early of acquiring as many picks as he could. He also did a really good job in exploiting the international market before MLB closed down that loophole. But the proof to the results of his drafts while still yet to be fully seen is rather sparse. Compare that to other teams and I feel it comes up lacking. Osuna was an international signing, but I feel it is telling that after 6 years of team management all the quality home grown talent they've gotten from the draft amounts to Pillar, Stroman and Sanchez. (add in Travis if you want for the Gose trade)

Jerjapan you seem to worship the ground AA walks on but look at other teams around the majors who compete year in and year out and look at how many players over a 6 year span did they graduate through the minors and contribute now at a major league level.

Uglyone sure the cubs only drafted so many of those, but they also smartly acquired guys like Russell from other desparate buyers. Just like AA smartly acquired Travis. I don't care how the team brings in young cheap talent, as long as they do bring it in.

"The $/war analysis is good, but limited."


Agreed, it's not an exact science. I just wanted to simplify a way to assess value in vs. value out in those trades. There are certainly other ways to do it. My point was to illustrate how much the Jays spent, both in dollars and prospects, to acquire players that ultimately didn't provide that much of an overall upgrade to the roster. Also, while I agree we'd be asking for Hech to be replaced, he would have been making nothing, while Reyes had a guaranteed 5 years and near $100M on his deal when he was acquired. Replacing Hech would have been easy (although he was better in 2015 than both Reyes and Tulo, for what it's worth). In that scenario, you'd also have to place a value on increased financial flexibility. Let's say they kept Hech at SS, but signed Russell Martin back when he was a bargain (2013). They would have came out way ahead. That's just one example.

In hindsight, the Jays were in a pretty decent spot prior to the 2013 trades. Impatience just took over, whether it was AA's call, or Beeston's, or ownership's.

Jerjapan like others have pointed out, all those prospects AA drafted and traded weren't any good, so I think I'm justifying in criticizing his draft record. (considering the cupboard is rather bare at home too)

Not sure who these 'others' are, but I don't care how many people repeat nonsense, it remains nonsense.  all those prospects AA drafted and traded weren't any good?  You clearly can't even be bothered to look up the drafts or the prospects. 

AA's drafts were regarded as good or very good by the media consensus every freakin year.  Do you follow draft analysis? 

You yourself called Thor a 'generational talent'.  I'd say that one 'generational talent' per five years alone is evidence of a talented drafter.  How many 'generational talents' are there in the game? 

Do you have any idea how many prospects need to have some impact in the bigs to make a draft successful?  sorry, you obviously don't, the accepted number is two. 

You often have interesting things to say Kasi, but I've been calling you out on this BS you say around prospects and drafts since last year, and your argument remains 'others agree'.  Weak.

objectively, 2010 was a homerun.  2011 good, and if Norris makes it, very good.  Stroman alone makes 2012 a good draft - if Alford or others make it, up a level.  Harder to tell after that, certainly his first few drafts - when he was gaming the system - were stronger on paper than his last few - but he was still regarded as top five / ten by the online community pretty much every year. 

1 guess what my least favorite pitch is.

AA's draft record speaks for itself.

My guess is a shin-high strike.

please be rock bottom.

please be rock bottom.

please be rock bottom.

Season low 4 wins under .500

And I am outta here...

I promise you all - if they lose tonight, I refuse to start another series thread until they're at least four games over .500, and thus have sufficient margin to Deal With my Participation.
I'm nothing if not a team player.

OK, a Batter's Box challenge! The team obviously needs new blood and Devon Travis is a week or two away.  So, how about a guest "series thread" for each series until there is sufficient margin to Deal with Magpie's Participation?

I will not, will not, will not say "who is going to step up to the plate?". 

Sorry to the optimists, but the team has a looming position player crisis. Assuming Tulo and Martin are not in steep permanent decline -- possibly not, but certainly possible -- they still have huge pending holes with Bautista and Edwin leaving and zero help coming from within, and little to choose from in free agency.

Might it be time to stop ignoring Cuba and Asia?

Well it was a bit tongue in cheek here to the exchange uglyone was in earlier posting about all the poor results of the players AA drafted and traded away. That's all I meant by that jer.

Anyway if the accepted number is 2 than AA probably makes it over from Stroman, Sanchez, Thor, Pillar and Gomes, although we still have a whole to go on the last three drafts.I just think the drafts were more a quantity over quality thing, I feel AA did a good job getting depth picks but missed on signing first round picks and many of the ones he did pick haven't worked out. But sure I'll concede I overstated my case. AA did a good enough job acquiring talent. There is enough to criticize him over without resorting to hyperbole.

The sad thing is, this team would probably benefit long-term from selling off vets at the deadline. The amount of players they are going to lose after this season, plus the barren farm system in the upper minors, and the fact that they'll have about $84.5M committed to five players next season makes it difficult to see this club being contenders after this season without major upgrades. That's not going to be a popular opinion, but that's the way it looks.

The sad thing is, this team would probably benefit long-term from selling off vets at the deadline. The amount of players they are going to lose after this season, plus the barren farm system in the upper minors, and the fact that they'll have about $84.5M committed to five players next season makes it difficult to see this club being contenders after this season without major upgrades. That's not going to be a popular opinion, but that's the way it looks.

If you used 'popular' to mean the dominant position on the Box, then your opinion is actually very popular.

Well certainly not something any of us want. We'd all rather be rejoicing in watching them win. For Jose and EE it might be something they want since they have more options for being signed if they don't have a draft pick attached to them. But if management thinks they can get one of them on a reasonable deal I'd prefer to keep them due to how unpalatable it would be to trade them and perhaps they might be able to get them on a discount.

I really hope bringing Travis up kick starts this team. It's about time for our yearly ten game winning streak right?

Right! Any day now.... I hope. Otherwise it's going to be a real long summer.

Like many, I'm hoping Travis returning will be the start of something good. If not, then mid-season trades of free agents should be pursued, especially of ones not likely to get a QO.
Free Agents Hitters: Saunders, Bautista, Encarnacion, Smoak
FA Pitchers: Dickey, Storen, Chavez, Cecil, Morales, Floyd

So there goes LF/RF/DH/1B a SP plus 5 relievers.

Guys near majors: Pompey 271/326/353 but woohoo defense; Rowdy Tellez 210/338/412 in AA. Ummm...yeah, I'm stretching now. As AA showed us pitchers can suddenly climb out of nowhere like Osuna did last year from A+ to ML closer on a playoff team so I won't even try to guess on pitching.

It's very easy to be pessimistic right now because there are a lot of issues that might not get resolved. Travis will likely help and I expect a few hitters to get better and the bullpen will likely straighten itself out eventually. However, the Jays also have a lot of things going well. The starting has been better than could be expected and Smoak and Saunders are both very likely to decline (BABIPs of over .400 are not sustainable long term and I have zero confidence in Saunders' ability to stay healthy.)

So, it's easy to see the Jays being better, it's hard to see them naturally improving without big changes (mostly Martin and Tulo going back to the way they were last year/two years ago) that may or may not happen. It is still possible, just seems a harder path to the playoffs than there was at the beginning of the season.

For the draft picks, AA was obviously a very good drafter. And trading draft picks when they are high on their hype is obviously a very good way to capture a lot of value. It is trading one high risk (the prospect doesn't actually develop to make the majors) for another high risk (the prospect does and makes you look stupid for trading them). Usually the person selling the prospects makes out well.

Less than 1 in 5 drafted players makes it to the majors for even one day on the roster. Just over 1 in 20 drafted players amass 3 years of regular playing time in the majors. As you would expect it is higher for first round picks (73% make it to the majors 1+ days, 39% make it 3+ years) than for the late rounds (rounds 21+ have 6.8% make it 1+ days, 1.6% 3+ years). Even first overall picks don't always turn out well. Consider Tim Beckham, Matt Bush, Bryan Bullington, Matt Anderson, and Brian Taylor. Those are all first overall picks from between 1991 and 2008. None of them have positive WAR for their careers and 1 of them never played in the majors.

So if you look across all of baseball for a given draft year you expect about 150 players to eventually make it to the majors for 1+ days (about 5 players per team per draft) and about 50 players to have a 3+ year career as regular starter (less than 2 per team). And that isn't 50 to be stars, it is 50 to be marginally above replacement level players who manage to have a regular role. Obviously 1 star player might make a draft class a hit, and 10 players who get 1+ days with none being more than replacement might make it a loss, but overall you can see why people say 2 regular players (not even stars, but regular players) makes a draft class a success.

So let's look at the Jays drafts:

2010: Made majors already 1+ games, 7: Aaron Sanchez, Noah Syndergaard, Asher Wojciechowski, Justin Nicolino, Sam Dyson, Sean Nolin, Dalton Pompey. Plus Kris Bryant and Chad Green (drafted, not signed). Plus other trade assets like Deck McGuire. Seems like 5 of them are likely to have 3+ years careers (75 starts, or 150 decisions, or 450 G for pos players).

2011: Made majors already 1+ games, 5: Daniel Norris, Anthony DeSciafani, Andy Burns, David Rollins, Kevin Pillar. Plus Aaron Nola (drafted, not signed). Pillar alone is enough to make that a good draft class.

2012: Made majors already 1+ games, 1: Marcus Stroman. It is early to say as several prospects may still make it, and Stroman is likely to be enough to make it a good draft class.

2013: Made majors already 1+ games, 3: Matt Boyd, Kendall Graveman, Chad Girodo.

No one yet from 2014 and 2015.

Overall this is a pretty good haul from those first 3 years, and this doesn't count the folks in our system that haven't made it yet but still look possibly good (Hoffman, Pentecost, Reid-Foley, Alford, Tellez, Greene, Urena, Davis, Nay, Harris, etc.).

And for people who think AA spent all the minor league capital it would be worth thinking about international signings like Osuna, Castro, Guerrero Jr who also were added to the talent bin.

This is a good team and a good collection of young talent, and the drafting and prospect development, and trading by AA are all strengths.

Also, for the current performance, imagine the following team numbers for offense:

Smoak: 52pa, .467babip, 203wrc+
Donaldson: 111pa, .323babip, 181wrc+
Saunders: 81pa, .380babip, 160wrc+
Bautista: 107pa, .262babip, 153wrc+
Encarnacion: 72pa, .233babip, 127wrc+
Tulowitzki: 61pa, .256babip, 109wrc+
Pillar: 98pa, .316babip, 88wrc+
Goins: 79pa, .218babip, 22wrc+
Martin: 51pa, .243babip, 22wrc+

Carrera: 15pa, .556babip, 165wrc+
Barney: 31pa, .318babip, 110wrc+
Thole: 29pa, .222babip, 44wrc+

That would be a much easier to tolerate lineup. Only 2 holes, one of them expected to be filled when Travis comes back, one of them well below expected (balancing out Smoak well above expected).

Shapiro was GM of Cleveland since 2001, and became president in 2010. So 15 seasons. In those 15 seasons Cleveland had 4 90+ win seasons.

Im confused, before the start of the year wasn't everyone saying "why would we poach cleveland's management team, they are a terrible organization".

Didn't MLB actually change the comp rules to prevent him from gaming the system as effectively as he was with comp picks for type B free agents?

No. Other teams, including our divisional competitors in Boston and TB had been doing that for a while before Toronto began. The free agent rules were negotiated in collective bargaining. Type A and B free agents were done away with. The PA was able to eliminate compensation for any free agent unless a QO of a significant amount of money, was first offered and declined, thereby considerably loosening the free agent market. The QO was set at a high level. The new system eliminated free agent compensation for a majority of players, which has been a goal of the PA since the 70's. The PA couldn't have given a rat's butt about Toronto drafting practices.

Cecil has a torn LAT - out a month or more.

That's good news! At least there is an actual real excuse.

I was beginning to think we were cursed. NOW - lets get Devon Travis back and turn this boat around!

No. Other teams, including our divisional competitors in Boston and TB had been doing that for a while before Toronto began.

I don't see any comp picks for the Rays BEFORE the Jays were doing it, but I do see a few with the Sox.  Both teams were clearly doing it at the same time as the Jays though, which I hadn't noticed before.

Do you know if the Sox were acquiring FAs on purpose though?  That was clearly AA's strategy.

I bet those teams were all acquiring FAs with draft pick compensation as part of the equation. AA did shine a spotlight on the situation with the Miguel Olivo trade, where the sole purpose was to decline his option and then offer him arbitration for the purposes of gaining the pick.