Signs of Life?

Well, it's been a pretty sweet 10 day run, eh? Obviously the sample is pretty tiny but the feeling was always (with the saner folks at least) that there was no way that guys who were established successful guys would not ALL simply go over the cliff collectively at once. As I noted in the last entry, they HAD to be better than what they were playing, whether or not they were ever actually a playoff quality team.

Still waiting on the collection of scrubs in New York to revert to their true selves though.

In any case, let's acknowledge that no, this is not a .700 team for the rest of the year (they do need to play about .611 the rest of the year to reach 90 wins) and yes, you can't assume Ramon Ortiz and Chad Jenkins are going to be this good for very long (albeit Jenkins might end up being better than I had thought he was) but much of this success has been driven by several of the known quantity guys finding their groove. I'm willing to feel some confidence that this is not a mirage and the team is indeed coalescing into something resembling what we expected coming into the year.

I continue to be impatient for Lawrie to really get rolling, I continue to be frustrated that the best Rasmus can muster is "okay" and obviously my heart cries out for Jose Reyes every night; on the flip side, dig Adam Lind, eh? The strict platoon is certainly a factor but so far he's looking rejuvenated in his production and his approach. Among the pitchers, it was a total mystery what was going on with Buehrle, and as always I await Brandon Morrow stepping up to the elite level permanently, but I'm glad to see Dickey beginning to put the discomfort behind him, and like everyone else, I'm blown away by the continued ascension of Casey Janssen to elite status.  Brett Cecil is living up to my hopes and dreams too.

Some other tibbits you are probably aware of but I'll throw out there anyway...

• Marcus Stroman will get his first start this weekend for New Hampshire. Some, notably Rich Griffin, have speculated that the Jays thin depth may open the door for Stroman to get some starts for the Jays relatively soon.
• Dustin McGowan pitched a dominant inning for Dunedin in relief last night. if he continues to do well with his recovery (after each appearance) he could be relatively fast tracked to the major league pen when some oft he other guys start to wear down or prove themselves incapable (I'm looking at you, Brad Lincoln. What the hell, dude? Also, Esmil, don't think I haven't noticed your failings).
• Sergio Santos is going for minor clean up surgery, estimated time-table for return is six weeks. It's only eight weeks until the ASB so I wouldn't be stunned if you didn't see him until after the break.
• Daniel Norris finally had a good start.About damn time. McGuire pitched well tonight but I've seen that occasional success before - get back to me when it's five or six games in a row. John Stilson made a (quality) relief appearance last night, if indeed he is a reliever from now on, he's another guy you could easily see push his way into the Jays pen this season. Honestly, with Janssen closing and Cecil proving himself capeable of the Downs/Oliver type role next year, you might have Santos, McGowan, Stroman, and Stilson forming the core of the balance of the bullpen in 2014and beyond and all of those are potentially dominant guys as relievers. 
• Whither Ricky Romero? Historically I'm the last person to too-quickly write a guy off but at this point I'm damned worried that he's lost his mojo for good.He needs to get going.

Finally, I'll amen the sentiment that I think is pretty commonplace in Jays fandom - can anyone do anything about the over-optimistic reporting on injuries? Everyone is always "just days away" exceptthat he doesn't ever actually return on time. Look at Brandon Morrow, who's now been pushed back to Saturday (he says and AA affirms that has a lot to do with him facing the Yankees instead of Ortiz which is a reasonable construction in a vacuum) - how many times have they "just pushed him back a couple of days" now? He's missed enough turns now he could have just been on the 15 Day DL in the first place.  I am a total cynic about when Johnson will be back simply because of the track record at this point. Hopefully things will turn around on that front too.

A Month

Yes, that's right- the Jays are a month into the season, with several angles worth talking about, and I couldn't be bothered to post about any of them. Why? Well, lots of reasons. There's the simple matter of available time of course, but there's also lack of interest.Simply put, I write to be read - and I don't get the impression hardly anyone was reading. Yes, there are 150-200 pageviews most every day, but how many of them are bots or whatever? I have no way of knowing.

As for interest, I can't tell from the comments (which were never heavy), I can't tell from the linkage from other blogs (as far as I can tell, non-existent), I can't tell that I'm not simply talking to myself.  Don't mistake this as a plea for attention or back-patting, I understand that I did this to myself with inactivity, and it's okay. Truth is, the"market" for Jays bloggage is so saturated I was never able to break into the top ranks. I'll readily admit that those which have are the result of far more effort. Better looking site, more pics, even graphics, more writers. All I traded on was on gals opinion.

So the cycle feeds on itself, less posts lead to less readers leads to less posts lead to less readers.

Still, from time to time I want a platform to contribute something so I'll keep plugging along intermittently until the fire rekindles, assuming it does at some point. Tonight i have two things on my mind which, were I more motivated, would have been two separate posts.

First, regarding the major league squad. It's all too easy to get down on the team and think that all that which we percived as win in the off-season was, in fact, more fail. But consider this. The Blue Jays played seven of
 their last eleven games against the Yankees and lost six of those.

Looking at Baseball Reference, here's the busiest starting nine forthe team that manhandled our boys, with OPS+:

Francisco Cervalli - 138
Lyle Overbay - 85
Robinson Cano - 165
Eduardo Nunez - 29
Jayson Nix - 46
Vernon Wells - 151
Brett Gardner - 104
Ichero Suzuki - 68
Travis Hafner - 189

Except for Cano and Hafner (who hasn't been this good in SEVEN YEARS) that's basically a AAA team. How many of those guys would you gladly have plugged in on April 4 in place of their Jays equivalent and happily considered it an upgrade? Yet they are 6.5 games ahead of Toronto. The cliche "you can't predict baseball" was never more true than it is right now. I'd be much more philosophical about the team taking a while to gel if I wasn't flabbergasted at the Yankee's luck.

Blech. Enough of that.

On to the minor leagues.

One of my traditions is a monthly review of the better news from the minors, in the form of a "hot list" - why not continue that? I'll confine myself to those generally regarded as actual prospects, with a nod later towards the journeymen who started off hot.

Hitters:

1. Andy Burns - The Dunedin 3B is dominating his team and is right there among the top 3 or4 best hitters in the FSL. Most interesting, he has 15 walks and only 10 strikeouts.

2. Kevin Pillar - A somewhat slow start has gone en fuego. - Pillar sports a steadily climbing OPS of .880 and he also has the walk/strikeout thing under control. He's an OF in New Hampshire and it's anyone's guess whether the team will make room for Pillar at Buffalo if he keeps this up.

3. Ryan Schimpf - a marginal prospect who plays the IF but without a true defensive home, you have to tip your hat, though, to leading the EL in homers and the runner up spot (by a margin of ONE) in the walks column.

4. Moises Sierra - I've never been a big believer here but he's raking to start the year,with an average that flirts with .400 as the stand out stat. On the other hand, the strikeout-to-walk ration is still not impressive.

Names of note: Josh Thole is raking, Anthony Gose is not in a grove, Mauro Gomez is earning his keep, Mike Crouse started well but it's only4 games, The three top prospect in the Lansing lineup - Dalton Pompey, Christian Lopes, and Santiago Nessy - are just "okay"at this point.

Meanwhile, Jim Negrych sports a .429 BA in Buffalo with solid supporting stats.

Pitchers:

1. Roberto Osuna - ignore the slightly elevated (but still quite good) ERA andlook at the ratios.22.1 IP, 31 K, and a mere4 BB. This kid might be some good.

2. Aaron Sanchez - not dominating the way Osuna has but beginning to show more control, which is the main thing he's working on.

Also, take not of Joel Carreno and Chad Beck protesting their assignment to AA by dominating the opposition.

There have been flashes of brilliance elsewhere but these are the deserving.