Reflections on May

Rare is it that I agree with the normally retarded musing of Toronto Star baseball columnist Richard Griffin, but he actually hits the nail on the head with one today in which he absolves the hitherto outstanding bullpen for the two losses in Anaheim. Through Saturday, the bully had gone 22 consecutive scoreless innings before Jason Frasor surrendered that game-winning single to Juan Rivera. That achievement is worth noting, but was bound to come to an end sooner or later.

Through 28 games in March-April (well, really only April because of the rainout on Opening Day in New York), the Jays went 11-17, scoring 4.14 runs per game and allowing 4 for a differential of 0.14. That they lost considerably more than they won with a postive run differential points to plain old bad luck, but on the same token you shouldn't really expect to be much better than .500 with those numbers, either (unless you're a mystical fairy team like the Minnesota Twins).

Collectively, the Jays hit a bit better last month (.272/.337/.394) over April (.250/.338/.360) thanks to a .34 point jump in BABiP, but they still ended up scoring fewer runs somehow. More bad luck? It's hard to say the baseball gods are against you during a month in which you won 66% of your games. The Jays compensated for their relative lack of scoring with what was probably one of the best-pitched months in club history, a claim I'm just going to leave out there without bothering to spend dozens of minutes looking up.

In May, the Jays went 20-10 and the numbers were 3.97 runs per game for and an impressively low 3.13 against for a differential of 0.84. That's big enough to win you quite a few games and win the Jays did.

Which brings us back to Griffin, kicking the truth to the young black youth:

The truth is that the efficiency of the Jays' pitching in May covered a multitude of offensive shortcomings that need to be corrected. The ballclub can no longer just be happy about scoring enough runs to take a late-inning lead, then hand it over to the relievers, as has been the modus operandi.

That was the May way. In short, you can't blame Tallet for Saturday's loss, or Ryan for yesterday. The fault, dear friends, still lies in the bat rack.

Damn, I don't think he's ever been righter. I'm stone sober and I do know who I'm talking about here.

If the Jays' bats continue on with the familiar sub-mediocrity they've demonstrated through the first two months and our pitching regresses to a more mortal level, June could just as easily become another April. I really don't see that happening because of the soft opposition that's coming our way this month once we get done with the Yankees. And I do think it's quite probable that some of our colder hitter (Hill and Rios especially) really do crank it up a notch. You never really know how all this stuff is going to play out. But still, Griffin is on to something.

This team NEEDS to start scoring more runs and right quick regardless of what happened in May. I can accept that it's too early to make a trade for an impact bat just yet and hope that we can sneak through June with the offensive "talent" we presently have, but a Jason Bay or Adam Dunn just can't get here soon enough.

-- Johnny Was

The Roundup

Must... resisit... temptation... to... shit... on... Royals...

We've got a getaway day game this afternoon at 12:30-ish on your Rogers Cable box at channel 399 or you can go all pre-war and listen to it on the radio (if you live in Toronto).

Four-game sweeps fascinate me; they're a rough equivilant to the bases loaded 3-run double, which is undoubtedly the classiest hit in baseball. There are two schools of thought on today's game. First, it takes a great deal of crappiness and bad luck to lose an entire four game series, thus the baseball gods will take pity on the hitherto hapless Royals and let them leave town with one solitary win. This makes especially good sense considering that they're throwing their worst starter (Brett Tomko) against our best (Shaun Marcum). The second perspective is that the Royals just plain suck and have no business even attempting to beat a top tier starter on the road with their pop gun offense and wacky base-running.

It would be facetious of me to say that the Jays are about to enter a soft and mushy part of the schedule starting in June, but were getting to the point in the season where it's time to make traction and catch up with the big boys. Next month we've got alot of weak opposition: BAL (3), SEA (3 + another road series starting June 30), MIL (3), PIT (3), and CIN (3). On the other side of the ledger, we've got one against the Angels to wrap up a series that starts this weekend, the Yankees in New York (3), and the Cubs (3) and Braves (3) at home. If ever there was a time for a 17-9 month, this is it. And the best part is that there are off days, 3 of them!

I could've done this earlier, but in any event felicitations to Lyle Overbay for breaking Tony Fernandez's team record by reaching base in 12 consecutive plate appearances. McLeod notes that L.overbay's OBP now stands at a robust .453, 4th best in the AL. I'm starting to wonder if I can actually start wearing my powder blue Overbay t-shirt again and, more importantly, if he has fantasy value. (I'm officially putting a voodoo curse on Lance Berkman, Jay. You knew it had to come down to this.)

Several years ago I took some time off from my studies to guzzle Zywiec, party in Krakow and teach English in a Londony-ish city in Southern Poland. I had no family ties there and spoke no Polish, but the run-down former industrial heartland of an old Eastern Bloc country soon felt like home for this transplanted Sarnian. And the country isn't half as grey as German tourist board officials would want you to believe...

In any event, whenever I started teaching a new class, the first lesson had to begin with the inevitable "getting to know you" bit where everyone shares some biographical info. I had a line for hobbies on my little one-page questionaire and had to do my utmost not to burst out laughing when one comely young lass wrote "eating hot dogs". Well, it's because of people like her that the Jays brass have come up with this hackneyed promotion. Some people just really enjoy processed cow and pig parts. I would think that pulling out all the stops to get a winning team on the field is probably the best means of filling your stadium, but I'm just some random guy and don't have a marketing degree or nothing.

No blogaggeness from The Oracle? Sadness! Wilner has been 2 for 2 calling bullshit on those who said Overbay was done and that Reeder (haha, that one annoyed him so damn much) was a better player than Shannon Stewart, but his triumphalism on Jesse Litsch is somewhat... irksome? Not to take anything away from what he did on Saturday (and now taking everything away from what he did Saturday...), but the Royals aren't a real Major League offense and I asterisk that shutout. And I said the same last week when Jon Lester no-hit them.

Fine, Litsch might not be Gustavo Chacin 2.0. He's probably better described as a Chacin-Towers hybrid, combining the best of both and getting by well because of it. But did someone seriously leave a comment on Wilner's blog asking if Litsch would win 20 games and finish the season a Cy Young front runner? Say he could become the next Paul Byrd if you must, but this? Fucking hell! I'm just waiting for someone to say they're glad Janssen got hurt so Litsch got a shot at the rotation this year. Yeah, he's chugging along very nicely for a 5th starter and I'll take that to the money bank, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves people.

ELSEWHERE:

* It's hard to say what I want to say about this without coming off the wrong way. Jon Lester has confronted some serious challenges in life with a certain quiet dignity that has earned him a great deal of respect across partisan lines. I too admire his humility in the face of adversity. That said, they way the Boston press twists every detail of his personal life and absorbs it into some meta-narrative about how the Red Sox can take any comer makes me want to fucking wretch. God, you're so fucking self-absorbed, Bosox fans; do we really need this? Please, just let the man go about his business without the agonizing constant health updates on his family members.

* CM Wang says there's nothing wrong with his calf and his wildness yesterday was totally unrelated to any health issues.

* Oh, him? Guess who had game-winning RsBI in extra innings in consecutive games on the weekend? That Jason Bay guy, who's "not exactly tearing it up" according to JP.

-- Johnny Was

The Roundup

This team is seriously in danger of losing me and there's absolutely no way more of this horseshit can compete with the 2-hour finale of Lost tonight. "Malaise" is right, Blair.

After reading Will's post about GIDP my mind wandered to something I read a few years back about Crystal Palace FC, an English football club that had some success back in the early '90s to go along with the second coolest name in the sport after Arsenal. A journo from one of the trashier British tabloids took in a Palace practice and was struck at how lackadaisically the players went through the motions. When he questioned the team captain about why they blew off practice, he was told that "practicing makes us tired." Well no shit, you just can't argue with that logic.

Sometimes things are bad because they're supposed to be bad.

Ah, back to the ol' Bullshit Detector above.

A good number of JaysTalk callers phone in without the foggiest of ideas about what they're going to say (like the guy who wanted to trade for Juan Pierre), but I had reached the conclusion the discourse was somewhat more intelligent for Wednesday's with JP. Someone inevitably asked about trading for "Canadian Boy" Jason Bay (right after somewhat ironically slamming Matt Stairs), prompting two things from JP. First, JP asked the caller to throw down and tell us all who he'd trade. The caller said Jesse Litsch, prompting a paradoxial reply that The Body was too valuable/cost efficient to us, but had little trade value in the eyes of other clubs. Uh, ok?

But it was the second thing that threw me. Paraphrasing, JP said something to the effect of "First, he's not available. And I don't know if you've checked the numbers but he's not exactly tearing it up." Not available? His availability is the worst kept non-secret in the sport. He's more available than Dunn or Griffey, that's for sure. The Pirates might wait until they fall further out of contention before making a move, but they simply cannot afford to keep him in '09. If you think Neal Huntington is foolish enough to believe that he's got anything remotely approaching the 4th best club in the National League you're off your fucking tits.

"Not exactly tearing it up." Bay has a .259/.392/.487 line for a 132 OPS+ to go along with 10 HR. If that's not tearing it up, I don't know what is. And sorry, Scott Rolen is the Greatest Blue Jay Ever, but Bay has the same offensive profile and is slightly out-hitting Rolen Thunder to date, not to mention the rest of the sad sack flaccid little bats that round out the rest of our lineup. I wish I had an entire team of guys like Rolen and Bay.

It's awfully tempting to give up the ghost on this year. I think we all knew that it was going to take a monster V-Dub year a la 2003/2006 for us to seriously be in contention and his replacement for 2+ months by Brad Wilkerson can probably be singled out as the most glaring reason why we're thrashing vainly in the quicksand. John Hale at the Mockingbird sliced through the fog by showing all and sundry that the bats haven't been any better in May despite the team's improved record. It basically comes down to this: you make an impact trade right quick or you accept mediocrity and start making up a list of guys you dump for prospects at the trade deadline. Don't worry, we'll be on that soon enough.

Speaking of trade bait, David Eckstein had a setback in his rehab outing and isn't expected to rejoin the big club tonight as expected. I swear I saw Hector Luna come into last night's game as a pinch runner, I swear it!

Alex Rios can add "horrible baserunner" to his CV according to The Oracle. You do have to credit the guy for coming up with creative new ways to lose games on a nightly basis.

Darren Thomson of Vancouver, B.C. is the first recipient of The Southpaw Award for Courage and Valour in the Line of Fandom for calling Dick Griffin out on his assinine "four guys, six years" assessment of JP's draft record. Well played, sir. And I encourage you to read on because Dick begins one answer "Fo’schizzle less ster-izzle my Rot-izzle." Seriously. And in the next one he assuses Rance Mulliniks of being a chronic masturbator. I am not making this shit up.

ELSEWHERE:

* It begins. A-Rod off the DL, Joba Chamberlain to the rotation. Pardon me while I choke on my own vomit. But it looks like CM Wang might have a calf strain... resisting temptation to make "wang" joke, moving on...

* Bleech, even worse! Bartolo Cologne (haha) started and took the win for the Bosox last night. He clearly did not use his rehab stint to lose weight, though.

-- Johnny Was

Game Notes

Pedro Cerrano: Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum. Is very bad.

If there was more time to waste in the course of my day I'd probably spend as many hours cruising around imdb.com as I do baseball-reference. It's also pretty clear that someone on the Jays' current 25-man roster has been stealing Jobu's rum. So with great pleasure I present you with the cast of the 2008 Jays version of Major League:

Greg Zaun as Jake Taylor
Jeremy Accardo as Rick 'Wild Thing' Vaughn
Lyle Overbay as Roger Dorn
Ellen Page as Rachel Phelps
John Gibbon as Lou Brown
Rachel McAdams as Lynn Wells
Vernon Wells as Willie Mays Hayes
AJ Burnett as Eddie Harris
Alex Rios as Pedro Cerrano
Jamie Campbell as Harry Doyle
Rance Mulliniks as Duke' Temple

and last but not least...

Eric "The Dude" Hinske as Clue Haywood

Let's all cheer these lovable misfits on as they make an improbable run from the cellar to the head of the AL East!

Will the limp Jays' bats be able to overcome Jobu's curse tonight? Let's find out.

On to the game notes:

1st inning: Carlos Gomez made a 2-base throwing error that sent Aaron Hill, who singled, to third with one out. Rios whiffs (looking), Rolen whiffs (swinging at least), inning over. Jobu 1, Jays O.

2nd inning: Brendan Harris misplayed a liner off Stew's bat and turned it into a double play. How could this happen? The ball was hit right to Harris, so Stair's couldn't stray too far from first, and Stew chose to jog down the line and couldn't pick it up in time to beat the post-bobble throw to Morneau. Jobu 2, Jays 0.

3rd inning: Did Twins fans actually cheer when a foul ball struck a beer vendor, spilling his entire tray of delicious (if over-priced) nectar? What could this mean? Surely it's an omen of evil to come... like Brad F'n Wilkerson going down for his second K of the night. Jobu 3, Jays 0.

3rd inning (bottom): Unrelated to the Jays' bats. Tabler calls Litsch a Shaun Marcum-type pitcher. No offense, but calling bullshit. Shaun Marcum is probably our lone representative at the All Star Game this year (Trivia question: will he actually get into the game? Answer: no.), whereas Litsch hasn't quite proven he won't go all Gustavo Chacin 2006 on us. And no power Carlos Gomez takes the Young Ginger deep. Jobu 4, Jays 0.

4th inning: what? I wasn't paying attention. Stairs walked with two outs, delaying the inevitable, but then Overbay doubles! Score! Stewart doubles! Score! Rally time! Zaun grounds out to second, ending the inning. Still, a two runs. Fuck you, Jobu! Still, Jobu 4, Jays 1.

5th inning: Three up, three down. Half point for Jobu when Aaron Hill fouled out to Joe Mauer on a high fly ball that was about foot shy of landing in the stands. Jobu 4.5, Jays 1.

6th inning: Rios K's yet again in his pursuit of another Golden Sombrero, but then Rolen fouls off like a jillon pitches, annoying Twins fans in attendance and driving up Kevin Slowey's pitch count. Stairs homers to the upper duck! Woot, woot! Fuck you twice over, Jobu! Jobu 4.5, Jays 3.

6th inning (bottom): Jobu curses Michael Cuddyer's bat and he is unable to cash Morneau, who tripled and drove in Brendan Harris, with two outs. Jays 3, Twins 2, but more importantly we learn that Jobu is an evil little god who torments many major leaguers. This time he settled a score in a fashion that worked in our favour.

7th inning: Shannon Stewart singles for his second hit tonight. Richard Griffin furiously scribbles in his note pad something about Brad Wilkerson's suckage and Stew's upstanding citizenry for tomorrow's Star. OMFG! A 2-out hit from Aaron Hill and Gregg Zaun lumbers in to score, Jays 4, Twins 2. Rolen K's on what would've been ball 4 with 2 outs and the bases loaded. Still, I give Jobu no points because the Jays did at least score one this inning. Jobu 4.5, Jays 4.

8th inning: Mench comes off the bench clean-shaven and raps a single off a very fat Latino reliever. Overbay singles. Stewart tries to bunt, ends up taking the walk, loading the bases with none out. Jobu must be off on a smoke break because he wouldn't be pleased with what's developing here for the Jays. Zaun lines out to left and Mench tags, slides into home and scores! Twins' appeal denied, Mench left on time, biatches! Scutaro grounds out weakly to first, two outs. Wilkerson grounds out to short even more weakly, so we got one run off a bases loaded none out start to the inning? Jobu 4.5, Jays 4.5.

8th inning (bottom): Armando Benitez sighting! Jobu pisses himself laughing and Jason Kubel breaks out of an 0-15 slump with a massive upper deck home run on the first pitch he sees. Note to self: if Benitez blows this slender lead, Gibby does indeed deserve to be fired for bringing him into a medium-high leverage situation like this. Carlos Gomez strikes out, but he has a .300 OBP or so. Benitez walks the next batter then gets yanked so Scott Downs can face Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau... who both ground out. That was hairy!

9th inning: Aaron Hill walks. Rios K's for the third time. That means no Golden Sombrero! Minor victory. Then Rolen flies out weakly and Hill is caught day-dreaming Alex Rios-style in an easy rundown.

9th inning (bottom): BJ Ryan comes in to face the bottom of the Twins' order and locks 'er down! Jays win, 5-3! And they beat Jobu 6-5!

Pedro Cerrano: I stuck up for you Jobu. You no help me now...I say fuck you Jobu. I do it myself.

Random Thoughts:

What do Big Scary Bats cost at the trade deadline? I ask theoretically because if the Jays were a .500 or better team by the All Star Break and no one really runs away from the pack in the Wild Card race, guys like Adam Dunn, Milton Bradley, Jason Bay, etc. might make sense here.

The Rangers traded 1.5 years of Mark Teixeira to the Braves last year, as you well recall. Of the bats currently on the trading bloc, Jason Bay comes closest to being Teixeira's 2008 equivilant because of his current contract status and offensive profile. (Yes, I'm aware he has less raw power and doesn't have the same defensive rep, though both have had niggling injuries to slightly dampen their trade value.)

What did the Rangers give up for Tex? Take it from here, baseball-reference:

July 31, 2007: Traded by the Texas Rangers with Ron Mahay to the Atlanta Braves for Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Beau Jones (minors), Elvis Andrus (minors), Matt Harrison (minors), and Neftali Feliz (minors).

It seemed like a win-win deal at the time. Teixeira had no intention of extending with the Rangers, even for ungodly sums of money, and the Braves desperately needed a stud bat at first after auditioning a bunch of stiffs (sorry Scott Thorman!) there in the first half. Salty did not hit poorly (91 OPS+) in his rookie season in the bigs at the tender age of 22 and was tearing AAA a new one before his recent promotion. Andrus has been no great shakes with the bat so far... but was playing AA ball by age 19. The Rangers will soon likely have to shift the gracefully aging Michael Young to a less-demanding position and Andrus may well be his successor. Beau Jones, who shares a name with the infant son of ex-Spice Girl Emma Bunton, has looked good in the low minors so far, but he's too far from the bigs to predict whether he'll have any success there. Ditto Harrison. Perez has some crazy K and BB rates in the extreme low minors, but who knows what his future holds?

This was quite a haul of prospects for the Rangers, admittedly for one of the more imposing bats in the game. If one of the position players and one of the pitchers end up contributing at the big league level I think this deal is looked upon as a success for Jon Daniels.

What sort of players would make up the 2008 Jays equivilant package? I'm thinking Justin Jackson, Brett Cecil, and Seth Overbey to start, which would strip our farm system down to its skivvies. If that's the sort of package the Pirates would demand for Bay, I don't think there's any way JP could or should pull the trigger on anything this rich.

The big deadline of 2006 also involved the Rangers, this time importing 2 months of Carlos Lee for a long-shot Hail Mary playoff run. The most similar profile bats eligible for free agency at the end of this season are Adam Dunn and, to a lesser extent, Milton Bradley, who Will has already discussed. Yes, I think the Reds would be foolish not to extend Dunn, but I think the rebuilding Rangers would do well with cashing in Bradley for some younger pieces.

Particulars of the Lee deal, courtesy of B-R:

July 28, 2006: Traded by the Milwaukee Brewers with Nelson Cruz to the Texas Rangers for Laynce Nix, Kevin Mench, Francisco Cordero, and Julian Cordero (minors).

This one was a bit weird. The Rangers got a short-term rental they couldn't afford to keep and a AAAA outfielder who sucked in the bigs last year but is now kicking ass and taking names to the tune of a 1.179 OPS in AAA so far this year. That'll probably force Jon Daniels to give him another look in Arlington this summer. In return the Brew Crew got 1.5 years of mostly effective closering from Francisco Cordero before prudently declining to match the BJ Ryan contract the Reds offered him. According to the internet Julian Cordero doesn't exist. Mench and Nix were superfluous junk outfielders; Doug Melvin presumably asked for them for no reason other than he was familiar with their work from his time as Rangers GM. It was ultimately pointless, kind of like John Ferguson Jr. brining Yannic Perrault back in mid-season for another stint with the Leafs. A head-shaker for fans with IQ+s north of 100.

This was kind of an old time-y deal; now everyone wants prospects, prospects, prospects, and young starting pitching. I don't think there's any chance the Reds--who I expect to hang on in the NL Central despite Dusty Baker's best efforts--trade Dunn for a solid reliever and a pair of spare parts with Walt Jocketty at the helm. He probably wouldn't get skinned again on a deal involving pitching after Billy Beane sold him the 1982 Mercedes 300 SL that was Mark Mulder for a young Danny Haren. And do the Reds even need starting pitching? They've got a bona fide ace in Aaron Harang, 3 very intriguing young arms in Ceuto, Volquez and Bailey, and familiar shitballer Bronson Arroyo. To be honest, they really don't have any glaring needs early struggles and all, though there's nothing wrong with stockpiling depth.

I would figure the Reds keep Dunn if they're in a race or trade him for an A and B prospect if they're far out of it, which is probably a bit much to gamble on a streaky hitter who admittedly does have about as much raw home run power as anyone in the game today. Imagine the sickly feeling in the pit of JP's stomach if he traded Lind and a young arm for two months of Dunn and got the .209/.352/.400 line he's put up through his first 115 ABs? He brings a scarier bat and possibly much greater extreme short-term gratification than Bay, though he doesn't not come without risk.

Take what you will from this because it's all academic unless the Jays decide to get their shit radically together in a real hurry. And at this point I wouldn't bet a Haitian nickel on that.

Coolness: Dave Purcey will probably get the start Friday night against Jamie Moyer in Philly.

-- Johnny Was

The Roundup

To borrow a quote from Cosmo Kramer, the Jays' month of May has been "a story of love, deception, greed, lust, and unbridled enthusiasm." Bringing it back from the near abyss, a long-ish winning streak, and three shutouts over the past week? The only explanation must be that the various moons of Endoor are in some sort of strange and favourable configuration.

I need to put the success of our arms and the feebleness of our bats into perspective:

* 6 games into its season, TFC has scored 8 goals and allowed 9 whereas division leader Columbus has scored 11 and allowed 7
* 5 games into May, the Jays have scored 15 runs and allowed 5

I don't know if that really means anything or is fair, but the numbers stand for the themselves.

Bastian has a new mailbag up. If you listen to JaysTalk or read The Oracle, Bastian is pretty redundant. And I say that as someone who really finds no fault with his work. We had some pretty high hopes for him in the pre-season when he started blogging during spring training, but working for the Company (MLB) appears to have injected his work with a certain degree of boringness. Where's the unbridled enthusiam, Jordan?

Speaking of The Oracle, J-Mac in for defense in the 9th? Eckstein to the bottom of the order? I'd like to think that Wilner has finally beat Gibby and JP into submission and resources will be used a little more rationally from here on out. High five!

Griff... he doesn't like naming Lind the starting LF then demoting him to a bench role a week and a half later. And I pretty much agree entirely with that argument. Not the usual horseshit about "sticking to the plan" or Reed Johnson, but the first part about Lind.

Blair noddingly approves of Gibby's constant lineup tinkering, but wonders if he's "gone to the whip hand." Some interesting footnotes on Lind:

Yesterday, he effectively benched left-hand-hitting prospect Adam Lind (1-for-19 in six games) with the full support of general manager J.P. Ricciardi. Shannon Stewart batted second and started in left field as Gibbons ran out his 28th different lineup in 33 games.

The Lind decision is interesting, since Gibbons pushed privately for Lind as an antidote to Thomas. And when Lind and now healthy Scott Rolen were both in the fold, it was clear that Gibbons felt that, finally, he had a team with which he was comfortable.

So what happened?

"You'd like to just kind of settle in on one thing and leave it there, but we've been searching for some things," Gibbons said. "We brought Stewart here for a reason. He never seemed a guy for a part-time role. Stewart's a contact guy. He's always hit at the top of the lineup. I think he [Lind] is ready for the majors, but he's just not hitting now. Right now, we want to get something going."

What that means I don't know because I don't speak Boomhauer, but it seems to bode ill for young Adam Lind this year.

I'm just going to blurt it out: if the organization doesn't have any confidence in Lind, which his "indefinite" benching in favour of Shannon Stewart indicates, we might as well trade him...

to Pittsburgh for Jason Bay.

The case for Bay:

* he's off to a solid .266/.400/.459 start, dampening concerns about a balky knee
* he's a righty, yes, but like Scott Rolen hits right-handed pitching very well (career .875 OPS against righties, .932 against lefties)
* he's a superior defender than Shannon Stewart
* bringing him in would reduce Stew to platoon DH and 4th OF, which is more in line with the role we brought him in for
* he would cost us only about $4.5 million from here on, which is no more than what we're paying David Eckstein this year
* relatively speaking, attendance hasn't been bad (6th of 14 in the AL), but a Canadian star would put butts in seats regardless of how you feel about the marketing strategy of bringing in homegrown talent

Why Pittsburgh should want Lind:

* 2/3 of the Pirates OF (Bay and Xavier Nady) are on their way out this year because of budgetary restraits and someone has join Nate McLouth and Steve Pearce as the inheritors of the Barry Bonds/Bobby Bonilla/Andy Van Slyke legacy
* PNC favours lefty power of the sort Lind provides
* Adam Laroche, the lefty first baseman brought in from the Braves for last year, has rebuffed club efforts to extend him with extreme prejudice, which means the club will be without the sort of lefty middle of the order presence its park demands
* the Buccos want Chase Headley of the Pads (3B/OF) ever so much, but have been thus far unable to pry him away from Kevin "not Josh" Towers; it's time to start looking at secondary trade targets, Huntington

I feel better getting that out of my system and will leave it be from here on out. A Lind-Bay deal makes emminent and imminent sense to me, but I realize a good number of you would be strongly opposed. We'll just agree to disagree then even if I secretly know that I'm right and you're wrong.

-- Johnny Was

The Roundup

Before games kicked off in the Asian pool of the 2006 World Baseball Classic, Mariners all-world centre fielder Ichiro made some comments about neighbouring countries that seemed vaguely simliar to something one might've heard from a brigadier general in the rampaging Kwantung Army in the late 1930s.

Ichiro vowed of Taiwan, Korea and to a much lesser extent, China, that
"I will make them see that they won't beat Japan for the next 30 years." Eh oh!

Click on the above link for some classic Ichiro quotes. I like this one:

On his personal battles with Dice-K: "I hope he arouses the fire that's dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul. I plan to face him with the zeal of a challenger."

As much as I disagree with tenants of Japanese imperialism and the bushido warrior code, I still grudgingly admit that I've got nothing against laying a savage beating on a weaker opponent on the sporting field. Which brings us to last night's 11-3 Jays victory against the Orioles.

That's what we expected to see against Bal'mer all year long: repeated body blows and the occasional head shot whilst never letting one's guard down.

Uncle Griff takes a break from the usual douchebaggery to reflect on Jackie Robinson Day and issues of race. I've said it before, but I would have no problem with the guy whatsoever if he stuck to the feature pieces on players and baseball themes and left the game reporting to Cathal Kelly and Mark Zwolinski. In fact, I would probably even enjoy his work. Kelly, are you reading this?

If you're a sympathetic liberal interested in race stuff, MacLeod has a few ideas about how baseball can regain it's urban appeal. Chiefly, cut down on the length of games. Frankly, it's a pretty great youth strategy, period.

And then the floodgates open. Highlights from the mailbag:

* One questioner's Scutaro-bashing segues into Inglett-bashing. I understand you like J-Mac--many of us do--but maybe wait until Inglett's average dips under .400 before calling for J-Mac to be playing over him at third, mkay?

* Another dude asks if Griffin has even asked JP/Gibby why they don't use J-Mac as Doc's personal shortstop. They said they didn't want to because they always do the opposite of the "improvements" he suggests in his weekly mailbag column. Burn!

* Quoted verbatim:

Burnett is a career lunkhead as proved by his maxing out at 12 wins in his best season. Burnett is the Jeff George of baseball. This guy should have been chasing 20 wins at least a couple of times, but hasn’t.

So very fucking true on so many levels.

* Griff "love[s] their offensive, in-game strategy this year", which means it's high time they stop recklessly attempting to steal bases and bunting like NL cowards or he won't have much to complain about next week. Wilner will go insane if it keeps up much longer.

I tire of this.

ELSEWHERE:

* Erik Bedard hits the DL. Again. Sigh.

* I just found this so unusual that it deserves mention. Here's a spirited defense of Jason Bay from Bob Smizik of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a journo who gets two thumbs up for actually understanding and using stats to make his case.

Bay is heavily criticized by Bucco fans for being overpaid (!), underproductive (??? 3 HR and a 132 OPS+ so far ???), and aloof (well, wouldn't you be)... Bench him! Trade him!

Smizik preaches:

Let's look at his accomplishments, and to do so we will use the baseball statistic OPS, which is on-base percentage plus slugging percentage. It is widely considered to be the best statistic in evaluating a player's offensive ability...

In 2004, he was the National League Rookie of the Year, the first Pirates player to win the award. He hit 26 home runs, drove in 82 runs, had a .282 batting average and a .550 slugging percentage (anything over .500 is good).

In 2005, he built on that to the extent he could have been called the best offensive outfielder in the National League. His OPS was .961, second in Major League Baseball to Manny Ramirez of the Boston Red Sox. For those who prefer more conventional statistics, his 32 home runs and 101 RBIs tied for fourth and fifth among National League outfielders.

In 2006, his OPS was .928, third best in the National League, behind Carlos Beltran and Matt Holliday. Among outfielders, he was fourth in RBIs with 109, fifth in home runs with 35. He did this despite playing half of his games in a stadium not friendly to right-handed hitters.

In additional to those offensive accomplishments, he also showed himself to be an above-average outfielder, albeit with a below-average arm, and an excellent base runner.

Understandably, the Pirates signed him to a long-term contract before the 2007 season.

He regressed quite a bit in '07. His home run total fell to 21, his RBIs to 84 and his OPS dropped to .745. His once-keen batting eye, which had helped him accumulate 95 and 102 walks the previous two seasons, vanished. He walked only 59 times. Worse, his defense declined at an alarming rate.

It was one bad season after three exceptional ones, yet Bay has become a public whipping boy. A common criticism, heard much too often, is that Bay doesn't hit in the clutch.

His lifetime batting average is .281. His lifetime batting average with runners in scoring position is .288. His lifetime slugging percentage is .515. His lifetime slugging percentage with runners in scoring position is .536.

The statistics speak for themselves.

SSSSSSSnap! Take that, few remaining wrong-thinking fans of one the worst franchises in baseball.

-- Johnny Was

Fun Facts of 2008

With no major Jays news to report, I thought it'd be fun to take a quick look at some of the projected leaders for the 2008 season:

Home run leaders: Jim Thome & Xavier Nady with 324. If my math is correct, that would set a new home run record. Xavier Nady is apparently the only reason to watch the Pirates, other than Nate McClouth. That's right folks, Jason Bay is dead to me. He knows what he did.

AL RBI leader: Manny Ramirez, 405. I understand now why the Red Sox are the favourites, as Manny Ramirez will singlehandedly drive in 405 runs this year.

NL RBI leader: Chipper Jones, 324. Excellent news, as I'm a huge Braves fan and I'd bet that they're going to win the NL East. They're off too a brutal start, losing both games in the later innings, although they had a pretty impressive comeback in the 9th and a decent rally in the 12th last night.

Major league wins leader: Livan Hernandez, 162. Several other SP are on pace to win 162 games, but odds are only Livan will live up to that pace because he's a renowned innings eater.

AL steals leader: Carlos Gomez, 324. Take that, pundits who said the Twins got the short end of the Santana trade!

NL steals leader: Michael "Jason" Bourn, 324.

AL/NL Saves leaders: Joe Borowski & David Riske. True, others will be tied for the saves lead, but nobody is poised to be as dominant as Joe, who's already allowed an ER (off a solo HR), and has an ERA of 9. Cleveland is just mocking Detroit who has a shitty bullpen, by using their worst pen arm as a closer. As for David Riske, he will obviously be taking over for Gagne, so as a self-proclaimed fantasy baseball expert I urge you all to drop Gagne and pick up David Riske (I'm looking at you, Mulliniks' Staches). No announcement has been made, but since Riske is projected to save 162 games, it should be obvious that Gagne will no longer be closing.

Twitchy.

The Scrappy Analysis

First off, I want to apologize to everyone. Lately I've been doing a lot of "reporting", and that's not really what I'm here to do. Johnny does a great job of it, but it's not really my forte. My strength here is in analyzing stuff. Crunch the numbers, go off on random tangents, and see where it leads me. It's when I do that, that I'm on top of my game.


So with that in mind, I thought I'd take a deeper look at the scrappiest, most dirtbaggiest player we have. Buckle your seat belts boys and girls, we're gonna find out all of David Eckstein's deepest, darkest secrets!

What we do know about Eckstein to date is that he's a slightly below average SS, both at fielding and offensively. Eckstein is a middle of the road SS in terms of ZR, so he'll be an upgrade over Clayton but an obvious downgrade over J-Mac. Offensively, he's got a career 89 OPS+ and last year he was at 93 with a batting line of 309/356/382.

This isn't really news to anybody. Eckstein's always been overrated by media and fans alike. Calling him a good hitter is being generous at this point, because he's below league average. He is a perfect fit for the Jays though, who need a hitter who can simply get on base against RHP. It's no secret the Blue Birds struggled against RHP last year. Last year we were 27th in the majors with a 715 OPS against RHP - the biggest problems were an inability to hit RHP (248 BA) and get on base as a result (315 OBP). Eckstein's strengths are BA and OBP, specifically against RHP. It's really a match made in heaven.

What is interesting, however, is that during the offseason many writers often suggested the Jays did not make a significant offensive upgrade. That couldn't be further from the truth, and here's why. Last season, Jays SS, be it Ray Olmedo, J-Mac, Clayton, or anybody else who logged time at SS combined to...hit...to the tune of a 598 OPS. That OPS was dead last in the majors, just behind Boston. For all we made fun of Lugo and the Red Sox SS's, they were .035 points better than us, with a 633 OPS at SS.

Now, if we use last season's base of how David Eckstein will perform, he'll have a 738 OPS. Even if he only plays 120-130 games, that's an incredible upgrade. In fact, compared to last year's SS, it'll be an upgrade of .140 points of OPS.

That sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Well, think of it this way...

Remember how much Wells sucked last year? Remember how Awesome Rios was last year? Last year Wells had a 706 OPS, and Rios had an 852 OPS. You know what the difference between these two guys were in terms of OPS last year? .146 is the difference.

I'll give you guys a sec for that to sink in....

Imagine if we were able to clone Rios last year, and replace Vernon Wells with Alex Rios. We essentially did that at SS, where we replaced the Vernon Wells of SS (Mac) with Alex Rios (Eckstein). It's really night and day.

A ton of Jays fans/bloggers, including some of us here wanted to get Jason Bay. Assuming we somehow got him, the upgrade between our combined LF in 07 (741 OPS...that's for anyone who played in LF, not just Stairs/Johnson) and Jason Bay's career #'s (890 OPS) would have been a .150 OPS difference.

In other words, adding David Eckstein to SS is nearly identical to adding Jason Bay pre-07 to play LF for us. No, Eckstein isn't going to suddenly start hitting HR or anything. But our SS position was so bad, that having a league average guy like Eckstein makes it seem like a tremendous upgrade. We would have given up tons of prospects, and millions of dollars for a LF of his quality (assuming we had the money of course). And yet for 4.5 million, we essentially got the same kind of upgrade in our lineup. They won't provide the same production, but the value you're getting, from upgrading a player is proportionately at the same.

When you look at the Eckstein signing this way, it is without a doubt the single best offseason move JP has done. Often times during the offseason, we were told that NY, Boston & the Jays didn't really make any big improvements, and for the most parts were just standing pat. What I'm hoping is that people start realizing that we didn't stand pat, and that out of the three teams listed, you can make the argument the Jays made the most improvements to their starting 9 during the offseason.

Alright, so now that I've proved that Eckstein is a huge addition, how can we maximize his value?

We know Eckstein's coming off an injured season, and considering how valuable he is to the club, we need to keep him rested. Also, we know that his defense is less than spectacular. So what needs to happen to keep him rested and healthy throughout the year?

The obvious answer to this is to have McDonald come in more often and play defense when we're winning. The other thing that Gibbons can do, is make a straight platoon between Eck & Mac.

I'm probably getting a lot of WTF stares at the screen, so I better act fast....here are their 3 year splits vs LHP

McDonald - 697 OPS
Eck -706 OPS

There really isn't any noticeable difference between McDonald or Eckstein, when they're facing a Southpaw. Mac shows he can take the occasional walk against LHP (283/333). Eck would probably be better if he hit for higher average against LHP, as his walk rates and I'd bet ISO would be higher than Mac. That being said, for a difference of .009 OPS, there is really no reason to stop Eck/Mac from going into a straight platoon to start the season. We lose a negligible amount of offense against lefties, which the Jays already kill to date. But the defensive upgrade from Eck to McDonald is sizeable enough that you do gain value starting McDonald against LHP.

I really hope I actually covered some new stuff, and didn't rehash the same old "scrappy" and "team player" ideas that have been circulating the media. Beyond that, I'm just hoping that people can appreciate how bad the SS position was, and that Eckstein is potentially a bigger upgrade than a healthy Rolen in this lineup (proportionately to their positions previously held by Jays, anyways).

Twitchy.

Morning Roundup

Cathal Kelly writes that Casey Janssen's role this year will be tied to the Beej's health: if the Beej comes North at the end of the month, Casey's a starter, if not, he's back in the pen. We all knew that there was going to be a linkage between the two, but is it really going to be that strict?

Would the club really forgo using Janssen as a starter, which JP strongly feels is his most useful role to play, just because the Beej starts the season a month late? Even knowing that if he starts in the pen, it'll be more difficult to stretch him back out should he be needed as an injury replacement if one of Doc/AJ/McGowan/Marcum gets hurt early?

Really, it just doesn't seem wise to use Janssen out of the pen in '08 unless a) other viable 5th starters emerge--Chacin? pppft! Litsch? not ready; or b) the Beej has a serious setback and is lost for most or all of the upcoming season.

Kelly calls the decision on Janssen's role this year a "difficult" one, but it's really not. Yes, it will be shaped by external factors to a certain extent, but the right choice is pretty obvious. Forgotten Man Jason Frasor can adequately cover Casey's pen innings next year, and Wolfe can cover his. Easy peezy.

In related news, the Beej will not be getting his first taste of grapefruit action (mmm, grapefruit action...) this weekend as early hoped. His surgeon, Dr. Tim Kremchek, put the kibosh on that. Gibby says he'll give the Beej a couple more simulated games and then hopefully have him appear in a real fake game about 7-10 days from now.

Clarifying:

“It's not a setback,” said Gibbons. “The doctor just feels better about doing it like that because when (Ryan) gets into a real game, the adrenaline is going to start flowing, he's going to push himself that little bit harder.

“He's really had just one game type situation and that was yesterday, this way he'd get two more.”

The decision comes after Ryan said “now is not really the time to be holding back a lot,” following an 18-pitch simulated game Wednesday. By all accounts he looked good in that contest and plans to pitch him Saturday followed.

ELSEWHERE:

The Giants need a shortstop to replace the injured Omar Vizquel; time to start some crazy J-Mac for Tim Lincecum internet trade rumours?

Rando CP guy checked in our fave Jason Bay yesterday because the Jays happened to be playing his hapless Pittsburgh Pirates. Bay admitted that his spot on offseason critiques of his club's crappiness was the by-product of frustration with what was a poor season individually and collectively from a group that could have performed better. He has the same kind of optimism for 2008 that I do when I buy 6/49 tickets, but that doesn't mean he has a long-term future with the club:

Despite the sunny outlook, Bay's days in Pittsburgh may very well be numbered.

New general manager Neal Huntington opted against stripping down the long-suffering club — mired in a run of 15 straight losing seasons — during the off-season, deciding instead to give them another chance in 2007 before taking that route.

Should the Pirates continue to struggle, Bay and other veterans with market value could be moved for young players as part of a rebuilding program. If they start winning, they may try to add on to make a run in the weak National League Central.

None of this seems particularly surprising or offputting to Bay.

"I'd love nothing more than to do it here having been here through all the bad times, kind of like the Tigers, through the 120 losses and all of a sudden a couple of years removed from that, boom," said Bay. "There's a lot more to be said for that than just kind of going to a team.

"At the same time, it's easier to say that than for it to actually happen. There's some steps we need to take from where we're at, it's not going to be an overnight thing. If it looks like it's going to take more time than I have, does that make a lot of sense?"

As Rando notes, Pirates GM Neal Huntington is most likely biding his time for a deadline deal in the hopes that Bay can rebuild the trade value he lost last year due to a relatively poor season caused by tendinitis in his right knee.

The Jason Bay Tradometer will be adjusted accordingly to these new developments.


-- Johnny Was