The Invisible Man, Part Two

Earlier in the year I did an "Invisible Man" section on Lyle Overbay, showing why he was struggling offensively. I'm going to try and do something similar here with Alex Rios.

Rios was signed to a contract extension at the beginning of the season, which made us all very happy that our 850+ OPS defensive stud RF who could play CF in a pinch was going to be here the next 6 or so years. I was going to start off making some bullshit argument about how Rios let the contract get to his head, but that's not the case. In April Rios hit 306/386/449, good enough for an 835 OPS. Rios showed more patience than he normally does which led to the high OBP, which is why nobody really noticed or cared that he only slugged 449 that month.

In May he did his best John McDonald impression - and not with the glove - as he 'hit' 231/270/315 (585 OPS). It was around this time that we started to notice that Rios was struggling significantly, and that for the second straight month he wasn't showing much in the way of power. In June it got a little better, as he hit 320/361/460 (821 OPS). He showed the greatest slugging by month to this point, but don't let the slugging fool you - that was a batting average determined slugging. Had his BA been the same as in April, his slugging would have been an identical 449 in April and June.

Some would attribute his June resurgence to Cito, but again, he wasn't any better in June than he was in April. Until he regains his 06/07 swing, this is essentially his ceiling.

Now, if Rios could hit 280 and get on base with at least a 350-360 OBP, while slugging 450, I don't think anybody would really mind. As an 800 OPS RF with elite defense, Rios would still have a ton of value. But with a career 7.1 BB%, I don't think Rios is going to approach that OBP (of 350-360) without hitting 300. So he's going to need to show a significant amount of power if he wants to be a valuable major leaguer.

Right now there's nothing wrong with Rios' line drive rate - it's 21.2%, above his career mark of 20.5, and identical to his breakout year with the Jays. The number that jumps out of me, and not in a good way, is his GB %. If you're going to be a GB hitter, you need Ichiro, Reyes, or Crawford type speed. Rios is quick, but he's outclassed by those guys in terms of pure speed. So when I see Rios has a 47% GB rate (up nearly 12% from the past few years), a 31.8% FB rate (down nearly 13%!!!) and a HR/FB rate at 4.8% (down 5-7% from the past few years) - I think the problem becomes very obvious.

This really isn't anything shocking. We knew Rios couldn't hit a HR by watching the game with our own eyes. We know he's hit into a ton of double plays (12, which puts him 2 away from a season high). The stats just confirm that all these things are true.

What's surprising, is that he's regressed into the player (I refuse to call him a hitter from this point) that showed up in 2005 - a player with no plate discipline, no power, and untapped potential.

To me, this isn't about Rios not having a game plan, or just being a lazy hitter. That's making an excuse, but it's not dealing with the problem. Someone has to teach or show Rios how to hit the ball into the air again. Because otherwise, we just spent 65 million dollars on a 700 OPS RF. But at least he doesn't clog the bases.

Twitchy.

The Roundup

(Sad voice): 'Topes lose. Topes lose...

I suppose luck can run in your favour for only so long and "lustily" booing Eric Hinske has little effect on The Dude's one-man wrecking crew act against his former team. And all of this compounded by the fact that we're now down two shortstops for God knows how long.

Eckstein came out in the 5th with what we expect to be some minor hip discomfort and then J-Mac went down with a nasty ankle injury after catching his cleat on a seam in the field turf in the 6th. The Oracle was talking postgame like a 15-day DL stint is the best case scenario (it's never good when a player can't walk off the field under his own power) and 60 days is entirely possible.

Cruel mistress fate bitch slaps everyone who wanted to see more of J-Mac as a defensive replacement.

Marco Scutaro will be greedily licking his chops as he is the most likely recipent of playing time at short until Eckstein is well enough to play again. I'd figure that Joe Inglett gets called up for a bench slot as J-Mac's replacement, but won't see a minute of PT on the infield. The Oracle expects to see Jorge Velandia instead because the dude is a natural shortstop, has been chugging at AAA, and has some ML experience. Since there are no official updates as of yet, rampant speculation is pretty much all I've got for you at this point. Stay tuned.

I don't mean to be glib, but these injuries will likely have little short-term effect on the club's overall performance. Shortstop had been the NL pitcher's slot in the lineup as Eck and J-Mac combined for an anemic .231/.309/.306 line. Mac wasn't even being used for defensive purposes until the end of the White Sox series. We had only been getting average D from Eck, which is what you can reasonably expect from Scooter as a short-term injury replacement. It sucks losing J-Mac for a prolonged length of time, but his is a loss we can weather. If we start banging out 10 hits a game (as we did last night for only the third time since April 20), the Ws will come regardless of who's Scotty Rolen's left hand man.

Checking on the injury, Griff cites some disgruntlement from Eckstein on the planned loss of an inning or two of PT per night under Gibby's new shortstop rota, but one must take all things he writes with a grain of salt/disbelief.

It's Marcum-Garza tonight in game 2 as the Jays seek to win the series and leave town squared away at .500.

ELSEWHERE:

* If New Yorkers are incapable of accepting the fact that Joba Chamberlain will occasionally surrender a run or two, they're certainly not going to like what they see of him as a starter. Why, he might surrender as many as 3 runs over the course of a 7 inning start! How can this be? How can this be???

* Another reason to dislike A-Rod. Daddy, how did you meet mom? Well, darling:

“I scouted her out for a month,” he said. “I wanted to see her routine, and I wanted to see what time she came in, see how consistent she was. And sure enough, she was like a machine. She would come in right after work, and get on the treadmill and do her abs. And finally, I build enough courage after about 3 1/2 weeks. And I said, ‘I know you are going to go do some abs after. And do you mind if I join you?”

How romantic!

* Straight from the Aruban Penal League to the Texas Rangers, the ghost of Sidney Ponson throws his second straight quality start in a 10-1 laugher over the Mariners. Every time Ponson's name comes up Jay K. mentions something about picturing him drunk on a jetski punching out judges. Now THAT is a ballplayer, folks.

-- Johnny Was

They figured it out!

Alright, so I'm still pissed that Gibbons and crew decided that Lind shouldn't start, though Stewart did have a pretty good game. Part of it was the fact that Nick Swisher isn't a real CF, and misplayed everything hit to him, but I'll give Stew credit for hustling and getting some key hits.

On that note, and not to steal Johnny's roundup - I couldn't resist this early bit of good news from the blue jays official site:

McDonald's move from the bench to short was to serve as a late-inning defensive replacement for David Eckstein. Gibbons had been reluctant to use McDonald instead of Eckstein in the late innings of close games this season, but that has suddenly changed.

"He may be the best defensive shortstop in the game," Gibbons said about McDonald. "If he was just very good, we probably wouldn't do it, but with what he can do out there -- take away runs -- it's the right thing to do.

"By no means is it a reflection on the other guy."

I gotta say, I'm pretty proud of Gibbons for changing his mind. A week ago on Jays Talk, JP said this wasn't going to happen. So it sounds like Gibbons found his Cahones, and is planning on using McDonald as a defensive replacement. Earlier I wrote a letter to JP explaining how important this was, so I'm feeling pretty ballin now that Gibbons has come to his senses and plans on using McDonald in the later innings.

Mac's the best defensive SS in the game, and when we have a lead he's the most important guy on the field. This next part is from the original Blue Jays article:

Also on Monday, Gibbons moved Eckstein down into the lineup's ninth slot -- a switch that seems to play into the new line of thinking. If McDonald enters late in a game, he can slide into the No. 9 spot, where he typically hits in the order. Gibbons said making the mid-game switch might depend on how soon Eckstein is due to bat.

"It depends on where Eck is in the lineup," Gibbons said. "If he's still coming to the plate, we probably won't [play McDonald] until the ninth. If he's out of the way, we may do it in the eighth. Who knows?"

So there's no chance they'll do it when Eck has a potential AB left, but for the most part they'll bring him in when they have a lead, as they should. Can't be too angry with that, but in a one run game starting in the 7th inning or later, I think Mac's defensive value is greater than Eck's offensive output. But it's pretty hard to complain about them realizing how stupid it was to use him as a pinch runner...

When we had big Frank here," said Gibbons, referring to Frank Thomas, who was released by the club on April 20, "we also needed pinch runners -- one guy for him and another guy for maybe the catcher. Now, we don't really need that as much."

I don't know about you guys, but this quote just cracked me up. The Jays didn't spend 3 million dollars to make McDonald a pinch runner - and if they did, why didn't they trade or sign someone who's sole purpose is to steal bases and run really fast? I guess this means from now on that Lind or Scutaro are going to be pinch runners in the future (my bet's on Lind being the primary PR). I think that's an excellent use of Lind's service time. You know, he'll learn how to run around the bases, which is pretty important to know. I bet he's forgotten how to do that since he hasn't really been on base much in his last 20 plate appearances. So guaranteeing him a chance to be on the bases by having him pinch run for Zaun instead of watching him fail by trying to get on via a hit will allow him to continue his development by running around the bases, an extremely important skill. It makes so much sense now why we should let Stewart go 0-4 in LF while providing equally shitty defense!

Wow, I totally lost my train of thought after that...so yeah, great move to bring in McDonald, and I'm still pretty pissed that the Jays gave up on Lind after 20 AB. That would have been like giving up on McGowan last year after 2 starts. And I mean, giving McGowan an opportunity to figure it out on the major league level didn't pay off in the long run....

No wonder Lind pressures himself so much. They claim that he has the starting job, and they'll be behind him whatever they do. But when he doesn't hit 367 or whatever it was when he was in AAA, they put him on the bench and essentially tell him "we have no faith in you, kid". It took McGowan till his 5th start to start producing (the fourth being the famed May 23 start where Zaun & Gibbons called him out for not using the Curve), and there was no talk of taking McGowan out, bad as he was. Even if there was, it was foolish, because it was obvious the kid just needed to adjust. So why are we taking Lind out of games before he has a chance to prove himself? It took McGowan essentially from his May 3rd start to his May 28th start before we had any results - it took Lind from April 26th to May 4th to determine that Lind is useless. But I'm sure playing 2 games in a row followed by an offday over a week and a half is enough time to prove oneself in the majors.

Twitchy.

An open letter to JP Ricciardi

Dear Mr. Ricciardi,

I am a loyal Jays fan, who wants nothing more than a competitive team, one which has a shot at playing October baseball, and not the one game that results of bad scheduling on the part of MLB. So as a fan I was hanging on to every word you said last night on the Fan 590, until you dropped this line which absolutely crushed me.

Last night, you said something to the effect of "David Eckstein is a better player over 162 games, and will hold up better than McDonald. He's a better SS (Eckstein), and he'll be in games during the later innings because of this".

There are a couple of issues I have with this statement, so I'll just throw them all out there, in the hopes that you will rectify the situation.

First off all, over the past 2 years Eckstein has started 112 and 119 games. So he's not exactly a symbol of health or durability. Which is all the more reason to give him more rest, especially when we're winning and have a defensive caddy in McDonald.

Remember in 05/06 when Cat was the LF, and we'd bring in Johnson for defense? Or even replacing Adams or all the other hacks at SS with John McDonald? Why won't you do that now? It's essentially the same situation with McDonald replacing Eckstein for defensive purposes. I know last night you said "Eckstein is a better player", but that's irrelevant to the fact that in the 7-8-9 innings, with a lead, that defense plays a bigger role in the game. With shortstop being the most critical defensive position in the game, it is a criminal misuse of an asset to leave McDonald out of those games.

That's not entirely true - you did approve of him being used as a pinch runner for Stairs. However, this was also a big mistake, one I'm disappointed you defended. You see, Stewart was on the bench too, and he would have made a much better pinch runner. Had the game continued, he would also have been a bigger threat than McDonald with the bat, in the DH role.

The other issue is that with McDonald out, and only Stewart left on the bench, if someone had gotten injured at catcher, or in the infield, Stewart would have had to fill in. Stewart cannot play these positions, and would have led to us losing the game even sooner. However, McDonald can be an emergency catcher, a key point with Zaun out and Barajas in as his replacement. He could also play any position on the IF, and play an adequate LF if neccessary. So it was a poor move by Gibbons to do this, and a worse choice for you to defend it.

Again, it is critical that McDonald plays SS in close and late situations. As you're well aware, this team struggles when it is close and late. In a close and late situation the two most important roles are played by the bullpen and the defense. The bullpen is doing pretty well, so the problem must logically be the defense. Your reponse was that "Not having McDonald in hasn't hurt us yet", but I don't believe that's the case. Earlier in the year, during an AJ Burnett start, Eckstein made a key fielding error which led to a loss. Had John McDonald been in, it's pretty safe to say that play is made cleanly, and we have a chance to win the game. In addition, over the past two days it's highly likely McDonald would have stopped, or gotten an out on balls hit up the middle that led to walk off hits by the Red Sox. Maybe he doesn't get an out, but he keeps the ball in the infield, something that Eckstein failed too do.

By putting in McDonald, you ensure that more outs are created with less pitches, which also protects the pitchers from being "burnt out" later on in the year. Every additional hit means 3-5 extra pitches have to be thrown per hitter, and it adds up over both a game and a long season.

If my anecdotes do not persuade you, maybe this will: David Eckstein has a zone rating of 882 this year - while that's second in the majors for qualifying SS, it is well below John McDonald's ZR of 941.

I understand you don't want to hurt Eckstein's feelings by bringing in McDonald during the later stages of the game. I hear that. But you and the media have tirelessly argued Eckstein is a team player - willing to do whatever he can to help the team win. Well, the team would be in a better position to win games if John McDonald is playing in the later stages of the game, such as the 7-8-9 innings when the Jays are winning, or in a tie ball game. For example, if Eckstein bats in the top of the 7th, he's highly unlikely to bat until the 10th inning. So you can essentially ignore the offensive contributions, and focus solely on the defensive contributions.

In addition to having significantly greater range and mobility to both his right and his left, John McDonald possesses an incredibly strong and accurate arm. He is a much smarter, and quite frankly a better defender. In a critical situation, McDonald is the most important player on this team because of his defensive abilities. To not have McDonald at SS in the later innings runs contrary to your arguments that you want to not only put the best team on the field (literally), but it also goes against your arguments of giving the team the best opportunity to win.

In addition to this, McDonald is actually a better hitter vs left handed pitching, so combined with his defensive advantage it would be wise to essentially platoon McDonald & Eckstein. Again, I know it'll hurt Eckstein's pride, but if he's the team player you say it is, he won't have a problem with it.

In closing, I want to thank you for reading this Mr. Riccardi. I feel that it would be in the best interests of the team to use McDonald in his proper role. You payed him around 3.8 million dollars to be a defensive specialist - not a pinch runner. Eckstein will understand that a defensive specialist should be brought in when defense, and not offense, is more important. The next time this team is winning a close game, I hope that John McDonald will be there at SS to ensure the victory.

Twitchy.

Show A Little Finesse

After two pretty sad losses to two, left handed, finesse type pitchers, I began to wonder why the Jays struggled. After all, the Jays were facing two Southpaws! The Jays kill Southpaws! Damnit Gibbons, this is all your fault, isn't it?

Just to make sure it was Gibbons fault, so I could chime in with all the Gibbons playa haters, I checked the 2007 team stats against Finesse and power pitchers.

I will fully admit that using last years stats may not be the best way to figure it out. Wells wasn't healthy, Glaus is no longer on the team...but it should still give some indication of the teams strength going forward.

2007 vs finesse: 30/30 in OPS with 625
2007 vs power: 24/30 in OPS with 722

Hold the phones there kiddos - a 625 OPS against Finesse pitchers? The team drops their OPS by nearly 100 points of OPS when they faced a finesse pitcher in 2007. Does this trend stay true in 2008?

2008 vs power: 11/30 in OPS with 840
2008 vs finesse: Turns out ESPN doesn't believe the Jays faced a finesse pitcher...

HOWEVER, the team OPS is 725 right now. So if we assume they have an 840 OPS against power pitches, it's highly likely that the OPS against finesse pitchers is in the low 600's.

So what does this show?

First off, it isn't Gibbons fault. The Jays are absolutely crushing the ball when the opponents are bringing the heat. The problem arises when a finesse pitcher (like Smith, and I guess Eveland...he threw what, 90, 91 tops?) comes out and dazzles the Jays with a myriad of pitches in the mid to upper 80's.

There isn't a ton of evidence in 2008, but this squad seems to be incapable of hitting anything slower than 92 MPH. It's almost ironic in a way - coming into the season everyone thought Thomas was done and couldn't hit a 95 MPH fastball. Turns out, him and the rest of the team are the exact opposite. They could probably kill a guy like Verlander, a RHP who throws 95-98 MPH. But throw them a lefty who couldn't hit 90 if his life depended on it, and the Jays might as well throw out McDonald at the clean up spot, cause as a team they're not doing much better against those "crafty" finesse pitchers.

In another month or two when there's enough evidence one way or another on finesse pitchers, I'll check back to see if the trend continues.

Twitchy.

The Roundup

Nice win yesterday, if accomplished by means of good ball-playing rather than scrappiness. J-Mac sat on the bench despite torrid numbers off of Yankees starter Mike Mussina and a pretty solid track record in Yankee Stadium, but perhaps tonight's your night, little guy (too bad we could've used you more yesterday). But that's cool, too; David Eckstein is helping out in his own way by selflessly helping fill the team quota for grounded into doubleplays.

Oh, and can we jettison the LAA Angels approach to base stealing now, please? It was funny on Tuesday, but we can't send Scutaro every time he reaches first. Can we?

Speaking of whom, Marco "Polo" Scutaro is going in for X-rays today after being being hit in the left hand in the 8th by Ross Ohlendorf. He stayed in the game after the beaning and played defense in the ninth, so no one is dropping the I-bomb quite yet. Matt Stairs, however, is possibly on his way to the DL; Sandler at the Post says he's ready to play tonight or he's injured, no more mucking about.

Dustin "Mr. Burns" McGowan is apparently good to go for tonight after battling flu-like symptoms (code for a really horrorshow dump) that confined him to the team hotel last night. I wouldn't have minded seeing him flipped with Shaun Marcum so folks like me could see him live at tomorrow's home opener, but still, good news is good news.

(Why do I do the nickname thing? Even I find it annoying. Must stop. Now.)

You might think that we look like a bunch of silly dicks for suggesting that V-Dub gets dropped from the cleanup hole to 5th or 6th after what was a pretty impressive night at the dish (3 for 4 with a homer). Not so fast. Wilner notes that V-Dub was pull happy to the extreme, more disappointing since he had made progress in using the entire field in spring training. It's hard to argue with a homer and a couple more hits for good measure , but we stand by our earlier position that he is not the best option hitting fourth against righties over a full season.

This is another point Wilner made on JaysTalk last night that bears repeating (plagarizing) in full:

... [Re:] the fact that David Eckstein made the last outs of the 9th and came back out for defense in the bottom of the inning. Had John McDonald been sent into the game there, to help protect a three-run lead, he wouldn’t have had to bat until the 11th or 12th had the Yankees come back to tie. The only reason not to use McDonald there (unless he’s sick or hurt and we haven’t been told) is to not insult Eckstein, or to not make Eckstein think the Jays lack confidence in his glove. That’s a losing game to play. Eckstein is a big boy, and he knows full well that McDonald is one of the best defensive shortstops in the game. I don’t think he’d be hurt by being replaced for defense late in close games - though even if he would be, I don’t care - everyone understands that the win is the most important thing. And if the win is the most important thing, John McDonald must play shortstop late in close games in which the Blue Jays lead.

Indeed.

For his part, Blair doesn't think you win too many more games over the Yankees making as many mistakes as the Jays did last night. Fair enough.

Before leaving last night's game behind, I note that we here have long been fans of tall, weird-looking lefty Brian Tallet, who was absolutely brilliant. I almost want to dig deep and spend the $10 to sponsor his page over at baseball-reference.com, but then my conscious tells me that I could better use that money on one extra overpriced Rogers Centre beer this weekend. Sorry, Tallet, it was a popularity contest you could never hope to win.

Interesting but not shocking tidbit: speaking to Bastian in regards to McG potentially being bumped, JP says the club will likely look first look internally (Tallet, Randy David Wells) for spot starters when injuries arise, and then to Purcey, Romero and Cecil (in that order). That's pretty much what we figured; Purcey's really got nothing but himself standing in the way of a big league gig at some point this summer.

McGowan-Hughes tonight at 7:05 on TSN in a battle of future aces. Rack up some Antibalas, Tribe Called Quest and the Roots, pour a vodka tonic, then sit back and enjoy.

-- Johnny Was

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.