Guess who's back?

According to bluejays.com, Litsch is back in the Jays starting rotation, Richmond is in the pen, and Parrish was optioned to AAA.

The move to call up Richmond was a mistake from the start, and this series of moves still doesn't fix that mistake. As I pointed out earlier, there were (and are) several options that could have been used to let Richmond play in the Olympics, and at the same time made the Jays a better team. The Jays could have used any of Brian Wolfe, Davis Romero, or even Jesse Litsch, instead of calling up Richmond.

Now Litsch is back in the rotation. I don't like him that much going forwards, but a 4.46 ERA from a 5th starter is not that bad. He wasn't pitching well, but considering his replacement, as well as the other options available, he really didn't deserve a demotion.

So at least he's back with the Jays now. Course, it might be worth looking into his service time, to see if keeping him down for a few weeks may have changed his arbitration/free agency years, but I doubt that's the reason. Hell, I doubt it was even affected much, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.

As for Richmond - he's not going to be used that much, if at all. He'll probably eat some innings when the team is out of it, but beyond that it's pretty obvious he isn't pitching any meaningful innings. I don't know why the team called him up, because he wasn't very good. It'll be interesting to see who gets used in a game first - Frasor or Richmond.

Parrish gets jerked around once again - he has a 109 ERA+, so he's been average at worst. He didn't deserve to get demoted, but he has to be the fall guy since the Jays can't demote Richmond without pissing off the Canadian Olympic team.

I guess I'm sort of happy Litsch is back, if only because Richmond's out of the rotation. But I don't know what inspired them to decide they wanted to see if Richmond could make it as a major leaguer. And in all honesty, would it have killed them to give him a spot start in Sept if they really wanted to see him pitch?

Twitchy.

Noted in passing...

I'll refrain from extensive remarks on Rolen and the Rolen/Glaus deal in hindsight--though I do not shy from being a big backer of the deal--but if this does happen to be the end of his year, I wanted to make a passing observation while the topic is hot.

Through Rolen's first 59 games this season, he had an .851 OPS and was on a pace that, over 142 games, would have amounted to 43 doubles and 14 HR. Now, it is true that the Jays lack for power. It's also true that at this point we don't know for sure what if anything that ghostly shoulder difficulty will allow Rolen to do. Obviously if this is the sort of thing that's going to keep him from getting through a productive season ever again, then it's a total loss. That was always the risk the deal involved.

But laying the worst case scenario aside, IF the Jays had to resign themselves to the fact that they are paying $11 million per for a stellar defensive 3B who's offensive ceiling is .850...that's not a bad deal at all. Especially when you consider the dearth of potentially better 3Bs available to them. Given the health, contract, and discontent situation we had with Glaus, if that's what we end up having received for him, I'm cool with it.

~WillRain

A New Allegiance?

If you've come to accept that the Jays season did finally come to an unofficial end with that weekend sweep at the hands of the Indians and are left wondering who to cheer for now, might I suggest the Polish women's volleyball team as a worthy substitute?

They might not be (ok, definitely aren't) one of the better teams in the volleyball word, but the Polkas are most certainly leading the Olympics in general attractiveness so much as I can surmise. After falling to China 3 sets to 1 earlier this morning, the they're pretty much in a must-win situation when they take on Japan Wednesday at 8 a.m. EST and again against the Americans at 12:30 a.m. on the 17th.

You won't have too many more opportunities to catch them in action, jumping, hugging each other, being perfectly sculpted, and so forth...

-- Johnny Was

How awesome has Scott Downs been?

2008 Scott Downs: 325 ERA+ (55 IP)
2008 Mariano Rivera: 294 ERA+ (50 IP)

I can't say enough about the job Downs' has done this year. A 1.29 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, a ridiculous 325 ERA+. And nobody outside of Toronto fans really know that he's been one of, if not the best RP in the game.

This was one of the better moves made in the offseason by JP. Could you imagine if Downs was heading into FA with no contract extension? We'd be paying him BJ Ryan type $ just to keep him. And yet the Jays got him signed for 3.75 and 4 million for the next 2 years. What a steal.

Twitchy.

Is it too much to ask for a little magic?

Apparently so.

It's part of my Jays' Fan DNA to be hopeful for the future, both this year and in the years to come, so I'm always easy prey for the tease of "the imminent winning streak that will put us right back in it" even when my rational side knows that winning 2/3 of our remaining games is about as likely as gas prices going under $2 a gallon this fall.

That being the case, it is both wholly expected and utterly depressing that the Jays would squander the momentum of the Oakland series against a last place team and in their home park to boot.

Look, guys, I can reconcile myself to the idea that you are going to finish marginally over .500 if that be your fate, but dammit, quit teasing me!

I'm not even asking for a playoff spot anymore, all I want is one thing - finish ahead of the Yankees. Ever since the ASB I've been holding a little candle for the idea that you could string together 9 or 10 in a row and really give us a thrill ride to the end. A little magic is a good way to keep the fans amused. But I see now that if you can't even take advantage of the shipwrecked season the Indians are having, you don't have it in you. You don't deserve it.

So I'm turning my attention to the future. I know I know, as soon as I say this publicly you'll win the next seven and try to lure me back, but I'm not coming back....not until you are the second place team in the wild card race (which you ain't gonna be).

That doesn't mean I'm through being a Jays fan, it doesn't even mean I'm counting the hours until JP is fired. Frankly, despite my earlier acknowledgment that the Jays pretty much have to do it, I've come around to the point where I'm rooting for him.

Yes, he has terminal foot-in-mouth disease, but the more I analyze his record the more hollow the objections to him become in my eyes. And the more empty and illogical calls for his head I see, the more inclined I am to take his side and defend him so I can lick the salty tears from the face of the haters when he doesn't get canned.

But I digress.

What it does mean is that you will see a lot more from me in this space about 2009, and the upcoming budget, and what we can expect from our prospects, and things like that. Already I'm harboring visions of a Championship year next year and my optimism is undimmed about the Jays' future. I'm not as crushed even about this year as many are because I recognize that for two long stretches they have played very good ball (In the last seven weeks they have the third best record in baseball) but the math is simply against them at this point.

Obviously, I have a lot of mixed emotions at this point. But hell, after this series I had to say something.

~WillRain

Lefty Matters

One of our side projects here--dating all the way back to spring training, before he started chucking beebees in AAA--was to sing the praises of, boost, encourage, etc. lefty starter David Purcey. Might we have a new beau? (More later).

Purcey got hung with the loss last night (despite posting his second quality start in his last 3 outings), but has been making visible progress at the big league level. Shutting down a raking lineup like the Rangers through 3 a week ago and the Tribe again last night is an accomplishment of sorts. Purcey's got the stuff to win at this level, and now some of the official responsibility for teaching him how to deal with big leaguers the second time through the lineup falls to BA Barajas and Brad Arnsberg (and unofficially, elder statesman Roy Halladay).

I make no bones about the fact that I've always prefered Purcey to Jesse Litsch, though I take no joy in the relative success of the former and minor setbacks of the latter. However it breaks next year, it is reassuring to know that there will be a real competition between relatively young, controllable and hopefully ERA+ neutral starters for the back 2 spots in the rotation in spring training.

[Other names to watch: Brian Wolfe, Davis Romero (quietly putting up a fantastic season for the Chiefs after missing all of 2007 to a torn labrum) and potentially Casey Janssen (see: Romero, Davis).]

Enter Ricky Romero, a bust at 23, the guy the Jays took over Troy Tulowitzki (he of the 76 OPS+ away from Coors Field), and the second blackest mark on JP's draft record after Russ Adams.

Expectations were naturally high for Romero, the 6th overall pick in the 2005 draft out of Cal State Fullerton who netted a record $2.4 million signing bonus (compared to $1.7 million for Snider in 2006, $1.44 million for Kevin Ahrens in 2007, both top Jays picks in successive years). He was very much part of JP's draft strategy of targeting college pitchers who could be expected to hit the bigs faster than their high school counterparts with higher ceilings. That strategy has more than a few detractors around these parts despite the success of Casey Janssen and Shaun Marcum.

Romero did not fare particularly well at New Hampshire this year, posting a 4.96 ERA, a 1.59 WHIP with 55 BB and 78 Ks in 121.2 IP in his third crack at AA. He had ratcheted it up of late, but probably got a promotion to AAA mostly because someone had to fill the spots vacated by Dave Purcey and Scott Richmond and 21-year-old wunderkind Brett Cecil had already been bumped up. We need a guy, you're a guy who's supposed to have potential, let's dance.

Romero has risen to the challenge (in defiance of everyone who called him a bust?), putting up 3 good starts so far for the Chiefs, including an excellent one last night. Quick recap: 7 IP, 2 ER, 5 hits, 3 BB and 10 Ks in a winning effort.

Given all of the shuffling around him, it seems a given that Romero will start out next year in AAA at age 24, just like college righties Marcum and Janssen before him. He needs to lower his walk rate, but something might have clicked with the young lefty. Is it conceivable that he makes his big league debut next year? Certainly. Will he excel? I wouldn't take that bet. Are we pulling for him? Hells yeah.

And some people are still calling Wilner to ask how Gustavo Chacin is doing...

-- Johnny Was

Cy Young Frontrunners

The Jays are playing the Indians this week, and we'll be lucky enough to watch arguably the top two pitchers in the AL pitch on consecutive days. They won't get a chance to face off against each other - Doc pitches tomorrow against Byrd, and Lee goes Sunday vs Richmond.

Lee's a great story - a guy who came back from pretty much the worst year of his career, where he'd spent some time in AAA, to absolutely dominating the AL.

Doc is doing what he's always done - eating up a ton of innings while putting out a dominant performance. For what it's worth, I think he's having the best year of his brilliant career.

Lee's got a better chance of winning the Cy Young if he keeps this up - he's got all the pretty stats that writers go for in Win/Loss record (15-2 for Lee vs 13-8 for Doc). Lee also has a 2.58 ERA, slightly better than Doc's impressive 2.77 ERA. I don't expect the writers to look at much more than ERA, K's, and Win/Loss record, so if Lee can keep this up he'll probably get the majority of the votes.

But does that mean that he's actually been the best pitcher in the league, deserving of the award? I'll take a look here to find out if Lee's really deserving.

Lee has a phenomenal K:BB rate at 127:22, good enough for a 5.77 K:BB rate. Doc's ain't that bad either, at 149:29, which gives him a 5.13 K:BB rate. Doc makes up for it with a 1.98 GB rate. Cliff isn't the groundball specialist that Doc is, and he comes in with a 1.14 GB:FB ratio.

I usually look at ERA+ to help when the pitching stats are very close like they are here. Cliff Lee is the winner in that, with an incredible 168 to Doc's 151. Now, if I was to base this solely on the ERA+, Lee would be the winner. But there's one more stat that's in Halladay's favour.

Roy's pitched 175 1/3 innings, while Lee has pitched 153 2/3 innings. So to this point in the season, Halladay has thrown 21 2/3 innings more than Lee. Halladay is projected to throw 242 innings (!!!) while Lee is projected to throw 214.

I think the amount of innings thrown by Doc' gives him a bit of an advantage over Lee. Lee's stats may be better, but by pitching more Halladay has had a bigger impact on the Jays team. And if the projections pan out, Doc will end up throwing nearly 30 innings more than Lee.

If you look back to last year, a similar situation occurred. CC Sabathia won the Cy Young award over Beckett, despite Beckett posting arguably better numbers. The reason CC won - or at least most likely won - is the fact he pitched nearly 40 innings more than Beckett.

When the season's over, I still think Lee will win the award. He's got the pretty stats I mentioned early, and in those stats he's significantly better than Doc. But if these guys keep pitching like they do now, I think that at the end of the year, Halladay's the one who should be winning the award.

Twitchy.

Total Cynicism

There's something quintessentially Russian about using the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games as cover for an invasion of a small neighbouring country. Have no fear, American friends, you are not under attack: this action by Russian "peacekeepers" is taking place in the ancient Caucasian country of Georgia, not the Southern state known for it's delicious peaches and the Atlanta Braves.

As someone who is highly cynical about pretty much everyone's motives and have brought that perspective to my coverage of the Jays here at this blog, I even have to pause for a moment.

Ok, well, that's done.

Old Friend Jeff Blair is presently covering women's soccer at the Olympics and brings his usual irreverant wit and biting commentary to the other side of the Bamboo Curtain. Amidst all of the hobby sports that take up about 80% of the Olympics, I do admit to looking forward to watching Canada-China with the Mrs over breakfast tomorrow morning...

p.s. we'll be pulling for opposite sides if you didn't catch my drift

-- Johnny Was

Article of the Year.

No, it's not one of the classics we provide you with here, rather it's to be found over at the always worth Tao of Stieb.

Go read it. no, seriously. Stop what you are doing - put down the fucking corn dog - and go read it. It is perfect in ever detail. And if it applies to you, take his advice.

~WillRain

Urging Caution

There was definitely some excitment last night hearing JP announce on JaysTalk that phenom Travis Snider had been called up to AAA, which probably puts him on track for a mid-season call up next year. Snider is undoubtably the most exciting young position player to come through the Jays system since Vernon Wells came up to stay in 2001 and good or ill in 2009, it'll be a pleasure to watch Snider develop with big club.

And there there was some trepidation.

There's little more than 3 weeks left to play in the high minor leagues and Snider's promotion to Syracuse at this point amounts to nothing more than a brief peekaboo at the next rung up the ladder. If it must be said that he played through an elbow injury early in the season, it should also be noted that he hasn't dominated AA either (.258/.351/.456 in 333 ABs).

It's a feather in his cap to make the jump from high A ball to AAA in his age 20 season, but that pat in the back could've also come in the form of a September call-up after finishing out the year in New Hampshire and semi-regular PT in the bigs for a few weeks. Added benefits: give the fan base a glimpse of the future (and sell a few extra tickets to otherwise meaningless games), get the kid a taste of the bigs, then let him start 2009 fresh in Syracuse. No harm done.

I'm urging caution with Snider because two-thirds of the Jays current outfield is made up of promising young hitters who were rushed (by JP) through AAA and stalled during their first go at a full-time job in the bigs. There's no catch-all model for all hitters, but I'd hate to see the same happen to Snider next year after all the promise he's shown early in his pro career.

After dominating AA at age 22 (.923 OPS) in 2003, Alex Rios was called up to Toronto the following year despite scuffling (.665 OPS) through a brief 185-AB pit stop in Syracuse. While his first two seasons in the bigs weren't an unmitigated disaster, it was clear at the time that his game wasn't quite ready for prime time. Two years of service time were burnt for a .721 OPS season with 1 HR and a .703 OPS with 10 HR. Rios was knocking, but he hadn't yet kicked the door down.

Adam Lind followed a similar path, though he was promoted even more aggressively. He probably could have hit anything, anywhere back in 2006 as he actually got better with each successive call up, but he still only ended up with under 300 AAA ABs (and that after only about 2/3 of a season at AA) before coming up as Reed Johnson's injury replacement in 2007. We all know how that ended up, though there's little doubt now that he's a capable big league hitter. Nevertheless, that early promotion did some serious damage to his overall development, something that JP seems quite aware of these days.

I could go outside the organization to cite a few other examples of hitters who were imprudently rushed to the bigs, though none looms larger than Billy Butler, the young Royal whose game most closely resembles Snider's. Maybe Snider is born to hit and can handle the call to the bigs next year at age 21, but the risks of an aggressive promotion schedule have to be weighed against the long-term consequences for both the player and the team. As excited as you all are for him, don't assume that he should be a Jay in 2009.

-- Johnny Was

What might have been . . .

With tonight's win, the Blue Jays are tied with the Twins for the third best record in the majors since June 22. Only the Angels and Rays have been better in that span.

The Jays are playing .605 in that period and continuing at that pace would give us 87 wins.

To continue to beat my other dead horse, without those two miserable 14 game stretches (3-11 both times) the Jays are 52-34 in all other games, i.e. playing .604 ball.

For reference, .604 over a full season is 98 wins.

What might have been....

~WillRain

Looking Ahead

From August 15 to the 31 the Jays play 6 games against Boston, 6 against New York, and 3 against Tampa. If there's ever a good time for a hot streak, this would be it.

I don't have a link, but I keep hearing on the broadcasts that Vernon should be back for the Detroit series, which would be just in time for the big 2-3 week stretch against the AL East counterparts.

Twitchy.

Someone Had To Say It

The crickets have been chirping around here this holiday weekend and the Jays are playing the A's, so...

Would you at all be surprised if JP signed Emil Brown to DH then traded for Bobby Crosby to play short in the offseason?

-- Johnny Was

Money to Burn!

Time for my second installment of truthiness regarding the good and bad of the potential end of the JP Ricciardi era.

One of the oft mentioned myths about JP is now he's struggling to succeed with "a almost $100 million payroll!!!!" as if that number exists in a vacuum and is arbitrarily a measure of "lots of money" just because it approaches that benchmark. However, the truth is, it is not "lots of money" at all when placed in context.

Let's add a little and see what we find.

This first chart is a look at the Jay's payroll in real numbers as compared to the rest of the league, and to the Yankees (who were the only other team in that span to be ranked #1 except for one year). What you see here is -
Year - Jays' Payroll - MLB rank - Yankees' Payroll - Jays as a % of Yankees

1992   $ 43,663,666       3     $ 35,966,834      121%
1993   $ 45,747,666       1     $ 41,305,000      111%
1994   $ 41,937,668       2     $ 44,785,334       94%
1995   $ 49,791,500       1     $ 46,657,016      107%
1996   $ 28,486,708      16     $ 52,189,370       55%
1997   $ 45,894,833       9     $ 59,148,877       76%
1998   $ 48,415,000      11     $ 63,159,898*      77%
1999   $ 48,165,333      14     $ 88,130,709       55%
2000   $ 46,363,332      21     $ 92,938,260       50%
2001   $ 76,895,999      10     $ 112,287,143      68%
2002   $ 76,864,333      11     $ 125,928,583      61%
2003   $ 51,269,000      21     $ 152,749,814      34%
2004   $ 50,017,000      21     $ 184,193,950      27%
2005   $ 45,719,500      25     $ 208,306,817      22%
2006   $ 71,915,000      16     $ 194,663,079      37%
2007   $ 81,942,800      16     $ 189,639,045      43%
2008   $ 97,793,900      13     $ 209,081,577      47%  

Note that the bolding indicates a different GM

If you notice the raw numbers here, it's obvious from the beginning that the Jays precentage of AYP (Annual Yankees Payroll) is never less than 50% during Ash's tenure and in 4 of the 7 years it was 68% or better. By contrast, during his tenure with the Jays Ricciardi never had a payroll as much as 50% of the Yanks except in his first year when he was under orders to slash payroll. Since then his highest mark is short of Ash's lowest mark.

Now, it's true that the Yanks stretch the ceiling of MLB payrolls, but if you look further you see that this year is the first time the Jays payroll has ranked higher than 16th in the majors, wheras Ash only had a budget lower than that once, and was often in the top half of the league.

But see, that's not the half of it.

I took an inflation calculator and normalized all the jays payrolls to 2007 dollars. That produced this table:

1992   $65,692,294.12
1993   $66,822,996.95
1994   $59,473,577.09
1995   $68,822,054.33
1996   $38,414,113.99
1997   $60,086,253.55
1998   $62,326,152.13
1999   $61,028,295.23
2000   $59,423,851.24
2001   $91,750,709.73
2002   $90,268,628.46
2003   $58,798,584.48
2004   $56,293,140.73
2005   $49,812,574.81
2006   $75,776,835.50
2007   $81,942,800.00

What do we have here? In inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars, JP's available cash (excepting the payroll slashing first year) did not exceed Ash's lowest budget (excepting 1996) until 2006. And even then, if you average Ash's six highest payrolls (out of seven years) you get around $68 million so JP's 2006 budget was up about 10% over Ash's average budget and his 2007 budget was up not quiet 20%.

Why is that important?

Because baseball economics far outpaces inflation.

In 1992 the average MLB salary was $1,084,408
In 2008 the average MLB salary is $2,739,761

Which is to say that the average MLB salary in 2007 was 256% of the average MLB salary in 1995, which is sharply higher than inflation (2007 dollar being 138% of the 1995 dollar).

So, to completely prove how much time I have on my hands, let's adjust those salaries for 2007 Baseball Dollars:

1995   $127,466,240
1996   $66,370,401
1997   $90,880,933
1998   $92,025,096
1999   $76,719,563
2000   $63,894,501
2001   $93,038,500
2002   $88,363,041
2003   $54,966,197
2004   $55,109,035
2005   $50,577,827
2006   $74,569,857
2007   $81,942,800

I'll let you draw your own conclusions about the relationship illustrated here. But clearly it reflects the previously stated reality that this is the third season of any real attempt to be competitive.

Now, the objections to the previous article included the point that a comparison to a GM who lost his job for poor performance is of limited value. That wasn't really valid there because the mantra was that JP's drafts were not as good as Ash's. In this case though, that's a valid point. Say Ash spent (in relative terms) as much or more money and failed is hardly a defense of JP. But it does go to the point that the the current payroll is, in relative terms, not high at all, either in relation to the league, or to inflation, or to baseball inflation. If JP has done an average job, and produced an average team, he's done so with average money.

So, when you make out your list of reasons Ricciardi needs to go, bypass the urge to write in "failed with a big payroll" . . . t'aint really so, McGee.

~WillRain

A very modest proposal

Noticed in passing on Rotoworld this seemingly insignificant item:

The Nationals have decided to release both Felipe Lopez and Paul Lo Duca and replace them with Emilio Bonifacio and Elijah Dukes.

As I read that it occurred to me - what would be the harm in picking up Lopez off the scrap heap and throwing him out there in our lineup every day? The difference in him, at his worst, and Scutaro is marginal and it would give your coaches a chance to see if they can re-light his fire (hell, we have three hitting coaches and one of the best infield coaches in the game) . . . if we figure him out, we have an inside track on next year's (cheap!) shortstop, if not, we haven't lost anything important.

Lopez, longtime Jays fans will remember, was once one of the hottest SS prospects in the game, called everything from the next Tejada to a poor man's A-Rod. JP inexplicably dealt him to Cincinnati in one of his too-clever early deals that failed to work out. It seemed, for a while, that Lopez was going to make him regret it. In 2005 he put up a 118 OPS+ and was an All Star at the age of 25. The following year his power numbers crashed, but he stole 44 bases (a season in some ways similar to the one Rios is having now) and it was considered a fluke. But in the two years since he has gotten progressively worse as a member of the Washington Nationals.

Is it possible that he peaked at 25 and had his last reasonably decent season at 26? Yeah, it happens sometimes . . . but I'm not ready to just assume so.

Some statistical factoids (i.e. straws I'm grasping at):

Even in this miserable season, Lopez is hitting .726 (OPS) on the road.

This year he has played 2B almost exclusively, but last year he hit better while playing SS than 2B and, again, better on the road.

In the previous season he hit well in the hitter-friendly park in Cincinnati and on the road, but stunk in RFK. I think it's clear that getting him out of Washington can only help) .

Now, I know we're never going to get an All-Star level out of this guy again, but he can't really be THIS bad, can he?

WillRain