The Roundup Jr

There were a lot of negatives in last nights game, but I want to talk about the positive first. I think a lot of people missed it - Curtis Thigpen looked terrific behind the plate. I don't know if he's ever caught Marcum before, but he did a phenomenal job of game calling for Marcum. Yeah, Marcum's a pretty dominant pitcher, who threw a hell of a game, but Thigpen still did a great job behind the plate. He framed a lot of pitches that were outside the zone according to the Seattle pitch tracker for strikes. He blocked the plate extremely well, and he showed off a very nice arm on the double play failed bunt. I know it's one game, but I was very impressed with Thigpen.

He was clearly overmatched against Felix, but pretty much everybody in the majors is going to feel that way. I'll give a ton of credit to Felix for absolutely pwning young Thigpen with those filthy, filthy 2 seem fastballs. The fact that Thigpen hasn't started a game in 10-15 days also played a part in his rusty swing, but as far as I could tell I thought he did a terrific job as the catcher. I'm not quite sure why the Jays are so hesitant to use him as a C going forward, but I think he'd be a solid option.

As I discussed last night with eyebleaf, the Jays are a team that lacks in the fundamental abilities. This team doesn't need a new manager, it needs a little league coach! While some would blame last nights game on Ryan, and you'd have good reason too, I think last nights game was lost by the one and only Vernon Wells. He's been doing real well since he came back so I'm not too pissed off at him (especially after praising him so much in my last post), but it's the simple things that Wells and the rest of the offense aren't doing.

For example, the 6th innings - Eck & Inglett on, one out. All he needs is to put the ball into the OF, and boom, sac fly. A run scores, the Jays can move a runner up to third with 2 out, so that a base hit can score the third run (or a passed ball). Fundamental baseball at it's best. But he didn't do that, so instead of the game being 2-1, and theoretically 2-2 heading into the 10th, the Jays lost. If the Jays are going to lose this year, it won't be because of their inability to hit with RISP. It'll be the fact that the Jays simply cannot do the fundamental things in baseball that win you ballgames.

Couple of notes on the M's - how does McClaren (SP?) still have a job? What kind of retard bunts with Raul Ibanez? This is on a level of Dusty Baker trying to bunt with Adam Dunn kind of bad. How was he not fired mid-game for this?

And is anybody else pissed off about Miguel Cairo showing up the Jays? I get it, he's happy he laid down a bunt in the first game, and that he scored in the third, but he's acting like he was about to win the World Series every time he did something right. You're a 75 OPS+ utility player, Cairo. Get over yourself. I was actually more pissed about Cairo's little claps and jumping for joy than I was about losing.

Elsewhere:

Jays caught a bit of a break heading into their series with the Cubs, as LF Alfonso Soriano is going to be out of commission for a while. According to the report:

"Star leadoff hitter Alfonso Soriano could miss six weeks with a broken bone in his left hand after he was hit by a pitch from Atlanta’s Jeff Bennett on Wednesday night."

The Cubs have a bit of OF depth, and I figure the Cubs could use Pie or Murton in his absence.

Ken Griffey's #600 HR ball is causing a lot of legal issues. Sorry bud, but in my book you get an E1, and you've lost possession of the ball. Or you could call it Fan Interference.

HGH wasn't the only thing Andy Pettitte learned how to do from Roger Clemens. Apparently he won't let the Yankees know if he's pitching next year or not till after the season. I can't wait to hear more stories about this all year. But I guess they have to talk about something else when Joba isn't pitching.

Big Papi has decided to change his name to Big Daddy, as David Ortiz was sworn in as a US citizen.

Looks like Elijah Dukes is starting to get back to his old ways. No, it's nothing criminal, he just had a 'heated argument' with Manny Acta. It seems pretty meaningless now, but that kid is a ticking time bomb. And at age 24, with a 207/324/322 batting line, teams are going to start being less likely to give him a second chance.

I'm not gonna be here from Friday through the weekend, so unless Will does the Roundup Lite this'll probably be the last one till Monday. Have a nice weekend everyone.

Twitchy.

The Roundup Jr.

As Johnny mentioned earlier, he's gonna be away for the next little bit, so I'm going to try my hand at doing the Roundup.

I talked about last night's game in my latest post, but what I didn't mention is that Vernon Wells is doing the impossible - ever since he's come back from his injury, he's been playing up to his contract. It's only been 16 at bats, but the franchise player has 7 hits in his past 16 AB's for a 438 BA. Funny enough, his OBP is below his BA, at 412, while his slugging is an epic 875. He's making up for lost time, and I can't imagine where we would have been without him the past week. He's been in the middle of seemingly ever run scoring opportunity, and that's the way it should be.

As I mentioned in the comments in the same post, Wilkerson is heating up a bit. But as John Brattain points out, the Jays are essentially dead last in OPS in LF & DH:

"It’s not often league average would represent such an upgrade at not one, but two positions. In both cases you’re not looking for a decathlete—just two guys who can hit at league-average levels, one of whom is mobile enough not to require a wheelchair in the near future. The Toronto Blue Jays are literally wasting two lineups slots that are traditionally used to provide offense"

It's the sad truth. The Jays have the worst LF/DH combo in the league, and these are the spots you need your best two offensive players. The Jays are pretty strong up the middle in Wells & Hill, and if they could combine their strength up the middle with quality players at offensive minded positions like LF & DH, the offense could prove to be above average. Even with league-average players as Brattain suggests, the Jays would be a better team. Even though Wilkerson is heating up, he's not a solution.

Yesterday the Jays signed their first round pick, David Cooper, according to bluejays.com. To be honest, I'm somewhat on the fence for this pick. I would have prefered SS Anthony HeWitt (24th to the Phils), who's a 5 tool high risk high reward player. The other player I wanted was SP Christian Friedrich, who went 25th to the Rockies. I don't know much about Cooper, but I don't like the idea of drafting a 1B who isn't a Mark Teixeira type bat. However, I do hope that he succeeds and proves that he was worthy of the first round pick.

This afternoon the Jays face off against the M's in the final game of the series, and it has the potential for being a spectacular pitching duel - and not just because neither club can hit! Felix Hernandez faces off against Shaun Marcum @ 12:37 PM. Both Felix and Marcum have pitched better than their record suggests (4-5 and 5-3 respectively), although Felix's 1.38 WHIP has got to be a little troublesome for the M's. It's hard to remember sometimes that the perennial breakout candidate is only 22 years old, but he hasn't improved much over last year. His BAA is better than last year, but the control is significantly worse.

Elsewhere:

Rough day for the Braves - Glavine goes on the dl with a left elbow strain, and he may not be back anytime soon.

“The injury concerns me quite a bit,” Glavine said. “It’s been hurting me for over a month and it’s not getting any better. I think only one other time in my career, I’ve had an issue with my elbow.”

Definetly not what the Braves want to hear with Smoltz already out.

The Tigers pull a Halladay on Dontrelle Willis by optioning him down to class A in the hopes that he can figure it out. Dumbrowski is a good GM, but signing Willis to a 30 million dollar deal before he'd thrown a pitch is going to come back to haunt him. Willis hasn't been the same since his 2005 season, where he lost in the voting of the Cy Young award to Chris Carpenter.

Ken Rosenthal chimes in with a theory on Dontrelle's struggles.


"One theory circulating among the Tigers is that left-hander Dontrelle Willis is much more muscular than he was during his 22-win season in 2005, making it much more difficult for him to repeat his mechanics. Willis requires great flexibility to achieve the contortion in his delivery; he might need to work with a strength and conditioning coach to regain the suppleness he once had."

Makes sense, but I have a different theory. Willis was a monster between ages 20-22, both in the minors and the majors. In the minors, his career high for innings thrown in a year was 157 2/3 as a 20 year old over multiple levels. As a 21 year old in both the minors & the majors, he threw 197 innings that year. He also pitched in the playoffs, for a total of 12 2/3 innings. Add that to what he threw in the regular season, and you're looking at 209 2/3 innings pitched as a 21 year old. That's an increase of 52 innings over his previous career high at age 21. The generally accepted limit for increasing a young pitchers workload is 30 innings. Then, at age 22, he threw 197 innings. Not bad, and I can't complain. But at age 23, in his almost-Cy season, he threw 236 1/3 innings. 20-30 years ago, I don't think anybody would have had an issue with him throwing that many innings. But in the age of pitch counts and innings restrictions to have your 23 year old ace throw 236 innings? That's almost criminal, and I think the high innings put on young Dontrelle's arm effectively Gustavo Chacined his career.

With my theory, there's essentially no chance the move to class A helps Willis. You kinda hope he finds his way again, cause he seems like a good role model for both African Americans & baseball itself.

Twitchy.

A pitch count is just a number...

I don't think I'm in the minority here that asking Dustin McGowan to pitch in the 9th inning of tonight's game was a retarded move by Gibbons. The Jays are up by 2, and yes, the bullpen hasn't been perfect as of late. But pushing Dusty to throw 125 pitches in a meaningless game against the Seattle Mariners brought a ton of risk to McGowan's future with the reward being a game we should have won regardless of who pitched the ninth.

It's not like this was a do or die game for the playoffs or anything. There's no excuse for McGowan to throw 125 pitches in a game like this...

McGowan is a TJ survivor, and this will essentially be his first full season in the majors. To allow him to throw 125 pitches in this game is inexcusable. If the bullpen can't be expected to hold a 2 run lead while getting 3 outs, we have bigger issues than the flawed lineup that cannot hit with RISP.

I didn't mind too much when McGowan threw after the 100th pitch. 110 shouldn't be too bad, and while 116 makes me nervous, as long as he doesn't do that very often; or has an extra day of rest; or is pulled out earlier in his next start, it's not a horrible pitch count. But I think at that point (the end of the 8th) you gotta tell McGowan he's pitched a terrific game, and that you're going to hand it over to the bullpen.

I'm glad the Jays won, and McGowan looked pretty sharp in the 9th. But I don't think it was a necessary move to keep him in, and I hope that McGowan's health doesn't come into jeopardy as a result.

Switching Gears

Just throwing it out there - when Zaun comes back from the D/L, if Wilkerson isn't producing, should the Jays try out a DH/C platoon with Barajas and Zaun, with Stairs/Mench playing in LF? With Stew on the d/l, Wilkerson becomes the fourth OF. With my idea, the Jays keep Barajas kickass bat in the lineup. By the way, at the time nobody gave a shit about the Barajas signing, but since I've bitchslapped a lot of JP/Gibbons decisions lately, I'll give him props for signing Barajas, who's been an absolute monster lately. Definetly looks like a terrific FA signing to this date.

But back to my original point - if Stairs/Mench platoon in LF (with Stairs getting an odd start vs RHP as a DH cause he's old and we don't wanna wear him out in the OF), would it be wise to use Zaun & Barajas as DH/C? Alternate them every day or so, and they stay pretty fresh. Wilkerson becomes Stairs personally caddy in LF when the Jays have a lead. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but this lineup needs all the help it can get, so I'm just trying some out of the box thinking. Wilkerson has looked better as of late, but I'd hate to see Zaun get AB's over Barajas with the way he's been playing lately. Here, both of these guys get a chance to hit, and I think it has the chance of helping this team score more runs in the short-term.

The only flaws with this is that:

A) If a catcher gets hurt you might have to lose the DH (ie Zaun injured and Barajas = starting DH than Barajas moves to C and the pitcher has to hit).
B) You probably want to avoid A so you keep a third catcher - Thigpen? I'd hate to kill his development, but the way the Jays have used him they really have no intent on making him the C of the future...

Is this idea completely batshit insane, or does it have some merit to try this out maybe 3-4 times a week?

Twitchy.

Gone Fishin'

I leave you all in the competent hands of my co-writers as I'm about to head off for a week's holidays to visit my brother and his funny-looking friend Jay out in Vancouver. Should I come back addicted to sushi and/or heroin, send my widow a corsage.

And those Jays...

Later fellas,

Johnny Was

Off the ledge, buddy

This must be how conspiracy nuts feel. Too often I feel like I'm the only one who can see things rationally and yet I can't just unsee it simply because the great majority seem to be seeing something else. Sometimes even folks I normally agree with a lot are not seeing it my way either and that just makes it worse.

I'm talking, of course, about the persistent temptation among many to be horribly crushed and disappointed about a temporary reversal in the teams fortunes. After a May that should be the inspiration for poems and songs right now, the Jays have a few reversals at the beginning of June and all the anxiety and depression of late April is back as if it never left.

CHILL OUT PEOPLE!

This particular rough week is little more than an accident of scheduling. As much as one always has a spot of emotionalism after a loss, and more so after a surprise loss of a game you were winning, it is still an overreaction, taken as a whole. Consider this: you take ANY good team in the league - White Sox, D'Rays*, Red Sox, whoever - you send them out to Anaheim to play the LAAoA for three games and what is, on average, the usual result? Win one, lose two. Take any team in the league and send them to NY to play the Skankies for three games and what is the expected result? Lose at least twice.

That, my friends, is EXACTLY what the jays did. they gave us the usual ordinary average typical outcome of 2-4 on those six games. That they did it in heart-rending fashion is emotionally significant but doesn't cost us any extra in the standings than if we had lost in a more lack-luster fashion. In fact, I would submit that we ought to be impressed the jays played so well for most of two other games that they stood such a good chance of outperforming the rational expectation. Beating up on Wang is a good thing even if Giambi managed to pull his fat out of the fire.

Furthermore, when you host pretty much anyone in baseball for three games, on average you are going to lose one of those three. Statistically, it's the "normal" outcome. We lost two of them to Baltimore and all of us have a right to be throughly disgusted with Friday night's loss. But, that said, the reality of June is that in the 7 games we have played, we could reasonably have been expected to lose 4 of them, and we lost 5 instead.

Big. Fat. Hairy. Deal.

When are people going to learn to take a long term perspective on a long season and not get so wiped out by the occasional unexpected loss? There will be unexpected wins along the way too (like sweeping the first place ChiSox in a 4 game set, or winning 2 of 3 from a hot Phillies team) so please, people, off the fucking ledge already.

*Yes, i said D'Rays by golly. Devil-fucking-Rays. Since they changed their names they have been playing well so, ya know, fuck the name change. I, for one, intend to re-establish the Devil's Curse by calling them the DEVIL Rays until they start playing in the grand tradition of Devil Rays baseball.


P.S. Johnny? I don't know about everyone else but if you are gonna post a skin pic I expect to see female flesh, capiche? Even that somewhat padded gal from earlier in the year is a considerable improvement over your choice. Work on that, eh?

~WillRain

Streakin'

Yeah, nice weekend, lovely wedding, and checking the old scoreboard for the past few days and... what in the...? And then my reaction shifts to acceptance, followed by steps 5-9 of the Blue Jays Anonymous 12 step guide to recovery.

Back in 2006 and 2007, we used to bemoan the fact that the Jays never seemed to be able to get on a nice long winning streak (because of Josh Towers), but took some comfort knowing that we never went on long losing skids (because of Roy Halladay) either. Back in the offseason I was looking forward to an even keel 2008 club that went 10-12 games over in the first half and did likewise-ish in the second to at least be in the mix in September.

But like so many other elements of the playbook from recent years--like mashing lefties, socking dingers, etc.--non-streakiness has definitely fallen by the wayside in 2008. This year the Jays have had winning streaks of 3, 3, 3, 5, 4, 5, and 3 games, very nice. And then there have been the extendo losing streaks of 3, 6, 4, and 4 games. What in the hell does this mean?

What makes a team streaky? I'm guessing that being deficient in one area of game and highly proficient in the other (runs scoring vs run prevention) is the primary culprit. This "soft" June I spoke of is not off to a particularly impressive start, but it's highly likely the Jays will run off a string of victories in the coming weeks. The question that remains is whether there'll be enough of them to keep the club in this thing. Your guess is good as mine.

I think Twitch nailed it yesterday on Benitez. Short recap: bringing in a guy with 289 career saves for the minimum in the hopes of restablishing his value and spinning him mid-season is clever, very much so even, especially when you don't HAVE TO use him in high leverage situations because you have so many other good arms in the bully. DFA-ing him based on one godawful outing because you're feeling emotional and are as disgusted with him as the average JaysTalk caller just smacks of panic, desperation and "not having a plan", or at least not sticking to the outline of your preseason strategy.

And a team with a $100 million payroll that leaves Adam Lind and his sexy .333/.389/.537 triple slash to rot in AAA just to save a few thousand bucks 3 years down the road on arbitration wages is being cheaper than your average Giant Tiger shopper. Sense of urgency... that's not coming from the top down the way that I see it..

I'm just mentioning this all again because I want to remind you all that I am and have been on the fire JP/Gibby train for much of this season. It had to go perfectly right both on and off the field for things to work out (read: playoffs) this year. As much as I admire the players for keeping their chins up after losing key cogs Scott Rolen and Vernon Wells for a month each, I disadmire management for it's cheapness, shortsightedness, and just plain weirdness when it comes to roster management.

On that note, the Seattle Mariners, owners of the worst record in baseball saunter into town for a 3-game set. Their unique brand of suck features a low-scoring offense, shitty pitching, and IIIIIII-chiiiiiiiii-roooooo! The pitching matchups are all favourable and looking ahead a little further it's nice to see that AJ Burnett gets to follow up his "fuck you, Jays fans" hat tip (thanks be to Mr. Hale for posting the YouTube clip) with a Flashback Friday start against what should be a boisterous crowd (60% made up of Cubs fans). I'm guessing that more than half of greater Jaysdom has an ignorant view of Burnett, so it's hardly surprising to see him reciprocate. What, you expected maturity from a guy whose warm up music is "Hangin' Tough" by New Kids on the Block?

One of my air conditioners died, so I best be off to Walmart to get a new one before I turn into a puddle here.

Chins up, lads!

-- Johnny Was

BWNR v. whatever

Okay, how about one for you BSG fans (to say nothing of fans of lovely Asian beauties), eh?

This weeks Bi-Weekly Narcissistic Rankings supplied mostly without comment:

1. Boston
2. LA Angels
3. Chicago Cubs
4. St. Louis
5. Philadelphia
6. Tampa Bay
7. Chicago White Sox
8. Arizona
9. Florida
10. Oakland
11. Atlanta
12. Toronto
13. Milwaukee
14. NY Yankees
15. Houston
16. LA Dodgers
17. Baltimore
18. Minnesota
19. Texas
20. NY Mets
21. Pittsburgh
22. Cleveland
23. Cincinnati
24. San Francisco
25. Detroit
26. San Diego
27. Washington
28. Colorado
29. Kansas City
30. Seattle

Not much movement in the middle, except for Milwaukee and Houston....but new names at the top and bottom of the list.

Discuss amongst ye'selves.

~WillRain

Condolences Part 2

In my rush to point out how sad it was that Benitez would be leaving us, I forgot to add the most important part of that story. On June 5th, Brian Wolfe was taken off the D/L and optioned back to AAA. On June 7th, 2 days after being optioned to AAA, he was brought back to the majors, and Benitez was DFA.

Obviously the walk off HR played a huge part in Benitez being DFA, but what it shows is a lack of managerial competency. An option year of Brian Wolfe was essentially wasted because they couldn't make room for him for one day, and then the next day he's brought up because the incompetent reliever who had his spot went from having some to no value in one day.

The Jays may never need to use Wolfe's option years again. But next year if the Jays need to option Wolfe down, and he's out of options, then he'll have to clear waivers (note: I'm not sure how many option years he has left). And I would hate to lose Brian Wolfe simply because an option year was wasted like this. The fact that one of his option years was wasted for essentially one day just shows a lack of foresight on Riccardi's part.

What should have happened? Benitez still had a respectable 5-6 innings to his credit before his implosion and future status as the latest DFA-Jay. Some team could have sent a minor prospect for him. And even if nobody was willing to give a prospect, you might as well have just DFA Benitez then and brought up Wolfe so that an option year wasn't wasted. But optioning him down for essentially 2 days, and then DFA-ing his replacement after a bad game just boggles the mind.

Twitch.

Condolences to my fellow Jays fans

As I'm sure you've heard by now, Armando Benitez and the Jays parted ways today. I don't feel like quoting the article, but suffice to say the Jays told Benitez "it's not you, it's me". Brian Wolfe was brought up to replace him.

Oh, Armando, we hardly knew you. I remember it like it was yesterday - that game against the Orioles that you blew by giving up a 2 run HR, costing us the game (note: it was yesterday). I'll always cherish your return to the National League - you gave up a walk, and an ER in 1/3 of an inning. And that time again Minnesota - your Jays debut - when you gave up another HR and a walk in 1/3 of an inning. Oh Armando - fly free! I'm sure you'll find a team again! The Yankees need an aging MR to fill in for Joba, and you'd be the perfect fit!

In other Jays news - Vernon Wells is back, to which I can only say WTF!!11?!!111? I didn't expect him back till late August, so this is both a good sign for the Jays and a bad sign for my medical career.

Alex Rios continues to stink up the joint by hitting 269/345/346 over his past 26 AB. I don't think the pressure of his contract has gotten to him, but something is clearly wrong with Rios. Is he coasting because of the contract as John Brattain suggests?

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but would it kill the Jays to use Stewart's sprained ankle as an excuse to bring Lind up? Stew's one for his past 21 - Lind went what, 1 for 19 and was optioned to AAA. Look for Stewart to be DFA in the next couple of days as the Jays don't appreciate slumping offensive players.

Twitchy.

Down on the farm

It's been a while since I posted anything around here. So before I begin I just wanna give props to Will & Johnny for doing such a great job in my absence. Work's been killing me lately, but I figured with a day off I'd add my 2 cents on the Jays farm. After today's brutal loss, I don't think there's any need to give a game recap - having Sportsnet replay that brutal home run again and again was painful enough for all of us...

Adam Lind continues to dominate in his quest for IL MVP. Over his last 10 games, he's hit a shameful 333, and only has 10 RBI's over that time. He has a 903 OPS for the season, and is posting an unacceptable 1.198 OPS with runners in scoring position. Wilkerson has hit 375 over the past week, and Shannon Stewart has hit 217 over the same time. Food for thought.

The rest of the Chiefs lineup aren't doing so hot. Diaz has a 727 OPS, but as usual he refuses to walk and I think it'll really hurt him going forward if he can't develop even a tiny bit of plate discipline. 3 BB in 56 AB isn't going to cut it.

Like the Jays, the Chiefs have some absolutely dominating pitching. Here's a few notable performances so far:

John Parrish - He impressed me in spring training, and he's doing terrific in AAA. In 12 starts (63 1/3 IP), he has a 2.98 ERA, 72:29 K:BB, with a slightly less impressive 1.34 WHIP. So far Purcey's been the first replacement for an injured/tired starter, but Parrish is looking like a second option to fill out the rotation.

David Purcey - I believe he's pitching tonight, but as of now he's started 10 games as a Chief and has a 2.14 ERA, 65:21 K:BB (in 63 innings!) and has a ridiculous 1.08 WHIP. He's looked awful in his major league starts, but I think he's a guy who just needs some time in the majors and given a vote of confidence. Scratch that - the way this team operates, he needs a contract in the blood of both JP & Purcey that states that "David Purcey will be given 6 consecutive starts on 5 days
from the period of X to Y as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays rotation".

Davis Romero - I had no idea he was starting, but if he makes the big club it'll be as a reliever. If Carlson weren't doing so damn good, I'd say we could use another lefty like Romero in the pen. Romero has held lefties too a 213 BAA, striking out 19 compared to 2 walks in 15 1/3 innings against lefties. Romero, along with the rest of our pitching depth, is a reason JP needs to sell high on Tallet so that we can add Romero to the most dominant relief corps in the game.

Mike Gosling - Another lefty, and like Romero he would do an excellent job as a lefty specialist. He's done a solid job of getting right handed batters out, and he's been damn near elite against left handed hitters. In 14 1/3 innings against lefties he's struck out 15 and walked 1, and has posted a 216 BAA.

Brandon League - League disappeared, and it took Jack Malone along with the rest of the Missing Persons Squad of the FBI to find him. In his past 10 outings (18 1/3 IP) he's posted a 3.93 ERA, but more importantly has struck out 16 and walked 3. Sounds like League has found his control, and once Benitez gets enough trade value he needs to be shipped out of town so Goggles can get back to inducing ground balls and double plays to help the Blue Jays.

Twitchy.

Draft Update

David Cooper of UC Berkeley it is.

My initial reaction is a bit "meh." Both Keith Law and Baseball America figured Cooper wouldn't come off the board until the Bosox picked 30th overall, so he might've been a bit of an overdraft. The Cardinals took Brett Wallace (3B/1B) of Arizona State at 13 and the Brewers took Canucker Brett Lawrie (C/3B) at 16, right before the Jays were to pick. With the two guys they wanted most off the board, Cooper was clearly plan C.

What does Cooper bring to the diamond? At first glance he appears to be a lefty 1B in the Lyle Overbay mould: should hit for good average, show modest 20-HR power, will hit to all fields, lacks speed, and will field his position adequately. If they had their hearts set on a first baseman, the Jays could've selected Ike Davis (Arizona State), who is a better fielder, has more power and is probably versatile enough to handle the outfield. The Mets took him 18th, right after the Jays took Cooper.

MiLB.com has a lengthy scouting report on him here and UC Berkeley has a player bio you might be interested in. And, most importantly, his college stats (with aluminum bats) are over at Batter's Box.

Will update after the second round.

-- Johnny Was

Draft Day!

The English language lacks nouns, adjectives and gerunds strong enough to express my frustration at watching Mike Mussina absolutely handcuff the Jays last night. The psychological effect of beating one of the weaker links in the Yankees rotation would've been big: a win would've both guaranteed a winning roadtrip and it would've kept the Yankees under .500 at least until we left town.

Does that mean anything in the grand scheme of things? Probably not, but still. Like a selfish lover, the Jays let me down once again. Where is my sobbing emoticon?

The Oracle says that Aaron Hill will STILL be out of the lineup today and may or may not be DL'd this weekend. Eckstein!

We've got some getaway day action at 1 this afternoon featuring Yankees ace CM Wang and our very own enigmatic Dustin McGowan. Dusty has been bad on the road this year and bad against the Yankees through his career. The ESPN supercomputer (4-1 since I started consulting it) basically reckons we've got no hope this afternoon. I'll have the game on TV, the draft window open on my laptop and there's very little prospect of me actually getting any work done today.

The Rays have announced that they'll take SS Tim Beckham as the first overall pick, a move no doubt in part motivated by Buster Posey's demands for a $12 million signing bonus. Good for them. The Sun indicates that the Reds will take Canucker Brett Lawrie 7th if he falls to them, which means we'll have to hope that Brett Wallace slides down to the Jays at 17.

Will we match up with the Braves for a trade this summer? They desperatly need bullpen help with John Smoltz lost for the season and we're well stocked in that department. That's why Armando Benitez is here, slowly but surely re-establishing his value.

What would you say if I told you that "not many starting pitchers throw even four different pitches at least 9-10% of the time and the Blue Jays have three of them." Further confirmation of something you already knew: we've got an exceptional rotation.

-- J0hnny Was

The Roundup

BA Barajas: Man on Fire

Let's hope the Royals, Astros and Padres all got the memo: wait Joba out and let him run out of gas. I don't think I've been prouder of the Jays that I was during Joba's 2 1/3 innings last night: patient, selective and totally in the driver's seat. Piling it on in the 7th was nice, too, but still, it was early display of chutzpah that impressed me most of all. Many in Yankeeland feel that the Joba transition hasn't been as well-planned out as it should've been, and assessment I'm in full agreement with.

Tonight young Jesse Litsch takes on ancient shitballer Mike Mussina, who now dials his fastball up into the mid-80s. A win for Litsch would tie him for the AL lead, which, frankly, would probably be the single most shocking early season development for yours truly. The ESPN Supercomputer (wrong last night, but right all through the LAA series) lists the Yankees as heavy-ish favourites (57% chance of victory) even though the Jays slapped Mousse around on April 2.

The Yankees have not seen Litsch this year and will have to swing the bats if they want to beat him: this Ginger has walked a mere 9 batters in 65 IP. He's only had one Yankee Stadium start and it was a Jim Dandy. Jorge Posada might be in the lineup for the Yanks today or tomorrow, but even if he is he'll have more rust that a 1979 Chevelle.

FYI, the amateur draft will be broadcast live at mlb.com tomorrow, starting at 2 p.m. EST. I passed along some draft commentary on Monday if you'd like to get up to speed. Here's a good Jerry Crasnick piece on some late-rounders who turned out to be gems. (Russ Martin, this year's winner of the Tip O'Neil Award for best Canadian player in baseball, went in the 17th round back in 2002).

A short draft update: the verbally-challenged Bob Elliot of the Sun (seriously, did any of you hear that rambling Prime Time Sports appearance yesterday?), doesn't figure Canuck Brett Lawrie will fall to the Jays, who pick 17th. He expects the Astros, Brewers, Twins or Reds to snap him up early. We shall see.

I know a guy who used to party with this drug-addicted ex-Jay guy back in the early '90s when he was trying to restablish himself as a minor league coach here in London. He never could overcome those demons and spent 14 years in the clink because of it.

-- Johnny Was

The Roundup

I'm only repeating it for the benefit of those of you who've been up in a cabin with no TV or radio for the past week: get out your air sickness bags because pancake-faced Joba Chamberlain makes his ML debut as a starter tonight in Yankee Stadium against the Jays and Doc Halladay. Even if he throws a no-hitter, he still won't be able to live up to all the hype.

The ESPN Supercomputer (batting 3 for 3 since I started checking it regularly), gives the Jays a 46% probability of victory. Doc's on the hill, Joba will likely be out after 5 innings max, and the Yanks have few arms at present to bridge the gap to Mariano Rivera, but that's the Yankee Stadium Effect for you.

The Yanks are coming home off a 3-4 roadtrip and their bullpen lost one in the later innings last night. I mention that because the key to tonight's game is getting to the Yanks bully as early as possible. With Joba to the rotation, the only effective reliever the Yankees have before Rivera is sophomore Edwar Ramirez, a 27-year-old righty strikeout artist. The relievers upon which they rely most heavily (Kyle Farnsworth, LaTroy Hawkins and Ross Ohlendorf) have all been train wrecks to varying degrees.

Frankly, I would not be bothered if the Jays went back to their Scott Kazmir playbook and left their bats on their shoulders early to let the young starter run out of gas. With a strict pitch count of 65-70, that shouldn't take too too long, though Chamberlain admittedly has much better command than Kaz.

Not to encroach on the eminent Jon Hale's territory, but this is what you can expect from Chamberlain in pretty graph form courtesy of Fast Balls:

Joba Chamberlain’s main pitch is a 95-100 mph fastball, delivered roughly from the 1 o’clock position. His fastball has a little bit of cutting action, moving away from a right-handed hitter more than a typical four-seam fastball, but I wouldn’t say he’s throwing a cutter, as such.

His second pitch is a slider with a lot of break, running 84-89 mph. Some of his sliders look almost like very hard curveballs. He throws the slider more to righties (39% of pitches) than to lefties (26%), but he definitely relies on it to both.

He'll also mix in the occasional, average curveball to lefties and will presumably look to rediscover his changeup if he's going to stick as a starter. The Jays as a team do not fare will against this sort of power pitcher (.242/.323./.346), though Overbay and Rios have had some success against Chamberlain in an extremely limited number of ABs.

And it doesn't really mean anything (unless you're offended by people who make crass remarks to attractive women), but minor controversy ensued a little over a month ago when Chamberlain apparently said something distasteful to ESPN Sportsbabe Erin Andrews after a quickee interview on the health of his father. The mic cut off before it could catch what he actually said, but the look of disgust on her face clearly tells the story.

How about the disgruntled Bill Hall as a trade target for the Jays? He could play CF for us now (as he did for the Brew Crew in '07), allowing Rios to go back to right and Wilkerson back to the dole queue. He's signed through 2010, so with V-Dub healthy he could play short for us in 2009 with J-Mac as his defensive caddy. The move would be a salary dump/expunging of a disgruntled staff member, so I can't imagine the asking price would be outrageous. And JP and Doug Melvin have had a fruitful trade relationship in the past. I'd have him somewhere near the top of B list candidates, probably behind Raul Ibanez. Thoughts?

With David Ortiz out for a month and possibly more, do the Bosox trade for a slugging LF and shift Manny to DH, denying us the joy of his crazy antics? They certainly have the pieces to make something happen, so it'll all come down to will and the severity of Papi's injury. They could just slot Coco Crisp back into CF and move Ellsbury to LF, but you never know.

I'm guessing that the vast majority of our readership plays fantasy baseball and gets a huge kick out of it. You'll be pleased to know that the Supreme Court has rejected MLB's bid to force fantasy baseball operators to pay a licensing fee to use baseball statistics. My poolies and I use Yahoo for baseball and hockey and have had nothing but satisfaction with its product and value for money. If he had to pay, say $50 in fees instead of the $15 you shell out for Stattracker so MLB could get its cut, I think maybe one or two of us might think twice about participating. Those cheapos could be easily replaced by new poolies, but still.

Stop raining on our good times, MLB. I'm hooked on your product, you've got me paying $45 for tickets, $10 for beers, and $50-100 on t-shirts and hats every year. Squeezing me for any more is just overkill.

Class dismissed.

-- Johnny Was

Counter-point

Far be it for me to display a contrarian side, but I can't resist the opportunity provided by my partner to take issues with one of those mental habits that come so easy but which, in my opinion, lead to false conclusions.

That being, the tendency to analyze a baseball team or player's performance by what calendar month it occurs in. I understand this temptation because any site which hosts sports stats offers us an easy breakdown of results by month. But there is NO logical reason to assume that the turning of the calendar page has anything at all to do with what happens on the field.

The actual truth is that players and teams go through a number of "phases" (feel free to use another word there if it suits you) in the course of a season and it is sheer coincidence if those phases ever sync up with the beginning or end of a month.


In the case of the 2008 Jays, we have seen at least 4 phases so far. The two recent losses may or may not be the beginning of a fifth - you can't really tell immediately when you are in a new phase. Observe:

April 1 - April 15:
Record 8-6;
RPG - 5.43
RAPG 3.71
Dif: +1.72

Actually, one could argue that in this phase the Jays got unlucky a couple of times along the way. that big a differential is probably more worth of 10 or 11 wins than 8.

April 16 - April 30:
3-11
2.86
4.29
-1.43

As you can see, there is an astounding difference between the first 14 games and the second 14 - what logical sense does it make to put all those games in the same pile and try to analyze the whole simply because they both took place in April?

May 1 - May 12 (game one):
6-5
2.64
3.73
-1.09

The reason we won more here than the differential would indicate is because 12 of the 41 runs in this phase occurred in one game. in the other 10 we allowed 2.90 runs per game which is close enough that the record isn't that far off.


May 12 - May 30:
14-4
4.89
2.78
+2.11

If you include the last two games in those figures (since it's unclear if we are in a new phase yet) you still get a record of 14-6, 4-65-2.85 (+1.8). And in both cases the runs against is skewed by the disastrous start of David Purcey but I don't feel like arguing for excluding that from the sample set because it's so impressive anyway.
Again I move the previous point - who should we dilute the outstanding results of 18 games by marrying it to the mediocre results of the previous 11 simply because they occured in the same month?

One could argue, perhaps, that phase 2 and phase 3 are all the same period because of the similarly pathetic offensive output but the half run better pitching (and the better results) seem to me to indicate a potential divide. It seems to me patently obvious that Phase 2 was a period when almost everything went freakishly wrong. I prefer to assume Phase 3 was different but I would not argue against the other position.

That internal debate aside, I strongly maintain that the coincidental timing of Phase 3 and Phase 4 within the same calendar month tells us exactly NOTHING about the Jays offense or overall performance.

If you take the Jays offensive output over the past 20 games and extrapolate it to the 59 games they have played in all, they would have 274 runs right now - good enough for third in the AL. We have far fewer reasons to assume this is a flukishly high output for this group of players than we do to assume the 25 games with pathetic offense was an abberation.

I, for one, would be driven to madness by the improbability that the Jays hitters would return in June to the level that they achieved during the late offensive drought.

I cannot of course argue that the jays will continue to win 3 out of 4 games, but I will argue that this offense is perfectly capable of producing between 4.5 and 5 runs a game the rest of the season and should be expected to be reasonable observers.

~WillRain