I don't often (ever?) tangent in this space off talking about the Jays to other baseball matters, and only on one rather important (to me) occasion in my memory have I drifted off the sport altogether to the world beyond. Humor me then, as I make a second exception to that policy for a subject which is important, and personal, to me.
Word comes to my attention today that the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs have joined the San Francisco Giants in making a PSA video for the It Get's Better Project. Allow me to set aside on field rivalry and tip my metaphorical hat in the direction of the Beantown Nine (and the other teams as well).
When the first announcement came that the Giants had participated, I highlighted the announcement via Twitter to the Blue Jays players who are on that site, with an appeal that the Jays follow that worthwhile lead and participate as well. I'm not naive as to the idea that professional athletes get more tweets than they can possibly take note of, so with the announcement that other teams are participating I'm going to take my rabble rousing to the next level - I'm determined to get their attention and confident that if - when - I do, they will respond positively.
In fact, I would not be surprised to know they already were working on it. But I also want to raise a point in which I have a vested self interest. If you are not familiar with the It Gets Better Project, it's a campaign designed to raise awareness of bullying targeting LGBT youth and to say to these young people, who are at dramatically higher risk of self harm, than the average teen, that no matter how dark their current situation seems, life does get better. It is a wonderful project which anyone should be proud to support. I, however, have this one quibble: in the announcements I've seen there's been a great deal of attention to the "L" and the "G" but not so much to the "T" - I'd like to appeal for that to change along with my broader appeal to the Blue Jays.
When I was a teen, I made a huge effort (given the prevailing attitudes in the Southern U.S. in the 1970's) to be very sure no one knew about my condition, so I cannot say that I speak from direct experience with bullying. But I DO know what it is to live in a culture that considers people like you "freaks" and "pervs" and have no frame of reference to know better. I know full well what it is to look in the mirror and loath yourself, both for the wrongness of your physical gender, and for the "deviancy" of your gender identity condition. When the entire culture is one giant message screaming "you are not normal!!!" you don't really need a personified bully in your face to consider taking your own life. I do know what it is to spend what is supposed to be the best part of your life wondering if it's worth it to remain alive at all.
In today's culture, we have come a long long way from 1970's Mississippi (even in Mississippi!) but still, FAR too often, immature people (teens or no) perceive an easy target in the gay, lesbian, or transsexual youth. I think it's fair to say, also, that in some places being gay is more acceptable than being trans which, sadly, can even be a cause for derision from homosexual youth and adults themselves. But in all cases, so much progress has been made that a fair assessment of the future has to be optimistic. It is a mark of how far we have grown as a culture that more and more of those in the public eye take the opportunity to use their platform to say to those who still have to deal with those who have not joined in that progress "Hold on, it DOES get better" and by implication to those who still mistreat their fellow human being "these things ought not be."
I would be assumin too much, I expect, to assume that an at-risk LGBT teen might be reading my obscure little blog but the message cannot be repeated enough, even in the lightly traveled corners of the internet - you have a FAR more promising future ahead of you than those who came before you, and you should believe it when we say "it get's better." The world is changing and you stand to be the first generation that society might look on and call "normal" - stick around for that. Live that change, heck help make it happen.
Normally, it would be just as big an assumption to think for a moment that the Likes of Ricky Romero, Brandon Morrow, JP Arencibia, Jesse Listch, and Jose Baustista would ever take time out of there day to read this blog - but I'm going to be a considerable pest until someone calls their attention to my plea, which is this:
Guys, no one needs to tell you the influence you have on the young fans who look up to you, and no one needs to tell you what a progressive city you play in, so I will not waste time explaining the obvious. But each of you also know where you come from, you know those who follow you because you went to the same high school, the same college, maybe the same church - because you are, while still being a professional athlete "one of them." and credibility comes with that. I'm asking you, both as a Blue Jay fan and as a transsexual woman, if you have not already, step up to the plate and join your fellow major-leaguers who have done the right thing and added their voices to this call. And if it's not too much trouble, be sure someone mentions us trans folks somewhere along the way - we need it too.
Epilogue-
If, for whatever reason, you are reading this blog and you have ANY reasonable means of contact with the Blue Jays players, staff, or management and you can call their attention to this appeal, or at the least to the IGB project, please do so. I really don't care, in the end, if any of those prominent people ever know who I am - I do care that they speak up for an important message.
Thank you.
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Ricky Ro: Both right and wrong
By now you've read much, no doubt, about Ricky Romero's post-game comments last night and the various reactions and events which have followed. Romero has been, in his time here, the epitome of class and i refuse to assume that he's getting any sort of "attitude" - I doubt anyone thinks that. John Lott (a VERY good writer) characterized Romero's comment as "calling out" his teammates and Romero today pointedly denied that was his intent. According to today's reporting, Romero had a closed-door meeting to be sure his team-mates understood that.
My reaction is that Romero was, at the same time, both right and wrong. It IS true that Bautista and Lind get less to hit when the rest of the team isn't clicking. While the Jays are, as John Farrell notes in an implied refutation of Romero's remark, still 4th in the AL in offense, that obscures the RECENT situation. In June, in 18 games, the team OPS is a mere .678(good for 9th of 14 AL teams) and that would be much worse if Lind's was 1.231 over the same period. Edwin encarnacion, in half as many plate appearances, has been acceptable in June, everyone else (including Bautista) has been almost invisible.
Obviously in some cases it's simply an ill-timed confluance of slumps, but it is nevertheless a correct observation that the time is now three weeks on in an offensive decline. Through the first 1/3 of the season (54 games) the Jays averaged 5 runs a game, since then they've average 3 runs a game.
John Farrell's defense of his team means little in context because what happened weeks ago before Corey Patterson regressed or when Juan Rivera had a hot two weeks isn't the point.
But here's where I think Ricky is wrong in spirit, if not on facts. Most of these guys simply are Not. That. Good.
Ok, Bautista and Lind are two of the best hitters in the league, but he excepted those two.
Escobar is one of the better hitting SS in baseball, so we can overlook his being in a two week slump (he's had two good hitting games in his last 13 coming into tonight) and JPA has been battling an injured thumb which has hampered all aspects of his game and has sent his offensive production into a tail-spin in the last month. I'd like to see him sit tomorrow and in the first game against the Cards, and if that three-day rest didn't help his thumb, put him on the DL and try to have him right by the time the second half starts instead of letting him bury himself offensively. In any case, in light of the injury I'll give him a pass too.
The rest of them? Bluntly speaking, they are bench players who have no business starting. Ok, maybe not Aaron Hill - he's not right but for the last 44 games he's hit just about what the average major league 2B this year is hitting, I'm (perhaps irrationally) reasonably optimistic somewhat better days are ahead. But Romero can't realistically expect production from Davis and Rivera and Patterson and Nix. if you do get some, a couple of good weeks here, a great game there, that's gravy - but you should assume they will fail because, let's face it, they suck.
Davis or Patterson as your fourth OF? Sure. but if they are your regular starters something is wrong. Rivera and Nix are below average even for that bench role. Maybe you can hold out some hope for EE. As a DH his season OPS is .880, but the rest of these guys are what they are and what they are isn't good.
By the time Lawrie and Snider prove themselves healthy and back in the groove, we ought to see something like this:
Call up Snider, DFA Rivera (as if anyone would claim him)
Call up Lawrie, DFA Nix (will likely clear in late July)
Call up Thames and send down McCoy
Trade a reliever (Dotel preferably) in order to activate Janssen so you don't have to run the 8-man pen).
Consider whether Adam Loewen is competent enough in CF to lose Patterson and call up Loewen. Otherwise, you are stuck with Patterson as your only reserve CF.
Getting rid of Davis would be cool, but it's more difficult and AA won't wasily give up on a guy who's on a two year deal.
One thing I'd like to see is a strong attempt to acquire Matt Kemp - but that's probabyl unrealistic.
Anyway, Romero's remark is mostly overblown, but I think he, and we, need to resign ourselves to not getting offense from most of these guys. And as I've written this, another loss goes in the book in which everyone not named Adam Lind (excluding pitchers) went 3/26 so, yeah...
My reaction is that Romero was, at the same time, both right and wrong. It IS true that Bautista and Lind get less to hit when the rest of the team isn't clicking. While the Jays are, as John Farrell notes in an implied refutation of Romero's remark, still 4th in the AL in offense, that obscures the RECENT situation. In June, in 18 games, the team OPS is a mere .678(good for 9th of 14 AL teams) and that would be much worse if Lind's was 1.231 over the same period. Edwin encarnacion, in half as many plate appearances, has been acceptable in June, everyone else (including Bautista) has been almost invisible.
Obviously in some cases it's simply an ill-timed confluance of slumps, but it is nevertheless a correct observation that the time is now three weeks on in an offensive decline. Through the first 1/3 of the season (54 games) the Jays averaged 5 runs a game, since then they've average 3 runs a game.
John Farrell's defense of his team means little in context because what happened weeks ago before Corey Patterson regressed or when Juan Rivera had a hot two weeks isn't the point.
But here's where I think Ricky is wrong in spirit, if not on facts. Most of these guys simply are Not. That. Good.
Ok, Bautista and Lind are two of the best hitters in the league, but he excepted those two.
Escobar is one of the better hitting SS in baseball, so we can overlook his being in a two week slump (he's had two good hitting games in his last 13 coming into tonight) and JPA has been battling an injured thumb which has hampered all aspects of his game and has sent his offensive production into a tail-spin in the last month. I'd like to see him sit tomorrow and in the first game against the Cards, and if that three-day rest didn't help his thumb, put him on the DL and try to have him right by the time the second half starts instead of letting him bury himself offensively. In any case, in light of the injury I'll give him a pass too.
The rest of them? Bluntly speaking, they are bench players who have no business starting. Ok, maybe not Aaron Hill - he's not right but for the last 44 games he's hit just about what the average major league 2B this year is hitting, I'm (perhaps irrationally) reasonably optimistic somewhat better days are ahead. But Romero can't realistically expect production from Davis and Rivera and Patterson and Nix. if you do get some, a couple of good weeks here, a great game there, that's gravy - but you should assume they will fail because, let's face it, they suck.
Davis or Patterson as your fourth OF? Sure. but if they are your regular starters something is wrong. Rivera and Nix are below average even for that bench role. Maybe you can hold out some hope for EE. As a DH his season OPS is .880, but the rest of these guys are what they are and what they are isn't good.
By the time Lawrie and Snider prove themselves healthy and back in the groove, we ought to see something like this:
Call up Snider, DFA Rivera (as if anyone would claim him)
Call up Lawrie, DFA Nix (will likely clear in late July)
Call up Thames and send down McCoy
Trade a reliever (Dotel preferably) in order to activate Janssen so you don't have to run the 8-man pen).
Consider whether Adam Loewen is competent enough in CF to lose Patterson and call up Loewen. Otherwise, you are stuck with Patterson as your only reserve CF.
Getting rid of Davis would be cool, but it's more difficult and AA won't wasily give up on a guy who's on a two year deal.
One thing I'd like to see is a strong attempt to acquire Matt Kemp - but that's probabyl unrealistic.
Anyway, Romero's remark is mostly overblown, but I think he, and we, need to resign ourselves to not getting offense from most of these guys. And as I've written this, another loss goes in the book in which everyone not named Adam Lind (excluding pitchers) went 3/26 so, yeah...
Monday, 20 June 2011
Meet Your Short Season Squads
Before I get into what the title implies, just a word about the Escobar signing (of which you are no doubt well aware):
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I assume you can infer my enthusiasm from that without further elaboration.
Now, as you also probably know, the Jays three short season rosters have been assembled, and with tomorrows opening night in Bluefield all will have seen game action. The highest level team, the Vancouver Canadians, started with great fanfare Friday night. The lowest of the three, the Gulf Coast League Jays played their first game earlier today.
The wins and loses at these levels are of little importance - this is all about prospect development. the VanCans are just a step below the full season Lansing team in terms of development, the GCL squad is for the very raw (and in some cases the injury slowed since it's located on the jays Florida complex) and the Bluefield squad is about halfway in between.
Rather than pretend I have any great knowledge of the more obscure organizational filler players, I'm just going to highlight the known prospects worth watching on each team.
Vancouver
Honestly, right now things are thin here. Player movement will see several interesting players suit up here before the end of the season, but right now there's not that many well-known names.
Justin Nicolino - the 6'3' lefty was the third of three 2nd round picks for the Jays in the 2010 draft, and surprisingly is the highest placed of the Jays high school starting pitchers. that he's hear (while Sanchez and Syndergaard are not) says a lot about his being the most interesting player on this team right now.
Shane Opitz - the 19 year old shortstop drafted in the 11th round last year likely profiles as a utility infielder in the majors (think something like most of Marco Scutaro's career in terms of results) but some thing he has intriguing potential.
Taylor Cole - only a 29th round pick this year, Cole has an unusual back story. He was drafted in the first round by the Yankees in 2008. Between then and now he took two years off from pitching for a Mormon missionary tour. We'll be watching to see if the first round potential is still in there.
Bluefield
Aaron Sanchez - My praise here has been effusive for Sanchez, he is in my view one of the top 10 Jays prospects in terms of ceiling (or was coming into the season). there's little I can add here except that I assume if he does well, particularly in terms of control, he'll probably not be here all season.
Noah Syndergaard - Another RH high school pitcher taken in the supplemental round in 2010, some feel he's almost Sanchez's equal in terms of potential. He's somewhat more raw and might thereby be just a bit slower in promotion. Anthopoulos has been quoted as saying of both pitchers that they've touched 98 on the gun this spring.
Mitch Taylor - Yet another HS pitcher from the 2010 draft, this one left handed and taken in the 7th round. Taylor has gotten less notice in the shadow of the two names above, along with the already active college pitchers McGuire, and Woj who have also gotten much ink. The there's Nicolino and no less than three other pitchers taken before Taylor's name was called. Nevertheless, Taylor is a guy with considerable potential. He is somewhat smaller than the others, standing on;y 6'0" tall (an exception to AA's preference for "big bodied" pitchers).
Myles Jaye - A high school RH taken in 2010 (sensing a pattern here?) - this time in the 17th round, but you shouldn't underestimate him because of the comparative lateness of his selection. He only started pitching as a senior and he's thus pretty raw but the Jays were quite impressed with him this spring. Fangraph's Marc Hulet rates him the fifth best pitching prospect among the short-season rosters, behind Sanchez, Syndergaard, and two GCL pitchers, Griffin Murphy and Adonys Cardona.
Kelin Sweeney - a SS in high school, Sweeney will likely play 3B (and possibly eventually 2B) in the pros. He was the second of the Jays 3 third round picks last year and another player who might well move up before the season ends. Hulet notes him as the most interesting of the short season hitters, and mentions that perhaps he lacks the power many teams expect from a 3B.
Chris Hawkins - another HS shortstop, this time taken in the 8th round last year. Hawkins has started off the year playing CF in Bluefield though long term he may well slide to right.
GCL Jays
Griffin Murphy - surprisingly at the lowest level since his the oldest of the Jays HS pitchers taken in 2010 (he's 10 months older than Nicolino) Murphy is still nevertheless a very worthy prospect. The LH was the first of the jays three 2nd round picks last year, and considered possibly the best High School LH in the draft. Will probably move up during the season, and might be here because of lingering spring injuries.
Adonys Cardonas - (how can you not love a guy named Adonys?) the Jays spent a big pile of money (more than $2 million which is basically first round money) to give Cardonas the highest bonus in last years Latin signing period. Still 17 and quite raw, he will definitely be here all year.
Zac Adams - another 2010 pick, the LHP was taken in the 15th round though he's considerably better than that - he slid because he was considered unsignable. He does have some mechanical difficulties to overcome.
Adaric Kelly - a high school RH that slid all the way to the 28th round, Kelly, like Taylor, is a bit smaller than most of his peers in last years Jays draft. He's another player that just barely signed before the deadline and is perhaps a bargain because of signiability concerns.
Deivy Estrada - gets no respect from scouts, but still very young and has room to grow and pick up some mileage on his underpowered fastball. All he does is gets outs, however, and I'm rooting for him.
DJ Thon - I'm going to keep calling him DJ until it catches on damnit! Thon was slowed this spring by a blood disorder but is active in the GCL roster and played today. The HS shortstop was considered a near impossible sign but the Jays took the first round talent in the fifth round and pulled off the signing. He may not stick at SS throughout the minors, but he's expected to be well worth the investment.
Santiago Nessy - the biggest name the Jays signed out of Latin America in 2009, the 18 year old catcher is turning into the biggest signing period. He's already 6'2" 230 and he runs the risk of outgrowing the position. He's said to have average defense and good power and a solid make-up (per Hulet's report) and while the jays have the luxury of moving slowly with him (because of their outstanding depth at catcher) I wouldn't be stunned if he's eventually at 1B given his size.
Other names of note:
Vancounver: Balbino Fuenmayor, Jon Jones
Bluefield: Gustavo Pierre, Art Charles, Milciades Santana
GCL: Dalton Pompey, Eric Acre, Sony Javiar
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I assume you can infer my enthusiasm from that without further elaboration.
Now, as you also probably know, the Jays three short season rosters have been assembled, and with tomorrows opening night in Bluefield all will have seen game action. The highest level team, the Vancouver Canadians, started with great fanfare Friday night. The lowest of the three, the Gulf Coast League Jays played their first game earlier today.
The wins and loses at these levels are of little importance - this is all about prospect development. the VanCans are just a step below the full season Lansing team in terms of development, the GCL squad is for the very raw (and in some cases the injury slowed since it's located on the jays Florida complex) and the Bluefield squad is about halfway in between.
Rather than pretend I have any great knowledge of the more obscure organizational filler players, I'm just going to highlight the known prospects worth watching on each team.
Vancouver
Honestly, right now things are thin here. Player movement will see several interesting players suit up here before the end of the season, but right now there's not that many well-known names.
Justin Nicolino - the 6'3' lefty was the third of three 2nd round picks for the Jays in the 2010 draft, and surprisingly is the highest placed of the Jays high school starting pitchers. that he's hear (while Sanchez and Syndergaard are not) says a lot about his being the most interesting player on this team right now.
Shane Opitz - the 19 year old shortstop drafted in the 11th round last year likely profiles as a utility infielder in the majors (think something like most of Marco Scutaro's career in terms of results) but some thing he has intriguing potential.
Taylor Cole - only a 29th round pick this year, Cole has an unusual back story. He was drafted in the first round by the Yankees in 2008. Between then and now he took two years off from pitching for a Mormon missionary tour. We'll be watching to see if the first round potential is still in there.
Bluefield
Aaron Sanchez - My praise here has been effusive for Sanchez, he is in my view one of the top 10 Jays prospects in terms of ceiling (or was coming into the season). there's little I can add here except that I assume if he does well, particularly in terms of control, he'll probably not be here all season.
Noah Syndergaard - Another RH high school pitcher taken in the supplemental round in 2010, some feel he's almost Sanchez's equal in terms of potential. He's somewhat more raw and might thereby be just a bit slower in promotion. Anthopoulos has been quoted as saying of both pitchers that they've touched 98 on the gun this spring.
Mitch Taylor - Yet another HS pitcher from the 2010 draft, this one left handed and taken in the 7th round. Taylor has gotten less notice in the shadow of the two names above, along with the already active college pitchers McGuire, and Woj who have also gotten much ink. The there's Nicolino and no less than three other pitchers taken before Taylor's name was called. Nevertheless, Taylor is a guy with considerable potential. He is somewhat smaller than the others, standing on;y 6'0" tall (an exception to AA's preference for "big bodied" pitchers).
Myles Jaye - A high school RH taken in 2010 (sensing a pattern here?) - this time in the 17th round, but you shouldn't underestimate him because of the comparative lateness of his selection. He only started pitching as a senior and he's thus pretty raw but the Jays were quite impressed with him this spring. Fangraph's Marc Hulet rates him the fifth best pitching prospect among the short-season rosters, behind Sanchez, Syndergaard, and two GCL pitchers, Griffin Murphy and Adonys Cardona.
Kelin Sweeney - a SS in high school, Sweeney will likely play 3B (and possibly eventually 2B) in the pros. He was the second of the Jays 3 third round picks last year and another player who might well move up before the season ends. Hulet notes him as the most interesting of the short season hitters, and mentions that perhaps he lacks the power many teams expect from a 3B.
Chris Hawkins - another HS shortstop, this time taken in the 8th round last year. Hawkins has started off the year playing CF in Bluefield though long term he may well slide to right.
GCL Jays
Griffin Murphy - surprisingly at the lowest level since his the oldest of the Jays HS pitchers taken in 2010 (he's 10 months older than Nicolino) Murphy is still nevertheless a very worthy prospect. The LH was the first of the jays three 2nd round picks last year, and considered possibly the best High School LH in the draft. Will probably move up during the season, and might be here because of lingering spring injuries.
Adonys Cardonas - (how can you not love a guy named Adonys?) the Jays spent a big pile of money (more than $2 million which is basically first round money) to give Cardonas the highest bonus in last years Latin signing period. Still 17 and quite raw, he will definitely be here all year.
Zac Adams - another 2010 pick, the LHP was taken in the 15th round though he's considerably better than that - he slid because he was considered unsignable. He does have some mechanical difficulties to overcome.
Adaric Kelly - a high school RH that slid all the way to the 28th round, Kelly, like Taylor, is a bit smaller than most of his peers in last years Jays draft. He's another player that just barely signed before the deadline and is perhaps a bargain because of signiability concerns.
Deivy Estrada - gets no respect from scouts, but still very young and has room to grow and pick up some mileage on his underpowered fastball. All he does is gets outs, however, and I'm rooting for him.
DJ Thon - I'm going to keep calling him DJ until it catches on damnit! Thon was slowed this spring by a blood disorder but is active in the GCL roster and played today. The HS shortstop was considered a near impossible sign but the Jays took the first round talent in the fifth round and pulled off the signing. He may not stick at SS throughout the minors, but he's expected to be well worth the investment.
Santiago Nessy - the biggest name the Jays signed out of Latin America in 2009, the 18 year old catcher is turning into the biggest signing period. He's already 6'2" 230 and he runs the risk of outgrowing the position. He's said to have average defense and good power and a solid make-up (per Hulet's report) and while the jays have the luxury of moving slowly with him (because of their outstanding depth at catcher) I wouldn't be stunned if he's eventually at 1B given his size.
Other names of note:
Vancounver: Balbino Fuenmayor, Jon Jones
Bluefield: Gustavo Pierre, Art Charles, Milciades Santana
GCL: Dalton Pompey, Eric Acre, Sony Javiar
Saturday, 18 June 2011
A Mighty Lind
Since Jordan Bastian moved south of the lake, that particular catch phrase has fallen into disuse but it's high time to revive it. Because Adam Lind is certifiably a bad mo-fo and for him, at least, 2010 is just a bad dream.
Consider if you will: Adrian Gonzalez, first baseman of the Boston Red Sox, leads all of the major leagues with a most impressive 62 RBI. Gotta give your props to that, right? Sure he makes a truck-load of money, but he's earning it - amiright? Oh by the way, he also has over 100 more at bats than Lind, who missed just under a month of the season. Would you like to know what you get if you extend Lind's RBI rate over the same number of at bats?
71
Gonalzez has 15 homers in his 281 at-bats, Lind's rate works out to 24 in the same number of at bats. Gonzalez's OPS exceeds Lind's by 0.001 and that's more than made up for by the fact that Gonzalez has grounded into 14 double plays (Lind has 3). Oh, and did I mention that when ranked by OPS, Gonzolez is the only player in the AL between Lind and his teammate Jose Bautista?
Bautista and the Yankees' Curtis Granderson and Mark Texeria are tied for the major league lead in HR with 21 (Granderson has 46 more AB than Bautista, Tex has 32 more). Give Lind Bautista's AB total and he pro-rates to 19, give him Granderson's and he has 23. In short, Adam Lind is arguably the second best hitting player in the AL. Like the higher metrics? Well, WAR probably doesn't pro-rate in a linier fashion like normal counting stats but if you note that Gonzalez (who's second in the AL among hitters with a WAR total of 3.6 - no idea if that includes Friday's action) has 61% more AB than Lind and you increase Lind's WAR total (2.3) by 61% you get - 3.7, so I'm going to roll with that since it reinforces my premise.
Lind did have one bad week in April, from April 10-18 he went 2 for 26. Since then, coming into Friday's play his line has been .404/.447/.798/1.245 in 29 games - for comparison in the same period, in 48 games, Bautista's line looks like this .339/.498/.727/1.225
So, I know it stands to reason that Lind's All Star vote isn't going to challenge Gonzolez's, Tex's or Cabrera's, but he's every bit the hitter those are and if he keeps this up it's going to be a crying shame if they don't find a place for him on that roster.
One other passing shout-out: for the last six weeks Yunel Escobar has been the second best hitting SS in the AL.
On the other end of the spectrum, JP Arencibia's sore thumb is killing his stat line - his OPS for June is a mere .504 and John Farrell has decided to look for ways to give him some rest. for now, Jose Molina will go back to catching Brandon Morrow along with newcomer Zach Stewart. Personally, if it were me i think I'd let Molina take the DGANG on June 22 and then Morrow on the 24th and see if three consecutive days rest and rehab might not help. It will be the last chance for something like that before the ASB.
In other news:
Item: I might as well mention Zach Stewart, as if you don't already know he threw a fine game in his major league debut Thursday afternoon. Kyle Drabek is set to start for the Las Vegas 51's on Sunday.
Item: the Dunedin Blue Jays arrived at the All Star break as first half champs in their division (by seven games!), ensuring their place in the playoffs in September. Six members of that squad will be on the roster for the FSL All Star Game this weekend and don't be completely shocked if one or two of them are in New Hampshire before too long. On June 1 Justin Jackson seemed like a lock but a June slump might slow that down. the other candidate is 2010 first rounder Deck McGuire.
Item: The Lansing Lugnuts are two games away from their break and they are in real need of a break. After flirting with the league lead for much of the first half, three fairly cold weeks have left them in third place and eliminated from that title. A confluance of circumstances left them short-handed in the rotation at the worst possible time, and the shakey infield defense has been the teams big weakness. So bad was the shortage that Casey lawrence had to be rushed back from Dunedin to spot start tonight. They needn't have bothered as the apparently unprepared Lawrence had his worst start this season (possibly of his professional career). I assume Lawrence won't be back in Lo-A long, but it's also apparent that Drew Hutchinson is worthy of promotion as well. It's not inconciveable Hutch could be the one headed for Dunedin the next time they make a move. Another player who's (statistically at least) demanding a promotion is Canadian outfielder Marcus Kencht.
Item: Jesse Litsch makes his first rehab start in Lansing tomorrow. I expect he's there to stay on schedule since Dunedin is on their break. Expect his next few re-hab outings to be for the D-Jays.
Item: Travis Snider is looking like his old self in June, particularly in the last 10 games (.487 BA, 1.330 OPS) and if this pattern holds (and Corey Patterson continues his regression to the mean - his OPS over the last 16 games is .504) Travis could be closing in on a return to the majors. Possibly along about the time the Jays finish their NL road trip.
Iten: the Vancouver Canadians, the first of the Jays three short season teams to begin play (and the highest level of the three) had their opening night on Friday and emerged with a win. Featuring 7 2010 draft choices and 2 2011 draft picks on their roster, the Canadians don't have any of the elite prospects (yet) but probably the most interesting guy is 2010 2nd round LHP Justin Nicolino. Shane Opitz, an 11th round SS with some reasonable upside is there, as is the guy who still has the best name in the system, albeit he's long since lost his luster as a prospect - 3B Balbino Fuenmayor.
The Bluefield Blue Jays have announced their roster. Among the noteable names on that squad: 2010 supplemental round picks (and top propsects) Aaron Sanchez and Noah Syndergaard, 2nd round 3B Kelin Sweeney, and 3rd round 3B (listed as an outfielder) Chris Hawkins. also, toolsy but error prone SS Gustavo pierre has been demoted from Lansig to join the bluefield nine. there's a strong possibility that Sanchez, Syndergaard, Sweeney, and hawkins will not spend the whole season here.
Some of the bright lights from last years draft are still unassigned. We know that Sam Dyson is out for the year, and highly regarded DJ Thon is only now getting back into baseball shape after dealing with an unrelated health issue. No word on 2010 2nd round LHP Griffin Murphy (who seems too advanced for the still-unannounced GCL roster; EDIT - I read his age wrong on my spreadsheet - he's not noterably too old to start in the GCL) or sleeper Devy Estrada. Look for highly paid Dominican signings Adrian Cardonas, a RHP, and C Santiago Nessy to make their North American debut for the GCL squad, along with the rest of the recently signed 2011 class such as supplemental round RHP Joe Musgrove.
Bluefield's first game is June 21, the GCL Jays start on June 20. Still undetermined is when the team will be ready to assign Dustin McGowan to a team and start the clock on his rehab.
As always, pardon the spelling and capitalization errors you might find, it's too damned late to proofread.
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Sunday not fun day.
Cleaning up some notes from all over on a rather depressing weekend. the Jays' run differential was +29 when the Red Sox came to town - it's +1 now. It's tough to get excited about anything right now. Not to over-react to this (after all the Red Sox are now on a nine game winning streak and are killing everyone) they have looked really bad before - like when Detroit was in town - and then ran off a string of really good play (between the Detroit series and this one, they were 17-11 which is .607 ball). but having noted that, this might also be an opportunity to step back from the scoreboard watching and think more about the future than the race.
The subject on everyone's mind today is Kyle Drabek. John Farrell insisted before today's game that there had been no conversation about demoting Kyle Drabek (remember how we were assured they were committed to Travis Snider?) but one has to think there has to be something cooking beyond just sending him out there and hoping for the best. I have no inside knowledge, and guessing at Anthopoulos' next move is a mugs game - but just looking at the schedule there seems to be a rather obvious course of action.
The Jays have been mighty impressed with Luis Perez (I'm going to have to admit I was wrong about him apparently) and he pitched several innings in relief of Drabek today. Perez was always a starter in the minors and has the stamina to start. They could start him on Drabek's next turn - June 18 in Cincinnati - and then Drabek's turn would fall on an off day. That would give them over two weeks to work with him on the side to try to get a handle on his emotional issues.
Then there would be three more turns before the ASB for Drabek to demonstrate he'd "got it." and by then Litsch should be recovered (assuming no setbacks) and you'd have the option of demoting him if he was still fighting himself. It seems to me like a reasonable plan.
The other, much milder, worry is Brandon Morrow. There have been a few instances this year when the strong temptation is to ask "is he regressing?" On the surface, the easy answer would be yes - both his ERA and WHIP have moved from "unfortunate" to "poor" - but if you look at the saber stats, not so much. while he has a 5.63 ERA right now, his FIP is still just 2.55 (considerably better than Romero's) and his xFIP is a very respectable 3.61, so probably, he's going to be fine. Assuming there are no confidence issues as a result of recent setbacks.
I know that the common meme among Blue Jays observers is that the offense has been surprisingly good and the starting pitching has been surprisingly bad, but i caution against the supposition that our crop of pitchers isn't as good as we'd assumed.
Consider: Romero has been just fine, and Morrow is clearly better than the results right now, which will normalize in time. Listch has been good when healthy, though it's right to wonder if he can stay on the field. Villinueva has been a revelation, as good as Cecil was expected to be, and Reyes has been a perfectly adequate fifth starter. On the major league level, apart from injuries, only Cecil and Drabek have been a crashing disappointment. and that won't last. Cecil wasn't doing it with mirrors and every professional agrees that Drabek has tons of stuff, all he needs is maturity.
Beyond the major league staff - you have McGowan . . .let me interrupt myself to recommend a great piece by Callum at Mop-Up Duty in which he advocates for sending Drabek down. In that piece he notes that McGowan went through the same "fighting himself" struggles early on that Drabek is experiencing now, and quotes a Jordan Bastian article from 2007 about the progression from pitching scared to trusting his stuff. It made me wonder if it wouldn't be ideal to eventually have McGowan and Drabek in the same clubhouse so that the elder might work with the younger on that score.
Anyway, to get back to the point: McGowan may well fly apart at any time but until he does, i'm going to hope for the great comeback story - he still has ace level stuff if he can stay healthy (and it's been done before, see: Carpenter, Chris) Cecil will be back, Henderson Alvarez at AA has the whole system buzzing, and top prospect Zach Stewart, despite inconsistency this year, has not lost the confidence of the management (see AA's comments about the NH situation here). And that's not even mentioning the potential of Perez and Zep and Brad Mills and the recently promoted (to AA) Chad Jenkins.
Romero, Morrow, Drabek, McGowan, and Alvarez all have legitimate ace-level stuff. Cecil, Stewart, and Litsch are legitimate mid-rotation guys. And then you have Reyes, Villianueva, Perez, maybe Zep, and Mills as fallbacks for situations involving injury or regression. down the stretch in 2012, and particularly in 2013, that stands to be one of the very best rotations in baseball. We shouldn't lose confidence in the plan because of a few bumps in the road.
You may not have noticed in today's shellacking, but Bautista broke his homerless streak with a solo shot of of a dominating Jon Lester. in other good news for the offense, Adam Lind is hitting .414 with a 1.333 OPS since coming off the DL. If you give him the same number of AB as Adrian Gonzalez, he pro-rates to 18 homers and 62 RBI. Lind is arguably the second best hitting 1B in the AL (behind Cabrera) right now. he's certainly on the same level with them.
In draft news, six late round picks are either signed or unofficially agreed to sign (the highest of those being 26th round SS Justin Atkinson) along with the Jays' third overall pick, RHP Joe Musgrove. also worth noting: ESPN's Kieth Law, in response to a question on Twitter, opined that he expected the jays would be able to land their first round pick, Tyler Beede, for $3 million or so.
The Jays have done more roster shuffling in the lest few days among the farm teams than perhaps in the whole rest of the season, here's a rundown:
Bobby Ray, who'd been on the AAA DL, was activated and moved to AA where he started and took the loss in an unimpressive effort today;
Chad Jenkins (former first round pick) was promoted to AA from Dunedin and started yesterday throwing an impressive game;
Reider Gonzalez, who's been very good at AA, was promoted to AAA (where he spent the early part of 2010) and threw a good games for the 51's yesterday;
Casey Lawrence was promoted from Lansing to take Jenkins' turn in Dunedin and threw a fine game today;
Egan Smith returned from the DL to take one of the open spots in the Lansing rotation today;
With the extended spring training session ending on June 20, and the short season leagues set to begin play soon (Vancouver's first game is Friday night), expect considerably more minor league news in the days and weeks to come.
One final note: Mike Wilner reports that the previous reporting that Dustin McGowan would be required to begin a rehab assignment when extended ends was, in fact, not correct. the Jays are at liberty to keep working him out at the Florida complex without a hard schedule to promote him. that means that, at a bare minimum, they will stretch it out so that his 30 day re-hab extends past the July 31 trade deadline. there's every possibility he might not arrive until September unless he is so very impressive they are not afraid to show him to major league hitters.
John Farrell was quoted Thursday as having reported that McGowan had thrown 2 innings on Wednesday and was on a schedule that had him throwing 2 inninges every three days, and then would go to 3 innings every 4th day and if he handles that well go to a regular starter's schedule.
If they DO decide to assign him to a team (likely the GCL Jays) when the season starts, a 30 day rehab would have him returning to the majors in the last 10 days or so of July. Coincidentally, that's probably the most optimistic reasonable time frame for Lawrie. I can see Lawrie joining the team at Texas July 22-24. if not, it probably won't be until August 1.
The subject on everyone's mind today is Kyle Drabek. John Farrell insisted before today's game that there had been no conversation about demoting Kyle Drabek (remember how we were assured they were committed to Travis Snider?) but one has to think there has to be something cooking beyond just sending him out there and hoping for the best. I have no inside knowledge, and guessing at Anthopoulos' next move is a mugs game - but just looking at the schedule there seems to be a rather obvious course of action.
The Jays have been mighty impressed with Luis Perez (I'm going to have to admit I was wrong about him apparently) and he pitched several innings in relief of Drabek today. Perez was always a starter in the minors and has the stamina to start. They could start him on Drabek's next turn - June 18 in Cincinnati - and then Drabek's turn would fall on an off day. That would give them over two weeks to work with him on the side to try to get a handle on his emotional issues.
Then there would be three more turns before the ASB for Drabek to demonstrate he'd "got it." and by then Litsch should be recovered (assuming no setbacks) and you'd have the option of demoting him if he was still fighting himself. It seems to me like a reasonable plan.
The other, much milder, worry is Brandon Morrow. There have been a few instances this year when the strong temptation is to ask "is he regressing?" On the surface, the easy answer would be yes - both his ERA and WHIP have moved from "unfortunate" to "poor" - but if you look at the saber stats, not so much. while he has a 5.63 ERA right now, his FIP is still just 2.55 (considerably better than Romero's) and his xFIP is a very respectable 3.61, so probably, he's going to be fine. Assuming there are no confidence issues as a result of recent setbacks.
I know that the common meme among Blue Jays observers is that the offense has been surprisingly good and the starting pitching has been surprisingly bad, but i caution against the supposition that our crop of pitchers isn't as good as we'd assumed.
Consider: Romero has been just fine, and Morrow is clearly better than the results right now, which will normalize in time. Listch has been good when healthy, though it's right to wonder if he can stay on the field. Villinueva has been a revelation, as good as Cecil was expected to be, and Reyes has been a perfectly adequate fifth starter. On the major league level, apart from injuries, only Cecil and Drabek have been a crashing disappointment. and that won't last. Cecil wasn't doing it with mirrors and every professional agrees that Drabek has tons of stuff, all he needs is maturity.
Beyond the major league staff - you have McGowan . . .let me interrupt myself to recommend a great piece by Callum at Mop-Up Duty in which he advocates for sending Drabek down. In that piece he notes that McGowan went through the same "fighting himself" struggles early on that Drabek is experiencing now, and quotes a Jordan Bastian article from 2007 about the progression from pitching scared to trusting his stuff. It made me wonder if it wouldn't be ideal to eventually have McGowan and Drabek in the same clubhouse so that the elder might work with the younger on that score.
Anyway, to get back to the point: McGowan may well fly apart at any time but until he does, i'm going to hope for the great comeback story - he still has ace level stuff if he can stay healthy (and it's been done before, see: Carpenter, Chris) Cecil will be back, Henderson Alvarez at AA has the whole system buzzing, and top prospect Zach Stewart, despite inconsistency this year, has not lost the confidence of the management (see AA's comments about the NH situation here). And that's not even mentioning the potential of Perez and Zep and Brad Mills and the recently promoted (to AA) Chad Jenkins.
Romero, Morrow, Drabek, McGowan, and Alvarez all have legitimate ace-level stuff. Cecil, Stewart, and Litsch are legitimate mid-rotation guys. And then you have Reyes, Villianueva, Perez, maybe Zep, and Mills as fallbacks for situations involving injury or regression. down the stretch in 2012, and particularly in 2013, that stands to be one of the very best rotations in baseball. We shouldn't lose confidence in the plan because of a few bumps in the road.
You may not have noticed in today's shellacking, but Bautista broke his homerless streak with a solo shot of of a dominating Jon Lester. in other good news for the offense, Adam Lind is hitting .414 with a 1.333 OPS since coming off the DL. If you give him the same number of AB as Adrian Gonzalez, he pro-rates to 18 homers and 62 RBI. Lind is arguably the second best hitting 1B in the AL (behind Cabrera) right now. he's certainly on the same level with them.
In draft news, six late round picks are either signed or unofficially agreed to sign (the highest of those being 26th round SS Justin Atkinson) along with the Jays' third overall pick, RHP Joe Musgrove. also worth noting: ESPN's Kieth Law, in response to a question on Twitter, opined that he expected the jays would be able to land their first round pick, Tyler Beede, for $3 million or so.
The Jays have done more roster shuffling in the lest few days among the farm teams than perhaps in the whole rest of the season, here's a rundown:
Bobby Ray, who'd been on the AAA DL, was activated and moved to AA where he started and took the loss in an unimpressive effort today;
Chad Jenkins (former first round pick) was promoted to AA from Dunedin and started yesterday throwing an impressive game;
Reider Gonzalez, who's been very good at AA, was promoted to AAA (where he spent the early part of 2010) and threw a good games for the 51's yesterday;
Casey Lawrence was promoted from Lansing to take Jenkins' turn in Dunedin and threw a fine game today;
Egan Smith returned from the DL to take one of the open spots in the Lansing rotation today;
With the extended spring training session ending on June 20, and the short season leagues set to begin play soon (Vancouver's first game is Friday night), expect considerably more minor league news in the days and weeks to come.
One final note: Mike Wilner reports that the previous reporting that Dustin McGowan would be required to begin a rehab assignment when extended ends was, in fact, not correct. the Jays are at liberty to keep working him out at the Florida complex without a hard schedule to promote him. that means that, at a bare minimum, they will stretch it out so that his 30 day re-hab extends past the July 31 trade deadline. there's every possibility he might not arrive until September unless he is so very impressive they are not afraid to show him to major league hitters.
John Farrell was quoted Thursday as having reported that McGowan had thrown 2 innings on Wednesday and was on a schedule that had him throwing 2 inninges every three days, and then would go to 3 innings every 4th day and if he handles that well go to a regular starter's schedule.
If they DO decide to assign him to a team (likely the GCL Jays) when the season starts, a 30 day rehab would have him returning to the majors in the last 10 days or so of July. Coincidentally, that's probably the most optimistic reasonable time frame for Lawrie. I can see Lawrie joining the team at Texas July 22-24. if not, it probably won't be until August 1.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Quick Hit: MLB Draft Day One
You have plenty of sources better than this one for draft info, so I'm not going to pretend to be an expert when I'm not. What I do want to do is give you a brief synthesis of what I've picked up so far on the five players the Blue Jays drafted tonight.
1.21 - Tyler Beede, RHP - 5/23/93 - 6'4" 200
The thing that jumps out from all the various descriptions on Beede is how polished he is for a HS pitcher. I won't try to cover all the details here but he sounds like a player with not only great physical ability, but great baseball skills and a very good makeup. While acknowledging I was only mildly enthused with last year's #1, I'm going to say my first impression on Beede is that he's a better prospect than any of the pitchers we took last year except maybe Sanchez.
The downside is that he sent signals indicating he had a fierce commitment to Vanderbilt University and the assumption is he'll be a very difficult sing. This is mildly mitigated by the speculation that the Massachusetts native was trying to scare other teams off him so that he could get drafted by the Red Sox - but the Boston FO passed on him two picks before the Jays tabbed him so possibly that bit of fanboy longing being off the table, he might be more open. I, for one, an very confident the Jays will get him signed and not let money stand in the way. The tone of the comments in the ESPN article here is not that of people who are dead set against signing. We heard much more firm language from the Thon family last year. However, it's entierly possible it will take right up to the deadline to make it happen.
1S.35 - Jacob Anderson - OF/1B - 11/22/92 - 6'4" 190
Anderson is another player that was described as a tough sign, but on Twitter tonight you didn't get the impression he was unenthusiastic about going pro. The "bio" under his name on his profile page already says "Go Blue Jays." Anderson is described in some quarters as a smooth, solid defender who's bat has raw power in it. My instinct is that he'll end up at 1B as he climbs the ladder and might contend for the title of highest-ceiling 1B prospect in the system right now. But the team might keep their options open by starting his pro career in the outfield.
1S-46 - Joe Musgrove - RHP - 12/4/92 - 6'5" 230
Musgrove is, as they say down in the south, a "big ol' boy" for an 18 year old. Said to have a solid-plus fastball and a "hammer curve," the team probably sees good upside from this pick. One thing you can definitely say about Musgrove, he's NOT going to be a hard sign. Read the article here, and note the money quote:
Nick Delmonico - C (Can I confess, I just love this guy's name! Plus, there are skills)
Daniel Norris - LHP (had been called a mid-first rounder all spring)
Dillon Howard - RHP (Boras client, sadly)
Rick Oropesa - 3B/1B (lots of power)
Jorge Lopez - RHP (Haven't found too much info on this Puerto Rico product
Dillon Maples - RHP
Matt Dean - 3B
1.21 - Tyler Beede, RHP - 5/23/93 - 6'4" 200
The thing that jumps out from all the various descriptions on Beede is how polished he is for a HS pitcher. I won't try to cover all the details here but he sounds like a player with not only great physical ability, but great baseball skills and a very good makeup. While acknowledging I was only mildly enthused with last year's #1, I'm going to say my first impression on Beede is that he's a better prospect than any of the pitchers we took last year except maybe Sanchez.
The downside is that he sent signals indicating he had a fierce commitment to Vanderbilt University and the assumption is he'll be a very difficult sing. This is mildly mitigated by the speculation that the Massachusetts native was trying to scare other teams off him so that he could get drafted by the Red Sox - but the Boston FO passed on him two picks before the Jays tabbed him so possibly that bit of fanboy longing being off the table, he might be more open. I, for one, an very confident the Jays will get him signed and not let money stand in the way. The tone of the comments in the ESPN article here is not that of people who are dead set against signing. We heard much more firm language from the Thon family last year. However, it's entierly possible it will take right up to the deadline to make it happen.
1S.35 - Jacob Anderson - OF/1B - 11/22/92 - 6'4" 190
Anderson is another player that was described as a tough sign, but on Twitter tonight you didn't get the impression he was unenthusiastic about going pro. The "bio" under his name on his profile page already says "Go Blue Jays." Anderson is described in some quarters as a smooth, solid defender who's bat has raw power in it. My instinct is that he'll end up at 1B as he climbs the ladder and might contend for the title of highest-ceiling 1B prospect in the system right now. But the team might keep their options open by starting his pro career in the outfield.
1S-46 - Joe Musgrove - RHP - 12/4/92 - 6'5" 230
Musgrove is, as they say down in the south, a "big ol' boy" for an 18 year old. Said to have a solid-plus fastball and a "hammer curve," the team probably sees good upside from this pick. One thing you can definitely say about Musgrove, he's NOT going to be a hard sign. Read the article here, and note the money quote:
Musgrove has accepted a scholarship offer to San Diego State but said he is eager to work out a deal with the Blue Jays. “I want to finish up my senior year (he graduates June 16) and get out there in time for the start of rookie (league) ball,” Musgrove said. “This is what I’ve been working toward, so I want to sign and get going on my career.”Would that all of the Jays picks were so motivated.
1S.53 - Dwight Smith, Jr. - OF - 10/26/92 - 5'11", 180
You might remember his dad, who played over 800 major league games, mostly with the Cubs, from '89-'96. He was just an average guy, a little power, a little speed, decent contact. Smith is an advanced player for a high schooler as you might expect from a "bloodlines" guy, and might end up being a somewhat better hitter. But he profiles right now as a pretty similar guy (he's even virtually the same physically as his dad was in his playing days) and as much as i love a bloodlines pick, he's probably the draftee I'm least enthused with tonight. If he wasn't the son of a major leaguer I'd have a hard time not being a critic on this one.
1S.57 - Kevin Comer - RHP - 8/1/92 - 6'3", 205
Comer is another guy who has made his college commitment to Vanderbilt. I'm not 100% sure of the dynamics of having drafted the top two recruits from the same school, but Comer, like Beede, is said to be a player who'll expect some respectable dollars to turn pro. But he's a talented guy, on pure talent maybe the second best guy the jays drafted (I confess I don't understand when teams insist they take "the best available talent" and then you see them take a Comer AFTER someone like Smith. Can it REALLY be that's the order they had them in?).
According to this ESPN feature, he's got a well above average fastball which ranges through the mid-nineties, and a delivery that leaves hitters guessing. Just as important, he's said to be a plus-plus makeup guy (it seems to be a high priority for the jays in their scouting to find such high-character types). When I first heard about this pick I reacted with a sort of "eh, never heard of him" dismissal but having read up on the guy, there's a lot to like here.
Potentially, the Jays might get 2 or 3 of these guys on the field in relatively short order, while Beede and Comer probably won't sign in time to play any official games this season. I'd love to be surprised on that prediction. Day Two starts in the AM, I expect more good things to come. I hesitate to publish my "wish list" of players I've been eying who are still on the board, since I didn't see ANY of these picks coming (nor, as far as sites I've seen, did anyone else). but here are a few names I'd love to see the Robbie Alomar call tomorrow:
Josh Bell - OF (first round talent, dropping because he apparently expects huge payday)Nick Delmonico - C (Can I confess, I just love this guy's name! Plus, there are skills)
Daniel Norris - LHP (had been called a mid-first rounder all spring)
Dillon Howard - RHP (Boras client, sadly)
Rick Oropesa - 3B/1B (lots of power)
Jorge Lopez - RHP (Haven't found too much info on this Puerto Rico product
Dillon Maples - RHP
Matt Dean - 3B
We'll see!
Sunday, 5 June 2011
2/5 Farm Report
Since the Major League Rule 4 draft begins tomorrow, and will no doubt dominate the Jays news cycle over the next several days, I'm rushing this a bit. Technically, the second fifth of the minor league system (60 games) is not in the books until Tuesday. But we are not going to draw any conclusions at this point that will be altered by the next two days.
The first thing to note is a bit of breaking news: Brett Lawrie has been placed in the minor league DL retroactive to June 2 (likely so the 51's can add some depth) and can't be activated until Wednesday. That means the Jays have a mildly uncomfortable choice - either bring him to the majors immediately (essentially, because activation Wed. would give them room for one minor league game if they are going to debut him in KC), let him join the team at home (which AA has said he had rather not do), or wait until they travel to Cincinnati June 17. No word yet on how they are leaning obviously. Mike Wilner is saying that you can count on them waiting until Cincinnati. I'm not entirely convinced he won't be activated next Friday.
Beyond that, here's your report. Like last time, I'm gonna give you the top performers among hitters, and among pitchers, so far (cumulatively) . Afterwards I'll make note of those who are disappointing (from the top prospect list)
HITTERS
1. Brett Lawrie - the 21 year old 3B just keeps getting better and better, at least up until that unfortunate pitch. Other than Anthony Rizzo, no one else of a remotely similar age is preforming as well in the PCL. He still leads the league in doubles and total bases, is near the top in homers (despite having missed five straight games) and oh by the way the errors are way down. He's a potential star and he's ready, when the hand heals.
2. Adam Loewen - Talk about a turn-around! Loewen struggled through April and I was beginning to wonder if my faith in him was misplaced, but he's been unstoppable in May. His 1.127 OPS for the month is almost as good as Lawrie's. It's true he's much older, but due to his unique history, he actually has fewer professional at bats than the third baseman. He also played a satisfactory 1B while Cooper was in the majors. I, for one, hope he's on the 25 man roster next year - and I believe he can handle it.
3. Travis d'Arnaud - Here's another guy who's on fire. The 22 year old catcher played 20 games in May after coming back from the DL and hit an astonishing .410 over that period. His OPS over that stretch was 1.221 and he walked more than he struck out. With Brian Jeroloman not setting anything on fire in Vegas, it's not inconceivable d'Arnaud could force his way into a promotion if he keeps this up.
4. Anthony Gose - Gose, like d'Arnaud and Loewen, had a pretty forgettable April but has hit so very well in May that he's made his whole season a success (so far). His OPS for the month is .889 but more importantly for a prospective lead off hitter, he posted a .417 OBP and has supplemented his great bat with great wheels. in 56 games played, he's stolen 27 bases in 32 attempts. That's a pace for 69 on a complete minor league season.
5. David Cooper - Picked up right where he left off before his brief stint in Toronto. Before the call up he hit .395 with a 1.055 OPS, since returning he's hit .397 and the robust OPS over 1.000 is still present. Professional observers insist Cooper's not going to be much of a major leaguer, but it's hard to ignore these numbers. hopefully at some point he helps complete a trade for something good.
6. Mike McDade - like fellow 1B Cooper, McDade gets next to no respect from professional talent evaluators but he just keeps hitting. His OPS of .968 for May has to be respected in a league not known for being a hitter's league. He still has a poor BB:K ratio, but otherwise there's not a lot to criticize.
7. Moises Sierra - Often overlooked in the shadow of Gose and other higher profile OF prospects, Sierra is quietly hitting his way into the conversation. The cannon-armed RF has a .901 OPS in May and, other than a poor SB ratio, is doing pretty much everything right (as much as one can say that based on stats alone of course). I'd be interested in knowing what the front office thinks of Sierra.
8. Justin Jackson - the one-time SS of the future followed up an impressive April with an even better May. his .922 OPS for the month, fueled by a great walk rate, is especially impressive for the FSL. If you were going to complain, you might want a guy with his skill set to successfully steal a bit more.
9. AJ Jimenez – Missed a big chunk of May to the DL but he's picked right up where he left off in the half-dozen games since he returned. For a 21 year old catcher in the FSL, it's hard to find fault with his season so far.
10. Marcus Knecht – The 20 year old Canadian outfielder was down a bit in May from his steller April , but an .880 OPS is by no means a disappointment. Unlike his teammates in the Lansing OF, Knecht is a hit-first prospect, but he seems to be quite good at it.
11. Jake Marisnick – Another player fresh off the DL, Marisnick regressed somewhat in May (before the injury) but his overall stats are still quite good. He seems to be back in the grove (albeit in a TINY sample) since his return. Hopefully he'll carry that throughout June.
12. Michael Crouse – The impressive physical specimen (he's been said to resemble Dave Winfield physically) was more low-average/big power in April and much the reverse in May. His OPS is down, though still quite good, and his strikeout rate was way up in may. The team will be looking for him to correct that as he tries to get back to the groove he'd been in.
13. Brad Glenn – the outfielder is admittedly old for the level, but he's leading the league in homers and that deserves some respect. Here's a guy who probably needs, more than anyone else on this list, to be promoted at some point to try his hand with players closer to his age.
PITCHERS
1. Nestor Molina – This kid has been virtually unstoppable. On the season he has an incredible 70:7 K:BB ratio in just under 59 IP. In May he walked 2 batters while striking out 43. on the season, opposing batters are hitting .233 of him.
2. Henderson Alvarez – the sample size is small (4 starts) but for a 21 year old pitcher who's having his first look at AA, you have to like the results. Coming into today he'd went 6 innings in each of three games and allowed one earned run in each, while accumulating a K:BB ratio of 13:4 and giving up no homers. He got knocked around a bit today but Ill take that for a blip. Also, there have been reports of his fastball velocity reaching the upper 90's.
3. Joel Carreno – lightly regarded in most circles as a prospect, particularly in terms of remaining a starter in the big leagues, Carreno nevertheless is doing all he can to turn heads. After an ugly April, Carreno turned the page and reeled off five impressive starts in May, holding opposing batters to a miniscule .082 BA. And giving up only 8 hits in 31.2 IP. So why isn't he topping the list? A little matter of 21 walks in the month is all. If Carreno figures out how to stay in the strike zone, his profile goes way up.
4. Deck McGuire – hitters have managed only .230 off the 2010 first rounder on the season so far, resulting in a 3.24 ERA for McGuire. In may his ERA for the month was 1.88 and hitters managed only .203 against him. It's hard to complain about such results for a first pro-season.
5. Chad Jenkins – like his fellow first rounder, Jenkins too improved in may over his good-ut-not-great April. Reportedly a ground-ball machine, Jenkins is not striking out hitters at an impressive rate, but otherwise he's done all you could ask. Given his partial-season at Dunedin last year, don't be surprised if he's moved up to AA around the mid-season mark.
6. Brad Mills – the Rodney Dangerfield of the Blue Jays system continues to roll along seemingly unnoticed. He was notably less effective in May than in April but that has more to do with how VERY good April was. One thing that demands your attention – he walked six against 35 K's in 39.2 May IP.
7. Sean Nolin – the 2010 sixth rounder has mostly justified his elevation to the Lansing rotation, though he was knocked around his last two starts. The sample size on the 20 year old lefty is a bit small yet but he's worth watching.
Trending down
Perhaps the biggest disappointment so far in terms of magnitude if not lost status is CF Darin Mastroianni. Mastro was always a fringe prospect anyway, you never say him on the “expert” lists. But he was the classic dirtbag sort that fans love to root for. In 2011, after a mediocre 22 games in AA, roster crowding provoked by the arrival of Travis Snider pushed him back to AA and he didn't handle it well, hitting only .202 in May. A prospect on the fringes can't afford to have months like that; Sean Ochinko, winner of the Webster award each of the last two seasons, has struggled all season; Gus Pierre is having a devil of a time on both sides of the game, posting a .512 OPS so far and an astonishing 31 errors.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
YES! and NONONO!!!
It's been a decidedly wild 12 hours or so and not always in a good way. Alex Anthopoulos spoke to the press today and we heard things we liked:
1. Adam Lind is targeting a return on Saturday (Yay!);
2. Dustin McGowan's rehab is going so well (he's hitting 95 and feeling no unusual pains) they are rethinking the "settle for relieving" conclusion and they will begin to move him towards returning as a starter. He'll begin a re-hab assignment (that can't last more than 30 days) on June 21 (YAY!!);
3. Brett lawrie has pretty much forced their hand and now it's just a matter of "making a decision (probably who loses their roster spot) - then he told Mike Wilner that he had a personal philosophy of debuting highly touted rookies on the road laughing "You can probably read between the lines" which Mike did to assume that Lawrie would debut Friday night in Baltimore (YAAAAAYYY!!!!)
But WAIT, there's MORE!
Lawrie was hit on the top of the left hand by a pitch in the first inning of tonight's game in Las Vegas and is, as I type, waiting to get precautionary x-rays!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We're all too aware of the dangers of hand injuries, all of JaysNation (including the atheists) are on bended knee at this moment in supplication he does NOT have a broken bone. This is SO not how this night was supposed to go . . .
In theory, Lind will bump Thames (simply as a function of playing time for the kid) and Lawrie would presumably push a reliever (likely Perez) out of the bullpen. Johnny Mac would then bump McCoy when he comes back middle of the month unless something changes. Of course now that's potentially up in the air so let's talk about something else.
The Jays have completed 1/3 of the season (which is what tonight's post was supposed to have been about before Alex spoke up. It's time for a look back to see how things are going and, frankly, the results are maddeningly indeterminate.
The team is, was before tonight's game I should say - all this refers to the first 54 games - 2 games over .500, on a pace for 84 wins (strikingly close to last year's results) and in that regard, doing quite well given the problems which we can note. IF (and it's a major "if") they gain the benefit they should be correcting the fixable problems, they should be quite interesting down the stretch. let's review:
Catcher - JP Arencibia has been all that and a bag of chips in the early going. Those who doubted how his offensive game would translate to the majors coming from the PCL are silenced, those who argued last summer that his defense was lacking, that Cito found him wanting or the pitchers didn't like throwing to him or whatever have been repudiated. All reports indicate everyone is very pleased with his work as a catcher, and the results at the plate are self evident. At this pace, he'll have the best year ever by ANY Blue Jay catcher. He's leading all major league rookies in OPS by a respectable margin. He's also bearing down on the Yankee's Russel Martin for second place among AL catchers. There's no reason in my mind why he cannot continue at this pace or maybe even a tic better.
Shockingly, Jose Molina is having a very good year with the bat as well. I have no explanation for this and assume it will stop happening at any moment.
First Base - It's remarkable that Adam Lind has appeared in little more than half of the games in our sample. But in that half he was a fine hitter - he's still second on the team in RBI! In fact, if you take away one horrendous 7 game slump, the rest of his work ranks with the best hitters in the AL not named Bautista. but of course, that's only 25 games. In any case, if Lind had hit over 54 games at the same rate as he hit in those 32, he'd be 4th in the AL in homers and first in RBI. In his absence
Juan Rivera has stepped into the 1B role and demonstrated his usefulness by playing perfectly acceptable 1B defense (as did Lind). He's also managed to generate the illusion that playing 1B has revived his bat. This, however, is not exactly true. On the season Rivera's OPS is .680, and since Lind sat down it's merely .710. In point of fact, in the 15 games BEFORE Lind was hurt, Rivera's OPS was .876. While I'm glad he shook off the early season disaster, he's still a stopgap. when Lind returns he will still get some 1B ABs and between the two of them they will soak up the DH at bats. But I expect in the back of their mind the team would still rather have Thames up. The problem is Rivera is the only other 1B on the team and that gives him some security.
2B - Aaron Hill. Whither Aaron Hill? The one time Golden Boy is fast falling out of favor with a lot of Jays fans. After his abysmal 2010, he's under a ton of scrutiny and there are 31 flavors of analysis concerning what's wrong with him. But if you look closely at this current season, his stat line is sent from mediocre to absysmal by the awful two week slump which opened the season. He's ben decent since mid-April (albeit he had a mini-slump recently). I don't think he's done, he's probably going to be at least a .750ish hitter at least from here on out.
SS - Yunel Escobar is quietly playing like a superstar player right now. Since Lind has been out, Esco has been by far the second best player on the team and as good as any hitter in the league (NNB) From May 8 to May 30 his OPS was .998 (and he had another great night tonight). Can he continue at that level? It's POSSIBLE but I certainly can't predict that because it's just too much. He was over .900 in the first two weeks then slumped HARD for two weeks. But he's apparently got something figured out and is on his way to a career year. If he maintains anything like the current pace he'll be called the obvious best SS in the AL by the end of the year.
3B - Wasteland. I'm not going to waste a paragraph detailing who's been here and how they have sucked. Just remember that Brett Lawrie could come up and utterly disappoint and still have a shot at being better than what the Jays have gotten from 3B this year. I don't think he'll disappoint. And coming over the transom as I write: JUST A BRUISE!!! Happy dance!!!!
RF - Bautista. do I really have to explain? Ok, he's on a pace to hit 67 homers, howzat?
CF - Raji Davis is not as bad as you think. He's played fine speedy defense, and he's hit perfectly well since coming off the DL. I'm often accused of arbitrary end points which I don't deny, but I think an end point that correlates a baseball event (such as coming off the DL) are instructive. In that time, Davis has the following slash lines: .312/.359/.422/.781 - I'm reasonably confident he can do that the rest of the year.
LF - Right now it's the Corey Patterson Show. Caution: do NOT get too excited about Patterson (I'm looking at you John Farrell). What he's doing now is pretty good but it's right in line with the better years of his career and there are hints that he's a the peak of the curve and is a big candidate for regression. I will note in fairness that his OPS is .860 over the last 34 games of our sample. Eventually, this is Travis Snider or Eric Thames. Hopefully when Patterson turns back into a pumpkin, Farrell is not too slow to pull the trigger.
DH - for now that's going to be whoever's not playing first most every game.
On the whole, I see potential for this offense, which as also very close to being league leading - to get even better.
The bullpen, despite the occasional frustrating save situation, has been one of the best in the league and will continue to be. Really no reason for extensive analysis.
The rotation has not been as good as it could be, but it's a testament to the promise to come that they can be a lot better. Ricky Romero has stepped up to legitimate #1, Brandon Morrow pitched well (up until tonight which we are ignoring) with only one completely insane inning making the results look worse than they should. Kyle Drabek has unexpected control issues, but he's usually barely missing and that should refine over time. If it does he stands to be scary-good. Jo-Jo Reyes as the #4 is slowly giving his critics more and more pause, other than a somewhat elevated WHIP he's got a perfectly respectable stat line for a #4 starter. The #5 is a point of interest - how long can Villianueva hold up? How serious is Listch's injury? How long will it take Cecil to get right? Can McGowan make it all the way back? Ideally, in my dreams, McGowan takes this up and runs with it in late July but there is SO many ways that can go wrong between now and then.
I have to admit, If I'm going to be objective AT ALL, that there's potential for regression in those last two spots, but there's potential for progress in the 2/3 spots too. Based on performance so far, the team is just about where it ought to be, but consider:
(paraphrasing Mike Wilner)
If you'd been told on March 1 that on June 1, the following would have happened in the first third of the season:
Brett Cecil pitched his way to Vegas;
Jesse Litsch was on the DL with shoulder woes;
Jo-Jo Reyes was still in the rotation;
Brandon Morrow missed his first 4 starts;
Carlos Villianueva had to be pressed into service as a starter;
There was no clear closer;
Adam Lind had missed over 20 games to injury;
Aaron Hill was still struggling;
EE was on a pace for 90 errors;
Jason Nix was your best 3B;
Raji Davis was hitting 8th, and had also spent most of April o nthe DL;
Corey Patterson was your third best hitter on the team and a regular starter;
Travis Snider had played his way to Vegas;
Would there have been ANY illusion in your mind that the team would be over .500 after all that? As always, I'm optimistic.
1. Adam Lind is targeting a return on Saturday (Yay!);
2. Dustin McGowan's rehab is going so well (he's hitting 95 and feeling no unusual pains) they are rethinking the "settle for relieving" conclusion and they will begin to move him towards returning as a starter. He'll begin a re-hab assignment (that can't last more than 30 days) on June 21 (YAY!!);
3. Brett lawrie has pretty much forced their hand and now it's just a matter of "making a decision (probably who loses their roster spot) - then he told Mike Wilner that he had a personal philosophy of debuting highly touted rookies on the road laughing "You can probably read between the lines" which Mike did to assume that Lawrie would debut Friday night in Baltimore (YAAAAAYYY!!!!)
But WAIT, there's MORE!
Lawrie was hit on the top of the left hand by a pitch in the first inning of tonight's game in Las Vegas and is, as I type, waiting to get precautionary x-rays!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We're all too aware of the dangers of hand injuries, all of JaysNation (including the atheists) are on bended knee at this moment in supplication he does NOT have a broken bone. This is SO not how this night was supposed to go . . .
In theory, Lind will bump Thames (simply as a function of playing time for the kid) and Lawrie would presumably push a reliever (likely Perez) out of the bullpen. Johnny Mac would then bump McCoy when he comes back middle of the month unless something changes. Of course now that's potentially up in the air so let's talk about something else.
The Jays have completed 1/3 of the season (which is what tonight's post was supposed to have been about before Alex spoke up. It's time for a look back to see how things are going and, frankly, the results are maddeningly indeterminate.
The team is, was before tonight's game I should say - all this refers to the first 54 games - 2 games over .500, on a pace for 84 wins (strikingly close to last year's results) and in that regard, doing quite well given the problems which we can note. IF (and it's a major "if") they gain the benefit they should be correcting the fixable problems, they should be quite interesting down the stretch. let's review:
Catcher - JP Arencibia has been all that and a bag of chips in the early going. Those who doubted how his offensive game would translate to the majors coming from the PCL are silenced, those who argued last summer that his defense was lacking, that Cito found him wanting or the pitchers didn't like throwing to him or whatever have been repudiated. All reports indicate everyone is very pleased with his work as a catcher, and the results at the plate are self evident. At this pace, he'll have the best year ever by ANY Blue Jay catcher. He's leading all major league rookies in OPS by a respectable margin. He's also bearing down on the Yankee's Russel Martin for second place among AL catchers. There's no reason in my mind why he cannot continue at this pace or maybe even a tic better.
Shockingly, Jose Molina is having a very good year with the bat as well. I have no explanation for this and assume it will stop happening at any moment.
First Base - It's remarkable that Adam Lind has appeared in little more than half of the games in our sample. But in that half he was a fine hitter - he's still second on the team in RBI! In fact, if you take away one horrendous 7 game slump, the rest of his work ranks with the best hitters in the AL not named Bautista. but of course, that's only 25 games. In any case, if Lind had hit over 54 games at the same rate as he hit in those 32, he'd be 4th in the AL in homers and first in RBI. In his absence
Juan Rivera has stepped into the 1B role and demonstrated his usefulness by playing perfectly acceptable 1B defense (as did Lind). He's also managed to generate the illusion that playing 1B has revived his bat. This, however, is not exactly true. On the season Rivera's OPS is .680, and since Lind sat down it's merely .710. In point of fact, in the 15 games BEFORE Lind was hurt, Rivera's OPS was .876. While I'm glad he shook off the early season disaster, he's still a stopgap. when Lind returns he will still get some 1B ABs and between the two of them they will soak up the DH at bats. But I expect in the back of their mind the team would still rather have Thames up. The problem is Rivera is the only other 1B on the team and that gives him some security.
2B - Aaron Hill. Whither Aaron Hill? The one time Golden Boy is fast falling out of favor with a lot of Jays fans. After his abysmal 2010, he's under a ton of scrutiny and there are 31 flavors of analysis concerning what's wrong with him. But if you look closely at this current season, his stat line is sent from mediocre to absysmal by the awful two week slump which opened the season. He's ben decent since mid-April (albeit he had a mini-slump recently). I don't think he's done, he's probably going to be at least a .750ish hitter at least from here on out.
SS - Yunel Escobar is quietly playing like a superstar player right now. Since Lind has been out, Esco has been by far the second best player on the team and as good as any hitter in the league (NNB) From May 8 to May 30 his OPS was .998 (and he had another great night tonight). Can he continue at that level? It's POSSIBLE but I certainly can't predict that because it's just too much. He was over .900 in the first two weeks then slumped HARD for two weeks. But he's apparently got something figured out and is on his way to a career year. If he maintains anything like the current pace he'll be called the obvious best SS in the AL by the end of the year.
3B - Wasteland. I'm not going to waste a paragraph detailing who's been here and how they have sucked. Just remember that Brett Lawrie could come up and utterly disappoint and still have a shot at being better than what the Jays have gotten from 3B this year. I don't think he'll disappoint. And coming over the transom as I write: JUST A BRUISE!!! Happy dance!!!!
RF - Bautista. do I really have to explain? Ok, he's on a pace to hit 67 homers, howzat?
CF - Raji Davis is not as bad as you think. He's played fine speedy defense, and he's hit perfectly well since coming off the DL. I'm often accused of arbitrary end points which I don't deny, but I think an end point that correlates a baseball event (such as coming off the DL) are instructive. In that time, Davis has the following slash lines: .312/.359/.422/.781 - I'm reasonably confident he can do that the rest of the year.
LF - Right now it's the Corey Patterson Show. Caution: do NOT get too excited about Patterson (I'm looking at you John Farrell). What he's doing now is pretty good but it's right in line with the better years of his career and there are hints that he's a the peak of the curve and is a big candidate for regression. I will note in fairness that his OPS is .860 over the last 34 games of our sample. Eventually, this is Travis Snider or Eric Thames. Hopefully when Patterson turns back into a pumpkin, Farrell is not too slow to pull the trigger.
DH - for now that's going to be whoever's not playing first most every game.
On the whole, I see potential for this offense, which as also very close to being league leading - to get even better.
The bullpen, despite the occasional frustrating save situation, has been one of the best in the league and will continue to be. Really no reason for extensive analysis.
The rotation has not been as good as it could be, but it's a testament to the promise to come that they can be a lot better. Ricky Romero has stepped up to legitimate #1, Brandon Morrow pitched well (up until tonight which we are ignoring) with only one completely insane inning making the results look worse than they should. Kyle Drabek has unexpected control issues, but he's usually barely missing and that should refine over time. If it does he stands to be scary-good. Jo-Jo Reyes as the #4 is slowly giving his critics more and more pause, other than a somewhat elevated WHIP he's got a perfectly respectable stat line for a #4 starter. The #5 is a point of interest - how long can Villianueva hold up? How serious is Listch's injury? How long will it take Cecil to get right? Can McGowan make it all the way back? Ideally, in my dreams, McGowan takes this up and runs with it in late July but there is SO many ways that can go wrong between now and then.
I have to admit, If I'm going to be objective AT ALL, that there's potential for regression in those last two spots, but there's potential for progress in the 2/3 spots too. Based on performance so far, the team is just about where it ought to be, but consider:
(paraphrasing Mike Wilner)
If you'd been told on March 1 that on June 1, the following would have happened in the first third of the season:
Brett Cecil pitched his way to Vegas;
Jesse Litsch was on the DL with shoulder woes;
Jo-Jo Reyes was still in the rotation;
Brandon Morrow missed his first 4 starts;
Carlos Villianueva had to be pressed into service as a starter;
There was no clear closer;
Adam Lind had missed over 20 games to injury;
Aaron Hill was still struggling;
EE was on a pace for 90 errors;
Jason Nix was your best 3B;
Raji Davis was hitting 8th, and had also spent most of April o nthe DL;
Corey Patterson was your third best hitter on the team and a regular starter;
Travis Snider had played his way to Vegas;
Would there have been ANY illusion in your mind that the team would be over .500 after all that? As always, I'm optimistic.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
The Shape of Things to Come
It's still over a week before my periodic Minor League review, but a post at the Tao of Stieb rekindles in my mind some speculation that i often consider, which is what exactly does come next for the building program?
Several times a week I see a poster somewhere on line either grumble that the Blue Jays have yet to spend money, or express their impatience for the money the Jays will spend soon, if not both. The prevailing assumption is and has been that the team will in the middle term open the checkbook and augment what we have her for a run. The thing is, in my view, that might not be what should happen.
Let's walk it through.
At catcher, JP Arencibia has established himself as the best rookie hitter in the AL during the early going (though Hosmer will likely blow by him). At AA, Travis d'Arnaud, who was more highly regarded than JPA before the season despite not hitting like an All-Star to that point, is tearing the cover off the ball and leading the Eastern League in OPS (though he's a few AB short of qualifying for the list). AJ Jimenez his a .911 OPS in the FSL which is almost unheard of for a catcher in that pitcher's league. And Carlos Perez in his first full season at Lansing is considered by some to have the highest ceiling of all of them. There's little logic in assuming any significant money will be spent on an import catcher.
At first base Adam Lind was proving himself defensively and hitting very well (outside of one brief slump he hit as well as any player not named Bautista around). Behind him are David Cooper and Mike McDade and Adam Loewen can play 1B too (more on him later). While the depth here is not as impressive, Lind is good enough that it doesn't make sense to go out and buy an upgrade unless it's Pujols. And even then (despite my off-season discussion) Lind may have recovered enough to make a deal like Pujols will require a bad investment.
At third base, Brett Lawrie will get every chance to succeed. Even if he struggles, we're going to see him have dibs on the spot for a couple of years or more after he comes up.
At short, the Jays have a contender for the title "best in the league" - he slumped for just over two weeks, but outside that slump he's sporting a .938 OPS, it's .945 over the last 19 games. He's a potential All Star and Gold Glover (yea, I know). Want to see the Jays spend? Don't be surprised if Yunel Escobar is a pretty wealthy guy in the near future.
RF? Yeah. Next 4-5 years spoken for. Some dude named Bautista. Maybe you've heard of him?
CF? for another year and a half, maybe two, we'll have to put up with a stopgap. Assuming no one loses their mind and puts a Colby Ramus on the market, it's almost a given the Jays will bide their time until Anthony Gose takes his crack at the job in (probably) 2013. On his heals, no more than a year and a half behind, is the possibly equally talented Jake Marisnick. There's very little chance the Jays will block these guys. There is, as far as I can tell, one realistic potential exception to this: Matt Kemp. If the Dodgers have a fire sale, I could see AA looking into a deal for Kemp. but whether or not they will meet the price to keep him past 2012 is a different matter.
LF is a position at issue potentially between long-awaited brilliance from Travis Snider, or unexpected (by many) impressiveness from Eric Thames. The jays are not going to be anxious to block either man - it will be hard enough figuring out how to get both enough AB if neither fails.
If both do fail, there's the dark horse: Adam Loewen. "What?" you say. "The 27 year old pipe-dream lingering in Las Vegas? Actually that would be one of the best hitter in the PCL in May.
Here's something you probably don't know about Loewen: David Cooper, who's 24, has 1,368 professional AB; Brett Lawrie, who's 21, has 1,186 professional AB; Loewen, despite being 27 - has 960. Remember when JP told us we'd need about 1,000 at bats to really know what Loewen could do?
Further down the chain, there's Moises Sierra a couple of years away, and Michael Crouse and Marcus Kencht along with Marisnick if Gose lives up to his billing. It's true the latter three are 2-3 years away, but it would take the Jays at least another year and a half to sort out the Snider/Thames business and as far as we know now, they fully believe Snider will still be a monster.
That leaves second base. now it's true that the Jury is still out on Aaron Hill (albeit, he's been a perfectly reasonable middle of the pack 2B since mid-April) and it's not unreasonable that the Jays might decline to lock him in at $8 mil a year after the season. BUT, when you speculate about the Jays ponying up a bunch of money on the team, 2B is not a premium place to do that. consider the list of the very best high-dollar 2B available:
(ranked by current OPS)
1. Howie Kendrick - Angels have the need, and the money. why would he go anywhere?
2. Rickie Weeks - signed through 2015
3. Robinson Cano - outbid the Yanks for one of their own?
4. Ben Zobrist - signed through 2015 (if you include options) and invaluable to the Rays.
5. Brandon Phillips - has a 2012 option that will surely be exercised. Might be available after 2012 to highest bidder. But he's had one year where he finished with an OPS over .776 - is this your difference maker?
6. Maicer Izturus - More a utility guy - has never broken .800 in his career.
7. Adam Kennedy - old cheap retread - not your big money target.
8. Ian Kinsler - not available.
9. Freddie Sanchez - just got extended, not available (and not that much better than Hill in the most generous estimation).
10. I'll throw in Chase Utley because he's just that good - but you ain't getting him either.
It goes on and on. the point is there is no available guy to throw money at for 2B who will be a significant upgrade on Hill, even if Hill is nothing but a .750ish hitter.
Oh, and I didn't mention DH. laying aside that the DH would be valuable for relieving the crowing in the OF, you could in theory throw a bunch of money at a big name DH, right? Well, you could use Thome there this year but he's not going to be around in a couple of years. But there are options. Would Berkman agree to DH? (Is he even for real this year? I've always been a fan but it's a risk); Hafner finally seems to be back - if you want to risk his health; Would Fielder DH? Can Ortiz hold up? Carlos Quintin will be a FA after 2012. There's a lot of question marks but I concede they might be willing to put some money into a DH who could be reliable over the next few years.
But you get the general idea.
On the pitching side, you are almost certainly not going to see a "savior" for the bullpen ala BJ Ryan. The kind of money being invested in Rauch and Francisco are what you expect a sane team to do in the bullpen.
With the rotation, you have two guys with mortal locks on a spot (if healthy) and a third who'd apparently got a real firm grip that immunizes him from expensive imports. you have to assume the fifth spot at least is the "audition" role. Beyond the Reyes experiment you have, in order of seniority more or less, a long train of candidates:
Mills
Stewart
Alvarez
Jenkins
McGuire
All guys who can train through that spot until someone sticks over the next couple of years. All guys who would be at least partially blocked by a big acquisition.
And the unmentioned spot is where you work out the success or failure of Brett Cecil and jesse Litsch over the next year or two (and by 2013 the wave of approaching prospects will demand room to work.
It's not impossible the Blue Jays would do something like try to pry Josh Johnson out of Florida (which would cost them not a few of those approaching prospects) but free agency? Maybe it's just me but I for one would much rather see what Henderson Alvarez can do for us than import some mid-level guy. If they happen to have the chance to go after, say, Matt Cain, they might. But the problem is for premium free agent starters - the Cole Hamels and Zach Grienkie's of the world - you have to pay a lot of money per year over a lot of years. the Jays can afford to, but the risk of depreciation is quite large.
All that to say this: the coming dynasty may very well be mostly stocked with guys already in the system. Between like of opportunity and lack of need, I don't expct a ton of FA spending and when the payroll does rise, it will be because we are paying out own guys to stay for the ride, like the Yankees did with Jeter, Rivera, et al. and frankly, I much prefer the idea. the thought that the jays might go deep into the playoofs in, say, 2014, with the following team makes me positively giddy:
Gose - CF
Escobar - SS
Lawrie - 3B
Bautista - RF
Snider - LF
Arencibia - DH
Lind - 1B
d'Arnaud - C
Hill - 2B
Bench: Jeroloman (allows JPA to alternate C/DH with d'Arnaud) Jackson (ss/2B/3B/CF) Loewen (corner OF) and heck, Johnny mac doing his best Vizquel "play forever" routine.
SP - Morrow, Romero, Drabek, Cecil, Alvarez
BP - Stewart, Zep, Janssen, Farina, Farquhar, Villianueva and maybe Mills or Carreno
I had MUCH rather succeed with that team than have it littered with overpaid JD Drew type imports. of course, I'm presuming that team would succeed and prospects will break your heart. But still, count me out of the "when are we gonna back up the armored car" conversation*.
*Except that I'm sure I'll have MUCH ore to say about Matt Kemp over the next couple of months.
Several times a week I see a poster somewhere on line either grumble that the Blue Jays have yet to spend money, or express their impatience for the money the Jays will spend soon, if not both. The prevailing assumption is and has been that the team will in the middle term open the checkbook and augment what we have her for a run. The thing is, in my view, that might not be what should happen.
Let's walk it through.
At catcher, JP Arencibia has established himself as the best rookie hitter in the AL during the early going (though Hosmer will likely blow by him). At AA, Travis d'Arnaud, who was more highly regarded than JPA before the season despite not hitting like an All-Star to that point, is tearing the cover off the ball and leading the Eastern League in OPS (though he's a few AB short of qualifying for the list). AJ Jimenez his a .911 OPS in the FSL which is almost unheard of for a catcher in that pitcher's league. And Carlos Perez in his first full season at Lansing is considered by some to have the highest ceiling of all of them. There's little logic in assuming any significant money will be spent on an import catcher.
At first base Adam Lind was proving himself defensively and hitting very well (outside of one brief slump he hit as well as any player not named Bautista around). Behind him are David Cooper and Mike McDade and Adam Loewen can play 1B too (more on him later). While the depth here is not as impressive, Lind is good enough that it doesn't make sense to go out and buy an upgrade unless it's Pujols. And even then (despite my off-season discussion) Lind may have recovered enough to make a deal like Pujols will require a bad investment.
At third base, Brett Lawrie will get every chance to succeed. Even if he struggles, we're going to see him have dibs on the spot for a couple of years or more after he comes up.
At short, the Jays have a contender for the title "best in the league" - he slumped for just over two weeks, but outside that slump he's sporting a .938 OPS, it's .945 over the last 19 games. He's a potential All Star and Gold Glover (yea, I know). Want to see the Jays spend? Don't be surprised if Yunel Escobar is a pretty wealthy guy in the near future.
RF? Yeah. Next 4-5 years spoken for. Some dude named Bautista. Maybe you've heard of him?
CF? for another year and a half, maybe two, we'll have to put up with a stopgap. Assuming no one loses their mind and puts a Colby Ramus on the market, it's almost a given the Jays will bide their time until Anthony Gose takes his crack at the job in (probably) 2013. On his heals, no more than a year and a half behind, is the possibly equally talented Jake Marisnick. There's very little chance the Jays will block these guys. There is, as far as I can tell, one realistic potential exception to this: Matt Kemp. If the Dodgers have a fire sale, I could see AA looking into a deal for Kemp. but whether or not they will meet the price to keep him past 2012 is a different matter.
LF is a position at issue potentially between long-awaited brilliance from Travis Snider, or unexpected (by many) impressiveness from Eric Thames. The jays are not going to be anxious to block either man - it will be hard enough figuring out how to get both enough AB if neither fails.
If both do fail, there's the dark horse: Adam Loewen. "What?" you say. "The 27 year old pipe-dream lingering in Las Vegas? Actually that would be one of the best hitter in the PCL in May.
Here's something you probably don't know about Loewen: David Cooper, who's 24, has 1,368 professional AB; Brett Lawrie, who's 21, has 1,186 professional AB; Loewen, despite being 27 - has 960. Remember when JP told us we'd need about 1,000 at bats to really know what Loewen could do?
Further down the chain, there's Moises Sierra a couple of years away, and Michael Crouse and Marcus Kencht along with Marisnick if Gose lives up to his billing. It's true the latter three are 2-3 years away, but it would take the Jays at least another year and a half to sort out the Snider/Thames business and as far as we know now, they fully believe Snider will still be a monster.
That leaves second base. now it's true that the Jury is still out on Aaron Hill (albeit, he's been a perfectly reasonable middle of the pack 2B since mid-April) and it's not unreasonable that the Jays might decline to lock him in at $8 mil a year after the season. BUT, when you speculate about the Jays ponying up a bunch of money on the team, 2B is not a premium place to do that. consider the list of the very best high-dollar 2B available:
(ranked by current OPS)
1. Howie Kendrick - Angels have the need, and the money. why would he go anywhere?
2. Rickie Weeks - signed through 2015
3. Robinson Cano - outbid the Yanks for one of their own?
4. Ben Zobrist - signed through 2015 (if you include options) and invaluable to the Rays.
5. Brandon Phillips - has a 2012 option that will surely be exercised. Might be available after 2012 to highest bidder. But he's had one year where he finished with an OPS over .776 - is this your difference maker?
6. Maicer Izturus - More a utility guy - has never broken .800 in his career.
7. Adam Kennedy - old cheap retread - not your big money target.
8. Ian Kinsler - not available.
9. Freddie Sanchez - just got extended, not available (and not that much better than Hill in the most generous estimation).
10. I'll throw in Chase Utley because he's just that good - but you ain't getting him either.
It goes on and on. the point is there is no available guy to throw money at for 2B who will be a significant upgrade on Hill, even if Hill is nothing but a .750ish hitter.
Oh, and I didn't mention DH. laying aside that the DH would be valuable for relieving the crowing in the OF, you could in theory throw a bunch of money at a big name DH, right? Well, you could use Thome there this year but he's not going to be around in a couple of years. But there are options. Would Berkman agree to DH? (Is he even for real this year? I've always been a fan but it's a risk); Hafner finally seems to be back - if you want to risk his health; Would Fielder DH? Can Ortiz hold up? Carlos Quintin will be a FA after 2012. There's a lot of question marks but I concede they might be willing to put some money into a DH who could be reliable over the next few years.
But you get the general idea.
On the pitching side, you are almost certainly not going to see a "savior" for the bullpen ala BJ Ryan. The kind of money being invested in Rauch and Francisco are what you expect a sane team to do in the bullpen.
With the rotation, you have two guys with mortal locks on a spot (if healthy) and a third who'd apparently got a real firm grip that immunizes him from expensive imports. you have to assume the fifth spot at least is the "audition" role. Beyond the Reyes experiment you have, in order of seniority more or less, a long train of candidates:
Mills
Stewart
Alvarez
Jenkins
McGuire
All guys who can train through that spot until someone sticks over the next couple of years. All guys who would be at least partially blocked by a big acquisition.
And the unmentioned spot is where you work out the success or failure of Brett Cecil and jesse Litsch over the next year or two (and by 2013 the wave of approaching prospects will demand room to work.
It's not impossible the Blue Jays would do something like try to pry Josh Johnson out of Florida (which would cost them not a few of those approaching prospects) but free agency? Maybe it's just me but I for one would much rather see what Henderson Alvarez can do for us than import some mid-level guy. If they happen to have the chance to go after, say, Matt Cain, they might. But the problem is for premium free agent starters - the Cole Hamels and Zach Grienkie's of the world - you have to pay a lot of money per year over a lot of years. the Jays can afford to, but the risk of depreciation is quite large.
All that to say this: the coming dynasty may very well be mostly stocked with guys already in the system. Between like of opportunity and lack of need, I don't expct a ton of FA spending and when the payroll does rise, it will be because we are paying out own guys to stay for the ride, like the Yankees did with Jeter, Rivera, et al. and frankly, I much prefer the idea. the thought that the jays might go deep into the playoofs in, say, 2014, with the following team makes me positively giddy:
Gose - CF
Escobar - SS
Lawrie - 3B
Bautista - RF
Snider - LF
Arencibia - DH
Lind - 1B
d'Arnaud - C
Hill - 2B
Bench: Jeroloman (allows JPA to alternate C/DH with d'Arnaud) Jackson (ss/2B/3B/CF) Loewen (corner OF) and heck, Johnny mac doing his best Vizquel "play forever" routine.
SP - Morrow, Romero, Drabek, Cecil, Alvarez
BP - Stewart, Zep, Janssen, Farina, Farquhar, Villianueva and maybe Mills or Carreno
I had MUCH rather succeed with that team than have it littered with overpaid JD Drew type imports. of course, I'm presuming that team would succeed and prospects will break your heart. But still, count me out of the "when are we gonna back up the armored car" conversation*.
*Except that I'm sure I'll have MUCH ore to say about Matt Kemp over the next couple of months.
Sunday, 22 May 2011
AAARGH!!!
Have I mentioned how much i LOATH interleague play? I mean, in like, the last five minutes?
'Cause I do. I mean I really really REALLY do.
I know it's sorta irrational. I know it feels just as bad in many ways to lost to Tampa back in the days when they sucked as it does to lose to a sucky NL team. but still what gets me is the consistent history of irrational failure vs National league opponents.
How in the heck am I supposed to feel good about going to NY for three with the Yankees when we dropped 2 of 3 AT HOME against the worst team in the NL? Even though I know the insane part is we're MORE likely to do well against the Yankees than the Astros (for reasons, if any there be, which make no sense at all).
Over the last seven seasons, there's been at least one series in each of those seasons but one, and sometimes two, inter-league series each season that makes you say "what the hell just happened here?!" The overall record really isn't miserable - it's just the "not beating the teams you are supposed to" theme that kills me.
At least four of the remaining five NL opponents are good teams. if we lose to them it will be easier to take. Now watch us get swept by the Pirates.
Some happier notes:
In Toronto -
Josh Hamilton had 6.5 WAR (as per BR) in 133 games last year. Jose Bautista had 4.3 when he got out of bed this morning, in 37.
In Vegas -
Brett Lawrie has adjusted to the pitching that adjusted to him and is now hitting better in May than his incredible April. (never-mind the 4 throwing errors this month).
In New Hampshire -
Travis d'Arnaud is hitting .500 with a 1.340 OPS in 11 games since coming off the DL.
Anthony Gose has an .855 OPS in 22 May games.
In Dunedin -
Justin Jackson is on a 7 game hit streak in which he's hit .452 with a 1.242 OPS - overall he's up to .878 in the OPS column, which puts him around 10th in the FSL - which is really good for Dunedin; BUT
AJ Jimenez is doing even better. He has a .911OPS on the year and his .364 BA leads the league.; BUT
Bradly Glenn is doing EVEN better. He's leading the FSL in homers. Which is near impossible to do playing at Dunedin.
In Lansing -
Marcus Knecht has pumped his season OPS up to .917 though he's striking out a good bit more in May.
So, think on the good things, right? Bring on the Damn Yankees! With a sweep we will pass them in the standings.
Edit: another thought crossed my mind.
Jays 3B in 2011:
.189/.246/.296/.542
Player referenced here:
.303/.410/.424/.834
Not sayin', just sayin'
Friday, 20 May 2011
Some Things Were Meant to Be
Check this out. could it be ANY cooler?Eric Thames - born to be a Blue Jay.
A little content for ya, while I'm here: Henderson Alvarez was promoted to AA New Hampshire today, I'm not sure who comes out of the rotation (logically it would be Lamura) or possibly promoted to Vegas (Gonzalez or Beck have pitched well enough, but Vegas would have to ditch MacDonald or a reliever (Collazo?).
While I'm on the subject of promotions - it's still too early yet for widespread system-wide promotions. You likely won't see that until after the newly drafted players start filtering in for the short-season teams. but being a prospect hound, and impatient, I'm going to ignore that and give you a brief overview of who I'd be looking to promote. Of course, i don't know everything the Jays management does and I'm certain they know what they are doing but, what the heck, we all got uninformed opinions, right? Also, I'm ignoring the possibility the Jays want someone at AA more than AAA (ala Stewart) and thinking traditionally here.
This will not be comprehensive - I'll probably miss something but it's as much of the obvious stuff as I can see:
1. Ditch MacDonald and Collazo at LV, promote Gonzalez and Beck from NH and figure out which starts and which relieves.
2. Clint Everts back to AA for Alan Farina (RHRP). Evan Crawford could use a promotion too, but there's no obvious player to replace. Crawford can assume the closer role in AA for now.
3. Justin Jackson to AA as the full time 2B. While it's good Jackson has the versatility to play the OF, he's not going to beat out Gose and he doesn't have corner power. His future is likely a utility role but his clearest path to exceed that is middle infield. With Adeiny at SS, that means 2B. But he's owning the FSL right now (not easy in that pitcher's league) and it's time to move him up, IMO.
4. Matt Wright (LHRP) from Dunedin to NH.
5. Consider moving up Kevin Ahrens soon. The sample size is small, he was ordinary at best in April and has been on fire the past 20 games or so, but there might be something to be gained from rewarding success after SO much struggle in Dunedin. Plus, Sobolewski is crashing at AA so there's not as much of a road block as normal.
The bigger promotions come later. At some point you might expect Jenkins to move to AA - maybe even McGuire, though there's something to be said for separating their time frames a bit. Brad Glenn is pushing for a move to AA. Later in the summer you might see Sierra in Vegas. Hutchinson might move up to Dunedin when Jenkins/McGuire move. You might see highly regarded Aaron Sanchez take his place if that happens. I hope to see the entirre Lansing starting outfield move up to Dunedin in the second half (assuming Glenn and Jackson have already moved up).
And, naturally, Snider and Lawrie in Toronto!
Speaking of the Jays, they are a game and a half out of a playoff spot. Not sayin', jus' sayin'.
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Awesomeness arrives!
Look at that man. Just LOOK at him.How can you NOT want that man on your team? Seriously, does he not just radiate awesomeness?
I've probably been more excited by Eric Thames than any other Jays writer since he was drafted in 2008. something or other I read at the time just intrigued me and I would say, when people discussed their favorite prospects, how much I believed he'd do big things if he ever got healthy (not that I'm some sort of prophet, I've also been a big dreamer, in the past, that Eric Eiland would get it together at some point to and that went horribly wrong).
Thames - for those of you who haven't been as obsessed with him as I have - only fell to the Jays because an injury during his final college season at Pepperdine (for the second year in a row) caused him to fall all the way to the seventh round (when he'd been discussed as a late first round talent before the injury). He was considered a bargain IF he could stay healthy. which of course did turn out to be a bit of a problem. He missed all of 2008 after signing, the team wanting to be really really recovered. Another, unrelated injury, badly shortened his 2009 season, but when he did play, he played very well, though he didn't display much home run power yet.
After only 59 games as a pro, the Blue Jays started Thames at AA in 2010 and it was there that he fully blossomed, staying healthy for the first time in his career. Playing in 130 games (he'd never topped 60 in a season before) Thames fell JUST short of a .900 OPS and put himself on the map with the rest of the Jays blogosphere.
We tend to think of Thames as behind Snider, and yes, Snider has immense talent and is even now a year younger than Thames. I have lost no affection for Travis Snider. BUT. Even the fast moving Snider has played in 394 minor league games, over 300 of those before his major league debut. Thames has played in 225. If you look at his track record, the man has yet to hit poorly anywhere under any circumstance. His arm isn't great, but otherwise he's a comparable fielder to Snider. Both at least competent. I'm not sure how much I like either player spending a lot of time DHing, but dammit I want both of them in the Blue jays line-up the next few years.
I, for one, am hoping he shows Farrell and Anthopoulos enough over the next week to stay for good. I frankly don't care if the team has to eat whatever minimal value there might be left in Rivera to do so. (Others advocate going back to a seven man 'pen but as long as that means screwing Casey Janssen I'm not in that camp)
No later than August 1 (and hopefully much sooner) I'm counting on both Snider and Thames to be joined by everyone's favorite prospect (including mine) Brett Lawrie. Don't forget the presence of JPA and you have something to be excited about (besides demigod Jose Bautista of course). As much as the stopgap guys are frustrating you right now, imagine this in august:
Davis
Escobar
Bautista
Lind
Arencibia
Snider
Hill
Thames
Lawrie
If someone could just get Hill figured out then that's fun at every single spot. I'd L-O-V-E LOVE it!
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Hey, look over here!
I don't think I've ever done something quite like this but I think this is a worthy moment. Dustin Parkes has an analysis of yesterday's fateful 4th inning over at Getting Blanked that is a near perfect summary of what went wrong and why so many, including myself, were so upset by John Farrell's decision to lift Brandon Morrow from the game.
I could, of course, simply take his information and re-write it in my own words to make the same point, but I don't want to do that. instead I'm going to link the article (which by the way addresses several other points) and quote here the part I consider relevant to this post:
I could, of course, simply take his information and re-write it in my own words to make the same point, but I don't want to do that. instead I'm going to link the article (which by the way addresses several other points) and quote here the part I consider relevant to this post:
Anatomy Of An Inning Gone Wrong
After three innings of shutout baseball in which he struck out five batters, this is how Brandon Morrow’s fourth inning went:
- Strikes out Brennan Boesch with an 88 mph slider in the dirt, but Jose Molina looks completely unprepared for the pitch he presumably called for and it hits the dirt as the catcher stabs at it with his backhand, missing and allowing Boesch to advance to first base. It’s scored a wild pitch.
- Walks Miguel Cabrera on six pitches. Look at where that sixth pitch lands according to Brooks Baseball:
- Gives up a deep fly ball to center field that is hard hit, but playable for a good center fielder. Corey Patterson is not a good center fielder as evidenced by his route to the ball. Victor Martinez comes away with a double and one run knocked in.
- Gives up a line drive to shallow center field off the bat of Don Kelly, scoring Cabrera. Martinez advances to third.
- Collects the first official out of the inning on Jhonny Peralta’s liner right to Yunel Escobar.
- Walks Alex Avila to load the bases on five pitches. He was again squeezed by the home plate umpire. This time on the first pitch of the at bat.
- Is pulled for Shawn Camp who gives up a double to clear the bases.
Morrow was pulled with a fielding independent pitching number of 2.04.
I'm going to leave the pitch charts out of this as added motivation for you to follow the link. So, review this in an alternate reality. Molina catches the "wild pitch" - that's out #1. Get's the call on the strike that should have set Cabrera down - that's out #2. Patterson catches the ball Davis would have caught to retire Molina - out #3.
Through 4 innings, Morrow has allowed one hit, one walk, no runs and struck out 7 - Jays lead 2-0.
these are not obscure fact. they are not the sort of thing that you need post-hob sabermetric calculations to understand. these are things that on-field managers HAVE to know. Take some time for a lingering mound visit after the Martinez double and introduce some calm back into the situation. make sure there's no emotional baggage from what Morrow himself MUST know is a situation not of his making and focus on the upcoming batters.
Easy-squeezy.
Understand, I am NOT a Farrell basher. He has no previous managerial experience and there WILL be rough spots and mistakes and panicky moments (and yes, I think that was nothing but an emotional panicky response yesterday) but the key for a smart man - and he's a smart man -is, no matter how you justify yourself to the media, to look back and say "damn I fucked that up" and learn from it.
All that said, I WILL get on the Farrell bashing bandwagon in one respect - the continued insane usage of Octavio Dotel. (Yes, I've been down this road before)
Dotel entered to start the seventh inning. the first batter was a LH hitter - he walked. The third hitter is a switch hitter who hits left vs Dotel - 2 run homer. The fourth hitter also a lefty, he is hit by a pitch. Sixth batter? lefty - walks. How long must this go on? Dotel now has recorded 26 plate appearances vs. RHP, and 23 vs LHP and the results are overwhelming. When facing RHP his OPS allowed is .397, compared to the insanely astonishing rate of 1.545 against lefty.
It's past time to learn from this mistake. to not do so is indicative of a much deeper and more troubling issue for the team.
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Farm Report: 1/5
So, 1/5 of the minor league season is now in the books, time for ye olde farm report and prospect review! (In anticipation of which I'm sure you have been dying)
In terms of format, what I'm not going to do is run down the BABIP or FIP stats or any of that jazz. IMO it's too small a sample, still, to draw much of an inference from that sort of thing (and I'm too lazy). Here are the top 10 performers overall for the 2011 season in the Blue Jays system. Hitters and pitchers listed separately.
Hitters:
1. Jake Marisnick - the most accomplished hitter in the minor league system so far is obviously Marisnick. While playing an excellent CF for lansing, he's leading the league in RBI and amon the league leaders in slash-line stats, total bases and stolen bases.
2. Brett Lawrie - It's always difficult to know just how much to temper your view of PCL stats, and it is true that Lawrie has a less than impressive K:BB ratio, still lawrie has yet to be caught stealing, he's hitting for good average and power, and other than the recently promoted Eric Hosmer and league-leading Anthony Rizzo, everyone who's hitting better than him is at least 2 years older than he is (of the 22 with better OPS numbers, 15 are 4 year or more older). Defensively, Lawrie made 6 errors, most of them having to do with poor throwing mechanics, by April 19, but only 1 since. The team thinks he can definitely handle the position.
3. Eric Thames - He's shown slightly less power than Lawrie, but has walked three times as often (a team-leading 15 times) which might ultimately be a better sign. On the other hand, he's struck out 22 times in 28 games (second only to Lawrie on the team) and he's over 3 years older than the 3B.
4. A.J. Jimenez - Of all the Jays highly-touted catching prospects, the offensive standout so far has been (somewhat surprisingly) Jimenez. Playing in Dunedin, in the Florida State League wherein breaking an .800 OPS is impressive, Jimenez has an .889 mark. He's shown solid power, a good OPS (albeit it's batting average driven) and still too many strikeouts.
5. Mike McDade - On the eve of his 22nd birthday, Big Mike continues to defy the expectations. Expected to be a slugger who's contact might not be that great, he's riding a hot streak (.405 in his last 10 games) which has pushed his average to .347 and his power has been mostly doubles to this point (though you shouldn't worry about the homers, they will be fine). Like Jimenez and Lawrie, his K:BB ratio is cause for caution however.
6. David Cooper - The (reportedly) low-ceiling 1B picked up this year where he left off in 2010. He's leading the PCL in doubles (despite having spent over a week in the majors) and has fewer strikeouts than anyone within sight of the offensive leader board (he has 7 walks against 6 strikeouts). The "poor man's Overbay" comparisons still apply, but you have to recognize the accomplishments of a man with a 1.055 OPS too.
7. Michael Crouse - much less heralded than his Lansing teammate, the man who patrols to the left of Marisnick is on his heels at the plate in most categories. The biggest difference in the two is BA (where Jake leads .330 to .235). Crouse is also said to be a skilled defender and he's been successful in 14 of 15 steal attempts. While a .235 BA isn't usually praiseworthy, Crouse has turned that into an .848 OPS so clearly he's doing some things right.
8. Justin Jackson - the one time slick Shortstop has, because of various factors, found himself playing all over the field this year, primarily in the outfield and at 2B. Offensively he's hit the stride he'd only shown glimpses of in the past. He strikeout rate is way down, his contact rate is dramatically better, and his slugging is up some though that's mainly driven by the increased contact. On the other hand, he's not running as much so far as he has in the past. Jackson's margin for error is slim though, he doesn't have the power for an outfield corner and there are several other CF options, so he has to take possession of 2B at some point or his ceiling will be in a utility role. Think maybe an Alex Cintron type of player.
9. Moises Sierra - shaking off the rust after having been limited to 20 games last season, Sierra is back to his previous levels, but he still needs to add some standout offensive results to go with his defensive accolades. He's thought to be a tools guy who will "figure it out" at some point, but injuries have slowed that progression.
10. Marcus Kenect - the third member of Lansing's top-notch outfield, Kenect has missed a few games due to injury, and hes 3 for 25 since coming off the DL so one has to wonder if there is a connection.
HM: Shout out to SS Jon Diaz. He's been called "John McDonald 2.0" which means he is a great fielder who can't hit at all. but through the wonders of the PCL he's somehow managed a .841 OPS so far, with more walks that K's. Have to tip my metaphorical cap to that just because it's so unusual for him.
Pitchers:
1. Nestor Molina - The 22 year old Venezuelan RH is in his first year as a starter, having spent the previous three years working out of the bullpen. Molina serves as the perfect illustration of the way in which minor league starters can be prospects while relievers with similar results are viewed with skepticism. At this point Molina has a sterling 1.69 ERA while recording 26 K and only 3 BB in 26.2 innings of work.
2. Brad Mills - whatever anyone might think of Mills' ceiling as a major league pitcher, he certainly has figured out AAA so far. His ERA in six starts is 2.03 and that includes geting spanked hard in one of those. without that bad start his ERA would be 1.03 - and his supporting numbers are excellent as well.
3. Drew Hutchison - His numbers are skewed a bit by the impressive opening day start (7 IP, 1 BB 11 K no runs) but the 20 year old Lansing pitcher is definitely climbing the prospect chart.
4. Chad Jenkins - underestimated, perhaps, in the wake of sharing a rotation with more highly praised Deck McGuire to start the year, Jenkins has been just fine to start the year in Dunedin. His strikeout numbers could be better for a first rounder, but otherwise he's looked really good.
5. Deck McGuire - the difference between these two first ronders is one thing - Jenkins has allowed one homer and McGuire has allowed 4 big flies. Otherwise they are neck and neck.
6. Egan Smith - Hutch's LH Lansing rotation mate has allowed a bit too many hits, and struck out a bit too few to be compared to the more highly regarded Hutchison, but the results have been worthy of praise so far.
7. Zach Stewart - With Drabek in the majors, Stewart is the incumbent top-ranked pitching prospect. He might be gaining a reputation as a slow starter because he had issues last April and this year, while he's been much better than he was a year ago, he's not dominating as one might expect given he's repeating AA (through no fault of his own). He's dominated in 3 of his 6 starts, and escaped another without much damage despite being too hittable. but in his first start and his last, he struggled to resemble his prospect status. i epxct him to heat up with the weather.
8. Asher Wojciechowski - Was pounded in one start, but aces in the other four. Like McGuire, it's his first pro work and it's at Hi-A so some growing pains are to be expected.
9. Rieder Gonzalez - The strikeouts are low (18 in 32 IP) but the walks are even lower (2!!!) and Gonzalez, who sports a 1.38 ERA, is making his case to get back to AAA. Ultimately, the guy is short on talent to be a major league starter, but he might be putting himself back in consideration as a reliever in the majors (though maybe not in Toronto). He's 25 and in AA so that's worth noting, and he's 5'9" so he's never going to get a lot of respect. I consider him a fringe prospect at best.
10. Chad Beck - Beck is not, repeat not a prospect. He's the now 26 year old throw in organizational player the Jays got for David Eckstien. Unless he's learned a new pitch or some such which changed his outlook (about which I've heard nothing) this is a fluke. He's never pitched this well for this long before. Still, in the absence of other prospects lighting it up, you have to give props to a 2.42 ERA and a solidd K:BB ratio in his first 4 AA starts.
Honorable mention: It's simply too early, sample-size wise, for me to be giving props to relievers even well regarded ones, but given I ended the above list with two non-prospects I'll throw an HM to the following: Alan Farina (too many walks); Matt Wright (turns 24 today, has a 22:3 strikeout to walk ratio in Dunedin); Sean Nolin (12:1 in Lansing for the 21 yo 2010 draftee who may yet be starting); Steve Turnbull (good work but 24 in Lo-A so, yeah).
Finally, a nod of respect in the direction of Justin Verlander. Well done sir.
In terms of format, what I'm not going to do is run down the BABIP or FIP stats or any of that jazz. IMO it's too small a sample, still, to draw much of an inference from that sort of thing (and I'm too lazy). Here are the top 10 performers overall for the 2011 season in the Blue Jays system. Hitters and pitchers listed separately.
Hitters:
1. Jake Marisnick - the most accomplished hitter in the minor league system so far is obviously Marisnick. While playing an excellent CF for lansing, he's leading the league in RBI and amon the league leaders in slash-line stats, total bases and stolen bases.
2. Brett Lawrie - It's always difficult to know just how much to temper your view of PCL stats, and it is true that Lawrie has a less than impressive K:BB ratio, still lawrie has yet to be caught stealing, he's hitting for good average and power, and other than the recently promoted Eric Hosmer and league-leading Anthony Rizzo, everyone who's hitting better than him is at least 2 years older than he is (of the 22 with better OPS numbers, 15 are 4 year or more older). Defensively, Lawrie made 6 errors, most of them having to do with poor throwing mechanics, by April 19, but only 1 since. The team thinks he can definitely handle the position.
3. Eric Thames - He's shown slightly less power than Lawrie, but has walked three times as often (a team-leading 15 times) which might ultimately be a better sign. On the other hand, he's struck out 22 times in 28 games (second only to Lawrie on the team) and he's over 3 years older than the 3B.
4. A.J. Jimenez - Of all the Jays highly-touted catching prospects, the offensive standout so far has been (somewhat surprisingly) Jimenez. Playing in Dunedin, in the Florida State League wherein breaking an .800 OPS is impressive, Jimenez has an .889 mark. He's shown solid power, a good OPS (albeit it's batting average driven) and still too many strikeouts.
5. Mike McDade - On the eve of his 22nd birthday, Big Mike continues to defy the expectations. Expected to be a slugger who's contact might not be that great, he's riding a hot streak (.405 in his last 10 games) which has pushed his average to .347 and his power has been mostly doubles to this point (though you shouldn't worry about the homers, they will be fine). Like Jimenez and Lawrie, his K:BB ratio is cause for caution however.
6. David Cooper - The (reportedly) low-ceiling 1B picked up this year where he left off in 2010. He's leading the PCL in doubles (despite having spent over a week in the majors) and has fewer strikeouts than anyone within sight of the offensive leader board (he has 7 walks against 6 strikeouts). The "poor man's Overbay" comparisons still apply, but you have to recognize the accomplishments of a man with a 1.055 OPS too.
7. Michael Crouse - much less heralded than his Lansing teammate, the man who patrols to the left of Marisnick is on his heels at the plate in most categories. The biggest difference in the two is BA (where Jake leads .330 to .235). Crouse is also said to be a skilled defender and he's been successful in 14 of 15 steal attempts. While a .235 BA isn't usually praiseworthy, Crouse has turned that into an .848 OPS so clearly he's doing some things right.
8. Justin Jackson - the one time slick Shortstop has, because of various factors, found himself playing all over the field this year, primarily in the outfield and at 2B. Offensively he's hit the stride he'd only shown glimpses of in the past. He strikeout rate is way down, his contact rate is dramatically better, and his slugging is up some though that's mainly driven by the increased contact. On the other hand, he's not running as much so far as he has in the past. Jackson's margin for error is slim though, he doesn't have the power for an outfield corner and there are several other CF options, so he has to take possession of 2B at some point or his ceiling will be in a utility role. Think maybe an Alex Cintron type of player.
9. Moises Sierra - shaking off the rust after having been limited to 20 games last season, Sierra is back to his previous levels, but he still needs to add some standout offensive results to go with his defensive accolades. He's thought to be a tools guy who will "figure it out" at some point, but injuries have slowed that progression.
10. Marcus Kenect - the third member of Lansing's top-notch outfield, Kenect has missed a few games due to injury, and hes 3 for 25 since coming off the DL so one has to wonder if there is a connection.
HM: Shout out to SS Jon Diaz. He's been called "John McDonald 2.0" which means he is a great fielder who can't hit at all. but through the wonders of the PCL he's somehow managed a .841 OPS so far, with more walks that K's. Have to tip my metaphorical cap to that just because it's so unusual for him.
Pitchers:
1. Nestor Molina - The 22 year old Venezuelan RH is in his first year as a starter, having spent the previous three years working out of the bullpen. Molina serves as the perfect illustration of the way in which minor league starters can be prospects while relievers with similar results are viewed with skepticism. At this point Molina has a sterling 1.69 ERA while recording 26 K and only 3 BB in 26.2 innings of work.
2. Brad Mills - whatever anyone might think of Mills' ceiling as a major league pitcher, he certainly has figured out AAA so far. His ERA in six starts is 2.03 and that includes geting spanked hard in one of those. without that bad start his ERA would be 1.03 - and his supporting numbers are excellent as well.
3. Drew Hutchison - His numbers are skewed a bit by the impressive opening day start (7 IP, 1 BB 11 K no runs) but the 20 year old Lansing pitcher is definitely climbing the prospect chart.
4. Chad Jenkins - underestimated, perhaps, in the wake of sharing a rotation with more highly praised Deck McGuire to start the year, Jenkins has been just fine to start the year in Dunedin. His strikeout numbers could be better for a first rounder, but otherwise he's looked really good.
5. Deck McGuire - the difference between these two first ronders is one thing - Jenkins has allowed one homer and McGuire has allowed 4 big flies. Otherwise they are neck and neck.
6. Egan Smith - Hutch's LH Lansing rotation mate has allowed a bit too many hits, and struck out a bit too few to be compared to the more highly regarded Hutchison, but the results have been worthy of praise so far.
7. Zach Stewart - With Drabek in the majors, Stewart is the incumbent top-ranked pitching prospect. He might be gaining a reputation as a slow starter because he had issues last April and this year, while he's been much better than he was a year ago, he's not dominating as one might expect given he's repeating AA (through no fault of his own). He's dominated in 3 of his 6 starts, and escaped another without much damage despite being too hittable. but in his first start and his last, he struggled to resemble his prospect status. i epxct him to heat up with the weather.
8. Asher Wojciechowski - Was pounded in one start, but aces in the other four. Like McGuire, it's his first pro work and it's at Hi-A so some growing pains are to be expected.
9. Rieder Gonzalez - The strikeouts are low (18 in 32 IP) but the walks are even lower (2!!!) and Gonzalez, who sports a 1.38 ERA, is making his case to get back to AAA. Ultimately, the guy is short on talent to be a major league starter, but he might be putting himself back in consideration as a reliever in the majors (though maybe not in Toronto). He's 25 and in AA so that's worth noting, and he's 5'9" so he's never going to get a lot of respect. I consider him a fringe prospect at best.
10. Chad Beck - Beck is not, repeat not a prospect. He's the now 26 year old throw in organizational player the Jays got for David Eckstien. Unless he's learned a new pitch or some such which changed his outlook (about which I've heard nothing) this is a fluke. He's never pitched this well for this long before. Still, in the absence of other prospects lighting it up, you have to give props to a 2.42 ERA and a solidd K:BB ratio in his first 4 AA starts.
Honorable mention: It's simply too early, sample-size wise, for me to be giving props to relievers even well regarded ones, but given I ended the above list with two non-prospects I'll throw an HM to the following: Alan Farina (too many walks); Matt Wright (turns 24 today, has a 22:3 strikeout to walk ratio in Dunedin); Sean Nolin (12:1 in Lansing for the 21 yo 2010 draftee who may yet be starting); Steve Turnbull (good work but 24 in Lo-A so, yeah).
Finally, a nod of respect in the direction of Justin Verlander. Well done sir.
Monday, 2 May 2011
1/6 Review
You might have noticed that the MLB season divides more neatly into sixths than it does into quarters, plus it give me an earlier chance to take stock, right? Well, the truth of the matter is that it's still a dramatically small sample to look for patterns, or trends, or any such thing. but we can perhaps say "here's a thing i like" or "this concerns me" with the built in caveat that the sample size is a huge factor.
The first sixth of the season so happened to coincide with the end of the month of April, but that doesn't usually happen. The fact that the season has roughly six months is what inspired me to use a 1/6 model, since it provides a more even point of comparison than month-by-month breakdowns. but as a bit of mental shorthand you may think of these as monthly, if you prefer.
Hitters:
Frankly, outside of the god-like Jose Bautista, there's not a lot to enjoy here. Joey Bats finished the month with an incredible 265 OPS+. For comparison, that's right at 100 points higher than it was at the end of last season. Carlos Delgado's historic 2000 season only amounted to a 181. He's the most feared hitter in baseball right now.
After Bautista, things get much more dicey. Arguably the second best Jays hitter in April was none other than JP Arencibia. Right now, he's the best hitting rookie in the American League. Yunel Escobar has improved over last year, but even in this small sample he's been two different guys. in the first 10 games his OPS was 1.200, it's only been .493 in the last 15 games. Adam Lind's numbers look kinda bad, but they reflect a 7 games streak in which he went 2/26 and the rest of his play has been quite respectable. His slash lines without that week of work look like this:
.338/.352/.550/.902
Lets hope this is the REAL "2011 Adam Lind" and not just a function of sample size. Before his injury, cast-off Jayson Nix hit like he never has in the majors (you MUST chalk this up to sample size) and role-player Corey Patterson has been better than it was reasonable to expect (the last time he hit at this level was 2006). Jose Molina has hit well over his head and John McDonald started off well for him, both in bench roles of course.
On the other end of the spectrum, Aaron Hill continued to look lost right up until his recent injury, Travis Snider developed a mechanical flaw that distressed management enough to send him out to AAA for a fix, and unwanted-man Juan Rivera entered play on April 22 with an astonishingly low .342 OPS, albeit he's heated up over the last nine games to the tune of a rosy OPS of 1.063 over that stretch. Raji Davis got hurt and earns in "incomplete" grade having missed all but nine games this month, and played some of those hurt.
That leaves Edwin Encarnacion to comment on - Eddie has clearly let his defensive issues get into his head. Besides the unsightly error total, his hitting splits are just silly: a .430 OPS as a 3B, and a .917 OPS as a DH. Nix can't get back fast enough, though that fix only works so long as Nix's aberrational hitting continues. With luck, by the time he cools Brett Lawrie will be ready.
Speaking of defense, Escobar has drawn rave reviews, as has Davis when he's played. No one says a bad word about Hill's glove, or Bautista's, and both Arencibia and Lind have been said to be doing much better than expected. Reviews on Snider in LF were mixed, occasionally getting much praise and occasionally getting sharp criticism. Rivera's OF play has been routinely panned, but before Snider's demotion that was a minor concern. the real gaping wound on defense is 3B, where EE has just fallen apart (mentally) and Nix is sub-par.
The pitching outlook is much brighter. Ricky Romero has been great, Brandon Morrow has looked very much like the dominant guy from the second half of last year (albeit in only two starts) and Kyle Drabek, while not where you'd like him to be control-wise, has shown flashes that have observers drooling. Jesse Litsch has been ok as a 5th-turn placeholder. The other spot has of course been trouble. Brett Cecil lost velocity, then lost his mechanics trying to find his velocity, then lost his cool trying to find his mechanics - and found himself in Las Vegas. Cecil sort of illustrates the fact that you are always going to have something come up with your pitchers, you just seldom see it coming in specifics until it appears.
The other SP issue, of course, is the Jays lingering experiment with JoJo Reyes. Many fans have expressed considerable disquiet at the length of said experiment, but they'll be relieved to know that John Farrell has broadly hinted that Reyes needs to show him something in his next turn. Given the relationship between his schedule and Cecil's, I think he might well get two more shots (depending on how he looks Tuesday night) as it would be much easier to re-add Cecil in his spot on May 14 in Minnesota.
If/when Reyes loses his turn in the rotation, there's a solid possibility the Jays might try him in relief work, and an equally strong chance they will trade him as they did Dana Eveland after a similar experiment last year (though to be fair, even at his worst Rees has far more potential than Eveland ever did).
Speaking of the bullpen, while there are some higher order stats that don't like the work there so well, on the surface this seems an excellent group. The six busiest Jays relievers (Jon Rauch, Shawn Camp, Jason Frasor, Marc Rzepczynski, Casey Janssen and Carlos Villianueva) combined with recently activated co-closer Frank Francisco, make up a seven man core that all have an ERA of 2.84 or lower. They've combined for 80 2/3 IP and allowed only 19 ER (that's a 2.12 ERA). Carlos Villianueva is walking too many (8 so far in 14.2 IP) but otherwise, this has been as good a group as you could want.
The flaw in the slaw is Octavio Dotel - who is obviously NOT one of the seven described above. Dotel has walked 7 in 8 IP, but his problems are not entirely his fault. which leads us into the next subject . . .
John Farrell has drawn harsh criticism for his in game management from some quarters (Hiya Stoten!) but for the most part, the flaws I've heard about were and are "getting your sea legs" type stuff (for instance, certain players being a bit too aggressive on the basepaths). the one MAJOR screw up relates to, you guessed it, Octavio Dotel.
In 2010 Dotel allowed LHB to rake him to the tune of .993, while righties managed a paltry .576 - in rough terms every LH was Jose Bautista, every RH was John McDonald. It was like that in 2009 as well. Despite that, in 2011 Dotel has faced a RH at the plate 19 times and a LH at the plate 17 times. What do we have to show for it? lefties have an OPS of 1.409 against him this year, righties only .328 in roughly the same number of chances.
That, friends and neighbors, is flat out insanity. I love me some John Farrell but this shit has got to STOP.
On the whole, there's reason for optimism - above average pitching, solid plus defense (except at 3B and LF) and 3 hitters you can have some confidence in now, and 3-4 others (depending on how quickly Snider gets worked out) you can have some reasonable hope for. On the other hand, it's easy for the pessimist to point out ways things can go south (for instance, it's unreasonable to assume Bautista will keep hitting THAT well). All in all, they have a roughly .500 record at the 1/6th mark, and that's probably a pretty accurate representation of how they've played.
I'll be doing the minor leagues in 1/5th segments as i did last year, that first report comes up after the games of this coming Friday night so look for it next weekend.
The first sixth of the season so happened to coincide with the end of the month of April, but that doesn't usually happen. The fact that the season has roughly six months is what inspired me to use a 1/6 model, since it provides a more even point of comparison than month-by-month breakdowns. but as a bit of mental shorthand you may think of these as monthly, if you prefer.
Hitters:
Frankly, outside of the god-like Jose Bautista, there's not a lot to enjoy here. Joey Bats finished the month with an incredible 265 OPS+. For comparison, that's right at 100 points higher than it was at the end of last season. Carlos Delgado's historic 2000 season only amounted to a 181. He's the most feared hitter in baseball right now.
After Bautista, things get much more dicey. Arguably the second best Jays hitter in April was none other than JP Arencibia. Right now, he's the best hitting rookie in the American League. Yunel Escobar has improved over last year, but even in this small sample he's been two different guys. in the first 10 games his OPS was 1.200, it's only been .493 in the last 15 games. Adam Lind's numbers look kinda bad, but they reflect a 7 games streak in which he went 2/26 and the rest of his play has been quite respectable. His slash lines without that week of work look like this:
.338/.352/.550/.902
Lets hope this is the REAL "2011 Adam Lind" and not just a function of sample size. Before his injury, cast-off Jayson Nix hit like he never has in the majors (you MUST chalk this up to sample size) and role-player Corey Patterson has been better than it was reasonable to expect (the last time he hit at this level was 2006). Jose Molina has hit well over his head and John McDonald started off well for him, both in bench roles of course.
On the other end of the spectrum, Aaron Hill continued to look lost right up until his recent injury, Travis Snider developed a mechanical flaw that distressed management enough to send him out to AAA for a fix, and unwanted-man Juan Rivera entered play on April 22 with an astonishingly low .342 OPS, albeit he's heated up over the last nine games to the tune of a rosy OPS of 1.063 over that stretch. Raji Davis got hurt and earns in "incomplete" grade having missed all but nine games this month, and played some of those hurt.
That leaves Edwin Encarnacion to comment on - Eddie has clearly let his defensive issues get into his head. Besides the unsightly error total, his hitting splits are just silly: a .430 OPS as a 3B, and a .917 OPS as a DH. Nix can't get back fast enough, though that fix only works so long as Nix's aberrational hitting continues. With luck, by the time he cools Brett Lawrie will be ready.
Speaking of defense, Escobar has drawn rave reviews, as has Davis when he's played. No one says a bad word about Hill's glove, or Bautista's, and both Arencibia and Lind have been said to be doing much better than expected. Reviews on Snider in LF were mixed, occasionally getting much praise and occasionally getting sharp criticism. Rivera's OF play has been routinely panned, but before Snider's demotion that was a minor concern. the real gaping wound on defense is 3B, where EE has just fallen apart (mentally) and Nix is sub-par.
The pitching outlook is much brighter. Ricky Romero has been great, Brandon Morrow has looked very much like the dominant guy from the second half of last year (albeit in only two starts) and Kyle Drabek, while not where you'd like him to be control-wise, has shown flashes that have observers drooling. Jesse Litsch has been ok as a 5th-turn placeholder. The other spot has of course been trouble. Brett Cecil lost velocity, then lost his mechanics trying to find his velocity, then lost his cool trying to find his mechanics - and found himself in Las Vegas. Cecil sort of illustrates the fact that you are always going to have something come up with your pitchers, you just seldom see it coming in specifics until it appears.
The other SP issue, of course, is the Jays lingering experiment with JoJo Reyes. Many fans have expressed considerable disquiet at the length of said experiment, but they'll be relieved to know that John Farrell has broadly hinted that Reyes needs to show him something in his next turn. Given the relationship between his schedule and Cecil's, I think he might well get two more shots (depending on how he looks Tuesday night) as it would be much easier to re-add Cecil in his spot on May 14 in Minnesota.
If/when Reyes loses his turn in the rotation, there's a solid possibility the Jays might try him in relief work, and an equally strong chance they will trade him as they did Dana Eveland after a similar experiment last year (though to be fair, even at his worst Rees has far more potential than Eveland ever did).
Speaking of the bullpen, while there are some higher order stats that don't like the work there so well, on the surface this seems an excellent group. The six busiest Jays relievers (Jon Rauch, Shawn Camp, Jason Frasor, Marc Rzepczynski, Casey Janssen and Carlos Villianueva) combined with recently activated co-closer Frank Francisco, make up a seven man core that all have an ERA of 2.84 or lower. They've combined for 80 2/3 IP and allowed only 19 ER (that's a 2.12 ERA). Carlos Villianueva is walking too many (8 so far in 14.2 IP) but otherwise, this has been as good a group as you could want.
The flaw in the slaw is Octavio Dotel - who is obviously NOT one of the seven described above. Dotel has walked 7 in 8 IP, but his problems are not entirely his fault. which leads us into the next subject . . .
John Farrell has drawn harsh criticism for his in game management from some quarters (Hiya Stoten!) but for the most part, the flaws I've heard about were and are "getting your sea legs" type stuff (for instance, certain players being a bit too aggressive on the basepaths). the one MAJOR screw up relates to, you guessed it, Octavio Dotel.
In 2010 Dotel allowed LHB to rake him to the tune of .993, while righties managed a paltry .576 - in rough terms every LH was Jose Bautista, every RH was John McDonald. It was like that in 2009 as well. Despite that, in 2011 Dotel has faced a RH at the plate 19 times and a LH at the plate 17 times. What do we have to show for it? lefties have an OPS of 1.409 against him this year, righties only .328 in roughly the same number of chances.
That, friends and neighbors, is flat out insanity. I love me some John Farrell but this shit has got to STOP.
On the whole, there's reason for optimism - above average pitching, solid plus defense (except at 3B and LF) and 3 hitters you can have some confidence in now, and 3-4 others (depending on how quickly Snider gets worked out) you can have some reasonable hope for. On the other hand, it's easy for the pessimist to point out ways things can go south (for instance, it's unreasonable to assume Bautista will keep hitting THAT well). All in all, they have a roughly .500 record at the 1/6th mark, and that's probably a pretty accurate representation of how they've played.
I'll be doing the minor leagues in 1/5th segments as i did last year, that first report comes up after the games of this coming Friday night so look for it next weekend.
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