Kyle Drabek has Stuff

So i was lucky on wednesday as Shaw added SN1 to my viewing list and I was able watch some of Drabek's debut in HD even! Yeah me! Although I still intend to be very bitter when I start getting charged for this channel, and actually haven't completely decided what i'm going to do when that day comes, but i digress.

My impression was that I don't quite remember seeing stuff like Drabek showed in his debut from any Jays pitcher in their rookie debut before. Dustin McGowan certainly looked that good in 07 and 08 when he had it going, but before that his stuff never had that look. Brandon Morrow didn't have stuff like that in his first start, though he has of course shown it since. I don't remember Halladay's stuff looking so wicked in his first start, or really even the second one. I can't remember Steib's debut at all. Maybe Kelvim Escobar is the only one I can think of, his stuff may have actually looked better. Juan Guzman perhaps.

Either way Drabek certainly has the stuff to pitch in the major leagues, there is no question. That combination of moving fastball, killer hard curve and cutter/slider/whatever? is certainly going to get people out. And he's trying to add a change too. The only question is going to be how long it's going to take him to roll that up into a package that can start consistently, or if he doesn't just how good a closer he could be. A WHIP of 2.0 isn't going to get you anywhere, but that can't last. If he doesn't come to camp as a total mess next season he is in the rotation, there have to be no questions asked. There is nothing for him to prove at AAA unless he's horrible in the mlb.

If McGowan could somehow come back to what he was, I cannot imagine a starting rotation of Romero, Cecil, Morrow, McGowan and Drabek going at their best one after the other, it would be unbelievable.

Something to Care About!

So the season is grinding to a sort of satisfactory yet boring end. And while it's certainly ending off way better than anybody could have predicted before it started, the fact that the season was going to end positively was established a long time ago now. So the recent news that Kyle Drabek is going to some up and start 3 games is very welcome. Hopefully he can look impressive and pitch really well and even win 2 of 3, but as long as he doesn't fall on his face, it should be a nice story for the offseason. The other positive stories would of course be familiar boring faces like Cecil, Romero, Marcum, Batista etc, but we all know them so they can't actually be any good or exciting

Anyways, I am looking forward to Drabek's first start, however as I just noticed on the schedule that game has now flipped from being a sportsnet game to a sportsnet1 game. Kind of like last thursday's game switched all of a sudden. Maybe I don't care anymore now.

What I did on my Summer Vacation

So summer is turning into fall, and the kids are back in school and the seasons in it's last month. Where have I been? Well basically i took a months hiatus and stupidly put my efforts into being a regular commenter at djf. This was a dumb thing to do on my part, I should have known better, as I have been there before.

Basically it all started ok, just the occasional comment, then more comments, then baiting a troll or 2 for entertainment. Before i knew it was anxiously awaiting replies to my comments so i could smack down idiots. anyways it culminated on sunday with me trying to post some really concise replies destroying some idiot who thinks travis snider can't hit a fastball, on an ipod touch. thing was the touch kept posting my replies before i could finish them, and i was also supposed to be enjoying friends and family and beers, and i suddenly thought to myself: "what are you doing, you know better than this, this guy will never agree with you no matter how right you are, go enjoy your life". and so i did, and here i am back posting on my own blog, not caring whether or not anybody comments or not.

I would be lying if i didn't credit this post and this one at obsidian wings with helping to turn me around. Always remember the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

It was nice to be able to swear liberally though.

Happy Stories

2 of 3 at LAA was great in and of itself, but the excellent start by rzep and then the extension of the worst draft pick in history and his own great start sunday was a fantastic topper. 62-55, I never would have thought it. I honestly didn't think they would be 55-62 before the season started. So now it's 3 against the sub-500 A's (who always seem tough on the jays especially recently in oakland). They could actually have 10 wins more than losses by the end of the week and maybe all over boston too for 3rd place.

This of course on either side of the Rogers Sportsnet 1 mess, but whatever, let's not let it drag us down.

Why no Drabek?

I'm jumping to conclusions of course, I have no idea that we aren't going to see Kyle Drabek (or Zach Stewart for that matter) making starts in MLB this season. But I have to say I would really like to. I see that Cecil is going to be held back a couple of days and Morrow is going to skip a start, so Mills will make one more and then go back down and Rzep will come back up. I have also heard rumblings that a 6-man rotation might be possible at this point. I think this all makes perfect sense. Other than Romero I don't think you can just let any of the starters keep pitching until the end of the season without having a plan to limit their innings, including Marcum. But at the same time just shutting them down isn't any better. I'd rather they mix in some of these guys and let them finish off their seasons with some big league experience.

I can see an argument I suppose for keeping down the service time, and preserving minor league options, but Stewart and Drabek are really to good for that. They can't reasonably go back to AA, and AAA makes no sense for a season next year unless they legitimately can't win a job on the MLB team next year. And if that's the case then you have to start looking a trading some of the "extra" pieces you have to get the pieces you need.

UPDATE: Stop him before he hurts himself again!


h/t djf - apparently cecil is getting held back because he cut open his knee climbing the dugout stairs and required some stitches. This after of course carving himself up cutting up some chicken in spring training. What can come next? one of those accidents where you get sucked into a treadmill...

Greatest. Weekend. Ever.

Well not really, but it was pretty damned good, as has really the last 6 games. It looked like the good times were going to stop rolling after 6 games with the yankees and tb. 5 wins later, great starts by romero and cecil, an unbelievable debut by arencibia and 1-hit, 17 K magnificence by morrow, they just keep rolling.

So rather than go on about the bizarre fact that arencibia sat yesterday or brett wallace's 400OBP lets just celebrate the fact that they Jays are still above .500 with 51 games to play and might even run down the red sox for 3rd place.

I would never, ever have thought it.

Beating a Dead Horse with Very Little Enthusiasm

So I did something today that I wasn't looking forward to all weekend, I read this article on BlueJays.com about Gose. It wasn't as bad as I thought and worse than I thought all at the same time. All it says of course is Gose is somebody atos really wanted, and that he's not doing so great in High-A but they have high hopes and Wallace is really great but that's the price you have to pay. I then went and read this blog entry by Wilner on the trade and got the same feeling. Add that to all the entries at djf and tao of stieb, including this one about the lack of action and at the trade deadline and well....

Look it's all great to feel good about the future, but you know whats always true about the future, it's coming. So what are you planning to do about it? Because I see some nice talk about how all this is going to come together some day, but nobody at all is putting any how or when to it. It's all beginning to sound very Underpants Gnomelike to me. Draft Picks->?->Contention!!!

Something I keep seeing and hearing coming up in defense of the Gose trade is that all the scouts and advisors agreed that he was just super, so that makes it ok. What I don't hear or see anywhere, and maybe I'm just missing it, is that any of the scouts and advisors thought it was a great idea to trade Wallace for Gose right now, and that really is the issue isn't it?

And here's the "little enthusiasm" part of the title. I really don't have it for going on an on about these things, and I'm open to the fact that I might easily be wrong about this. Maybe atos is some kind of genius who can build a contender in the next 2 seasons while still trading away some of the parts to do it for players who may not be ready for 4 or 5. It just seems to me that if you want to make a team competitive in the near term, you should mostly ignore the long term and focus all your efforts on that near term. Part of doing that is actually putting parts of that plan to the test, making decisions on them, and adjusting accordingly. Yes the whole idea of this blog is that I don't pay attention to the media, but if It is important to this team to say that they have some kind of timetable they are working on, you'd think I would find it when i went looking for it.

Or to put it another way, atos seemed to keep saying that he had to act on Gose now because in the future he would not be able to get him, because he would be too expensive. I think this is a little bit ridiculous and proves too much. After all if Wallace is as good as you keep saying, maybe you could have just traded him 2 years from now straight up for Gose anyways once he actually starts to prove it.

Small Comfort

I'm not sure which feels better, clubbing AJ Burnett or Josh Beckett, so hopefully Beckett will pitch against the Jays next time they meet up and I can compare.

Trade Deadline Roundup

I wanted to get to this earlier but given the long weekend and the no internet, drinking, boating, camp fires, playing with the kids and other various things that distracted my attention, I just couldn't. Also there was the fact that they JUST DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!

Well they did do one thing and that thing was freaking unbelievable. How exactly it makes sense to trade a player that is knocking down the door to play right now for a player that may not play for 4 years mystifies me. I understand that atos has wanted this guy forever and when he saw his chance he felt he just had to take it, but maybe he needs to learn some impulse control.

Hard on the heels of this mystery, we get the news that none of Overbay, Downs, Gregg, Frasor, Buck or Bautista could be moved for something acceptable. Look I am convinced on Bautista, since next year he's under control and even if he falls all the way back to pre-2010 levels, he's still an acceptable 3B and a plus utility player, just probably very expensive. Downs has a pretty good chance at being type A, though a lot of things have to fall into place, and the payoff isn't for years, so maybe it's worth the gamble, though I say no. Everybody else on the list, they should be gone for whatever they can get. The team cannot by hurt by moving any of them, and players like Arencibia, need to be here, Snider and Lind don't need Overbay in the player rotation taking away at bats and playing time at 1B, and how many pitchers from the minor leagues could see some innings over august if these relievers weren't here. I for one would like to see more Purcey.

Very disappointing. Maybe the wallet is going to open over the next 2 seasons and there will be some FA signings to make up for this loss of opportunity to improve the team for 2012 contention. But there is no reason this team can't compete then, and this was a golden opportunity to move in that direction. Right now it looks like the plan is to acquire as many prospects as draft picks as possible and look really tough and then compete - who the hell knows when???

Yankees up next to start the august beat down, but don't worry it will all be good because Draft Picks!!!

Thinking about the Trade Deadline

Well the non-waiver deadline again fast approaches, and what to make of it? The Jays are in the lucky position to have at least 5 useful players (Buck, Overbay, Downs, Frasor, Encarnacion and Gregg) that they really have no interest in keeping that could bring varying degrees of something useful back. They also have 1 thing that could bring something really good back (Bautistsa), that it's a toss up as to whether they want to bring back, and a bunch of things (everybody else in the bullpen, a starter if the price is right, Wells?)  that could be traded as well. There is every possibility (hope? Wallace and Arencibia and Snyder oh my!) this could be a very different looking team by the time the deadline comes and goes.

From that first group I would say to atos, trade them for whatever you think the best deal is, with the only potential keep to think twice about being Encarnacion. The haul already seems to be pretty good from the Gonzalez + parts for Escobar + Part trade, so I don't think there is any reason to not roll the dice a little, just squeeze whoever for everything you can get right up to the last minute. Encarnacion is a little more tricky, as you probably have to eat salary to trade him, and he still may develop into something, and is (I believe) still under control for some? years.

The really tricky guy here is Bautista. I think the answer here is trade him if somebody offers you a good everyday player, or a good starting pitcher or closer (though those things are highly unlikely), or the mother lode of prospects (what idiot would do that?). I have no faith at all that Bautista can repeat this year again, but what I do have faith in is that he can be a 750-800 OPS 3rd Baseman who hits 7-8th in the lineup and plays stellar defence and chips in 15-25hr. Any team that is going to contend needs a player that like, and finding one to play 3rd is not that easy. Unless you can trade him for a guy who's going to take over 2nd and put Hill at 3B, or for a crazy haul of stupidity, then I don't see the benefit of a trade.

The really interesting thing to see is if atos can do something completely out of left field, like swoop in and snatch a Haren from a trade between a contender and dumper. That would be pretty cool, and something that I just don't understand why it doesn't happen more often at the trade deadline.

In conclusion, what I see is a lot of parts coming back, and those parts being packaged up with some other stuff that's already here over the winter, for the couple of parts that really need to be added for the future. With everything else hopefully being depth. I really doubt any kind of "franchise" player is coming back in these deals. Really that's good, but one can dream.

The Alex Gonzalez Trade

There are really only 2 things to be said about this trade

1) You hope that some worse veteran shortstop doesn't get traded for a better return between now and the trade deadline, because atos really has to take the best he think he can get for these assets. Gonzalez cannot play any better than he did the first 1/2 of the season, so I can't see how he could do anything in the 2nd 1/2 to make the Jays better. But if somebody trades the equivalent of John Macdonald for a bona fide mlb starting pitcher...

2) If Tim Collins really does turn into something, it will be an interesting example of atos' ability to judge the talent in his own possession. I fully expect you have to give something to get something, and the Braves weren't going to make a trade of a cheap youngish player they control even if they are tired of him for an older guy who could go to crap any moment without getting something more valuable back. If the Braves really do get a steal here then it will be illuminating. If anybody should know whether or not Collins has it, it should be the Jays.

All Star Break Roundup

Let's be honest here, there isn't really anything interesting to say about this team that isn't a rehash of things already said. The outlook for the rest of the season probably isn't very good, with a lot of solace taking coming from individual performance and not team success. Basically i'm looking forward to Wallace, Arencibia and Drabek making their debuts sometime, and what atos can get for the parts of this team that don't figure into the future plans.

If anybody needs an example of why we should think the future is bright for this team, I give you no better example than tonights opponent the Baltimore Orioles. They were supposed to better this season, and they are 29-59. The Jays who were supposed to be much worse are 44-45. Can you name me the Baltimore SP that you'd rather have than any of the Jay's SP's? I don't really even have to bother thinking about that question.

How the Staypuft Marshmallow Pitcher Got His Groove Back

Well I have no idea actually, but who won't take 7 shutout innings from your #5 starting pitcher. Baring some crazy major change in direction somewhere Litsch is just holding this spot until Drabek is ready to come up and ultimately claim his spot. But everything the pasty white chunky dude does to increase his trade value is a good thing. Come late July he might look pretty good to some desperate team in any division other than the AL East. 

And I still think he has an outside chance to claim the ultimate prize in the who has a better career contest, Jesse Litsch or Joba Chamberlain?

Stupid answers to stupid questions

Good game yesterday, was a nice workmanlike win with some hitting. They are still above .500 so I guess that's something.

I thought this was quite the humorous headline at bluejays.com though.

Bautista searching for answers to end slump

Hey I got your answer right here - You Suck! Accept it.

Glad to be of help.

I kind of like Bautista, he certainly seems to be proving that he's a legitimate answer at 3B for a couple of years if you don't need to have him hit higher than 8th or maybe 7th in the lineup. I think Encarnacion is going to find himself on the outs when Snider gets back. But let's be honest, he's never really going to be more than an 800OPS guy on a regular basis.

The Apocalypse is Boring

When you think apocalypse you think blood red skies raining fire on the earth, winged beasts clashing in the air, half-man / half-animal armies ravaging the countryside. You know good times. Whatever the Jays did this weekend is about as far from that as possible. I think I may never want to watch baseball again after that display.

Anyways at least Romero and Morrow pitched ok. Litsch I really don't care about unless he pitches great. If he keeps sucking I'm sure somebody else can be along in no time.

Marcum in Petco tonight, let's see how mister "ace" does at stopping this losing streak. Well, I might not be "seeing" it.

The Apocalypse so far

Not so bad. 4-5 after 9 games against the Rays and Yanks. That's pretty encouraging i think, and Cecil pitched great. You definitely want to see how Romero and Morrow do in Colorado. Marcum is allowed to have a lousy game every once in a while. And exciting news, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Pitcher is back! We get to seem him on sunday, although you get the feeling if he doesn't do a lot quickly it may be the last we ever see of him.

Now of course 15 straight games against above 500 NL teams. This is not a recipe for Blue Jay success, they have enough trouble against below 500 NL teams. I don't mind low scoring well pitched losses, losing 9-1 sucks.

How are things going in that Apocalypse?

7 games in and the Jays finally had their first really bad one, a Tallet start, imagine that. 3-4 after 7 games, I wouldn't have thought it was possible.

Of course they could still end up 3-6. I would certainly have thought that was likely.

Draft Roundup Thoughts

My main thought as always is that nobody will really know anything about this draft for about 5 years, and anybody saying otherwise is selling snake oil.

In general terms though i'm pretty impressed. I have always thought that if I was running a draft I would pick all pitchers and shortstops. Because you can never have enough pitching, and if you've got it you can always trade it for something else. And shortstops, because they can play anywhere. Except maybe catcher, but you can always get a catcher, as long as you don't need a really good one.

So what does atos do in his first draft. By my count of the first 36 picks 21 are pitchers, and 4 or 5 are shortstops. I'm all for that. There was even a catcher. 

Why is Dickie Thon's kid playing High School ball in Puerto Rico?

Anyway, we can talk about it all again in 5 years.

What caught my attention in this whole Wilner Thing

 I've been casting sideways glances at this Wilner issue, I haven't read any of the news reports about it just what djf and Tao have had to say. But this from The National Post's Jeremy Sandler via djf did actually catch my attention. Sandler is reporting on what happened in the original conversation at the press scrum from his notes and recordings:

Gaston: “He was probably, I think Camp finished the inning, didn’t he?”

Wilner: “Downs came in and struck the last guy out.”

Gaston: “He came in and struck who out?”

Wilner: “Brignac.”

Gaston: “Well, evidently I think sometimes you need to get some stats and see what they hit off each other and then you’ll get that answer.”

See it appears to me here that Gaston doesn't remember what happened. Now I'm not going to go out on a limb and say that he didn't know what was happening while it was happening, I'm just going to say he didn't remember. Or I guess more rightly didn't care to try remembering what happened in a situation, a press conference, where he was almost certainly going to get asked about why the crucial thing happened in the game last night. I mean I don't know, maybe the rules are that you don't ask questions about the previous game in the pre-game press conference, or scrum or whatever it is, and Wilner breaks these rules on a regular basis, so that's why he's in trouble, because this was the last straw. But you think you might hear one peep about that from somebody. But I haven't really been looking, so maybe i'm not getting all sides through my sources, don't know.


I just think it's weird that Cito seems to think it's ok to put it out there that he had no idea what happened only the next day. Do players and managers really have that much disregard for the press? I mean if I'm Wilner my response to Cito not caring about this is "WTF dude, you were there, didn't any of this actually matter?" not helpfully reminding him of the particulars. This is what passes for even sports journalism?

Trading Draft Picks

For some reason I went looking for MSM info on the draft today and I ended up on this article by Tom Verducci about how to fix the draft. I usually like his stuff, I can read it every couple of months whereas most MSM writers I can't read at all. His fix #1: Allow clubs to trade picks. He gives some fairly weak reasons why clubs should be able to trade draft picks and then lists his main reason against it as: "The argument against trading draft picks basically goes something like this: Scott Boras."

Look I don't love me some Scott Boras anymore than the next sports fan, but that isn't the main reason. The main reason not to trade draft picks is, nobody's going to do it. I don't mean that nobody would ever not trade a draft pick, what I mean is there would probably be a little flurry the first couple of drafts, and then it would tail off to basically never happen once everybody sees that it doesn't work.

The reason for this is pretty clear, draft picks are a completely unknowable commodity in baseball. Yes I realize Strassburg is about to make his debut, and David Price had a pretty quick rise to the majors and top flight starter status. But those are seriously anomalous happenings, and Strassburg hasn't done thing one yet against MLB hitters, and may not for another couple of years. Has anybody noticed how things have been going for Joba Chamberlain recently? Some people may want to point out John Olerud, but then I'll point out he was drafted in the 3rd round. Somebody was going to trade down for him because he was so good?

I just don't understand how this is supposed to work here, Verducci's best rationale for why some team would want to trade for a higher draft pick is this:

But what if a contender picking late in the first round wanted to trade up to pick a relief pitcher who might pitch this year down the stretch? Why not allow the Pirates to trade that pick to get a prospect and a later first-round pick?

Ok, I'll bite. If said team was going to part with enough great assets to loosen up this phenom from a team that is bad enough to be picking high in the draft, why wouldn't they just trade those assets for a proven pitcher. Or probably actually fewer of those assets to get a proven pitcher. If I'm the GM of a the team with the pick of a player who may be so good he can play the same year he's picked, why am I giving it up unless I'm basically raping who I'm trading with? And If I'm the one being raped why am I doing it for somebody that I have truly no idea will be helping me anytime in the near future?


Deeper into this, I'm not sure what it is that the teams that are getting the draft pick are supposed to be trading away. If I'm the Nationals last year what are the Yankees supposed to trade me for Strassburg, that I want more than him? And why do the Yankees want to give it up? Hey Nats, "you have what could be a shot at one of the greatest pitchers of all time, who you can maybe control for relatively cheap for 8-10 years. Why don't you give him to us for a guy we thought the same thing about not so long ago but isn't really working out, and Phil Hughes." If I'm the Nats, the answer is Click. And if the Nats come looking for a package of minor league prospects, then I have to say: "Wait a minute, why am I trading 3 guys who I'm pretty sure there's a chance at least one of will be good soon for a guy who I'm going to pay a lot of money and may never do anything?"


It's the old Bird in the Hand argument and you can see if you think about it for a little, that it won't take long for a couple of these trades to turn into complete short term disasters before nobody ever wants to do it again. I mean look no further than this rationalization from Anonymous Scouting Director about Pittsburgh's #2 position in this years draft:

"It doesn't look like there's a lot of impact in this draft. Teams picking in the middle of the first round are in good shape. If baseball were like football, they'd be looking to trade down. They could get close to same player if they drafted lower."

Um yeah, but if the there isn't a lot of the impact in this draft, why exactly is anybody looking to draft up, genius? Pittsburgh could be looking to trade down all it wants but that doesn't mean they are going to find any suitors. What's the motivation, boredom?

The worst part of this thinking is the ever present "If Baseball were Like Football". Dude baseball isn't like football. Every year colleges produce about 100 or maybe even more players that can walk right onto an NFL field and play. In baseball it doesn't happen more than once a year, if that. Hell if you added in players with a full year of A ball to the list how many even play in the majors on average the next season? Aren't you a Scouting Director? You need me to point this out?

Again I'm not saying it would never happen. I could kind of see trading picks for picks. If number 2 absolutely wanted the first pick and the defacto #2 pick was still pretty damn good. So yeah maybe let it happen, but you just won't see any good effect from it. At all.

The best part of the article though is his reasoning for solution #2:

The draft must remain true to its original mission statement: Get the best players to the worst teams.

And we are doing that by allowing the worst teams to trade away the best picks I guess? I don't know my head spins.

The Apocalypse is Upon Us

Well look I still have to stick to my original point, I'm impressed that the Jays were even able to make a series of it against the Rays. To me the worst news of the whole thing was the good news that Tallet pitched well enough to probably justify another 3 starts or so. If they can do as well against the Yankees and don't collapse into the Orioles for the rest of the season, I see no reason to believe this can't be seriously good team next year with the right moves. Basically I put them a year ahead of schedule...if things don't go this year like they did last...ohh well...

The Gathering Apocalypse

I've been trying to write a post about the stretch of games coming up against much better competition and why it does/doesn't matter how the Jays do, mixing in my feelings about how this really isn't a very good team, all success should be celebrated and how things really do look good for future seasons.

And then last nights game happened and it was disappointing, but in the end i had to think to myself: "it's pretty amazing they even had a game to save".


I think that pretty much wraps it all up nice and clean, no matter what happens.

Nooooooooo!

Well I guess there isn't much else they could have done, but still. Maybe they could have held onto Eveland a little longer. Why couldn't Rzep have pitched a little better in the minors?

Well I think it's ok to give them that one

I'm willing to take the positive of another good Romero start over the negative of the blown save when we balance it off against the fact that the Mariners desperately needed a win, and especially one in that fashion. They bunted in like the 3rd inning, 2x, with 2 men on base, in a desperate attempt to get anything going. With the top of the order. Later they had a guy bunt with 2 strikes. That's just sad.

At the same time if a miracle occurs and the Jays somehow manage to win 80+ games it's going to be pretty annoying to think that the difference in the season was 15 blown saves by Gregg. But that's not very likely.

Anyways it would probably be really good for everybody if the Jays and Mariners could figure out how to get the Jays to leave Seattle minus Overbay.

Oh and the Mariner broadcasters are like death. I listen on Satellite radio so I get the home team's broadcast. I kept switching over to the stern repeat even though it was a live game I was so bored.

Turmoil among those who run slowly

Even though I have to say I agree with a lot of this and this, I have to say that I'm kind of tired of the Lyle Overbay show. Yeah I think he's unappreciated, and I really think a career that could have been great got really screwed up by that hand injury a couple of years ago, and no i don't think he should be booed. BUT. The Jays have paid him a lot of money for nothing, and he is not the future, Brett Wallace clearly is. I started out this season thinking he should get as much of a chance as possible to prove as much as possible so that he and the Jays can get as much out of any trade. That time is coming to an end though, and really he just needs to go. If they can't trade him for something useful by the time Wallace passes that Super 2 status or whatever they call it, they should just release him and get on with it, unless he goes monster between now and then.

In other news of the slow footed, Randy Ruiz was released. Oh well it's not like we couldn't have seen this coming. Now he can go to Japan and eat tons of food and, hang with hot japanese chicks and be a hero. Somehow I feel this may be what he always wanted anyways.

The worst draft pick in the history of Baseball

Jays sweep the Rangers over the weekend, and you have to say that it's looking like a less than 70 win season is going to be a dissapointment. One of the big reasons for this, if not the biggest has got to be the worst draft pick ever himself, Ricky Romero. He's basically stepped in and done just about the unthinkable and replaced He's Gone! After 8 starts last season He's Gone had 61IP with an ERA of 2.95 and 1 CG. Romero has 56.1IP, a 2.88ERA and 1CG. If Romero had the rep of the Gone One he might have racked up a couple more innings, but at the same time the bullpen needs their work too. Only time will tell if Romero can truly replace the Gone One, but he's certainly showing that only idiots ever judge draft success.

Something not to loose site of though is that as great as the contribution of Buck, Bautista and Gonzalez has been, I think it would be just about lethal to make any assumption that any more than 1 of them can be a long term solution in a contending lineup. Although they are all posting great OPS right now, the OBP is not good for Buck and Gonzalez. I think Buck might be a keeper as the everyday catcher batting 9th, but if you think he's going to bat 6th for your pennant winning team, good luck to you.

Next 10 games will be another pretty good test. I would have thought before the season in 7 games against Minnesota, Seattle and LAA you would do well to get 3 wins, but now I'm not so sure. I have no opinion on what they should do against the D-Backs.

New Mega Update

Sticking with the theme of caring about the Jays enough to blog about once a week, lets do a mega update.

Don't know if anybody noticed yesterday but the Jays won their 20th game of the season yesterday. Given that they have not yet played 40 games yet that means they will be at least a 500 team for a full quarter of a season. If you had told me they would be a 500 team for any quarter of the season i would have laughed very hard, so good for them. I chalk this up as always to very good starting pitching, and ridiculous slugging by Buck and Gonzalez.

Basically I think opposing pitchers are putting all their efforts into holding down Hill, Lind and Wells, and maybe Overbay. Buck and Gonzalez (and to a lesser extent Bautista) are reaping the rewards. This is going to come to an end soon (both have an OBP around 300) and if Hill and Lind don't pick it up there are going to be a lot of 2-0 and 3-1 losses, and 100 losses here we come. But enjoy it while it lasts.

In other news I fully expect to see Brett Wallace here anywhere after the beginning of June, despite this article.

Things I don't care about

Where the Jays get swept by the Phillies in June. I can agree with a lot if this, but I am not surprised. Lets just say that in the ever growing list of evidences that Rogers is serious or not about owning a competitive mlb team, Addie and paying out an extra $6mil in the He's Gone trade go into the "Yes" column, and this goes in the "No" column. Nothing is really going to convince me of their seriousness until I see them pay out an extra $20-40mil to get the last pieces of the puzzle for a truly competitive team anyways, so this is just a little more evidence to add into those columns.

Wherein we we re-evaluate our expectations for the season

Ok so things have been going really well for some reason, and the Jays are on the cusp of winning a 6th straight game. This was unexpected, and i chalk a lot of up to the quick exit of Tallet from the rotation, Eveland's  being a better than average #5 starter and the crazy slugging the team is doing as a whole.

Anyways, i think 70 wins is a pretty reasonable expectation now, but i wouldn't be surprised if they still end up at 60 somehow. Anywhere around a .500 record would be crazy.

I'm still going to go back to my belief that the only starter who should come close to 200 innings this season is Romero. The Jays are really playing with fire if they let Marcum go over 180IP, and nobody else on the staff should even be considered. If they don't do this there might be a "gaudy" win total this season but there will be suffering in years to come. You need look no farther, but there's a whole list if you want it. This assumes Eveland is going to get traded, he should be able to handle a full 30 start season, even though i think it will be better to strike while the iron is hot.

Of course if the teams keeps slugging at top 3 in the AL all season then 70 wins should be easy, but what are the chances of that?

Mega update in a small package

Been too busy unfortunately to blog here, got a new blog i have been working on here, and have been very busy with actual work work. Anyways, my quick take on recent events:

This team is going to loose 100 games, simple math tells me they won't win more than 62, therefore in a 6 month season they will win an average of 10 games a month. Ergo, this is what a team that loses 100 games looks like. If you are somehow shocked or surprised by this you might be a really good jays fan, but you are a lousy baseball fan, because you can't tell a lousy team when you see one when it doesn't have a KC or a Pirate on it's jersey.

Don't thank me i'm happy to be of help.

The starters that matter (not looking at you Tallet or Eveland) are showing tons of promise or just being downright awesome (looking at you worst draft pick ever). And Lind is mashing, Wells is showing what he can do when healthy, the only real concern might be Hill but I doubt it. Let the bullpen-minors merry go round run all season. Everything else is essentially irrelevant. I'm just hoping Brett Wallace gets here soon.

Who's in the What Now? - Fred Lewis edition (addition)

I think I will start a new feature where when atos makes a bewildering move I refer to it as a "Who's in the What now?". It will get it's own label. Eveland and Gregg also would have fit into this.

I'm not really sure what to make of this as I'm not sure what role he's supposed to have. He could be a cut rate lead off guy, some power and less than embarrassing career OBP numbers and supposedly good speed (though not great steal numbers). I think this will become a lot clearer to us when Aaron Hill comes back in about a week. Maybe there's going to be some competition over the next week among the McCoy's, Bautista's and Ruiz's of this team to see who doesn't get bumped by Lewis. Maybe this has something to do with Overbay or Encarnacion? Don't know, but I think things will be clearer, or murkier once Hill comes back.

Anyways, since they didn't give up much for him, as long as they don't lose anything more valuable by acquiring, him no big deal.

What I do know is that "Fred Lewis" rates very low on the awesome baseball name ranking, and if you aren't going to have superstar skills that name isn't going to do too much to help build your cred.

Addie watch the final day

It is over, it is officially official. Now we can find out if this guy really is Soriano with a glove or just another gumby. No more Addie watch, I might even forget he existed if he doesn't do newsworthy stuff, which is probably how it should be anyways.

5 Game Re-cap

So unfortunately had many much bigger fish to fry since Friday and haven't had a chance to comment on what's been going on, let alone actually watch much of the games. This is a shame because I have been missing out on some unexpectedly good baseball, which could end at any time not to return for quite a while.

So let's re-cap and comment:

Orioles Series: HaHAHahHahahahahaHahahaHaHAHahHahahahahaHahaha

Look i'm going to stick to my guns that the Jays are going to finish behind the Orioles this season, but get swept at home in your first series by a team that is supposed to be terrible and not trying when you are supposed to be on your way to awesome? I'm not going to cry for you. Anyways this is supposed to be a Jays blog.

Everything has been very positive from the all important starting pitching standpoint, as far as what matters goes. The only thing disappointing in the past 5 games was Tallet, and the only thing really disappointing in that was he messed up the home opener. All I want is for this to be over one way or the other quickly. Please don't make me sit through explanations of why it's "gritty" to give up six runs in 7 innings. Cecil can do that and give us hope for the future too.

Romero - what can you say except that he is clearly the worst pick in the history of the draft and proves it every time he goes to the mound.

Marcum - that's what gutting it out actually is

Morrow - Given that he was still really in spring training, not bad, tonight will shine some more light, i hope i can actually watch some of this one

Eveland - intriguing - he pitched like that on occasion in 2008, so if he is back to that form he might make some pretty good trade bait, or better. but i remember this guy named josh towers....

Bullpen - If both Gregg and Frasor continue to be unexpected in their performance then at least you get 1 good pitcher out of it. Janssen continues to be lights out. Did anybody else even pitch?

Postion players - Vernon is reminding people that he is actually pretty good when healthy and proving the point about how when (usually) underpaid white guys play through pain and suck they're "gritty" and when anybody else does it they aren't. Lind is just grooving along quietly, it will be scary when he gets hot. Gonzalez is out of his skull, who know how long it will last I just hope it comes and goes, and doesn't just go. Bautista isn't a disaster, he is working in the walks so I think we should see this to the end of the month. Snider, from what I've seen it looks to me like he's unlucky. He's striking out but he's walking too, and what he hits hard seems to find a glove. Other than that SAMPLE SIZE baby! Even the best hitters tend to throw in at least one lousy month in a season, and this one isn't half over yet. Timely is the word so far.

Defence - Ugghhh is the word i think so far, i would call it average overall at best. That throw the PMoD made to the plate was an embarrassment.

So all in all 4-1, you can only say yay. It's a product of great pitching and luck of course, and it can't last. But it's great while it does and it shows that there really can be a brighter future. Because it's mostly about the starting pitching.

Above .500 - No I never would have thunk it

Nice win yesterday, and the Jays go over .500! I would have thought for sure that Texas would take 2 of the first 3 at home, but they didn't (the lack of Kinsler may have had something to do with it). As long as the starters rack up the quality or better starts, then the team will have a chance to win some games. The problem comes of course when the starters rack up some just less than quality starts. The losses are going to pile up fast at that point. If Romero had given up even 3 runs instead of just 1 in his 7 innings yesterday then I think you see a Jays loss, despite the better than quality start. Don't get me wrong, 3 runs in 7 innings from Romero would have been fantastic, but we would have had a different team result.

Anyway today is Brandon Morrow's regular season Blue Jay debut, and I'm a little pissed that I can't watch this on TV. I don't exactly expect big things today, as he's being held to an 85 pitch limit apparently and I doubt he's really in form yet. Over the long term though, every glowing expectation that has been applied to Dustin McGowan should be applied to him. Brandon was a higher pick, their travels through the minor leagues are very similar (Dustin was drafted out of High School of course), they have very similar stuff. I think this trade could be the defining one of atos's early career if it works out like it could. Unless League or that other prospect turn into some kind of superstars, this one could be a clear win. I think we may remember this before He's Gone. No pressure Brandon, maybe 3 starts from now though.

On another issue, the Orioles start the season 1-2 and from what I can grok everybody was a little high on the idea that they might actually be turning it around and could finish ahead of the Jays this season for the second time in like what, 12 seasons? Especially since the Jays are not trying at all this season. I wonder how depressed the fans over there will get if the Jays leave town with a sweep? I'm pretty sure by the end of the season the Baltimore will be ahead, but if the Jays start off the season with a bunch of wins against the O's it could take a while for them to catch up and pass. Not that this matters, but as I am a Jays fan I have to view all the other teams in the AL East as incarnations of evil and wish them only ill fortune.

Jays Win! You'll only see it happen about 60 more times this year

All in all an encouraging game. Lets admit it, Harden was not good, but the Jays managed to work him to 90 pitches in his 3-2/3 innings, and that's an important thing. There aren't many times a starter is going to have a good outing against you if he's throwing 100 pitches in 4 innings, and most of the jays batters didn't let him off the hook. Tallet repaid management's faith, but he had good outings last season too as a starter. Hopefully he can put enough good ones together to generate some trade interest before the bad ones start piling up. Vernon positive of course. Errors were a big negative, as well as multiple strikeouts and some other things, but that's what's going to happen with a team that's going to loose around 100 games. 60 times a season you are going to overcome your general crappiness and 100 times you aren't.

Today Romero continues his quest to prove that he is not the worst draft pick in history, I like his chances. Texas counters with their own lefty, but Cito won't be changing up the lineup from what I have gleaned. I think that makes sense for the first 15 games or so. I would like to see them get Ruiz in sometime sooner rather than later though.

2 afternoon games in a row, and then a saturday evening game. That kind of sucks.

Update: Hill is out for this game and McCoy makes his Blue Jays debut. How exciting! Hill has some hamstring tightness and is day-to-day.

Update II: How does Jose Molina bat ahead of Travis Snyder? Are the lineup cards already photocopied for the season with snider marked in for 9th everyday of the season and it would just blow the budget to get another one fresh one so you could move him?

Addie watch day something or other - could there be a resolution in a month or less?

According to this on Bluejays.com it might be close. I will not start holding my breath. Given how long this has all seemed to take it might be mid summer before the guy actually reports anywhere. He might just swim from Mexico for all we know.

A weak-ass defense of the Tallet in the rotation decision

Ok so I touched here on why I think the Tallet decision might be defensible from a team perspective, and it's a pretty weak structure holding it up. So i thought lets pack in some cooked pasta around the foundation and add some gum to the joints and use some duct tape sparingly where i think it can go and, voila:

Kenny Rogers

David Wells

See here's some historical proof that a left handed pitcher can make himself a starter late in his career.Of course these guys got regular starts in their late 20's and Tallet was still trying to stick in his late 20's. I'm sure I could find some better examples if I could bother to think about it. But I don't really believe in this argument. Further to support my argument Tallet was drafted 2x, in the 2nd and 13th rounds. Rogers was drafted in the 39th round. Yeah that doesn't really help at all. I'll just stop now.

I think I'm going to give this 2 bad starts before i stop trying to make even lame arguments to support it. I'm just hoping it doesn't take the Jays 10 bad starts to give up on it.

Are Lind and Hill for Real? Pt 1.

Here's some thinking on Lind and Hill that I have been working on for months


Both of theses guys had breakout seasons in 2009, proving themselves to be capable of top offensive output. But will they do it again? That has to be the $100mil question because it's the kind of money they'll be earning if they keep this up. The Jays should thank their lucky stars neither is up for arbitration or FA this off season, because players having a career year in their mid 20's never to repeat the feat are a terrifying proposition (see Hinske, E. and Rios, A., let alone Beltre, A.)

I'm not sure what the popular opinion on this issue is, but my impression was that people seemed to think Hill was more likely the fluke than Lind, I'm not sure I would agree. If anything I think Hill is going to use this season to really take off to a Hall of Fame type career. With Lind I think that he is going to be a very good player that touches this level a couple more times, and probably stays close to it over his career, but I don't think you can expect even another leap from here. 

To come to my conclusion I went back and did my research with players that i thought were similar to Hill and Lind, and drilled down into their break out seasons.

For purposes of keeping posts from being gigantic, I'll do Hill in this one. Here's a comparison page at baseball-reference.com.

From the first time I saw Hill in 2005, I thought: "this guy is either going to be Jeff Kent maybe without the power or Paul Molitor without the speed." I'm pretty sure now he's going to be Jeff Kent with the power.

Both of them got rushed to the big leagues after 3 seasons in the minors at 23 due to injuries at the MLB level, and if you compare those stats they come out about the same. Kent showed more power, though Hill had a better OPS by 100 points. Kent never saw AAA, while Hill was only there for 38 games. 

Hill has completed his 5th season, and though Kent never played more than 140 games in his first 5 their totals are pretty close because Kent never had the lost season that Hill did due to his concussion in 2008. That's as far as you can directly compare them as of course, Hill has only played those first 5 season. In the years after that 5th season Kent kept moving around and didn't really break out like Hill did this season until he played 150+ games for SF and hit 29HR's, he still only posted a .789OPS. The next season he really hit his prime and his OPS didn't go below 860 until he turned 40 in his final season and posted a 745 in 2008. 

Can Hill do what Kent did. I think so. If you look at them historically the had developed on pretty similar paths to this point with the main differences being Hill playing more regularly, Kent's power surge not coming so much out of left field and Hill having his first truly huge season at a younger age (which might be a function of Kent never playing as much as Hill has, I can't remember why that was). They both had the same main problem in their offense at this stage, OBP, and if Kent could overcome it there is no reason to believe Hill won't or can't.


What I think is important to remember about Hill in the regard is that from here he could just take off and have an incredible career. The other likely outcome is that his power could dip again and some of the HR's could go back to being 2B's, but if his OBP does rise, that will still be one hell of a player.

Are Lind and Hill for Real? Pt 2.

Guessing where Adam Lind may go from here is a lot more confusing to me than what the future holds for Hill. If you look at his stats in college and the minors you could definitely see there was a lot to be optimistic about. His struggles in his first 3 part seasons showed promise and frustration, the disaster his first trip up in 2008 turned into was scary.

But still the year he had in 2009 was pretty remarkable for a breakout season by a player with a little over  a seasons experience over 3 years. He was just so damned consistent, always producing something the whole way through the season. He had one month with an OPS below 800, but still had 18RBI. One month of an OBP below 300, but again drove in 18 and had a SLG of 581. Yes he did have a great last month of the season when the team faced a lot of lousy opposition, but given that he had such a consistent year before that, why would it be disappointing to get better in those situations, he SHOULD get better. If he had put up huge numbers through april and may, and then slumped away the summer only to pick it up in september I would worry about the future. But that isn't what happened at all.

It's hard to want to be as positive about a player like Lind as you think you could be. Could he really be as good as McGriff or Delgado? The main problem here is how do you get past the fact that he was a 3rd round draft pick and has always been questioned as to what he could actually become. I mean JP sucked at the draft didn't he? I don't want to turn this into a rant on these subjects, so I won't. But I think that's a big part of the doubt around Lind. Just how good can the guy be? Delgado-McGriff-Olerud-Green good? 3 of those 4 players left pretty early in their career (and Delgado eventually left too) to continue their greatness other places. Am I worried that Lind may do that too? Given the new contract he just signed the chance are reduced.

It's hard to imagine him being consistently as good or better than 2009. In his first full season he posted a 932OPS, 15th best in MLB right between Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Howard. He could lose 100pts off that and still have a really good season. So I don't think it's unreasonable to believe in an 850-950OPS from him every year. Probably we are looking here more at a Justin Morneau than Ryan Howard. One year he'll probably go over 1000 and make a run at an MVP (Delgado Olerud and McGriff did it 5 times between them, Green topped out at 972).

So in my opinion yes Lind is for real. 2009 was a consistent year for him in that he produced all season long, and what he produced was well in line with his minor league career. Given that new contract, I think the Jays agree too. And if he does spend seasons dipping into the 750OPS range, at least it's not killer money, like somebody else's long term contract.

Get ready for about 100 more of these, but it was still good

Well that went like I expected, a 1 run loss. Marcum was really damn good, and they manged to score some runs! Frasor was sure a dissapointment although as the tv told me rangers ballpark is not his friend. Hopefully he gets some good outings in quickly and bumps up the trade possibilities again and this is all forgotten. There was a lot too like here:

-Clutch 2b by the 2b, and just general ability to get something going against feliz
-Great hitting by Lind
-Great hitting by Wells
-Great inning by Downs - get that trade value up!
-very good outing by Marcum

This is a good way to loose a lot of games for a season. It shows you've got some stuff that can be built on. It would be pretty disappointing to loose 100 games a year like that  for more than a season though.

Let's hope the Tallet starts don't run things down too much.

Thoughts before the season starts

I didn't keep my blogging up the last couple of games because basically, i lost interest in the last 3 or 4 games of spring. The only really interesting thing to happen was that Brandon Morrow threw very well, regularly getting the ball up to mid-90's speed and no reported pain. I still need to do a longer post on him, maybe before his first start, but basically I think he's got the potential to be everything that McGowan was supposed to be. If McGowan ever makes it back to be what he looked like he might these 2 together would be deadly.

Final thought on Tallet and Eveland making the rotation over Cecil and Rzep? Well rzep got injured so that cleared things up. Eveland, if you were going to trade for him and then stick him in the bullpen or risk losing him to waivers when he pitched as well as he did, why did you bother trading for him? So it makes sense to give him a shot.

Tallet - well really what i got to say there is i'm betting that this is a move that's done as much for the benefit of the players as that management thinks he can be legit starting pitcher with more upside than any of the other options. Tallet has been a good soldier as long as he's been with the team, and i can bet he's popular with his teammates. He took the ball a lot last season and "ate" innings even when he wasn't very good and could have said he just wanted to stay in the bullpen. I could see that he might have been quietly politicking to get this opportunity. Nobody should fool themselves here, the potential earnings between a guy who's a pretty good reliever and 5th starter could be pretty huge. Especially if he actually is any good and gets traded to a contender. That's probably something that is going to be respected by the players here as well as ones you might be trying to attract. And if he sucks, Cecil can be here in no time.

On the position player side of that long shot coin. I'm fine with Ruiz and McCoy on the team. I think they are both going to get regular chances to show why the entire rest of the league has been right about them for years once Bautista proves he's not going to suddenly bloom into a legit above average everyday player. But who knows, if one of these 3 exceeds expectations that would be a very good thing. We just have to hope that Cito realizes when one of the is showing there is no hope and moves onto the next one.

Finally, congratulations to Adam Lind on his brand new contract. It's amazing, the MLB contract. Both sides can be screwing each other and making out like bandits at the same time. I think this is positive backup to this story from tao of stieb. If the CEO was actually telling the players all this stuff, well then I have to think Rogers would have to be awfully cynical for it not to be true. The only thing is until proven otherwise, I really do believe that Rogers just is that cynical. Let's just say the scale is momentarily tipped the other way. But that's got as much to do with it being the first game of the regular season as anything else.

Some stuff to follow on Lind and Hill that I've been working on for a looong while.

Isn't that Addie guy supposed to be reporting somewhere about now? did he get lost in the Bermuda triangle?

At this point let me also state dissapointment that the Jays do not have a former Giant Bocock on the roster this season. I was looking forward to that.

100 losses and #3 in the draft here we come!

Eveland pitches great, Hill 2 RBI, I have no 3rd thing

Wasn't paying attention to this game, so going by the recap and boxscore that's pretty much it.

I do think though that if Tallet is going to continue to have a place in the rotation and Eveland is going to pitch this well, then cecil and rzep both have to go down to AAA. I'm sure they will both be back in no time at all, as one of those 2 will surely flame out, and there will be an injury, but I think you have to see where this train is going.

Besides I like the sound of "The Dana Eveland Project" as some kind of progressive rock band name.

Morrow and McGowan

Some reports from Bastian on the 2 of them here

Morrow threw as scheduled again and apparently his arm is still attached so he's going to get back on some kind of a schedule that should allow him to make a start in the 3rd game of the regular season. Again I will wait to see.

As far as McGowan goes, it's 2 more weeks of rest. Fine with me. I'm just still hoping at some point he proves me wrong. It should be pretty obvious to anybody that he is not any part of any plan. And if and when he comes back, it's all one gigantic boat of gravy.

Well Mr Marcum, that didn't smell very acey, Cecil announces himself, Kyle Phillips makes a late move

I'm not saying Marcum sucks, I'm just saying calling him the "ace" or even making a big deal of the fact that he's the acclaimed opening day starter is pretty dumb. He couldn't even make it to the 6th inning today. I'm sure there's a good reason, he was probably throwing nothing but changeups or something. But still any talk beyond "we hope he makes it through the regular season healthy", especially in spring training is just dumb, dumb, dumb.


Overbay suffered some kind of injury that knocked him out in the top of the first. Hopefully not serious.


Very nice outing by Cecil today. I assume he was throwing curvy stuff. I think I hope he starts in AAA and pitches great and gets called up when there is an opportunity to start. I worry he'll get stuck in the bullpen doing nothing if he makes the big club.


Any news on Morrow throwing in the bullpen today, did the arm stay attached?


Kyle Phillips with 4RBI and a HR today. Don't think he's going to unseat McCoy though in the "has to make the team gone by may sweepstakes".


You know none of either Bautista, Ruiz or McCoy is likely going to have an above average MLB career. But if even one does it would boost the Jays futures immeasurably. 

Friday Afternoon Travesty: Tom Henke has never received his due

I think I have posted about this before, but I'm not sure, search tells me no, it is one of my favorite saws when talking Jays.

Tom Henke is maybe the greatest player the Jays ever had.

I know he'll never get to the Hall of Fame like some guys, and he never won an MVP, and I don't think was ever seriously considered for a Cy Young. Look at his career though and find another Jay who was so stunningly good the whole time he was with the team (8 years). He was there for both the mid 80's and the the early 90's. His being so good all those years, that anchor that didn't have to be worried about, is what helped build a team that in the early 90's that could win back to back WS, even if he wasn't there for the second one.

I don't think it's any stretch to say no Henke no World Series. They had nobody else when he came up in 85, and Duane Ward was still 4 or 5 years away. Who knows what he would have been without Henke there in his early years.

The only guy I really think can be put in the same league is Jimmy Key, but in my opinion he has always received a lot more acclaim than Henke ever did. Well for me anyways, I think a lot of recent fans may not even know Key existed.

Unlike a lot of closers he quit at 37, after yet another great season. He probably could have "hung on" racking up saves for another 5 years or so. He probably would have gone over 400 for his career, he may have even hooked on somewhere he could have been a star for the last couple of years.

Addie watch day?

Is he just going to be at spring training next year competing for a spot with the big club and we are all going to wonder where he came from, or are we just never going to hear anything about this again?

Were there games the last couple of days?

I don't know, looking things over seems like they lost both, not surprising as the regulars on the other teams are going to play more and more.

Eveland and Rzep both pitched ok from what i see the last 2 days.

Apparently Overbay has been declared the starter for the beginning of the season, and that means Ruiz is mostly going to have to sit. I don't think I have a big problem with this to start the season. It's going to be a lot more beneficial in the long term if Bautista actually turns out to be a viable everyday MLB player somehow, and he's earned at least a month of the regular season to prove it's possible. if he sucks as bad as i think i will then move snider to right and lind to left and give ruiz a shot at dh, or mix it up any other way. ditto for olerud, give him as much chance as possible to make himself a tradeable commodity.

The problem is if Cito thinks that Bautista batting 260 with a 310OBP is ok at the end of April, Bautista will get to stay as the everyday leadoff man and banish Ruiz to the bench. Better hope Ryan Howard twists his ankle or something.

Wherein I try to avoid wrecking the whole purpose of this blog

Knowing that I have forsworn Bastian for at least a week, and I'm not supposed to be doing media criticism, I promise I did not read this article, but only the headline, and just skimmed it. I also know that Bastian doesn't write the headline. BUT. Come on people, neither of these guys has even started 30 games in a single season yet (yes I know Romero got 29 starts last season, maybe i would set some different goalposts in this ridiculous rhetorical contraption if it wasn't somebody else's). Neither of these guys is an "ace" by any reasonable standard. Now you want to imply there's some controversy over who the ace is?

I have no idea how the rest of the idiot media is handling this, i just fear it isn't any better. I can only hope that this will contribute somehow to them all going away if they are doing it as stupidly.

Tallet is Tallet, Ruiz homers, Roenicke unclogging the bullpen situation a little

You have to wonder which Tallet is going to show up for the few start he's going to get at the beginning of the season. One that might have some good outings and screw up somebody else's development but pay off in a late season trade? Or the one that's going to prove that he needs to be pulled out of the rotation quickly so he can go to the bullpen and maybe prove himself to be late season trade bait.

Marcum has been announced as the opening day starter. I can't believe all the "leadership" crap and other stuff he talks about in this article by Bastian. Does anybody really believe this stuff? Does anybody even remember who started the 1st game of the season after the 10th game of the season? I was going to write a full post about this but even this short paragraph is more than the subject deserves.

Big day tomorrow for Morrow, he's supposed to throw in a bullpen session or something so we'll find out for sure if his arm is still attached.

Rain Out! Marcum awesome in simulated game, Card games ensue, more exciting than actual game would have been

I have no idea if those next 2 are true, but it's fun to say. Bastian wrote some stuff today, apparently Kevin Gregg thinks he should be the closer. I think I need to take about a week off from Bastian.

Update:


And here's a good reason why. If He's Gone was a dick who nobody really like too much, or whatever then that's fine. I didn't think that was the message from the article, but then I wasn't really sure what it was. This follow up note doesn't really clarify anything for me. Just makes me think everybody's still scared to say what they feel.

Addie watch day 7?

Is this just going to go down the memory hole? And i spent all that time on nicknames!

Rzep goes 5, Offensive output!, Things return to form in Closer death match

Hill hits a HR, Snider goes hitless, but gets a BB. Bautista still hasn't walked yet this spring. Gregg seems to suck every 3rd time out, but maybe it's every 2nd time out.

Anyways McGowan is going to sit for a week, which sounds like a good idea. If we seem him in may or june that's ok with me.

Marcum vs. Red Sox today, wonder if they are bringing anybody good? I believe he should be going 7 today, which means spring training should start getting interesting now.

Pitchers Good, Hitters I never heard of Suck, Randy Ruiz Celebrates first MLB Season Start by drinking too much

Big news of course is that Morrow missed his start, probably because he's fighting off the flesh eating virus or is becoming a vampire or something. Following that here.

At least Ruiz worked a walk in his 4 trips to the plate. I guess he was so dizzy from his hangover that he just didn't bother swinging.

Bastian is again writing about He's Gone's lingering effects. I think I'm not even going to read this article, because I'm sure I already read it before.

Brandon Morrow, we hardly knew ye

As per Bastian

I'm sure they'll be pulling out his labrum or Tommy John or something in no time.

We'll see you back for 2012 or something buddy, good luck in rehab

Update:


Well not much more here except that they filled us in on some Astro scratches of guys I never heard of, very helpful.

They are calling it "precautionary" which I assume means he cut it off in a chain saw accident.

Update II:


So Morrow claims this happens every year in spring training. So either this goes away no problem or this is the year his arm falls off.

Update III:


There is another article on bluejays.com claiming that this is no big deal. They go so far as to point out that he had his arms crossed in order to prove that he still has both arms. I will not be convinced until he makes his next start.

Update IV:


Apparently everything is ok and Morrow will pitch again on the 29th and should be able to make his planned start in the regular season. We'll see.

So what's going on in the Backup Catcher Death Match?

Apparently nothing at all. I have no idea how you decide this one, just like before. If anything it looks like they are both proving that they don't belong in the MLB, but of course the backup catcher is a different breed. The worse he is the better! per se. It's kind of like grittyness I guess. Except it generally involves a lot less being white and a lot more being latin.

Snider and Buck both homer 2x, Hill Hits! (And walks), Romero Ho Hum

The Baltimores have managed to finish ahead of the Jays once since 1998, even the Rays have done better, and they have only existed since 1998. I'm still going to say that I think the Jays are headed for the basement this season, and 100 losses. But I do think that the situation isn't going to last for more than one season, and by 2011 the Orioles and maybe even the Rays will be looking back up at the Jays. Jeremy Guthrie is your #2 starter? Really? He'd be battling Tallet here for 5 spot at best, and nobody thinks Tallet is the Jays 5th best starter. Anyways.

Eveland threw 4 good innings, after Romero. I'm still going to say it'll be a shame if they have to loose him. He's a lot younger than Tallet and probably a lot more likely to be something useful. I don't understand why they traded for him, but it would make a lot less sense to just outright lose him after it. I'll knock my estimation of atos down a peg if they do,

Randy Ruiz is going to open the season on the MLB roster, with Dopirak getting sent down. Look i'm not thrilled but if this is going to happen they might as well make the guy a regular to start the season, however they do it. He's 32, if he's going to prove that everybody else in the world was wrong all these years, he needs 4 or 5 starts a week. If he's just going to sit on the bench and PH and get 1 start a week you might as well just keep Dopirak in the majors and stop pretending that you really think Ruiz has a chance to be something, and making it sound like you care about him. I don't think he's Roy Hobbes by any stretch, but we might as well find out. This gets easier of course if Encarnacion starts the season on the DL.

Non-Sports Rant: New Moon is like watching paint dry while you have your brain pulled out of your nose

My wife is forcing me to watch this gay vampire movie

50 minutes in and still absolutely nothing has happened

there was a werewolf in a commercial i could not avoid, i believe that was a lie

the hot chick in leather body suit quotient is also very low

Day 5 of the Adhechia Watch

When do we get to start wondering if this deal is falling apart. Although I have now run into references to it in the Toronto media from blogs I frequent, I don't think I have seen anything official or on ESPN.com or anything. Seems kind of bizzare.

I really like Adhechia, but I couldn't remember how to spell it when I went to write this post, so I think i'm going to have to go with Addie.

Tallet pitches well enough to make even me notice, Snider Homers, Potential Closer Death Match

Look if Tallet is going to pitch this well, I'm not going to deny that he deserves his shot. If he puts a couple more of these up then I guess he does deserve a chance over Eveland (when does he pitch again?), although if they both pitch well it would be a shame to loose him for nothing, given how young he is. But it looks like McGowan is definitely going to start the season on the DL, meaning he's also going to spend some time in the minors, and Cecil is definitely going to the minors to start, so these 2 are going to get a shot.

Similarly, with Carlson nursing an injury, the spot for another LH in the bullpen appears to be open and David Purcey could step in their. Do I get to gloat now?

And really who cares about the "closers", I wouldn't be shocked if they were all gone by the end of August. At the same time I believe both Downs and Frasor are potential Type A free agents after this season, so that's something.

He's Gone!

While going back through posts tonight and labeling them (a tedious process) I have decided that Roy Halladay will for now on be referred to as "He's Gone". Mostly because "Get Used to It" is 4 words long instead of 2.

Day 3 of the Waiting for the Cuban Show

No game today so it's all about Adeinis Hechavarria. I thought I would finally come to a decision on what to use as his nickname, because I ain't copy and pasting that monstrosity forever. So here's what I got.

Hech - Simple, I like it pretty good

Denny Hech - this is whiting him up to the extreme, I suppose it would be "ironic" but I don't like it

Addie - For a little bit of that baseball history reference. Addie Joss anybody?

Adhechia - This one I think is cool, because if you pronounce it right (A-duh-k, Adek-e-ah, Adek-e-eh?) it sounds kind of Japanese. So you get a 2 for one International free agent feeling.

I'll have to see how it goes.

Marcum pitched in a minor league game, threw 58 pitches and tries to get it too 75 in his next start. Good news.

Let's all welcome Adeiny Hechevarria

For a deal that was supposed to have 100% happened, surprisingly little news on this. One thing about the rumor at bluejays.com and not really anything on a "major" site. But for fun we'll assume it's going to happen.

There is some video and a scouting report here (h/t djf). He looks like a tall skinny shortstop to me. I'm not going to be overly impressed by 2 nice plays and an opposite field hit. He played for the Cuban National Junior team, so you got figure he's not going to be tripping over his own feet out there. I'm going to assume the Jays know what they are doing and the kid can play some.

Obviously the big news here is the organization has actually done what they talked about doing, and spent some significant coin on a foreign prospect. I wasn't worried that it wouldn't happen per se, because really there are too many variables. What I did worry was there would just be a lot of talk and no action then maybe 2 years from now somebody would say "hey what about the signing Cubans plans" and then they would spend $950K on some nobody and expect us all to cheer. Maybe they actually will sign those last few pieces when the team actually needs them in a couple of years. $10mil is not a small investment for a kid who may never play.

As for when we actually see Hech, I would have to guess he doesn't get a real shot until sometime in the second half next season at the earliest. If this season really goes to crap and he's doing anything, and nobody else is in the minors maybe September call up this year.

Jay nobodies loose slugfest, Rzep starts poorly finishes strong, Cecil shows he likes Vegas

Not much more to say except Ruiz is stating his case to get his chance to strike out a bunch of times in the MLB.

Brett Wallace got sent down, not a big surprise with that picket fence BA. Off day tomorrow, Tallet to pitch again on wednesday.

Blahhhh.

It's the game from Bizzaro World: Morrow throws BP, Frasor gets Shelled, Gregg is good!

Well we'll see how everybody does next time before we to hyped up by any of this.

Not from Bizzaro world: Snider hitless, Bautista gets hits, Hill BB, no hits, Lind gets a 3B!

Is Hill trying to prove a point or something? He now has 8BB for the spring, Thats tied for second in spring training, and about 1/2 the time he's been to plate he's walked.

There are also rumors that the jays have signed Adeinis Hechavarria. Not bad enough we already had Rzep, now we have to add another guy with an 11 letter last name and a confusing first name to boot. He's supposedly only 19 so it's a couple more years until it's going to become a regular problem. Maybe he can change his name to Danny Hech?


This will probably get it's own post.

Romero: Hey I'm here too, Eveland also making his case, McCoy too

Tidy win by the Jays on the road. I was never sure why the Jays traded for Eveland, and it seems pretty doubtful they are going to keep him now. Where does he fit and how would he clear waivers unless things go south fast? Then why do you want him anyways.

McGowan makes another sim start today I believe and then it should be game action if things keep going well.

Snider hit a 2b yesterday as well. A couple of hits today and a bb and he's pretty much right back on track.


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Mark McCoy in theory

I'm thinking the new leader in the "must make the team / released by may" race is now Mark McCoy. As well as being speedy and being able to play all over the infield and outfield, he probably ranks high in the all-important "grittiness" (in that he's white, short, and has no power). I don't know, not paying attention to most of the media or any message boards I don't know if he's been tagged as such yet, but it's a pretty safe bet.

Look as a guy who can actually play a bunch of positions, I think it's great that it might be him and not some masher who stands in lf. At least we probably won't have to watch him boot balls all over the place while we figure out he really can't hit curve balls. And He certainly has put in his time. But I'm pretty sure if he does make it the reason he has only made one short MLB appearance in all his years is going to show up.


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Managager Has Feet, Expects to Walk - "Toes are usefull", says Gaston

I don't know who to blame more here, Bastian, Cito or the headline writer. Seems like maybe there is enough to go around.

Drabek sent down, but expected to return

Righty prospect 'has good stuff,' says manager Gaston

Hold on their captains of obviousness, you don't want to go to far out on a limb there with these prognostications, there's a .05% chance you might be wrong.

Do you get the feeling these people are all kind of sick of this, and each other right now?  And there's like only 23 more days of this to go.

Things that were kind of a travesty - and a photo!

Here's something new, let's do things from the past, near or far that I think were kind of a travesty, although that is probably the wrong word.

Devon White should have grown a fro and a beard.

There was nothing better than watching baseball in the 70's than awesome hair. And there was no more awesome hair than an outfielder with a giant fro racing to track down a ball, hat flying off, hair exploding in the wind. Add some kind of beard or chops and awesome! Devo would have been great for this but he always kept it short, it was the wrong time.

Here's a picture of Oscar Gamble to explain what I mean.

If Devon had done this he might be top 5 in legendary Blue Jay status.

The Jays have an Ace!

Well  nobody's saying it yet, but after Marcum's 3IP yesterday everybody seems to be sure he's the opening day starter. 2 weeks ago this was a team in the dire straits of having not even a opening day starter, so it shouldn't take any time at all for people to start proclaiming him the ace.

I don't know what's going on in the broader media with this, but it is one of many things that I wish people would get their head straight about. I think Shaun Marcum would just like to prove to himself that he can stay healthy for a whole season while pitching 200+ innings, and really I don't think he should try to get there until next season. I think a nice 25 start year would be great! Maybe he'll have only 1 trip to the DL for something small! Awesome!

I think this is the kind of thing where poorly managed public expectations can really become a problem. If this "Marcum for ace" stuff starts to get out of hand, and he has a good April and May say, X-1 with a ERA in the 2's, things could get silly. By September he could be trying to gasp and wheeze himself to the end of the year in some vain attempt to win 16 games because that's what an ace would do. If things go generally crappy with the rest of  the team there really could be pressure for this. Will that damage him in the future? I don't now, he has pitched close to 200 innings in a season before, but is it worth the risk?

I think it would be a lot better if the team was saying he's just another guy and it doesn't matter who starts the 1st game (because really it doesn't), maybe even that he's going to only get 25 starts and that's it.

Makes a good argument for my 6 starter approach I think.

Marcum is AWESOME!!1!!, Arencibia now a bum, uhh not much else

The Jays took nor regular starters so what can you say, not sure why Arencibia only got 1 AB but I guess who cares?

Today Brian Tallet gets to pitch again. I'm thinking that the whole Tallet as a starter thing is just to kind of make him feel good after tryong so hard last year. But I think the way this plays out is that at best he makes a couple of 5th starter starts until either Cecil or McGowan are ready to take over the spot once it's needed on a regular basis. Unless he consistently proves to be worse than Eveland, who then gets the spot. Unless of course either proves to be awesome once the season starts.

I'm still pining for my 6 starters option once May begins.

Update: Today's game was cancelled, and Tallet pitched a simulated game instead. I think he should just keep getting simulated starts, then he can really pitch out of the bullpen.