A Novel Misunderstanding

John Manuel's Top 20 Prospects.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:37:00 +0000

John Manuel of Baseball America has just released his top 20 prospects list. One Blue Jay made the list: Kyle Drabek. Here's what he had to say,

16. Kyle Drabek, rhp, Blue Jays
WHY HE’S HERE: The son of 1990 Cy Young Award winner Doug Drabek was the key piece in the Roy Halladay trade and instantly became Toronto’s top prospect. His stuff wasn’t always consistent in 2009, but at his best he has an excellent curveball, a plus fastball and a decent changeup.
WHAT HE’LL BE: If his changeup gets better, Drabek can be a No. 2 starter on a championship team. If not, he could become a Tom Gordon clone as a closer, bringing mid-90s heat and finishing off hitters with his curve.
WHEN HE ARRIVES: Drabek was vulnerable to lefthanded hitters last year, and the Blue Jays have pitching depth, so Drabek should be able to move up to Triple-A and hone his changeup in 2010 without having to immediately deal with the burden of being the Player Traded for Roy Halladay.

Pretty much what we all expected. It seems like people bounce back and forth between both Stewart and Drabek as the number one arm in the system. I suppose that Drabek is a little more iffy: He's younger and less polished; a lot of his potential as a dominant starter is dependent on how well he's able to develop a changeup; and he does have long term injury concerns. Manuel makes an excellent point about the pitching depth. I'm leaning more toward having Drabek spend the entire year and Las Vegas. Let's let the kid cook there for a bit; there's no need to push him throw the system on a team that really has no chance to contend over the next few years.

Sickels releases his top Blue Jay prospects

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:57:00 +0000

Minor League guru John Sickels has just released his ranking of Blue Jay prospects. Here are the top 10:

1) Brett Wallace, 1B-3B, Grade B+
2) Zach Stewart, RHP, Grade B+
3) Kyle Drabek, RHP, Grade B+
4) Travis d'Arnaud, C, Grade B
5) Chad Jenkins, RHP, Grade B-
6) David Cooper, 1B, Grade B-
7) Josh Roenicke, RHP, Grade C+
8) Henderson Alvarez, RHP, Grade C+
9) Carlos Perez, C, Grade C+
10) Brad Mills, LHP, Grade C+

Take a look at his post for the complete top 20 list. He also adds brief comments on each player (full comments on every team availible in his yearly).

A few interesting notes: Sickels states that he likes Stewart's stuff a little better than Drabek's. The more I hear about Stewart, the more I'm really starting to get excited about the kid. Sickels also states, "A rotation of Drabek/Stewart/Jenkins could spin a lot of quality innings if everyone pans out." Now, just think of all the possible 4-5 guys.

On the League trade.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:56:00 +0000

Sometimes brilliant, sometimes very frustrating reliever for a young sometimes brilliant, sometimes very frustrating starter; both are fireballers. Obviously, this deal is too heavily weighted in the Jays' favour to not have another player involved: a prospect. Consensus now seems to be that the prospect is Johermyn Chavez. Cringe. This doesn't sit well with me—although it does sit a lot better than the delusion of some Mariner fans believing that we'd actually deal Wallace, Snider, Stewart, or Lind. The nerve!—I was looking forward to Chavez: The kid is young, and he plays a position that seems to be a deep dark void in the organization.

Yeah yeah, he repeated Low-A last year. The kid was 20 years old and he put up decent numbers at the plate during his mulligan year: He posted a wOBA of .371, a ISO of .191, and a .346 OBP; the kid hits for decent power and gets on base. He could certainly improve on his 7.3% BB rate and 27% K rate. He's young and needs polishing—of course. But I'd certainly take a 20% K rate if his ISO was .200+. All in all, he's a RF/LF prospect. Enough said.

A quick look at Brandon Morrow. He's projected to be a number 3 guy. He's hard throwing: his fast ball sits at around 95mph. He's got control issues and sometimes has trouble with his curve. He spend time in both AAA and the MLB last year playing in 10 (starting all 10) and 26 (starting 10) games respectively. His numbers weren't spectacular with Seattle: His tRA was 5.54 (a tRA of 3.00 would be considered very good), and his xFIP was 4.89 (again an xFIP of 3.00 would be considered elite for a starter). He averaged a nice 8.14 K/9 in the MLB last year, but also recorded a 5.68 BB/9.

So, why Morrow. Simple: (i) He's major league ready and can eat innings; (ii) He does have potential; and (iii) We might one day see him as a setup/closer type in the bullpen. Personally, I still think hanging on to Chavez would have been better; there must have been another Hi-A prospect? Is the pantry that bare?

Mat at Blue Jays Daze postulates what the rotation could be like in 2010:

1 - Ricky Romero (25): stats for 2009, 29 GS, 178 IP, 141 Ks, 4.30 ERA, 1.522 Whip (14 IP in minors)

2 - Shaun Marcum (28): stats for 2009, did not pitch due to injury (15 IP in minors as rehab)

3 - Brett Cecil (22): stats for 2009, 17 GS, 93.1 IP, 69 Ks, 5.30 ERA, 1.650 Whip (49 IP in minors)

4 - Brandon Morrow (25): stats for 2009, 10 GS, 69.2 IP, 63 Ks, 4.39 ERA, 1.579 Whip (55 IP in minors)

5 - Marc Rzepczynski (24): stats for 2009, 11 GS, 61.1 IP, 60 Ks, 3.67 ERA, 1.321 Whip (88 IP in minors)

Zack Stewart could be ready to see some action next year, and look forward to Kyle Drabek in 2011. The above rotation also leaves Scott Richmond out, and he could find a good home in the pen—frankly, he's probably better there. Best case for Jesse Litch is July-August, which might be perfect timing when innings begin to be a problem for the young arms. And, of course, there's also the Dustin McGowan mystery. A little further down the line we also have Reidier Gonzalez and Luis Perez.

Hopefully the pitchers who are going to be established parts of moving forward will make a strong case by the 2012 season. In the meantime, won't it be fun to watch it all unfold?

Just a reminder...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:46:00 +0000

When John Lackey signed with the Red Sox, that sweet sweet first round draft pick we got from them turned into a second round pick; number 70 overall. You kind of had to see this coming. The Sox were bound to pickup a top corner outfielder—I was hoping Bay would resign and this wouldn't be a problem—or they would beef up the starting rotation. They did the latter and got Mike Cameron as well.

The draft situation still looks good:

First Round:

#11 (their own)

Supplemental:

#33 (For Scutaro)

#38 (for failing to sign James Paxton, a 2009 sandwich rounder)

Second Round:

#52 (Their own)

#69 (for failing to sign Jake Eliopolous, a 2009 second-round pick)

#70 (For Scutaro)

Third Round:

#84 (the Jays' third-round pick)

#104 (for their failure to sign Jake Barrett, a Jays' 3rd-round pick in 2009).

Assume that Barajas is gone, and you can add another supplemental pick. That included, the Jays have 9 picks in the first 3 rounds, and 5 in the top 50ish.

And apparently we'll have the money to sign these picks...

Yay.

Red's restructure Rolen; opening for the Jays.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:48:00 +0000

The Cincinnati Reds and Scott Rolen—former GBOAT—have agreed to a restructured contract. The contract is now worth $23.625MM through 2012. I haven't heard much of Rolen since his concision, but by the sounds of this, it seems like he should be healthy and good to go for the start of the season. Gotta love Rolen.

Question: Does that put Juan Francisco on the trade radar?

Juan Francisco - 21 y/o 3B prospect ranked number 5 in the Reds' system by BA. Switch hitter.

Report Created on Baseball-Reference.com

What could the Jays ship? Overbay is unfortunately out of the question; he'd be a downgrade from Joey Votto. Would the Reds be interested in some bullpen help? Think Accardo and Tallet. Tallet is at a high right now and we all know that Accardo wants out. However, how much is Tallet worth to the Jays young starting rotation. He may be worth a lot—Tallet might have to eat a lot of innings in the pen this season.

Could add Cooper, Dopirak, Arencibia, or even d'Arnaud to the package. The way I see it, both Cooper and Dopirak are blocked at first base if Wallace works out; and one of Arencibia or d'Arnaud will hopefully turn into the infamous "catcher of the future."

Since I'm talking about 3rd base, which is a definite long term hole, I should also note that all might not be lost on the farm. Kevin Ahrens had a forgettable season in Hi-A last year. Expect him to start the season in Dunedin again. Brad Emaus had a so-so season in AA last year. He has played third base and could be permanently transitioned is need me.

Anyway. This is all a results of my lingering prospect hard-on from the Halladay swap.

On Drabek and a few other tidbits...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:46:00 +0000

At the beginning of last year, people were saying number two or three starter in Drabek, but 2009 was a big year for him; it was his first year back from Tommy John's. Drabek had a very good 2009: his ERA was a little up, but his K:BB ratio was a very commanding 3.5:1. I heard something today that said he strikes out something like 30% of batters that he faces. He's got great command of his fastball, but his K pitch is a hard bitting 12-6 curve. He's currently working on a change up, which would be the final piece to make him a 4-pitch starter: fastball +, curve +, slider, change up (still young so could be a 4-plus pitcher). After his season last year, people are saying that his ceiling is very high. This will be his second season back from TJ surgery, so theoretically he should have his power back. He'll be starting in AA. Baseball America (one of the top prospect people) call him the number one prospect in the system.

Also, don't forget about Zach Stewart—remember him, we got him in the Rolan deal. He's supposed to be a pretty good young arm too. He has a chance to make the team out of spring training, but he's still young, so another year in AAA wouldn't hurt. According to BA, Stewart is the number 2 pitcher in the system, and sits about 4th overall.

Another really interesting thing that I heard today concerned scouting. One of the first thing that AA did when he came to power was to almost immediately increase the number of scouts in the organization—in fact, they about doubled the number of both professional and amateur scouts in the system. Did not know that. Actually, it was also said that under JP, the Jays ceased to scout high-schoolers... go figure.

BA is set to release their annual Prospect Handbook (I'm probably going to pick up a copy). They have Drabek ranked number one and Wallace ranked number two (I think they have d'Arnaud somewhere 6-7ish, but don't quote me yet). So, for Halladay we got two prospects better than anything we had before. Guess who they have third: our boy Arencibia. He's ranked higher than d'Arnaud because he's more advanced in development than d'Arnaud.

One more thing, I also heard that Wallace has a good chance of making the team out of spring training if there's no one blocking him at first base—ahem Overbay.

Game Scores Update: August 17, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:54:00 +0000

It's been a busy week and I haven't had much time to post. Again today I won't have time for a long post, but I have managed to put together this weeks GSc. update:

For Blue Jay pitching,

	AGSc	Chg	GS	Starts	Week Avg
Roy Halladay	61.22	+0.22	23	1	66.00
Ricky Romero	53.42	+0.03	19	1	54.00
Scott Richmond	52.60	-0.19	15	1	50.00
Marc Rzepczynski	51.63	-3.38	8	2	41.50
Robert Ray	48.50	+0.00	4	0
Brett Cecil	48.42	+0.00	12	0
Brian Tallet	46.63	-0.92	19	1	30.00
David Purcey	41.00	+0.00	5	0
Jesse Litch	37.00	+0.00	2	0
Brad Mills	25.00	+0.00	2	0

For all notables,

Pos	Chg		AGSc	Chg	GS	Starts	Week Avg
1	+0	Tim Lincecum	65.88	+0.35	24	1	74.00
2	+0	Dan Haren	64.29	+0.34	24	1	72.00
3	+0	Chris Carpenter	62.00	+0.06	19	1	63.00
4	+1	Zack Greinke	61.67	+0.54	24	1	74.00
5	-1	Javier Vazquez	61.26	+0.00	23	0
6	+0	Roy Halladay	61.22	+0.22	23	1	66.00
7	+0	Matt Cain	60.21	-0.18	24	1	56.00
8	+1	Josh Johnson	59.83	+0.88	24	1	80.00
9	-1	Felix Hernandez	59.54	+0.50	24	1	71.00
10	+2	Justin Verlander	59.16	+0.91	25	1	81.00
11	-1	Josh Becket	58.96	+0.41	23	1	68.00
12	+1	Adam Wainwright	58.48	+0.23	25	1	64.00
13	+3	Cliff Lee	57.48	+0.56	25	1	71.00
14	+1	Yovani Gallardo	57.42	+0.20	24	1	62.00
15	-1	Johan Santana	57.04	-0.52	24	1	45.00
16	+1	Jake Peavy	56.69	+0.00	13	0
17	+6	CC Sabathia	56.08	+1.00	25	1	80.00
18	+1	Jon Lester	56.00	+0.00	24	1	56.00
19	-8	Wandy Rodriguez	55.88	-2.39	24	1	1.00
20	+2	Chad Billingsley	55.17	+0.00	24	0
21	-3	Matt Garza	54.92	-1.40	24	2	39.50
22	+2	Jair Jurrjens	54.88	+0.38	25	1	64.00
23	+3	Carlos Zambrano	54.15	+0.00	20	0
24	-4	Jered Weaver	54.00	-1.96	24	1	9.00
25	+2	Kevin Millwood	53.96	+0.18	23	1	58.00
26	-1	A.J. Burnett	53.83	-0.40	23	1	45.00
27	+1	Joel Pineiro	53.52	-0.07	23	1	52.00
28	-7	Roy Oswalt	53.46	-1.91	24	2	32.50
29	+0	Jason Marquis	53.09	+0.77	23	1	70.00
30	+0	Mark Buehrle	53.04	+0.82	24	1	72.00
31	+0	Doug Davis	52.00	+0.17	25	2	54.00
32	+0	Ryan Dempster	50.57	-0.38	21	1	43.00
33	+1	Dallas Braden	50.41	+0.00	22	0
34	-1	Barry Zito	50.38	-0.10	24	1	48.00
35	+3	Bronson Arroyo	49.96	+1.59	23	1	85.00
36	-1	Tim Wakefield	49.53	+0.00	17	0
37	+0	Derek Lowe	49.12	+0.29	25	1	56.00
38	+1	Kevin Slowey	47.63	+0.00	16	0
39	-3	Nick Blackburn	46.88	-2.26	24	2	22.00

A couple of terrible weeks stand right out: Wandy Rodriguez and Jered Weaver. Rodriguez gave up 10 ER in only 4 innings pitched in his start versus the Brewers and Weaver went 3.1 and gave up 8 ER in a start against the Orioles.

Player Watch: August 12, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:46:00 +0000

I won't say too much about today's player watch, as I don't have much time today to put up the post. I also want to put up a post about the Rios debacle at some point very soon, but haven't had the chance over the past few days for a few reasons: depression, anxiety, and just being busy overall—also wanted to let the dust settle a bit. But look for that either later today or tomorrow morning.

Okay, player watch (I'll post players, pitcher and rehabs then comment at the very end):

Players

Travis Snider	LF
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	9	15	3	0	4	7	0.405	0.463	0.811

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	44	51	12	1	13	37	0.319	0.414	0.650
Blue Jays	32	24	6	0	3	12	0.242	0.292	0.394
Totals	76	75	18	1	16	49	0.290	0.370	0.552

J.P. Arencibia	C
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	7	6	2	0	1	1	0.214	0.267	0.393

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	90	81	28	1	12	49	0.226	0.277	0.409
Totals	90	81	28	1	12	49	0.226	0.277	0.409

Brian Dopirak	1B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	9	11	2	0	1	4	0.297	0.366	0.432

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	87	101	29	1	19	68	0.308	0.374	0.576
Blue Jays (AAA)	26	38	5	0	6	20	0.349	0.379	0.560
Totals	113	139	34	1	25	88	0.318	0.376	0.572

Brian Jeroloman	C
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	6	3	1	0	0	1	0.150	0.346	0.200

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	90	69	13	1	6	23	0.229	0.346	0.339
Totals	90	69	13	1	6	23	0.229	0.346	0.339

Kyle Phillips	C
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	3	2	0	0	0	0	0.182	0.308	0.182

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	12	7	0	0	1	1	0.175	0.233	0.250
Blue Jays (AAA)	56	67	12	0	5	16	0.325	0.395	0.456
Totals	68	74	12	0	6	17	0.301	0.370	0.423

Justin Jackson	SS
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	78	53	12	1	0	17	0.213	0.321	0.269
Totals	78	53	12	1	0	17	0.213	0.321	0.269

David Cooper	1B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	7	8	2	0	1	3	0.348	0.484	0.565

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	101	96	25	0	6	49	0.257	0.334	0.373
Totals	101	96	25	0	6	49	0.257	0.334	0.373

Kevin Ahrens	3B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	6	4	0	0	0	5	0.211	0.261	0.211

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	90	69	14	1	2	31	0.212	0.281	0.279
Totals	90	69	14	1	2	31	0.212	0.281	0.279

Brad Emaus	2B/3B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	7	7	1	0	2	7	0.250	0.323	0.500

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	114	108	26	2	9	56	0.255	0.340	0.390
Totals	114	108	26	2	9	56	0.255	0.340	0.390

Eric Thames	OF
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	42	48	11	2	2	30	0.308	0.391	0.442
Totals	42	48	11	2	2	30	0.308	0.391	0.442

Scott Campbell	2B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	6	8	1	0	1	2	0.333	0.407	0.500

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	5	10	1	0	0	3	0.500	0.522	0.550
Blue Jays (AA)	33	30	6	1	3	15	0.254	0.353	0.398
Blue Jays (AAA)	27	22	3	1	0	6	0.229	0.327	0.281
Totals	65	62	10	2	3	24	0.265	0.357	0.363

Pitchers

Ricky Romero	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays	0	1	6.00	1	6.0	0	2	3	1.17

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (A+)	0	1	13.50	1	4.0	2	1	5	1.75
Blue Jays (AA)	0	0	1.69	1	5.1	0	5	4	1.57
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	7.20	1	5.0	0	2	3	2.00
Blue Jays	10	5	3.66	18	115.2	13	44	90	1.37

Brett Cecil	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays	0	0	4.39	1	4.1	0	3	2	1.95

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	1	5	5.69	9	49.0	2	19	32	1.47
Blue Jays	5	1	4.35	12	70.1	9	28	54	1.55

Marc Rzepczynski	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays	0	1	7.35	2	9.8	4	2	7	1.43

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AA)	7	5	2.93	14	76.2	1	36	88	1.52
Blue Jays (AAA)	2	0	0.79	2	11.1	0	4	16	0.99
Blue Jays	1	3	4.38	7	37.0	5	19	37	1.35

Zach Stewart	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	0.00	0	2.2	0	0	2	0.91

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	0.00	0	2.2	0	0	2	0.91

Robert Ray	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (A+)	0	1	4.91	1	3.2	0	0	1	2.19
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	0.00	1	4.1	0	3	3	1.22
Blue Jays	1	2	4.44	4	24.1	4	6	13	1.20

Brad Mills	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	2	8	4.06	14	84.1	6	35	72	1.40
Blue Jays	0	1	14.09	2	7.2	4	6	9	2.78

Rehabs

Shaun Marcum	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (A+)	0	1	3.00	2	6.0	0	0	5	1.17
Blue Jays (AA)	0	1	1.17	2	7.2	1	2	8	1.39
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	4.50	1	2.0	0	1	0	1.50

Casey Jansen	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	0.00	0	2.0	0	0	3	0.00

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (R)	0	0	9.00	0	1.0	0	0	0	2.00
Blue Jays (A+)	0	0	0.69	3	13.0	0	2	10	0.62
Blue Jays (AA)	1	0	2.40	1	15.0	0	5	12	1.13
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	6.35	0	5.2	0	1	6	0.96
Blue Jays	2	3	6.23	5	26.0	4	7	11	1.81

Snider has become a monster in Class AAA and will be called up soon and now given the lack of a day-to-day right fielder the need for both his bat and glove in the Blue Jay lineup are further exemplified. But don't expect it to be before the 20th of August. Snider is teetering toward Super Two status, and keeping him in Las Vegas until at least the 20th will ensure the he doesn't receive the extra year of arbitration. Given that the Jays are no where near competing for a post-season spot, I can understand the move in financial terms. It must be a horrible feeling to know that you deserve a spot in Toronto, but future financial precautionary measures are keeping you on the bus touring cities in the PCL.

Arencibia continues with a down season in Las Vegas and although having a good week, Dopirak cooled off slightly from his previous week's performance. I'm still hoping that Dopirak gets the call in September so we can see his bat and defense in Toronto.

With Ruiz being called up the play DH, the Snider callup is given, and I expect Dopirak will see some playing time in the Major Leagues as well. Where does that leave Kevin Millar? Nowhere. Millar met with Gaston and JP this week; I anticipate this was concerning an ensuing drop—to nothing—of his playing time. It is unlikely that Millar would accept a demotion to the minors—or that the Jays would even ponder such a move—but I have a feeling that even when the roster expands to 40 men, there still isn't room for Kevin Millar.

Zach Stewart saw relief action in three games and put up some very nice numbers. It's looking like Marcum won't see any action in the majors this year says JP:

"We're leaning more toward that, probably [stay in the minors], at this point. He's healthy. There's nothing wrong with him, but there's no reason to rush him. He's going to pitch next year for us. He'll be like 17 months post-op at that time. He feels good. We'll probably just keep throwing him, but there's really probably no need to get him to the big leagues at this point. We'll just back off that way and give him all of Spring Training to simulate the intensity of what it is to pitch in a big league game."

As for Jansen, it looks like he might stay in the minors for the rest of the season as well. It has also been indicated that he'll go to the pen when he does make it back to Toronto:

"Eventually, he'll be back up here, but he just needed to pitch. Maybe this year is just going to be a year where all the kids get healthy and, at the end of the day, we check off September and we say, 'They're healthy. They feel good and, coming into Spring Training, we're not worried about Casey's arm and we're not worried about Marcum's arm.' "

Victorino tossed for arguing balls and strikes—from center field!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:42:00 +0000

This one is ridiculous. Phillies centerfielder Shane Victorino was ejected from last night's game against the Marlins by home plate ump Ed Rapuano in the 7th for arguing balls and strikes. At the time, the Phillies were on defense and Victorino was playing in centerfield. Apparently, the threw his arms up at a call and was then rung up by Rapuano.

Here's a video of the ejection.

Can you believe that? Victorino was about 300 ft. away from home plate! Now that's awful umping.

Game Scores Update: August 10, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:19:00 +0000

Here is today's GSc update.

Jays pitching:

	AGSc	Chg	GS	Starts	Week Avg
Roy Halladay	61.00	-0.55	22	2	55.50
Marc Rzepczynski	55.00	-0.60	6	1	52.00
Ricky Romero	53.39	-0.38	18	1	47.00
Scott Richmond	52.79	+0.00	14	0
Robert Ray	48.50	+0.00	4	0
Brett Cecil	48.42	-0.40	12	1	44.00
Brian Tallet	47.56	+0.00	18	0
David Purcey	41.00	+0.00	5	0
Jesse Litch	37.00	+0.00	2	0
Brad Mills	25.00	+0.00	2	0

Jays pitching was below average for the week. Halladay gave up a total of 8 R (6ER) and 19 hits over his two starts and was 1-1 for the week. Cecil's numbers are low due to his short start (left the game due to a knee injury in the 5th).

For notables in the league:

Pos	Chg		AGSc	Chg	GS	Starts	Week Avg
1	+1	Tim Lincecum	65.52	-0.21	23	1	61.00
2	-1	Dan Haren	63.96	-2.04	23	2	42.50
3	+0	Chris Carpenter	61.94	-0.64	18	1	51.00
4	+3	Javier Vazquez	61.26	+0.74	23	2	69.00
5	+0	Zack Greinke	61.13	-0.32	23	1	54.00
6	-2	Roy Halladay	61.00	-0.55	22	2	55.50
7	-1	Matt Cain	60.39	-0.85	23	2	51.50
8	+0	Felix Hernandez	59.04	-0.55	23	1	47.00
9	+2	Josh Johnson	58.96	+0.24	23	2	61.50
10	+4	Josh Becket	58.55	+0.74	22	1	74.00
11	+2	Wandy Rodriguez	58.26	+0.44	23	1	68.00
12	-3	Justin Verlander	58.25	-1.07	24	2	46.50
13	-1	Adam Wainwright	58.25	+0.16	24	1	62.00
14	+1	Johan Santana	57.57	+0.23	23	2	60.00
15	-5	Yovani Gallardo	57.22	-1.93	23	2	37.00
16	+1	Cliff Lee	56.92	+0.53	24	1	69.00
17	-1	Jake Peavy	56.69	+0.00	13	0
18	+0	Matt Garza	56.32	+0.51	22	1	67.00
19	+5	Jon Lester	56.00	+1.33	23	2	70.00
20	+2	Jered Weaver	55.96	+0.64	23	1	70.00
21	+0	Roy Oswalt	55.36	+0.00	22	0
22	+1	Chad Billingsley	55.17	+0.12	24	1	58.00
23	+4	CC Sabathia	55.08	+1.17	24	1	82.00
24	-4	Jair Jurrjens	54.50	-0.93	24	1	33.00
25	+3	A.J. Burnett	54.23	+1.08	22	1	77.00
26	-1	Carlos Zambrano	54.15	+0.00	20	0
27	-1	Kevin Millwood	53.77	-0.18	22	1	50.00
28	-9	Joel Pineiro	53.59	-1.86	22	2	35.00
29	+0	Jason Marquis	52.32	-0.82	22	1	35.00
30	+0	Mark Buehrle	52.22	-0.78	23	1	35.00
31	+1	Doug Davis	51.83	+0.55	23	1	64.00
32	-1	Ryan Dempster	50.95	-0.42	20	1	43.00
33	+1	Barry Zito	50.48	+0.43	23	1	60.00
34	-1	Dallas Braden	50.41	+0.00	22	0
35	+0	Tim Wakefield	49.53	+0.00	17	0
36	+0	Nick Blackburn	49.14	+0.09	22	1	51.00
37	+0	Derek Lowe	48.83	+0.01	24	1	49.00
38	+0	Bronson Arroyo	48.36	+0.22	22	1	53.00
39	+0	Kevin Slowey	47.63	+0.00	16	0

CC Sabathia recorded the best week with a GSc of 82 in a game against the Red Sox. He went 7.2 and gave up only 2 hits with 9 Ks and 2 BB. A. J. Burnett continued the Red Sox domination with a 77 GSc outing in which he also went 7.2, gave up 1 hit with 6 Ks and 6 BB. Not to be outdone by Burnett, in the same game Josh Becket recorded a GSc of 74 in 7 IP, with 4H, 7 Ks, and 2 BB. Jon Lester also had a great week, recording 70 GSc. games in both his starts.

All of the above pitchers pitched in the same 4 game series.

The worst pitchers of the week were Joel Pineiro, Jair Jurrjens and Jason Marquis. Pineiro recorded a GSc. of 17 in a game against the Mets. His line was 5 IP, 11 H, 7 ER, 0 K, and 0 BB in that game. Jurrjens' bad start was agaist the Dodgers. His line was 4.1 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 3BB, and 5 K. Marquis had a bad outing against the Cubs. His line was 6 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 4 K, and 5 BB in that game.

Series Recap: Orioles @ Blue Jays, Aug. 7 - 9

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Joe Carter and co. decided to pick a lonely weekend in mid-August to celebrate the 16th and 17th anniversaries of the good old days: '92 and '93 back-to-back world series victories. It was a time when the Blue Jays were a force not to be reckoned with; a time when ownership had one thing on their minds: winning. Kudos has to be given to Pat Gillick who was the architect of the championship teams. While talking to Sam Cosentino, I heard Gillick mention something completely fascinating: Between the '92 and '93, 13 players were different on the roster. Amazing. Lose Winfield, go out and get Molitor, and so on.

Those were the days; it was a time when August, September and October meant something to Jays fans. In spite of all the nostalgia of the weekend, there was also a baseball series taking place.

Game 1:
Baltimore 7, Toronto 5

Romero was pretty solid on the mound through 5; he had a no-no going until Melvin Mora hit a liner up the middle with two outs in the 5th inning. You could definitely tell he had the no-hitter on his mind. Once Mora's liner squeaked between Scoots and Hill into the outfield for a hit, Romero looked pretty frustrated. Really Rickey? In the 5th inning? This showed his youthful inexperience: A veteran pitcher would have simply moved on.

Things started to fall apart in the 6th for the kid. The inning started with a walk to Wieters the number 8 batter. Izturis then singled, which brought about the top of the order. Bing, bang boom, he gave up 4 runs and the Jays were down 4-3. Taking a close look at Romero's pitching, we see that he had trouble commanding the strike-zone:

Romero Pitch Location

Let's look at his pitching in the 6th inning, when things started to fall apart:

The last plot separates his pitches for the first 5 innings of work and those in his 6th inning of work. There are a lot of red dots out of the zone, and more importantly a lot up in the zone. In this inning, he gave up a few hard hit balls to the outfield; players were able to get on top of the ball and drive it.

Romero Pitch Movement

Rickey had good velocity on his 4-seamer. I think what pitch/fx labels as a slider is actually a sinker of some sort, judging by its lack of horizontal movement and relative sink compared to the straighter 4-seam fastball.

Carlson came out in relief followed by League. This season, League has show zero consistency; when he's on, he's really on, but when he's off, God help us. Brandon League was off and it took three runs before Cito gave him the hook. Accardo saw a little action to finish off the 8th and Camp camp out to stop the bleeding in the 9th; Camp continued to pitch well.

The shock of the season came in the second inning when Wells and Rios had back-to-back jacks. Might as well start hitting when the team is well out of the post-season hunt. "Big" Joe Inglett also had a good day at the plate, going 2 for 4 with a run and a double.

In the end, the team couldn't pull one out for Cito who was playing in front of a lot of old time friends and greats.

Game 2:
Toronto 3, Baltimore 2 - 10 innings

Cecil started the game, but left in the 4th inning after trying to make a fancy play on a ball hit toward first base. The initial prognosis was a strained MCL. Apparently, this had been bothering Cecil for a while and he aggravated the sore ligament on the play at first; he had soreness pushing off the mound—should he have been playing? My first reaction to the strained MCL was "uh oh, not good." Apparently he had an MRI and everything seems to be okay; he should only miss one start in the rotation. We'll just have to wait and see.

Has Cecil had Tommy John yet?

Until the injury, Cecil was having a satisfactory outing: he gave up 5 hits on 19 total batters faced, with 4 Ks, 2 BB and gave up 2 ER. Brain Tallet came in in long relief, pitching 5 scoreless innings. Good to have a guy like him in the pen. Edwin "E5" Encarnacion tried to do his best Scott Rolen impression, barehanding a softly hit grounder which he then threw wildly to first base.

The offense wasn't stacked at the top of the order like it had been in many recent games. Everyone was in the party: everyone in the lineup had a hit—expect Vdub, of course. Rios hit a home run in back-to-back games—maybe he should be perpetually placed on waivers?—in the second inning to put the Jays up 2-0. Adam Lind finally gave the Jays an extra inning victory with a one out double to left scoring Scoots.

The Jays have their first walk-off victory in 83 games.

Game 3:
Toronto 7, Baltimore 3

This game featured the battle of veteran vs. rookie on the mound: Halladay against Matusz. Veteran prevailed. In his 7 starts since coming back from a groin injury on June 29, Halladay has gone 1-4. Over these games, the Jays have only given him an average of 2.43 runs—pathetic offensive numbers. Halladay pitched a good one, and the Jays backed this effect with solid offensive play. 70% of balls hit in play against Halladay were on the ground and he threw only 26% of his pitched for balls. The Jays got to Matusz early and he was given the hook in the bottom of the third. Frasor came in to shut the Orioles down in the 9th. Frasor has been the Jays most effective reliever and has shown intestinal fortitude when being put into closer situations.

Kevin Millar; clean up hitter. FUCK. And he hits a home run. What an asshole. And he went 3 for 3. What a dick. Who the hell does Millar think he is? VDub continued with a good series at the plate with another home run; this one with men on base. The last time he hit one with runners on was in May. Scoots was a monster at the plate; he went 4 for 5 with a home run.

The highlight of the broadcast for me was in the top of the 4th when Kevin Weekes joined Campbell and the Tabby Cat from the TD Canada Trust Comfort Zone. You could just tell that Campbell was praying for a quick close to top of 4th which seems to drag on and on. Kevin Keekes?

Thumbs up goes to...

Vernon Wells. He went 4 for 11 in the series with 2 HR, 5 RBI and a wOBA of .475. He also lead the team with a WPA of .298.

Alex Rios. He was 4 for 10 at the plate with 2 HR, 4 RBI and a .535 wOBA.

Marco Scutaro. He went 5 for 13 for the series.

Brian Tallet. Accepting of his spot back in the pen, Tallet came out in an emergency situation and pitched 5 solid innings.

Jason Frasor. Frasor saw action in game 2 and 3. He faced a total of 6 batters and gave up no hits.

Thumbs down goes to...

Kevin Millar. I don't care that he was 3 for 3 with a home run and a wOBA of 1.000 in his only game played. Fuck Kevin Millar.

Rod Barajas. He was 0 for 8.

Adam Lind. He was 1 for 12

Brandon League. On 7 batters faced he gave up 4 hits and 3 runs.

The Blue Jays (53-57) take on the Yankees (69-42) starting today in New York. The probables are Marc Rzepczynski(1-3, 3.74) vs. Sergio Mitre (1-0, 7.50), Scott Richmond (6-6, 3.97) vs. Joba Chamberlain, (8-2, 3.73) and Ricky Romero (10-5, 3.66) vs. A.J. Burnett (10-5, 3.67).

Who would have thought Romero and Burnett would have the same record at this point in the season? Go Jays Go.

Shut up already about the Rios waiver claim

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:11:00 +0000

Really? Are we gonna have a repeat of the last four weeks?

If I hear one more thing about the Alex "Who gives a fuck" Rios waiver claim, I'm going to loose my fucking mind.

It's bullshit. This isn't news.

If you want to follow the second-by-second developments of this non-story, here. But really—in Alex's own words—who give a fuck? Pretty much every player is placed on waivers after August first; that's baseball. Speculate all you want about Rios's future with the team: Maybe the Jays want to shed the near $60MM he's owed on his contract. Maybe they don't (doesn't seem like it's inline with the new/old "we're competing in 2010 attitude). Just because Kenny Ken Ken Rosenthal thinks it's a big deal doesn't mean that it's actually a big deal. Remember who started all the Halladay hoopla?

But seriously, waivers are supposed to be secretive—that's kind of the whole point. Slime bags want a glimmer of importance; they release names. Disgusting.

Rios is starting to find a little pop in his swing. Can we let him play baseball? At least he's trying to stay positive:

"At some point, it gets old. But, it's baseball, man. There's nothing you can do about it. You just have to not listen to [the rumors] and keep going with what you're doing...I've heard that most of the players go through waivers after the deadline is over. I guess it's a normal process that most people go through... I can't do anything. If I get traded, I get traded. I'm going to have to go wherever I get traded to, but I don't know. At this point I'm thinking that I'm staying here."

In any case, the Jays have until Tuesday to make a decision: (i) The Jays can keep him; (ii) the jays can trade him to the claiming team; or (iii) The Jays can hand him over to the claiming team. In any case, let's just shut up and wait until Tuesday.

Kevin Youkilis left-field experiment; fail.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:49:00 +0000

"Yoooooooooooke," Yankee fans mockingly cheer as Kevin "You call that a strike!?" Youkilis attempts to play left-field.

Fact: I hate Kevin Youkilis.

Fact: Youkilis is a very good defensive first baseman; he even has a gold glove.

Fact: Youkilis has a hot bat this year.

Fact: Youkilis has spent most of this season being bounced between first and third base.

Fact: Jayson Bay and Rocco Baldelli are both out with injuries.

Fact: Josh Reddick can't hit lefties.

What does Francona decide to do? Put Yooke in left field. I had a good laugh when I watched the first game of the Red Sox/Yankee series on Thrusday. I'm now watching the third game on mlb.tv and "The Greek God of Walks" is playing left-field again. He let a liner go right over his head in the first inning, and he just misplayed a hard hit flyball—the fans are giving it to him. Can't help but feel sorry for Youkilis. He has no business playing anywhere but first base, but he's a professional and plays where he's put.

I still hate him though. Don't get me wrong. Who knows, maybe Millar will take a shot at playing left-field? Why the fuck not.

Series Recap: Yankees @ Blue Jays, Aug. 4 - 5.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:00:00 +0000

The Yanks were in town for a quick two game set against the Jays this week. The Jays came into the series undefeated in August (hey, I know it's only 2-for-2, but at this point in the season, any glimmer of success feels damn good). Well, the Bronx Bombers quickly stamped the shit out of any feel-good feelings; late inning shit pitching was the story in both losses.

Game 1:
Yankees 5, Blue Jays 3

I'm really getting sick and tired of this horseshit: Why was Kevin Millar hitting 4th? Why is he even on the team. His slash line going into the game was an absolutely pathetic .227/.302/.386 with 5, yes 5, home runs. And how about that rainbow toss to Halladay on a routine grounder hit his way. That costly error lead to the second Yankee run in the first inning. Can we please rid the Jays of Kevin Millar already? Here is an Open letter to Cito gaston by some (drunk) fans—I couldn't agree more.

Despite the little league infielding of the first inning, Halladay pitched a pretty good game until the 8th inning. Let's take a look at Halladay's pitching.

Halladay Pitch Location

The above plot shows where Halladay's pitches crossed the plate from the catcher's point of view. The standard strike-zone is shown in red. Units are in inches. Pitch types are Change Up (CH), Curve (CU), Cutter (FC), and 4-seam fastball (FF)

First thing I noticed right away was that there were a lot of 4-seamers in the middle and upper half of the plate. Halladay is known for good sink on his fastball. Looks like he had issues keeping it down in the zone. He did, however, have a 52% GB rate; even the fastballs in the upper part of the zone were deceiving batters. Halladay also showed great control of his change up, the majority are down and in on righties. Let's take a look at his pitch movement.

Halladay Pitch Movement

(The above plot shows how each pitch moved compared to if the same ball was thrown without any spin.)

Immediately, this plot struck me as being a little odd: Look at the wide distribution in horizontal movement of his 4-seam fastball. It looks like the pitch f/x system had a hard time defining Roy's fastballs. I find it hard to believe that his 4-seamer could vary in horizontal break between about 12 to 3 inches. I'd infer that some pitches that had more inside-out (in on righties) are probably 2-seam fastballs, while some pitches that had more outside-in (away from righties) are cutters. Maybe this is part of Roy's pitching genius: If the computer has trouble deciphering a 4-seam fastball from a cutter, maybe batters face that same problem? Looks like a 4-seamer until the last second and breaks to the right. Rivera has made a great living with a cutter like that.

I just don't understand why Halladay came out to pitch in the 8th. Although his pitch count wasn't overwhelmingly high at the point, it was obvious that Halladay was starting to run on fumes. Why was he still in the game? Lack of confidence in the pen? Probably had something to do with it. But, let's be honest: Roy Halladay was kept in the game just because he's Roy Halladay. Cito Gaston, grow a pair of balls. Halladay gave up back-to-back jacks against Damon and Teixeira putting New York up 4-1. The Jays made a an attempt at a comeback in the bottom half on hits by Scoots and Hill—always doing the lion's share of the clutch offense along with Lind—who were then doubled in by Wells (with a clutch hit against Rivera! Vdub, you shouldn't have, and at home to boot!).

Game note: Kevin "K-lean up" Millar was 0 for 3, 2 SO and a walk. That's some quality 4 spot hitting.

Game 2:
Yankees 8, Blue Jays 4

Cito's open audition for the cleanup stop brought candidate number 2, Lyle Overbay, to the stage—Kevin Millar, you will NOT be going to Hollywood. The Jays were in this one right until the 7th inning when things got ~~Roenicke~~ ugly. Adam Lind came up with a huge solo blast in the 5th to tie the game up at 2 and it looked like the Jays were picking up momentum. Then came the 7th. Cito decided to let Rzed start the inning, which turned into a disaster: First batter Nick Swisher; home run. Second batter Cano; double. That was it for Rzed. Up until that point, he had pitched a pretty damn good game. In total, he allowed 5 hits on struck out 7 and walked one—walked one. Great news. His ball% is started to come down a little too, he threw 40% of his pitches for balls. This still isn't a great number, but he's showing big league improvement. Control has been an issue in all of this other starts; he's starting to get a handle on the ball:

Rzepczynski Pitch Location

What a thing of beauty; there are practically no pitches in the upper half of the plate. Great control of the slider; he kept to the lower left half of the zone. Great control of the 2-seamer; he kept it on the right side of the plate. A great distribution of 4-seamers; he kept them down in the zone.

Rzepczynski Pitch Movement

You can see that he love to throw his slider and he's got good movement.

Rzed was replaced by newcomer Josh Roenicke who had a less than ideal home debut in Toronto. Roenicke was hit around the park—frankly, Rolen could have had a better showing on the mound—and gave up 3 hits and 2 runs on 8 batters. One bright spot—I'm digging here, but I want some optimism for not-Rolen—was that he recorded two Ks in his one inning of work. Carlson came in in the 8th and was hit around a bit, then a hairless and mustacheless Brian Tallet came in in the 9th and gave up a leadoff homer to Mr. Hollywood, Johnny Damon.

The Jays are now 2-2 in August.

Thumbs up goes to...

Marco Scutaro. Scoots was 4 for 10 with a HR(!), which gave him a wOBA of .465 for the series.

Not much great came out of this series...

I'll give an honourable mention to Lyle Overbay. He only played in the second game, but went 2 for 3 and drew a walk in the 4 hole.

Thumbs down goes to...

Josh Roenicke. When you come over in a deal that sees fan favourite Scott Rolen go the other way, you certainly don't want to start off like Josh did at home.

Kevin Millar. See above. Fuck Kevin Millar.

Cito Gaston. Honestly Cito, what the fuck. The lineup is a mess and you're pitching decisions have been questionable over the past few weeks. Don't you let me know now, Cito. Don't you fucking let me down now.

The next series starts on Friday in Toronto against the Orioles. The pitching match-ups are, Cecil (5-1, 4.36) vs. Berken (1-9, 6.93), Romero (10-4, 3.53) vs. Tillman (0-0, 6-75), and Halladay (11-5, 2.75) vs. Matusz (1-0, 1.80)

That Sunday matching will be the one to watch: old versus new. In Matusz's first start last week, he showed some wicked stuff.

Go Jays Go.

Quantifying defence behind the plate: Where does Barajas stand?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Fangraph's Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) has become one of the established methods for quantifying the quality of a player's defense at his position. One major shotfall to UZR is that it currently is not able to give an appropriate score to catchers; many factors influence how good a catcher is at his position which do not apply to any other position: SB/CS ratio, passed balls, reputation—will a player not attempt to steal because so-and-so is behind the plate?—to name a few factors.

chuckb writes on Beyond the Box Score about a metric that he's developed to rate a catcher's defensive value (and conveniently he attempts to put it in the same context as UZR).

So, where does Barajas rank among the cathers in the league? Ninths, at a cost of -8.663 runs per 150 innings. Ironically, he sits one back of Greg Zaun. Hanigan was rated the top defensive catching at -0.693 R/150 Hundley was last at -39.560 R/150. I found it amusing to see Posada in the penultimate position with a -34.564 R/150.

Player Watch: August 5, 2009.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:20:00 +0000

Here is today's prospect update. There's some good news for position players:

Travis Snider	LF
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	5	9	6	1	2	11	0.500	0.625	1.278

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	35	36	9	1	9	30	0.293	0.400	0.602
Blue Jays	32	24	6	0	3	12	0.242	0.292	0.394
Totals	67	60	15	1	12	42	0.270	0.355	0.509

J.P. Arencibia	C
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	4	2	0	0	0	1	0.143	0.235	0.143

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	83	75	26	1	11	48	0.227	0.278	0.411
Totals	83	75	26	1	11	48	0.227	0.278	0.411

Brian Dopirak	1B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	5	11	0	0	5	12	0.478	0.478	1.130

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	87	101	29	1	19	68	0.308	0.374	0.576
Blue Jays (AAA)	17	27	3	0	5	16	0.375	0.387	0.625
Totals	104	128	32	1	24	84	0.320	0.376	0.585

Brian Jeroloman	C
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	4	4	0	1	0	0	0.333	0.385	0.500

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	84	66	12	1	6	22	0.235	0.345	0.349
Totals	84	66	12	1	6	22	0.235	0.345	0.349

Kyle Phillips	C
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	1	1	0	0	0	1	0.250	0.400	0.250

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	12	7	0	0	1	1	0.175	0.233	0.250
Blue Jays (AAA)	53	65	12	0	5	16	0.333	0.400	0.472
Totals	65	72	12	0	6	17	0.306	0.373	0.434

Justin Jackson	SS
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	78	53	12	1	0	17	0.213	0.321	0.269
Totals	78	53	12	1	0	17	0.213	0.321	0.269

David Cooper	1B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	5	5	2	0	1	4	0.263	0.263	0.526

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	94	88	23	0	5	46	0.251	0.322	0.360
Totals	94	88	23	0	5	46	0.251	0.322	0.360

Kevin Ahrens	3B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	4	5	2	0	0	1	0.313	0.333	0.438

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	84	65	14	1	2	26	0.212	0.283	0.283
Totals	84	65	14	1	2	26	0.212	0.283	0.283

Brad Emaus	2B/3B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	5	6	0	0	1	2	0.353	0.450	0.529

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	107	101	25	2	7	49	0.256	0.341	0.382
Totals	107	101	25	2	7	49	0.256	0.341	0.382

Eric Thames	OF
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	42	48	11	2	2	30	0.308	0.391	0.442
Totals	42	48	11	2	2	30	0.308	0.391	0.442

Scott Campbell	2B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	4	1	0	0	0	2	0.071	0.188	0.071

Season
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	5	10	1	0	0	3	0.500	0.522	0.550
Blue Jays (AA)	27	22	5	1	2	13	0.234	0.339	0.372
Blue Jays (AAA)	27	22	3	1	0	6	0.229	0.327	0.281
Totals	59	54	9	2	2	22	0.257	0.351	0.348

Travis Snider was an absolute monster at the dish last week. Over 18 at bats he was slugging 1.278 and had a monster .625 OBP. Not to be outdone, Brian Dopirak also had a great week at the plate; a whopping 1.130 slug with 12 RBIs. Hopefully we'll get to see Dopirak in Toronto as a September callup—I'm sure he'll hit better than Millar and probably better than Overbay. Jeroloman also had a good week in New Hampshire, and once again Arencibia continues to struggle this season. Jeroloman is making a case to be the future starting catcher over Arencibia. Justin Jackson and Eric Thames are both injured and on the 7-day DL.

On to the pitchers:

Ricky Romero	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays	1	0	2.57	1	7.0	0	1	5	1.29

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (A+)	0	1	13.50	1	4.0	2	1	5	1.75
Blue Jays (AA)	0	0	1.69	1	5.1	0	5	4	1.57
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	7.20	1	5.0	0	2	3	2.00
Blue Jays	10	4	3.53	17	109.2	13	42	87	1.38

Brett Cecil	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays	1	0	5.14	1	7.0	0	1	3	1.00

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	1	5	5.69	9	49.0	2	19	32	1.47
Blue Jays	5	1	4.36	11	66.0	9	25	52	1.53

Marc Rzepczynski	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays	1	2	3.25	5	27.2	1	17	30	1.32

Zach Stewart	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP

Robert Ray	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (A+)	0	1	4.91	1	3.2	0	0	1	2.19
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	0.00	1	4.1	0	3	3	1.22
Blue Jays	1	2	4.44	4	24.1	4	6	13	1.20

Brad Mills	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	2	8	4.06	14	84.1	6	35	72	1.40
Blue Jays	0	1	14.09	2	7.2	4	6	9	2.78

Romero had a an excellent start in Oakland last week. Cecil's start last week wasn't as solid has his previous two with the Jays, but what he has show since being recalled has definitely been good. Rzed didn't get a start, but is on the mount tonight versus the Yankees. Both Mills and Ray are injured and not pitching.

Notice that I've added Zach Stewart (acquired in the Rolen deal). He has yet to make an appearance in Las Vegas.

On to the rehabbers:

Shaun Marcum	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (A+)	0	1	3.00	2	6.0	0	0	5	1.17
Blue Jays (AA)	0	1	1.17	2	7.2	1	2	8	1.39
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	4.50	1	2.0	0	1	0	1.50

Casey Jansen	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	0.00	0	2.0	0	0	2	0.50

Season
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (R)	0	0	9.00	0	1.0	0	0	0	2.00
Blue Jays (A+)	0	0	0.69	3	13.0	0	2	10	0.62
Blue Jays (AA)	1	0	2.40	1	15.0	0	5	12	1.13
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	9.82	0	3.2	0	1	3	1.56
Blue Jays	2	3	6.23	5	26.0	4	7	11	1.81

After making his way quickly to Class AAA during his rehab stint, Marcum did not pitch over the last week in Las Vegas. No news as to why. Hopefully he hasn't aggravated the injury; he was timelined to be back mid-late August, and I'm looking forward to seeing him pitch in the MLB again.

Casey Jansen also didn't see much action pitching from the pen in Class AAA. The two innings that he did pitch were solid.

The ultimate fantasy camp.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:15:00 +0000

It's good to see MLB players taking time to give back to the fans. Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard took it upon themselves to start their very own baseball fantasy camp.

Could you imagine how much fun a Scott Downs/Brian Tallet fantasy experience would be?

(h/t to David Pinto of baseballmusings.com)

Downs undergoes surgery on toe

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:59:00 +0000

After reinjuring his toe during the ninth inning of the Jays game on Saturday, Blue Jays closer Scott "Snake Face" Downs was placed on the DL. Downs flew back to Toronto on Sunday to have his big toe—often dubbed the "Captain of the Toes" or "the one who went to the market"—by team podiatrist Dr. Glenn Copeland. Copeland acknowledged that Downs had injured ligaments in the metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint of the toe. "This is a typical injury which usually results from a hyperflexion mechanism; the toe is bent too far upward," Copeland explained. "For a pitcher with this type of injury" he continued, "there might be slight discomfort when pushing off the mound."

Downs will undergo a procedure similar to Tommy John surgery whereby the ligaments in the toe will be replaced with tendons taken from elsewhere in his body. Much like Tommy John surgery, it will take Downs 10-12 months to recover and he shouldn't be expected to regain 100% power in his foot until sometime after.

When asked if the surgery was necessary, Copeland responded by saying "Absolutely not. His toe is sore. We told him to play through it as the soreness would last a few days at most. Scott refused to even pickup a baseball until 'his boo-boo toe wasn't bwoken.' That's exactly how he said it," Copeland stated in a mocking tone. "This is ridiculous. Arsnberg pretty much forced me to do it. He asked me if it was possible to do Tommy John surgery on a toe. I thought about it for a minute and jokingly responded by telling him that it was technically possible. His face lit up and that was that; the decision was made."

It's expected that Jason Frasor will take over closing duties with Brandon League filling in when Frasor is not available. The Jays might also experiment with the newly acquired Josh Roenicke who has experience closing in college ball and in the minor leagues.

Game Scores Update: August 3, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:07:00 +0000

It's time for this week's GSc update. Jays pitching this week was below average:

	AGSc	Chg	GS	Starts	Week Avg
Roy Halladay	61.55	-0.66	20	1	49.00
Marc Rzepczynski	55.60	-0.90	5	1	52.00
Ricky Romero	53.76	-0.84	17	2	47.50
Scott Richmond	52.79	-2.21	14	1	24.00
Brett Cecil	48.82	+0.22	11	1	51.00
Robert Ray	48.50	+0.00	4	0
Brian Tallet	47.56	+0.00	18	0
David Purcey	41.00	+0.00	5	0
Jesse Litch	37.00	+0.00	2	0
Brad Mills	25.00	+0.00	2	0

All five starters underperformed. Most notable was Richmond. On Friday, he made his first start since returning to the majors from a stint on the DL. In that game in Oakland, he only went 3+ innings and had to be replaced by Tallet after giving up 6 runs (4 earned) on 19 batters faced. Doc Halladay also had an uncharacteristic start where he gave up 11 hits over 7 innings.

For notables in the majors the GSc looks this:

Pos	Chg		AGSc	Chg	GS	Starts	Week Avg
1	+0	Dan Haren	66.00	-0.75	21	1	51.00
2	+0	Tim Lincecum	65.73	+1.53	22	2	81.00
3	+1	Chris Carpenter	62.59	+0.12	17	2	63.50
4	+1	Roy Halladay	61.55	-0.66	20	1	49.00
5	-2	Zack Greinke	61.45	-1.70	22	2	44.50
6	+2	Matt Cain	61.24	+1.09	21	1	83.00
7	+0	Javier Vazquez	60.52	+0.12	21	1	63.00
8	-2	Felix Hernandez	59.59	-2.21	22	2	37.50
9	+1	Justin Verlander	59.32	+0.22	22	1	64.00
10	+1	Yovani Gallardo	59.14	+0.29	21	1	65.00
11	-2	Josh Johnson	58.71	-0.74	21	1	44.00
12	+0	Adam Wainwright	58.09	+0.56	23	2	64.00
13	+0	Wandy Rodriguez	57.82	+0.32	22	2	61.00
14	+0	Josh Becket	57.81	+0.55	21	2	63.00
15	+2	Johan Santana	57.33	+0.93	21	1	76.00
16	-1	Jake Peavy	56.69	+0.00	13	0
17	+7	Cliff Lee	56.39	+1.03	23	1	79.00
18	+1	Matt Garza	55.81	-0.24	21	1	51.00
19	+7	Joel Pineiro	55.45	+0.82	20	1	71.00
20	-4	Jair Jurrjens	55.43	-1.09	23	2	44.00
21	+2	Roy Oswalt	55.36	-0.02	22	1	55.00
22	-4	Jered Weaver	55.32	-0.88	22	2	46.50
23	+2	Chad Billingsley	55.04	-0.15	23	2	53.50
24	-3	Jon Lester	54.67	-0.83	21	1	38.00
25	+4	Carlos Zambrano	54.15	+0.26	20	2	56.50
26	+1	Kevin Millwood	53.95	+0.00	21	0
27	-5	CC Sabathia	53.91	-1.56	23	2	37.50
28	+0	A.J. Burnett	53.14	-0.75	21	2	46.00
29	+1	Jason Marquis	53.14	+0.14	21	2	54.50
30	-10	Mark Buehrle	53.00	-2.55	22	2	27.50
31	+0	Ryan Dempster	51.37	-0.40	19	2	48.00
32	+0	Doug Davis	51.27	+0.08	22	1	53.00
33	+0	Dallas Braden	50.41	-0.59	22	1	38.00
34	+0	Barry Zito	50.05	+0.30	22	2	53.00
35	+1	Tim Wakefield	49.53	+0.00	17	0
36	-1	Nick Blackburn	49.05	-0.55	21	1	38.00
37	+0	Derek Lowe	48.83	+0.05	23	1	50.00
38	+0	Bronson Arroyo	48.14	-0.02	21	2	48.00
39	+0	Kevin Slowey	47.63	+0.00	16	0

The Aces...

Tim Lincecum had two very good starts last week. On July 27th he pitched a complete game gem against the Pirates. He allowed no earned runs on 4 hits, struck out 15, and earned a GSc of 87 (his second highest of the season). He followed that great outing with a GSc of 75 on August 1st against the Philadelphia. In that outing he pitched 8 shutout innings, struck out 8 and only gave up one walk.

Matt Cain—in his only start of the week—earned a 3 hit complete game shutout against the Pirates on July 29th (the Pirates seem to be padding pitcher stats for opposing teams); he earned a GSc of 83 in that effort.

Cliff Lee—in his first start with the Phillies—pitched a complete game one run affair against the Giants. He gave up only 4 hits, had 6Ks and 2BB.

The Bums...

Mark Buehrle—the week after going el perfecto—recorded game scores of 45 and 10 in his two starts of the week. In the latter outing against the Yankees, Buehrle gave up 7 earned runs and 12 hits in 4.1 innings. Buehrle's terrible week drops him 10 spots in the rankings and he lost 2.55 overall points on his season average.

~~King~~ Felix Hernandez had a terrible start against the Jays on July 27th; he stayed in for 5.2 innings where he gave up 11 hits, and 7 earned runs. He earned a GSc of 20 in that outing. Hernandez dropped below 60.0 for the season.

Sabathia had a bad outing against the Rays (GSc 33) and a bad outing against the White Sox (GSc 42). Over 12.2 innings and 57 batters, he gave up 10 earned runs, 19 hits and 3 home runs.

Series Recap: Blue Jays @ Athletics, July 31-Aug 2.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:49:00 +0000

The Jays continues their west coast swing with three against the Athletics of Oakland. A few notable events occured for the Jays going into this one: The big Scott "The Human Highlight Real" Rolen trade—if you haven't already, check out The Blue Jay Hunter's top 10 Rolen defensive gems as a Jay—which brought Edwin "E5" Encarnacion and Josh Roenicke to the lineup on Saturday; and on Friday Scott Richmond made his first start after coming off the DL.

Game Recaps
Game 1: Oakland 8, Toronto 5

Scott ~~Downs~~ Richmond made his first start since a month long stint on the DL and he stunk himself right out of the ball park. I was embarrassed to be a Jays fan watching this disgrace unfold. The entirety of the best fielding team in baseball was clearly murdered before the game and replaced with an inferior fielding group of cyborgs. Alex "I'm scared of a routine fly ball" cost Richmond a couple of runs in the first. The train was off the tracks and never quite got back on. Richmond went a pathetic 3+ having given up 7 hits, 6 runs—4 earned due to the Rios error—on only 19 batters. I'm not going to show the FanGraph win probability graph for this one; it looked like the heart-rate of a 400lb blob of a human chasing a twinkie.

What business did Kevin Millar have batting 4th? Jesus. His slash line was a joke going into this game: .227/.303/.370. Not cleanup hitter number. Those are teetering on Mendosa line numbers for Chirst sake. At least he made up for his pathetic batting with great defense. No wait. He bobbled a grounder routine that would have ended the 4th inning. Millar is useless and needs to be released. End of story.

My Cyborg speculation was proven to be true when Cyborg John McDonald committed an error on an innocently hit ground ball—the real Sir John A. would have made the play, clearly. The only bright spot of this one came from the one, two, three hitters—Scoots, Hill, Lind—who had 8 of the 10 hits. I'll be honest; this game was so bad that I passed out sometime during the top of the 4th and had to watch the rest of the game the next morning on mlb.tv

Game 2: Toronto 6, Oakland 5

Okay, game 1 had Millar in the 4 hole. This game had Overbay in the 4 hole? What the fuck is going on? I guess this begs the question, who else do they have to put in the cleanup slot? Fair enough. Personally I think Hill should be batting 3rd—I don't think he has the speed of a true number 2—and ideally Rios should be batting second. However, this year Rios's batting average doesn't warrant him a spot in the top 3 (I'm planning on writing a post on the 2010 Jays and a possible lineup soon). Anyway, Overbay as cleanup.

Cecil had a decent game. In fact, he only ran into real problems in the 2th. Taking away the 2th inning, Cecil had an excellent start. The Blue Jay bats were working in this one providing enough run support to squeak out a win. Wells AND Rios both had good days at the plate and Hill extended his hit streak, had 4 RBIs, and a home run that came at an absolute perfect time (look at the change in WP on the graph).

League continued his string of solid appearances going 3 up and three down relief of Cecil in the 8th. ~~BJ Ryan~~ Scott Downs had another rough outing which was saved by an apparent foot/leg/labia injury. Not sure if he took a dive so that he didn't blow another save, but in any case Frasor had to come on and clean up the mess. He did. We won. Yay.

After the game, Downs was placed on the DL and Accardo was bounced back up; he hadn't even left the hotel in San Fransisco yet...

Game 3:

Another game with Overbay in the 4 hole. Jose BAW-tista leading off? Oy vay. Anyway, this was a game to actually get a little excited about:

The Jays' hitters got to Athletics' starter right from the get go: Hill had a two run shot; Alex Rios hit a line drive double to left. It was 5-0 going into Romero's side of the first and the Jays never really looked back. Romero had a great game completing 7 innings, giving up 8H, 2ER, with 5K and 1BB. He also had a very impressive 50% GB% and recorded his 10th win of the season.

McDonald does his best Scott Rolen impression by starting a seemingly impossible double play. We also got a first look at the newly acquired Josh Roenicke. His 95 mph fastball was impressive; he struck out two of the four batters faced.

Finally a game where there offense and pitching were clicking at the same time. This was a great game to watch.

Thumbs up goes to...

Aaron Hill. Hill was an absolute monster this series. He went 6 for 14, had 2 2B, 2HR and cashed in 8 RBI. His wOBA for the series was a massive .545.

Rickey Romero. Recording his 10th win on a very good start on Sunday.

Jason Frasor. He continued his string of great relief—even in high pressure situations—when he cleaned up Scott Downs' mess on Saturday.

Josh Roenicke. Got a good first look in one inning pitched on Sunday.

Thumbs down goes to...

Scott Richmond. His first start back from the DL was brutal. Let's hope this was just an anomaly.

Scott Downs. Brutal. DL. Good riddance.

Alex Rios. His only hit of the series was his bases loaded double in game three. He didn't reach base in any of this other 11 plate appearances.

The next series is a short 2 gamer at home against the Yankees starting Tuesday. The probable pitchers are Pettitte (8-6, 4.51) vs. Halladay (11-4, 2.68) and Mitre (1-0, 7.90) vs. Rzepczynski (1-2, 3.25).

Looking forward to both pitching match-ups; it's always great to see The Doctor on the mount; and the battle of the youngsters should be great on Wednesday.

I'll have the Game Score Update done later tonight.

Rolen out.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:36:00 +0000

"I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own"

Scott Rolen is now a member of the Cincinnati Reds. Considering JP's recent "we're going for it in 2010" attitude—Halladay still remains a Blue Jay and no other moves were made at the deadline—I just don't get this one. In my humble opinion, I suggest that having the top defensive three bagger in the league would be a key component to building a playoff contender in the ALE. I also suggest that keeping the team's most consistent hitter—especially in a lineup that has lacked consistency at the plate—might also be an asset for any team considering a post-season run in '10.

Notwithstanding the above, veteran leadership is also a huge plus for any contender—especially given the youth of the Blue Jay lineup: Lind, Snider, Hill, Cecil, Romero, Rzepczynski. Scott Rolen time and time again has proven himself to be a professional: he goes to the ballpark and plays his position; he is never distracted by anything off the field; and you have to love how he buries his head and sprints around the bases after a home run.

Given the Jays' new/old philosophy for next year, this trade stinks. I'm not saying that the trade itself is bad; I don't mind the players that we got in return at all. But, I do think this seriously hurts the 2010 Blue Jays. Sure, I can understand that Rolen was going to make 11M+ next year and that he probably wasn't going to resign. That's baseball.

Alright, that's my opinion on that trade: I hate to see Rolen leave. He was without a doubt my favourite player. Had this been part of a rebuilding situation wherein Halladay was traded for a group of young players, I would have been very happy with this deal.

So, who did we get in return?

Edwin Encarnacion has been a full time player for the Reds since 2006. 2008 was his best season and he his .251/.340/.466 with 26HR in 146 games and 582 plate appearances. This year, however, Encarnacion was on the DL from April 25th to July 4th. Since his return from the DL he has hit .267/.368/.507 with 4HR and 10RBI in 23 games. Encarnacion might bring more power to the lineup, but won't compare to the consistency Rolen was showing this year. The story on defence is much worse, I'm afraid. This season, Edwin has a terrible -23.1 UZR/150. However, he has only played in 43 total games giving a relatively small sample size. Over his career, he has boast a bad -12.2 URZ.150. Compare these to Rolen's numbers—7.9 UZR/150 this season and a career 15.6 UZR/150 (only going back to 2002)—and we see that the Jays are giving up a lot on defense. Looking at the WAR numbers shows that Rolen has given the Jays 3.0 wins, while Encarnacion has cost the Reds -0.2 wins. Overall, the deal will save the Jays about 6.25M next year (depending on how much cash went over to the Reds in the deal).

Josh Roenicke provides immediate help to the Jays' bullpen, as Accardo was optioned to AAA upon acquiring the right hander. Roenicke, the soon-to-be 27 year old, started the season in AAA where he pitched in 27 games. He posted a decent 2.57 ERA and recorded 12 saves with no losses. He also posted a very impressive 10.29 K/9, 1.93 B/9, and gave up no home runs. Roenicke also saw some play with the Reds, posting a 2.70 ERA, 14K, 4BB over 54 TBF. Roenicke is hard throwing and mostly relies on a fastball that touches 95mph and a cutter that touches 88mph. He was not rated as one of the Reds' top 15 prospects of 2009 by Baseball America, but was ranked as the number 6 prospect by the hard grading John Sickels. Sickels gave Josh a B- grade and said "Very impressive arm, could be a closer perhaps." Good pickup if Roenicke develops into a decent closer.

Zach Stewart a 22 year old RHP was probably who the Jays were after in this trade. Steward was a third round pick in last year's entry draft and has since progressed very quickly up to Class AAA. He started this year in HiA and Class AA, where he was used as a starter; he went 4-1 over 14 starts and posted a 1.82 ERA. He also scored a good 7.15 K/9, 2.04 BB/9 and only gave up two home runs. In Class AAA Stewart has been use exclusively out of the pen. There, he has faced 55 batters giving up only 1 ER, recording 16 K, and 8 BB. Stewart was not on the Baseball America top 15 Reds prospects, but he was given a grade of B- and ranked 7th by Sickels: "Strong arm, command issues, could move fast in the pen. Maybe a C+?" I would imagine that this grading is higher now since Sickels' December 6, 2oo8 ratings. JP Riccardi commented that the Jays were going to try Stewart in a starting role in Class AAA Las Vegas for now.

All-in-all, the Jays did receive a couple nice young arms in this deal and someone to fill the void at 3B. If the Jays were actually trying to rebuild, I'd really like this deal.

For any of you who can take it, here's a little tribute to Scott "The Human Highlight Reel" Rolen. You will be missed, but not forgotten:

Series Recap: Blue Jays @ Mariners, July 27-29.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:47:00 +0000

The last series against the Mariners was about as disappointing as the last three. Seattle won the series 2-1. Both losses were by one run and one of the losses came in the bottom of the ninth; yet another blown save by Scott Downs in the past week. The Jays just couldn't put together a full game of baseball: When their bats were working in game one, pitching wasn't at it's greatest; when their pitching was somewhat decent in games two and three, the bats weren't there to provide any significant run support. This coupled with some good pitching for Seattle pretty much sealed the deal on any hopes of taking two or three games.

Game Recaps
Game 1: Toronto 11, Seattle 4

WP Romero (9-4), LP Hernandez (11-4)

The FanGraph win probability graph shows the game was fairly even until the 6th when the Jays started to poor it on. Alex Rios—of all people—tied the game at four with a liner to left that scored Wells. Amazing. Rios hit to score Wells. Somehow Rios and Wells combined to score a run. Barahas and Inglet had back to back singles to score a couple more. All this with two outs. Carlson came in in the 7th, Downs came in in the 8th and Hayhurst—yes Dirk got some action!—came in in the 9th to shut down the Mariners.

Wait a second? Downs came in in the 8th while the score was 11-4? Downs has been taking a serious read from the B.J. Ryan book of pitching since the All-Star break. I just don't think putting him into a game situation in the 8th when the game is all but done—yes, I'm trying not to think about the 8 run blown lead from last week—is worth anything. A closer is a closer; they work under high pressure situations.

Game 2: Seattle 4, Toronto 3

WP Aardsma (3-3), LP Downs (1-3)

What a fucking stinker of a game. I'm really getting sick and tired of these one run losses. Especially the slew of walk-off losses the Jays have endured this year (worst team in baseball in extra innings, what a joke).

Rzed is starting to come back down to earth. I've said this in every single one of my posts about his pitching: his control and efficiency is shit. It's starting to catch up with him. 41% of his pitches were balls. This number has to come down if he's going to be an effective starter. He's keeping the ball too high in the strike zone, which produced only 4GB out of 12 balls in play. He did record 8Ks, which keeps his K/9 very high, but he needs to be more consistent.

This game just plain sucked to watch. The top of the 8th brought on a good high: Scutaro gets on base with a lead off double, Hill doubles, and Rios double—Alex Rios with another clutch hit—to tie the game up at 3. Shaun Camp threw 2.2 great innings, facing 8 batters and giving up only one hit. He continues to be pretty rock solid when pitching under three innings of relief.

Then comes the bottom of the 9th, Scott Downs, and a gentleman simply known as Ichiro. He hit a good pitch to win the game—whatever. The PitchFX tool shows that it was a good pitch from Downs; Ichiro went way out of the strike-zone to get it and somehow muscled a blooper to win the game. I get it. It was a good pitch. The fact is that Downs is pitching like shit. He made a couple good pitches against Ichiro—okay. But, he started off the inning by giving up a single to Hannahan, he walked Johnson and he made an embarrassing attempt to field a bunt from Woodward—Chris fucking Woodward. Downs gave up that hit to Ichiro because he allowed Ichiro to come up to bat by not ending the game 2 batters before. Scott Downs is playing like shit.

Game 3: Seattle 3, Toronto 2

WP Rowland-Smith (1-1), S Aardsma (25), LP Halladay (11-4)

An uncharacteristic 11 hits over 7 innings by Halladay, a great pitching effort from Rowland-Smith—he had a no-no going into the 7th—and a lack of any real offense from Jays and what can you say? Speculate all you want about trade rumours, but Halladay was gassed going into the 7th. He hadn't pitched a great game to that point. I have no idea why Cito kept him in. Camp did throw a bunch the game before, but Frasor, Accardo, Carlson and League were all easily available. I blame this loss on Cito.

The Jays now have a record of 49-53 and sit 13.5GB of the Yankees in the division.

Thumbs up goes to...

Alex Rios. He went 4 for 13, 1 2B, and 2RBI for the series. He also had a couple of clutch at bats in the first and second games of the series and had a 0.293 WPA, tops of all Jays hitters.

Marco Scutaro. He went 5 for 13 and had a wOBA of 0.346 for the series.

Joe Inglett. He went 3 for 6 in the series. He had a great first game of the series and game in as a pitch runner in the second game and got a key single in his at bat.

Aaron Hill. He made a couple very clutch hits and had the second best 0.239 WPA.

Shawn Camp. Great outing in game two.

Thumbs down goes to...

Scott Downs. Duh. Had an absolutely terrible game 2 and lost the game in the bottom of the 9th. During that outing, he gave up 3 hits, and a walk on 8 batters faced.

Kevin Millar. He went 0 for 4 in 6 plate appearances.

Jose Bautista. He went 0 for 5 in 7 plate appearances. It's hard to stay mad at him though; he did make a couple of great throws in the field.

Vernon Wells. He went 2 for 12 and couldn't put the bat to the ball when it counted. His -0.280 WPA was worst on the team over the series.

Next series starts tomorrow against the Athletics of Oakland. Probably pitchers are Richmond (6-5, 3.69) vs. Barden (7-9, 3.74), Romero (9-4, 3.59) vs. Cahill (6-9, 4.77) and TBA vs. Mazzaro (2-7, 5.16).

Richmond gets his first start back from rehab. The Jays are facing the bottom of the rotation. Hopefully they can pull out a couple of wins.

Player Watch: July 29, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:27:00 +0000

It's Wednesday: player watch day. Here are weekly and season stats for the notable young position players on the farm:

Travis Snider	LF
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	7	10	1	0	3	9	0.345	0.387	0.690

Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	30	27	3	0	7	19	0.257	0.355	0.486
Blue Jays	32	24	6	0	3	12	0.242	0.292	0.394


J.P. Arencibia	C
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	6	2	1	0	1	3	0.077	0.077	0.231

Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	79	73	26	1	11	47	0.230	0.280	0.423


Brian Jeroloman	C
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	5	3	0	0	0	0	0.231	0.375	0.231

Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	80	62	12	0	6	22	0.230	0.344	0.342


Kyle Phillips	C
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	1	1	0	0	1	1	0.250	0.400	1.000

Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	12	7	0	0	1	1	0.175	0.233	0.250
Blue Jays (AAA)	52	64	12	0	5	15	0.335	0.400	0.476


Brian Dopirak	1B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AAA)	6	8	0	0	0	0	0.333	0.360	0.333

Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	87	101	29	1	19	68	0.308	0.374	0.576
Blue Jays (AAA)	12	16	3	0	0	4	0.327	0.346	0.388


Justin Jackson	SS
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.000	0.000	0.000


Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	78	53	12	1	0	17	0.213	0.321	0.269


David Cooper	1B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	7	3	2	0	0	3	0.115	0.115	0.192

Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	89	83	21	0	4	42	0.251	0.325	0.350


Kevin Ahrens	3B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	6	2	1	0	0	0	0.095	0.174	0.143

Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	80	60	12	1	2	25	0.206	0.280	0.275


Brad Emaus	2B/3B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	7	6	2	0	0	3	0.316	0.480	0.421

Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	102	95	25	2	6	47	0.251	0.336	0.376


Eric Thames	OF
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.000	0.000	0.000

Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	42	48	11	2	2	30	0.308	0.391	0.442


Scott Campbell	2B
Week
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (AA)	7	8	1	0	2	8	0.308	0.333	0.577

Totals
	G	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	AVG	OPB	SLG
Blue Jays (A+)	5	10	1	0	0	3	0.500	0.522	0.550
Blue Jays (AA)	23	21	5	1	2	11	0.263	0.366	0.425
Blue Jays (AAA)	27	22	3	1	0	6	0.229	0.327	0.281

Snider had a pretty good week in Las Vegas. No doubt, we'll probably see him again when the roster increases to 40. It's nice to see him getting some power back as of late. Dopirak also had a good week, but all of his hits were singles. Down in New Hapshire, Brad Emus had a couple of doubles over the week and a very good .480 OPS. Scott Campbell also had a great week for the Fisher Cats and showed some great power with 2HR and a double; he also cashed in 8 runs.

Was a pretty horrible week for J.P. Arencibia. It's looking like he and Jeroloman will be fighting for a spot in the MLB over the next little while. Kevin Ahrens also had a terrible week in in HiA; he only had two hits all week.

Justin Jackson went on the 7-day DL after his game on the 24th. Eric Thames remains on the 7-day DLl he hasn't played since the June 28.

Now for the young arms:
(~~Note: this week, in the weekly stats, ERA is a change in ERA. I will make it a weekly ERA next week~~) This problem has been fixed and the stats have been updated

Marc Rzepczynski	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays	0	1	4.89	2	9.2	0	6	14	1.52

Totals
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays	1	2	3.25	5	27.2	1	17	30	1.32


Ricky Romero	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays	2	0	6.49	2	11.1	1	6	5	1.98

Totals
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (A+)	0	1	13.50	1	4.0	2	1	5	1.75
Blue Jays (AA)	0	0	1.69	1	5.1	0	5	4	1.57
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	7.20	1	5.0	0	2	3	2.00
Blue Jays	9	4	3.59	16	102.2	13	41	82	1.39


Brad Mills	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	0.00	0	0.0	0	0	0	0.00
Blue Jays	0	0	0.00	0	0.0	0	0	0	0.00

Totals
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	2	8	4.06	14	84.1	6	35	72	1.40
Blue Jays	0	1	14.09	2	7.2	4	6	9	2.78


Brett Cecil	LHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays	1	0	1.29	1	7.0	1	3	7	1.00

Totals
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	1	5	5.69	9	49.0	2	19	32	1.47
Blue Jays	4	1	4.27	10	59.0	9	24	49	1.59


Robert Ray	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	0.00	0	0.0	0	0	0	0.00

Totals
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (A+)	0	1	4.91	1	3.2	0	0	1	2.19
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	0.00	1	4.1	0	3	3	1.22
Blue Jays	1	2	4.44	4	24.1	4	6	13	1.20

For the Jays doing rehab:

Shaun Marcum	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	4.50	1	2.0	0	1	0	1.50

Totals
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (A+)	0	1	3.00	2	6.0	0	0	5	1.17
Blue Jays (AA)	0	1	1.17	2	7.2	1	2	8	1.39
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	4.50	1	2.0	0	1	0	1.50


Casey Jansen	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AA)	0	0	27.00	0	1.0	0	1	1	4.00
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	30.00	0	1.2	0	1	1	3.33

Totals
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (R)	0	0	9.00	0	1.0	0	0	0	2.00
Blue Jays (A+)	0	0	0.69	3	13.0	0	2	10	0.62
Blue Jays (AA)	1	0	2.40	1	15.0	0	5	12	1.13
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	0	21.60	0	1.2	0	1	1	3.33
Blue Jays	2	3	6.23	5	26.0	4	7	11	1.81


Scott Richmond	RHP
Week
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	1	1.76	1	5.1	1	1	5	0.78

Totals
	W	L	ERA	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
Blue Jays (R)	0	0	8.10	1	3.1	1	1	5	3.23
Blue Jays (AAA)	0	1	1.69	1	5.1	1	1	5	0.78
Blue Jays	6	5	3.69	13	85.1	15	30	71	1.20

Scott Richmond is finished his rehab stint and is penciled in to start on Friday. Jansen is now doing bullpen work in Las Vegas. I would expect that he won't be starting any more games this season. I feel he works best from the pen anyway. Marcum is now pitching in Las Vegas. I'm interested to see him get a few more starts at that level.

What a stinky mess

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:09:00 +0000

The shit show Mets somehow created an even worse shit show at a press conference announcing the firing of the creator of the original shit show—that's a lot of shit.

Today the Mets fired former player personnel chief and future UFC competitor Tony Bernazard after an incident last week. Bernazard, in a heated rant to players on the AA MiLB affiliate, ripped off his shirt and challenged team members to fight him. This prompted an investigation by the Mets, which uncovered other past incidents: altercations with visiting scouts, an altercation with closer KRod and an altercation with other staff members.

In today's press conference announcing the firing, Mets' GM Omar Minaya singled out Adam Rubin, the reported who wrote the piece that prompted the investigation. Minaya accused Rubin of somehow having misplaced interest, as in the past he had inquired "about how to get into baseball."

A clip of the original press conference can be seen here. Minaya's comments prompted such turmoil and shit throwing that Rubin—a reporter himself—had to state a psudo press conference with his colleagues; that can be seen here.

This one makes absolutely no fucking sense to me. First off, he reported something that was 100% true. In no way did he make a malicious attempt at getting Bernazard fired. Read all the shit that is coming out about Bernazard now. Apparently, this is not a recent turn in his character. Second off, the guy made a general inquiry about how to get into baseball with baseball people. What the fuck is wrong with that? It would be the same as a student of journalism asking Rubin about how to get into sports writing. Would Rubin fear that the student wanted his job? Absolutely not. Ridiculous.

Well, all eyes are on Minaya now; he's made a stab at one of their own. You better believe this will be in the headlines for a while considering the Mets aren't doing anything on the feild that warrants being documented.

Update:

Jeff Blair's tweet on the fiasco is pretty damn funny. GloBlair posted,

This just in: Omar Minaya says he'll trade Adam Rubin to NY Times, but that there's a "premium" to being traded within the city.

Game Scores Update: July 27, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:51:00 +0000

It's Monday, meaning it's GSc update day. Here we go: It was an up and down week for Jays starting pitchers,

	AGSc	Chg	GS	Starts	Week Avg
Roy Halladay	62.21	+1.98	19	2	79.00
Marc Rzepczynski	56.50	-3.00	4	2	53.50
Scott Richmond	55.00	+0.00	13	0
Ricky Romero	54.60	-2.48	15	2	38.50
Brett Cecil	48.60	+4.98	10	2	68.50
Robert Ray	48.50	+0.00	4	0
Brian Tallet	47.56	-0.50	18	1	39.00
David Purcey	41.00	+0.00	5	0
Jesse Litch	37.00	+0.00	2	0
Brad Mills	25.00	+0.00	2	0

Amongst all the trade diarrhea spewing from every crevasse of the baseball conglomerate, Roy "Pitching Machine SOK-7000" Halladay had a fabulous week; he went 9 innings in both starts and for the week his line was 10H, 2ER, 3BB, and 17K. Vintage Halladay. He recorded GSc of 78 and 80 respectively in those starts. Romero had a bit of a tough week; he didn't earn a QS in either of his outings. Cecil got the call form Las Vegas and was fabulous this week; over 14IP his line was 11H, 1ER, 7BB, and 16K. Rzep's first start of the week wasn't great and he was yanked after 4.1IP over which the Red Sox scored 4 runs (only two earned).

For notables in the MLB, this week's GSc stats are,

Pos	Chg		AGSc	Chg	GS	Starts	Week Avg
1	+0	Dan Haren	66.75	-1.08	20	2	57.00
2	+0	Tim Lincecum	64.20	-0.69	20	2	58.00
3	+0	Zack Greinke	63.15	+0.37	20	2	66.50
4	+0	Chris Carpenter	62.47	+0.77	15	2	67.50
5	+2	Roy Halladay	62.21	+1.98	19	2	79.00
6	-1	Felix Hernandez	61.80	+0.86	20	2	69.50
7	-1	Javier Vazquez	60.40	-0.16	20	2	59.00
8	+1	Matt Cain	60.15	+0.93	20	2	68.50
9	-1	Josh Johnson	59.45	-0.02	20	1	59.00
10	+1	Justin Verlander	59.10	+0.78	21	2	66.50
11	-1	Yovani Gallardo	58.85	+0.18	20	2	60.50
12	+3	Adam Wainwright	57.52	+0.37	21	2	61.00
13	+5	Wandy Rodriguez	57.50	+1.17	20	2	68.00
14	+0	Josh Becket	57.26	+0.04	19	1	58.00
15	+2	Jake Peavy	56.69	+0.00	13	0
16	+6	Jair Jurrjens	56.52	+1.63	21	2	72.00
17	-1	Johan Santana	56.40	-0.71	20	2	50.00
18	-6	Jered Weaver	56.20	-1.97	20	2	38.50
19	+0	Matt Garza	56.05	+0.49	20	2	60.50
20	+10	Mark Buehrle	55.55	+2.44	20	2	77.50
21	-1	Jon Lester	55.50	+0.39	20	2	59.00
22	-1	CC Sabathia	55.48	+0.42	21	2	59.50
23	+1	Roy Oswalt	55.38	+1.22	21	2	67.00
24	+4	Cliff Lee	55.36	+2.05	22	3	68.33
25	-12	Chad Billingsley	55.19	-2.18	21	2	34.50
26	+3	Joel Pineiro	54.63	+1.34	19	2	66.00
27	+0	Kevin Millwood	53.95	+0.11	21	2	55.00
28	-3	A.J. Burnett	53.89	-0.22	19	2	52.00
29	-6	Carlos Zambrano	53.89	-0.55	18	2	49.50
30	+3	Jason Marquis	53.00	+1.00	19	1	71.00
31	+3	Ryan Dempster	51.76	+0.00	17	0
32	+0	Doug Davis	51.19	-1.34	21	2	38.50
33	-7	Dallas Braden	51.00	-3.00	21	3	33.00
34	+2	Barry Zito	49.75	+1.42	20	2	62.50
35	-4	Nick Blackburn	49.60	-3.46	20	2	18.50
36	-1	Tim Wakefield	49.53	+0.00	17	0
37	+0	Derek Lowe	48.77	+0.46	22	3	51.67
38	+1	Bronson Arroyo	48.16	+0.86	19	2	55.50
39	-1	Kevin Slowey	47.63	+0.00	16	0

Halladay led last week and moved up a couple of spots to now sit 5th on the list. On the heals of his perfect game—his GSc for that game was 93—Buehrle had the second best week. His other start was a QS agaist the Orioles: 7.1 IP, 8H, 1ER, 0BB, 7K. Jair Jurrjens had a great start against the Mets which he followed by another great start against the Giants; over the week he pitched 13.2IP, 5H, 1ER, 3BB, and 10K for the third best week.

Now for the bums: Blackburn had two horrible starts. The first was against the Athletics where he gave up 13H and 7ER over 5IP; the other was against the Angels where he gave up 6H and 6ER over 3.2IP. For the week we averaged a pathetic 18.50GSc. Billingsley's week was ruined by a horrible 1.2IP, 9H, 6ER, 0BB, and 0K against the Astros; he recorded a 13GSc for that outing. Braden's week was brought down by terrible starts against the Angels and the Yankees; he recorded GSc of 17 and 24 respectively in those starts.

Again, I'm open to adding any starting pitchers to the notables list. If you'd like to see someone included, let me know.