Ghostrunner on First

Hold on Tightly

2010-07-28T11:00:00.002-04:00

One quick note about the growing cacophony of Blue Jays trade noise: we must temper our expectations. I said as much in the comments below Stoeten's excellent post yesterday - the haul for Jose Bautista will fall far, far short of your hopes and dreams. Imagine, for a second, the Jays played in the AL Central and were nipping at the heels of the division leaders (stay with me). Needing one

Uncle

2010-07-27T14:35:00.001-04:00

It isn't to say that I am against Jose Bautista, I simply approached both his hot September and incredible start to 2010 with extreme cynicism. Cynicism borne of 4 years worth of struggles and a dash of evidence to suggest what he did wasn't "special." I refused to get caught up in BAS-fever — not because of a selfish need to be right or a personal vendetta against the bearded wonder — but

The Diamondbacks Just Sucked all the Fun out of the Trade Deadline

2010-07-26T13:45:00.000-04:00

The very loud internet buzzing around the Blue Jays, both this week and last, is all about trades. Who goes, who stays, who cares? Obviously, hardcore fans live and die with the various (empty) rumors exploding from twitter. Usually without merit, it sure is fun to get all excited for future rosterbation. Sadly, most of the twitter bulletins are more along the lines of "Heard this: the Dora

Litsches get Stitches

2010-07-23T16:15:00.003-04:00

Look, beating up on poor Jesse Litsch isn't fun. I get no pleasure from knocking around the pudgy red-headed kid. Good people? I'm sure of it. A decent athlete? Relative to his cup size, of course! A big league pitcher? Mehhh, I'm not convinced. Maybe that isn't fair, he IS a big league pitcher, making 58 starts over 4 seasons in The Show. Not me nor anyone else is going to take that away

Fred Lewis and That Nagging Feeling

2010-07-22T14:22:00.000-04:00

Will you look at the clock? It is time for my quarterly worry session over the future of Fred Lewis! Maybe his combination of fortune and misfortune on Tuesday night is sticking in my head, but I (again) have concerns over the ongoing of viability of Fred Lewis playing every day. Tuesday night he picked up a lucky double after Scott Podsednik misplayed a fly ball, likely due to the video

The Final Piece of the Kevin Gregg Triforce

2010-07-20T11:00:00.004-04:00

Vintage Kevin Gregg is not yet on display in Toronto, but it is only a matter of time. Not vintage like the supercool leather jacket your dad used to pull trim at the Gasworks back in the day, vintage as in "shitty like we all thought he was." Kevin Gregg's 2010 is all about regression. Came out of the gate like an animal, striking out 14 while walking only 1 in April. The wheels steadily came

The Oriole Way

2010-07-19T10:45:00.002-04:00

Anytime you can go into Baltimore and sweep the O's, you have a reason to celebrate. Like the rising of the Earth's yellow sun, the Orioles go out and lose themselves a ballgame nearly every day. It isn't by accident either, the Orioles lose in ways you cannot really fathom. Consider Saturday's game, the sight of the now infamous spat between Clarence and closer Kevin Gregg. Obviously Gregg

The Intangibles of the Improbable

2010-07-16T14:20:00.002-04:00

Seeing Tim Collins traded sucks for a lot of reasons, the ongoing success of the Toronto Blue Jays being somewhere towards the bottom. Collins strikeout numbers suggest he has a future in the major league; the brightness of which is up for debate. Tim Collins seems to be an interesting bi-product of an strange age in baseball fandom. Of all the people ruing his departure yesterday, very few (

The Fruit Hangs Low

2010-07-14T12:30:00.002-04:00

Two days off during the All Star break? How must one fill time and column space? Why listicles, of course! The National Post's Jeremy Sandler clearly took the task of generating letter grades and mid-season awards as you or would take to washing the dishes or raking the yard.Mid-season awards are a decent way to spark a tiny bit of debate, mostly around the criteria used for said selections.

Just Remember, Part II

2010-07-14T09:30:00.002-04:00

The Home Run Derby sucks, but the All Star game is — warts and all — awesome. Scott Rolen goes first to third then Matt Thornton enters the game; giving rise to extended Inception trailers? That is my idea of a good time. Another thing to just remember: I called Joe Girardi a clown yesterday, way before he went out and proved his clowndom to the world. Remember to check out the Walkoff Walk

Just Remember

2010-07-13T09:00:00.006-04:00

.nobr br { display: none }Though I'm not entirely comfortable with the roll of villain, I embraced it last night amidst the deafening howls of injustice over Jose Bautista's exclusion from the home run derby. Outrage!Do you see the picture above? Do you remember when ESPN aired the clusterfuck of the ages, hosted by a "ball-less, drooling sycophant Jim Gray?" Do you think ESPN is in the "doing

All Star Break Thoughts

2010-07-12T12:40:00.000-04:00

Heading into the break, I'm surely not alone in wondering where the first half of the season went? Not where it went wrong, but where it went in general. 89 games down already? Crazy. That means there are fewer Blue Jays games remaining than we've already seen. That's a bummer. You know what else is a bummer? The Jays offense. Sure, home runs are fun and all, but the good people at

The Wellness Train Rolls On

2010-07-12T09:50:00.002-04:00

By virtue of patience and remembering that interacting with other people can be fun, I made my way to a BBQ with a whole pile of old friends on Saturday afternoon. After being the most excited guy on the subway on the way there, I heard a couple interesting things. The first was a quote I submit without comment: "They're from Barrie, they eat cheeseburgers every day."A couple friends of friends

The Détente Cycle

2010-07-09T16:40:00.000-04:00

Just under two years ago, I publicly copped to going soft on the Yankees. The impending closure of old (real) Yankee Stadium and the Mo factor combined with the Yankees single season of mortality made it easy to focus my hate on the Red Sox. Well, two years and three four? aces later, guess what? The Yankee hate is in full swing while the Red Sox limp into down, bloodied but unbowed. Maybe

Ice Ages

2010-07-08T23:50:00.002-04:00

On consecutive nights this week, the Rogers Centre showcased two very different pitchers. One who does nearly everything right, one who might be at the end of his leash. Marc Rzepczynski pitched wonderfully Wednesday night, striking out 7 against only one walk. He missed bats, he changed speeds, he induced ground balls. It was awesome. I'm unabashed in my support/belief in Rzepczynski and

Knowledge is Power

2010-07-06T09:45:00.000-04:00

The good men at Mop Up Duty wrote an interesting post yesterday about the rise of the power pitcher. Callum provides a laundry list of big-armed hurlers known to touch triple digits on the handy stadium radar gun. Despite taking spurious shots at Brandon League, the M.U.D.men make a fair observation. My questions is why? Hard throwing guys getting chance after chance is nothing new to

Relativity

2010-07-02T10:15:00.002-04:00

What you see above is the first (FIRST!!1) comment on my Fangraphs Q & A session with the esteemed Carson Cistulli1. While I certainly don't believe I whine about being a Blue Jays fan, "Kyle" brings up an interesting point: how much worse off are the O's than the Jays? On the surface, one would say "a lot." The Orioles are abjectly awful and have been for years. But consider the criteria we

Irritant in the Lotion

2010-06-29T13:55:00.001-04:00

Regular GROF-lurkers know that prospect pr0n is one of the many relevant, topical items I tend to avoid around here. Mostly because I don't know jack about the kids and additionally because I don't care. That might be harsh, but there is so much noise in the evaluative process that it's near impossible to get a real handle on how players project unless you use a real scout's eye. As such, the

What's Up with Brett Cecil?

2010-06-29T01:00:00.004-04:00

Why beat around the bush? Brett Cecil's last three starts haven't been pretty. It's simple - his change up just isn't getting it done like it was. People aren't swinging at it, he isn't throwing it for strikes. The totality of the problem? Of course not. But I think the beginning of this season proved he needs it to get right handed hitters out. The first thing you should notice is the

Quick, Dirty, Ill-Conceived Thoughts

2010-06-25T16:34:00.004-04:00

Remember how it always seemed that Roy Halladay struggled against the free-swinging Rays and Angels while (seeming) to carve up the patient Sox and Yanks? Like the chumps waiting for their walks ended up muttering on their way back to the dugout while the infernal Rays & Angels stood smugly on second base? Maybe, just maybe, that bodes well for the freest of free-swinging Blue Jays. Everything

Getting Nerdy

2010-06-23T23:04:00.008-04:00

While nearly everyone and their sister visits Fangraphs, I wonder how many actually stick around and read the posts. If you don't, you're surely missing out as the gale-force blasts of levity provided by Carson Cistulli. His work is nothing short of brilliant. Look no further than the Cistulli-created NERD system; a ranking of the watch-ability of various starting pitchers. Completely

Addition by Subtraction

2010-06-21T21:00:00.001-04:00

I'm not going to lie to you: sending Edwin Encarnacion to the minors (by way of DFA) is weird but understandable. Whether or not it hurts the Jays in the marketplace is one thing, whether Jared Huffpauir's ability to draw a walk is worth a damn on The Team Ball Three Forgot is another. One thing I know for (almost for sure): Encarncion is going to put up some hilarious numbers in Vegas. For

Axiom to Grind

2010-06-18T12:15:00.002-04:00

In my haste to assert my wide-reaching baseball knowledge, I fell victim to the classic/laziest blunder possible: axiomatic thinking. In the comment section of the post below, I prattled on and on about throwing change ups to same-handed hitters and what not. Luckily wise commenter Peter Gentleman jumped in and set me straight with a great post from the Baseball Analyst Archives. It turns out

Did the Danks Theory Solve Shaun Marcum?

2010-06-14T09:00:00.001-04:00

Please excuse the exceedingly bloggy leading title, but I'm legitimately concerned that Overmanagin' Joe Maddon opened a window in Shaun Marcum's soul. The contents, like sweat stains on his hat, are disturbing and unsightly indeed. The Danks Theory, for those that don't troll Rays blogs, is the practice of starting pitch-sided batters (right handers against a righty) to negate the impact of a

Auditions

2010-06-09T23:21:00.000-04:00

Late in a game with an outcome no longer in doubt, David Purcey emerged from the Jays bullpen to mop up against the stellar Rays of Tampa. Sure, the Rays looked like they needed to catch a bus, but hey, his stuff was good. Purcey missed some bats, threw some smoke and generally did his bit to end the game in respectable time. Glancing quickly at the Gameday Pitch F/X data, it looks like Purcey