tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91275827139737188832024-03-20T02:13:51.901-04:00The Eye in the SkydomeOne more time, with feeling?Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.comBlogger714125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-20608752641735606932021-02-23T10:41:00.001-05:002021-02-23T10:41:17.039-05:00What to Make of Tanner Roark<p> There are bad seasons, and there are Tanner Roark's 2020. The Jays, of course, signed Roark last offseason to a 2-year deal worth $24MM, and it certainly appeared at the time that they were the only team to have offered that second year to make that happen. It seemed like a not-entirely-unreasonable decision at the time, as he had been worth 2.0 fWAR or more in each of the previous 4 seasons, averaging 32 starts and 180+ innings each year over that span, and the Jays were pretty light on pitching. Even if the results to that point were uninspiring (ERA/FIP/XFIP all in the low-to-mid 4's, save for a 2.89 ERA in 2016 that did not align with the peripherals), there wasn't any real reason to expect that he'd be anything other than the walking talking pitching cliche of the 90's: every fifth day, try and keep the ball on the ground, don't walk too many guys, go 6 innings and give the bullpen a bit of a rest.</p><p>That obviously went to shit this past year, to the tune of a 6.80 ERA, a 6.86 FIP and a 5.84 xFIP over 11 starts and 47.2 innings pitched. All the obvious caveats apply here, whether it's Covid-19 stopping and starting spring training, or pitching in some bandboxes, or the juiced ball, or small sample or whatever other things people are pointing to as reasons for anybody having poor seasons last year. I'd imagine the boost in lineup quality from the move from the NL to the AL didn't help either, as his trade from Cincinnati to Oakland in 2019 didn't exactly turn out too well.</p><p>I can't imagine I'm alone in kind of just wishing he were gone at various points this offseason, dreaming up scenarios where he or Randal Grichuk could be moved elsewhere as a way to offset salary coming back in a Kyle Hendricks/Kris Bryant or Castillo/whomever deal, but it's become increasingly clear that such a thing ain't happening as we've gotten deeper in to the offseason and in to spring training, especially now that Taijuan Walker has signed with the Mets and James Paxton has signed with the Mariners and Castillo, Hendricks, Marquez and whoever else remain not on the Blue Jays. Nope, Tanner Roark is staying, and he's going to start, at least for now.</p><p>Given the short season last year, the league leader in innings pitched was Lance Lynn, at a whopping 84! It seems kind of hard to imagine, then, that there's going to be any significant number of guys going out there and throwing 200+ innings this year, especially considering the way teams are beginning to use their bullpens for multi-inning relief and not letting starters see the top of the order three times. Teams have 1458 innings (162*9, give or take extras, 7-inning double headers, home team leading after the top of the 9th, position players pitching, etc.) of pitching to cover in a given season, so guys who have the ability to take the ball every fifth day and throw 6 innings have a little more value in a 162 game season than they would in a 60-gamer, and doubly so when everyone is working on a reduced workload.</p><p>As Andrew Stoeten mentioned <a href="https://stoeten.substack.com/p/mail-bag-on-signing-a-starter-teoscars">in his last mailbag</a>, there are a solid dozen or more guys in the organization right now that we can expect to see start games (or provide bulk after an opener) behind the obvious Hyun-Jin Ryu. Ryu himself isn't a model of health, never having thrown 200 innings in a year, and having missed all of 2015 and most of 2016. Groin, arm, and neck issues have troubled him in the past, even if he's stayed injury-free and wildly effective these past couple years. Still, I think we can only earmark him for somewhere around 150 innings max this year after throwing 67 in 2020, which leaves 1300 innings to spread out across the rest of the pitching staff. Nate Pearson's workload will need to be managed too, given his youth and last year's injury. Aside from Ryu and Pearson, there's really not all that much high-upside to be had. It seems, rather, than this Jays rotation is going to be built more on depth than on octane, and the more I think about it, that may not be such a bad thing? Or at least I'm trying to put a positive shine on this. A few bullet points, in no particular order, in regards to the general state of pitching for 2021:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I'm expecting offence to be up league-wide this year; if, as we assume, pitchers are throwing fewer innings on an individual level, the innings that they would have otherwise thrown still need to be thrown by someone, and thus the overall quality of pitching is likely to go down. If we were able to project a top-of-the-rotation arm to throw 200 innings in previous years, but only 175 this year, those 25 innings in lieu won't just go to the 2nd best pitcher in the rotation, they'd go to the 6th or 7th or 8th option, since the 2nd-5th options are all seeing reduced workloads too. It seems as though the Jays will use Merryweather, Waguespack, Kay, Hatch, Murphy, Stripling, Zeuch, etc., at least at the start of the year to carry that extra bit of weight via options and taxi squad, spot starts and piggybacks, openers and bulk guys. If so, they're likely to at least try to rely on Roark and Ray as guys who can throw 5 or 6 innings with a single roster spot, instead of using two players to do the same amount of work. A mid-to-high 4's FIP over 150+ innings will carry a lot more value this year than it would in others as teams shuffle through more and more (and therefore worse) pitchers as the season goes on. The value of a guy like Roark (pre-2020 version) is a lot lower in a 60 game season with less wear and tear to the rest of the staff, fewer appearances, and thus fewer opportunities for injury, especially if we're going through the season with 26-man rosters (as opposed to starting 2020 with 30 guys, and dropping to 28 after 2 weeks).</li><li>MLB has deadened the ball, which would reduce homeruns if it weren't for the above. Roark's issues in 2020 were largely HR-related (not to say his entire body of work didn't suck), giving up HR's in 20.3% of flyballs, vs. an 11% rate for his career (xFIP essentially regresses HR/FB to league average and is best used over small samples; whereas Roark saw a big increase in HR/FB relative to his career numbers in 2020 over a 47 inning sample...). Per Statcast, it doesn't appear that he was horribly unlucky in that regard by any stretch, and it's hard to say what effect a deadened ball will have on that. Per this t<a href="https://twitter.com/Bbl_Astrophyscs/status/1362214130200031235" target="_blank">hread on twitter</a>, the KBO ball change in 2019 resulted in approximately -9 feet per fly ball, for whatever that's worth. That's not going to do much for a 438 foot bomb, but at least shallow homers can turn in to deep fly outs or doubles. <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=home%5C.%5C.run%7C&hfGT=R%7C&hfPR=&hfZ=&stadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=&hfC=&hfSea=2020%7C&hfSit=&player_type=pitcher&hfOuts=&opponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=&game_date_gt=&game_date_lt=&hfInfield=&team=&position=&hfOutfield=&hfRO=&home_road=&hfFlag=&hfBBT=&pitchers_lookup%5B%5D=543699&metric_1=&hfInn=&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&group_by=name&sort_col=pitches&player_event_sort=api_p_release_speed&sort_order=desc&min_pas=0#results">Looking at this past year</a>, I really only count one ball that might not have otherwise been a HR, and that was a Yankee Stadium special, so the revisionist Roark version of this point is probably moot anyway. Still, I think a decrease in HR's (that is to say, a baseline decrease before accounting for the lowered quality in pitching) will likely be met with an increase in doubles and triples, as opposed to all those balls becoming fly outs. I don't think these two bullets are in contradiction of each other, and I do believe that the reduced workloads per pitcher is why the league chose to try and deaden the ball a bit.</li><li>With reduced workloads and the 3-batter minimum, I think we're going to see relief appearances get longer, whether that's measured in terms of pitches thrown, batters faced, or innings pitched. If a team is down 8 runs after 4, I think it's more likely we see someone take one for the team and throw 3 innings out of the bullpen, then get demoted in favor of a fresh arm, whether it's mid-year or in the first week. A derivative of this, I believe, is a guy like Roark having a longer outing than he otherwise would have in order to try and save the bullpen from a length standpoint where Montoyo might typically have a quicker hook in regular situations.</li><li>I'm going to assume that the Jays go with 14 pitchers to start the year (and probably throughout the bulk of it), of whom Ryu, Ray, Roark, Yates, Matz, Dolis, Phelps, and Chatwood can't be optioned. That leaves 6 flexible roster spots (unless one of the above is DFA) to spread across the remaining pitchers on the club. If Jordan Romano pitches anywhere near how he did last year, there's one fewer. The 40-man roster is at 39 after Payamps was claimed by Boston, so adding another pitcher (Odorizzi?) or any two of Francisco Liriano, AJ Cole or Tim Mayza to the equation would require either a DFA or a 60-day DL placement. The DL stint is less of a thing that can be controlled, but a DFA, especially of a player who can reject an outright assignment seems like something that would ideally be avoided in a year where pitching depth is going to come at a premium unless it's a clear upgrade.</li><li>If Roark does stink to begin the year, I'd expect him to go to the bullpen for a little while for mop-up innings, rather than be DFA'ed immediately. Innings are important this year, and even in-season upgrades are going to have the same innings concerns.</li></ul><div>Taking all this in to consideration, Roark was really, really bad last year, ranking in the bottom<a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/tanner-roark-543699?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb"> 5% league-wide in a bunch of statcast metrics</a>, so it's not like he's going to get a ton of rope here or anything. The Jays aren't going to let him carry an ERA in the mid-6's to the end of the season again, but it's probably going to take a lot more to cross the you-suck-so-bad-we-have-to-release-you threshold than we'd like to believe unless another couple of options present themselves from the Kay/Waguespack/Murphy/Hatch group, or a return to form from Ray or Stripling. Even then, the Jays are going to give him a couple months and see if he can provide some below-average (or better?) performance and eat some innings to keep the rest of the staff as fresh as possible.</div><div><br /></div><div>After a quick dig through his Fangraphs page, I've noticed a couple of things, whether they matter or not. Beyond the obvious velocity dip, his pitch mix has changed in recent years, and the HR rate has gone up as GB% has gone down. Seems like when he threw more sinkers, he gave up fewer HR's, though I submit that this may be a result of the velocity dip since 2-seamers/sinkers tend to be a couple MPH slower than 4-seamers, and velocity is obviously king these days. The homer spike really began after the trade to Oakland in 2019, too, not necessarily just overnight after signing in Toronto, and that aligns with the whole launch angle revolution.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8ye-jAk4G5_-wLNTFkTIrLs0kSqyj314y69jwO1MCEwlDhZmMc_ZRVcmiIRVUu0W_ectVIZn2LUEPphJVr5geURvPmNUGwJd78HsanoXyQmNDux84Z5at-aY4_V_UhAMP5_X-HxjUy-Y/s770/Snip20210220_3.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="770" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8ye-jAk4G5_-wLNTFkTIrLs0kSqyj314y69jwO1MCEwlDhZmMc_ZRVcmiIRVUu0W_ectVIZn2LUEPphJVr5geURvPmNUGwJd78HsanoXyQmNDux84Z5at-aY4_V_UhAMP5_X-HxjUy-Y/s320/Snip20210220_3.png" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I dunno, I wish I could say that I thought he was due to regress back to what he was before, but he wasn't even all that good before. I'd say there's a good chance he doesn't survive the season without keeping the ball on the ground, and even then, his ability to keep the ball on the ground made him sort of an also-ran whose usefulness came in the form of being an above-replacement talent-level pitcher who could just throw a lot of innings. We're going to be in a situation this year where we're just completely dumbstruck at how guys keep getting sent out there to pitch. The ability to provide length this year may just be as important as being able to get guys out. Fortunately the lineup the Jays are going to send out there every day ought to make that a bit easier to swallow.</div><p></p>Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-83400017572580423492021-01-11T20:18:00.001-05:002021-01-11T20:18:23.031-05:00An Ass for Every Seat<p> I sold cars for a living for a couple years. Selling cars is just like selling anything else, in that you're identifying the needs and wants of a potential buyer and overcoming any potential obstacles. The big difference with car sales, though, is that buyers are full of shit pretty well all the time. I'm sure that has a lot to do with the reputation that car salesmen have. It's a reputation that they've definitely earned through the years, but still, if you're selling food or clothing or some kind of service, you don't really seem to need to manage potential buyers lying to you about their intentions or their potential hangups that they have with your product/service nearly as often, it seems.</p><p>I was reminded today of a hypothetical that my sales manager explained to me one day about leverage. Imagine you're running a used car dealership that's on a stretch of road that's 100 miles from any other civilization. I don't know why you'd build a car dealership there, so this situation is messed at jump street, but that's fine. </p><p>Imagine it's 5:30pm, and you close at 6. A guy comes on to your lot pushing his vehicle. It's an old piece of shit that, for the purposes of our story, is totally fucked and is headed to the junkyard. He decides to ask the salesman for some help.</p><p>"What are the most important features for you on your new vehicle?" the salesman asks. </p><p>"Well, reliability is important, and I'd like to keep the vehicle for a few years, so low mileage is important too. Ideally I'd also have a sunroof and blindspot monitors, but those aren't deal-breakers" the customer answers. "Oh, and it's got to be red."</p><p>The salesman has a 2018 Rav 4 XLE with 60,000KMs on the lot that checks all the boxes. The salesman shows him a final price of $20,000. The customer answers back "I'll give you $18,000 for it."</p><p>"Let me get this right," the salesman says. "You just pushed your old beater on to the lot, and you're an awfully long walk away from wherever it is that you were heading. I found you the exact car that you're looking for and you're still asking for 10% off? It's gonna be $20,000."</p><p>Now, in most situations, where the customer wasn't a million miles away from civilization, he could look around online and find other similar vehicles, see what they're selling for, or maybe leverage a couple of dealerships against each other. If we change the scenario from a single dealership to a small town with 3 or 4 dealerships, how does the situation change?</p><p>Well I've had people look at vehicles on other lots on their cell phones from my office before. If you're looking specifically for a used 2018 Rav 4 XLE in red with 50,000km-70,000km and find one on a lot, that's probably the only one you're going to find in that particular town, even in my town where there are 25 different lots to search through. You might find a blue one on another lot, or a different options package, or one with 150,000KM, or one a year or two newer or older, but used cars are kind of unicorns and every one has it's own story. Hell, even if you do find another one that matches up, condition is another really important factor.</p><p>So where am I going with all this? Well apparently <a href="https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/01/latest-on-dj-lemahieus-market.html" target="_blank">DJ Lemahieu is going to re-engage other teams</a>, since the Yankees are unwilling to meet his asking price. In the above scenario, Lemahieu is the customer, and the Yankees are the dealership.</p><p>The more Lemahieu is willing to change the variables, the more likely he is to find the best value. The problem, it would seem, is that Lemahieu appears to really only want <i>that</i> red Rav 4 that is the New York Yankees. The Yankees are the only red Rav 4 with the desired mileage and the sun roof in town, whereas the Blue Jays are a nice one at a similar (maybe even better!) price, but it's Blue and doesn't have the sunroof. The Dodgers have one that was an accident repair, the Cardinals have a Honda and the Red Sox have one that was smoked in so it's all stinky and has nicotine stains on all the interior surfaces.</p><p>So the customer calls around and gets some pricing at the other dealerships. The Blue one in Toronto is offering the $2,000 discount that the customer wants, but the customer doesn't want that one because it's not New York, and New York knows it because the customer is still sitting in their office.</p><p>Lemahieu needs to <a href="https://twitter.com/Jomboy_/status/1348629385377689600" target="_blank">fire his agent yesterday.</a> It's fucking January. We're like 43 days away from P's and C's and Lemahieu's agent is ready to engage teams now?! Lemahieu is free to ask for whatever he wants for a contract (apparently 5 years, $110MM), but the Yankees don't have any need to negotiate and up their offer when no other alternatives were even being accepted by Lemahieu's camp. Just my speculation, but I don't think anyone is going to give Lemahieu that $110MM deal, but the best way to get the Yankees up from the $80MM area would have been to involve another dealership. </p><p>As for the Jays... well, there's no real need to get excited about this one. They might give Lemahieu a bit of leverage and force the Yankees in to spending a bit more, but as much as they may be interested in signing DJLM, I have a hard time believing that it's going to happen at this point in time.</p><p>(The Jays are going to sign George Springer anyway.)</p>Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-55870356281500475532021-01-10T09:54:00.000-05:002021-01-10T09:54:15.651-05:00I Don't Think the Mets are Done<p> Seems like there are two schools of thought with regards to the Mets and their acquisition of Francisco Lindor; either they're shoving everything to the middle, or they're done with their big acquisitions and are just going to round out the roster, adding a potential bullpen arm and maybe some depth, maybe a 3B. If we're to believe Andy Martino of SNY, <a href="https://sny.tv/articles/what-s-next-for-the-mets-after-trading-for-francisco-lindor-and-carlos-carrasco-" target="_blank">the Mets aren't going</a> to bypass the $210MM luxury tax threshold, and that they'd like to leave a $5-10MM buffer heading in to the season for in-season upgrades, so that would kind of indicate that they're out on Springer unless the price tag drops dramatically, right? And GM Jared Porter was on MLB Network discussing their offseason the other day and made it seems like they <a href="https://twitter.com/bnicholsonsmith/status/1347922772601827328" target="_blank">weren't overly concerned about their CF situation</a>, via Ben Nicholson-Smith.</p><p>Sounds like a decent situation for the Jays, yeah? Springer is all but signed, just let the ink dry!</p><p>But I dunno, something seems a bit fishy to me still. Porter mentions in the above link that they were mostly concerned about run prevention coming in to the offseason. Obviously there are a number of ways to address that. Pitching is the main one, and acquiring a couple nice bullpen arms and Carlos Carrasco is a good start, but adding Lindor and James McCann should help too. That lineup is still pretty suspect defensively though; I count JD Davis, Dominic Smith and Brandon Nimmo as all being out of position out there. Smith is a first baseman playing in left due to Pete Alonso, Nimmo is a corner outfielder playing CF, not unlike Randal Grichuk. If you wanted to argue that JD Davis isn't too bad at third, I could live, I guess. Nimmo-Springer-Conforto would make me a whole lot more comfortable if I were a Mets fan though. </p><p>It's tough to say exactly what happens there if the Mets <i>do</i> go get Springer, but the answer is almost built-in if there's going to be a DH in the NL this year (<i>sidenote:</i> How the fuck is that still up in the air?!?). You can live with Nimmo in CF 30 games a year if Springer plays the rest. You can live with Alonso at DH on occasion with Smith playing 1B the rest of the time. It's only an issue if there's no NL DH.</p><p>And if there's no NL DH, it's not like the Mets can't find some budget space. Cots has them at $180MM as of right now for 40-man roster commitments, so adding Springer on a $25MM AAV still leaves that $5MM buffer (Luxury tax is based on the AAV of the contract, not the yearly salary). It's tight, and it doesn't really allow for any further work to the roster, but that gets you to ~$205MM (this all assumes that the arbitration estimates are accurate/close, which after 2020's shortened season, isn't a given).</p><p>Of course, with no NL DH, you'd probably want to figure something out with the outfield. Conforto is set to make $12MM through his final run at arbitration before free agency, so you could argue that you'd make the trade-off of 5 years of Springer for 1 of Conforto, plus whatever he'd fetch on the trade market. Maybe they could attach Steven Matz or eat some of Jeurys Familia's contract to free space, then go grab Brad Hand <i>and </i>George Springer.</p><p>And let's not forget that the new Mets owner is apparently the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/steve-cohen/?sh=710ff7c663f8" target="_blank">36th richest person in the USA</a>, and that maybe the luxury tax number doesn't actually mean jack shit, and that maybe they'll just blow right by that number. We'll see what happens with Lindor with regards to an extension, but he, Marcus Stroman, Conforto, Noah Syndergaard, Familia and Steven Matz are all set to be free agents at the end of the year, totalling for ~$79MM in salaries coming off the books (though Robinson Cano's $24MM is back on the books next year, for a net ~$54MM). That leaves plenty of room for a Lindor extension, among other things, for next year. Going over by less than $20MM only costs money for the first year, and there's nothing stopping them from coming back under that amount after this year, especially with all that cash coming off the books.</p><p>I just have a hard time being concerned about an extra $5-10MM in space for in-season upgrades when you could just go get a 4-5 win CF and have him for the whole year. That's not to say that you can't use the $20MM in space to go make other smaller moves or go find a pitcher if Syndergaard doesn't come back from Tommy John as hoped, or if someone gets hurt along the way or whatever... just don't think Springer is entirely out of the question for the Mets just based on the Lindor deal.</p>Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-2703320610537747732020-12-20T00:13:00.003-05:002020-12-20T00:13:29.156-05:00I Thought Cavan Biggio was Overrated but he's Probably Not<p>2021 will be Cavan Biggio's third season in the bigs, kind of. 2019 was a 100 game debut, and 2020 was obviously a shortened year, given Covid. He's played 159 games, totalling just shy of 700 plate appearances, the equivalent of a single, full, normal season. One season doesn't exactly tell us a whole lot about a hitter!</p><p>Granted, those 700-ish PA's have been pretty good for the most part. Among qualified hitters since the start of the 2019 season, Biggio ranks <a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2019-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31&sort=9,d" target="_blank">tied for 7th in walk-rate</a>, behind names like Trout and Soto, and ahead of some pretty good hitters like Freeman, Votto, Yelich and Donaldson. He r<a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=2b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2019-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31&sort=22,d" target="_blank">anks 7th in Fangraphs-WAR</a> among 2nd basemen (sidenote- that list of 2B includes Max Muncy, who played just 82 innings at 2B this year, as well as Whit Merrifield who played 92; Biggio himself plays a few different positions obviously) with 4.0, and he's closer to 5 for B-Ref. He's a quality baserunner, even beyond the 20 SB/0 CS ratio, which is excellent for someone who walks so often and is at the top of the order.</p><p>Now I realize that I'm kind of cherry-picking complaints here a bit, but I like Keith Law. I quite enjoy board games, and food, and baseball, and Keith is fairly well-versed in all of that stuff, so I read his stuff a lot. Keith REALLY doesn't think Biggio is good. He's been vocal about it, and when Biggio does good stuff, Jays fans are quick to shit on Law on twitter or in his chats or wherever else they can find him. To wit, in no particular order:</p><p>Klawchat, 2/27/20 </p><blockquote><p><strong style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">lucas</strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">: Will Cavan Biggio ever hit enough to be a regular? The sky high walk rates make me believe he at least has a good approach at the plate?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Keith Law</strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">: No, I don’t think he will.</span></p></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4ALgBNjV_eLkGGMzQJuBUzPve0q-1DZRYmWjrYsBo53eDWTtxHSy82NJ49kFDDRwvje1BvA6tVhB9HJEC-74HEhQEPTGJjtaxePYMZ3k7WYRzdMnMuzGV7pdwe8zzokwER5y55HkMoE0/s599/Snip20201218_8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="524" data-original-width="599" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4ALgBNjV_eLkGGMzQJuBUzPve0q-1DZRYmWjrYsBo53eDWTtxHSy82NJ49kFDDRwvje1BvA6tVhB9HJEC-74HEhQEPTGJjtaxePYMZ3k7WYRzdMnMuzGV7pdwe8zzokwER5y55HkMoE0/w386-h338/Snip20201218_8.png" width="386" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Klawchat- 5/31/18<blockquote><div><div class="chat-row-group-container user" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2d282d; font-family: Open-Sans, "Trebuchet MS", geneva, helvetica, arial, tahoma, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px;"><div class="chat-row chat-row--alias user jotcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; display: table; font-size: 13px; padding: 5px 0px 1px; position: relative; table-layout: fixed; width: 1024px;"><span class="alias " style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 45px; vertical-align: bottom;">Russ</span></div><div class="chat-row user jotcast" id="message_936831" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; display: table; font-size: 13px; padding: 1px 0px; position: relative; table-layout: fixed; width: 1024px;"><div class="chat-time" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; padding-left: 5px; padding-top: 3px; vertical-align: top; width: 40px;"><span class="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">1:27</span></div><div class="chat-message" data-alias="Russ" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; line-height: 23px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 5px; width: 984px;"><span class="message-text" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Cavan Biggio's breakout reminds me of Kingery adding HR pop out of nowhere last year. </span> </div></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote><div><div class="chat-row-group-container user" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2d282d; font-family: Open-Sans, "Trebuchet MS", geneva, helvetica, arial, tahoma, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px;"><div class="chat-row user jotcast" id="message_936831" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; display: table; font-size: 13px; padding: 1px 0px; position: relative; table-layout: fixed; width: 1024px;"><div class="chat-message" data-alias="Russ" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; line-height: 23px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 5px; width: 984px;"><span class="message-text" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Do you buy Biggio as a regular in the bigs?</span></div></div><div id="scroll_936831" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><div class="chat-row-group-container moderator" style="background-color: #f2f2f2; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2d282d; font-family: Open-Sans, "Trebuchet MS", geneva, helvetica, arial, tahoma, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px;"><div class="chat-row chat-row--alias moderator jotcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0c637d; display: table; font-size: 13px; padding: 5px 0px 1px; position: relative; table-layout: fixed; width: 1024px;"><span class="alias admin alias-user-771" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 45px; vertical-align: bottom;">Keith Law</span></div><div class="chat-row moderator jotcast" id="message_936925" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0c637d; display: table; font-size: 13px; padding: 1px 0px; position: relative; table-layout: fixed; width: 1024px;"><div class="chat-time" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; display: table-cell; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; padding-left: 5px; padding-top: 3px; vertical-align: top; width: 40px;"><span class="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">1:28</span></div><div class="chat-message" data-alias="Keith Law" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; line-height: 23px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 5px; width: 984px;"><span class="message-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black;">Where does he play? Kingery is a 7 runner and 7 defender at second. Biggio is none of those things.</span></div></div></div></div></blockquote><p>Klawchat- 8/27/20</p><blockquote><div class="chat-row-group-container user" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2d282d; font-family: Open-Sans, "Trebuchet MS", geneva, helvetica, arial, tahoma, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px;"><div class="chat-row chat-row--alias user jotcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; display: table; font-size: 13px; padding: 5px 0px 1px; position: relative; table-layout: fixed; width: 1024px;"><span class="alias " style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 45px; vertical-align: bottom;">cool guy</span></div><div class="chat-row user jotcast" id="message_1907094" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; display: table; font-size: 13px; padding: 1px 0px; position: relative; table-layout: fixed; width: 1024px;"><div class="chat-time" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; padding-left: 5px; padding-top: 3px; vertical-align: top; width: 40px;"><span class="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">1:19</span></div><div class="chat-message" data-alias="cool guy" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; line-height: 23px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 5px; width: 984px;"><span class="message-text" style="box-sizing: border-box;">what did scouts miss about cavan biggio?</span></div></div><div id="scroll_1907094" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><div class="chat-row-group-container moderator" style="background-color: #f2f2f2; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2d282d; font-family: Open-Sans, "Trebuchet MS", geneva, helvetica, arial, tahoma, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px;"><div class="chat-row chat-row--alias moderator jotcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0c637d; display: table; font-size: 13px; padding: 5px 0px 1px; position: relative; table-layout: fixed; width: 1024px;"><span class="alias admin alias-user-771" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 45px; vertical-align: bottom;">Keith Law</span></div><div class="chat-row moderator jotcast" id="message_1907349" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0c637d; display: table; font-size: 13px; padding: 1px 0px; position: relative; table-layout: fixed; width: 1024px;"><div class="chat-time" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; display: table-cell; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; padding-left: 5px; padding-top: 3px; vertical-align: top; width: 40px;"><span class="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">1:20</span></div><div class="chat-message" data-alias="Keith Law" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; line-height: 23px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 5px; width: 984px;"><span class="message-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black;">Nothing. This season so far is such a tiny sample that there are weird outlier results all over the place -</span></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote><div class="chat-row-group-container moderator" style="background-color: #f2f2f2; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2d282d; font-family: Open-Sans, "Trebuchet MS", geneva, helvetica, arial, tahoma, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px;"><div class="chat-row moderator jotcast" id="message_1907349" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0c637d; display: table; font-size: 13px; padding: 1px 0px; position: relative; table-layout: fixed; width: 1024px;"><div class="chat-message" data-alias="Keith Law" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; line-height: 23px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 5px; width: 984px;"><span class="message-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black;">unless you think Mike Trout is really a .333 OBP guy.</span></div></div></div></blockquote><p>So yeah, he doesn't like Biggio. But Biggio's been good! What should we believe?!? Is there something he's seeing that we're not?</p><p>I think the obvious factor that we'd need to look at is whether or not he's good at stuff aside from drawing walks. He's not a great defender, but he's at least competent and can play <a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/players/cavan-biggio/19252/stats?position=2B#advanced-fielding" target="_blank">multiple positions without creating panic</a> (sample size!). He doesn't hit the ball particularly hard, per statcast, and the walks are at least somewhat cancelled out by the strikeouts.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzQ-q-L4v3BFu2VeFtP1LboH0p-U-CFLmnNAdpjzyZisTE6cIOG_mpKz1Mf-FhJgHukx6dk0GwKHUpnJLiZrJ621C4AWPf3UjT54vH6H451ibxkVGs6Fl0pmIBkoxYG4U5gQ1OYmzO8GE/s412/Snip20201216_7.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="389" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzQ-q-L4v3BFu2VeFtP1LboH0p-U-CFLmnNAdpjzyZisTE6cIOG_mpKz1Mf-FhJgHukx6dk0GwKHUpnJLiZrJ621C4AWPf3UjT54vH6H451ibxkVGs6Fl0pmIBkoxYG4U5gQ1OYmzO8GE/s320/Snip20201216_7.png" /></a></div>We've certainly got to keep in mind that being good at baseball/being a good hitter isn't entirely correlated with big exit velocities, and the ability to play 2B (or multiple positions, for that matter) certainly has a lower threshold for success with the bat than a 1B or LF. As Biggio is able to provide value beyond just walks with his baserunning and with his glove/arm, the threshold of what is acceptable in terms of the value he provides with his actual hitting lowers, naturally, even if the baserunning value is tied directly to his walk-rate and/or hitting ability.<div><br /></div><div>So, then, if he's not a particularly good hitter (i.e. bat-to-ball), but has an elite-level plate discipline, what should we expect moving forward? Shouldn't we assume that he'll walk less if he's not as much of a threat to hit the ball with authority? Pitchers would be more likely to attack the zone and less likely to nibble, right?</div><div><br /></div><div>Well... First of all, it wasn't exactly a secret that Biggio was patient. Teams had plenty of time to scout Biggio after his 2019 rookie year, but he didn't stop walking in 2020. You could do the bare minimum like checking his baseball card stats as an advanced scout and see that he walks a shitload. Every team has access to the Statcast data and probably lots more, and those front offices are all full of people way smarter than I who do this for a living. Second, he actually sees <a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/players/cavan-biggio/19252/stats?position=2B#plate-discipline" target="_blank">slightly more pitches in the strikezone</a> than the average batter. It's close, and the sample is small, but it's there for now. Within that same link, however, we should notice that he's seen fewer first-pitch strikes than average, and I wouldn't expect that to continue. Pitchers probably <i>will</i> attack him harder on the first pitch. Afterall, he's only <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/cavan-biggio-624415?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb" target="_blank">swung at 18%</a> of first pitches (scroll to plate discipline), vs. 28% league average. They'll just groove BP fastballs down the middle on 0-0 and get ahead, then he won't walk as much, right?!</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAzk5dUKOT__nAkymAvIHBQQuZpcR-wMdnUQyZ6TYbsLRgktt2XD2rdl-bZFM0uw1Byc6KjgaVn2iZKccCd4vwo5q9HvA5jHfGbht8eEuFTpgEnD9E8nI3GPT4t0waKfCNVQs16SAd8IY/s856/Snip20201219_12.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="78" data-original-width="856" height="68" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAzk5dUKOT__nAkymAvIHBQQuZpcR-wMdnUQyZ6TYbsLRgktt2XD2rdl-bZFM0uw1Byc6KjgaVn2iZKccCd4vwo5q9HvA5jHfGbht8eEuFTpgEnD9E8nI3GPT4t0waKfCNVQs16SAd8IY/w604-h68/Snip20201219_12.png" width="604" /></a></div><br /><div>Orrrrr? Looks like he swings at approximately as many first pitches that you'd expect him to, given the amount of first-pitch strikes he's seen. I think we can expect him to see more first-pitch strikes moving forward as the small sample catches up, but I also think the chart above would indicate that his walks aren't necessarily a matter of him seeing fewer pitches in the zone, or getting ahead in the count early, but rather staying patient and catching up in the count when he gets behind. It's hard to throw strikes! He doesn't see a <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/visuals/swing-take?playerId=624415" target="_blank">notably different distribution of pitches</a> down the middle or in the borderline area than anyone else, and doesn't even do much damage on pitches over the heart of the plate anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had honestly come in to the number crunching thinking that he was due for some regression since so much of his value is tied to his walk-rate and I expected the walk-rate to fall, and that if, say, Cleveland insisted on Biggio being included in a Lindor deal, that we not hesitate. I'm not so sure now. That's probably a bad example, because yes, Lindor for Biggio is something we should be happy about if it were to happen. Steamer projects .237/.354/.406, a 14.6% walk-rate, and strikeouts in 25.2% for his PA's, and ZiPS is even less optimistic, but they're still seeing 2.5-3 WAR.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiva6LGMOs7u3BbW5U1pPIP0_fzlRhmWrx1HdEWIWCjEYvbxdF-UbJ2lQkZ1cmRqL0FqsgRWq1L4w4FqHat9Of-R_qPfPwkMn1h2mCQ64eWuwtI9pgv4uOrDe1hZQdNRIjAIf7U4P9TUmE/s870/bb%2525+vs+xwoba.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="870" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiva6LGMOs7u3BbW5U1pPIP0_fzlRhmWrx1HdEWIWCjEYvbxdF-UbJ2lQkZ1cmRqL0FqsgRWq1L4w4FqHat9Of-R_qPfPwkMn1h2mCQ64eWuwtI9pgv4uOrDe1hZQdNRIjAIf7U4P9TUmE/w427-h246/bb%2525+vs+xwoba.png" width="427" /></a></div>I'm fairly certain that those projection systems cite historic examples of players that are similar and then correct for anomalies in their statlines, and I think projection systems are a lot more likely to dislike Biggio given how few players have historically fit the same mould. Someone who strikes out as often as he does is historically not getting many at-bats until recently.</div><div><br /></div><div>There are just relatively few batters who walk anywhere near as often as Biggio does who also have as low a wOBA. I've done my damndest to find a player who walks as much that has an xwOBA as low as his, and, well, it's just not there. That one dot right above Biggio is Yasmani Grandal, who shows up 3 times in the general area; he's of course a really good catcher who actually does happen to <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/yasmani-grandal-518735?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb" target="_blank">hit the ball with authority</a>, but is otherwise probably the best comparison I can find for Biggio offensively.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I was able to take <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/custom?year=2020,2019,2018,2017,2016,2015&type=batter&filter=grandal&sort=3&sortDir=desc&min=q&selections=b_k_percent,b_bb_percent,isolated_power,xslg,woba,xwoba,xobp,xiso,exit_velocity_avg,launch_angle_avg,barrel_batted_rate,&chart=false&x=b_bb_percent&y=xwoba&r=yes&chartType=scatter" target="_blank">the statcast leaderboard</a>, sorted by BB-rate, download the CSV and filter all qualified batters who, in single seasons since 2015, walked in 14.5 to 16.5% (i.e. +/- 1% of Biggio's 2020 season) of their at-bats in that given season. I count 32 players within that range, and Biggio has the lowest xwOBA (which takes in to account steals!) of all of those players, one of the lowest isolated power totals, and one of the lowest average exit velocities. We're really just comparing Biggio with some of the more elite hitters in baseball and confirming that he's not as good offensively as they are... not exactly a groundbreaking discovery!</div><div><br /></div><div>Having said all of that, we probably shouldn't expect the 4 WAR pace that he's started his career on, and we certainly shouldn't expect even more that that from Biggio. If he has room to grow offensively, it would likely involve swinging the bat more, especially at pitches down the middle, which almost certainly means that he's bring more aggressive and chasing slightly more, trading walks for hits and outs. The thing with that, though, is that he doesn't swing at many bad pitches, which would be the pitches that typically get put in play softly. Keith Law says he's not worth a roster spot, which I think we can pretty confidently dismiss at the moment; at his absolute worst, he's still a competent defender who can get on base with empty power, and at his best, provides an above-average super-utility player who can play multiple positions. He's more than worth a roster spot if he's able to maintain a walk-rate anywhere near what we've seen, and I've not seen any data that would indicate that he isn't.</div>Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-2465726371181938102020-12-16T00:14:00.002-05:002020-12-16T00:14:42.737-05:00Aaaand We're Back: 20/21 Offseason, Springer Edition<p> So I think we're going to do this again. At least for a while. I realize that the last like 12 posts begin the same way, but whatever. Updating this page regularly in the past was something that was made possible by the fact that I hadn't been working an actual job way back when, but rather was playing internet poker and living rent-free in my folks' basement. In the several years since this page was updated regularly, I've left the poker world, got a real job, got married, had a kid, bought a house and more, not leaving a ton of time for baseball and writing. Of course, now that there's a plague destroying the world, I'm working from home, if at all. The Blue Jays are exciting again, and they're trying to add a bunch of stuff this offseason, and I pretty much just refresh Twitter and MLBTR with any spare time I've got.</p><p>So then, I suppose we can let 'er rip again, yeah?</p><p>We all know that the Jays are looking to add in multiple spots this offseason, and that they've been linked to pretty well every available player under the sun. I'm not sure how much the Jays front office is willing to add this year from a payroll perspective, but we're only a couple years removed from payrolls in the $160MM+ range, and <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1krcN5UUeCGrMvzf3hPyrcuwWKbYoWomK5WmL7paNDaA/edit#gid=1520401900" target="_blank">Cots is forecasting</a> something like $76MM as of right now when considering arbitration salaries for Teoscar Hernandez and Ross Stripling and Robbie Ray having re-signed. Adding $50MM in one offseason seems like a lot for most teams and most years, but $125MM seems like a downright reasonable payroll for a team with Rogers as an owner and leaves plenty of flexibility for future seasons. Is adding $60MM farfetched? $70MM? In the midst of a pandemic? Not sure! I think they're more likely to take on extra money for a longterm and/or high-impact piece rather than a rental, but we'll see.</p><p>Anyway, I've got my preferred course of action for the offseason and the odd plan-B to go along with it, but with the offseason being so fluid and the Jays having a bunch of positional and financial flexibility, we're probably in a situation where the Jays have 20 different roadmaps, depending on who they're able to sign and who they can trade/trade for. Lots of speculation here on my part, but my preferred course of action for the offseason hinges on Centre Field, as I think the Jays' best offseason move is to sign George Springer (MLBTR predicted 5 years, $125MM).</p><p style="text-align: left;">I think Springer makes the biggest impact for this team (on the position player side, at least), and the contingency plans are fair at best. He's projected for 4+ WAR via both ZiPS and Steamer, far ahead of Jackie Bradley Jr. But what's next if they're able to land Springer? Signing Springer creates a bit of a logjam in the corner OF spots, with Gurriel, Hernandez and Grichuk fighting for two spots. We've heard plenty of chatter about Gurriel being a trade chip, but I think the ideal play under this scenario is to move Grichuk instead. The obvious problem there is that he's owed $31MM over the next three years, and there's just not a lot of value there. It's not that the contract is so bad from a $/WAR perspective; he's projected to be worth somewhere in the 1.5 WAR area if you're inclined to believe ZiPS or Steamer, and probably only needs to provide something shy of 4 WAR over the balance of the contract to see that $31MM in value. The problem is that we're in a world where Adam Eaton just signed with the White Sox for 1 year and $7MM with a club option and projects to similar value, (even if they arrive there in different ways-- Eaton provides more OBP and less power), without the extra commitment, so it's fairly unlikely that you're going to convince someone to give up useful assets to take his contract.</p><p style="text-align: left;">More likely is that, if traded, Grichuk is used to offset another contract coming back. We can dream on Yu Darvish (3 years, $61MM left), if the Cubs are even willing to move him, and I think that one actually works if the Jays add some prospects. Not sure if Kris Bryant is available either, but Baseball Trade Values seems to think that Darvish and Bryant, with all their salary, could be had for some nice prospects and Grichuk to offset the salaries a little:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgma5sanb4zOEdbxz-QCTZqbvlB6LecBJ-oVdLbA026RL8CFMrwpXW7rn4obvld7xSlSVwM-Yhw2r98o_XGtiUaw0fh8ieukAY7nHJqpJ7Mo6zEjindVZPyPPMoAqkz5EsOxJN1BR_Y804/s1021/EpDnrOKXEAAzruE.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="1021" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgma5sanb4zOEdbxz-QCTZqbvlB6LecBJ-oVdLbA026RL8CFMrwpXW7rn4obvld7xSlSVwM-Yhw2r98o_XGtiUaw0fh8ieukAY7nHJqpJ7Mo6zEjindVZPyPPMoAqkz5EsOxJN1BR_Y804/w377-h206/EpDnrOKXEAAzruE.jpeg" width="377" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>No idea if the Cubs would ever do this, but it certainly works for the Jays. Adding Darvish ($22MM/$19MM/$18MM) and Bryant (~$20MM) and subtracting Grichuk ($10.33MM in '21-'23) nets an addition of about $33MM to the current payroll and addresses the hole in the infield and adds a pitcher. If the theoretical Springer deal is backloaded slightly, it adds flexibility for bullpen additions until Bryant is off the books and leaves room for Groshans or Martin if either is ready and needs a spot for 2022. This trade isn't really contingent on a Springer signing other than having an extra outfielder, I suppose.</div><div><br /></div><div>The more likely scenario is that nobody is interested in Grichuk and that it's Gurriel that gets moved. He projects as a ~league-average player with upside with a cheap contract, which makes him someone that another team might actually want. Signing Springer and adding pitching for Gurriel certainly doesn't hurt, whether it's Blake Snell, Sonny Gray, or some other pitcher that we've not heard about in trade rumors yet.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jackie Bradley definitely works as a backup plan; he's a left-handed batter that would be joining a primarily right-handed lineup, and he defends very well. MLBTR predicted that he'd sign a 2 year deal at $8MM a year, which is a commitment that leaves a lot more room to add elsewhere on the roster than what Springer would cost. It's a bottom of the order bat, but he's had success in spurts previously and had a good 2020 (119 wRC+ over 217 PA's).</div><div><br /></div><div>My biggest concern is with the entire offseason is what to do in CF if you miss out on both. The Mets are a strong fit for Springer, and it was reported today that there are multiple teams interested in JBJ's services as well. The Jays have a backup plan at C if Realmuto signs elsewhere-- the internal options of Jansen, Kirk and McGuire, assuming he survives the offseason without being moved/DFA, is perfectly fungible. If they miss on, say, LeMahieu, they can pivot to Lindor, or to Justin Turner, or to Bryant, or to Correa, Semien, etc, by virtue of having Biggio and Bichette (and Vlad?) able to play multiple infield spots. If they want to sign another SP and miss Bauer, they've got options with Paxton, Walker, Tanaka, or Odorizzi, or move to the trade market.</div><div><br /></div>CF isn't exactly flush with options though. The drop-off between Springer and JBJ is fairly wide, and the options behind JBJ (Pillar? Almora?) kinda make you want to stick with Grichuk as a plan C. I think the flexibility at all the other spots is part of the reason that the Jays have been so patient to this point; gotta add an infielder, not specifically a 3B or 2B or SS. CF is just so fucking dodgy on this roster though, and there are so few quality options out there, relative to the options at other positions.<div><br /></div><div>And it's really that flexibility that this whole Blue Jay offseason is built upon, isn't it? As a team with plenty of budget space available, I think a Springer signing moves the needle and maintains that flexibility moving onward through the offseason and improving the team as much as possible.<br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p></div>Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-1601351724415998042015-10-12T21:37:00.000-04:002015-10-12T21:37:51.871-04:00Defending the Price Thing<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.imgur.com/21FVLod.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/21FVLod.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Associated Press</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Pretty much anything that is different or against the grain is going to be picked at and criticized, whether it's baseball or not. And that's doubly true when it has something to do with Toronto sports teams, it would appear.<br />
<br />
John Gibbons hooked RA Dickey in the 5th inning after 78 pitches, and went with David Price, who had pitched Thursday on ELEVEN days rest, and wasn't totally sharp. Here are my thoughts:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Price is your ace. If he's not, and Stroman is, then Stroman should be starting game 5 anyway, and you'd like to have him do so on normal rest. If you want to hang on to Price just in case things go south with Stroman in Game 5, then sure. I can't imagine there's a shift in win equity by saving Price for relief in 5, versus using him in game 4 in a 6-run game, but if there is, it's small.</li>
<li>We don't know that Price isn't available in relief for game 5. I'd guess that he is, for the record, because he's David Price, but I don't know, so I'm willing to not piss and moan about it. Still, Price threw 90 pitches four days ago on 11 days rest, threw a bit last night, and then threw 50 more today. I don't think it's unfathomable that he can't rest a day and then face Choo, Fielder and Moreland in a big spot, especially with no Brett Cecil.</li>
<li>Dickey was a little wild out there tonight, getting a bunch of 3-ball counts and having a reasonably elevated pitch-count. More importantly, he was entering his 3rd time through the order, having just gotten Delino DeShields out. He was at 78 pitches at this point, so it's not like he was primed to go 8 innings and Gibby was quick with the hook-- it was a must-win, and Dickey probably had it in him to get through 6, but that assumes that he doesn't have issues with the middle of the order coming up.</li>
<li>Choo had gone 2-for-2 against Dickey, as had Beltre, despite the fact that he can't run. Next up would be Fielder and Moreland. This inning didn't end up getting out of control, but that doesn't meant that it couldn't have.</li>
<li>Can you maybe go to Aaron Loup in a 6-run game with the lefties coming up? Yeah, probably. Or in the 8th, when it was Fielder and Moreland? Sure. Except Loup wasn't there tonight. He had to leave the team to attend to a personal matter of some sort, so Price was the only lefty available. So he gets through Choo, Fielder and Moreland in the 5th and 6th, but then what happens if you take him out and the Rangers, in the 7th or 8th, rally and have men on base for one of those guys? Roberto Osuna is the only person in the bullpen with anything nearing a halfway reliable sample of success against lefty hitters. I'm not saying you can't go with Osuna in the 7th or 8th, but I think we all know that Gibby probably won't do that.</li>
</ul>
<div>
If Brett Cecil is still around, and maybe even if Aaron Loup is there, I think this game plays out a bit differently. We probably see Loup or Cecil in the 5th, or we see Price come in and stay in through Odor's at-bat, rather than coming all the way back around, but no Cecil and no Loup left Gibby's hands pretty well tied. This was a must-win game, and the best way to do that is to score more runs than the other team. If you were paying attention, you'd know that the Astros blew a 4-run 8th inning lead right around the same time the Jays' game started this afternoon, and there's no real reason that the same thing couldn't theoretically happen in this one.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It was outside the box, and it didn't exactly work to perfection, but Dickey didn't quite have his A-game out there, and until someone else proves themselves to be a viable option against lefty hitting, I'm really not going to complain that David Price is pitching in games for the Toronto Blue Jays in the playoffs.</div>
Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-88682075644600470852015-09-22T14:12:00.000-04:002015-09-22T14:12:01.676-04:00Sanchez, and the Bullpen, of Late<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/I0wOHx4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/I0wOHx4.png" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
So Brett Cecil just kinda went ahead and made this all about himself last night, saving the game and Aaron Sanchez in the 8th inning. Aaron Sanchez went ahead and allowed the only two runners he faced to reach base, before Gibby moved to Cecil to face Brett Gardner, Alex Rodriguez and Brian McCann, all of whom he struck, relying mainly on the curveball.<br />
<br />
The Jays twittersphere was pretty quick to shit on Sanchez, myself included, until Cecil just went ahead and stole the show, making us all forget about Sanchez' recent issues, at least for the time being. Something's kinda sticking out to me here though.<br />
<br />
Was Gibbons right to go to Cecil? Yeah, absolutely. Was he wrong not to go to Cecil sooner? Yes, 100%. If Cecil was unavailable, or they were trying to save him for the rest of the series, then sure, I see the point. Aaron Loup might not be the right guy to go to to start the 8th if you're trying to avoid using Cecil, ditto Jeff Francis. Is Hendriks, or Hawkins the guy to go to (Mark Lowe wasn't available) over Sanchez?<br />
<br />
I don't really know the answer to that, but regardless, Cecil is really the only good lefty out of the pen at the moment, and he had pitched in consecutive games leading in to last night, and Sanchez is the "8th inning" guy, after all, so it was his turn, AND if Sanchez gets the first two outs, I doubt anybody second guesses the choice in the first place, nor would we have seen the Cecil light-show that totally takes the cake as best moment of the season so far.<br />
<br />
The problem is that Sanchez has some pretty distinct struggles against left-handed hitting. Even if this is just an eye-test thing (which it isn't! I promise!), Sanchez is either nibbling or just straight up missing his spots against lefties. He's probably doing it against righties too, but the heavy movement is down-and-in to righties, and moves towards the barrels of lefty bats. I guess my main fear is that Sanchez just doesn't really have a great secondary pitch that he can throw to lefties and get them out.<br />
<br />
That can be backed up with numbers! Which is good, because that's how we do things around here. Some important things to note: Sanchez has excellent, fantastic, wonderful overall numbers as a reliever this season, to the tune of a .241 opponents' wOBA. It's a small sample, and I don't know of a way to separate that further into handedness, which is really what we're looking for here, but I think we're still going to get the point across.<br />
<br />
Just looking at basic splits, we see a bit of an ugly trend:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://embed.gyazo.com/09cb219fcbc2620bb52951b8411c69f9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="48" src="https://embed.gyazo.com/09cb219fcbc2620bb52951b8411c69f9.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Between teams loading their lineups to gain a platoon advantage (in his starts) and pinch-hitting with lefties (relief), it's pretty normal to have a guy face more opposite-handed hitters than same-handed, so it's not like he's just getting thrown in there to get lefties out and failing at it, despite that being exactly what happened last night. It's not any less alarming, though, that last night's game was still within reach, and it was Sanchez of all people that was chosen to come in, simply because it was the 8th inning and that's when he pitches. Too many hits, too many walks, and not enough strikeouts against lefties to really merit being thrown in to the situation that he was thrown in to.<br />
<br />
Do I have an alternative? Especially if we assume that Cecil was only to be used in urgent spots for last night's game? He needs to get a day off somewhere, and I'd be shocked if he was available for tonight's game. Do you dare go to Aaron Loup or Francis? Or Osuna in the 8th? I probably don't. Mark Lowe wasn't available, but he or Hawkins is probably my go-to to start the 8th, given the lineup and the location within. I don't think any of the options are ideal, but Lowe has been rather excellent overall, and has a .299 opponent's wOBA vs. lefties this year, and Hawkins has practically no platoon split for his career (.294 vs. .290 wOBA).<br />
<br />
So the issue isn't really about Sanchez being right or wrong for the 8th inning role, it's more about the role itself, and there not being a second viable lefty option out of the bullpen. Lowe has been excellent, but that trade kind of surprised me. Moving Sanchez to the bullpen certainly stabilized it, and the emergence of Hendriks as a pretty good reliever did the same. Aaron Loup has had a pretty bad season, so all of a sudden, the only thing the Jays really needed on deadline day was another solid lefty option.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Lowe is here. But I'd have much rather found some random lefty sidearm shitballer, though I'm sure there wasn't one out there or AA'd have gone and found one. The result is the reliance on Brett Cecil to get out of every situation that arises where a lefty bat comes up in a high-leverage spot. He's more than capable of doing that, and that's not the problem. The problem is that more than one of those spots comes up in a game sometimes, and Aaron Sanchez probably isn't the next best option.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-14349349385309006202015-04-11T07:50:00.002-04:002015-04-11T07:50:31.976-04:00Thoughts, Through Four<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.imgur.com/ZnCUZ0Q.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/ZnCUZ0Q.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Lott/Nat. Post</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As awesome as these two kids have been through the five innings or whatever that they've pitched, I still worry a bit about the pitching staff. I don't have any doubts that Cecil is going to be OK, and he should stabilize the bullpen a bit once he's fully himself again (and reports of his fastball topping out at 88MPH the other night don't really worry me given his spring and the fact that it was 4 degrees in New York). Aaron Loup is going to continue to be Aaron Loup, getting a mix of outs and walks. After that, the bullpen kind of gives me the jibblies.<br />
<br />
I'm hesitant to use a 4 game sample to determine what we have in Castro and Osuna, as dominant as they've been, and I think it's silly not to think that they're going to end up struggling a bit at some point once the rest of the league kind of figures them out or sees some video or scouting reports. It seems like the Redmond/Estrada/Hendriks experience isn't one that's built to last, and it that's doubly true if the 8-man bullpen is only contingent on Michael Saunders being on the DL (which it isn't, necessarily... Tolleson could be cut and everything else can stay the same, in theory, but I'm guessing that's not it... likely Tolleson and Hendriks cuts, Saunders and Goins up).<br />
<br />
I think I'd be a lot more comfortable still with another right-handed reliever in there. Whether that's Steve Delabar, Rafael Soriano, Aaron Sanchez, Marco Estrada or someone else... don't really give a shit. Ask me again in a few weeks and my tune may change if these two keep killing it out of the bullpen, but right now I'd love to see a 2010-Jason-Frasor-type that could come in in the 6th inning with guys on base and get a strikeout to kill a rally. Maybe that is Castro or Osuna, though, and I'm just seeing their ages and thinking it's not good enough. (As an aside, if Castro is closing, moving Cecil to 8th inning duties, the need for Colt Hynes drastically diminishes)<br />
<br />
I'm the same about the rotation. I don't exactly think that there's even a shred of uncertainty in Dickey or Buerhle. They're two shitballers that are going to stabilize everything and get six innings in more often than not. And the way Hutchison looked opening day and in the second half of 2014, I'm not sure he isn't a guy that can be relied upon either... he's been a stud the last half-season, give or take, and he did throw 185 innings last season, striking out a batter per inning.<br />
<br />
It's more Norris, Sanchez and the depth that worries me. I totally reserve the right to change my tune about Sanchez, even after one start, and my point about him will be quick anyway. It's simply that I'm not going to feel good about him as a starter until I do, and that won't happen until we see secondary pitches develop. I just fear he's just going to fire smoke and get guys out for a few innings, and then break out the change or curve and get slaughtered.<br />
<br />
Which kind of brings me to Norris. His outing against the Yankees started amazingly, but he was in pretty big trouble the second time through the order. Yankee hitters were 0-for-8 with a walk the first time through the order, but it looked like they made some pretty hefty adjustments the second time through. Starting with Ellsbury's second AB with 2 out in the 3rd, things went:<br />
<br />
Line drive single (fucked up by a CS to end the inning)<br />
Walk<br />
Line drive<br />
Line drive (that happened to find Donaldson's glove and could have been a 2B just as easily)<br />
strikeout (battle back from 3-0)<br />
popout (end the inning)<br />
double<br />
popout<br />
single (Gregorius running error to give a free out, turning the lineup over)<br />
foul out (end the inning)<br />
Homerun<br />
Line out (albeit a weak one)<br />
Homerun<br />
<br />
Norris was dominant once through the order, and looked like he was going to cruise through the game, but gave up a lot of solid contact starting the 2nd time through, and if it weren't for the Yankees having two TOOTBLANs over those 13 plate appearances, this may have ended up a little different.<br />
<br />
There are obviously some circumstances around this start, which is why we don't worry TOO much about it. It was Norris' first start of the year and maybe just getting through five was the goal, in which case, yeah, let's mix in the secondary stuff right away and see what we can figure out. Second, it was cold out there, so we can certainly give the guy a break. But the point remains, as good as Norris looked in the first three innings, he looked just as bad over the next 3.<br />
<br />
Having said all of that, the offence and defence has looked pretty fucking sound so far to me. Russell Martin hasn't lit it up offensively, and up until yesterday, neither had Jose Bautista, but the team still has 27 runs scored through 4 games. Devon Travis, Justin Smoak, Jose Reyes and Josh Donaldson have each gotten on base at a rate of 35% or better, and Bud Norris got totally worked over in yesterday's game, which definitely does ease some of my concern about the pitching staff.<br />
<br />
We know that Bautista and Martin will come around (Martin's plate appearances have been mostly good, and just don't really show up on a stat sheet), and a 12-9 win is still definitely as much a win as a 4-2 game. Like I said, I'd love to see another pitcher come around, but to have that many concerns and still be kind of cheesed about being 3-1 to start the year... could be worse.<br />
<br />
It really makes the Stroman injury sting. With him in the fold, Sanchez can be in the pen or in the minors ready as depth. It would have given the Jays that one extra piece that they can rely upon if something goes south. Instead, that's Liam Hendriks or Jeff Francis or Felix Doubront or whomever. And that's fine, I guess, in the sense that nobody's got a legitimate #3 waiting in the minors until someone gets hurt or sucks, and there are times for every team where piecing together a start or four needs to happen. Fortunately the offence is there for times like that, should they arise.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-28351001808427348082015-03-28T08:11:00.003-04:002015-03-28T08:11:50.951-04:00But with a Whimper<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/sKIb7Lp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/sKIb7Lp.jpg" height="199" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
So this is the way the world ends...<br />
<br />
The last morsel of hope we have remaining has finally fluttered away, and it has done so with very few of us noticing, and probably fewer of us caring. Kyle Drabek is no more than a glimmer in our eye, or a tickle in our loin. The greatest era is over, and the honeymoon of that era has followed, lethargically.<br />
<br />
One Harry Leroy Halladay, who all prospective Blue Jay talk has, and should surround, has long since re-signed and retired, but the eponymous trade is really only just making its' mark, as sad as that seems. He was traded years and years ago, for a pile of prospects, none of whom really ever did anything, and he flourished, making the playoffs, throwing a no-hitter and a perfect game, and winning another Cy. Of course, those are years that we can give a fuck about, since he wasn't a Blue Jay at the time. He was traded, of course.<br />
<br />
There was Travis d'Arnaud, the catcher, who was part of the R.A. Dickey trade that we will all maybe regret on AA's behalf. He was certainly the eventual centerpiece, whether we knew it or not at the time. Sure, he's flashed some bat at age 26, but there's still no sure thing, especially at catcher. Not like Dickey's gone and 4-WARred for us though, and Syndergaard is probably better than Dickey right now, all things being considered.<br />
<br />
There was also Michael Taylor. He, of course, got flipped for Brett Wallace, who eventually got flipped for Anthony Gose, who eventually got flipped for Devon Travis. Devon Travis should make the opening day roster at 2B. That's OK, but it's also several degrees of Kevin Bacon away from what WE WERE LOOKING FOR IN 2009. And it's certainly better than letting something leave through waivers or free agency.<br />
<br />
And then there's Drabek. The one who did leave through waivers or free agency. The Travis Snider of pitchers, per se. Prospect #14 per baseball prospectus, and #29 per MLB in 2011. A scalding hot prospect who never had it come together. A guy who might have been the next ace if he didn't walk everybody, or get hurt, or a combination of the two.<br />
<br />
And now he goes elsewhere, unceremoniously. Like, so unceremoniously, that I don't remember reading that he was DFA'ed or removed from the 40-man or whatever. It didn't make the news. This guy was traded for Roy God Damn Halladay. And he's been jettisoned so a 20-year old can make the team.<br />
<br />
The Halladay deal is closed, and the era of the same name has come and gone long ago. It still hurts. And it feels like it came and went with 118 K's, and 111 walks, and literally, a line drawn in the sand. In a more literal sense, d'Arnaud got Dickey, and Taylor eventually got Travis. Those things range somewhere from OK to good, at least at this very moment, because the ultimate goal of the Halladay trade was to help the team contend a few years after it.<br />
<br />
We don't know that Travis doesn't go and kill it. Nor do we know that d'Arnaud doesn't go kick ass the way we all expected him to. And Drabek might find something in the Chicago system that allows him to throw the ball in the strike zone. But there's a statute of limitations on this kind of thing, and I suppose it's time to say it now. The Roy Halladay trade was a disaster.<br />
<br />
Yeah, prospects will break your heart sometimes, and TINSTAAPP, and Tommy John's up the wazoo, I get it. And it's not like AA's track record in trades is exactly anything less than stellar, to the point where we've pretty much forgotten about this deal, since there have been so many others in its' wake. But sometimes you just look back and relive those glory days and don't know what to do with yourself anymore.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-60660902513447449902015-03-14T11:09:00.000-04:002015-03-14T11:09:37.478-04:00Getting Some Exercise<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.imgur.com/uK1DjBP.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/uK1DjBP.png" height="252" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Or, you know, driving.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I have this thing that I do quite often. I can't help it. I wouldn't classify it as a bad habit or anything, and I can't imagine it annoys anybody or anything. It's just a thing that I do, probably a bit weird.<br />
<br />
I have <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/">Cot</a>'s bookmarked, and I go and read up on contracts like once a week. Usually, I'm just picking a random team and reading contracts, often ones that I already know exactly what is written about them, thus learning nothing. These things evolve, from time to time, though, as a player gets awesome or terrible all of a sudden. My favorite is the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/al-east/new-york-yankees/">Yankees' page</a>, mostly because of the ARod, Teixeira, Sabathia, etc. deals that have all these goofy incentives and perks, though all of the contracts negotiated by Theo Epstein are usually hilarious: John Lackey's clause that stipulates that the team gets a club option for league minimum if he misses time with an elbow injury, or Carl Crawford's "if we trade you, you can't be traded to the Yankees" clause.<br />
<br />
More than any other team though, obviously, I'm looking at the Jays' page. Looking towards the future for payroll commitments, checking options, seeing who is arbitration eligible, free agency eligible or 0-3 at season's end, and so on.<br />
<br />
Naturally, this morning, I was laying in bed with my computer on my stomach reading the Jays' page, and was looking at all the club options they have on their players. There are options on the contracts of Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, RA Dickey, and Maicer Izturis for next season, at various values.<br />
<br />
The Bautista and Edwin options are for $14MM and $10MM respectively, and, barring some hilarious misfortune like gigantism from consuming too much brain and nerve tonic, or falling down a bottomless pit, those two are getting their options exercised, even if they miss the season due to injury or go all Chris Davis on us. The other two are kind of interesting though.<br />
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<b>Maicer Izturis</b><br />
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We'll start with Izturis, I suppose, since he's the least interesting. Despite being completely terrible in year one of his deal, and breaking his leg or something and missing 90+% of year two of his deal, Izturis has a totally reasonable option on his contract. He'll make $3MM this season, which, on a value level, should get something like 0.5 WAR. He's cheap, and there isn't exactly a bunch of competition trying to pry the 2B job away from him; Devon Travis seems to be the heir-apparent, but he's yet to see AAA, and after him, it's just a bunch of also-rans in Muni, Ryan Goins, and maybe Steve Tolleson against LHP. He is a switch-hitter who can play a few infield positions, but certainly doesn't do any of those things spectacularly. Still, we've seen guys, especially at premium(-ish) positions put up a WAR <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kawasmu01.shtml#batting_value::none">practically by accident</a>.<br />
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If Izturis happens to have a halfway decent season (by which I mean "if he can get out of his own way defensively, sit his ass on the bench if and when Steve Tolleson plays against lefties, and put up even a win), then picking up his option seems pretty palatable. The option is for $3MM, but comes with a $1MM buyout, so in essence, it's a $2MM decision that the Jays will be saddled with. Perhaps, by that time, Devon Travis is ready, or Ryan Goins learns how to hit .200, or Chase Utley becomes a Blue Jay, rendering Izturis more or less useless, but a $2MM decision, these days, makes a pretty small, low-risk investment.<br />
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I'm guessing that this one gets declined, and that AA would take a do-over on this one if given the chance, but it wouldn't be a huge shock if the guy was worth a WAR and justified that option.<br />
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<br />
<b>Ra Dickey</b><br />
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Dickey's deal is for $12MM in 2015, and has an option for '16 at the same cost, with a $1MM buyout. $12MM, on the open market, should buy you about 2 WAR, which is right in line with Dickey's performance as a Blue Jay so far, depending on where you look (and you should be looking at <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/war-for-knuckleballers/">B-Ref for him</a>, and maybe all pitchers depending on your feelings about fip-WAR). He was worth 2.0 rWAR in 2013 and 2.5 in 2014. That suggests that he's an approximately league-average pitcher, solid but not spectacular. Certainly not the Cy Young guy that he was in 2012, but wholly valuable nonetheless.<br />
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From a strict cost-per-win standpoint, the option is probably a wash, and the Jays would likely get more or less what they paid for. There are a few other circumstances to look at though.<br />
<br />
First, Dickey is 40 years old. Sure, knuckleballers can throw till they're fucking 70 if they want to, and Dickey has said that he's planning on pitching for at least another few years, and there's not exactly a shitload of data out there that determines what the normal aging curve should resemble for a knuckler (though <a href="http://www.breakingblue.ca/2013/11/27/ra-dickey-and-the-knuckleballer-aging-curve/">Breaking Blue</a> tried shortly after the trade). <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wakefti01.shtml">Tim Wakefield was useful</a> in to his mid-40's, for example, and Phil Niekro was useful through 46. But most baseball players peak at age 28 or so, and there are a few grey hairs in Dickey's beard.<br />
<br />
Second, Dickey has thrown at least 200 innings four years in a row now, which is certainly a good thing to have around. We don't know what's going to happen with Mark Buehrle after this year (he's a free agent), but I'd guess that he'll walk or retire or something that isn't pitch for the Toronto Blue Jays. That's based off of nothing, of course, and he seems to like it in Toronto and is building a good rapport with the team's young pitchers, so who knows? My point is that Dickey is a stabilizing force in the Jays' rotation, even if he isn't as good as he was a few years ago. He's that guy who takes the ball every fifth day and throws 6-ish innings for you 34 times a year. He doesn't have a Tommy John ligament, so that's not a worry, and he doesn't throw hard enough to do any damage to the rest of his arm. As long as he doesn't take a comebacker to the face, or break a nail, there's not really a whole lot to worry about.<br />
<br />
Third, Dan Norris seems to have taken a liking to him. You'd like to keep that guy happy.<br />
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Fourth, if Dickey leaves, (and again, assuming Buehrle walks), Drew Hutchison is suddenly the dad of the rotation (not that that is a bad thing, but he's still 24, and you know how much AA likes his vets). This could certainly change between now and then, if the Jays acquire someone between now and the start of 2016, but there doesn't seem to be any money there for 2015, and we all know how tough it is to get people to sign in Toronto, especially to pitch in the dome.<br />
<br />
Fifth, his defense should improve a bit, with Donaldson playing at third and Smoak soaking up a few more errant throws at first. Not that such a thing changes a ton about how well he pitches, but he certainly does seem to get his ass kicked a bit more from the stretch (.603 OPS with bases empty, .833 with men on in 2014), and if there's anybody in the league who induces weak contact, and thus needs a bit of defensive help, it's Dickey.<br />
<br />
It seems as though AA likes guys that can throw innings, guys that can help with team chemistry, and guys who don't have a choice on whether or not they come to Toronto. With an option, they don't need to pitch it to an agent, or compete with other teams, or worry about how much it's going to cost, or convince someone to pitch in a park that cedes all the homeruns-- this is a known entity, under control, and he's already here.<br />
<br />
I would guess that Dickey gets his option exercised if he has a year that is anywhere close to what he had last year, and has it declined if he has a dumpster fire, so the real issue here is what happens if he's in the middle ground. There is value in resting the bullpen, and it's not a complete impossibility that he gets better, either. Niekro had a 4.6 WAR season at 45, Wakefield a 4.5 WAR season at 38. 3 WAR isn't completely absurd, especially if his whole schtick about still learning the pitch and adjusting to the various environments is to be believed. One factor we need to consider is how well Hutchison, Norris and Sanchez perform this year, and if anybody in the minors (i.e. Osuna) develops. Stroman should be good to go for opening day of 2016, there are plenty of options on the 2016 free agent market, and we could always see a trade, so it's not like there aren't other avenues to find pitching.<br />
<br />
It sure would be a lot easier if Dickey went and kicked ass this season, though.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-75539526724326916342015-03-10T18:41:00.000-04:002015-03-10T18:41:16.808-04:00Fixing this Mess<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.imgur.com/r6aUkQd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/r6aUkQd.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">National Post</td></tr>
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Well this is fucking horseshit. No Stroman for 2015. I'm sure you've seen this by now, so there's no point in writing about that.<br />
<br />
It's obviously not over before it starts. I mean, Stroman is one guy. Sure, he's probably the best pitcher on the team, but his upside for the year is, what, 4 WAR? 5? Yeah, those are all important wins, given the Jays' location on the win curve. The difference between one Stroman and no Stromans is probably more starts to Aaron Sanchez or Dan Norris or Marco Estrada... whichever of those guys didn't get the 5th starter's job. Maybe some Johan Santana in there, I guess. Still, Steamer sees 3.4 WAR that the Jays are going to need to go and find for 2015 just to get back to where they were yesterday.<br />
<br />
Obviously the problem there is that there aren't free agents available in mid-March. Yeah, James Shields would have been fucking golden, even before this happened, but there's probably no money there, and Stroman getting hurt in, say, December, probably wouldn't have changed that. Might have seen a Chris Young signing or something minor like that, but the real issue here isn't money; teams are pretty well set and ready to go in to the early part of the season with what they have in-house.<br />
<br />
If that's the case, then the Jays are kind of locked in to doing that themselves. Everybody just moves up a spot on the chart, more or less. Dickey is now the obvious opening day starter, if he wasn't before, and Daniel Norris is probably even more of a lock to get a rotation spot unless he throws up all over himself and loses it over the rest of the spring. Aaron Sanchez was getting stretched out (and will continue to do so) in order to give him a chance to win a spot, but I think a healthy Stroman and all other things being equal would have put him in the bullpen. Not so certain now.<br />
<br />
The likely rotation at this point, in no certain order, has Dickey and Buerhle as the horses, Hutchison and Norris as the young guns, and probably Sanchez getting every chance to fail rounding things out. If he does fail, Marco Estrada is there, able to 2012-2013 Carlos Villanueva.<br />
<br />
The real problem is that both Sanchez and Estrada were tentatively set to be bullpen pieces in a pen that wasn't exactly strong before the Stroman injury. Now, we're incredibly likely to see one of those guys added to the rotation. Worse yet, this assumes that Norris can hack it as a starter*, which is probably a bit aggressive to do when you consider that Norris is 21, had offseason surgery, and has pitched a total of 6.2 MLB innings, and 22.2 AAA innings.<br />
<br />
*-- I don't think he goes to the bullpen if he doesn't get a rotation spot. No real need to sit him in the pen as the third lefty, at 21, when he could easily be starting in AAA. Putting him in the pen runs the risk of him not being stretched out when they need someone to come up. The lack of rotation depth was a sore spot before, now it's a killer.<br />
<br />
Everything might be great. Norris might come in and kick ass. Sanchez might win a job and perform admirably too. Fuck, Johan Santana might light it up and force the team to make a choice! Russell Martin is behind the plate, after all. If that's the case, this doesn't really matter a whole lot. But at the end of the day, we're talking about subtracting from a weakness to patch a hole.<br />
<br />
Cole Hamels isn't fucking happening, so we can stop dreaming there. But if Sanchez or Estrada is getting "taken", then this might be more of a bullpen issue than anything, and that's going to need a quick patch, stat.<br />
<br />
It's pretty clear that we, as Jays fans, aren't allowed to have nice things. 21 years of no playoffs. Nobody wants to sign. Vernon Wells. Alex Rios. Mike Sirotka. Joey Hamilton.<br />
<br />
But then 2013! Finally make a run at it! Nah, Dickey puts up a 4.21 ERA after AA ships both d'Arnaud and Syndergaard. Josh Johnson falls off the face of the planet. Jose Reyes misses 70 games. Starts from Ramon Ortiz.<br />
<br />
But wait, most of the good parts of the team are still under contract. Let's try again! And hey! It's working! Leading the division by a lot! Nah, let's collapse and not really come close down the stretch, powered by nobody coming in at the deadline. Baltimore needs the rub just as bad, you guys go ahead and win the division going away.<br />
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Clearly, someone has to sell their soul to the devil, and it may as well be AA since his job is probably on the line this season.<br />
<br />
I think it's time to trade for Jonathan Papelbon. Rafael Soriano is still out there too. Sure, he doesn't exactly project to come out smelling like roses, but neither did, say, Pat Neshek last year, and at least Soriano's done it before. It's another piece. It's someone. A warm body, if you will. And after today, there's bound to be one fewer in the bullpen.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-81344939240703509792015-02-28T19:18:00.000-05:002015-02-28T19:18:17.194-05:00Nobody Likes You<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://wpmedia.sports.nationalpost.com/2014/04/dioner_navarro_1173.jpg?w=620" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://wpmedia.sports.nationalpost.com/2014/04/dioner_navarro_1173.jpg?w=620" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: National Post</td></tr>
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Dioner Navarro, in 2014, was worth 2 WAR, per <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=c&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=80&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2014&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0">fangraphs</a>, and 2.3 WAR per <a href="http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/position/c/sort/WARBR/order/true">baseball-reference</a>. That's entirely reasonable, especially for a guy who sat on the bench every 5th day to make room for Josh Thole's ability to catch a butterfly. Either story puts him comfortably in the top 30 catchers, by WAR, in baseball, which should suggest that he'd be a starter, right? Especially on teams that don't have a guy in that top-30? Stands to reason.<br />
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Another guy who stands even more firmly in that top-30, and, in fact, inside the uppermost echelon of catchers, is Russell Martin, who, if you need reminding, signed with the Blue Jays as a free agent back in mid-November, prompting Navarro to request a trade so that he can catch everyday, wherever he plays.<br />
<br />
I guess the question needs to be asked, then: why is Dioner Navarro still a Blue Jay?<br />
<br />
A couple of factors have Navarro snookered in to bench duty, at the moment.<br />
<br />
Navarro, per Steamer, is projected to only provide 0.7 WAR this season, mostly due to the fact that he currently slots as a backup catcher, and possibly DH, for the Jays, though I'm sure the fact that he hadn't seen 400+ MLB PA's since 2009 has something to do with that as well. Still, in a situation where he's given the #1 catcher's job, he's seeing more plate appearances than what's been projected. The problem is that even if we aggressively project Navarro to be roughly what he was in 2014 (we'll call it 2.0 WAR just to be neat), there still aren't going to be a whole pile of buyers.<br />
<br />
Let's turn our attention to <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=C">Fangraphs' positional depth charts</a> for catchers. Scrolling down that list, we can immediately remove a whole pile of teams from the Navarro sweeps. We can immediately discount teams like SF, CLE, KC and STL (and others) who have a couple of rocks behind their plates (I suppose Posey could play some 1B, but Andrew Susac would then play). We can remove teams like CHC, LAD and MIN, who all have guys who are in the same relative zone from a projected WAR standpoint, and thus wouldn't be getting a clear upgrade in Navarro, making it useless to give up assets.<br />
<br />
We can remove a team like PIT, who went from one of the best, in Russell Martin, to a bunch of unheralded guys (26th in cumulative projected WAR) who share some of the less tangible, less measurable defensive qualities that Martin has. We can remove a team like Boston, who, even if they weren't the Jays' immediate competition for the division, and thus pretty unlikely to help each other, have youngster Christian Vazquez, as well as veteran Ryan Hanigan as a quality pair, and top prospect Blake Swihart waiting in the pipeline, just in case.<br />
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We can remove the Braves and Diamondbacks, who certainly have some ugly catching situations at the moment, but those are hardly their biggest problems, and improving by a win or two at catcher-- and giving up an asset for one year of a $5MM catcher while doing it-- isn't likely to save them from mediocrity. We can probably remove the Marlins, given that they have Jarrod Saltalamacchia under contract and is certainly a bounceback candidate.<br />
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Simply, Navarro has been a trade candidate, if we don't believe everything we hear, for the entire offseason, save for the two weeks before Russell Martin signed. We've seen a few moves for catchers this offseason-- the Cubs, Rays, Rockies, Padres, Pirates and Dodgers (and more) all acquired catchers this winter, and all happened after the Martin signing, so they all likely could have had Navarro if they wanted.<br />
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The only real teams that might make sense are the Tigers, if Alex Avila can't catch due to concussion issues, and maybe the White Sox, though they appear willing to have Geovany Soto and Tyler Flowers split time. Throw in Milwaukee, I suppose, if they shift Lucroy to 1B when the "Adam Lind hitting against LHP" experiment goes sour. If the A's decide that Steven Vogt is better used elsewhere, they may eventually end up interested, but it seems as though they're going with him and Phegley for now.<br />
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If a team decides that their current situation may not be good enough, the Jays will then need them to convince the other to give up something to take Navarro. Of course, if there's only one team looking for him, there wouldn't be much leverage, especially when other, cheaper, marginally worse options are out there, such as Wilin Rosario.<br />
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I think the most likely situation for a Navarro trade is to find a team partway through the year that finds their catcher injured or terrible, and go from there. Catching is tough on the body, and there always seems to be a star catcher out for an extended period come midseason, or someone like Saltalamacchia, who dropped off pretty dramatically last year relative to 2013. The best way to move Navarro, at the moment, would be to bide time and wait for someone to lose their catcher. Navarro, after all, has a reasonable contract, and, more importantly, has the unfortunate distinction of being the best catcher in baseball who is currently out of a starters' job despite being qualified to start.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-13697043495554564882015-02-05T21:44:00.001-05:002015-02-05T21:44:30.570-05:00On Batting OrdersI keep hearing Gibby say it, and I just don't really want to believe it, because it seems so horribly wrong to me. I mean, let's not pretend that I'm not about to write a small essay about a batting order, in 2015, as if it's something that means a lot. But still, come on.<br />
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What I'm talking about is Gibby's answer to one of the questions at tonight's State of the Franchise Address, where someone asked how they were going to take care of the "weak" bottom of the order. Gibby, as he is wont to do, answered the question in a pretty awesome manner, saying, among other things, that the person asking the question was confused.<br />
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Gibby mentioned that the top half is strong-- so strong, in fact, that it makes the bottom half look weak by comparison, and that it would look totally reasonable were it not for the ridiculous pop starting things off. That's probably a halfway reasonable thing to say, I suppose. No team is stacked top-to-bottom without some riffraff or question marks hanging in there, and there are certainly some possibilities for platoon spots in there as well, which should at least mask some of those deficiencies.<br />
<br />
Anyway, that's not really what I'm talking about here, we're just trying to put more words in there so it looks like I've got a great big point to make, when in reality, it's a minor issue. Optimal lineup vs. least optimal lineup is the difference between about 2 wins a season, and there's no way that Gibby is going to run a lineup out there everyday without it being really, really close to optimal, to this point where we're probably looking at much less than a single win over 162 games.<br />
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That doesn't take away my right to build a mountain about this though, god dammit.<br />
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Gibbons seems to have the top of his order set and ready to go:<br />
Reyes<br />
Martin<br />
Bautista<br />
Encarnacion<br />
Donaldson<br />
<br />
and then the next series of names he mentioned before trailing off leads us to believe that there will be some combination of Navarro/Saunders, and then, I suppose, Smoak, Pompey, and whoever plays 2B on a given day.<br />
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My issue is with the 2-hole. Mathematically, this is the <a href="http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/3/17/795946/optimizing-your-lineup-by">most or second-most important slot in the batting order</a>. Bautista and Edwin are projected to be pretty similar hitters, and definitely the two best on the team (per Steamer's wOBA projections), but Bautista said at one point or another last year that he'd rather hit third (can't find a link here, but I'm fairly certain I didn't imagine that), and Gibby likes to have Edwin hit behind Bautista. If Reyes is #1, Bautista #3 and Edwin #4, and those are all set in stone, then that's fine, I guess. We'll work around it.<br />
<br />
Sticking Martin in the 2 just kind of sticks in my craw though. Josh Donaldson projects to be the third best hitter, by wOBA, at .360, on the roster, ranking ahead of Martin, ahead of Reyes, and ahead of Michael Saunders, among others. Martin, on the other hand, projects for a .337 wOBA. That's still plenty good, but if the only options are having those two players in the 2- or 5-holes, a 27-point wOBA difference in a spot in the order that comes to the plate significantly more often could make a world of difference.<br />
<br />
The second issue I'm having revolves around the days that Martin doesn't play. Martin has started between 106 and 118 games at Catcher each year since 2011, which is plenty durable, but is still only about 70% of all of his teams' regular season games. That leaves something like 40 games that they've got to go move someone else from their homes and stick them in to the 2-spot. Wouldn't it just be easier to have Donaldson there in the first place?<br />
<br />
Heh, this probably isn't worth anywhere near as many words as I've devoted to it. Josh Donaldson is ours now, and perhaps I'd just like to see more of him, squeezing in that extra couple dozen plate appearances per year. That can't be a crime.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-11588651825171189392015-01-06T21:42:00.000-05:002015-01-06T21:42:17.091-05:00Howard They Live with Themselves?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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God. Can't believe I'm writing this.<br />
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I read <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/lets-find-ryan-howard-a-happy-new-home/">Mike Petriello's piece on Fangraphs</a> last night, in which he lists a few new homes for Ryan Howard, with Toronto being one of them. Now, Howard sucks, and is owed a shitload of money over the next two seasons, so we really don't have to worry a whole lot about this; the Phillies are going to trade Howard, and they're going to eat a big, big percentage of the $60MM that Howard is owed between now and the end of next season, and it's going to be a pretty small-time prospect going back the other way, whichever teams bites.<br />
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The big thing with Howard, per Petriello, is that he doesn't have a position to play, or at least doesn't have the ability to play one well. Sure, he's a first baseman by virtue of the fact that he's played first base for Philadelphia for several years now, but he's also done a pretty horrific job of that, from a defensive standpoint. So basically, he's a DH. Which eliminates 14 of the 29 teams out there right off the bat.<br />
<br />
He also points out that of the remaining 15 (i.e. AL) teams, most of them already have their own current situations at 1B/DH, with Baltimore, Tampa and Toronto being the exceptions (and those teams all have stuff going on, to the point where Howard may not even fit there).<br />
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Finally, he points out that Howard has been much better hitting the ball in the opposite direction, as opposed to pulling the ball, for the last few years. There are some fancy charts and graphs in there, but all we really need to know is that Howard has done the bulk of whatever damage he's done over the last two seasons down the LF line.<br />
<br />
OK then. Let's talk about all that.<br />
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Within Petriello's piece, he links to a pretty dandy little <a href="http://espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/story/_/page/mlbdk2k14_parkfactors/how-did-changes-safeco-field-petco-park-affect-fantasy-stats-2013">study that ESPN did on park factors</a>. Within that link, we'll note that LF in the Skydome yields a HR on 1-in-5 flyballs, with a .307 isolated slugging, both the highest rates in baseball. The Dome also has some slightly above average rates to both CF and RF, but nothing in that area. Comparing that to Citizen's Bank in Philly, we see some pretty average park factors for left and centre fields, and some above average numbers for RF, which don't really affect Howard all that much since he doesn't really use that field.<br />
<br />
Howard hits a slightly above-average number of fly balls and liners, and a slightly below average number of grounders, but they're not so terribly far away from <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/library/offense/batted-ball/">league-average totals</a> that we should even bother freaking out about it. What we should at least look at, though, is Howard compared to Justin Smoak, who Howard would likely be fighting with for a spot were a trade to actually happen.<br />
<br />
Here are Smoak's <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=9054&position=1B&type=battedball&pid2=9054&ss1=2013&se1=2013&ss2=2014&se2=2014&cht1=battedball&cht2=battedball&vs1=ALL&vs2=ALL">fly ball spray charts</a> for the last two years, similar to what Petriello posted for Howard, though he didn't opt to leave line drives in for Howard's for whatever reason, and I totally would have, but meh.<br />
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Now, I notice a few things here, and the numbers back that up. <br />
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<ul>
<li>There's a certain value to not popping the ball up in the infield, especially in foul ground, and Smoak does that, while Howard appears to not. One of the above links suggests that the league average infield flyball rate hovers around 11% (which seems totally high to me without ever having looked this up before, but I dunno). I'd guess that power hitters tend to pop more balls up in the air, but that's just me speculating. Either way, Smoak is kicking around right at that 11.5% mark for his career, and somewhere around 9% for the last two seasons. Howard, on the other hand, has a career rate of 1.7%, and is way, way lower than that over the last few years. That's certainly not the be-all and end-all of hitting, but it's hard to tag up and score on a popup 7 feet from the plate. Flyballs and grounders can at least turn in to hits some of the time, too.</li>
<li>Smoak didn't get a whole lot of plate appearances in the bigs this year, but his power clusters are pull-ey. The Dome is better than Safeco to LF and CF, but is vastly worse (again, from a HR and ISO perspective) to RF. Ole' pitcher-friendly Safeco is actually the third-best hitters park to right-field for both HR's and ISO (The Dome isn't too far away for ISO, but HR/FB% is about 5.5% away).</li>
</ul>
<div>
Now, if we look at some general stats, we'll realize that this isn't anything we shouldn't already know-- Howard has always been a better hitter than Smoak. In Smoak's best year (2013), he managed a 111 wRC+, and he doesn't exactly have favorable platoon splits in either direction. As bad as Howard's been for the last few years, a big chunk of that is his negative defensive value, his negative baserunning value, and the positional hit for being a 1B, he's been a better hitter than Smoak (though Steamer likes Smoak much more). That's not to say that all that stuff goes away if he turns in to a DH in Toronto, nor does that take away from the upside that Smoak has inside, untapped.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Smoak is only 28 after all, and he hit .337/.422/.502 in AAA last year. Sure, all that proves is that he can hit AAA pitching, something he's done very well over 750 or so plate appearances since 2009. And he's already in the organization. And he only costs $1MM. And he's still under team control, arbitration eligible next year from a $1MM starting point.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I don't necessarily think it's likely, or a good idea for that matter, that the Jays acquire Howard. But a guy at Fangraphs said it was possible. And then I looked in to it. And the numbers kind of fit. I'd honestly prefer Smoak, for all of the reasons listed in the above paragraph, but dammit if the numbers and park factors don't make a reasonably compelling case, especially when you <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings#AL-E">consider the projections</a> for 2015, as they look right now, the Jays are within a reasonable reach of being the best team in the division, and they're obviously trying to go for it. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Ultimately, there's more of a factor than just "should they do it?"given the whole $60MM over two years thing, and then 0.0 WAR over the past four years thing, there's a pretty good chance that a deal would go to shit. But there's a fit.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Pretty fucking scary to me.</div>
Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-8991387517194912892014-12-03T21:44:00.001-05:002014-12-03T21:44:29.337-05:00Jays get Canadianer<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.imgur.com/OlYCB0G.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/OlYCB0G.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canada TV<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Hey! I kind of called this one! Don't believe me? <a href="https://www.blogger.com/Offseason%202015:%20The%20%22Replace%20Melky%22%20Edition">Suck it</a>. Here's what I said in that particular post:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Speaking of rumor season, apparently </span><a href="http://blogs.seattletimes.com/mariners/2014/10/09/the-mariners-and-michael-saunders-a-relationship-gone-awry/" style="background-color: white; color: #6699cc; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px; text-decoration: none;">Michael Saunders and Jack Z</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> aren't seeing eye-to-eye in </span><strike style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">the Skydome</strike><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"> Seattle. Saunders, of course, is Canadian and seems to crush the Jays every time he plays them. He's probably a part-time/ platoon player, but there's still upside there, and he was worth 2 WAR this year, powered by a .273/.341/.470 slash, and some roughly average fielding across the outfield. He's actually a pretty reasonable comparison/replacement for Colby Rasmus. He'll make ~$3MM in arbitration this season, and doesn't have a place to play full time in Seattle. Perhaps a Saunders/Pillar platoon situation? Mayberry fits in there as well. Could do worse.</span></blockquote>
<br />
Now, that post was made under the guise of Melky signing elsewhere, and the Jays needing to go out and figure something else out to fill the roster. I don't necessarily think that the Saunders deal precludes the Jays from bringing Melky back, but it doesn't not mean that either. If the Jays want to hand the reigns over to Dalton Pompey, it's easy enough to stick Saunders in LF as the lefty half of a platoon-- Saunders has a career .279 obp against lefties, though his 2014 numbers, albeit powered by a .372 babip, look quite a bit nicer.<br />
<br />
That probably leaves Kevin Pillar as the other half, which seems totally reasonable given Pillar's ability vs. lefty pitching and pretty good defense. Pillar and Saunders can both handle CF as well , just in case something goes wrong with the Pompey experiment.<br />
<br />
Of course, the offseason isn't over yet, either. Let's say Melky re-signs and is the everyday left fielder. Again, a Saunders-Pillar platoon doesn't (and shouldn't!) preclude a Melky deal. It certainly opens a door for another trade there somewhere. Whether that means that the Jays flip Saunders, or have some kind of combination of part-timing/benching/optioning he, Pompey and Pillar, I have no idea. This offseason has been fucking nuts so far though, and we're not even at the winter meetings, which is where shit usually goes down.<br />
<br />
As for Happ... well, I'd rather have Saunders for $3MM than Happ for $6.7MM. And the Mariners don't even need a back-end starter! Not yet, anyway. Maybe they're looking to acquire an impact bat, and use Taijuan Walker to get it. Much like the Donaldson trade, this trade makes a lot more immediate sense for the Blue Jays than it does for the other guys, so there is probably another shoe to fall here. I doubt the M's acquired a $7MM pitcher just to throw him in at #6 or 7 on their rotation depth chart.<br />
<br />
This trade certainly did make me think, though. One of my favorite things to do in my spare time is to look and see where players come from, so to speak. Not in the literal sense. I don't really care that Happ was born in a city called Peru. I'm more interested in how he became a Blue Jay, and what he cost, in terms of money or prospects or players.<br />
<br />
Happ was acquired from Houston a few years back in that giant clustercock of a trade that saw 10 players exchange hands. The Jays sent Ben Francisco, Francisco Cordero and a couple of minor leaguers to Houston for Happ, Brandon Lyon, and David Carpenter.<br />
<br />
Carpenter was mostly useless to the Jays, in that he provided a few innings of mop-up before being the throw-in that allowed the John Farrell trade to happen. Of course, that turned in to the Jays giving away Yan Gomes and, to a lesser extent, Mike Aviles for Esmil Rogers, who was also given away. Which actually, when you think about it, uhh... Aviles and Rogers would both be at least kind of useful, at least at the present moment.<br />
<br />
Anyway, Lyon was also mostly useless, in that he was only around for the last couple months in a mostly lost season, and then left, never to be seen or heard from again. This trade may as well have been a bunch of prospects and two shitty contracts for Happ. This is my long-winded way of saying "Hey guys, let's look at the trade where we gave up a bunch of practically free, controllable-for-years prospects in exchange for 2.5 years of JA Happ." For simplicity's sake, we'll look at the money involved on the major league side (i.e. Lyon/Carpenter/Happ vs. Francisco/Cordero), and then the prospecty stuff. Let's just say that it was halfway through the season, for the sake of dividing salaries in 2.<br />
<br />
As far as I can tell, Happ ($2.35MM), Carpenter ($500k) and Lyon ($5.5MM) made $8.35MM between them, of which the Jays paid half. so ~4.2MM. Cordero ($4.5MM) and Francisco (~$1.5MM) basically means that the Jays took on an extra $2.2MM in salary and gave up a bunch of low-level prospects in order to get a guy who could throw major league pitches for a team who was using Joel Carreno and the bad Jesse Chavez and Chad Jenkins and SIXTEEN STARTS FROM CARLOS VILLANUEVA. So yeah, kind of need a guy to start and maybe serve as depth for the next year. Borrow from the distant future to help the present and near future.<br />
<br />
Rather than going incredibly in-depth and pretending to know what I'm talking about when it comes to prospects that I've never seen and don't know pitch velocities, etc... let's just say that none of them have shown up on the <a href="http://houston.astros.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2014/?c_id=hou#list=hou">MLB top-20 prospects list</a> for the Astros. Now, we should probably remember that the Astros have a really deep system, even after graduating a bunch of guys to the bigs in the last few years. That's what sucking and rebuilding for like seven years will do. Still, I remember when the Jays had a top-3 farm system and don't exactly remember hearing a whole lot about the guys outside their top-20 (to be fair, though, top-20 spots tend to go to guys fresh out of the draft, not guys who have been toiling in the minors for a few years).<br />
<br />
Carlos Perez has since been traded to the Angels, and is probably going to fight for a backup catcher role, now that Hank Conger has been traded. Everybody else appears to be either some degree of distance away from contributing to the big league roster if they ever do, or getting old for prospects. To wit:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Joe Musgrove is 22 and finished a season of A- ball, though he put up reasonable numbers.</li>
<li>David Rollins will be 25 in a few weeks, and has had a pair of trips through AA with reasonable, but uninspiring numbers.</li>
<li>Asher Wojiwhatever will be 26 in a few weeks and took a step back in performance in his second trip through AAA this year (in the PCL, mind you, which has some silly offensive numbers).</li>
<li>Kevin Comer is still hanging out in A ball and is pitching out of the bullpen, giving up a lot of hits.</li>
</ul>
<div>
So yeah, the Jays pretty well took $2.2MM and an expensive-for-his-skillset, 31 year old, arguably at the peak of his value, and turned him in to an outfielder who fills a need that they can control for two years. That's not exactly a fair exercise to conduct when it comes to prospects, but whatever. I think the Astros were looking for a pile of guys, hoping to have one of them hit it big, rather than finding one single prospect who had a lot of upside. Two years forward, the Jays still weren't going to get a good prospect for Happ.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Not to mention the Canada. Pretty fun deal for the Jays all around.</div>
Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-3659209531652087352014-11-28T23:36:00.000-05:002014-11-28T23:36:06.811-05:00Jays Acquire MVP Candidate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/l4zMBMx.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/l4zMBMx.jpg" height="221" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Hey how would you guys like to have another Jose Bautista? Probably a lot, right? Maybe you'd give up Brett Lawrie for one? You'd better.<br />
<br />
Well, Josh Donaldson is mucho better, and has more club control than Lawrie, albeit at a much higher price. But holy fuck Donaldson is good. He's a guy who is coming off of 7.7 and 6.4 WAR seasons these last two years. To compare, Jose Bautista's two best seasons ever are 7.7 and 6.5 WAR. Ever! Those two seasons? His 54HR breakout, and then his follow-up.<br />
<br />
Basically, Donaldson is fucking good. Career .268/.347/.458 kind of good. And he did that playing half of his games in Oakland, and another good chunk in Anaheim. His home-road splits suggest that he's really good away from Oakland. And hey! We're talking about the AL East here. Skydome, Fenway, Yankee Stadium... this is bandbox central (not that park factors aren't factored in to WAR). And defense! He's really good at defense!<br />
<br />
As for the package-- Lawrie is sort of the ultimate upside guy who just hasn't really put it together yet. He's quite a bit younger than Donaldson, and will be cheaper, but he also comes with the injury risks, the inconsistency, and the fact that he's only under club control for three years, which is less than Donaldson. Makes sense to include other pieces.<br />
<br />
I suppose that's where Nolin, Graveman and Baretto fit in.<br />
<br />
Nolin, for his part, is a lot better than his 92347 ERA in 4 big league innings would suggest. He's done well in the minors and will fight for a rotation spot in Oakland's rotation sooner than later. Graveman is also a guy. He happens to be pretty old for a prospect, but Jesse Chavez was like 31 or something when he was briefly good, so late-bloomage does happen. And it's not like he's trying the same thing over and over either-- he added a cutter and started getting a shitload of groundballs, moving up from A-ball to the majors in a single season. He will also fight for a rotation spot.<br />
<br />
Barreto is only 18, but scouts seem to drool all over him. He probably won't be a shortstop in the future, but he's crushed every league he's played in since he was 10.<br />
<br />
All things considered, the Jays gave up quite a bit to land a potential MVP. And MVP's should cost a lot. Especially when they have four (!) seasons of control. At age 29 (opening day age, anyway), and at 2.158 of service time, he's controlled at a discount through his prime years. That's good!<br />
<br />
I guess the only real issue here is exactly what the Jays are giving up, in terms of their 2015 team. It's not Lawrie, or Barreto, because Lawrie is replaced, and Barreto isn't a MLB asset yet. Graveman and Nolin, though, are young, controllable pitchers, and serve as depth. What if 2012 or 2013 happens again, where all the pitchers either get hurt or suck? That depth raises the floor. We might be back to the days of Chien Ming Wang or Ramon Ortiz if things go south. It's probably not THAT bad; Daniel Norris is there, Marco Estrada and JA Happ are there. That other guy is there. And who knows who else might show up and be this year's Graveman?<br />
<br />
As for 2015... AA isn't fucking around, is he? There is little market for 2B at the moment. The relief pitcher market hasn't developed at all yet. This could entice Melky to come back and fill the LF void. Meanwhile, there's some sort of Reyes-Martin-Donaldson-Bautista-Encarnacion situation going on, and it's still November. Most teams don't even start their offseason until the winter meetings. This is sweet. How good would Melky look in there? Especially with the switch-hitterness of it all, stuffed in with all those right-handed bats.<br />
<br />
I would hasten a guess that AA is after it this year.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-23989738416145704712014-11-20T22:07:00.000-05:002014-11-20T22:07:35.630-05:00Who Might Want Dioner Navarro?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.imgur.com/K5RZuPp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/K5RZuPp.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Star. Image credit, but also subject.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Hey, so there might be a bit of a surplus behind the plate now. Let's examine that.<br />
<br />
AA has said multiple times now that moving Navarro isn't exactly a priority, since he believes that Dio (a) did a great job in 2014, and that (b) there are probably DH at-bats out there, and you can always let Martin have a day off here and there. That's not a really great thing for Navarro, from a career or financial standpoint. Not catching everyday is probably going to make it tough once he's asked to catch everyday again.<br />
<br />
I guess it's possible that he stays around, but again, that probably kills his next contract pretty badly. Martin could end up getting hurt, for example, and then the Jays are glad they kept, but obviously you can't just hold a guy ransom just in case an injury comes up, especially when you're paying him $5MM in a walk year. Simply, the best thing for Navarro is to be behind the plate, playing practically everyday.<br />
<br />
I suppose, then, that it's probably more likely that Navarro gets moved, and he probably moves to a team that needs a catcher, or at least needs one more badly than the Jays do. The Jays do have a few clear spots that need to be patched up, so obviously a club that can help with a 2B/3B, a LF, or a reliever would make more sense than others. Having said that, there's not a whole bunch of extra value there with Dio-- he was a 2-ish WAR player this past year, and is scheduled to make $5MM in his last year before free agency. Steamer forecasts him to be worth just 0.6 WAR, but they also only suggest that he'll play 63 games*. His projections suggest that he'll improve offensively, defensively and on the basepaths, but that his playing time will be way down. I assume that this is because his 139 games played in 2014 was a career high, and that he hadn't broken 100 games played since 2009.<br />
<br />
*- I'm pretty sure this projection was released before the Martin signing, and the numbers shouldn't really reflect the Martin acquisition, or any positional dicking around. He'll likely see more DH plate appearances if he stays in Toronto, which changes an awful lot as far as a WAR projection is concerned with regards to the positional replacement value, but his projection shows low playing time because of his 2010-2013 playing time.<br />
<br />
Navarro showed this past year, though, that he can be passable behind the plate and provide reasonable offence at it, especially for a catcher. It's hard to play catcher. Catchers get hurt a lot, or start to suck at a moments notice. Catchers have a lot of work to do beyond catching a ball or hitting a ball. Catchers are good to have. So who wants a catcher? And for that matter, what other catchers are out there?<br />
<br />
I'm going to use <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=C">Fangraphs' positional depth charts</a> to check this one out. The first thing I see there is probably the most interesting piece of info I've got; all free agent catchers are garbage right now. This is something that we already knew, or at least know now, now that Russell Martin is off the market. In fact, we were told that today by AA at the presser, when he said something like "It's not that we wanted an upgrade at catcher, we wanted Russell Martin. There was no other catcher out there that we wanted." He also pointed out that he wanted to put all of his eggs in the Russell Martin basket because there weren't other catchers out there, so his market wasn't going to take a while to create itself and develop steam.<br />
<br />
That list of available catchers is headed by Geovany Soto, and includes another 7 or 8 guys who aren't projected to get on base 30% of the time. Doumit, Hundley, Buck, Arencibia, Ross... not really a stunning list. Sure, you can take a flyer on a guy there, and maybe hit something with Hundley, or get it through JPA's head that he doesn't have to swing at everything. But Dioner Navarro, albeit more expensive and owned by someone else at the moment, is better than all of those names.<br />
<br />
There are a bunch of teams out there that don't really have a whole lot to worry about as far as catching is concerned, whether that be because they have elite guys (i.e. Posey, Lucroy), guys with bigger contracts (McCann, Suzuki), or young guys (d'Arnaud, Ramos) who already man the position. There are definitely teams out there, though, who could look to upgrade, or at least find a guy to split time.<br />
<br />
(By the way, it isn't lost on me that I'm using Steamer's projected WAR totals to try and find a team that could use an upgrade at catcher, while Navarro is only projected to be worth 0.6 himself.)<br />
<br />
<b>Pittsburgh</b><br />
<b>Current Catchers:</b> Chris Stewart (0.8 projected WAR), Tony Sanchez (0.7 projected WAR), Francisco Cervelli (0.3 projected WAR).<br />
<b><br /></b>
I'd say this is a bit of a dark horse candidate, despite the fact that they just lost their starting catcher. Stewart and Cervelli are both pretty good pitch framers, which kind of fits a pattern, given Russell Martin (they also just traded for Cervelli, if that's worth anything) and pitch-framing isn't counted in catcher WAR, so this doesn't really tell the whole story. I expect Pittsburgh values their current crop more than Steamer does. Still, none of these guys really seem like an everyday catcher to me, but we'll see. Pittsburgh ranks 29th in projected catcher WAR, for whatever that's worth.<br />
<br />
<b>Atlanta</b><br />
<b>Current Catchers: </b>Christian Bethancourt (1.2), Evan Gattis (0.6)<br />
<br />
Bethancourt is 23, and is good defensively, so I'd guess that they're looking to have him play everyday, and see if the bat develops, but that bat doesn't look like it's going to develop. There have been rumors of an Evan Gattis trade recently too, so Atlanta may need a hand there. If they move Gattis, they'll need another catcher, unless I'm missing something.<br />
<br />
<b>Dodgers</b><br />
<b>Current Catchers: </b>AJ Ellis (2.2), Drew Butera (0), Tim Federowicz (0.2)<br />
<br />
AJ Ellis 2.2 WAR!?!? Steamer might be broken. Ellis hit .191/.323/..254 this past season, but my God that walkrate. A bit of babip help and yeah, he's a serviceable catcher, but it doesn't seem like an LA Dodgers kind of thing to rely on Ellis to bounce back from a rough year. They were in on Martin, it would appear, so I wouldn't be shocked if the Dodgers were in on Navarro.<br />
<br />
<b>Arizona</b><br />
<b>Current Catchers: </b> Miguel Montero (3.2), Tuffy Gosewich (0), Jordan Pacheco (0)<br />
<br />
This one is kind of contingent on the DBacks trading Miguel Montero, whose name has come up in a few rumors. Otherwise, there's not much of a fit. <br />
<br />
<b>Outside Shots</b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The White Sox rank 28th in projected catcher WAR, but they have a couple of younger guys on their chart at the moment, so they may want to let Tyler Flowers and Josh Phegley play. If they decide to make a couple moves and try to contend this year, Navarro might make a bit more sense.</li>
<li>Tampa could probably use a hand behind the plate, but same-division trades don't really seem too likely. We can say the same about Baltimore, depending on Matt Weiters' health.</li>
<li>The Tigers had kicked around the idea of non-tendering or possibly trading Alex Avila. If the latter happens, Navarro could make sense.</li>
<li>Mike Zunino's stat page is completely absurd. Looks a lot like a young JP Arencibia one, actually. He hit .199/.254/.404 with 22 HR's, a 3% walkrate, and a 32% k-rate. He's still young, but the Mariners would like to win (they lead the division in projected WAR, by the way), and could maybe use some help from Navarro for a year.</li>
</ul>
<div>
It's hard to say that Navarro poses as a true upgrade over any of the above mentioned guys. Navarro is pretty bad defensively relative to his peers, and that's without taking framing in to account, which would kill Navarro's value a bit more. His bat is an upgrade over most catchers out there, though, and that's something that might end up working in the favor of the Jays.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
AA said today at his presser that he's looking for deals, but that nothing is close to being done. Frankly, I believe him-- there's nobody who badly needs a league-average-or-so catcher. Most good teams out there have someone, and most bad teams aren't going to give anything up to get a $5MM catcher for one year just to bring them up a win or two.</div>
Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-30660319574698188752014-11-17T20:43:00.000-05:002014-11-17T20:43:36.545-05:00For Canada!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/1hr4EW8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/1hr4EW8.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
Holy cow. This day.<br />
<br />
I don't think I've entirely digested this whole thing, and I certainly haven't even bothered with the math behind this, both in terms of money spent and wins or production or whatever. It's cool though!<br />
<br />
Before I even bother with my own opinions, <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/blue-jays-commit-to-playoff-race-sign-russell-martin/">Jeff Sullivan smashes the fuck out of one</a>, talking about how the Jays have literally never had an elite catcher-- Ernie Whitt had a couple nice seasons, and Pat Borders was really good accidentally once too. I'm sure there's more good stuff out there, but this is the only thing I've read to this point, and I did so from work on my lunch break from my phone.<br />
<br />
Should be interesting to see what the Jays do with their lineups this year. Obviously we don't want to assume that the offseason is over yet, but as it stands right now, I'd guess that Martin plays the bulk of the games behind the plate, and Dioner Navarro would DH most days. Navarro can certainly step in and give Martin a day off here and there, but I wonder if either could step over and play first for Edwin every now and then. We've also been told that Reyes and Bautista are going to get more DH days, so maybe it's just some sort of rotating DH door and Navarro gets shopped or something. There are definitely teams out there who need a catcher though, and you could do a lot worse than a 1 year, $5MM copy of Dioner Navarro. Even if he's a 2 WAR player, there's surplus value there in a pretty barren catching market.<br />
<br />
It's quite possible that this spells the end for Melky Cabrera in Toronto. Pretty much any money earmarked for Melky has gone to Martin. Then again, the Jays are apparently checking in on Hanley Ramirez, Jon Lester and Andrew Miller. I'm not entirely sure, in the scenario where the Jays sign one of Lester or Hanley, they would lose their compensation pick for Melky walking away. Either way, they've already surrendered their first pick, so picking up a second big free agent only coughs up either the 30-something'th or the ~50th pick in the draft, keeping the other one. It's only money. And it's not my money. And Rogers has all the money. Let's go.<br />
<br />
To boot, the Jays have a bunch of money coming off the books after this season. Let's just backload a bunch of contracts and spend money when it's available. Hey, Jon Lester! We'll give you $6MM for this season, and then a shitload for the next five. Sounds good? Yeah.<br />
<br />
But what if that's it for the spending? What if everything else is patchwork? The Jays have made three "moves" this offseason, and none of them have really addressed the big holes on this club. Sure, the Gose trade brought in a second baseman, but he's not a big league second baseman yet. Maybe he wins the spot in spring training, or maybe Maicer Izturis comes back and performs reasonably well, but meh. The bullpen hasn't been addressed. Kevin Pillar is probably the opening day LF if the season starts today, which is kind of shitty when facing a lefty, and borderline depressing if facing a righty. We're also relying on a 21 year old as the starting centre fielder. There's no way this offseason is even close to being over.<br />
<br />
That's enough negativity though, because the Jays just attracted a top free agent. Five years, $82MM. Yeah, it's expensive, but it's not like guys are just lining up to come play in our shitty stadium, on our shitty surface. We've been hearing it for years now-- it's hard to attract guys to Toronto, and that's why the Jays need to pay a bit more, whether that comes in the form of money or years or prospects (i.e. the Reyes deal, or the Dickey deal). I'd guess that the Jays had to kick in the fifth year in order to get this done, and yeah, whatever. At $82MM over five years, though, we're only looking at approximately 11 WAR needed for the Jays to break even.<br />
<br />
11 WAR over five years shouldn't be terribly difficult to attain, if Martin can stay on the field. Hell, he was worth nearly five last season alone. Do we expect him to do that ever again, starting at age 32? Doubtful. Shouldn't need to though.<br />
<br />
It's hard to complain about this. Because it's awesome.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-47126930332451301542014-11-13T08:52:00.000-05:002014-11-13T08:52:52.639-05:00Gose Goes to Detroit<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.imgur.com/cJywR1e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/cJywR1e.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Globe and Mail</td></tr>
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While you were sleeping, the Jays shipped Anthony Gose to the Tigers for 2B prospect Devon Travis. It's one of those moves that I doubt anybody ever really notices, other than Jays fans and Tigers fans, but who knows?<br />
<br />
The Jays acquired Gose shortly after the Halladay trade-- he was a guy that AA kept asking for from the Phillies, though they wouldn't budge. Gose was then included in the Hunter Pence-to-Phillies deal, and ended up getting flipped for Brett Wallace, who had been flipped for Michael Taylor, who the Jays originally settled for when Philly wouldn't include Gose for Halladay. This, in effect, makes Kyle Drabek the lone piece remaining from the Halladay deal, though that did also include Travis d'Arnaud, which turned in to R.A. Dickey and Josh Thole, so stop complaining.<br />
<br />
And it's not like Devon Travis can't be anything, either... Keith Law ranked him as the Tigers' #1 prospect. Which would be awesome if the Tigers had any farm system to speak of whatsoever. Detroit, of course, is trying to win now, which doesn't exactly fit with hoarding prospects, so this does make sense from their standpoint. Travis is only 23, and is blocked by Ian Kinsler at the moment, so even if he was good enough to provide MLB value, he probably wouldn't. Gose, on the other hand, can platoon with Rajai Davis (or play everyday in CF, depending on what happens with Torii Hunter), but he's also good enough defensively and with his legs to produce something for Detroit. Gose is a serviceable 4th OF who can come in late in games defensively or to pinch-run or both, and that's something that every top team is going to need at one point or another.<br />
<br />
As for Travis, he was young for AA-ball this year, and put up a pretty nice .298/.358/.460 batting line in 2014, though I don't really have any context to that. Hopefully it's not like playing in Las Vegas. His minor league numbers look pretty good across all levels though, and at a middle infield position to boot. A quick look at his stats reveal that he played a few games in CF this season as well, which isn't terrible, I suppose.<br />
<br />
And of course, <a href="http://andrewstoeten.com/2014/11/12/dalton-pompey-will-be-the-blue-jays-starting-cf-in-2015/">Stoeten called this without so much as saying it outright</a>, so good for him. It's why he's the best. <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/blue-jays-and-tigers-make-minor-trade-that-might-matter/">Dave Cameron</a> also writes about this, which is surprising, I suppose. The money quote out of Cameron's piece is actually a quote out of a Carson Cistulli piece:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Just a 13th-round selection in 2012 out of Florida State, Travis has produced markedly above-average batting marks at every level to which he’s been exposed, recording both excellent plate-discipline numbers and also high BABIP figures. The result: a slash line of .323/.388/.487 line in over 1,000 minor-league plate appearances. According to Steamer’s computer math, Travis — who enters his age-24 season next April — already profiles as a league-average hitter. That’s valuable for a player who also appears likely to handle second base.</blockquote>
That'll do just fine. Ultimately, he still calls it a depth-for-depth move that shouldn't blow anybody away, but he also feels that the Jays are getting the upside in exchange for a piece that helps Detroit win now, and that helps the Jays immensely at a position where they've had a giant gaping hole ever since Aaron Hill stopped being good, which, I think, was a year that I was still using Windows Vista.<br />
<br />
By all accounts, it appears Travis isn't quite ready to hit the bigs, so that doesn't preclude the Jays from exploring a trade for a 2B for 2015. It's pretty easy to forget about Maicer Izturis coming back from injury (if he's even fully recovered), so they may just go with him and call it an offseason as far as 2B goes, having Ryan Goins or Steve Tolleson or whomever to hang out and be a backup. And they really do love Goins' defense at 2B too, plus he's probably the guy who plays SS when Reyes gets a day off or DH duty. I can't imagine they just cut Izturis, assuming he's ready to play opening day, but we'll see. I still think there's room for a Howie Kendrick deal there somewhere, and Kendrick only has a year left before free agency, so it doesn't render this trade obsolete.<br />
<br />
Whatever the story at 2B, the big takeaway is that Pompey has already won out over Anthony Gose, and as a switch-hitter, is above Kevin Pillar on the depth chart for now. Ideally, if Melky does walk, the Jays will find someone who can at least handle CF duties, as opposed to using Bautista as the contingency plan in CF if things go south.<br />
<br />
Whatever else happens this offseason, it's a lot more entertaining than the last one already. CF certainly isn't the biggest issue to deal with here, and that's slightly more clear now.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-89432619326391692152014-11-01T15:45:00.000-04:002014-11-01T15:45:08.106-04:00Lind for Estrada<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Marco Estrada, that is. He of many homeruns.<br />
<br />
It's not like Lind is incredibly valuable... a 141 wRC+ is worth about 1.6 WAR, thanks to fielding and DH and baserunning and the fact that he only had like 300 PA's due to his platoon issues. And at $7.5MM (plus an option), surplus value is reasonably small.<br />
<br />
And it's not like Estrada is entirely awful either; two pretty decent seasons in his recent past, and he was good out of the bullpen this year after being relegated.<br />
<br />
The Jays should save about $3MM on this deal when it's all over with. Estrada is arbitration eligible for the final time this season before hitting free agency after 2015, and is expected to make $4.3MM, according to MLBTR. Kind of begs the question as to why Dustin McGowan wasn't good enough for $4MM, but Marco Estrada is worth ~$4.3MM and dumping Lind (though that is kind of answered with the sentence that led to it).<br />
<br />
I'd stick Estrada in the bullpen, but there is talk of him taking the 5th starter's role, and flipping JA Happ to the Angels for Howie Kendrick. Maybe I'm wrong in my valuation of either/both of Happ and Kendrick, but I don't think there's a whole lot to that kind of talk unless there are some prospects tossed in.<br />
<br />
Kendrick has been pretty damn good as a 2B these last few years. Fangraphs WARs of 4.6, 2.7, 3.1 and 5.7 in the last four seasons, grading as a pretty good defender and a neutral baserunner over that time.<br />
<br />
Happ had one of the better years of his career in 2014, but at the end of the day, he's a back of the rotation guy who didn't even start this season in the rotation.<br />
<br />
The Angels need pitching pretty badly, but I just think they'd be better suited finding a free agent like McCarthy, Volquez, Santana or Masterson to fill that last rotation spot rather than sell low on Kendrick. They don't <i>need</i> to trade him, after all... they can always move Freese. <br />
<br />
I think the Jays would need to throw in some secondary pieces to make a Happ-Kendrick deal happen. And if the concept of a Happ-Kendrick deal does happen, I'd be pretty surprised if another team didn't step in and offer something better-- Kendrick would be an upgrade at 2B for half the teams in baseball. Second base is pretty fucking thin after the Cano-Altuve-Pedroia-Kinsler-Kendrick bunch. Fortunately, the Angels do need starting pitching, and a lot of the teams that need 2B help don't have a surplus the way the Jays do. I'm keeping an eye on the Nats to see what they do with Asdrubal Cabrera, because if he walks, they can probably figure something out.<br />
<br />
I hope I'm wrong, because that would be a great coup for the Jays.<br />
<br />
There's bound to be another shoe to drop here, and I'm pumped that it's offseason time so we can finally get this thing rolling.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-25398758393023704452014-10-28T17:23:00.000-04:002014-10-28T17:23:43.699-04:00Offseason 2015: Not Gose and Pillar<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">National Post<br /></td></tr>
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This isn't really the biggest problem. 2B/3B, the bullpen, and replacing Melky should probably all rank way, way higher than helping out CF. That doesn't mean, though, that it isn't worth examining. If there's a glass slipper out there, AA and crew aren't doing their jobs if they don't at least dip a toe in.<br />
<br />
There are four guys* in the organization right now, excluding Colby Rasmus, who technically isn't a free agent yet but may as well be, that played CF at one point or another for the Jays in 2014. One of them is Jose Bautista, mind you, who definitely shouldn't be playing CF unless it's a total emergency. Other than that, though, there are some options.<br />
<br />
*- Jon Mayberry Jr. has some experience in CF, but has graded fairly poorly defensively. Probably no worse than Bautista, but UZR/150 has him at a -17.8 runs over a sample that equals out to most of a season, combining 5 years to get there. Safe to say that's a bad idea.<br />
<br />
Anthony Gose and Kevin Pillar platooned in CF towards the end of the year. We're counting some games in RF and LF for both, as well as some pinch running and junk, but the two combined for 1.9 fWAR over ~400 combined plate appearances this year. They also struck out 27 and 23% of the time, respectively. Neither seem to be doing a whole lot to strike fear in to major league pitchers, though Gose is at least showing some patience at the plate, with a 9.1% walkrate in the majors in 2014, and both provided positive defensive contributions (according to both fangraphs and baseball reference). Pillar shows a bit more offensive upside than Gose does, especially if he can stop swinging at EVERYTHING (see above) and take a walk or two, and he hits lefty pitching not terribly.<br />
<br />
The other internal option is Dalton Pompey. He's still fairly young and somewhat raw, so it certainly makes sense to stick him in the minors to start the year. Depending on how he responds, though, he is looking more and more like the CF of the future. If that's the case, perhaps it makes sense to just allow Gose and Pillar to platoon CF for the time being, rather than going out to find someone.<br />
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There really isn't much out there on the free agent market. <a href="http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/02/2015-mlb-free-agents.html">See for yourselves</a>. The most attractive option looks like Emilio Bonifacio, assuming Denard Span's option gets picked up. Having said that...<br />
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<b>Denard Span</b> (Trade)<br />
<br />
Span's option is a lock to be picked up by the Nationals. He was a 3.6 rWAR (3.8 fWAR) player in 2014, and the option is only for $9MM. The problem is that there's a bit of a logjam in Washington. The Nats have sent Ryan Zimmerman to LF since he sucks at 3B now, which has opened the door for Anthony Rendon to take over. Zimmerman is still under contract for another bunch of years for all the money, and they certainly aren't moving Bryce Harper or Jayson Werth. Of course, Adam Laroche is a free agent, and the Nats have a pretty organic play here: move one of Werth or Zimmerman to 1B, keep Span in CF, let Laroche walk.<br />
<br />
If the Nats do decide to trade Span, however, I'd expect the Jays to be at least somewhat interested. It's a 1-year option, and they don't need to attract Span to Toronto. Span can leave at the end of the year, and perhaps Pompey is another step closer to being ready for the everyday CF role.<br />
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<b>Ben Revere</b> (Trade)<br />
<br />
The day will eventually come where the Phillies break it all down and retool. If that's this year, then Revere is a decent piece. He's approximately average (2.0 fWAR in 2014) and is manageable in CF with great wheels (49 SB in 2014). He's still under team control for three arbitration years, though he was a super-two this season, so he's a touch more expensive than he otherwise would be. He hardly walks ever, but his strikeout totals are low, and he's a low-slugging .300 hitter who runs fast enough to beat out a bunch of infield singles and then steal bases. Could do worse.<br />
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<b>Others</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Others? Already? Yeah. There's the previously mentioned Michael Saunders, I guess. The Astros might be willing to move Dexter Fowler as he gets more expensive, but he's been pretty bad defensively the last few years. Decent enough hitter though, and a nice walk-rate.<br />
<br />
Who else? Peter Bourjos has mentioned recently that he'd like to play more. Bourjos is kind of a more expensive, right-handed hitting Anthony Gose, in that he's fast and good at defense, but we've already got one.<br />
<br />
There's not much else out there worth going crazy for. I feel like between the three guys within the org, someone can be worth giving everyday playing time to, or platooning, or going with the hot hand or whatever. There are bigger issues to look at, in my opinion, such as the bullpen.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-91223864788432017332014-10-14T17:25:00.000-04:002014-10-14T17:25:00.774-04:00Offseason 2015: The "Replace Melky" Edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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But we always drank plenty of Melk.<br />
<br />
I hope the Jays can re-sign Melky, because that's a nasty hole that he'd leave at the top of the order, but at the end of the day, free agency is pretty much an auction. And in order to win an auction, you have to have money to spend. It's not that the Jays aren't spending money, it's just that they appear to have already spent it all.<br />
<br />
Beeston said a few weeks ago that payroll was going to go up, which, well, it almost <i>has</i> to if the team is to look approximately the same, with the addition of a warm body at either 2b/3b and all the bullpen patchwork that needs to be done. We already kind of touched on this, but the amount that it cost to pay everyone in 2014 as pretty close to what's committed already for 2015, with holes left to fill. So yeah, technically, it has to go up-ish-- that's still technically true even if it goes up by, say, fifty bucks.<br />
<br />
The idea that payroll is "definitely going up", though, at least suggests that the Jays are either serious about bringing Melky back, or finding something reasonable to replace him, or at least to fill one of the other holes. They could just go after scrapheap guys to fill spots, trying to find another Bautista or Encarnacion redemption arc and just letting the big contracts expire in preparation for 2016-- they may still go after Melky and do that with all other positions, which is the half-measure that we don't really need at all-- or they can actually try to assemble some quality at all the positions and maybe win for a change.<br />
<br />
<i>All the non-Cabrera options here assume that Cabrera has signed elsewhere, and that the Jays will be getting a comp pick.</i><br />
<br />
<b>Melky Cabrera</b> (Free Agent)<br />
<br />
We already know what we have here, so we'll not spend too much time on it. Good offense, sketchy defense, and something in the neighbourhood of $15MM a season. It would be cool if there were an easier place for him to play (e.g. 1B or DH), because he can't even seem to handle LF all that well. And of course, Melky leaving isn't <i>all</i> bad; if he signs elsewhere, the Jays are saving $15MM or so, are not hamstrung in to playing an aging and increasingly immobile player for another 3-4 years, and they get a compensation pick in the 2015 draft. We all know what kind of lotto ticket draft picks are, but sometimes those hit.<br />
<br />
Another con to signing Melky: the Jays have a bunch of expiring contracts heading in to 2015. Melky will obviously command more than one year, and thus, will tighten the admittedly very loose noose as far as the future budget goes.<br />
<br />
MLBTR's Steve Adams may have lost his mind today, when he suggested <a href="http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/10/free-agent-profile-melky-cabrera.html">5 years and $66.5MM</a>, but he does make a reasonable case for it. I think the winner, whoever it may be, is the only one to offer four years, myself, but regardless, I also don't imagine the Jays go to 5 years.<br />
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<b>Yasiel Puig </b>(Trade)<br />
<br />
Yeah, I know. Probably not happening. It's <a href="http://fansided.com/2014/10/09/mlb-rumors-dodgers-shopping-yasiel-puig/">rumor season</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Michael Saunders (</b>Trade)<br />
<br />
Speaking of rumor season, apparently <a href="http://blogs.seattletimes.com/mariners/2014/10/09/the-mariners-and-michael-saunders-a-relationship-gone-awry/">Michael Saunders and Jack Z</a> aren't seeing eye-to-eye in <strike>the Skydome</strike> Seattle. Saunders, of course, is Canadian and seems to crush the Jays every time he plays them. He's probably a part-time/ platoon player, but there's still upside there, and he was worth 2 WAR this year, powered by a .273/.341/.470 slash, and some roughly average fielding across the outfield. He's actually a pretty reasonable comparison/replacement for Colby Rasmus. He'll make ~$3MM in arbitration this season, and doesn't have a place to play full time in Seattle. Perhaps a Saunders/Pillar platoon situation? Mayberry fits in there as well. Could do worse.<br />
<br />
<b>Nick Markakis</b> (Free Agent)<br />
<br />
I kind of expect Markakis to make it to free agency this year. Markakis has been a roughly league-average player since 2009, and the O's are pretty unlikely to exercise his $17.5MM option. Markakis is a capable, or at least passable, right fielder, and probably wouldn't want to move to LF to appease Bautista, but I don't know the guy.<br />
<br />
<b>Yasmany Tomas </b>(Free Agent)<br />
<br />
The Market for Cuban defectors seems to just keep growing. Yoesnis Cespedes, Rusney Castillo and Jose Abreu all signed the biggest contracts ever given to a Cuban at their respective times of signing, and all signs point to Castillo getting over $100MM, thanks to his age (24), power (apparently mucho), and lack of free agent compensation. Very rarely can you find a high-upside free-agent and sign him through his prime without risking much of his decline phase, but we can look no further than Masahiro Tanaka to see just what teams will pay for that right.<br />
<br />
The big caveat here is that Tomas is going to be expensive, and will have a whole bunch of teams looking to sign him. It's very possible, though, that one of those teams will look to replace their current LF/RF with Tomas, and then trade off the incumbent as a consolation prize.<br />
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<b>Matt Kemp/Andre Ethier</b> (Trade)<br />
<br />
With Andrew Friedman taking over in LA, it seems a bit more likely that there will be pressure to bring up Joc Pederson, or to at least fix the outfielder glut that the Dodgers have. Friedman usually needs to trade expensive guys for prospects, since he's never had the luxury to have a bad contract or eat money in a deal; now he's going to have unlimited money, and should be able to get creative in freeing up some room with Kemp, Ethier, or Carl Crawford, I guess.<br />
<br />
All of those contracts are pretty bad, and they're all corner outfielders at this stage of their careers. Let's not worry about taking playing time away from Puig or Pederson anymore-- at least one of those contracts is going, and probably for pennies on the dollar. If someone would take Ethier, that's probably better, since he's a glorified platoon player at the moment, but if not, Kemp probably still has a bit of value with his bat. More likely is that he gets moved to a team who needs a DH, given his -2.5 dWAR in 2014. He's due ~$100MM between now and 2019, so I'd guess that the Dodgers would be eating $50-60MM just to give him away.<br />
<br />
<b>Norichia Aoki</b> (Free Agent)<br />
<br />
Aoki is a pretty interesting free agent, in that he's 33, and hits for absolutely no power, so he should be reasonably cheap. He does get on base at a good clip though, and plays a pretty reasonable RF defense. If the Jays miss out on everything, this could be a decent backup plan, especially as a guy who can get on base and set things up for the bigger bats. He also hits lefty pitching much better than righties!<br />
<br />
<b>Others</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Like I've written in both the 2B and 3B post, I think the Reds should blow everything up. Wanna make some sort of bold move, AA? How 'bout some blockbuster for Brandon Phillips, Jay Bruce and, say, Johnny Cueto or Mat Latos? <br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Bruce is owed $26MM through 2016 (plus a club option) and was atrocious in 2014, so it would be selling low on someone who was worth 4 WAR just a year prior, but that's what blowing it up is.</li>
<li>Phillips is owed $39MM through 2017 for some reason, and isn't worth that much.</li>
<li>Cueto and Latos both have a year left before hitting free agency, but are very affordable (Cueto has a $10MM option, Latos should make about the same through arbitration) and very good pitchers... possibly even good enough to mitigate some of the risk of taking on $65MM worth of Phillips and Bruce.</li>
</ul>
I'm not smart enough to understand the mechanics of one of these kinds of deals and what would go back the other way, but if the Reds choose to explode, I would assume that they're selling anyone not named Votto and Frazier (Bailey?) that's making money or is within 2 years of free agency. As such, the Jays could use an outfielder and a 2B, and Johnny Cueto is an upgrade over the entire rotation. It's a bit of a longshot, admittedly, but so was the Marlins deal.<br />
<br />
I can't really see why Nelson Cruz shouldn't be a target either, given the Jays struggles against LHP, but I think they end up getting outbid pretty comfortably if they even check in.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-18271834228529429292014-10-03T18:59:00.000-04:002014-10-03T18:59:00.760-04:00Offseason 2015: The "2B Experiment" Edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/XIds0Xw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/XIds0Xw.jpg" height="320" width="241" /></a></div>
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<br />
I'm not going to lie. This is going to be a lot less interesting than the previous post. There's just not a whole lot at 2B. I think it's a lot more likely that we see Lawrie at 2B more and more as we move forward, and I'll explain that in a minute.<br />
<br />
You can have a quick look at the <a href="http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/02/2015-mlb-free-agents.html">MLBTR 2015 Free Agent list</a> and realize that holy fuck, Ryan Goins may be a viable option. I mean, yeah, at the end of the day, Ryan Goins was below replacement level, on account of his 26 wRC+, so he's really not a viable option at all, but other than that. We can't forget, either, that Maicer Izturis will be back, and Steve Tolleson is totally serviceable in a platoon situation.<br />
<br />
Since there's nothing out there, though, and <i>someone</i> has to play 2B... I dunno, suffice it to say that we're going to expand this to look at shortstops too, just to scrape the bottom. I think it's reasonably safe to say that if the Jays have a lazy offseason, or are more worried about, say, re-signing Melky and building a bullpen, 2B is a spot in the lineup where we can just go with a platoon-ish situation and worry about rebuilding the rest of the lineup.<br />
<br />
Anyway, that's probably enough words to qualify as a warm-up, so let's have a look. Again, we're using the previously linked MLBTR Free Agent list, as well as <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=2b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=100&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2014&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0">Fangraphs' leaderboards</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Brandon Phillips </b>(Trade)<br />
<br />
Phillips is one of the more overrated players in baseball, in my opinion, but he's certainly had some good seasons. He put up a big stink when the Reds signed Joey Votto to a big extension, and was then inexplicably signed to a 6-year extension to lock him up through age 36 or 37. The Reds have since had Kris Negron emerge as a quality infield option. If they can find a taker, I'd bet the Reds look to trade Phillips, even if they don't blow the whole team up. I'd blow the whole team up, though.<br />
<br />
Phillips, for his part, is a ~2WAR player going forward (sidenote-- <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WbbslVoDQOtsWIVlCljeHM9h1si96TfStsKQIbpIQw4/edit#gid=1112236363">wait, 2015 Steamer projections are out?</a> (sidenote on the sidenote-- Edwin Encarnacion listed as a 3B, eh?)), owed $36MM over the next three years. He's still a positive defensively, but that's about it. Having said that, available second basemen aren't exactly good at hitting, so you could do worse than Phillips with the bat, even in his decline (wRC's of 101, 91 and 88 in the last three years). There's very little, if any, surplus value there, so if Cincinnati wanted something in return, they'd need to eat some money.<br />
<br />
For whatever it's worth, Phillips has been pretty healthy throughout his whole career, so the turf shouldn't be a huge deal.<br />
<br />
<b>Asdrubal Cabrera </b>(Free Agent)<br />
<br />
Cabrera was a shortstop, right up until the Expos acquired him at one of the trade deadlines and stuck him at 2B. I'd guess that he would want to go back to playing shortstop, but I've never actually asked him since we've never met. The Tigers and Yankees (and Dodgers, maybe), and probably more, need a fucking shortstop and there's really only JJ Hardy (and Hanley Ramirez, if he can still be considered a shortstop) available, so I'd be a little surprised if Cabrera is playing anything other than short in 2015.<br />
<br />
Cabrera isn't exactly as good as he once was, but he's got a couple pretty good seasons under his belt, was a roughly average player in 2014, and he's not even 29 yet. If he's open to playing 2B again, he may end up as a target, but I'd classify this one as unlikely.<br />
<br />
<b>Rickie Weeks</b> (Free Agent)<br />
<br />
I'm assuming the Brewers don't exercise Weeks' option for $11.5MM, because that would be insanity. He put up .274/.357/.452 this year though, over 286 plate appearances in a part-time role. There's probably very little upside there, but he's not Ryan Goins, which is as good as upside. He hits lefties, which is something that happens already with Tolleson, so heh. He probably gets the old 1-year deal forever, and at like $4-5MM so it's not a huge risk, but I just can't imagine him being a big upgrade over what's already in the organization. Plus, the 2014 return to form was fueled by a .355 babip outlier, versus the .305 career norm. Probably nothing.<br />
<br />
<b>Cliff Pennington </b>(Trade)<br />
<br />
Pennington should make about $4MM through arbitration this year, which is certainly affordable. He's really a backup player, but he is serviceable defensively and he walks a lot. Could be worth a flyer. Not sure if the DBacks are looking to trade him or not, but it's not like he's completely irreplaceable or anything. Again, we're scraping. He's a switch-hitter, but is practically useless against righties, so, again, Steve Tolleson.<br />
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<b>Others</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Ben Zobrist was worth a bunch of WAR this year, but he only has one year left on his contract, and is a trade candidate, considering the way the Rays do business. I'd be incredibly shocked if they traded him within the division, but I can dream. Would be fucking sweet though.<br />
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If we're looking at shortstops, The Mariners might trade one of Brad Miller or Chris Taylor (Taylor seems like he's actually good, so they'd probably keep him), so if one of those guys wants to play 2B...<br />
<br />
Of course, there's a glut of mediocre second base-types in the organization already; Izturis, Goins, Tolleson, etc. We can also dream of Jose Reyes moving off shortstop and finding someone to fill SS, but that's probably at least a year away, if it ever comes.<br />
<br />
And that's really about it. There's just not a whole lot available out there. There are a bunch of guys who are never getting traded (e.g. Pedroia, Cano, Altuve) and then a bunch of 1WAR guys that aren't really worth fussing about.<br />
<br />
This is why I'm guessing that if a big infield upgrade comes along, it's going to be a 3B, moving Lawrie to 2nd full time. Hopefully he likes it there.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-46229084989540216222014-10-02T08:48:00.000-04:002014-10-02T08:48:04.543-04:00Offseason 2015: The "Brett Lawrie plays 2B" Edition<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.imgur.com/LXhKt9W.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/LXhKt9W.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo pilfered from Jason Miller</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My next couple posts will likely be following the same basic template of determining who to go after this offseason, dividing each up based on the position of available (or potentially available) players out there that can help fill the various holes in the Jays' lineup. It's certainly possible that the Jays just don't have any money and use internal options, in which case, God bless our souls as fans and let's 2016!<br />
<br />
Alex Anthopoulos has a few options internally for most of those spots-- Anthony Gose, Kevin Pillar, Dalton Pompey and Steve Tolleson can all play the outfield, Brett Lawrie and Maicer Izturis will be back, along with Tolleson, Ryan Goins and Danny Valencia, who can man infield spots, and there are various young-ish, cheap arms in the organization that can probably come out of the bullpen and stick a thumb in the dam until something better comes along.<br />
<br />
But that's kind of been the strategy for the last couple years, and it hasn't seemed to work, so perhaps it's time to look outside the organization to fill at least some of the holes. We'll start with 3B, since that's the position that is immediately the most interesting to me. For the sake of the exercise, I'm using <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=3b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=90&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2014&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0">Fangraphs' leaderboards</a> and <a href="http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/02/2015-mlb-free-agents.html">MLBTR's list of 2015 Free Agents</a> when I mention anything about how good people are at baseball or how free agenty they are.<br />
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<b>Josh Donaldson</b> (Trade)<br />
<br />
Buster Olney <a href="http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/buster-olney/post/_/id/8223">wrote yesterday</a> that he thinks Josh Donaldson gets traded this offseason. I think that's a complete crock of horseshit and he's only saying that because the A's lost their wild-card play-in game, and therefore have to break the whole fucking team apart. Donaldson was a 6.4 WAR player in 2014, making somewhere in the range of $500k. He's arbitration eligible for the first time this year. I'd guess that he'll make $5MM or so this trip through arbitration, but it could certainly be less, given that a good chunk of that value is defensive.<br />
<br />
Donaldson is going to get expensive fast, so the A's may decide to move him at some point, but I really don't think that it's this year. He'll still be plenty affordable even in 2016, and the A's are still good. They opted to spend about $25MM on a bullpen this year, including $10MM on Jim Johnson that they eventually just ate. This isn't the Moneyball Oakland A's anymore, and even if they were, there are probably more likely to trade the handful of guys on the team making $5MM+ who aren't worth 6WAR.<br />
<br />
Having said all of that, if they do trade Donaldson, it would be for a huge haul. Three cost-controlled years of an elite 3B, in an offensively starved era of baseball, would take a shitload of good prospects/major league ready players. I'd guess one of Stroman, Hutchison, Lawrie or Sanchez would need to be involved, and that's definitely just the start. Remember the pricetag for Samardzija this year? That, plus more. I'm suddenly afraid that Boston has the prospect depth and the need at 3B.<br />
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<b>Pablo Sandoval </b>(Free Agent)<br />
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Brian Sabean tends to hang on to his players, so I wouldn't at all be surprised if the Giants re-signed Panda over the next couple months. If not though, he'd be worth a decent look. His 5 WAR (i.e. skinny) days are probably behind him, but that doesn't preclude him from being a useful regular with some upside.<br />
<br />
He's been an above-average player the last three years (as in "above-average but not excellent" for those three years, excellent before that), has remained reasonably healthy for the duration of his career, is alright defensively, and will be 29 years old on opening day. I can see plenty of reason why he'll be sought after by several teams, which probably means that he gets a qualifying offer if he leaves SF. It will probably take a 3 or 4 year deal, at $13-16MM per to get it done, but I can think of worse people to have in the middle of the Jays' lineup.<br />
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<b>Chase Headley </b> (Free Agent)<br />
<br />
Headley was traded mid-season from San Diego to New York, which means that he'll be the only 4 WAR 3B on the market, and without a compensation pick attached. He's also a switch-hitter, an elite defender, and has a career walk-rate above 10%. 2015 will be his age-31 season, so he's not old by any stretch, and he clearly has some good baseball left in him, based on the .262/.371/.398 line and +12.8 runs of defensive value he put up post-trade (58 games) this year. Sure, that's playing in Yankee Stadium, as opposed to pitcher-friendly Petco, but still... 4.4 WAR, and no comp pick sounds mighty tempting.<br />
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<b>Trevor Plouffe </b> (Trade)<br />
<br />
I have no idea if the Twins would be willing to move Plouffe, given his excellent 2014 and relatively cheap contract, but I think it's worth a stab. The Twins are still pretty bad, and are probably going to tread water at best until their farm system delivers. They have Miguel Sano in the woodwork, but Plouffe can play all over the diamond (albeit not very well), so there are certainly ways to get both in the lineup if Sano even stays at 3B.<br />
<br />
Plouffe, for his part, hit .258/.328/.423 in 136 games this season, with 14 HR's and a 9% walk rate. Somewhat pedestrian, until you remember that he's playing half of his games outdoors in Minnesota, where I'm pretty sure it snowed at least once this baseball season. Adjusted, that's a 112 wRC+. You could do worse. He's going to hit arbitration for the 2nd time this offseason, and will get something like $4MM. If Minnesota is willing to listen, I think this is realistic. Minnesota seems to think they can contend every year though, before ultimately losing 95 games.<br />
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<b>Todd Frazier </b> (Trade)<br />
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This one is a longshot, and hinges on the Reds breaking it down entirely. Frazier hits arbitration for the first time this offseason, and was worth 4.7 WAR in 2014, so that's some cheap production. The Reds definitely don't need to trade him, as they can probably trade a bunch of expensive, soon-to-be free agents and build it back up before Frazier's team control is up, but if they do decide to move a bunch of their starters (Latos, Cueto and Leake are all free agents after 2015), they may want to break the whole thing down and get value for Frazier, instead of have him be good on a terrible team. Frazier will be a cheaper, slightly-worse-but-still-very-good version of Donaldson and would cost a shitload (he's basically Donaldson without the defense).<br />
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<b>Others</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
The only other real quality option I see is Aramis Ramirez. He and the Brewers have a $14MM mutual option on 2015, but those rarely get exercised. Ramirez was roughly league average this season over 133 games. His power numbers are down, he's becoming worse defensively, and he's missed time in three straight years. He'll also be 37 midway through the season. Might be worth a shot on a 1-year deal, though I'd worry about the turf. He is Dominican though!<br />
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Other than that, I don't really see a whole lot else. Fortunately, Brett Lawrie can also play 3B, which means that the pool of available associates can grow to include 2B as well, which is next up. 2B is not exactly swimming with available talent though, so maybe moving Lawrie to 2B is the best way to improve the team.<br />
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I think Plouffe and Headley are probably the two best ideas here. Headley will be sought after and might be able to leverage his way in to a nice contract, but it's one that probably won't go too far south given how good he is defensively. Plouffe is a bit more risky, in that he really only has one good season under his belt, from a WAR perspective. He'll only cost prospects though, which is obviously a bonus if there isn't a whole lot of money to spend, and his offensive skillset translates really well to the dome. He can play the outfield or 2B in a pinch, which could help against lefties (i.e. getting Tolleson in the lineup) if we see a situation where Anthony Gose is the regular CF and Melky leaves or something.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127582713973718883.post-46040745132690704922014-09-23T14:04:00.001-04:002014-09-23T14:04:36.390-04:00Looking to 2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Busy summer. I'll try harder.<br />
<br />
I had a thought last night, and remembered that I have an avenue for with which to write those thoughts down when relevant. As such, here goes.<br />
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I don't exactly have a ton of faith in the 2015 version of the Jays, as it stands right now. I think, for the most part, that AA assembled his team for three years with the Dickey and Reyes/Buerhle trades. It can't be a coincidence or a mistake that AA traded off all of his high-level prospects in the 2012 offseason, meanwhile having most of a team signed through 2015. Obviously the idea was to win during those years, and then figure it out in 2016/17 when that comes, since the strong low-level farm system would graduate to the bigs by those years, and all kinds of contracts would be off the books.<br />
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The reason I don't have faith in the '15 club, of course, is because it's going to be more-or-less the same club that didn't win enough in '13 and '14. There was reason to have faith this season, because of all the injuries and starts from Chien-Ming Wang. It's not the same team, obviously-- full season of Bautista, full, non-tumored season of Melky, solid performances from starters-- but this team is still like 15 games back in the division. And that's a Baltimore team who hasn't gotten anything out of Matt Weiters, and a combined 0.8 fWAR from Ubaldo Jimenez and Chris Davis.<br />
<br />
Anyway, my somewhat verbose and mostly opinion-based point is that the team will be fairly similar next season, and even with the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/">5 wins of regression that the O's are due</a>, it still might not quite be enough.<br />
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Dickey, Buerhle and Hutchison* are all practically guaranteed to be back next year, as are Bautista, Edwin, Lind, Reyes, Lawrie and Navarro. Those are the expensive guys, at least-- there are guys like Stroman, Tolleson, Mayberry, Cecil, Goins, Valencia, the bullpen, etc. who are either 0-3 players making the league minimum, or are hitting arbitration salaries and are cost-controlled. None of whom will make a shitload of money, so we won't really worry a whole lot about that, whether they even get contracts offered to them or not. The bulk of the money is being paid to the first 8 guys I named there.<br />
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*- Hutchison might get to Super-2 and has had a pretty reasonable season.<br />
<br />
The Jays have $96MM committed to salary for 2015, before totalling in arbitration salaries, club options and league-minimum salaries. So that's <i>not</i> including, say, the ~$500k owed to the guys making the minimum-ish (Gose, Stroman, Goins, Loup, Redmond, Jenkins, Tolleson) or the relatively small salaries owed to Cecil, Mayberry, Valencia, Francisco, etc., assuming they're all retained, which they won't all be, or the cost of retaining McGowan ($4MM), Happ ($6.5MM), Morrow ($9MM), Lind ($7.5MM) or Thole ($2MM?)-- I expect McGowan and Morrow's options to be declined. Once all that fun stuff is tallied up, we're looking at something like $125-140MM already committed to 2015.**<br />
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**- I'm using this <a href="https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tlGuOwsSqqOBS4H6hAg-Q_Q&output=html">spreadsheet</a>, taken from Cot's, plus guesstimating on options, arbitration, and non-tenders on <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12bi5eqro-N_7u9gdy8rFLj6K8NBY-3tZLbq0983SW2w/edit?usp=sharing">this one</a>. I'm certainly not an expert on arbitration salaries, so I sort of guessed there, but I don't think that should be so far off that it takes away from the point.<br />
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I have Happ, Thole and Lind getting their options exercised, Morrow, Santos and McGowan getting declined. McGowan could get his exercised, I suppose, given that his bullpen slash against is .205/.279/.377. I also have Juan Francisco, George Kottaras, Munenori Kawasaki and Dan Johnson being non-tendered, with Danny Valencia and Jon Mayberry getting an arb offer to go along with the obvious offers to Lawrie, Cecil and Hutchison. Don't think Delabar got enough service time this year to get super-2. Either way, I don't think it's going to make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things.<br />
<br />
The big thing with that spreadsheet, however, is the subtraction of Melky Cabrera, Casey Janssen and Colby Rasmus. That's $19MM off the books, with practically all of that going to Mark Buerhle, Jose Reyes, and Dioner Navarro's raises, plus arb raises, so the Jays have right around as much committed to next year ($~130MM) as they spent this season ($137MM), and there will be holes on the roster 7 days from now.<br />
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The Jays have already announced that they plan on extending a qualifying offer to Melky, which should be in the $15MM area, and I'd guess that there is some mutual desire to sign Melky back for another couple years. I'd ballpark his deal at 3 or 4 years, somewhere around $11-14MM/season, though it really depends what kind of discount he'd give the Jays, and how much we agree with his defensive numbers pulling his salary down. If we trust Fangraphs or Baseball-reference, Melky's defense has cost the Jays about a win this season. There's also the PEDs thing.<br />
<br />
Rasmus has a replacement, and has in fact already been replaced, so let's not worry about that.<br />
<br />
Janssen's departure will leave a pretty obvious hole in the bullpen. Sure, that could be patched up by moving people around (i.e. letting Loup/Cecil/whoever close, calling up Jenkins or Delabar or Rasmussen full-time), but at the end of the day, Janssen has been really solid since becoming a reliever, save for the half-season immediately after getting sick and losing a bunch of weight and strength. It seems as though Janssen is gone, because I expect someone is going to see 4.5 years of success against 0.5 seasons of poop and call it a hunch. I'd totally be on board with having Janssen back next year, though, and expect to be very sad when he signs with Tampa Bay or Oakland, even with the reduced strikeouts.<br />
<br />
The options with Janssen are to re-sign him in the $5MM/yr range, or to go find someone else that can be in the bullpen in his place. If it's going out and finding a closer, it's going to cost at least that much. If it's going out and getting a random warm body, it's probably going to be a cheaper option that perhaps isn't quite as reliable, but at the end of the day, pre-illness Janssen was on pace to be worth about a WAR. Not a horribly difficult amount of production to replace.<br />
<br />
My issue with letting him walk, though, is that there are already holes in the bullpen <i>with</i> Janssen. They won't keep Sanchez in the bullpen (they had better not, anyway), and McGowan probably isn't worth exercising a $4MM option for. When your third best reliever, and best righty, is Todd Redmond, there may be an issue.<br />
<br />
Let's just assume that Melky and Janssen re-sign, and for simplicity's sake, for $10MM and $5MM respectively (backload the contracts, see if I care). That's $15MM on top of ~$130MM. $145MM for:<br />
<br />
Thole Navarro<br />
Lind Encarnacion Lawrie Reyes Valencia Izturis<br />
Bautista Mayberry Gose Cabrera<br />
<br />
Dickey Buehrle Hutchison Stroman Happ<br />
Loup Cecil Janssen Redmond<br />
<br />
Depth/minor leaguers. <br />
<br />
That last category can include whoever it needs to to fill the roster, though 4 relievers probably isn't enough-- Pillar, Tolleson, Kawasaki, Goins, Pompey, Delabar, Sanchez, Nolin, Jimenez-- but it's probably not incredibly important unless one of those people takes over for someone listed above (injury, for example) and pulls a 2 WAR season out of their ass.<br />
<br />
$145MM is an $8MM or so increase compared to this year. Don't you think that if an extra $8MM next year is fine, that an extra $8MM <i>this</i> year would have been too? Like at the trade deadline? Or even before the year?<br />
<br />
I guess you could decline Happ's option and trust Nolin/Graveman/Sanchez/Norris to fill the rotation, or stick Graveman in the bullpen, or trade Buehrle for absolutely nothing other than salary relief, but that's all kind of academic at the end of the day-- this team apparently wasn't good enough to win and they should have a pretty similar, albeit worse roster next year, even if they can re-sign Melky.<br />
<br />
That's because it's not all money; the bulk of these guys are getting older. Hutch/Stroman/Gose/Lawrie are obviously exceptions to that, but there's a lot of people on the wrong side of 30 in this team. Reyes (currently 31), for example, isn't really providing a whole lot of defense at short these days. Bautista (33) just played his first full season in 3 years, while Edwin (31) and Lind (31) have both missed time with injury. Dickey (39) has been, by definition, average for the last two years, and Buehrle (35) probably isn't a 3+ WAR pitcher going forward. Happ, Izturis, Navarro, Tolleson, Valencia, Mayberry, McGowan and Redmond will all be at least 30 at some point next season. I'm not saying these guys all suck, or will suck next year, but it shouldn't surprise us if we see some decline, since typical peak is age 27-29.<br />
<br />
The plan was to win last year. The plan was to win this year. The plan is still to win next year, before turning it over to the next wave. Stroman, Sanchez, Hutchison, Lawrie, Norris, Pompey and Gose, another year or two down the line, looks like a pretty good foundation to build around. Beyond that, I don't think it's a mistake that Bautista, Encarnacion, Dickey, Buehrle, Janssen, Melky, Navarro, and Happ all have contracts whose guaranteed years expire either after this season or next (Romero and Morrow were supposed to fit in to this as well).<br />
<br />
The Jays have just $27MM committed to 2016 (options, buyouts and arbitration take that up to a conservative estimate of $65MM, assuming Bautista and Edwin get their options exercised, $5MM each for Hutch and Lawrie in arb, $4MM for Cecil; Options for Dickey, Thole and Izturis bought out). That leaves a shit tonne of room to extend guys like Stroman, Sanchez and Hutchison if needed, but it also leaves room for guys in the farm to develop and find themselves in the bigs with plenty of payroll flexibility.<br />
<br />
Beyond that, the Jays have been incredibly aggressive in the last couple drafts, trying to stock themselves with as much high-upside talent as possible. This year, though, they went ahead and grabbed a bunch of college guys who will hopefully be ready to contribute around 2016-2017, or will at least be close enough to the bigs that they can be useful trade bait.<br />
<br />
I realize this may all sound a bit convenient, and predicting the future isn't exactly easy at any point in time, so I guess the big takeaway from all of this is that even if they're terrible in 2015, which they won't necessarily be, the Jays have 1 player under a guaranteed contract for 2016 and beyond, and that's Jose Reyes. Even if there isn't some grand plan for 2016, there's no way that everyone that's on the team right now will be both (a) good, and (b) willing to re-sign here come 2016. The combination of money to spend (even if Rogers is holding out on us!), some quality young guys in the bigs right now, and some really good recent drafts might make this a cheap little juggernaut a couple years from now.Gradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05077305741779247358noreply@blogger.com0