Tampa

Went to the beach, got all burnt and shit.

Farrell should have pulled Alvarez after the 3rd or 4th inning with a rested bullpen.  Regression is going to hammer Alvarez.  Well, it already has, really, in his last two starts.

We were promised more roster moves today, but I haven't seen anything yet.

Jesse Litsch has apparently said that his arm infection or whatever could be career threatening.  Of course, he's not very good, which is also career threatening.

3-for-5 with a HR gets Jose another Zaunhead.

Get your own lineups.

Please Sir, Can I Have Some Moarrow?

Dominance.  Kind of boring that the Jays only scored two runs, especially after the Mets starter, Miguel Bautista, left the game after the 2nd inning, but two was all they needed anyway.  But yeah, 3 hits and 1 walk over a complete game shutout.

Yunel Escobar had two hits for the third straight game, by the way.  Since starting the season slowly, Escobar has his OBP back above .300, and he has a .328/.377/.406 line in the month of May.  Regression!  I doubt anybody is really surprised that Yunel has brought things back together, but he certainly didn't look good to start the season.  Related, can we end the "Rajai Davis hot-hand" thing?  Guy hits two homeruns and suddenly he's swinging out of his shoes... get Rasmus back in to CF please.

Henderson Alvarez goes today against Dillon Gee.  Apparently David Wright (batting .409 on the year) is still sick, and was actually worse yesterday than he was Friday, so we might get to avoid him today, or at least avoid a healthy one.  Having said that, Dillon Gee just isn't all that good, and the Mets' kind of need a long start out of him, since the bullpen has gotten some mileage in the first two games of the series.  Gee has been shelled in each of his last two starts.

Stuff
Apparently Adam Lind wasn't told that he was being placed on outright waivers.  That doesn't sound like an AA thing to do, and the Jays didn't officially announce that move either, so I suppose it's possible that it didn't happen?  Shi Davidi of Sportsnet has more here, but I suspect we'll hear more about this before too long.  I'm wondering if this was a ploy by AA to just try to sneak him through the waiver wire or something.  Either way, Lind knew he had been optioned to AAA, but that's all he was told.

Travis Snider left the game the other night with more wrist soreness, according to Wilner.

Travis Snider came out of AAA game the other night with continued soreness in his wrist. Shouldn't have to go back on DL. #Bluejays #jays
— Mike Wilner (@Wilnerness590) May 19, 2012

Jim Callis of Baseball America is going to be on the Fan590, talking Blue Jays at 11:20ET.  You'll proably want to tune in if you like prospects.

It's an afternoon game today, by the way.  Be ready.  This thing is also today, so get to the dome early:

Lineups
Jays
Johnson 2B
Escobar SS
Bautista DH
Edwin 1B
Arencibia C
Thames LF
Francisco RF
Rasmus CF
Gomes 3B

Alvarez P

Mets
taking too long.

Jays Wa(i)ve (goodbye to) Lind

The Jays have placed Adam Lind on outright waivers at some point today.  It's basically a DFA, but they're not cutting/releasing him if he clears, as far as I know.  Either way, he's exposed to the other 29 teams in the league, and if anybody claims him, they'll take on his contract.  From Cots:

A club that wishes to remove a player from its 40-man roster but keep him in its minor-league system must first place him on outright or special waivers. Outright waivers are not revocable, so a player claimed on outright waivers may not be pulled back by his original club. A club may not request outright waivers on a player with a complete no-trade clause or on a player ten-and-five rights.

It's a pipe dream that anybody takes him, but Brian Sabean still has a job, so who knows?  It's not that Lind isn't worth taking a flyer on or anything, it's just that he's owed a pro-rated $5MM for the rest of this season, another $5MM next season, and the buyouts on the three club options totaling another $3.5MM.

If he gets claimed, it's obviously no big deal, but the more likely option is that he gets through and heads down to AAA to see if he can learn to take a pitch.  His being removed from the 40-man suggests to me that they're going to send Yan Gomes back down once Lawrie's suspension is finished, and that someone else will come up.  Either that, or Vlad Guerrero is pretty well ready to come up and needs a roster spot.

I'm sure we'll see Lind again at some point this year (assuming he goes unclaimed), though obviously he won't have the same amount of slack that he had been given previously.  Presumably, he'll be re-added to the 40-man when Dustin McGowan goes to the 60-day DL or whatever.

Danny Knobler of CBS sports says that there are some other moves on the way, whether that means that Snider is coming up, or Thames is going down, or something just right out of left field (see what I did there?).

Just thinking out loud here, who could possibly have the need for a lefty first baseman with 20+ HR's in his bat? [aside: does the rest of the league even consider Lind to be a first baseman?  He really doesn't have any defensive value at 1B, or anywhere else, for that matter.]  I present to you my list of potential (hopeful) suckers.

• Baltimore already has a series of 1B/3B-types in Mark Reynolds, Chris Davis and Wilson Betemit, but I doubt any of those guys really preclude a roster move.
• Cleveland has Casey Kotchmann giving them some below-replacement production at 1B.  Jose Lopez has played 1B as well (and Carlos Santana's value plummets when he doesn't catch, especially since Lou Marson is awful).
• Oakland seems too cheap for this kind of thing, but they don't have any great options at first at the moment.  Daric Barton is a great fielder, but he doesn't really offer anything offensively.  Kila Ka'aihue (or whatever) is swinging a decent bat lately, despite a really low walk-rate.
• Seattle might be a bit worried about Justin Smoak, if he continues on this path.
• The Marlins just sent Gaby Sanchez to the minors, though Logan Morrison is probably going to get 1B time in his absence, since LoMo is an embarrassment to outfielders the world over.
• The Phillies are getting chewed up with injuries, and have a weird combination of Laynce Nix, Ty Wigginton, and John Mayberry Jr. getting most of the 1B time in Ryan Howard's absence.  Apparently Howard is coming back soon, though.  The scary thing is that Lind is probably an improvement over a few guys on that bench.
• Milwaukee seems like a fit.  They lost Prince Fielder to free agency, and lost Mat Gamel to a season-ending injury.  Travis Ishikawa, Taylor Green and Brooks Conrad have contributed nothing offensively.
• Casey McGehee and Garrett Jones haven't done much for Pittsburgh yet, but I doubt Pittsburgh is looking in to spending at this point in time.  They did pay $15MM and prospects for AJ Burnett though, I guess.
• This seems like the kind of thing Brian Sabean would jump all over.  Aubrey Huff sucks, Brett Pill is just some guy, and Brandon Belt probably banged Bruce Bochy's daughter or something to get treated the way he has.

So there you have it.  9 teams could have some kind of need for a 1B.  I don't think anybody is going to claim Lind, but you might be able to find a trade partner within that list of teams, assuming the Jays pick up some of the ~$13MM owed to Lind between now and the end of next season (or take on another bad contract).

Nice Game Pretty Boy

I'm not explaining this.  Either you get it or you don't.

I had Jon Niese in my fantasy lineup yesterday.  Heaven help me.

I'm too hungover to really do much of anything in terms of writing.  The receipt that was in my pocket this morning suggests that I drank three pitchers of draft last night, so needless to say, I've got a headache.

Uhh, 14 runs, huh?  Two homers from Rajai Davis?!?!? Two more from JPA?  That works.  JP can have a Zaunhead for that.

It appears Evan Crawford has been suffering from back spasms, but he probably won't be DL'ed, though he might end up back in AAA before long if that continues.

Buck and Tabby have called Miguel Batista "Bautista" three times already.

Let's take a relaxed opinion towards work and watch the baseball match

"The Nie Mets are my favorite squadron."

Hey, so that was kind of a sweep.  Of the evil bastard Yankees, no less.  And now the Mets are in town.  And they're supposed to suck.  Other than a few Seinfeld and Simpsons references, that's pretty well all I have for you, since I don't really pay a whole lot of attention to the National League, save for the Nats, Giancarlo Stanton and Andrew Mccutchen.

Jose Bautista gets a Zaunhead for his game last night, though again, multiple people could have qualified, namely, Yan Gomes for a 2-for-3 in his MLB debut, or JP Arencibia for being responsible for those two important runs to make it 4-1, instead of 2-1.  Drew Hutchison did a nice job as well, going 6 innings and holding a potent Yankees lineup in check.

Of course, that would have quite possibly been a 3-1 lead (or more) if Rajai Davis didn't suck at bunting, if Ben Francisco didn't suck at baserunning, and John Farrell didn't suck at not calling for bunts.

Ricky Romero pitches tonight for the Jays, and he'll go against the guy that I wanted AA to acquire this offseason, Jon Niese.  Niese, of course, signed an extension with the Mets, making it really unlikely that he gets traded within the next couple of seasons.  The Mets have been surprising so far this year, but I can't see it holding up, considering I can't honestly say that I've ever heard of half their lineup.

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Fangraphs shits on Adam Lind.

Vlad Guerrero might be closer to coming back than first thought.

Roy Oswalt threw for the Red Sox and Phillies, which is kind of Blue Jays new, I guess.  They could go get Oswalt if they really wanted to, and the Red Sox getting him would mean that the Jays would have to face him (maybe).  Whatever.

Tango looks at shifts (linking to Bill James Online).

David Wright will sit out tomorrow's game, according to Terry Collins, according to according to Adam Rubin of ESPN.

Lineups
Jays
Johnson 2B
Escobar SS
Bautista RF
Edwin 1B
JPA C
Frank DH
Thames LF
Gomes 3B
Davis CF

Romero P

Metros
Torres CF
Turner 1B
Wright 3B
Duda DH
Murphy 2B
Hairston LF
Nieuwenhuis RF
Johnson C
Cedeno SS

Niese P

Adam Lind AAA'ed, Stuff

Lotta news today.  Starting with Lind-- wasn't really ready for this.

Nor was I ready for Kyle Drabek having such a nice start last night, but heh. More on him in a second.  Just to think, a year or so ago, Adam Lind was more or less on fire, picking up the slack for Jose Bautista, while Kyle Drabek was shitting himself on his way to a demotion back to the minors.  Not that Drabek isn't another three or four garbage starts away from a trip to Vegas or anything, just uh... haha, Lind.

Lind has been pretty fucking terrible over the last year, after having a red hot first two months last year, and a good season in 2009.  I don't think we really need to rehash just how terribad he's been over the last 2+ seasons or so, since we've done it over and over (and so have a lot of others), so we won't delve in to that.  What we will say is something along the lines of "Hey guys, you can stop saying stuff like 'Let's trade Adam Lind' because he won't fetch dick."

I doubt he ends up getting released or anything (yet), because they're obviously going to give him another shot, especially considering the fact that he's got the rest of this season and all of 2013 left on his contract, which equals about $9MM ($5MM for both '12 and '13), plus three club options with $3.5MM worth of buyouts.  I'm not sure what they think they can get out of him once he returns, but he's probably a halfway decent bench option, albeit an expensive one, compared to whatever the other options are. They're probably going to give him more time on the bench than Juan Rivera or Mark Teahen before straight up releasing him, if that's really an option down the road.

As for last night, we'll give JPA the zaunhead for his effort, though we probably could have found any number of deserving parties (Edwin and Drabek, namely).  Giving one to Alex Anthopoulos for demoting Adam Lind is probably something that I'd typically do in this situation, but this shit is about 9 months overdue.

Drabek looked a bit better than he has in his last few starts.  He spread 3 hits over 7 innings, but he still walked 4, and threw just 60 of 113 pitches for strikes. He's still missing the zone way too much, especially to right-handed batters.

I'd just do the "Joe Maddon vs. Ricky Romero" thing against Drabek and load the lineup with RHB's if I were an opposing coach.  Having said all this, I'm encouraged, at least a little, by Drabek's start last night.  I know I shit on the guy a lot, but it's out of love.  His performance against lefties is definitely encouraging, and it would appear that he's attacking (finding?) the zone a little better, because he's at least close on a lot of his pitches, and he's getting enough swinging strikes to make it passable.

Stuff
Yan Gomes (and not Travis Snider) has been recalled to fill Lind's roster spot.  He'll play 3B tonight, because Brett Lawrie has dropped his appeal of his suspension.  Lawrie decided that there wasn't really a whole lot of point to the appeal, as long as Joe Torre knew that there was no physical harm intended.  Anyway, Gomes had a nice spring, and has been good in AAA (in hitter-heaven LV, mind you), and can play 1B, 3B, and C, which will give the Jays some flexibility in terms of not having Edwin or Omar Vizquel play 3B.  It would appear that Edwin is going to play 1B everyday, moving forward.  Could be worse, I guess.  I'd rather Bautista go to first, Snider come up, and Edwin stay at DH, but whatever; I'm sure they wanted Gomes for his defensive flexibility, and once Lawrie comes back, that could very well fill the spot if they're sending Gomes back down.  With Lawrie and Lind out tonight (and I'm not sure what the deal is with Eric Thames), this lineup looks kind of depressing tonight.  I guess it's just going to take some time getting used to the post-Adam Lind (hopefully) era.

I realize this post was all over the place, but I'm trying to get it up before the game starts, and I just got home a little while ago and came home to all this news, and immediately started speculating.  I won't have my own computer for the next week at least, since I had to take it in due to an impending motherboard destruction, so I couldn't really make a new post out of everything that happened, and won't be able to do so for a little while either.

Arod gets his turf day, with Jeter back in the lineup.


Lineups
Jays
Johnson 2B
Escobar SS
Bautista RF
Edwin 1B
JPA C
Francisco DH
Rasmus CF
Gomes 3B
Davis LF

Hutchison P

Yankees
Jeter SS
Granderson CF
Cano 2B
Teixeira 1B
Ibanez LF
Swisher DH
Chavez 3B
Jones RF
Martin C

Hughes P

Yankee time

The Jays are going to get Hiroki Kuroda and the Yankees tonight in the opener of their two-game set.  Kyle Drabek goes for the Jays... more on him in a second.

Kuroda spent his whole MLB career with the Dodgers until becoming a free agent after the 2011 season.  He came over to the States for the 2008 season at the age of 33, zipping over from Japan, and pitching pretty well for the Dodgers over 4 seasons.  Of course, that was in the NL West, and in a pitcher-friendly park/league.

Kuroda signed with the Yankees as a free agent this offseason, inking a 1-year, $10MM deal.  He's been okay this year, I guess, if you ignore his really bad debut, and his really bad third start.  The league switch has definitely been a bit tough on him, and I'm sure Yankee Stadium has a little something to do with that, but his peripherals aren't great.  He's outperformed his fip and xfip dramatically to this point, his k/9 is down by 2 full strikeouts, his walk rate is up by a full walk, and his fastball velocity is down by 1.5 MPH (though he's throwing more sliders and fewer 4-seamers, so that could make sense).

The Jays outrighted Trystan Magnusson to Dunedin (High-A), which removes him from the 40-man roster.  It seems like everybody is calling this a reaction to Brett Lawrie getting suspended and the Jays needing a replacement, but that simply isn't accurate, from what I can tell.  Not only has Lawrie not been suspended (yet, anyway), but he'll be allowed to appeal that suspension and continue playing until his hearing, which needs to be done in person at the MLB offices in New York.  The Jays don't go to New York until after the all-star break, which apparently means that if he is indeed suspended, assuming he appeals, his suspension won't be served until some time in July.  I don't know how legit that is, for the record, and don't really have anyway to confirm or disconfirm such news, but I'd say Wilner knows more than I do about this kind of thing.

Suspensions can be appealed in #MLB - don't take effect until after the appeal is heard. It'll be months before Lawrie has to sit. #bluejays
— Mike Wilner (@Wilnerness590) May 16, 2012

This seems pretty outrageous to me, and maybe if they just say "Hey, 1 game and a cash fine" he'll just accept it or something.  And it's not like they're half a country away from New York-- they're in Toronto, so I can't really see why the don't just send him on an offday or on the way to/from Boston or Baltimore or whatever.  Basically, "I don't know", is what I'm trying to say.  Lawrie is in the lineup tonight though, so take that however you'd like.  I've heard that the league announces suspensions, but not fines, for the record.

Anyway, what I think the Magnusson thing really means is that someone is going to get added to the 40-man and called up to the bigs in the next day or two.  Perhaps a starter?  To take over for Kyle Drabek?  Who can't throw strikes?  And needs to go back down to AAA to figure out his mechanical inconsistencies or learn that he has a mid-90's fastball and knee-bending curve that can just get batters out so you don't have to fucking nibble?  Deck Mcguire, perhaps?  Or maybe they found a trade partner to score a 1B/DH and get Adam Lind the fuck outta here.

I'm basing this on entirely nothing, but if that whole thing about the suspension not taking place right away is real, then there's no need for a knee-jerk DFA, and I doubt that this is anything more than a coincidence that Lawriegate happened on the same day as this roster move.

Stuff
Check in with Pete Rose, who lives in Las Vegas, of all places.  Semi-related, ESPN is doing a bunch of "30 for 30" shorts, and this is one of the first ones.  Here's hoping they do a bunch more.

Joe Torre doesn't think Lawrie did it on purpose, which is probably good news.

Turf.  No Jeter tonight.  Sorry ladies.  The Jays counter with an offday for Yunel Escobar, a DH day for Adam Lind, and a 2-hole for Eric Thames and his .308 OBP.  Your move, Yankees.

Lineups
Jays
Johnson 2B
Thames LF
Bautista RF
Encarnacion 1B
Lawrie 3B
Rasmus CF
Arencibia C
Lind DH
Vizquel SS

Drabek P


Yankees
Granderson CF
Swisher RF
Cano 2B
Rodriguez 3B
Teixeira 1B
Ibanez LF
Chavez DH
Martin C
Nix SS (Haha, what?)

Kuroda P