Roster Foundation, Part 3

A bit of a wrinkle, for this one.  I'm going to look through the farm system, and see how most of those guys came to the system.  There is a very, very good chance that I miss multiple guys, but that's just something I'll have to live with, I suppose.  There are obviously a billion guys in the system, so anybody who was drafted with a pick that already belonged to the Jays will be simply ignored.  I'm just looking at guys who came via trade, or who were drafted in a spot that was given to the Jays as compensation (either for losing a Type-A or Type-B free agent, or for the failure to sign a player picked in the first three rounds).  Just thinking about this before writing, this is probably going to be rather lengthy.

• Jacob Anderson: Drafted 35th overall in 2011, in the 1st sandwich round.  He was taken as compensation for the loss of St. Patrick himself, Scott Downs.
• Downs was released by the Expos in 2004 and latched on with the Jays.  He started in the system as a starter/swingman, but turned in to one of the most reliable and consistent relievers in the majors.  He gave the Jays 408 innings and 8.4 WAR, typically in high-leverage situations.
• Joseph Musgrove: Taken 46th overall in 2011, also in the 1st sandwich round.  He was taken as compensation for the loss of John Buck.
• Buck signed a 1-year deal with the Jays before the 2010 season, giving the Jays 1.5 WAR over 118 games.  He signed with Miami the next offseason for 3y/$18MM.
• Dwight Smith: Taken in the 1st sandwich round in 2011, 53rd overall.  He was taken as compensation for the Jays loss of Kevin Gregg (haha).
• Gregg signed a 1 year deal with Toronto before the 2010 season, and he put up 1.0WAR over 59 innings (37 saves!).
• Kevin Comer: Taken in the 1st sandwich round in 2011, as compensation for the loss of Miguel Olivo.
• Olivo was acquired for cash considerations, was offered arbitration, and never played a game with the Jays.  AA more or less bought a draft pick.
• Daniel Norris: Taken in the second round of the 2010 draft.  The Angels signed Type-A, Scott Downs, which should have given the Jays a 1st rounder, but the Angels had a pick in the top 15 slots, which protected their first rounder, giving the Jays the Angels' 2nd round pick.  The Jays took Norris, who was a first round talent, but was considered to be a tough guy to sign.  Never fear.
• Aaron Sanchez: Taken in the 1st sandwich round in 2010 (34th overall) for the loss of Marco Scutaro, who signed with the Red Sox.  Typically, the Jays would have gotten the Red Sox' first rounder, but they signed John Lackey as well, so Anahein got the first round pick.
• Scutaro was acquired from Oakland in 2007 for Graham Godfrey and Kristian Bell.  Scutaro played two seasons in Toronto as a starter for the first time in his career, and was very effective, giving 9.3 WAR in 289 games.
• Bell was taken in the 11th round of the 2006 draft, and spent a few years in Oakland's system, never getting above AA.  He's been out of baseball since 2009.
• Godfrey was drafted in the 34th round in 2006.  Over parts of 2 seasons, he's been worth -0.3WAR.
• Justin Nicolino: Taken in the 2nd round of the 2010 draft, also as compensation for the loss of Marco Scutaro.
• Asher Wojciechowski: Taken in the first sandwich round in 2010, as compensation for the loss of Rod Barajas.
• Barajas played 2 seasons in Toronto, compiling 2.1 WAR, hitting 30 HR's over 837 PA's, and then signed with the Mets.
• Noah Syndergaard: Taken in the 1st sandwich round in 2010, as compensation for the failure to sign James Paxton.
• Paxton was drafted in the 1st sandwich round of 2009, as compensation for the loss of AJ Burnett, who signed a 5y/$82.5MM deal with the Yankees after the 2008 season.
• Burnett was signed as a free agent by Toronto after the 2005 season, to a 5 year, $55MM deal, though Burnett opted out of the final two years and $24MM to test the free agent market.  In three years with the Jays, he was worth 6.0WAR over 522 innings.
• Kellen Sweeney: Taken in the 2nd sandwich round in 2010, as compensation for the failure to sign Jake Eliopoulos. The Jays drafted Eliopoulos again in 2011, this time in the 43rd round.  Again, he didn't sign.
• Marcus Knecht: Taken in the 3rd sandwich round in 2010, as compensation for the failure to sign Jake Barrett.
• Jake Marisnick: Drafted in the 3rd round of the 2009 draft. That selection was given to the Blue Jays as compensation for the loss of AJ Burnett.  Typically, the Jays would get the Yankees' first rounder, but the Yankees had signed two other higher ranked Type-A's that offseason (Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia, if I'm not mistaken).  Marisnick is looked at by scouts as a 5-tool future big leaguer.
• Kevin Ahrens: Chosen 17th overall in 2007 by the Jays, as compensation for the loss of Frank Catalanotto.  Ahrens is 23 and is still in high-A ball, for his 4th try.
• Catalanotto signed a 3 year, $13.5MM deal with Texas, as a Type-A fere agent.  He signed in Toronto as a free agent in 2003 for 4 year and $10MM, giving the Jays 5.9WAR over 4 seasons and 1800-ish PA's all over the field.
• Justin Jackson: Also taken in the 2007 draft, he went 45th overall (1st sandwich), also as compensation for the loss of Catalanotto.  He is currently in AA New Hampshire, and might maybe have some kind of future as a bench guy.
• Trystan Magnusson: As mentioned in part 1, Magnusson was chosen in the first sandwich round in 2007, as compensation for the loss of Ted Lilly.  He was traded for Rajai Davis, but was re-acquired recently for cash.  He had a quick cup of coffee for Oakland last year (sucked), and he is currently rehabbing an injury in High-A Dunedin.
• Anthony Gose: Acquired via trade for Brett Wallace.  Gose was drafted by the Phillies, and was an untouchable in the Roy Halladay negotiations, but was eventually made available to Houston in the Roy Oswalt deal.  Depending on who you ask, Gose is the Jays' top prospect.  He's just 21 playing in AAA, and is sporting a .280/.360/.413 slash line (in Vegas) with some apparently amazing defense.
• Wallace was acquired from Oakland for Michael Taylor.
• Taylor was part of the Roy Halladay trade, along with Kyle Drabek and Travis d'Arnaud.
• Chad Beck: Acquired from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for David Eckstein.  Beck was drafted by the Jays in the 43rd round of the 2004 draft, but didn't sign.  He appeared in 3 games in 2011, getting 2.1IP.  His AAA numbers are pretty mediocre over 62 IP, but again, Las Vegas.
• Eckstein signed a 1 year, $4.5MM deal with the Jays before the 2008 season, and provided 0.0 WAR in 76 games and 303 PA's.

Roster Foundation, Part 2

If you haven't read part one yet, go do so now, or at least get a quick look at the explanation of what's going on.  Or skip it, I don't give a fuck.  We've looked at the position players already, so now let's get a glimpse at the pitchers.

• Ricky Romero: Romero was drafted 6th overall by the Jays in the 2005 draft, and has been worth 11.6 WAR (the fangraphs version of this is very different, if memory serves me correctly, due to Romero's outshining of his fip and xfip last year-- the difference is something like 6.2 WAR to 2.8).
• Brandon Morrow: Acquired from Seatlle for Brandon League and Johermyn Chavez before the 2010 season.  He's been worth 3 WAR over 2+ seasons (again, fWAR and rWAR are very different, and Morrow's fip gives him like 4fWAR for 2011, whereas he was a 1.2 rWAR player.)
• League was drafted in the 2nd round of the 2001 draft, giving the Jays 1.2WAR over 200-ish innings in parts of 6 seasons.
• Chavez was signed as an international free agent, and has reached AA as a 23 year old.  He's repeated every level so far, and doesn't appear to be overly impressive to the point of warranting a shot at the bigs, unless there's something that I'm missing.
• Henderson Alvarez: Signed by the Jays as an international free agent.
• Kyle Drabek: Acquired in the Roy Halladay deal, along with Michael Taylor and Travis d'Arnaud.  Drabek has been worth 0.3WAR over various cups of coffee with the Jays, and was the centerpiece (at the time) of the deal.  Taylor was immediately flipped for Brett Wallace, who was eventually flipped for Anthony Gose.  Wallace and Taylor are both toiling around in the minors at the moment, while Gose is the Jays 2nd (or third, or fouth, depending on who you ask) best prospect.  d'Arnaud has been recently ranked as the 4th best prospect in all of baseball, and has the upside of an all-star catcher.
• Halladay is a sure-fire hall-of-famer.  In parts of 12 seasons, Halladay was worth 45.6 WAR, earned a Cy Young, was a 7-time allstar, and is probably the greatest Blue Jay player of all-time (at least in my eyes).  This was done in a pretty under-the-radar fashion, thanks to Canada being Canada, and baseball being America's Pastime.  He went 17th overall in 1997.
• Drew Hutchison: taken in the 15th round of the 2009 draft.
• Brett Cecil: Drafted in the 1st sandwich round, 38th overall in 2007.  Cecil's draft slot was given to the Jays as compensation for the loss of Justin Speier.
• Speier was acquired in 2003 as part of a 3-way deal.  Speier was sent to Toronto, Mark Hendrickson was sent from Toronto to Tampa Bay, and Joe Kennedy went to the Rockies from Tampa.
• Hendrickson was drafted 6 times (!!!), and finally signed with the Jays in 1998.  He's really, really tall, and was a basketball guy, which explains the multiple drafts.  He finally signed after the Jays took him in the 20th round, and gave the Jays 1.1 WAR over 195 innings.  Hendrickson was still in the league as of last year, though he was released by the O's after last season, and is still just kind of there.
• Carlos Villanueva: Acquired from Milwaukee for a PTBNL (presumably a PTBNL or cash, because I've never seen anything that suggests that anybody was sent to Milwaukee).
• Dustin McGowan: 1st sandwich round, 33rd overall in 2000.  That pick was given to the Jays for the loss of Graeme Lloyd.  McGowan has been worth 0.9WAR over parts of 5 seasons and infinite injuries.  
• Lloyd was worth 0.9 WAR in his only season with the Jays.  He came over from the Yankees with Homer Bush and David Wells, in exchange for Roger Clemens, and pitched just one year.  Bush was worth 2.2 WAR with the Jays over parts of four seasons, before being released.  Wells was worth 7.3 WAR over two seasons in his second stint with the Jays, before being traded to the White Sox in "Shouldergate" for Mike Sirotka.
• Clemens was inked as a free agent, signing a 4 year, $40MM deal, and gave us 19.4 WAR over two seasons.  His 1997 season was his best, WAR-wise, as a professional, with 11.6.  He won the "triple crown" in both seasons.
• Casey Jannsen: Drafted by the Jays in the 4th round in 2004.  He's been worth 3.9 WAR in parts of 6 seasons as a starter, reliever, and now, closer.
• Luis Perez: Signed as an international free agent in 2003.  He's been worth 0.3 WAR over 88 innings.
• Joel Carreno: Signed as an international free agent in 2004.
• Evan Crawford: Drafted in the 8th round in 2008.
• Francisco Cordero: Signed as a free agent.
• Darren Oliver: Signed as a free agent.
• Ryota Igarashi: Acquired from Pittsburgh for cash.
• Jesse Litsch: Drafted in the 24th round in 2004.

Forgot

In my haste of getting ready to go drinking, combined with the roster foundation project that I've got going on (of which, part two should be up either today or tomorrow), I forgot to write a little preview dealy for last night's game.  And really, it's probably a good thing, because I'd have written about how awesome Brandon Morrow is, and has been this season.  Well, about that.  Ian Kinsler made Morrow throw as many pitches in one AB as Derek Holland threw for the whole first inning, and the rest of his batters weren't a whole lot better.

I'll be honest, I only watched the first inning, and most of that was on fast-forward on my TiVo*, and pretty much instantly turned the game off after 1 inning.  Texas is a great team to watch, but not when they're stepping on my favorite team.  I might go back and watch the good parts, since it's supposed to thunderstorm today, but I dunno if I can be fucked to do that.

It would appear Jeff Mathis pitched? I might have to watch this one after all, since he had a cleaner inning that Brandon Morrow.  Fuck, he can have a Zaunhead for that one.  That should be a new rule; any position player who gets through an inning automatically earns that days' Zaunhead.

I guess we missed some stuff yesterday, so let's jump in to that.

The Jays placed Ben Francisco on the 15-day DL, and recalled David Cooper to replace him.  They've also recalled Ryota Igarashi, and optioned Evan Crawford back to AAA.  Really trying to "AAAA" this roster right now.  Finally, Dustin McGowan was placed on the 60-day DL.  That move opens up a spot on the 40-man roster, which suggests to me that there might be another move on the way.

About Francisco, apparently he's got a tear in his hamstring, and will be out for a little while.  He'll be shut down for 7-10 days, and will then need to rehab.  Kelly Johnson has a hamstring issue too, but his MRI came back negative.  He might see a day off today or tomorrow.

Call to the Pen wrote about Brandon Morrow.

Travis d'Arnaud was named the AAA player of the week.

Jayson Stark says that three teams aren't interested in Adam Lind.  No shit.

MLBTR looks at the Jays' contract issues for the upcoming offseason.

In non-Blue Jay stuff, The Diamondbacks, probably realizing that they weren't getting JPA or TdA anytime soon (this actually had nothing to do with it), extended Miguel Montero for 5 years and $60MM.  Montero is good and all, but I just had to see that kind of commitment given to a catcher, given the attrition rate at the position.

The Orioles made an extension of their own, locking up Adam Jones.  This one isn't official yet, as far as I know, but will apparently be in the 6 year, $85MM range.  Jones had one year of arbitration eligibility left, before hitting free agency, so he'll probably get something like $10MM next year and $15ishMM annually after that.



*- I just kind of assume that it's "TiVo" with that capitalization.  I'm not sure why, but I'm going to keep writing it like that.

Roster Foundation, Part 1

Hey, do you guys remember that time the Jays acquired Jose Bautista, utility OF/3B for a AA catcher?  Yeah, me neither.  Like, literally, I don't remember that happening.  I know that it happened, and I know that it's a pretty important event, as far as the evolution of franchise goes.  I also know approximately how long he's been on the team, and therefore when the trade in question occurred (August 21, 2008).  Finally, I know who he was traded for (PTBNL Robinzon Diaz).  But the actual event... yeah, can't really think back and say "Oh yeah."  This is obviously because, at the time, this trade wasn't really anything.  Bautista was making $1.8MM in 2008, and probably would have been non-tendered by the Pirates at the end of the season, considering it's the Pirates, and the trade, to me, in hindsight, looks like it was meant to be a salary dump of sorts.

It's shit like that that I'm looking in to; little deals turn in to big deals, big deals turn to little deals, and sometimes, as we'll see, little deals turn in to other little deals, which turn in to medium sized deals twice, which turn in to little deals again, if that makes sense.  Basically, I'm going to track every player back to the origin of either a free agent signing or a draft pick.  This would be a fun, but exhausting, exercise to do with the Tampa Bay Rays franchise.  We could make a fun little flowchart out of this, but we also probably won't. All WAR figures are from baseball-reference.com unless otherwise stated.

Part 1 will focus on position players, Part 2 on pitchers, and then Part 3 will focus on guys in the farm system who are there as result of free agent compensation.

• Kelly Johnson: Acquired from Arizona in August of 2011 for Aaron Hill and John McDonald.  Since coming to Toronto, Johnson has a .258/.357/.413 line in about half a season's worth of AB's, and has been worth roughly 2 WAR since then.  Arizona appeared uninterested in keeping Johnson for another year at his price, and probably would have ended up non-tendering him if they couldn't find a trade partner.  Hill was set to be a free agent, since the Jays certainly weren't picking up his option(s) and weren't interested in his mediocre-at-best play (ARI declined his options, but re-signed him for two years this offseason).  McDonald was thrown in for his defensive magic, with Stephen Drew being on the shelf, but re-signed with ARI for two years as well this offseason.
• Hill was drafted by the Jays in 2003 draft, as the 13th overall selection.  He had two pretty good seasons, sandwiching a missed season or so, due to a concussion.  Over parts of 7 seasons, Hill put up 15.1 WAR, though he was worth -0.3 in his age 28 and 29 seasons (as a Jay).
• McDonald was essentially named as a PTBNL in a trade for himself, so we won't bother with that.  He was also granted free agency and eventually re-signed with the Jays in 2009, so again, we won't bother.  We'll instead go back to 2004, when he was first acquired by the Jays, for Tom Mastny.  As a Blue Jay, he was worth 4.1WAR over parts of 7 seasons as a benchy and fan favorite.
• Mastny was drafted by the Jays in the 11th round of the 2003 draft, totalling 94 innings of -0.8WAR ball, before being sold to a Japanese team.
• Yunel Escobar: Acquired from Atlanta, along with Jojo Reyes, in exchange for Alex Gonzalez, Tyler Pastornicky and Tim Collins.  Atlanta was growing frustrated with Yunel's flashy play, or something retarded, which was apparently enough to warrant not having a decent starting shortstop for the next  however long [from that day until whenever Andrelton Simmons gets good enough to take the starting SS position away from Pastornicky].  Escobar, in a little over 1000 PA's, has a .280/.351/.383 slash line, and has been worth 6.5 WAR in Toronto with some pretty good defensive numbers backing him.  Jojo Reyes also happened, for a while.
• The Jays drafted Pastornicky in the 5th round of the 2008 draft.  As a 22 year old, he's been worth -0.8WAR so far this season, and probably won't turn in to anything, since he's just a right-handed Eric Thames who does a poor job of playing shortstop, instead of LF.
• Collins was signed as an undrafted free agent by JP Ricciardi, and has since been flipped to KC in a 5 player deal.  He's been worth 1.3 WAR to KC in 88 innings out of their bullpen between last year and this year, and probably shouldn't have been included in the Yunel deal, since he was killing minor league pitching, and was obviously not really in the plans in ATL.
• Gonzalez was signed to a 1-year, $2.75MM deal with a club option.  He was mostly a stop-gap until AA could find something better.  Well, he did.  Granted, Gonzalez was worth 3.2 WAR over 85 games, thanks to his hitting 17 HR's.  The Jays sold very high.
• Jose Bautista: As mentioned, acquired from Pittsburgh for Robinzon Diaz.  Bautista has been, arguably, the best hitter in baseball over the last few seasons.  17.5WAR since joining the Jays, -2.8WAR with all other clubs.  Nice.
• Diaz has 148 career PA's, good for 0.5 WAR.  Better than I thought.  It's too bad he's been out of the bigs since after the 2009 season.  He's bounced around various minor league systems, and is currently in the ANA system.  He was signed as an amateur free agent in 2000.
• Edwin Encarnacion: This one's fun, pay attention.  Edwin was a part of the return for Scott Rolen, and since joining the Jays, he's been demoted, DFA'ed, released, granted free agency, re-signed, and had an option exercised.  For the purposes of this excercise, we're just going to pretend that he wasn't in the Oakland system for like 10 days, and out of the Jays' care for a month.  Edwin has been worth about 4 WAR over part of 4 seasons (2 full seasons of AB's, give or take).  He tore the cover off the ball over the second half of 2011, and has been pretty good so far this year, with 14 HR's in 45 games.  Zack Stewart (more on him in a minute) and Josh Roenicke (claimed off waivers by Colorado, -1.2WAR with the Jays over 36 innings) were also involved in the deal.
• Rolen should be a hall-of-famer when his career is over; 65.5 WAR over 17 partial or full seasons.  His time in Toronto was more-or-less brief-- 203 games of 6.9WAR baseball before being moved to Cincincatti.  I think there was cash involved in the deal, but I don't see that listed here.  He was acquired from STL for Troy Glaus, in a weird 3B-for-3B deal, though I guess the turf was fucking with Glaus' feet, and the Jays liked Rolen's defense better than they liked Glaus' offense, I guess?
• Glaus was worth 7.1 WAR for the Jays over 2 seasons, though injuries caught up to him in the second, limiting playing time and production.  Glaus came to Toronto, with Sergio Santos (1.0, the shortstop version) for Miguel Batista and Orlando Hudson.  Santos didn't appear in games for the Jays (yet), before being claimed off waivers by the Twins.
• Hudson was drafted by the Jays in the '96 (33rd round) and '97 (43rd round) drafts, eventually signing the second time.  He was a fan favorite in Toronto over parts of 4 seasons, until the trade.  He put up WAR totals of 2.9, 5.0, and 3.1 in his three full seasons in Toronto, earning his first of 4 gold gloves.  He's fallen off a cliff these past two years though.
• Batista signed with the Jays as a free agent (3y/$13.1MM), before being traded back to where he came from.  In two years with the Jays, he was worth 1.7 WAR, including -0.1WAR before being moved.  So yeah, Orlando Hudson helped the Jays get Edwin.
• Colby Rasmus: You guys probably remember this one.  Rasmus (and Brian Tallet, PJ Walters, Mark Teahen, and Trever Miller) was acquired in a big rigamarole of a deal.  Rasmus has been okay, in a small sample, and plays nice defense, and we can hope that the bat comes along the way it acted in his 2009 and 2010 seasons.  The Jays gave up Edwin Jackson, Marc Rzepczysnki, Octavio Dotel, and Corey Patterson (and cash) in the deal.
• Jackson was acquired earlier in the day with Mark Teahen (instead of cash) for Jason Frasor and Zach Stewart, so really, he wasn't ever a Blue Jay.
• Frasor was re-acquired this past offseason, after spending a few months in Chicago, much to the behest of White Sox fans.  In a roundabout way, Edwin Jackson was acquired for Stewart, Miles Jaye (17th, 2009), and Daniel Webb (18th, 2010).  Either way, Frasor was acquired for Jayson Werth before either were any good. 
• Werth was acquired in 2000 for John Bale, a Toronto 5th rounder, who threw 5.2 innings for the Jays.
• Stewart appeared in a couple of games for the Jays, tallying 16 innings.  He's since provided some mop-up duty out of the bullpen, and might not ever really perform to the hype that was surrounding him while he was a top prospect in the Jays' system.
• Stewart was acquired in the Scott Rolen deal, listed above (Rolen for Edwin, Stewart and Josh Roenicke. Rolen was acquired for Glaus, who was acquired for Orlando Hudson and Miguel Batista, who were drafted and signed as a free agent, respectively).
• Rzep was a Jays' draft pick, going in the 5th round in 2007.  Scrabble started for a little while, and definitely showed some potential, but didn't really appear to have the upside to stay in the rotation heading in to the 2011 season.  As result, the Jays moved him to the bullpen, where he kicked some ass as a lefty specialist.  He was worth 2 wins over 160-ish innings during his time in Toronto, and was apparently a deal-breaker for the Cardinals.
• Dotel made a quick stop in Toronto, signing a 1 year, $3MM deal before the 2011 season.  He was worth 0.4WAR during his 29 inning stint, though he wasn't exactly used correctly (that is, he was allowed to pitch against more than 0 lefties).  He was worth 0.2WAR for STL after the trade, though he was pretty good in the playoffs, which isn't counted there.
• Corey Patterson signed a minor league deal with the Jays for $900k before the 2011 season.  His season started pretty amazingly, carrying a .293/.323/.462 line in to June.  He got the Adam Lind treatment, staying in the 2-hole for the next 8 weeks, as he OPS'ed .503 and .463 in June and July, respectively, to drop to -0.7WAR.
• Teahen, Tallet, Walters and Miller were all DFA'ed between the time of the deal and the beginning of the 2012 season, and were alternatives to cash considerations.
• Brett Lawrie: Acquired straight up for Shaun Marcum.  Probably a big mistake for the Brewers.  Lawrie has been worth an astonishing 6 WAR in 84 games, over parts of two seasons as a 21 and 22 year old, and half of that has come during an offensive slump.  Look out.
• Marcum was drafted by the Jays in the 3rd round of the 2003 draft, and provided the Jays with 9.1 WAR over parts of 5 seasons (plus a missed year due to Tommy John), including a 3.8WAR year in his last year as a Jay.  He's given the Brewers 3.2 WAR in a year+, and will be a free agent at the end of the season.
• Rajai Davis: Davis was acquired from Oakland for Danny Farquhar and Trystan Magnusson.  Pretty much a bench guy, though he's serviceable as a platoon bat.
• Magnusson was re-acquired for cash.
• Farquhar was re-acquired in exchange for David Purcey, after he was DFA'ed.  Purcey was selected 5th overall by the Jays in 2004, and began sucking right around the time he made it to the majors.
• Purcey was traded to Detroit for Scott Sizemore soon after. That deal looked awesome for Oakland until Sizemore was sidelined with TJ surgery, but an injured Sizemore is probably better than Purcey, who was released by the Tigers after the season. 
• So basically, Davis for Purcey and Cash.
• Ben Francisco: Acquired for Frank Gailey. Only 37 PA's as a Jay, and he's not making the most of them.  He had two respectable years in Cleveland in '06 and '07, but hasn't gotten much playing time since then. Francisco would get playing time if he was still in Philadelphia this season, thanks to injuries to everybody, but he's frankly a bench bat with little to no defensive value, and he's making nearly $2MM this year.  Salary dump
• Gailey is 25 and still in AA.  He was a 23rd rounder for the Jays in '07, and has struggled every time he's moved up.
• Jeff Mathis: Acquired for Brad Mills.  Mathis has been a serviceable backup for JP Arencibia so far, despite having a reputation as the worst hitter in the history of the big leagues.  Over 37 PA's, Mathis has been worth 0.4 WAR.
• Mills was drafted in the 4th round of the 2007 draft, and appeared in 48 innings over parts of 3 seasons for the Jays, giving them -1.2WAR and 81MPH of fastball.
• JP Arencibia: Drafted in the 1st round (27th overall) of the 2007 draft.
• Travis Snider: 14th overall in the 2006 draft.
• Eric Thames: 7th round of the 2008 draft
• Adam Lind: Taken in the 3rd round of the 2004 draft, via the Angels, as compensation for the loss of Kelvim Escobar, who signed a 5 year, $41.5MM.  He gave the Angels 13 WAR, and missed most of the second half of that contract due to injury.  In parts of 7 seasons with the Jays as a starter and reliver, Escobar put up 9.6WAR.
• Escobar was signed by the Jays as an international free agent in 1992.
• Yan Gomes: Drafted in the 10th round of the 2009 draft.
• Omar Vizquel: Signed this past offseason (2011/12) to a minor league deal.
• Vladimir Guerrero: Signed as a minor league free agent.

Too Many Walks

Title says it all, no?  I don't know if anybody was expecting Romero to repeat last season's success, because he beat his peripherals by a pretty comfortable margin, but I don't think anyone was expecting a regression to the point where he's a Drabek-type either.  Sure hope he fixes things, though.

Ricky has said, a couple of times now, that his fastball command hasn't really been anywhere close to what it should be, and he doesn't exactly seem like he's one of those guys who will just go out there and play, and just accept it when what he's got isn't good enough (*cough Vernon Wells*).  If anything, he appears to be the exact opposite, if we can base anything on his twitter rant from last night (within that link).

I believe in you, Ricardo.

Anyway, James Shields is pretty good at pitching, if nobody's noticed yet.  And Kelly Johnson noticed.  He looked completely lost at the plate all day, striking out four times. Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista each supplied two hits, one of which being a homerun (Edwin gets the Zaunhead).  Don't look now, but Jose's OBP is up to .337.

Speaking of OBP, have you guys noticed that the formula to getting Eric Thames out is to just throw three pitches that aren't strikes?  .299 OBP to this point in the season.  I bet he's thanking the lord for Travis Snider's wrist issues (and Adam Lind's Adam Lind'edness) right about now, because I would suggest that that (those?) is (are?) the only reason(s?) that he's still in the majors right now.  I mean, he's offering nothing with the bat, and this:

No idea who was playing LF for the Jays, but he has a 20 urgency tool. Sheesh.
— Mike Axisa (@mikeaxisa) May 23, 2012

Anyway, it's an offday today, as the Jays are travelling to Texas for a 3 gamer against the Rangers, before going up to Baltimore and probably putting forward a poor effort, from a collective standpoint.  Then you'll see me avoid the internet for a few days because people who think that the Orioles are an actual team are just going to use this as even more evidence proving so.

Stuff
DJF looks for a decent comparable for free-agent-to-be, Edwin Encarnacion.  They suggest Josh Willingham's deal with the Twins (3y/$21MM) to at least be a place to start.

Behind a paywall, Keith Law ranked Travis d'Arnaud as the 4th best prospect in the minors, now that Matt Moore, Bryce Harper, and Mike Trout have lost their eligibility.  He was ranked 6th at the start of the year, which means that he's been leapfrogged by a few guys.  A few things of note:

• Orioles' prospects Dylan Bundy (#1) and Manny Machado (#3) both rank above TdA, as does Rangers SS Jurickson Profar.  
• Profar and Bundy both jumped TdA, while Cardinals' pitcher Shelby Miller dropped to #9.
• d'Arnaud is the only 23 year old on the list.
• Jays' Aaron Sanchez was given an honorable mention, of sorts.
• The D'Backs have Trevor Bauer, Archie Bradley, and Tyler Skaggs at 8, 12, and 13.

I'm sure we'll be seeing other lists soon, from guys like Kevin Goldstein (BP) and Jim Callis (BA).

Speaking of Kevin Goldstein, Shi Davidi will be on the next Baseball Prospectus podcast, which is hosted by Goldstein and Jason Parks. That should be up soon-ish, as they're recording tonight.  Still speaking of Kevin Goldstein, he's got a quick (free) piece up at BP about some minor leaguers that he's seen recently.  This includes Blue Jays Adeiny Hechavarria, Mike McDade, and John Stilson.

Finally, I'm going to do something kind of complicated, based on the preliminary research I was doing today for the draft thing that I mentioned yesterday (more in a second).  Basically, I'm going to look at the current roster, and determine where each guy "came from", by which I mean figuring out how each guy become a part of the team.  Jason Frasor, for example, was traded for Jayson Werth in like 2004.  Werth was acquired for some dude named John Bale in Dec. 2000.  Bale was drafted in the 5th round of the 1996 draft.  Everything is connected.

Once that's done, I've decided that I will in fact be doing a little draft primer, probably dating from the present and going backwards until I run out of time (draft day).  The first few (i.e. most recent) drafts should be together and up soon, and might have a bit of a different format from the rest, since the last three drafts typically make up a massive percentage of guys who are still within the lower half of the system, and are pretty tough to project.  Not only that, but I've actually heard of most of the guys in the last couple of drafts, and fully expect each of the first rounders to become all-star big leaguers, which is obviously retarded (I doubt Hutch, Sanchez, Maguire, Syndergaard, Nicolino and Stilson all even make it to the bigs, let alone all become useful pieces for the Jays).

[Update:] As I was writing all that baloney up there, there was an announcement of a trade!  The Jays acquired catcher Paul Phillips from the Milwaukee Braves for cash considerations.  I can only assume that this is a move that gets another catcher to AAA in the absence of Yan Gomes, who is with the big club right now (and maybe for the foreseeable future?).  Of course, Travis d'Arnaud is the main catcher in AAA LV, but Gomes was his backup. I believe I read something the other day about AJ Jimenez (AA catcher) going down to Tommy John surgery too, so that may also be related.  Either way, I doubt you'll ever see or hear from Paul Phillips in terms of MLB playing time, so it's not a huge deal.

One Bad Inning

I have no way of backing this up, so it could very well be a selection bias or something, but it seems like a lot of Jays' losses come down to one big inning.  I'm sure the same can be said about a lot of games, but whatever; my statement is more a function of having really young starters who haven't had to worry about working out of jams against big-league lineups as often as other older rotations, and playing in the AL East probably doesn't help a whole lot either.

If you missed it, the Rays entered the 4th inning with a 1-0 lead, only to score 5 runs and blow the game open. Never mind the fact that the Jays scored 4 in the top of the 5th, because this game wasn't ever really close after that, since the bullpen couldn't hold the Rays offense down.

On the bright side, Jose Bautista was 3-for-4 (with another opposite field single to beat the shift!) and a Zaunhead, and Yan Gomes hit his 2nd homerun of the season, putting him 1 shy of Adam Lind after 100-ish fewer plate appearances.

Ricky Romero will go tonight for the Jays, with the hope of getting the Jays a series win in Tampa for the first time since the Rays got good.

Stuff
JP Breen looks at Luke Scott, probably because he hit a homer off Hutchison last night.

Getting Blanked linked this piece from Over the Monster, where they look at the Red Sox' 2007 draft, which got me to thinking about how that worked out for the Jays.  Well sirs, it's not pretty.  Let's dive in, shall we? (Note: He chose '07 because the average draft class takes 5 full years to develop to the point where you can project who will make it and who won't.)

The '07 Jays draft has produced 7 major leaguers out of 35 players (30 rounds), totaling 3.9 rWAR.  JP Arencibia and Brett Cecil were both sandwich rounders that year, and have accumulated 4.1 of the 3.9WAR of the round (that's not a typo).  Add 5th rounder, Marc Rzepczynski (who has since moved on to St. Louis) who gives another 1.9 WAR, and that goes to show you just how bad everybody else has been, whether or not they`ve made it to the bigs.

Brad Mills (-1.2 WAR), Brad Emaus (-0.6), and Darin Mastroianni (-0.1) have at least made it to the bigs, though all are with other organizations and have been terrible.  Mills was turned in to Jeff Mathis, who is currently backing up JP Arencibia to the tune of 0.4 WAR.  Emaus turned in to Chris Malone, a 28 year old pitcher who appears to have been either released, or became a free agent at the end of last season, and Mastro was selected off waivers by the Twins, getting in to 7 games so far this season.  Frank Gailey, a 23rd rounder, was traded for Ben Francisco this past offseason.

There are still some pieces left toiling in the Jays` minor league system, however.  1st Rounder, Kevin Ahrens, has never reached the bigs, and hasn't made it past high-A yet, at age 23, sandwich rounder Justin Jackson is still in AA and probably won`t make it to the bigs, Trystan Magnusson was recently DFAed, but saw a few games last year for the A`s and Jays.  6th rounder Mike McDade is beating up on AA pitching in his 2nd go-around in New Hampshire, and might see some time in the bigs somewhere along the line.  The only other names I even recognize are Alan Farina and John Tolisano, both of whom are in AA New Hampshire for the 2nd time, and putting up respectable numbers.

I`m excited to look back in a few years to get a good look at AA`s first few drafts, compared to JP Ricciardi, considering AA`s strategy of high school arms and loading up the scouting department vs. JPR`s strategy of taking prep guys, but it really does appear that JPR`s drafting strategy left a lot to be desired, looking at other drafts.  The 2012 draft is coming up in about 2 weeks, so maybe I`ll have a look at a year-by-year analysis going back to the `03 draft or so.

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

Romero P


Rays
Pena 1B
Upton CF
Joyce RF
Sutton 3B
Scott DH
Johnson SS
Rhymes 2B
Gimenez C
Thompson LF

Shields P

drabek steals one

I would quite like my computer back. No point writing if i'm just posting from my ps3.

Drabek went and put up another quality start to silence the haters, which is totally a real thing that actually happened, so we can ignore the 6 walks and 52/48 strike/ball ratio.

Zaunhead to Yunel.

Carlos Pena is hitting  leadoff for tampon bay tonight. I see that i just wrote tampon bay and not tampa, but it's actually got a nice ring to it.

New groundrules please. ''At the umpires' discretion'' is an amendment I would suggest.

Edwin will DHtonight due to a back issue (but I can't link to Barry Davis from aPS3 because there is apparently no keyboard command).  Hutch and Matt Moore, lineups yourselves.