Reyes Hurt

Except Blue Jays.

Seriously, hamstring tightness BEFORE I GET HOME FROM WORK.

Why?

No, Maicer Izturis should be on this team.

Stretching Out

Apologies if this kind of thing has been posted elsewhere, but when I got the notification on my phone today that Dustin McGowan was named the fifth starter, I had a couple thoughts go through my head.

First, I assume that this means that McGowan will be the fourth starter, and not the fifth, as the Jays have already stated that Brandon Morrow will start the Jays' fifth game of the year, their home opener.  I just got home from work though, and have quite literally the blurb from my phone to go off of.

Second --and this also ties in to Morrow-- the big issue with McGowan was the fact that he had gotten sick and lost a few pounds at the start of spring, causing him to be a touch late in getting stretched out, to the point that the club was worried about his ability to throw, say, 90 pitches in his first start.

I don't really think that's a huge issue though.  McGowan will have another spring start to stretch out a bit before the season starts, but the Jays will also have a bit of an easy schedule for the first month.  Not easy from a competition standpoint, per se-- they face the Rays, Yankees, and Red Sox off the top of my head for at least 10 of their first 20 games, and I think the Orioles are scattered in there somewhere as well-- but rather, they simply have fewer games to play.  The Jays open their season this coming Monday (!), but then don't play a single Monday game until May.  That's four offdays in their first month of games.

However they want to use those extra days off is their prerogative.  It looks like the Jays will be carrying 8 relievers to start the year, thanks to options and whatnot, so the Jays should have plenty in the tank as far as the bullpen is concerned.  Jeffress, Redmond, Rogers and McGowan are all out of options, if I remember correctly, and all four can certainly qualify as swingmen or long relief if needed (they were trying to stretch Jeffress out for a while at the start of the spring).  JA Happ's DL-ing should actually open enough spots for all of those guys to make it, rather than only three of them, at least until Happ comes back, which would be April 8th at the earliest if his DL stint is backdated to yesterday.  With all of those guys in the bullpen, they can go ahead and watch McGowan's progress and let him continue at his own pace, with the pillows of Rogers, Redmond and Happ there, just in case McGowan throws too many pitches early in a game.

If McGowan loses his spot to Happ upon Happ's return from the DL, then so be it, we don't have to worry about anything.  If not though, McGowan will have plenty of time to stretch out by then, and the Jays have lots of time to keep him fresh with all the offdays.  If McGowan is staying in the rotation, he can be piggybacked, whether it's with Todd Redmond, Esmil Rogers, or the returning Happ.  Beyond that, an extra offday here and there will allow Dickey and Buerhle to pitch on regular rest in the event of someone (i.e. Morrow or McGowan) needing to be skipped or moved back a day.

My suggestion is to stick Dickey behind Morrow in the continuum (1 after 5) and Buerhle behind McGowan.  This way, if either McGowan or Morrow need an extra day to recover, the two rubberest arms are the ones moving up a day.

As such, here's my rotation:

1. Dickey
2. Hutchison
3. McGowan
4. Buehrle
5. Morrow

Drew Hutchison, Todd Redmond Primed for Huge Seasons

They had fucking well better be.

If you haven't yet heard, the Atlanta Braves have emerged from various woodworks to sign Ervin Santana, pulling the rug from under our collective footsies.  And I mean, all things considered, I'd have probably signed in Atlanta too in his situation, so I don't think I'm pointing any more of my scorn towards Santana than I typically would.  It's a business, afterall, and that business is made up of many individual independent contractors such as Santana.

It's not the $14MM vs. $14.1MM that's the issue here, because Santana probably has a better shot at success in Atlanta than he does in Toronto.  AA, via Gregor Chisolm, all but confirms that Santana wanted to pitch in the NL, which really makes total sense, given Santana's desire for a 1-year deal.  Atlanta is one of two good teams in the NL East, which makes the competition a whole lot weaker.  The idea is to get something closer to that 5-year, $100MM contract that he was looking for, just a year later, and there's a much better chance at him getting that when he's artificially inflating his numbers against a team like Miami.  I still don't see him getting that kind of contract, even with another 3-WAR season, but he becomes a lot more likely to get 4/$60 or something, probably beating Ubaldo and Garza and all those guys in the end.  And of course, he might just lay another steaming turd this year, but I think that's a lot less likely in the NL, rather than when he's facing the Rays, Orioles, Yankee's outfield, and Jays.

As for the Jays... yep.  Good offseason.  I assume Santana would be a Jay if it weren't for the injuries to Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy, so this would maybe have been a totally different post if those injuries showed up, say, a few days from now instead of a few days ago.  Having said that, it would have been something completely different if AA had taken his shit and wiped a month ago, so the Braves' situation should be totally irrelevant given that we're halfway through the fucking preseason.

All things considered, it's pretty clear that AA is pretty good at building up a farm system, whether it's through trade or through the draft, and he does a pretty good job of trading for under-appreciated guys who have fallen out of favor with their organizations or management or whatever.  Everything else could probably use some work.

Re-Updated Again: Santana signs in Toronto?

1:00 ET-

Haha.  Enrique Rojas is telling us that he'll sign in Toronto by 4:00 ET if nobody better comes along.  Baltimore should really be jumping on this right now.

12:30 ET-

We're the mystery team!  Free agent!  Improvement!  Successful offseason!

I don't mind this.  I would have obviously liked Ubaldo more, but it's tough to argue with a 1-year deal.

I wonder what this means for JA Happ.  He was apparently shut down for a few days with back issues, and this probably has nothing to do with that, but if Happ is suddenly shut down for longer than that, this might be a knee-jerk to that.  I'm kind of expecting Happ to be DL'ed to start the season, which will allow for a little while to let the out-of-options guys settle in to place the way Cecil and Jeffress did last year.

Santana's always been a bit homer-prone, which is a pretty major wrinkle in the Skydome, but I think I read something about a two-seamer that's been getting him more groundballs or something?  I dunno.  He's projected, by and large, to be right around league average, and should provide somewhere in the vicinity of 200 innings, which, judging by last year, would be a fucking godsend, even at a 4.00-ish fip.

Given the state of the offense of this team, I think just having guys that aren't Todd Redmond or Chien-Ming Wang go out there and throw, even if they aren't dominant, should work out pretty nicely.  It's not that Dickey or Buehrle or Santana are especially awesome, but they should be able to keep the game within reach and let Edwin mash enough to keep things close.  Imagine a situation where the Jays get 600 innings out of three starters?!?

Santana is Dominican, by the way.

11:00 ET Update:

A couple of things I didn't mention:

• Despite Jon Heyman saying that it's down to the Jays, O's and Rockies, I think the Mariners make the most sense for Santana.  There are all the reasons provided, but beyond that, Seattle has traditionally been a pretty good pitchers park, though it was fairly neutral this past season.  I feel like I read something about them bringing the fences in a bit at some point last offseason, but that's forever ago and who cares?  The main thing that we can take away here is that pitching in Seattle is going to be a lot better for Santana's numbers than pitching in, say, Toronto, Baltimore or Colorado would be, especially when you sort that park factors link by HR's.
• Any team that signs Santana is obviously taking a bit of a risk, by forfeiting a draft pick.  As mentioned already, this would be a 2nd rounder in Toronto's case, and a third rounder in both Baltimore and Seattle's case.  Giving up a pick for one year of Santana seems sort of reckless, but there is upside to it.  If Santana performs well enough this year to earn a qualifying offer and rejects it, the team that signs him for 2013 will be in effect turning that 2nd or 3rd rounder in to a late first rounder in next year's draft.  Obviously, if Santana accepts a qualifying offer next year, or just plain sucks enough to not warrant his team offering him one, then yeah, you blew it.  Baltimore and Seattle really should be all over this, with the hope of turning a third rounder now in to a first rounder later, as there is significantly less value lost in potentially losing that with a 3rd rounder than with a 2nd.

Original Post

I assume we'll know who that mystery team is before I'm finished writing this, but whatever.  Ervin Santana is going to sign a 1-year deal worth $14MM with a yet-to-be-named AL team.  I take this to mean that the deal is done and not announced yet, but I suppose the way that it's worded, it could be that he's just down to a team or two before finally making up his mind.  Given that there's a $14MM value there, I'd assume a deal is done though and that there will be a further announcement shortly.

[Update- Jon Heyman suggests that it's between the Jays, Orioles, and possibly Rockies]

Santana said the other day that he's just going to forget about looking for 3, 4, or 5 years and just focus on a 1-year deal that will allow him to sign a big contract next year, when there's a better market for his services.  It's not that there was a poor market this year, it's just that he was looking for 5 years and $100MM at the start of the offseason.  Sure, you can ask for that and hope that someone gives the maximum payout possible for your services, but you probably shouldn't hold out for that kind of deal after Ubaldo signs for half of that.

Santana makes sense for quite a few teams, especially on a 1-year deal.  Seattle is going to miss both Hisashi Iwakuma and Taijuan Walker for at least the first bit of the season, plus they've already surrendered a draft pick after signing Robinson Cano.  I believe that their first-rounder was protected, so this would mean that they're giving up a third rounder if they sign Santana.  A 1-year deal works here, given that they're probably going for it, missing some pitching help, and another year of development would be good for their ridiculously good minor league pitching depth.

Santana also makes sense for Texas, given their location on the win curve, as well as Derek Holland's injury status.  We also can't be sure about Matt Harrison, who missed all of last year to injury.

Of course, the Jays make sense.  Brandon Morrow can't be relied upon to throw 200 innings at this point, JA Happ is hurting and might not be very good, and the 5th spot in the rotation is going to be made up of a battle between several question marks.  Santana could lead to some stability, could allow the Jays to further stabilize the rotation behind Dickey and Buerhle, and, as mentioned countless times before, would only cost them their third draft pick, which is a second rounder.  Santana could, of course, be flipped at the deadline if things go south as well, effectively trading a 2nd round draft pick for something of use.

The Orioles make sense, given the way their offseason has shaped up.  They signed Ubaldo Jimenez and Nelson Cruz, so they've already tossed two draft picks in the fire.  They would forfeit their 3rd rounder for Santana, meanwhile going for it while they still have Chris Davis and Matt Weiters under contract for one more year, before both hit free agency and likely leave Baltimore forever.

Stay tuned!

Needs More Muni

I should note that I've previously been pro-Goins at 2B, and have made posts defending the idea of handing him the job until he proves that he can't handle it.  If I remember correctly, those posts also assumed that the Jays would be devoting their offseason to finding pitching help, not standing there holding their dicks.

I know it's fucking spring training, but Munenori Kawasaki had two hits today against Pittsburgh, and that's entirely enough for me.

It's time to hand Munenori Kawasaki the starting 2nd base job.

In fact, there really shouldn't be a question here.  I mean, yeah, find a real 2nd baseman.  But if not, Muni.  Here's what we know:

• Ryan Goins is good at defense, and not good at offense.
• Maicer Izturis is not good at defense, and, well, isn't good at offense either.  I understand, given his contract situation, if the Jays want to make sure he isn't at least somewhat useful before they DFA him to the depths of hell, so he can have the bench role.
• Munenori Kawasaki is good at defense, and at least offers some sort of positive, respectable contribution with the bat.  He walks a lot, and sees a lot of pitches, which is more than you can say about Goins or Izturis.

Simply, Munenori Kawasaki is the best option at 2B, and the more I think about it, the clearer it gets.  That's all fine and good, but then you read the money quote from John Gibbons today:

I said this all last year, when he's on the field, good things usually happen.  When he's at-bat, he gives you a good at-bat, fundamentally, he's a sound defensive player.  On the bases, he's got real good instincts.  Just a good all-around player.

By gum, he's right.  And if Gibby likes him, I likes him.  Walks, basically.

From a projection standpoint, all three stand to offer right around the same value-- in the area of 0.7 WAR (though given how awful Izturis looked last year, I question how they have him being a + defender)-- so it probably isn't going to be a huge difference, no matter who gets the job.  It's the same destination, there are just three different routes we can take to get there.

But isn't part of baseball-- the non-sabermetric part, I suppose-- about the journey, and not the destination?  I mean, I can't make a sabermetric argument that says Muni should be the guy over either Goins or Izturis without having some sort of bias or conveniently neglecting some info somewhere.  I can't see in to the future or anything, so if we had this season take place in three separate parallel universes, where each guy got the job in their own respective one, I can't honestly tell you which is the best and which is the worst.  But dammit, if they're all projecting to offer the same value, how is this

 the odd man out?

Can't be.

I mean, I understand that Ryan Goins is 25 or something, and that the other guys are in their 30's.  I get it.  You want a guy who can be the 2B for years to come, and Goins is the only one who has a shot at improving, given age and typical aging curves or whatever.  They want to give him the job just in case he turns in to something, or let him fail before he goes to Korea to play, a la Eric Thames.

But come on.  It's Ryan Goins.  28 strikeouts, 2 walks, .092 iso.  It's not like he's 20 and struggled against big league pitching the first time he came up either-- he had a .311 wOBA in AAA last year, and a .336 wOBA in AA in 2012.  That's not all that good, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he sucks at hitting against big league pitching, in the AL East no less.

I'm not really a big believer in intangibles, mostly because there's no way to measure them.  I won't argue that they don't exist, or that some guy being really funny and fan-favoritey doesn't have some sort of effect on a team, because it probably does.  I'd way rather, though, have a guy who is good at baseball and a solid hitter than have someone who stretches upside-down and keeps everybody loose with his antics.  Unfortunately, the former isn't really an option right now, which makes Muni the best of a bad situation.

Speaking of options, I think Goins has options.  Send him down.

Banking on Guys

That's a thing people say, right?  To bank on someone?  Like to rely on them?  K.

Just using Fangraphs here, since it's the first website I checked, but the Jays, as of right now, project to have an 82-80 record this year.  These projections, as far as I can tell, pretty much assign full projections of individual players and smash them all together to make a team projection, but I'm not expert.  Despite that, I do know that the individual projections that make them up take a lot of things in to account (such as past performance, player comparisons, age, regression of unsustainable stats like babip or HR/FB ratio) but they also correct for non-individual things like run differential.  These projection systems, for the most part, are pretty accurate to within a couple of wins a significant percentage of the time, but, as we may remember from last season, can occasionally be way, way off.

The Jays, by and large, were favorites to run away with the AL East in 2013, and were being thrown in to some early World Series favorite discussions, yet we know how that turned out.  I'm sure if you were to go back and look at a post from this time last year (go ahead, I'll wait.  It's only like 40 posts anyway), you'd see something that suggests the Jays lining up for 90-some odd wins.  ZiPS, which is my preferred projection system, had the Jays at 88 wins (45 WAR) last year, and whiffed big time.  Of course, 10 of those projected WAR were from Ricky Romero, Josh Johnson and Brandon Morrow, so you see where we're headed here.

Alex Anthopoulos, as you must be aware of by now, neglected to do much of anything this offseason.  JP Arencibia was replaced by Dioner Navarro, Emilio Bonifacio was kind of replaced by Ryan Goins but not really, Rajai Davis is probably going to be replaced by Anthony Gose or Moises Sierra or something, and then Ubaldo Jimenez nope on the rotation.

I mean, yeah, injuries kind of piled up, and Maicer Izturis was supposed to quite a bit better than the worst player in baseball last year, but (1) injuries happen to every team, (2) health, to an extent, is a skill, and (3) some things worked out alright too.

If the three above statements are true, then GM's should:

1. Stop assembling injury prone players
2. Have a backup plan for injuries
3. Not use up roster spots on guys like Mark DeRosa, Aaron Laffey, Ramon Ortiz, who aren't going to work out alright.

I'm getting a little astray from the point that I didn't yet make here, which is that by not improving the rotation, which ranked 26th in total combined WAR, 29th in combined ERA, 28th in combined FIP, 28th in combined xFIP in 2013, and 28th in innings pitched, one of the following must be true for 2014: 

• AA is banking on some combo of a return to form from some rotation guys (Dickey, Morrow, Romero?) and a coming of age from others (Drabek, Stroman, Hutchison, maybe Sanchez? Nolin?)
• AA is expecting even more from his offense (i.e. similar production from Bautista, Edwin, Rasmus, Lind, with more from Lawrie, Reyes, and Melky), with the hope to offset the rotation woes.
• AA's bank is outta money all of a sudden.  The plan was to go buy a free agent pitcher and suddenly, the money's at Fred's house.

I'm kind of inclined to believe bits and pieces of all three of those, actually.  If it took that long for Ubaldo to find 4/$50MM, especially with reports suggesting that the O's decided just the other day to up it to a 4th year, the Jays probably could have had him at a pretty similar price if they wanted to offer it at some point over the last two weeks or so. Similarily, if all it took was a fourth year at $12ish, for a team spending $130MM or so already, and with a bunch of that money coming off the books before that 4th guaranteed year, no less, so maybe they really just didn't want him.

I guess, in a roundabout way, I'm trying to bring this back to the thing about projections taking some things in to account, and not taking in others.  Again, you can look at every team and find an exception or two that we'd never find in projection systems, but I dunno.  This thing, I guess:

A lot of those things aren't accounted for in projection systems.  So, where do we go?  Using ZiPS, one by one, I guess:

• Dickey was complaining about upper back/neck issues for the early part of the season, and said that the WBC sort of messed him up as well.  Now, he says, he'll be more ready to go early on in the year with a no pain and a full spring with his team.  He also doesn't have to pitch with the fear of throwing a knuckleball towards JP Arencibia in the event of something going wrong with Josh Thole.  ZiPS expects 3 WAR out of Dickey, and I'll not argue.
• Mark Buehrle is projected to supply 2 wins and 168 innings.  That's just how projections work.  Most people don't throw 200 innings every year the way Buehrle does.  Most people see their production drop off by half a WAR per season after a certain age.  Most people get hurt and spend time on the DL at least once in their careers.  Even at 35, I'd probably use a pen to write that Buehrle will throw closer to 200 innings than 168.  After this though, we're getting optimistic.
• Brandon Morrow missed three quarters of the season last year, and didn't look good for the other quarter.  He was clearly pitching hurt, but still put up some ugly numbers, which do fuck around with projections (2013 is weighed more heavily than 2012, which is weighed more heavily than 2011).  Still, he isn't exactly a model of health, and shouldn't be relied upon to throw 200 innings until he does it a couple times.  ZiPS likes him for 2.2 WAR and 127 innings, and frankly, we should be thrilled if we get that.
• JA Happ got clocked in the head by a baseball last year and missed a bunch of time.  Most people don't get clocked in the head by a baseball and miss a bunch of time, so it's hard to say what we should be expecting from him.  It's certainly fair to say that he would have been in the rotation all year had he not been clocked in the head by a baseball last year and missed a bunch of time, but projection systems take in to account injury, not head clockings.  Had he missed time with an arm or shoulder injury, we might have a different story.  Had he pitched fewer innings thanks to being relegated to the bullpen or minors we'd have a different story as well.  He probably won't be clocked in the head with a baseball this year, because most pitchers aren't clocked in the head with a baseball every year.  Happ is still a mediocre pitcher, but innings pitched is a component of WAR, which is useful since every inning he throws is one that Ramon Ortiz doesn't.
• Marcus Stroman is a rookie with 0 big league experience.  If he makes the opening day rotation, he shouldn't be expected to do a whole hell of a lot.  ZiPS has him at 114 innings and 1.2 WAR.  There's tons of upside there, but it's unfair to expect much from him.  Still, I think the absence of a Santana or Jimenez means that Stroman is pitching as a starter, and is going to be in the bigs before the all-star break.  I don't necessarily expect Stroman to start the season in Toronto, for development reasons, for service time reasons, and the simple fact that there are some guys without options, and others that are probably ready to go without any extra development in the minors.  They might let Stroman work stuff out in the minors for a few starts and take a flyer on some other guys in the meantime. For example:
• Drew Hutchison, Kyle Drabek, Dustin McGowan, Esmil Rogers, Sean Nolin, Ricky Romero, Todd Redmond, Deck McGuire, Chad Jenkins, or someone else.  Those names aren't all making the rotation.  They won't all get to be the fifth guy in the rotation, and some might not even be Blue Jays by opening day, but a year of healing for some, development for others certainly helps.  Redmond will have to pitch better than he did last year in order to be the guy who gets the call when a pitcher is needed.  Nolin is better than 1.1IP of 40 ERA ball.  Romero won't be 6th on the depth chart unless he pitches well out of the gate.  The depth is better, and if someone comes up and Chien Ming Wang's a start or two-- I use that as a verb despite the fact that 3 of his 7 starts were downright reasonable-- there should be a shorter leash, as opposed to this past year, where there was no option for a while other than to stick with him.  This year's next best option ought to be a lot better than last year's next best option, and it's going to take more injuries to get down to the riffraff 

As far as hitters go, I think we can expect more of the same from Edwin, and most everything else has some variables.

• Melky Cabrera is pretty much the whole reason I decided to make this post.  He had a tumor on his spine that limited his running.  Defensively, we should hopefully see a guy that can actually run around a little bit out there, even if his speed-power or power-power doesn't return.  Even if he ages at the normal rate from a true-talent standpoint, I don't see why that power or mobility wouldn't return at least a bit.  ZiPS has him at 575 PA's and 1.2 WAR, and any other projection system is reasonably close to that, but again, if we can blame the tumor then we should be able to expect more.  His batted ball profile this year was pretty much in tune with his career numbers, but his power numbers were way, way down.  At the absolute worst, he's in a contract year so he should be awesome.
• Adam Lind's projection probably isn't taking in to account the fact that he won't see many lefties this year.  I assume the 524 PA's that he's projected for (ZiPS) consists of good performance against righties and bad performance against lefties, so that needs to be weighted differently, whether that's higher value for him or for some RHB getting more lefty time.
• Colby Rasmus will probably take a step back, given his babip spike and better-than-normal defense.  If he doesn't, though...!
• Maicer Izturis probably isn't a -2 WAR player, and if he is, the Jays probably just release/DFA him.
• Can we expect full-ish seasons from Jose Bautista and Jose Reyes?  Is Dioner Navarro going to be able to handle a fuller workload behind the plate?
• 24 year old's with 1100+ plate appearances tend to get pretty good eventually.  Brett Lawrie is projected to be worth 3.5 WAR per ZiPS, and something like that on most other systems..

Obviously things aren't work out perfectly for everyone, but I think it's pretty clear that AA's mind was made up entering the offseason-- the 2013 iteration of the team wasn't bad, it just couldn't stay on the field.  I'm not so sure.  Yeah, 2013 was pretty unfortunate, but even if this is the exact same team that 2013's version was supposed to be-- and it isn't; Reyes is a year older, Bautista is a year older, Dickey, Buehrle, Edwin... all a year older, all a year past their theoretical primes, wherever the fuck they may be-- injuries and performance rates are going to have to be more preferable than the typical year.  And remember, health is a skill.  Morrow, Reyes, Lawrie and Bautista are all odds-on to miss at least some time. This was a bad offseason.

Update- Yeah, This.