Just how good are Romero and Morrow?

The back half of the Jays rotation is largely up for grabs.  Alvarez, Cecil, and McGowan are presumed to be the front-runners, but guys like Kyle Drabek, Drew Hutchison and yes, even Aaron Laffey, could be in the mix.

The only spots that are guaranteed at this point are the #1 and #2 slots, which belong to Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow.  Presumably, they’re the anchors, the aces-in-waiting.  But are the Jays' top 2 starters really good enough to be considered in the same breath with the Lester-Beckett, Sabathia-Hughes, and Price-Shields combos that populate the rest of the AL East?  Let's compare 2011 stats:

Romero: 2.9 fWAR, 3.80 XFIP

Morrow: 3.4 fWAR, 3.53 XFIP

Lester: 3.7 fWAR, 3.62 XFIP

Beckett: 4.3 fWAR, 3.58 XFIP

Sabathia: 7.1 fWAR 3.02 XFIP

Hughes(2010): 2.5 fWAR 4.13 XFIP

Price: 4.7 fWAR, 3.32 XFIP

Shields:  4.9 fWAR, 3.25 XFIP

The fWAR and xFIP numbers come from Fangraphs, an excellent resource.  You can learn more there, but in a nutshell, Fangraphs WAR is based on fielding-independent pitching, or FIP, which measures how a pitcher performs by just looking at what he can control - namely, strikeouts, walks, hit-by-pitch, and home runs.  xFIP is a similar measure that 'normalizes' the home run rate to the league average, to reflect the perception that home run rates can be somewhat random.

So with that out of the way - if we look at fWAR alone, the comparisons aren’t flattering.  Romero and Morrow produced 6.3 fWAR between them in 2011, trailing Lester/Beckett (8 fWAR), Sabathia/Hughes (I used the 2010 Philip Hughes numbers) (9.3 fWAR) and Price/Shields (9.6 fWAR).  If you look back over the last 2 or 3 seasons, those other pairings have averaged about 9 fWAR per season.  Can we expect Romero and Morrow to reach this level?  Well, maybe.  Romero’s walk rate has dropped for each year he’s been in the league, from 10.3% in 2009 to 9.3% in 2010 to 8.7% in 2011.  Meanwhile, his strikeout rate has remained pretty constant.  Romero’s high XFIP was a lot higher than his ERA was in 2011; this reflects  a pretty low BABIP given up (.248, that will probably rise), and doesn’t account for the jump in his home runs allowed per 9 innings (to 1.04, and that will hopefully drop).  Romero improved his strand rate to 79% in 2011, a good number which may or may not be luck-driven.  The 2010 Romero was a 4-fWAR player, and I think 4-5 fWAR is probably a reasonable expectation to have for him in 2012.  Romero is 27 and should be entering his peak, but I don’t think his ceiling is much higher than what we have seen over the last 2 years.   If nothing else, we can cross our fingers for a third consecutive year in which Romero improves his WHIP, ERA, and strikeout totals.

Brandon Morrow, on the other hand, is a tantalizing mass of untapped potential.  You’ve heard all this before:  Huge strikeout rates, but often the victim of a high BABIP allowed and his own inability to strand runners (65.5% last year).  All that adds up to a XFIP well below his actual ERA… and explains why Morrow's sabermetric numbers are comparable with Romero’s, despite inferior traditional numbers like wins and ERA.   An improvement in on-field performance by Morrow doesn’t necessarily mean his XFIP and fWAR numbers will move much.  However, where Morrow can improve is by logging more innings.  Morrow has been transitioning from reliever to starter over the last 2 years, increasing his innings each year, and should be able to pitch 200+ innings this year.  More innings at the same level of performance will mean more value – perhaps not a lot more value, but some.

So, the answer to my question in the second paragraph is “Not quite”.  Romero has put up increasingly solid years, but he's not at the elite level yet - it would take a jump in his performance level for him to put up a 6 or 7 WAR season like Lester and Beckett have done, and like Sabathia does almost routinely.  Morrow has established a solid 3-WAR performance base over the last 2 years, but unlike Romero, he appears to have room for improvement.  I can see him reaching the 6 WAR level if he puts it all together, but until then, the top of the Jays' rotation can't be considered a match for that of any of their main divisional rivals.  

The return of.... Fearless Spring Training Predictions!

The spring schedule sort of snuck up on me this year, and these predictions are a bit tardy as a result.  The Jays are already 2-1 (which means nothing, it’s spring), and have shown a lot of offense already (which means almost nothing, although it’s nice to see Snider and Rasmus hitting.  If nothing else, it keeps their doubters quiet for a few more weeks).  Think back to 2011, when the Jays were shut out a few times to open the spring schedule… and it’s definitely nice to see some runs.

There aren’t many positions up for grabs this year, and I already detailed the battle for bench spots.  That should be entertaining, but ultimately it will be won by those players who don’t have options left.  Still, there are some questions that have yet to be answered, and undoubtedly a few surprises between now and opening day.  Including:

1.  One of the Jays’ top four (presumptive) starters – Romero, Morrow, Alvarez, and/or Cecil – will be injured and unavailable by opening day, opening the door for one of the young guns.

2.  Dustin McGowan will NOT get hurt (at least, not seriously) and will make the team as a 4^th/5^th starter.

3.  The Jays will make a transaction (trade, free agent acquisition) that affects the makeup of the 25-man roster, between now and the season opener.  Call it a hunch, but there are too many players for the available roster spots, right now.

4.  We won’t know it for a while yet, but Jesse Litsch has thrown his last pitch as a Blue Jay.  Fare thee well, catlike, pink, round and efficient one.

5.  Kelly Johnson will get innings in left field, Edwin Encarnacion will get innings at third base, and Brett Lawrie will get slightly injured.  Hysteria will ensue.

5.  The Jays will finish the spring schedule more than 1 game (taking into account the 3 games played already) above .500.  Which means… nothing at all.

7.  The Jays will come north with an 8-man bullpen.  Not sure who’ll be the odd man out among the position players, though.

8.  Adam Lind will struggle through the spring schedule, and the chorus of his doubters will grow louder.

9.  Kyle Drabek will win back a spot on the team – to fill in for an injury in the rotation at start of the regular season.  We’ll see what Drabek can do with that opportunity.

10.  Finally: Travis Snider will win the left field job.  Maybe not decisively, maybe with some controversy... but unless he's utterly terrible over the next 4 weeks, Snider gets another shot to prove he belongs in the bigs.

Three reasons why I'm not excited by the second wild card spot

1.  Historically, if there had been a second wild card in the AL from the time the first one was added, the Jays would have won it once – in 1998.  It may surprise you that the Jays haven’t been the 5^th-best team in the AL very often – at least, not if you judge a team’s quality by won-lost record alone, and ignore the division they play in.

2.  A second wild card is obviously great if you are the 5^th playoff team, because the alternative is no playoffs at all.  However, if you are the 4^th playoff team – i.e. the first wild card – a second wild card is a huge negative.  The two wild cards will play each other in a 1-game playoff before the winner advances to the divisional round.  That means that the chance of making the divisional round is immediately halved for the 1^st wild card (they got there automatically, before).  Winning a wild card doesn’t put you on even ground with a division winner, the way it used to.  

2a.  It should also be noted that while the two wild-card teams are using their #1 starters and emptying their bullpens in order to win the wild-card game (as they should, in an elimination game), the division winners are resting their starters and bullpens for an extra day.  The wild card team that makes the divisional round is therefore at an additional handicap; they won’t have the services of their top starter until game 3, at best, and may have used up key relievers in the wild card game as well.

3.  The current AL power structure.  For a long time – 1996 to 2007, or so – the Jays had a legitimate complaint about the single wild card:  That they had to finish ahead of one of NY or Boston, 2 of baseball’s biggest spenders, in order to make the playoffs as a wild card.  A second wild-card in that timeframe would have been much more of a boon than it is now, with Tampa Bay a perennial AL East power… and it’s quite likely that the AL West runner-up (California or Texas) will likely be in position for one wild-card berth, too.

So, again… I’m not expecting a second wild-card berth to automatically spell the end of the Jays' playoff drought.  I mean, why not go the whole hog: Instead of two wildcard teams, have FOUR, seed them 1-4, have 1 play 4 and 2 play 3, with the winners of those games playing the next day, to see who makes it to the divisional round.  Sounds pretty exciting to me.

Failing that, realign the AL into 2 divisions, with 2 division winners and 2 wildcards, please.

Musical chairs, infield and outfield

Going into spring training, there’s much more certainty as to who the Jays positional starters will be, compared with recent springs.  There’s no longer any talk of moving Bautista to third base, or whether Encarnacion should play there (or at first base), whether Lind can manage to defend at first base, etc, etc.  The only starting job that is really up for grabs is the left field position (as it has been for the last few years).  That’s a subject worthy of its own post, when I have a better handle on that particular contest.

The bench jobs, on the other hand, are up in the air and involve a lot of insoluble conflicts due to the limits of a 25-man roster.  If the Jays go with a 7-man bullpen (and I remain unconvinced that they will do this; they carried 8 relievers for much of 2011), there are 4 bench spots available (25, less 5 starting pitchers, 9 offensive starters, 7 relievers).  One of those spots goes to a catcher (i.e. Mathis), and the other 3 (or perhaps two) go to some combination of:

Ben Francisco, OF

Rajai Davis, OF

Mike McCoy, IF-OF

Luis Valbuena, IF

Omar Vizquel, IF

In situations like this (5 players, 3 jobs), the obvious approach is for the three players who have the best springs make the team.  But there are some extenuating circumstances here.  To begin with, Luis Valbuena and Rajai Davis are out of options, so if they don’t make the team, the Jays stand a good chance of losing them altogether.  Alex Anthopoulos has, in the past, moved heaven and earth to avoid losing out-of-options players (Jo-Jo Reyes, anyone?).  So one would think that Davis and Valbuena have a leg up in the battle for the bench.  Worthy of note:  Anthopoulos has stated that the Jays will carry 5 outfielders this year.

Davis, of course, was acquired last year to be a 4^th outfielder, but got a lot of starts in CF after Wells was traded and prior to the acquisition of Colby Rasmus.  Unfortunately for Rajai and the Jays, his performance was disappointing, which makes him hard to trade… and another key Anthopoulos trait is that he doesn’t sell low.  However, if Rajai only plays once or twice a week in the outfield and otherwise just serves as a pinch-runner, how will he be able to rebuild his reputation and trade value?  I don’t think he’s going anywhere soon.

Valbuena was picked up from the Indians organization after Cleveland gave up on him, and before the Jays were sure that Kelly Johnson would be coming back.  So at first glance, Luis looks expendable… and I’d believe him to be the odd man out, except for three things:  he’s just 26 and still a possible asset (see Wahoos on First's take on Valbuena here) and, as mentioned, he’s out of options.  It would be un-Anthopouloslike for the Jays to go out of their way to acquire a young, once highly regarded player whose team has lost faith in him, one who has killed triple-A pitching, but struggled in the majors (remind you of anyone?), and then let him go 4 months later without him playing an inning for the team.

Mike McCoy, we know.  Can (and has) played all over the infield and outfield.  Good speed, decent (if not great) defender. Will take a walk (Mikey Mac’s 2011 OBP was better than those of Rajai Davis, JP Arencibia, and Travis Snider, despite his hitting .198) but doesn’t hit much at all. Can pinch-run, steal a base, and back up a lot of positions, but is usually a black hole at the plate.  McCoy is the most versatile of the players on this list, but his age (30) and terrible hitting hurt his chances to make the team.  He also has options remaining, and could therefore be stashed in Vegas until needed.

In my mind, the acquisition of Omar Vizquel only makes sense if he was brought in to be a spring training mentor for Escobar and Hechevarria, and nothing more.  Vizquel is an extremely good defender at shortstop, but has very little experience at other positions (and hasn’t been excellent defensively at 2B and 3B when he's played those positions).  He’s not going to take the shortstop job from Yunel Escobar, and he’s not really versatile enough to be an infield generalist as a backup.  And finally, he’s 45 in April.  Unlike the guys he’s competing with, his best years are definitely behind him.  I’d rather the Jays spend a roster spot on McCoy or Valbuena, two guys who may develop into better players (or trade chips) over time, as opposed to Vizquel, who’s probably months away from retirement.

Finally, there’s Ben Francisco.  I was confused when the Jays traded for Francisco last fall – they already had a lot of outfielders – and felt that his acquisition meant that someone out of Thames, Snider, or Davis would be traded.  Well, there’s been no trade to this point, and the Jays still have a lot of outfielders.  But here’s the thing:  Francisco has a career OPS of .768 versus lefthanded pitching (and .759 against righties).  Neither of Snider nor Thames can hit lefthanded pitching very well, so it’s possible that Francisco is intended to be a platoon mate of whoever wins the Snider-Thames LF battle.  Otherwise, Francisco doesn’t offer much in the way of defensive value, certainly not much more than Davis does.  But once again, it would be very unlike Alex Anthopoulos for him to send Francisco packing, four months after acquiring him.  

So at the end of the day, I see the competition shaking out like this:

Francisco makes the team as a backup outfielder/platoon player in left field, with a chance to play pretty regularly.

Davis makes the team as a pinch-runner and 5^th outfielder.  The Jays will trade him if they can; they’re paying him a lot for what his role will be.

Valbuena makes the team as a reserve infielder, and a possible succession plan if Kelly Johnson leaves after this season.

Vizquel is swapped to Cleveland on March 30 so he can retire as an Indian.

And McCoy continues to pile up the frequent flyer miles between Vegas and Toronto.  Sorry, Mikey Mac… it’s a numbers game.

The rebound guys

The upcoming spring training battle for the left field position has gotten a lot of attention, and will be watched closely.  Many outcomes are possible - the job could go to the incumbent, Eric Thames, or Travis Snider could finally break through and definitively claim the spot after 3 years of attempts, and there is even a small chance, I suppose, that Rajai Davis or Ben Francisco could win the starter’s job.  But regardless of how that battle turns out (and as interesting as it is, for those of us who have been following the development of Snider and Thames and have hopes for their future career success), the outcome in itself won’t make or break the 2012 season.  Regardless of who wins, he won’t have a terrible 2012 season – quite simply because he would then be replaced by one of the other contenders.

On the other hand, there are 3 players whose performance may be critical to the 2012 Jays, and who don’t have an obvious, capable alternative on the roster:  Colby Rasmus, Brett Cecil, and Adam Lind.  All of these players struggled last year, and bounce-back seasons from any or all of them would be a huge boost for the team.

Colby Rasmus played 35 games for the Blue Jays last year, and has become something of a polarizing figure among Jays fans.  His detractors often point to Rasmus’s struggles at the plate with the Jays, and there are other, non-sample-size driven complaints about Colby.  He’s said to be difficult to coach, to be too influenced by his father’s playing advice, and to have mentally checked out near the end of the 2011 season.  Some of those things may be true (Rasmus addresses his 2011 problems in this link), to some extent, but the criticisms levied at Rasmus tend to ignore some key facts:  Rasmus is still just 25, and has a career OPS of .759 – even including his 2011 efforts, which were considered disappointing.  .759 is 100 points better than anyone else the Jays started in CF in 2011.  Even if that’s all the Jays get in 2012, that’s still about the same as what Vernon Wells averaged over his last 4 years in Toronto – at a fraction of the price.  

Brett Cecil showed up at spring training having lost a lot of weight and declaring himself to be – wait for it – in the best shape of his life.  That’s one of the biggest cliché’s in sport, but the thinking is that a better conditioned Cecil may be able to produce more consistent velocity, and thereby return to his 2010 form, a season in which he won 15 games.  But here’s the dirty little secret:  2011 Brett might not have been all that different from 2010 Brett.  Oh, sure, 2011 produced a 4-11 record and 4.73 ERA vs. 2010’s 15-7 and 4.22 ERA… but Cecil’s strikeout/walk ratios, WHIP, and innings pitched/start numbers were almost identical over the 2 seasons.  BABIP was about the same, too.  So, what changed?  Well, the ground ball rate dropped, and the home run per fly ball rate went way up in 2011… leading to a FIP (fielding independent pitching) score of 5.10 in 2011, about a run higher than 2010's FIP.  In other words, a rebound by Cecil may depend less on renewed velocity or giving up fewer hits or walks, and more on getting ground balls and keeping flyballs in the park.  I’m not sure if it follows that a fitter Cecil will be able to do those things.

And finally, there’s Adam Lind.  All offseason, Jays fans have dreamed about Prince Fielder, fantasized about somehow prying Joey Votto from the Reds, and mulled the idea of Edwin Encarnacion at 1^st base – all with the aim of replacing Lind at first base.  It’s true, Adam Lind has struggled for the last 2 seasons – but the interesting thing is how he’s struggled differently over those 2 years.  For example, a recurring complaint about Lind is that he can’t hit lefthanded pitching.  That was true in 2010 – Lind had a .829 OPS against righties, and an unbelievably awful .341 against lefties.  But last season, the split was just .771/.639 – noticeable, but not awful, and actually better than the .992/.780 split in Lind’s Silver Slugger 2009 season.   So Lind isn’t an automatic out against lefthanders all the time, as some of his detractors would claim.  But on the other hand, his OPS against righthanders fell in 2011, largely offsetting the gain in OPS vs lefties.  That might have been due to fatigue due to the stresses of playing first daily, or to the back injury that apparently plagued Lind through the second half of the 2011 season.  Lind’s first half numbers in 2011 were a lot better than his second half numbers, lending credence to those explanations for Lind’s disappointing 2011.   Bottom line:  Adam Lind is capable of being more than a platoon 1B, and if he stays healthy, there’s reason to believe that he could again be an 800-900 OPS hitter.  

Is it just me?

Or is it not really all that impressive to see that the Jays have 4 players in Baseball America's top 100 prospects , or  5 players on Keith Law's top 100 prospects list, or 5 players on John Sickels' top 100 pitching prospects list, etc, etc, etc?

C’mon, people:  There are 30 teams in MLB.  The average team should have between 3 and 4 prospects in any given list of 100.  So Toronto has 5 here, and 4 there… which makes the Jays a little better than average.  With all the hype the Jays minor-league system gets, I would have expected the team’s developmental strength to be reflected by 6 or 7 players showing up in most of these “top 100” lists.

So, a favour, please:  Wake me up when the Jays have more than 6 guys named to one of these lists, or less than 3.

The Jays 10 best: Seasons, by a starting pitcher

Hey, remember when I did that list of the 10 best seasons by a reliever in Jays history?  Okay, perhaps not, because that was way, waaay back in January 2011.  It was a fun process for me to make up that list, and I resolved to do more of them... and didn't.  Until now.




Good starting pitching can carry a team to a World Series championship almost on its own - just ask the San Francisco Giants.  There have been some great seasons by starting pitchers wearing Blue Jay colours, over the years, and what follows is my attempt to determine the best of those seasons.




I have to say, choosing a methodology for ranking these seasons was a challenge.  WAR was the obvious starting point, but that takes the easy way out, I think.  Besides, WAR is by no means an exact, definitive number; Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference WAR don't always agree on a number.  For example, Fangraphs has Dave Stieb at 5.4, 5.9, 6.1 and 5.1 WAR from 1982-1985; BBR has him at 6.8, 6.4, 7.7 and 6.5 for the same seasons.  But by contrast, Fangraphs likes Roy Halladay better over his last 4 Jay seasons (5.7, 5.6, 7.5, 7.4) than BBR does (5.4, 3.5, 6.5, 6.8).  So... I'm going to rely on WAR as little as possible for this analysis.

  

I thought about using stats like FIP and DERA (fielding-Independent pitching, defense-independent ERA) but the thing with stats like those is that they don't measure performance; they measure how a pitcher ought to have performed, all things being equal.  They're very helpful when it comes to predicting future performance, or trying to determine true talent levels, but that's not what this exercise is about.  I'm trying to pick great seasons, not should-have-been-great seasons.  Baseball success is to some extent due to taking advantage of fortunate circumstances, i.e. luck; Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak was mostly skill, but you need some good fortune to hit in 56 games, too.  So we'll focus on raw stats, rather than delving too deeply into predictive formulae.

  

But if one focuses on raw stats, that creates perhaps a bigger problem:  How do you compare pitchers from different eras that had different expectations of performance placed on them?  The great seasons from the 1980s featured huge innings totals and lots of complete games, but no impressive strikeout rates.  More recently, we've seen an increased emphasis (maybe due to "Moneyball"-based theories) on reducing walks and striking out more batters... and not nearly as many innings from starters.  Should a 260+ inning season in the 80s be worth more than a 210-inning season in the 2000s?  I'm not sure... but feel free to make an argument in the comments.

  

Let's get to the seasons, already!

Just missed contention:

In case you hadn't noticed, I don't put a ton of stock in win-loss totals or winning percentage.  Those things are, by and large, outside of a pitcher's control.  A good pitcher on a lousy team could go 10-13; a bad pitcher on a great team might be 15-11.  So therefore, we will not be ranking...

  

- David Wells 20-win season.  20 wins was nice, the 4.11 ERA, 123 ERA+, and especially the league-leading 266 hits given up, wasn't.

  

- Juan Guzman, 1993.  This was one of only two seasons in which Juan made 30+ starts.  He was 14-3, but with an ERA of 3.99 and 26 wild pitches (worst in league).  And yet Juan got Cy Young votes in 1993, but not in his stellar 1996, or in a very good 1992 season.  Goes to show how Cy voters over-value wins and win percentage (or maybe starts, but… nah, they overvalue wins).

  

- AJ Burnett, 2008:  Yes, yes, Burnett won 18 games that year… but this was arguably his worst year with the Jays.  Certainly it was the worst in terms of ERA+ and WHIP.

  

- Jack Morris’s 21-win season.  Exhibit A in any argument that big win totals don’t indicate pitching excellence.  Morris won 21 games, but had an ERA of 4.04 and and ERA+ of 102.  Pretty much league average stuff, there.

  

- Dave Stieb, 1990:  18 wins, but only 208 innings.  Oddly, this was Stieb’s career-best year for wins, but he only finished 2 games, and only managed 6.1 innings per start, on average.  Sir David’s career really swings around the 1985 season when he was 14-13, but with a league leading 2.48 ERA.  Over the 3 seasons prior to that, Stieb had averaged 277 innings and 15 complete games.  After 1985, something changed... and from 1986-1990, Stieb averaged just 202 innings and a mere 3 complete games per season.  Still a very good pitcher, but not the overpowering workhorse he was when he first came into the league.

More near-misses:

  

Jim Clancy, 1980 – 3.30 ERA, 131 ERA+, 1.376 WHIP, 4.6 w/9, 5.5 k/9, 250 IP, 15 CG – This was the first pitching performance in Jays history that could be considered noteworthy, in my view.  Unfortunately, Clancy led the league in walks with 128, but even so, his WHIP in 1980 was pretty much in line with his career average.

  

Stieb, 1982 – 3.25 ERA, 138 ERA+, 1.200 WHIP, 2.3 w/9, 4.4 k/9, 288.1 IP, 19 CG.  Stieb led the league in innings, and also led in complete games (with 19) and shutouts (with 5).  The ERA and WHIP numbers aren't eye-popping, but the sheer number of innings, complete games and shutouts are impressive (288 innings is equal to 32 9-inning games!).  It was a different game back then, clearly.  Stieb won 17 games and finished 4th in Cy voting. 

  

Stieb, 1983 – 3.04 ERA, 142 ERA+, 1.137 WHIP, 3.0 w/9, 6.1 k/9, 278 IP, 14 CG.  Typical solid Stieb season.  17-12 record, no Cy votes.

  

Doyle Alexander, 1984 – 3.13 ERA, 132 ERA+, 1.135 WHIP, 2.0 walks/9, 4.8 k/9, 261.2 IP, 11 CG.  Also led the league in winning percentage (17-6, .739).  A very good season, but not on the level of his teammate, Stieb.

  

Roy Halladay, 2002 – 2.93 ERA, 159 ERA+, 1.191 WHIP, 2.3 walks/9, 6.3 k/9, 239.1 IP, 2 CG.  Roy led the league in IP, but oddly (for him) had only 2 complete games.  Doesn't quite compare with his later work, which we'll look at later on.

  

Honourable mention:

  

Ricky Romero, 2011 – 2.92 ERA, 146 ERA+, 1.138 WHIP, 3.2 walks/9, 7.1 k/9, 225 IP, 4 CG.  Sure, you can point to Romero’s xFIP and DIPS and say he wasn’t as good as these stats look, but DIPS and xFIP are predictive stats.  Maybe Romero wouldn’t get the same results were he to pitch 2011 in exactly the same fashion, again… but this list is about great seasons.  Romero wasn't great in 2011, but he was very good.

  

And now (finally), the top 10...

  

#10 Guzman, 1996 –  2.93 ERA, 171 ERA+, 1.124 WHIP, 2.5 w/9, 7.9 k/9, 187.2 IP, 4 CG.  Juan led the league in ERA, ERA+, WHIP, and strikeout/walk ratio… but had fewer than 200 innings and just 27 starts.  And got no Cy Young votes – they all went to Hentgen (see below), I guess.  Now I see why Beeston must have thought that adding Clemens to the 1996 versions of Guzman and Hentgen would equal a championship.

  

#9 Halladay, 2003 –  3.25 ERA, 145 ERA+, 1.071 WHIP, 1.1 walks/9, 6.9 strikeouts/9, 266 IP, 9 CG.  Halladay’s Cy season.  Led league in games started, innings pitched, complete games and shutouts, along with the best (6.38) strikeout-to-walk ratio in the AL.  However... the ERA+ and WHIP aren't quite as impressive as they were in Roy's 2008-9 seasons

  

#8 Stieb, 1984 –  2.83 ERA, 146 ERA+, 1.135 WHIP, 3.0 w/9, 6.7 k/9, 267 IP, 11 CG.  Stieb led the league in innings and in fewest hits allowed per 9 innings, and ERA+ (missed ERA title by 0.04).  Tied for 2nd in WHIP.   Finished 7th in Cy voting, probably due to winning just 16 games in 35 starts.

  

#7 Halladay, 2009 –  2.79 ERA, 159 ERA+, 1.126 WHIP, 1.3 w/9, 7.8 k/9, 239 IP, 9 CG.  League leader in walks/9 and strikeout/walk ratio, also in complete games and shutouts.

  

#6 Roger Clemens, 1998 –  2.65 ERA, 174 ERA+, 1.095 WHIP, 3.4 w/9, 10.4 k/9, 234.2 IP, 5 CG.  Led the league in ERA, ERA+, strikeouts, strikeouts per 9, and wins.  I prefer not to dwell on the Clemens years, so I'll acknowledge this was an excellent year, and move on to...

  

#5 Halladay, 2008 –  2.78 ERA, 152 ERA+, 1.053 WHIP, 1.4 w/9, 7.5 k/9, 246 IP, 9 CG.  Once again, Halladay led the AL in strikeout/walk ratio, along with IP, WHIP, complete games and shutouts.

  

#4 Hentgen, 1996 –  3.22 ERA, 156 ERA+, 1.250 WHIP, 3.2 walks/9, 6.0 k/9, 265.2 IP, 10 CG.  The ERA doesn’t look like much, but Hentgen was actually second in the AL (behind teammate Juan Guzman), and first in innings pitched and complete games.  Hentgen's WHIP was 4th in the AL.

  

#3 Key, 1987 – 2.76 ERA, 164 ERA+, 1.057 WHIP, 2.3 walks/9, 5.6 k/9, 261 IP, 8 CG.  Led league in ERA, ERA+ and WHIP.  Key's 1987 season is often overlooked, and it's one worth remembering - aside from the ERA and WHIP numbers, Key was also 6th in innings pitched in the AL.  He's also (spoiler alert!) the only lefty to make my top 10.

  

#2 Stieb, 1985 – 2.48 ERA, 173 ERA+, 1.140 WHIP, 3.3 w/9, 5.7 k/9, 265 IP, 8 CG.  Stieb led the league in ERA, ERA+ (both by a large margin), and fewest hits allowed per 9 innings.  Finished 7th in Cy voting, probably due to winning just 14 games (and losing 13).  So, how do you lead the league in ERA and go 14-13… on a team that won 99 games?  Well, Stieb started 36 games, and finished 8 of those (4 wins and 4 losses.  Two of the wins were shutouts and the Jays scored 4 runs in the 4 complete-game losses).  In the 28 games Stieb didn’t finish, he left leading 13 times, trailing 9 times, and tied 6 times.  That ought to point to wins exceeding losses by 4… but in fact, Stieb only won one more game than he lost.  Blame the bullpen, or blame unearned runs (16 on the season), I guess.  Run support was 4.5 runs/game, just a tick below the 4.7/game the team averaged in 1985.

  

#1 Clemens, 1997  - 2.05 ERA, 222 ERA+, 1.030 WHIP, 2.3 w/9, 10.0 k/9, 264 IP, 9 CG.  Clemens led the league in IP (tied with Hentgen, actually!), ERA, ERA+, WHIP, strikeouts, complete games, shutouts, and wins.  I hate to hand the #1 spot to Clemens, who has become a thoroughly unlikeable figure since his Jays days... but it's hard to argue with this as the top season. 

And that's the list.  The hardest part of this exercise, for me, was finding a way to compare Roy Halladay - a precision pitcher who hated walks and regularly led the league in strikeout/walk ratio - to Stieb, who simply piled up overpowering totals in innings, complete games and shutouts, season after season.  Halladay makes my top 10 three times to Stieb's two, but Stieb's best season ranks higher than Halladay's (and Cy Young awards have nothing to do with it!).

The Yankee double standard

I hadn't planned on making comment about the Yankees' trade of one-time Jay AJ Burnett to the Pirates.  Burnett was a huge disappointment for the Yankees, and a lot of Yankee fans will be happy to see him leaving town.  As a Jays fan, it's nice to see that - Burnett's failing in New York makes the fact that he was a disappointment to the Jays a bit easier to swallow.   All well and good; the Burnett era ends and we all move on.  But then, the Star decided to publish an article by Richard Griffin on the Burnett trade, an article so illogical that I had to say something.  (And, incidentally, this article also provided me with an excuse to put up the hilarious picture of AJ Burnett you see above, a picture I first spotted on Getting Blanked.)


If you haven't been following the Burnett saga, I'll recap:  Following Burnett's opt-out of his Jays contract after the 2008 season, the Yankees signed AJ to a 5-year, $82.5MM contract.  3 years into the deal, Burnett's numbers as a Yankee include a 4.79 ERA, 93 ERA+, 1.447 WHIP, 584 innings, 34-35 record.  Obviously, disappointing - Burnett was worth about 3.5 WAR for New York, and they've paid him like a 10+ WAR player.  Nonetheless, Burnett was valuable for the Yanks - as mediocre-to-bad as he was, the Yankees were in desperate need of starting pitchers in 2010-11 and Burnett gave them innings, and an occasional decent performance.


This past offseason, the Yankees acquired Hiroki Kuroda and Michael Pineda, making Burnett surplus (although I'm not sure Kuroda will be much better than Burnett was).  Accordingly, New York sought to trade AJ - even if it meant eating a lot of his salary.  Ultimately, they traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates, along with $20MM, in exchange for 2 very low-end prospects from the Pittsburgh system.  The $20MM means that the Pirates will pay Burnett just $6.5MM (of their own money) per season.


Most people see this as a win for Pittsburgh.  The Pirates gave away almost nothing in exchange for 2 years of Burnett at a reasonable price.  Yet, Richard Griffin thinks that MLB should have vetoed the trade, for "not being in the best interests of baseball".  And here's where it gets confusing.


Griffin argues that the Yankees' overpaying for Burnett in 2008 caused an inflation in free-agent contract values that hurt small market teams (including Pittsburgh), and now they are "buying their way out of trouble, refinancing happiness, manipulating the long-suffering Pirates’s fans and the baseball system that permits big mistakes to become smaller mistakes, maxxing out on the money-back they can save on the final two years of a bad-for-baseball deal".  Therefore, according to Griffin, the commissioner should force the Yankees to hang onto Burnett over the last 2 years of his deal (rubbing their noses in it, one could say).


Frankly, it makes no sense to veto a trade everyone is happy with because you're unhappy with a contract signed 3 years ago - and I don't think a veto really punishes the Yankees at all.  The easiest way to look at it is to consider the last line of Griffin's story:  "the true fact is that for three years of electric stuff and erratic command, [the Yankees] will have paid $75.5 million".  If the original deal was bad, it looks even worse when you consider that the Yankees paid not $16.5MM/season for Burnett, but almost $25MM/year.  Yes, the Yankees gained a little flexibility by dumping AJ, but it's ridiculous to suggest that a deal that was negotiated at arms length (and that the Pittsburgh Pirates are happy with) should be negated simply because a contract signed 3 years earlier was "bad for baseball". 


One could argue that the contract the Jays gave to Vernon Wells was almost as bad as the contract the Yankees gave Burnett - Wells was worth a little over 2 WAR/season for the 3 years after he signed his 7 year, $126MM deal.  Amazingly, the Jays didn't suffer much for it - they paid Wells a bit less than 30MM over the 3 years they had him (market value if you consider that 1 WAR is about $5MM), and paid $5MM to make the Angels take him.  The Jays then took back 2 players they didn't really want (although they should have wanted Napoli, in restrospect) in order to buy "their way out of trouble... manipulat(e)...the baseball system that permits big mistakes to become smaller mistakes, maxxing out on the money-back they can save on the final (four) years of a bad-for-baseball deal".


Nobody called for the Wells trade to be vetoed by Selig.  It was an arms length deal that, a year later, the Jays clearly won and the Angels clearly lost.  Nobody can say how Burnett will do with the Pirates, but at $6.5MM season, he seems a relative bargain compared with the contracts that Mark Buehrle and Edwin Jackson received.  Sure, Burnett was a .500 pitcher in New York... but if you care about wins and losses for a pitcher, he was close to a .600 pitcher with Toronto, and a .500 pitcher on some not-great Florida teams.  Burnett still strikes out a lot of batters, and can be counted on for close to 200 innings.


Griffin clearly doesn't like that the Yankees overpaid for Burnett and (to his reasoning) hurt small-market teams by doing so, and he doesn't like that some small-market team like Pittsburgh is the one to let the Yankees off the hook for a small part of his contract (even if the Pirates are happy to do so).  I dislike the Yankees as much as anyone, but if the commissioner allows the Jays to fleece the Angels, he shouldn't intervene when the Yankees and Pirates transact in a way that benefits both of them.  Just because one party to a trade is a big spender, doesn't make that trade contrary to baseball's best interests.

It's Brett Lawrie week on ESPN

Some pleasingly fawning stories for your perusal:

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/20827/brett-lawrie-offensive-and-defensive-star

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/20840/where-have-all-the-third-basemen-gone

And a nice little human interest story, if you like that kind of thing:

http://espn.go.com/espnw/more-sports/7572546/espnw-danielle-brett-lawrie-take-sibling-rivalry-new-level  

I can’t decide whether I love or hate those articles/posts.  It’s great that Brett Lawrie is seen as a can’t-miss superstar, but even can’t-miss players frequently wind up washing out.  And the media – not just the Toronto media, but now the US media, too – is putting a tremendous amount of pressure on Lawrie to succeed.  Lawrie's just 21, but by all accounts he seems to thrive on competitive pressure.

That trait will be put to the test in 2012.

Manny, yet again

Despite the -10 temperatures, the wind chill and the blowing snow, spring is in the air (because I said it is, ok?  Let’s be optimistic).  Thoughts are turning towards pitchers and catchers reporting to camp, spring training games, and the outlook for the baseball season.

And, inexplicably, people are once again mulling the idea of Manny Ramirez, Blue Jay.  Can we put this idea to rest, please?

Understand that I am not knocking Manny Ramirez’s body of work.  The man has a career OPS of .996.  To put that in perspective, Jose Bautista had an OPS of .995 in his record-breaking 2010 season.  Manny has put up that level of performance on average, for the last 18 years – and that makes him a hall of fame-level player.  And Manny has a career OPS of .974 vs. righthanded pitching and 1.060 against lefties, making him seem the ideal, non-platoon DH.

But the key figure in that last paragraph was “18”, as in, 18 years.  Manny turns 40 in May.  And even if we leave aside his personality quirks, his potential to be a distraction, his past PED use, and his defensive limitations… it’s not reasonable to assume Ramirez will perform at a high level in 2012.  Consider:  Ramirez last played the equivalent of a full season in 2008 (the year he was traded to the Dodgers and carried them into the playoffs with a blistering 2 months of hitting), and that was over 3 full seasons ago.  Since then, Manny got off to a hot start in 2009, before serving a 50 game suspension for PED use.  When he returned in July 2009, his OPS began to slide, from 1.133 upon being suspended, all the way down to .949 at the end of the season.

After that, 2010 saw Manny spend time on the DL (playing just 90 games) and get traded again, this time to Chicago.  He finished the season with an .870 OPS.  And in 2011, Manny played in all of 5 – yes, five – games before being hit with another PED suspension, this time for 100 games (since reduced to 50).

So to recap, Ramirez will be 40 before he ever plays a game in 2012.  He’s eligible to play in 112 games at most, and in fact, hasn’t played more than 104 games in 4 years.  He hasn’t played ANY games in almost a year, and his OPS has declined from 1.031 to .949 to .870 from 2008-2010 (ignoring the 5 games in 2011).  At this point, I’d be inclined to take Encarnacion over Manny – Edwin’s younger, more versatile, and might have some future upside.  And he’s, y’know, available right away… not 50 games away.

I get the impression that the Manny-fascination stems from people remembering the perceived missed opportunity around Barry Bonds in 2008.  Back in 2008, Bonds was an unwanted free agent, and the Jays didn’t sign him, instead giving the DH job to a disappointing mix of Frank Thomas and Matt Stairs, with unappetizing helpings of Kevin Mench and Brad Wilkerson (spawning the appellation “Mencherson”) thrown in.  But while Bonds was 43 in 2008 and Manny will be 40 this year, I don’t think the situations are analogous.  Bonds was still performing at a very high level in 2007 (a 1.045 OPS in 126 games) and had shown no signs of declining, and didn’t have a year of rust to shake off.  And while Bonds was a difficult person in general, he never seemed to let his off-field issues affect his play on the diamond.  Manny, on the other hand, seems to have a tendency to let off-field unhappiness turn into on-field indifference.

So to sum up, both Barry Bonds and Manny Ramirez were famously difficult men to have as teammates, but it’s easier to overlook Bonds’ personality issues because of his performance.  Manny’s declining performance, on the other hand, isn't enough to justify his presence on the team, even before you consider his personality quirks.  So let's let him be the OriLOLes problem, instead.

Grass, man

It’s unclear whether a grass field would die in the Skydome.  But what is clear is that the notion of adding grass to the ‘Dome won’t die.  To quickly recap:  Paul Beeston, in responding to a fan question at the State of the Franchise event, indicated that the Jays are exploring the idea of replacing the Skydome's artificial surface with a grass field.   Then, Stephanie Findlay of the Star pooh-poohed the idea here, indicating that the problem was lack of light (and all this time, I had assumed that lights could be brought in, or for that matter, that there would be ample light with the roof open through the summer months).  And now, Dave Perkins comes out with this, suggesting that the idea of a grass field is something the Jays are taking very seriously.

Now, I must admit that I’m pleased to see that someone else (i.e. Perkins) has recognized one hidden cost of artificial turf:  Players like Carl Crawford may flat-out refuse to play on it, which leaves the Jays at a competitive disadvantage.  If players don’t want to play on the Skydome carpet, this will force the Jays to accept inferior free agents, or to overpay in order to compensate for the negative that the artificial field amounts to.  Throw in the depressing cocktail that comes from mixing player knees, fake grass, and long term contracts (i.e. more injuries, of the debilitating kind, to expensive players), and you could potentially save the team millions by installing a grass field.  Those savings would likely amount to more than the revenue the Skydome gets from concerts, Argos, and tractor pulls, and Perkins makes allusion to this point at the end of his article.

Interestingly, the Perkins article didn’t even address the not-enough-light issue.  I suppose the answer there is to install some kind of high-powered overhead lighting system for when the dome is closed, or leaving the roof open at all times save during game times when it rains, or even putting down new grass every spring.  But even if those steps solve the lighting problem, there’s still the need to tear up the floor of the Skydome in order to install drainage pipes and sprinklers, and to install pumps so the whole assembly will drain properly.

So I’ll say it again:  I’m a big fan of the Jays putting in a real grass field.  It’ll look better, it’ll make the players happier and probably healthier, and will likely save the team money in terms of player salaries, over the long term.  And yet, I’m not holding my breath waiting for it to happen.  This is a big undertaking involving a lot of moving parts (drainage, lighting, construction, groundskeeping) that must all come together in the course of an (optimistically speaking) 5 month offseason.  And there’s always the risk that the entire project may fail despite best efforts, and the grass dies.  Besides, doing nothing is always easier than doing something, and doing nothing also happens to come with less obvious risks, and a revenue stream (the aforementioned concerts, football, and tractor pulls) which disappears with a grass field.  It wouldn’t surprise me to see Rogers take this easier route, and given the complexity of this project, I wouldn’t blame them for doing so.

But if the grass field comes to pass, I can’t think of a more telling sign that Rogers is serious about making the Jays successful.  So I’m crossing my fingers, and hoping to see sod in 2013.

Prince ...and all the other stuff

It doesn’t make sense to me:  Lose your all-star DH (Vic Martinez) for a season, and replace him with 9 years of Prince Fielder at almost $24MM a season… at a position where you already have an all-star??

Obviously, it’s not all bad for the Tigers, who now have two young power hitters at the corners of their infield, both in their respective career primes.  That’s a scary middle of the order, no question.  But Miguel Cabrera – the Tigers’ all-star 1B who Fielder will displace to 3B – hasn’t played third regularly since 2007, when he put up -1.1 defensive bWAR at the position.  And sure, you could DH one of the two (though apparently, the Tigers plan to play both of them in the field), but where does that leave Martinez, who is on the books through 2014 at $13MM a season or so?

I get that Fielder makes the Tigers better – he’d make any team better, of course.  But the thing is, the Tigers have added a player at the position they’re strongest, and now need to put a player into a position where he’d be less valuable than he currently is.  Not the best use of $200MM, when the Tigers still have big question marks behind Verlander in their rotation.  Oh, and incidentally:  that rotation lives and dies by inducing ground balls, which Cabrera will regularly butcher at the hot corner.

- 

The Jays appear to have rounded out their bullpen by signing Francisco Cordero to a 1-year deal.  The pen now features Sergio Santos as closer, with Cordero, Frasor, Janssen, and Darren Oliver handling the setup roles in some configuration, and presumably Carlos Villanueva, Luis Perez and Jesse Litsch fighting for the last 2 spots.  This assumes the Jays aren’t bluffing when they say they’re prepared to carry 5 outfielders, which would mean a 7-man bullpen.  If it’s an 8-man pen, throw Carreno and Beck into the fight for the final spot as well.

Candidly, I have somewhat mixed feelings about the Cordero signing.  On the one hand, his presence makes the Jays’ pen deeper, and provides something of a fallback option should Santos falter – Cordero has saved 30+ games for the past 5 years.  The ‘pen looks at least as good as the 2011 relief corps did, going into the start of last season – Santos, Cordero, and Oliver replacing Francisco, Rauch, Dotel, and Rzepczynski (with Camp out as well, his innings will probably go to Litsch).  But on the other hand, where is the young blood?  Santos counts, but I had been looking forward to seeing Carreno in 2012, and there may not be room for him at this point.  So, once again, it would not surprise me to see some trades made out of a fairly strong pool of relievers.

As for Cordero himself, his strikeout rate took a big dip last year (to 5.4 per 9) but his hits/9 and walks/9 dropped as well, leading to his putting up a career best 1.019 WHIP in 2011.  And I have no idea what that means for 2012.  An optimist might say that Cordero’s K rate could bounce back, while a pessimist could counter that the .215 BABIP against Cordero last year is bound to rise, and take the WHIP with it.  All in all, Cordero probably makes the bullpen better, but I don’t see him as a key piece.

- 

The acquisition of Omar Vizquel reminds me a lot of the acquisition of Ben Francisco, in that it doesn’t really make sense to me.  Vizquel isn’t going to start at shortstop; that’s Escobar’s spot.  He’s not going to play 2B or 1B.  The Jays have a young middle infielder who can back up second base and shortstop in Luis Valbuena, and they also have Mike McCoy in the fold, who can play just about anywhere.  And we’ve been over this before – the Jays can carry 13 position players at most, which means 9 starters (including DH) and 4 backups.  One backup will be at catcher, and that leaves 3 spots to be shared between infield backups and outfield backups.  Anthopoulos has already made noises about carrying 5 outfielders this season (presumably Bautista, Rasmus, Davis, Francisco and one of Thames/Snider) which means there’s only one spot for Valbuena, Vizquel, and McCoy (Mikey Mac has added value due to being able to play the outfield). 

Personally, I have trouble believing that the team will carry 5 outfielders, or that they’ll go with just a 7-man bullpen.  But regardless, I can’t see there being a spot for Vizquel – or Francisco, for that matter – on the team, unless someone (Valbuena, Kelly Johnson, Eric Thames, Mikey Mac, Rajai Davis) or multiple someones, is/are traded.  Or perhaps Vizquel is just being brought in to teach infield defense during spring training, which would be fine, too.

- 

And I was going to say something about the Morrow extension, wasn’t I?  OK, here it is:  I like it.  3 years and $20 million (plus an option for a 4^th season at $10MM) sounds about right for Morrow, who has great stuff and could become a great pitcher, but hasn’t gotten to that point yet.  If he never makes it, $20MM over 3 years isn’t a backbreaking sum to have thrown away, and if he does turn into something good, $10MM will be a bargain for 2015.  I don’t think it would make sense to lock him up for longer than that, based on what Morrow has accomplished to this point… and by 2015, I hope the Jays will be awash in young starting pitching (for reference, see this post) anyway, making even a successful Morrow expendable.

Stat(us quo) of the Franchise

If you look carefully, you can see me, way back on the right side of the aisle... actually, nevermind.  I'm there, but you can't see me.


Given that the State of the Franchise event was Monday, and today is Friday, I thought it would make sense to put down my impressions before they become hopelessly stale, overtaken by signings (Cordero), other events, or at the rate I have been posting lately, Opening Day...


I was able to attend the State of the Franchise (SotF) thanks to an invitation from a friend who is a season ticket holder (thanks again, Chris).  This was a first for me - I have been a regular purchaser of Flex Packs in seasons past, but the best perk that came with those was a bobblehead and a free game or two.  Nice, but not at the level of the SotF.


For those of you who haven't been, and are curious:  the event was held at Skydome, on the 100 level.  Invitees entered at 5:30, mingled, enjoyed free snacks and beverages (I particularly enjoyed the jerk chicken sliders, myself) and waited until about 6:30 before being ushered into a couple of sections behind third base.  There were about 900 attendees, apparently a pretty good turnout (although this would pose a problem for your correspondent, later).  There was a small stage set up above the third-base dugout, on which Beeston, Anthopoulos, and Farrell fielded questions, emceed by Albert "Buck" Martinez.  Questions were taken for a little over an hour before a brief raffle for Jays gift bags, after which the attendees retired back to the concourse for more snacks.


A nice evening, to be sure, but the Q&A session was obviously the interesting part.  For the most part, the questioners fell into two categories:  The supportive, and the irrationally angry.  I don't mean to imply that there aren't reasons for Jays fans to be angry, but demands to sign Carlos Beltran (who wasn't going to DH, didn't want to play on artificial turf, and would leave both Snider and Thames without a position if he played LF) or Prince Fielder "or else I won't be a fan anymore"* came across as irrational to me.  The overall theme, then, was that the team is going to wait to see how the young players and prospects develop over the next season or two, that there won't be any big free-agent moves, and the fans are, by and large, supportive of this approach.  Business as usual, in other words.


Beyond the general theme, there were a few highlights...

1.  Paul Beeston, and not the cautious Alex Anthopoulos, was the one to go out on various rhetorical limbs.  Beeston expressed an expectation that the Jays, over the next 5 years, would be in the playoffs "at least 2 or 3 times".  Be assured that this statement will come back to haunt him in 2014 if things don't go well this season and next.

2.  Beeston, again, commenting that the team is exploring the idea of replacing the artificial turf in the Skydome with natural grass.  I like the idea of the team playing on grass for several reasons, but I am dubious about this idea going anywhere.  As I understand it, drainage is the issue.  Skydome's field level is apparently at or below the level of Lake Ontario, so it wouldn't drain naturally... meaning that the concrete foundation the field sits on would have to be ripped up, drainage pipes installed, and pumps put in place to take excess water out, before re-concreting the surface.  That doesn't sound like something that could be accomplished in a single offseason, does it?  That said, if it can be done, it should be done, in my view.  Rightly or wrongly, players have the impression that artificial turf is harder on their bodies than grass is, and many are reluctant to play on the fake stuff.  This means that the Jays will have to spend more to attract free agents, or to retain their own free agents... and if a multi-million dollar player misses time due to turf related injuries, the loss of value will far exceed the cost of installing and maintaining real grass.  Not incidentally, that loss of value will also exceed any income Rogers gets for leasing out the Skydome to the Argos, concerts, and monster truck shows.  The opportunity cost to the team of turning a Vernon Wells-type position player into a DH due to wear and tear accumulated from playing on artificial turf would run into the tens of millions of dollars, for example.

3.  The Jays have a 5 year limit on contracts - i.e. they won't sign a free agent to a longer deal than that.  Fair enough - we saw how badly the team got burned by the Wells deal.  Trouble is, if the marketplace as a whole begins handing out longer contracts as a matter of course, the 5 year policy becomes a convenient excuse for failing to land any free agents at all.  I'm not too concerned about that right now, but I would hate to see the 2013 Jays, perhaps fresh off a 90-win season and looking to add one final piece, fail to land (for example) a Cole Hamels-type pitcher because they wouldn't go past 5 years.  At the end of the day, some players are worth more than a 5 year commitment, and it's up to the Jays' brass to do their homework and determine who those players are.


As I mentioned, there was a large turnout for the SotF, and as a result, I didn't get to ask a question, despite having my hand up throughout the question period.  Felt like I was in 4th grade, again (yes, that was me in the middle aisle).  Anyway, here's what I would have asked:

"Paul and Alex, you've mentioned how some players would avoid coming here because of the turf, or because they don't want to DH, or because they want a longer contract than the Jays will hand out.  Fair enough, there are some things out of your control that will keep players away.  But I often read about how Toronto is a less desirable destination for free agents because of things like going through customs, or perceptions about how much tax they'll pay.  Do you feel that these are significant issues?  And have you taken steps to mitigate these objections, perhaps by having a tax consultant on staff or through an ongoing fast-track arrangement with Canada customs?"

I'm not sure what AA and Beeston would have said to that, but I have had the impression that a) customs is pretty painless for first-class travelers, and b) the overall tax burden in Toronto isn't any worse than in, say, Chicago or Cleveland, where there are federal, state, and city taxes to be paid.  I'm curious to see whether the Jays have addressed the (mis)perceptions US-born players have about Canada.


(I also would have liked to know what Beeston would expect the Jays' broadcast rights to be worth if the team was dealing with an arms-length television network, as opposed to cable network of their parent company, Rogers.  Apparently the Angels TV rights are worth $150MM annually, which is how they signed Pujols, and Texas's are worth somewhat more than half that.  I would think that the Jays, with the GTA as a market and all of Canada as a potential market, would be worth at least $50-75MM to a broadcaster annually... but that's sheer guesswork on my part)

So all in all, no real surprises.  The slow-and-steady, Devil Rays style building process continues.


* Dude, you're at this event because you're a season-ticket holder.  The Jays already have your money for the upcoming season.  Threats to stop supporting the team ring hollow in these circumstances.

Stuff is happening...

... and MissingBJ is MIA.  Sorry about that.  Bear with me!


The Prince-Fielder-to-Detroit thing?  I've got something to say about that.  Ditto the Brandon Morrow extension, the invite extended to Omar Vizquel, and last night's State of the Franchise event, which I was fortunate enough to attend.


Rest assured, opinions will continue to be expressed here, and I'm not going anywhere.  For me, the biggest thing happening is my becoming a dad last Wednesday afternoon (Jan 25).

Little Alexander (no, not for Doyle, and definitely not for Rios!) is already a Jays fan.  He's got the gear, the hat, and outings to Skydome planned for May-June.  Sure, he may not understand the infield fly rule or appreciate the greatness of BJ Ryan's 2006 season... but he will.

How the Blue Jays can win the World Series in 2012

Every offseason, baseball fans across North America compile, in some form or another, a wish list of players for their team to go out and acquire.  Pick up this guy and that guy, and maybe one of those two players, and they'll be a playoff team - that's the thought process.

However, big offseason pickups don't always lead to championships.  Sure, the Yankees won the World Series in 2008 after acquiring Teixeira and Sabathia, but the Phillies flamed out last year and in 2010 after adding Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee.  The Red Sox spent a fortune in the last offseason, and missed the playoffs entirely.  Meanwhile, the Cardinals and Giants won the last 2 world series without huge offseason moves (Lance Berkman was a key for last year's Cardinals, but his acquisition wasn't considered a major move when it was made).

On a related note, no matter how many offseason moves are made, no team is without weaknesses.  Last year's Yankees had a pretty thin rotation, and the Cardinals were fine until you went past their number 3 starter.  The 2010 Giants had Rowand in CF with 0.3 WAR, Schierholtz at 0.8... and Sandoval had a poor season on top of that.  Recognizing that no team can be perfect, and that perfection is therefore not necessary, is important.  Too often, we get caught up thinking that every mediocre player has to be improved on... and that's neither possible nor true.

As for how the Jays can win the 2012 World Series, it’s pretty simple: A lot of things need to go right – which can be said of about 25 other teams, incidentally.

Want more than that?  OK, let’s start here (thanks to Orioles Nation for compiling this table and saving me a lot of work).  The Blue Jays had a total of 33.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as a team in 2011, which was 19^th in the majors (incidentally, when I refer to WAR in this post, I mean Fangraphs WAR or fWAR).  The 2011 champion Cardinals had 48.6 WAR, and the average playoff team had 51.8 WAR (to save time and effort, we’ll assume that that average is representative of a typical playoff team and that 2011 wasn’t some sort of aberration).  So the Jays need to add about 18 WAR to last year’s total to be in playoff range.

The Orioles Nation chart breaks down the WAR totals by batting and pitching WAR.  Most of the playoff teams have around a 3:2 or 2:1 ratio of batting to pitching WAR, with the exception of the Phillies (who had more pitching than batting WAR – the only team even close to 1:1).  The Cardinals had almost a 5:2 ratio of batting to pitching WAR.  The Jays were at a bit less than 2:1.  We’ll assume that any ratio between 3:2 and 5:2 is fine, which for our purposes means that the additional 18 WAR could come almost entirely from batting, or roughly equal parts batting/pitching).

So where do the Jays find 18 additional WAR next year?  I count 10 places:

1.  No significant injuries can occur to key players.  A week or two here and there isn’t significant, but if any of Morrow/Romero/Santos/Bautista/Lawrie/Escobar are gone for a month or more, look out.  The Cards won last year without Wainwright, but a lot of things had to fall into place for them.

2.  No significant regressions by the key players listed in point (1) above.  It’s unfair to expect Bautista to put up another 8.3 WAR like he did in 2011… so a slide to 4-5 WAR wouldn’t be the end of the world.  A drop to 2.5 WAR (which would still be 4^th among last year’s position players!) would be a major problem.  We’ll assume J-Bau drops to 5 WAR or so.  (-3 fWAR)

3.  Extrapolated numbers have to turn into real numbers.  The Jays added Brett Lawrie (43 games, 2.7 WAR), Kelly Johnson (33 games, 0.8 WAR), and Henderson Alvarez (10 starts, 1.0 WAR) last season.  Seasons of 5-6 WAR from Lawrie, 4 WAR from Johnson, and 3 WAR from Alvarez would add about 7 WAR to last year’s team totals (and yes, I am assuming zero value for the third baseman that Lawrie replaced, and for Aaron Hill, who was replaced by Johnson).  If those three don’t play they way they did late last season, it will be that much harder for the Jays to make a playoff run in 2012. (+7 fWAR)

4.  Bounce-back seasons from at least 2 of Cecil, Rasmus, and Lind.  Those three combined to produce 0.4 WAR in 2011.  However, Cecil was worth 2.6 WAR in 2010, Lind was a 3.7 WAR player in 2009, and Rasmus put up 2.8 and 4.3 WAR in 2009 and 2010.  It’s not unreasonable to expect these 3 to be worth closer to 5.5 WAR in 2012. (+5 fWAR)

5.  Continued development of Arencibia and/or a breakthrough by D’Arnaud.  Arencibia was worth 1.5 WAR last season, despite nagging thumb injuries.  He’ll need to build on a strong rookie season just to compensate for the absence of Molina (1.3 WAR in 2011) and the presence of Jeff Mathis (who ought to be worth about -0.4 WAR due to a reduced workload in Toronto).  (+0 fWAR)

6.  A breakthrough by one of the young pitchers (Drabek, Hutchinson, or someone else) or a strong comeback from McGowan.  A 2.5 WAR season from one of these guys would be a huge boost to the rotation. (+2 fWAR)

7.  Better play from the bullpen as a whole.  Last year’s ‘pen was worth 2.5 WAR.  The Yankees had the AL’s best bullpen last year with 7.1 WAR.  Somewhere around 5.5 WAR shouldn’t be an unreasonable expectation, especially when you consider that the new closer, Santos, was worth 1.6 WAR last year, and Rauch/Francisco were at about 0 WAR between them.  Having Frasor back and a season of Darren Oliver should help, too.  (+3 fWAR)

8.  A decent year out of the left field position.  Thames, Snider, and various warm bodies combined for something less than 1.5 WAR last year.  One of them needs to step up and put up 3 WAR next season.  (+2 fWAR)

9.  A breakthrough by somebody.  Maybe Morrow puts it all together, starts getting double plays and his ERA drops by a run and a half, maybe Romero takes the next step and ascends to the Sabathia/Hernandez level of performance.  Maybe Yunel Escobar wins a batting title and an OBP title in the same year.  Nobody thought Bautista would improve on his 2010 season… until he did just that in 2011.   I wouldn’t count on him getting even better, but if he avoids regression, that’s a big plus, with what should be better hitters around him in 2012. (+3 fWAR)

10.  Equivalent performances from the bench and DH (likely Encarnacion) in 2012.  Which shouldn’t be terribly hard to do.  The bench play last year wasn’t spectacular, and EE put up 1.5 WAR in 2011, which is pretty much his career average. (+0 fWAR)

Hey, look – that’s 19 fWAR, which ought to put them in playoff territory.  Of course, I did promise to tell you how the Blue Jays would win the 2012 World Series, but once you’re in the playoffs, that’s easy:

11.  Get hot at the right time.  The Cardinals won 90 games - the fewest of any playoff team last year - and the World Series.  Wild card teams win about ¼ of the World Series, meaning that there’s no need to worry if you don’t win your division.  Once you make the playoffs… as the cliché goes, anything can happen.

I expect to be able to see the parade route from my office window, this year.