Dirt Infield for 2016

For years we have heard Paul Beeston promise a change in the Rogers Centre from artificial turf to real grass.  Shapiro's comments this week indicated that grass was not a priority over other stadium upgrades to improve the fan experience.  Those comments were rather disappointing for many fans who had expected that 2018 was still the target for a grass surface.

For many fans, it isn't just about the aesthetics of watching a game played on a real lawn, but rather the impact that turf has on the players.   Generally speaking, players have complained about the pounding their bodies take with playing on turf.  Underneath that green stuff that you see is nothing but hard concrete.  However, the new turf that was installed at the onset of 2015, is considerably softer/spongier than the turf that was there before, and an even more significant upgrade from the turf that the dome originally had.

We didn't hear much complaining about the turf during 2015 up until the first game of the playoffs when the US broadcasting knuckleheads started to blame Beltre's back trouble from playing a couple of innings on it.  Which of course made no sense.  He had barely touched the ball to that point.  If standing on that stuff for 2 innings ruins your back we would all be crippled for taking a walk down a concrete sidewalk.  It's more of a long term thing with artificial turf, one would think.

Installing grass in the Rogers Centre would be a really big deal,   And really expensive I'd imagine.  Grass needs drainage, light, airflow, and water.  The stadium is not designed for it at all.  For now, it seems that Shapiro sees this as something he doesn't want to tackle.

However, I was surprised that Shapiro gave no concrete (pardon the pun) news on the dirt infield option.  This would mean that the artificial turf stays but a dirt cutout is made along the infield and baselines (see the imagined image above but picture turf instead of the grass where you see green...more or less).  Tropicana field in Tampa Bay, the only other artificial turf surface in MLB, has a dirt infield.  That means that the Rogers Centre is the only MLB park that currently does not have a dirt infield.  There are only dirt cutouts immediately around each base.  This was reportedly an option for 2016 now that the Argos won't be playing there, but we have heard no news on it.  The Sportsnet articles this week on Shapiro's comments said that the dirt infield was still an option for 2016.  However, I was discouraged because I thought if the plan was to do this then surely they would know by now to tell us one way or the other.

Then tonight, Stephen Brooks (Senior Vice President of  business for the Blue Jays) tweets in response to a question on whether a dirt infield will be in place for 2016 saying "Plan to start in Feb.".  Ok, so that is the first positive confirmation we have had that this is indeed happening.  By "start" I assume he means to start digging into the concrete.  You can't just sprinkle dirt over the concrete of course.

That's really good news.  Out of concern for the long term health of Tulo and Donaldson who will now effectively be playing their defense on dirt instead of turf.  This effectively makes playing at home for them no different than any other ballpark in terms of surface.  There are situations where they would be running for balls on the turf but that's not a big deal.

I'm not one of these Shapiro haters like I see all over twitter.  It takes years for someone in his position to be successful or fail.  To decide he is going to do one of those things within a couple of months seems ridiculous to me.  I will say though, that he'd have done himself a favour this week by announcing the dirt infield at the same time as saying that grass was not a priority.  Always good to soften the bad news with a little bit of good news.  To have the news come out by Stephen Brooks in a tweet seems a little odd.

The Great Divide Among Jays Fans

There seems to be a divide amongst Jays fans as I watch tweets go back and forth.   One group is optimistic for 2016 and the other is ready for disaster.  Perhaps every fan base has the same kind of thing, but these days the fans seem quite polarized.   

After 1) an exciting run in 2015‎ that energized all Jays fans, 2) a new president arriving, 3) AA leaving the team, 4) a new GM, 5) various off season moves or notably moves they didn't make (Price).......there's a lot of anger out there.   I'd argue that most of the anger is misplaced. 

There's people that want to fire Shapiro even though he hasn't even had the chance to succeed or fail yet.   There's people who don't like the Atkins hire, even though they don't know anything about him.    

These same people are the ones that perpetually wanted to fire AA up until when the magic started.   But now suddenly the Jays are falling apart cause AA is gone.   With insane reports about how AA would have signed Price, even though he wouldn't have been given the budget to do so, some fans have idealized AA into a miracle man‎.   

It's interesting and ironic that some of the things they are upset about right now are the repercussions of things that AA did.   Many prospects were traded away at the deadline.   While I supported the moves at that time, I knew that once the 2015 season was over there would be some tough pills to swallow.   The cupboard of pitching in the system was bare and that means having to fill it through free agency before the farm can be built back up.  With so many starting pitching holes to fill, that also made it more difficult to allocate a huge amount of money into one player (David Price).   Re-signing Estrada and signing Happ are the kind of moves you need to do.   They are the kind of moves that AA would have had to do.   In a way, he really left the team at the perfect time in terms of his reputation.  He doesn't have to feel the heat from the repercussions of the back end of the risks he took in 2015. Instead, he's the guy who brought us Price and Shapiro is the guy who let Price get away.   It's completely unfair to Shapiro to judge him that away, especially when his predecessor Beeston never allowed deals beyond 5 years to begin with.  

But some of the media are feeding ideas to those fans that eat up negative news.   To the rest of us who remain positive on the team, the negativity seems irrational and sometimes seems as if they don't want the team to do well in 2016.   There are people who say this team is now ruined, but if you look at the roster it is largely the same as it was in 2015.   If you look at the team as it existed after the 2015 trade deadline (say August 1st) ‎to right now, it is very comparable.   We lost Price but now have a healthy Stroman.   Buehrle is gone but now we have Happ.  Lowe and Hawkins are gone but that's not too hard to replace.   We will have Tulo and Revere for a full year. There's certainly more work to do in terms of bullpen and adding pitching depth but people are behaving as if this is a stripped down team.  It isn't.  

Judging from some of the callers into PTS recently, it's as if they didn't understand that Price was brought in as a rental.   One fan literally said that AA brought Price in and Shapiro shipped him away.   That's an insane and naive way to look at it.

Baseball is such a highly unpredictable sport.   Injuries can derail a season.   Often players don't perform as expected.   And often a diamond in the rough emerges to be an all star.   Losing Stroman in spring last year was a huge blow to the team.  Estrada emerging as he did was a pleasant surprise.  That's what happens every year.  We have seen a team like the Red Sox go from last place to first place and back to last place within 3 seasons.   That tells you how unpredictable the sport can be.   It also tells you that it is foolish to think you know how 2016 will go.    There's every reason to be optimistic.   There's also things that can go terribly wrong.   That's what makes it interesting.  There's reason for so many fan bases to be excited right now.

I once had a friend that every spring would tell me that the Jays will come in last place.   I'd be optimistic and excited going into the season and he would laugh at me every time the Jays would lose.   Yes, he is highly immature, but I interpreted this to mean that he wasn't a fan at all.   This same guy painted a Blue Jays logo on the hood of his car in 1992.   But in 2013 and 2014 he enjoyed every loss so he could rub it in to me.   He was literally rooting for losses.   He wouldn't go to games and waste money on a losing team.  When they would lose, it was the big "I told ya so!" that maybe is a victory of some sort for people like that.   But in 2015 he also predicted they would come in last place.   So do I get to say "I told ya so!" to him now?    I wouldn't bother.  And guess what, suddenly at the end of 2015 he was a big Jays fan again.   It's the definition of a bandwagon fan.  ‎I just don't understand how one gets enjoyment out of that.   When Bautista whipped his bat into the air in game 5 of the ALDS, all of the real fans felt the release of years of frustration. The excitement and joy that comes from winning is so much more meaningful when you were part of the struggles.   It's like a friend who only is around when things go well but abondons you in times of trouble.   You treasure the friend who is around no matter what, as you should.  

This is what is happening now.   Some fans are setting things up for the potential failure of the 2016 team.   If they do fail then they will give us the big "I told ya so!".   If the Jays succeed they will say they are happy they were wrong, or maybe make up some narrative about how they won despite of themselves. Or better yet, if the 2016 team wins, it will be because of what AA did. If they lose it will be cause of what Shapiro did.   That sounds about right.

What I propose is the idea that Shapiro et al are going to do their best to make the Jays a winning team in the short and long term. Let's give them a chance to succeed or fail before making judgment.    Let's root for a team that is filled with great players that are exciting to watch. Let's hope that they can have success in 2016 and beyond.

Source: Edwin Encarnacion sets spring training deadline for new deal to be done

Red Sox writer, Rob Bradford, has written a small piece on Edwin Encarnacion.  According to his source, Edwin and his agent have set a spring training deadline for negotiating a new deal with the Blue Jays.  The article is written from a Boston perspective and it seems that the Red Sox are salivating at the thought of bringing Edwin in to replace Ortiz (who retires after 2016) and start mashing baseballs off the green monster.  Let's look at this from a Blue Jays perspective....

This is Edwin's last year in his contract and he will be paid a team friendly $10M for 2016.  Of course, the Blue Jays do not have to negotiate anything under Edwin's timeline, but if they don't he is saying he will become a free agent at the end of 2016.  In other words, if they don't extend him by the spring, they shouldn't bother trying to extend him during the season.  So this is the Jays opportunity to negotiate with him prior to free agency.  Understandably, if a deal is made prior to spring, then part of the deal they negotiate could include a pay increase for Edwin 2016.

I fully expect the Jays to be a competitive team in 2016, but you would have to think that if they stumbled and were realistically out of it by the July 31, 2016 trade deadline, they would have 2 big bargaining chips in Edwin and Bautista to deal to a contending team for some nice prospects.  Making a deal with Edwin prior to that, takes away that option.

There have been some light rumors of the Jays having interest in Chris Davis.  At first glance, it certainly doesn't seem like spending money on Davis makes sense when the biggest need is pitching.  There certainly would be those criticizing spending big money on a bat, which the Jays have plenty of, while they didn't spend on any of the big name free agent pitchers.  But when you consider this story with Edwin, it does make sense that the Jays would consider Davis as an alternative.  This is why I was tweeting yesterday that signing Davis would mean trading EE.  They already have EE, Smoak, and Colabello at first base.  Smoak wouldn't have any trade value.  They'd probably be lucky to find another team to just take his $3.9M contract without any players going the other way.  Colabello would have some trade value but nothing close to EE who is a proven elite power hitter.

I actually think there is a slim chance that the Jays sign Davis so don't get caught up in such a rumor.  But it is an avenue worth exploring given the choice they need to make on Edwin.

Update:
Within minutes of posting this, Howard Berger (@Berger_BYTES) tweets:  "#BlueJays and free agent slugger Chris Davis appear to be in a serious contract dance...."

So.....I don't know a lot about Berger, but he was on the FAN590 I think at some point.  It's a bit better of a source than Incarcerated Bob, but ya know how these rumors usually go.

@bluejaystwit

My response to Jon Morosi's stupid article

I haven't blogged in a few days due to a dental surgery I had this week, but this morning I read Jon Morosi's article titled "Did losing Anthopoulos cost jays shot at re-signing Price, too?", and I got annoyed enough to get myself to write this.....

There's just so much wrong with what Morosi writes that it's hard to know where to begin.  First, his article starts off saying "We can't say it's terribly likely,...", but yet he STILL wrote an article about it.  This article is echoing what a lot of the angry mob Jays' twitterverse likes are saying.  Unfortunately this article will validate their very naive opinion.

All of this new regime vs old regime talk is already tired.

Let's say hypothetically the old regime was still in power and AA wanted to offer Price a contract.  Well he's stuck with Beeston's 5 year policy so what is the best they offer?  5 years for $150M?  And if you are David Price being offered 7 years for $217M from Boston, is that a hard decision?  He was reportedly offered 7 years for $180M from St. Louis and turned it down so....  What would even be the point?  AA would have spoken to the agent and the agent would have said Price is being offered 7 year contracts.  AA would not have bothered to waste everyone's time offering a 5 year deal.

Now let's say AA stayed on as GM under Shapiro.  Well everyone is blaming Shapiro for not signing Price now, so how would it have been different with La Cava & Shapiro instead of AA & Shapiro.  It wouldn't.  It's sort of ironic that people thought we had a chance at Price cause Beeston was out with his 5 year thing, but yet are blaming Shapiro anyway.

But really the worst part of the article is the suggestion that Shapiro determined that the team's rotation dollars should be distributed among multiple starters (Estrada, Happ, Chavez) instead of one (Price).  Can we stop and think about this for a second?  You need a rotation of 5 starters right?  You can't just have Price, Stroman, forfeit game, forfeit game, forfeit game.  Hey look everyone we have David Price but we spent all of our money so we don't have any other starting pitchers!!!!

We already know for a fact that AA wanted to re-sign Estrada.  He told us so.  So that's the same.  We also know AA traded away guys like Norris, Boyd, Hoffman who may have been ready to fight for a starting role this year.  That depth was traded away and the team desperately needed to replenish that huge void.  To now insult Shapiro for doing just that, is simply so unfair.  This is the position he was put in.    In order to afford to sign Price, the team would have needed a $30M boost in payroll so that they could still address the other needs AND sign Price.  You may want to blame Rogers for that but you can't blame Shapiro for deciding he needed a full rotation.

We don't know what else AA would have done this off season different from La Cava.  We don't even know what else will happen this off season.  But I don't think the Happ deal is out of the realm of what AA would have done.  Some team is going to end up paying Jeff Samardzija more than $20M per year, and he was awful last year.   Happ is being paid $12M a year and he was one of the best pitchers in baseball after the trade deadline.  It's a good deal.  And do we really think that AA would have been against trading Hendriks for Chavez to add desperately needed starting depth in 2016?

It's entirely plausible that AA would have done the same things so far.  AA left at the height of his popularity with fans, so maybe it takes a while for fans to move on, but at some point you have to.  Morosi wrote a trashy article that was catered to the fans that just want to moan and groan.  He should know better.

Tip of the day:  I see lots of people use the word "resign" instead of "re-sign".   "Resign" means like to quit.  "Re-sign" is to sign a player again.

@bluejaystwit

My comments on criticisms of Happ/Estrada signings

Lots of people ripping apart the Happ deal these days.  Keith Law of ESPN has joined the party there too.  He also rips the Estrada deal.

Law had an insider article last night that discussed the Happ deal.  He was also on TSN 1050 this morning, which I missed, but I understand based on some tweets that he was rather negative about the signings.

I did read the insider article yesterday, or at least most of it.  Law's argument was that the Jays are paying Happ based on his 2 months of success in Pittsburgh, which is too small of a sample size.  But is that true?  Well yes and no.  Had Happ's season continued in Pittsburgh with his career norms then yah, nobody would have signed him for 3/$36M.  But maybe 2/$20M? On the other hand, if Happ had a career like how he pitched for the Pirates in the final 2 months, then he would be up there looking for $200M like Price and Greinke.  So no the Jays are not paying him based on those 2 months.  I'd say the 3/$36M does reflect the potential upside that we saw down the stretch to some extent but nowhere close to fully expecting that.  He's at $12M a year.....what half decent starting pitcher can you sign for under $10M a year?

The thing about Happ's Pirates success is that it wasn't a random fluke.  Their pitching coach noticed flaws in his delivery and they fixed it.  He was one of the best pitchers in baseball after making those changes.  In Law's article he noted that Toronto wouldn't have the same coaches and defense.  Well, yah they don't have the same coaches obviously, but does that mean that his mechanical flaws will return?  Does that mean that he will unlearn what he learned about himself in August 2015?  And the part about defense?  Does Keith Law not realize how good the Blue Jays' defense is?  That seemed like a really odd and weak point for him to bring up.

All year long Law and others were waiting for Estrada to fall apart.  He never did and even pitched extremely well in the playoffs.  I recall a September game in Yankee stadium where Estrada gave up 3 home runs.  It brought out those, like Law, that waited all year to say that they told us this would happen.  However, 2 of those home runs were Yankee stadium short porch specials.   I realize those home runs still count and both teams have the same dimensions in which to play in, but at the same time it wasn't time to sound the alarms that Estrada was as bad as that one start (which the Jays ended up winning).  I always find it interesting when the ones that criticize about making judgments based on small sample sizes are the first to say "told ya so" when a pitcher has one bad game (which wasn't so terrible since he only gave up 4 runs).

When a pitcher has a breakout year, it doesn't necessarily mean that they will revert back to career norms.  It might of course, but if that breakout season came as a result of making substantive changes in delivery, adding a pitch, or pitching strategy, then there's reason to believe that the success can be sustained.  Estrada would have to regress quite a bit to make his 2 year contract not worth it.

What we are seeing here is the result of the Jays trading away a ton of starting pitching depth in 2015.  Going into the off season, there were just no arms available to pitch at the major league level.   That forces the club to either sign free agents or trade away some bats to get pitchers.  It was a scary position to be in given that a lot of free agents do not want to pitch in Toronto.

In the case of Chavez they were able to trade a bullpen piece to get him.

We tend to think of a starting rotation as 5 guys, but most often by the end of season there ends up being 10+ guys that make a start in the season.  Injuries happen.  Look what happened with Stroman last year.  Signing a guy like David Price and not leaving any room in the budget to add other decent arms, is highly risky if not stupid.  We could argue that the budget should be higher and that Rogers should go all out, but they are not doing that.   The off season is still not over and I still expect some significant moves to be made so a lot of judging here may be premature anyway.

@bluejaystwit

Happ-y thoughts

Last season was not a proper template to model.  You don't aim to go .500 for the 1st 100 games and then go win a ton of the remaining 62.  The reality is that this team should have had a much better record in the first 100 games than they did.  Their run differential was the best in the AL at the 100 game mark.  That happened by blowing away opponents in wins, while losing games by just 1 run.  There were far too many games that left us feeling like they should have won but didn't.  Whether it was the voodoo spells that seemed to be on Loup and other bullpen meltdowns,  balls going through Reyes' legs, misplays by Colabello in the outfield, etc. etc.  Too many games that brought out the "it's ovah" crowd onto Twitter to say that "playoff teams don't lose games like that".   Or the "fire Gibby" crowd that think any late game loss is because the manager doesn't know what he's doing.  There were certainly times of frustration with this team, only because we also saw how crazy good they are.

They fixed many of the weaknesses with the club at the trade deadline to turn the fortunes around.  After that, there were times where they seemed almost unbeatable.   Here are the fixes that were made in 2015 and how this carries forward into 2016:

1) Improving the defense.  Tulo instead of Reyes.  Revere instead of sticking a mish mash of infielders out there.

•  Now the Jays will have the benefit of having Tulo from the start of the season (please stay healthy Tulo)
•  Based on the outfield options available, the Jays won't be sticking Colabello out there thankfully.  Even if Revere doesn't end up with the club, I'd imagine we see Pompey or Saunders.  Someone who is an actual outfielder.

2) Improving the bullpen.  Sanchez moved to pen.  Added Lowe and Hawkins.

• Hawkins didn't pitch well out of the pen so that is not tough to replace
• Lowe was overall quite good.  Arguably I thought he was underutilized in favour of Sanchez.  I do think the Jays need to add some bullpen pieces this off season.  Don't forget that they just traded Hendriks too.
• Cecil made some mechanical adjustments in June 2015 after having a terrible start.  He didn't give up an earned run after that.  Hopefully Cecil starts where he left off in the regular season.  I'm sure his leg is fine now after injuring it in the playoffs.

3)  Added David Price

• Good assumption that David Price won't be a Blue Jay in 2016, but that doesn't mean they can't have a good rotation.  Price came into the rotation replacing a very weak 5th spot that was filled by Doubront at the time.  The weak 5th starters, from the time Sanchez was out of the rotation due to injury and later returning to the bullpen, were responsible for a lot of losses in June and July.  Removing that issue and bringing in a true ace was a huge upgrade.   But let's not forget that Stroman was out with injury at that time.  We had the benefit of having both Stroman and Price during the playoffs and for the last few weeks of the season but for almost all season we had neither of those guys or then just one of them.  If we want to compare the rotation at the start of 2015 to the start of 2016, the Jays may be much better off now with Stroman in it.
• At start of 2015 there was Hutchison, Dickey, Buehrle, Norris, Sanchez.  We know now that Hutchison really struggled on the road but many of those games happened to be when the Jays scored like 10 + runs to let him off the hook.  Dickey and Buehrle were pretty bad the first 2 months of the season.  Norris was going through dead arm, which may have had to do with the eventual health scare that he had.  Sanchez was walking guys all over the place but got into a bit of a groove before going down to injury in early June.  The rotation was a mess.  Dickey resolved some mechanical issues with his hips that completely turned around his season.   Buehrle went back to being Buehrle for June and July before breaking down again.  Estrada emerged as the Jays most consistent pitcher.  So it wasn't just adding Price that turned the rotation around.
• Now looking at 2016.  We hope Dickey continues his 2nd half success.  Estrada may possibly regress a bit but he should be pretty good anyway.  Stroman can be the ace.  Happ, who also made some mechanical adjustments in Pittsburgh may be a whole lot better than the Happ we remember in a Jays uniform.  The 5th starter can be either Chavez or Hutchison.  This is an upgrade over the 2015 opening day starting staff.

Let's not forget that this team still has a mind blowing offense.  They will win lots of games if they pitch half decent.  There will no doubt be some more moves on the way, but I wouldn't expect a big free agent signing.  Let's see what Happ-ens.

@bluejaystwit

Are you Happ-y???

Blue Jays have just announced that they have signed free agent left handed starting pitcher JA Happ to a three-year deal worth $36 million.  Details on how the $36M is split are not yet available as I'm writing this, but I'd imagine it will be back loaded to some extent.

Are you Happ-y?

Well maybe that depends on which Happ we get.  I was puzzled by his performance last year.  He was quite bad in Seattle (going 4-6 with a 4.64 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 4.12 FIP), which made Jays fans not feel quite as bad about the fact that we traded him for a guy that got injured at the beginning of spring training (Saunders).  But after being traded to the Pirates at the trade deadline, he was actually quite awesome (going 7-2 with a 1.85 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 2.19 FIP).

It was one of those examples of an AL pitcher going to the NL and suddenly putting up numbers with the best of them.  But there had to be more to it than that.  Yes, the NL is easier to pitch in without the DH and overall less offense.  However, that difference was too significant.  Honestly, if the Jays get something in the middle of that for $12M a year, then that would be pretty good.

I never knew what to make of Happ while he was a Jay.  At times in 2014 he was actually very good.  Sometimes he was bad.    It's probably a good deal for the Jays in terms of the value for money.

Hate to tell y'all, but this most probably means that the Jays will not be signing David Price.  If you are going to be unHapp-y about this deal, that would be why.

Price rumors update

Robert Murray of Baseball Essential,  fueled a lot of the David Price speculation a couple days ago by reporting that Price wants to stay in Toronto.  

This morning on the FAN590, Murray was the guest.   Murray expanded to say that although his original report is true, the team is not confident that they will get a deal done.   What's the issue?   Just years and money....nothing big.    He states the Jays may be willing to go 6 years but not more.   Price likely ends up with a 7 year deal. 

So all of these rumors could have been conjured up by Captain Obvious.   ‎If you think about it, what do we know now that we didn't know before?   We were pretty sure that Price liked his time in Toronto.   We were also pretty sure the Jays wouldn't want to spend the kind of money to land him.   And that's still where we sit.  

Last night there was more of a Price twitter storm when some dude named @incarceratedbob broke some big news:

Sounds great eh?    Well let's take the leap for a second and assume that Incarcerated Bob is accurate.   Is this any different from what Robert Murray said?    The details they are hammering out is money.   So if a deal doesn't get done, Bob left wiggle room out of his "breaking news" to say that they couldn't hammer out the deal.    We still know nothing.   There's some evidence that Bob is wrong a lot of the time.    My suspicion is that Bob found the Robert Murray tidbits from the previous day and he just extrapolated it a tiny bit.    If Price does end up signing with Toronto, then Bob will want his accolades for breaking this news first.  I do hope he's not really incarcerated.  

Josh Donaldson was on TSN radio the other night and what he said is similar to all of this.   He said that if the Jays are in the right area code with money that he thinks Price would sign with Toronto.    There's enough sources now on this idea that I'd like to believe that part is true.  

There's not going to be many opportunities like this for the Jays.   Think about it.....  A top free agent starting pitcher with David Price's track record prefers Toronto‎.   Usually the Jays are in the position where they have to offer a free agent more money to entice them.   In this case, they probably just have to be in the ballpark, or area code as JD would say.   

Bob McCown made some compelling arguments a couple nights ago on PTS of how important the Blue Jays are to Rogers brand image.    He believes that even if the Blue Jays lose money, that loss may pale in comparison to the value they add to their brand when successful.    We saw what happened in 2015.   Sold out crowds....merchandise sales through the roof....insane tv ratings.    There's a good business case that spending on David Price is a good investment.   There's certainly risk putting that much money into 1 player, but if you are ever going to take that risk, Price is the kind of guy with the track record to warrant it.   

In other words, I'd really hate to see this fall apart cause the the Jays are offering say 6/$180M instead of 7/$210M.   Those are just wild guesses of course but you get the idea.  

In any case, I suppose all of this talk of a possibility is better than no possibility.   Let's see what happens.

David Price rumors

Warning:  these are only rumors and rumors are almost never true.

But there's nothing else to discuss so what the hell.....


A couple of recent tweets....

Excuse the spelling of Greinke on that tweet.  I didn't see Rosenthal on MLB Network but there were a few tweets like this so I will assume Rosenthal really did say this.  I really have no doubt that the Red Sox are a team that wants to go all in to get one of the two top free agent pitchers.  If the Jays don't get Price, I'd really prefer he land somewhere out of the AL East.  I wonder if this gives the Jays even more reason to pay price his Price (sorry, but I just had to).  I think that the BoSox will be a tough team in 2016 if they get some starting pitching.

And also this one...

Kaplan is some Chicago sports guy, which is why he's giving the rumor from the perspective of  Cubbie fans.  Who knows what his source for this is, but maybe it's at least some indication that the Blue Jays are at least trying to make a deal for Price.  But....who knows.

Don't get your hopes up!

Liam Hendriks for Jesse Chavez / Esurance MLB Awards

The Blue Jays have traded Liam Hendriks for Jesse Chavez of the Oakland A's.

We're not exactly all jumping up and down with excitement, but the Jays are in desperate need of starting pitching depth, and this is a good step towards addressing that need.  Liam Hendriks was quite good in the bullpen this year.  He had a significant uptick in velocity.  There was some talk (prior to the trade) by LaCava that potentially Hendriks could be stretched out to become a starter again, but it's a big unknown how that would go.

Chavez has been a proven serviceable starter for Oakland in the last two years.  He was previously a Blue Jay back in 2012 and had 2 starts for them at a time when their starters were dropping like flies to injuries (ahhhh.... memories of Brandon Morrow and Kyle Drabek).  He was not good back then.  Well...he was bad actually.  However, in 2014 and 2015, he posted an ERA of 3.45 and 4.18, respectively for the Athletics.  That's mostly as a starter but he also has pitched out of the bullpen, which is an option should the Jays have 5 starters out of spring that they prefer.

Getting a starter for a bullpen guy is a good thing.  But the reason the Jays were able to make such a trade is because Hendriks comes with 4 years of team control, while Chavez is a free agent at the end of 2016.  This is a short term outlook deal for the Jays.

One interesting nugget of info that came out last night was that Chavez was the Jays backup plan at the July 2015 trade deadline in case the David Price deal fell through.  It was always reported that Anthopoulos had a backup plan just in case, and now we know what that was.  Somehow I don't think the fan base would have rushed to buy Chavez jerseys, the way they did with Price.  But he also would have cost far less in prospects.  There's also that banner that may not have been up there so let's not go down some alternate timeline that doesn't involve Joey Bats flipping a bat 10 feet in the air.

Right now the rotation options are:  Stroman, Estrada, Dickey, Hutchison, Chavez, Sanchez, Osuna.  The decision on whether Sanchez or Osuna will start probably doesn't get made until spring training, but for now they are candidates for the starting rotation.  Obviously if that's the case, then there ends up with a void in the bullpen.  Certainly many Jays fans are weary on what we will get with Hutchison next year.  We can hope he turns it around and doesn't go on the Ricky Romero career path, but there also needs to be an alternative.  Maybe Chavez is that guy.

The off-season is still young, so I'd expect more to come.  I really don't have a sense of what the Jays chances of signing a free agent starting pitcher are.  I'm pretty sure it won't be Price or Greinke, but what about Chen, Kazmir?  Would be good to have a lefty starter in there.

Esurance MLB Awards

Pretty cool that the Jays owned two Esurance MLB Awards given out for "Best Play Offense" and "Best Play Defense".  The Bautista game 5 ALDS home run, that will forever change the way my children see their father's level of sanity, won for best offensive play.  The Josh Donaldson dive into the stands in Tampa Bay to catch a foul ball (and almost kill a little kid), won for best defensive play.

I think that Pillar's jump over the wall to rob a home run was a more sensational defensive play to be honest, but the situation wasn't as big.  In fact, that game was a blow out.  When JD dove into the stands, it was the 8th inning of what had been a perfect game to that point.  It was also a 0-0 score.

I can't possibly be objective on this, but I do feel that the greatest moment of the 2015 MLB playoffs happened in that ALDS 7th inning.  The best offensive play award reaffirms to me that it isn't just that I look at baseball with blue coloured glasses.  That inning also won an award for best social media moment.  It really deserves to have it's own ESPN 30 for 30 special.

@bluejaystwit

Donaldson wins MVP!!

By now you all know that Josh Donaldson is the 2015 American League MVP.  23 of 30 1st place votes went to JD, with the other 7 going to Trout.  That probably doesn't tell you just how close the race was.  The reality is that Trout had another monster year and many of his stats are actually better than Donaldson's.  Donaldson had more RBI's and runs scored, but one could argue that is because he was in a better lineup.  Certainly 7 of the 30 baseball writers who voted argued that, and you can't really blame them.

The thing is though, that Donaldson had so many big moments during the year.  So many of his home runs either tied the game or put the Jays ahead, some in walk-off style.  He did it consistently all year long.  When the Jays made their big push in August, Donaldson had a monster month.  At the same time that the Jays surged, the Angels faded out of a playoff spot and Trout had a terrible month.  It was the contrast down the stretch that sealed it for Donaldson.  I believe that had the Angels made the playoffs, that Trout would have won.   For many voters, it's hard to be considered most "valuable" on a team where the value didn't pay off into a postseason birth.

At some point in August as the "MVP MVP" chants grew louder, Gregg Zaun made a comment on air that Josh Donaldson had as much chance of becoming the MVP as he did of becoming the Prime Minister (many Canadians may want that now).  It was an absurd comment then, and Zaun had to take it back within the week as JD kept piling up big numbers, big moments, in big games.  But it remind us that this was not a foregone conclusion throughout the year.

I can recall watching MLB Network in June or July, where their "experts" boasted about the Angels having the most potent lineup in baseball.  So the argument that Trout is disadvantaged cause JD hit in a better lineup is said in hindsight.

All of that said, it's a proud moment for Blue Jays fans.  Probably a proud moment for Alex Anthopoulos in a bitter sweet kind of way.  That trade with Oakland last year sure looks good.  Although to be fair, it will take years to fully judge it, since many of the pieces Oakland got are still prospects.

Congrats to Josh Donaldson!

@bluejaystwit

Trade talks with Cleveland

Jon Morosi has reported that the Indians have been in trade talks with the Dodgers, Yankees, and Blue Jays.  Cleveland is in need of an outfielder and have lots of good starting pitching.  Each of those 3 teams have possible trade matches.

I can't see the Indians giving up a starting pitcher for Revere or Saunders, without getting another significant piece in the deal.  Also Revere doesn't come so cheap in terms of payroll.  The likely trade candidates would be Pillar or Pompey.  

Pillar had a WAR of 5 last year which is quite sensational.  His trade value should be very good.  His defense was nothing short of spectacular all year long.  His bat was not consistent.  We all cringed many times watching him reach for a ball way outside to either miss it or pop it up.  He went through some long bad stretches offensively, but he also had an incredible month of June, and was very good down the stretch.  When he was on, he was a significant weapon at the bottom of the lineup which helped turn things over for the big boys to come up with guys on base.  In fact, the Royals scouted the Jays during September and reported that the key to stopping the Jays offense was to keep Pillar off base.  They saw him as the igniter.

Trading away Pillar means taking the risk that Pompey is ready.  We know Pompey has the tools.  In 2015 he was the opening day CF, but he seemed to lack confidence and even commented that he was "playing scared".  I do think that his time back in the minors did a lot for him, but he didn't get the opportunity to show whether that would translate into major league success (other than as an incredible pinch runner).  He deserves that opportunity.  I've heard the suggestion of platooning him with Revere, but given that Pompey is a switch hitter (and better from the left side), that doesn't make any sense to me.  It also wouldn't be good for his development for him to sit on the bench as a 4th outfielder and pinch runner all season. 

The outfield is currently an area of depth, which is why trading someone makes sense.  I haven't even mentioned Saunders in this puzzle.  Assuming Saunders is healthy (which may be a big assumption), the Jays really have 5 guys that should be every day outfielders.  You certainly wouldn't have all 5 on a 25 man roster.

Who knows if they can find a deal with Cleveland or not.  Let's see what happens!

@bluejaystwit

Thoughts on AL manager of the year

The AL manager of the year award went to Banister.  I have nothing against Banister and I'm sure he did a fine job. I just think, of all awards, the MOY award is the most subjective.  I mean....how do you measure the impact of a manager?  Certainly not by wins and losses, or otherwise Yost and Gibbons would have been in the top 3.

It really looks like the baseball writers vote for managers of teams that over-performed vs expectations.  It's a good narrative that the manager is the intangible thing that made these teams do better than anyone thought.  You never know if that is actually true though.  And even if it is true, it's impossible to know to what extent one manager had on his club vs another.

Too many people think they know the answer to that.  I saw quite a few tweets last night from the Gibby haters who like to blame every close game loss on the manager.  The thing is though, most people over-estimate the impact of a manager.  When the team wins, it's all about the players.  When a team loses, we see lots of blame on the manager.  There are many fans that need to assign blame when things don't go well.  Most of the criticism I saw on Gibby were from those that are managing with 20/20 hindsight.  Or from those that don't understand that the same relief pitcher can't pitch every night.

Bullpen management is an important role for the manager.  And that means getting the right guys in the right spots as much as possible without blowing out their arms.  I thought Gibby did a great job of that.

I also look to the respect that the players have for the manager.  That's certainly in part on the players.  If you have a bad egg in the clubhouse who never respects authority, then there will be clashes.  But we saw some odd things this year with other teams.  We saw players yelling at Mattingly openly in the dugout.  We saw Max Scherzer freak out on Williams for trying to take him out of a game.  We saw some crazy inner fighting in Detroit and Washington.  These things may not be entirely the manager's fault, but it doesn't look good when the players disrespect their manager.  We never saw anything close to that in Toronto this year.  If stuff happened, it happened in private where it should be.

There's also lots of situations where a MOY subsequently has a terrible year with largely the same team in place.  So that speaks to the randomness of baseball that we all try to quantify with reason.

@bluejaystwit

MLB Awards this week

There's some key awards being handed out this week by MLB.  Below is the schedule:

Nov. 16, 2015

BBWAA Rookies of the Year, MLB Network, 6 p.m. ET

Nov. 17, 2015

BBWAA Managers of the Year, MLB Network, 6 p.m. ET

Nov. 18, 2015

BBWAA AL and NL Cy Awards, MLB Network, 6 p.m. ET

Nov. 19, 2015

BBWAA AL and NL MVPs, MLB Network, 6 p.m. ET

For Blue Jays fans, the most anticipated award will be the AL MVP.  My guess is that it will rain on November 18th....if yah know what I mean.  If JD doesn't win it, then I'm sure #bluejays twitter will blow up.

The only other player award that a Blue Jay has a shot at is the AL Cy Young.  Although I see Keuchel as a lock.  Price did have the lower ERA, but most other stats go to Keuchel.  Price's own endorsement of Keuchel at the end of the regular season probably makes it easier for any voter who was conflicted between the two.

I believe there is a BBWAA award  for exec of the year award to be handed out at some point too, although I'm not sure on the date for it.  The departed AA would be a good bet for that one.

All of that said, for me, these kind of awards have less triumph in them than they did years ago.  Perhaps I used to see more meaning in the recognition.  Baseball is filled with so many stats, and yet when it comes down to it, these votes are based on a lot of subjectivity.  Whether it's the new stats vs traditional stats debate, a look at the success of the club, or dissecting the words "Most Valuable Player" to mean something other than "best player", there's lots of different interpretations on how to vote for an MVP.  If the baseball writers decided that Trout was the MVP, that wouldn't take anything away from what Donaldson did this year, or the other way around.  These things only matter cause we pretend that they do. I've heard arguments that Donaldson should be MVP because when the Jays and Angels played head to head in August, Donaldson had a much better series than Trout.  There's lots of reasons why JD should be MVP, but that shouldn't be one of them.  Baseball writer's just love to find a small sample size event to drive a narrative.  We certainly saw that kind of bs from the media in the playoffs.

In any case, I'd be happy for Donaldson if he wins.  He deserves it and he's our guy.

Off Season Thoughts

Here is the first BlueJaysTwit blog!  I know you are excited.

It already feels like the 2015 ALCS is forever ago.  Quite frankly, hockey, football, and basketball don't come close in terms of soothing my Blue Jays baseball withdrawal.  But we do have 2016 to think about and this will be an important period of filling some significant roster voids.

We already know that Marco Estrada has signed a 2-year deal.  He was arguably the Jays most consistent starter in 2015.  There weren't any periods when we considered Estrada to be the Jays' best starter.   But all through it, Estrada gave consistent start after start and ended up with some pretty impressive numbers that are up there with league leaders.  I've seen some people concerned that there are signs that he will regress.  Even if he does regress to some extent and doesn't have the same kind of BABIP "luck" that he had in 2015, he still is a much needed quality starter that will give the Jays lots of innings and a chance to win most outings.  Of course, all throughout 2015 everyone was waiting for that regression to happen down the stretch and into the playoffs, and it did not happen.  You have to think that if Estrada was after the best financial deal, someone would have offered him a 3-year deal.  It seems that he really wanted to stay with the Blue Jays, and hey why not, considering this is where he had his breakout year.

That gives the Jays a starting staff of Stroman, Dickey, Estrada, and possibilities of moving Sanchez, Osuna, and Hendriks from the bullpen.  Oh, and I conveniently almost forgot Hutchison.  You have to think that the Jays need to add at least one more starter.  Of course, if they do move someone from the bullpen to the starting rotation, that would leave a fairly significant void in the bullpen.

Acquiring a quality starter via trade won't be easy.  As we know, the Jays spent much of their prospect capital at the 2015 trade deadline.  That doesn't mean there is nothing left in the system to trade, but I just can't see the Jays depleting the system more at this point.  There's only so much you can do that and we've already heard the rumours of Shapiro "scolding" AA for depleting the system too much.  Getting a starter for one of the big bats isn't so easy either.  You hear a lot of talk about this on PTS.  Trading EE....trading Joey Bats......  If there is a team out there in "go for it" mode that wants to add a big bat with a 1 year contract, they wouldn't be trading a starter off the big league roster.

That probably leaves the free agent market.  It's nice to dream that the Jays can sign Price or even Greinke, but it's really just that...a dream.    I'd be surprised.  There are some other guys that I would expect (hope?) that the Jays go after though.  Kazmir....Gallardo....

The bullpen needs some work too.  You have to think that adding a lefty in the bullpen is a priority.  What happened in the playoffs once Cecil got injured really exposed a lack of lefthanded depth in the bullpen.  Loup may find himself again, but he had a terrible season and he should be fighting for a spot on the roster.  Beyond that , if you look at the playoff roster as a starting point....Lowe and Hawkins are now gone.  Potentially 1 or 2 of Sanchez, Osuna, Hendriks are in the starting staff.  That leaves some gaping holes.  There may be opportunity to trade for some bullpen help by giving up some of the outfield depth (Revere?  Pillar?).

In terms of position players, the only real need is a backup catcher.  (The likelihood of signing Navarro as a backup catcher is very low.)  This is almost a depth move though, cause you have to think that Thole is still going to be on the roster in Dickey's final season.  Keeping Martin from getting too banged up, means Thole catching Dickey.

Fingers crossed that these holes get filled in a way that doesn't leave us scratching our heads.  If you remember, last year there was little done to the bullpen, and that ended up being a big weakness in the first half of the season.

@BlueJaysTwit