Friday, 27 January, 2012

Mid-Afternoon Snack: Friday, January 27th, 2012

Now it's time for all the stuff I don't figure on making full posts out of, with the spiffy graphic by Matt English (aka @mattomic). It's your Mid-Afternoon Snack...

Craig Robinson of Flip Flop Fly Ball is taking his awesome work to Getting Blanked, debuting his biweekly fortnightly infographic extravaganza yesterday with a decidedly non-graphic infographic on the cubic capacity of Rogers Centre.

Catch Craig on the latest FanGraphs podcast, as well.

Seems like yesterday I wasn't the only one being cranky, as Parkes refuted the sportswriter's favourite old canard, "it's not your money," at Getting Blanked, while in that same corner of the interweb, Drew thanked Geoff Baker for his concern, with enough sarcasm that, if it were beer, would have filled Rogers Centre-- an impressive feat (see above).

Could it be that the MSM wailing about Rogers from Cathal Kelly of the Toronto Star and Steve Buffery of the Toronto Sun was partly to blame for our fits? In a word, yes.

Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com isn't terribly high the Jays' high-end prospects, with just four among his top 100: Travis d'Arnaud (25), Anthony Gose (57), Jake Marisnick (58), and Noah Syndergaard (95). The Jays didn't rank among the top ten teams, based on his "prospect points" system, which awards 100 points to the team with the top prospect, 99 to the team with prospect two, and so on.

John Sickels of Minor League Ball looks at Mayo's list and waxes on a few points-- one of them being the one that immediately struck me: what the hell is Manny Banuelos doing at number 13?

All week I've been meaning to do something with the just-released ZiPS projections for the 2012 Jays, which are available at Baseball Think Factory, but since nothing has materialized yet, I'm just gonna go ahead and at least link the damn thing for you.

Kevin Gray of the New Hampshire Union Leader and insisting Yu Darvish was a Jay has a Q&A with hot prospect Jake Marisnick at Gray Matter.

Bluebird Banter brings us parts three and four of their interview with Jays' pitching coach Bruce Walton.

Normally my eyes glaze over at over-long serialized prospects lists, like Jays Journal happens to be doing at the "moment" (read: over the next several weeks), because I just couldn't possibly be bothered to give a shit about the background of guys who will be lucky to one day make it to double-A. I'll catch up when it maybe looks like they're going somewhere, thanks. That said, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus called Jays Journal's number 41, Eric Arce, his sleeper, so I figure it's worth a read.

By way of NotGraphs, it's Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun on TVO's awesome The Agenda with Steve Paikin!

Late addition: here's the Jays 2012 promotional schedule, for those of you who give a shit about bobbleheads.

Lastly, depth moves! MLBTR tells us that the Jays have signed right-hander Tim Redding, left-hander Bill Murphy and catcher Kyle Phillips. Cue repellant asshole making a sarcastic remark about this being all the Jays could sign this off-season.

Thursday, 26 January, 2012

Prospecting: Goldstein's Top Jays for Baseball Prospectus

I didn't want to reveal too much of the gold behind the Baseball Prospectus paywall, but... actually, I don't think this is behind the paywall. Regardless, Kevin Goldstein's journey through each team's farm system finally made its way to the Jays today, and as you might expect, there was some gold in there.

Oh. Wait. I already said that.

Anyway, here are my highlights-- which, of course, should be no substitute for reading the whole thing.

- Just a couple days after Marc Hulet of FanGraphs ranked Jake Marisnick seventh among Jays prospects, Goldstein has him way up at number two, following the club's only other five-star prospect, Travis d'Arnaud.

- The other big surprise, I think, is eleventh-ranked prospect, three-star outfielder Christopher Hawkins. Um... think it's maybe a stretch to say that this guy hasn't been noticed the way some of the others in the system have? The 2010 third-rounder will play for Lansing in 2012, and according to Goldstein, many feel he's due for a breakout. "Hawkins is athletic and projectable," he wriets. "He has plenty of bat speed, and could develop average power as his game matures. He's a tick above-average runner who should become a good corner outfielder."

- Goldstein also has 2011 draft pick Kevin Comer higher than most lists I've seen, checking in at number ten. But don't get all excited just yet, as he gives an ETA of 2016 on him, explaining that "Comer won’t move quickly through the system. He has far less experience than most high school arms due to his cold-weather upbringing, and has had little need for a changeup. He's more of a thrower than a pitcher, and needs to learn the intricacies of his craft."

- Speaking of distance to the big leagues, of the top eleven, Goldstein thinks Travis d'Arnaud-- a rare catcher who can hit in the middle of the order, he says-- is closest to the Majors, placing his ETA at late 2012. Anthony Gose, Drew Hutchison and Deck McGuire are right behind, with 2013 seen as more realistic goals-- though not if you hear some of the talk from the organization about Hutchison. On the other end, along with Comer, Adonys Cardona is looking at something like 2016 arrival.

- As is always the case with prospecting, as good a job as Goldstein does, there's not a whole lot concrete we can take away from it all: checking the archives, the Jays had a pair of five-star prospects in 2011, 2010 and 2009 as well: Kyle Drabek (twice), JP Arencibia (twice), Travis Snider and Brett Wallace. Yikes.

- Lastly, we get a list of the club's best players under 25, among whom Brett Lawrie easily stands out, though "there still needs to be some brakes hit here. Expecting him to repeat his .373 on-base percentage or .580 slugging once advance scouts find his holes is foolish." Henderson Alvarez, perhaps surprisingly, comes in fourth, behind d'Arnaud and Marisnick, while Goldstien has this to say about the high-profile, high-level potential busts: "Drabek, Rasmus, and Snider are all hedges. You could do anything with them on this list and not be wrong. All three could be All-Stars in three years, or two could be in Japan. Drabek's inability to turn things around after a demotion to Triple-A was especially troubling, but his raw stuff is still there. Rasmus was supposed to turn it all around once he got out of an uncomfortable situation in St. Louis, but instead he was worse, to the point of unplayable. This will be Snider’s final appearance if he doesn’t produce. It’s finally time to do something with his 877 major-league plate appearances."

- Ahhh... and lastly, it's a dig at Rogers and the Jays, who "need to stop being the bridesmaids with elite free agents." Ugh.

Alright! It's the Getting Blanked Podcast: Episode 41

Alright! It's time to go around baseball and talk about the interesting topics (TM), with a little Jaysturbation (or not), cooking tips, heresy, trains, vomit, and even more depressing realizations about just how ridiculously good Michael Jordan was out-of-whack MLB's alignment is thrown in for good measure (or not): it's a brand new episode of the Getting Blanked Podcast.

This week we spoke to Twitter's @marchulet (aka Marc Hulet of FanGraphs!)

Yu can download the podcast right here. (It'll probably also play in your browser, FYI. Click it and find out!)

Alternately, you can hit up the Getting Blanked iTunes page, which is humming along these days, and from now on until the end of eternity will have all our podcasts, vodcasts, live stream mp3s and whatever other goodies dream up posted there in a timely manner.

As always, Mint Musical Interludes courtesy of The Constantines, Arts & Crafts Records and now also Deathwish Records! Be sure to check them out and buy every single fucking thing you hear at their sites.

The Off-Season Turns the Corner

So the off-season has finally turned that long corner towards spring, with the best free agent finally off the market, as Prince Fielder is a Detroit Tiger, agreeing Tuesday to a nine-year contract worth $214-million.

I'm certain that it won't, but hopefully this puts an end to some of the hysteria about the Jays and Rogers and payroll, which by the end of the saga was largely being driven by the ultra-naive assumption that Fielder was there for the taking on the cheap. The notion was pretty remarkable; premised on the idea that a supposedly-cratering market for a player wasn't a sign that maybe clubs had huge reservations about him, but that Rogers was simply dropping the ball and punting it into the nearest piss puddle-- most likely to be found beneath the pant legs of the nearest wailing Jays fan.

This, of course, wasn't the case. Scott Boras got a princely sum for his client (see what I just did there?), and my hope is that the enormous back-end cost (see what I just did there?) will calm the firestorm. And perhaps it already has.

Yet, something still sticks in my craw about all this, which is basically the central theme of the entire off-season: the fact that so many people seem keen to live by this delusion where they insist Rogers and the Jays and Alex Anthopoulos operate against their own interests in some kind of a fantasy world that gives fans instant, short-sighted gratification.

Rogers' ownership of the Jays has always been, in large part, a means by which to provide cheap content to their media platforms. I've heard the argument made that they should, but they're simply not going to look at the market prices being paid by regional cable networks in the United States for MLB broadcast rights and decide that they owe it to the Jays to provide them something equivalent. Avoiding these kinds of escalating, already astronomical costs was the exact basis for the acquisition of MLSE by Rogers and BCE-- well, that and the seeming inability of sports franchises to go down in value, regardless of how poorly they're managed. Yes, they could spend more on the club, and it's frustrating at times that they won't, but it's foolish and futile to expect them to.

Precisely because of that futility, the vision Alex Anthopoulos has set forth-- the one he was assuredly hired on the basis of-- requires him to be a prudent manager of assets, and to build the club through an emphasis on the draft, scouting, and player development. He was present through the Ricciardi years, and certainly saw not the untenable bargain with cheap motherfucker Rogers so many fans want to cast the GM's relationship ownership as, but his predecessor hoisted on his own petard, reaching a point where he was unable to convince his bosses to continue spending good money after bad.

Now, Rogers' cynical decision to close the purse strings, fire Ricciardi-- eventually-- and commence rethinking organizational strategy was clearly the best one for their bottom line and not necessarily the baseball club. But with a system lacking in high-end talent, a star player ready to jump ship, and a middling player being paid like a megastar, the decision made was palatable to both the fan base and the accounting department, gave Anthopoulos a clean slate, and as such is difficult to argue against. But don't doubt that Rogers' willingness to make it has been extremely instructive to Anthopoulos and Beeston.

Fielder's availability this winter was a moment that many fans felt was so opportune that the Jays couldn't possibly let it pass-- a perceived opportunity for the club to make real headway in the American League East-- based on the thorough misunderstanding of utterances from the club that they could eventually go to $120-million in payroll, and that money will be there when it's needed. It's needed now, some insisted. However, much like those fans' similar despair over Anthopoulos missing out on top pitching trade targets, in my view, they have undersold the cost of such a move in their own minds, and overstated the impact.

Mat Latos was moved to Cincinnati from San Diego for the players MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo-- hardly the be-all, end-all, but to use as a handy example-- ranked as the second-best first base prospect in baseball, the sixth-best catching prospect, and further pieces still.

If the Padres viewed Yonder Alonso and Yasmani Grandal similarly, realistically the Jays would have needed a Lawrie-plus-d'Arnaud- or Arencibia-fronted package to top it-- a price that, given Lawrie's popularity and maple-dick-explodingly awesome debut, can't be viewed as anything but too steep. Yet many fans, often with the most smug, assholishness they can muster, piss and moan about deals that weren't done this winter, insisting that Anthopoulos did something unforgivable by not forcing anything to happen, by not conjuring up a fantasy deal that would have added a huge piece to the Major League roster without giving one up in return, by not offering false hope for 2012 at the expense of 2013 and beyond.

Fielder, of course, is different. His cost comes only in terms of dollars, but they're enormous dollars-- dollars that might seem a terrific expenditure in the early years of the deal, but pose a great deal of risk on the back-end. Perhaps that shouldn't be a consideration for Alex Anthopoulos, given the tremendous wealth his owners are backed by, but it has to be. He can't live in the world, real as it may be, where Rogers ought to have no problem risking potential sunk cost, because it's not their sunk cost, it's his sunk cost. After earning his promotion on the back of a player development-based vision, it's not really his place to go to ownership and demand, even though a Fielder or a Darvish may only get them close to where they want to be-- may still only lead to half-full stadiums in a mid-August out of the race-- that they should assume the risk on those kinds of deals, since, if they don't produce immediate results, hey, we're Rogers, we can always spend more next year.

Some fans seem to feel betrayed by Rogers and Paul Beeston based on the logic-defying notion that if the club hasn't skyrocketed payroll yet, they're never going to; that because they haven't seen the coming wave of prospects yet, they're being asked to chase vapours; that because they're hearing the all-too-familiar refrain of "wait another year," the club is destined for more of the mediocre same in perpetuity.

I guess I understand the impulse to roll one's eyes at more pleas for patience, but it takes a pretty severe blind spot to mistake the reasons Anthopoulos is doing it for the ones Ricciardi gave.

Under the old GM, by the end, we were sold on the hope that if everything broke right, everyone stayed healthy, everyone performed at their peak, and one of the teams ahead of us faltered, maybe we had a chance. It wasn't incorrect, but there simply didn't exist for him, perhaps because of a lack of job security, the same kind of acknowledgement of reality-- about the attrition rate of prospects, about how to approach the trade deadline or the draft, about the most efficient ways to acquire the high-end talent needed to compete with the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Fans have been discouraged by this off-season, often failing to grasp how little fruit we've yet seen borne by Anthopoulos's labours, while the Geoff Bakers of the world asininely scoff from their high horses about bloggers defending their clubs' decisions to stay the course. But while Baker may be right about Rogers' crass, cynical cheapness on the whole, given the reality Alex Anthopoulos is forced to operate in, the best course of action he could have taken-- for the sake of his own job, and by extension the franchise-- is this. The Jays may not be contenders in 2012, but fans should take an immense amount of comfort in the fact that they'll continue to load up in their preparation for unleashing hell on the American League in the following seasons.

Think about it: much like the later years under Ricciardi, the club is good-- it's close to contention-- but, as constructed, it can't not fall short, especially given it's residence in the toughest division in baseball. However, this time there's no magical short window that must be hoped and aimed for. This time we're not waiting on the dramatic false hope of a free agent coup, or one high-end prospect or two progressing quickly and without setback. In 2012, we're talking about maybe the best farm system in the Majors, with wave after wave of multiple prospects due to come over the next several years, six more early-round picks for 2012, and at least six years of Major League team control for every single one of them who has yet to hit Toronto-- not to mention team-friendly contracts coming literally out the ass. [OK, maybe not literally... unless!]

What Anthopoulos has done this winter simply is not just an extension of the previous regime. And as long as Rogers owns the club, it's also the only way it's going to work. Not only that, it is working, just maybe not fast enough for those fans who find so much catharsis in pissing and moaning, or the writers who lack either the intelligence or the compunction that would otherwise stop them from transparently preying on such instincts.

Wednesday, 25 January, 2012

Early-Evening Snack: Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Busy bee today. Sorry for the delay. But now, finally, it's time for all the stuff I don't figure on making full posts out of, with the spiffy new graphic by Matt English (aka @mattomic). It's your... um... Early-Evening Snack...

At Getting Blanked, Drew examines the value of building a Super 'Pen.

House of the Bluebird takes a crack at it too, suggesting that it's naive to suggest that Anthopoulos is stockpiling arms for the trade deadline, given that the removal of the potential for Type-B compensation makes these kinds of arms far less valuable than in recent years.

Jim Breen of FanGraphs writes about Francisco Cordero, Blue Jay, a depreciating asset who "is undergoing a transformation on the mound, the same transformation that many aging pitchers have to endure. He is attempting to deal with declining stuff."

Steal of Home superimposes Prince Fielder's hits at Miller Park from 2008 to 2011 onto Comerica, and figures that his power numbers are going to take a hit, with his 24 Miller Park dingers in 2011 dipping to just 11 had he played home games for Detroit.

Bluebird Banter has part two of their interview with Jays pitching coach Bruce Walton. Double Pappy!

Shi Davidi of Sportsnet reports on the Brandon Morrow extension, and the tendency of Alex Anthopoulos to pay players he knows, not ones from outside the organization.

Grantland, Jonah Keri wonders what the hell the Red Sox are doing.

The Toronto Star gives us a nice, odd, superficial comparison of John McDonald and Omar Vizquel.

Lastly, Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times is doing his "MLB owners are cheap fuck and bloggers who don't know what they're talking about do their PR dirty work by nitpicking within the framework of unacceptably low budgets" thing on Twitter. For some reason I'm reminded of this:

Today in Bullshit: "Random" Drug Testing? Not For Joey Bats

I guess maybe he looks big enough to be a juicer. Wait... you mean the guy on the left?!??!?


Hardball Talk passes along an item from Dominican newspaper Hoy that refers to a speech made by Jose Bautista during a "dinner given by President of the Republic, Leonel Fernandez to a group of Dominican baseball players," in which Jose said that he has been tested sixteen times-- sixteen!-- for PEDs over the last two seasons, despite having been tested only three times over the previous two.

That seems fair. Totally doesn't sound like MLB is just salivating at the prospect of making the Dominican guy on the team in Canada the superstar they could most easily palate doing away with. Did they place that fucking buffoon Peter Keating in charge?

Total. Fucking. Ridiculousness.

"Now, the real test," adds Craig Calcaterra. "Given how often Bautista has been tested, if he has 19 homers in late May, can random columnists resist the urge to write that 'it’s impossible not to be suspicious' column once again? Or is there nothing that will stop that?"

Excellent, excellent point. I mean, are writers who continue to baselessly speculate about Bautista nothing more than incompetent, lazy hacks and putrid shitstains of human beings? Hey, you gotta ask the question.

Uehara Rejected Trade To the Jays

Welp. I guess we now know for sure what that crazily-translated article from Yahoo! Japan was trying to tell us-- which now makes total sense, and which some folks suggested it said at the time.

MLBTR points us to Richard Durrett of ESPN Dallas, who presumably has a Japanese friend or two and didn't get too sidetracked by a comical web translation to do his job, to clear up the mess, as he explains that a deal was in place to send Rangers reliever Koji Uehara to the Jays-- hopefully not for Mike Napoli this fucking time-- but the player rejected it.

Evidently Toronto was one of the six teams on his limited no-trade clause (the military being one of the others?), and Uehara invoked it, preferring not to move his family from Baltimore to Toronto.

Uhh.... bon choix there, Koji.

Subsequently, one can assume, the Jays move on to plan-B, signing free agent Francisco Cordero to augment their bullpen instead. A definite downgrade.

Tuesday, 24 January, 2012

Rosenthal: Get Set For Super 'Pen as Jays Sign Francisco Cordero

Taking time out from writing about Prince Fielder and money for the umpteenth time this winter to pass you along this news: Kenny Ken Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports tweets that the Jays have themselves a new setup man, ex-Reds closer Francisco Cordero.

The deal is for just one year-- no option, apparently-- and $4.5-million. It's the same amount they could have paid Jon Rauch, had they picked up his option, only in Cordero it nets them a pitcher who still throws in the mid-90s (OK, he averaged 93 on his four-seamer in 2011), and... well... actually pre-2011 Rauch had some better things going for him: better ERA over the previous two years, better FIP, better fWAR, better walk rates.

But Cordero can miss more bats, will produce a lot more ground balls, and has a lot more depth behind him-- Darren Oliver, Jason Frasor, Casey Janssen-- to pick up the slack. And, of course, Sergio Santos, to close out ballgames.

All in all, while it may not shift the balance of power in the American League, it's a nice move-- especially with a view to the trade deadline. Parkes may be absolutely right when, at Getting Blanked, he worries about the peripherals trending in the wrong direction, but after what Alex Anthopoulos turned Dotel, Francisco and Rauch into, it's hard to see much downside here, given the relatively low cost.

Fielder to the Tigers: Money and the Changing AL Landscape

Prince Fielder is a Detroit Tiger, agreeing today to a nine-year contract worth $214-million. Scott Boras and the Mystery Team have still got the magic.

Honestly, I really will write about this at some point...

Mid-Afternoon Snack: Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Now it's time for all the stuff I don't figure on making full posts out of, with the spiffy graphic by Matt English (aka @mattomic). It's your Mid-Afternoon Snack...

As mentioned previously, I had myself a little Lunch With Mary yesterday, and now the results are up, complete with picture of me looking vaguely sad over a plate of delicious, delicious dead cow. [Note: Clearly, in retrospect, I should have gone with Fun House.]

Rumour the slipped through the cracks a bit yesterday: according to MLBTR, the Jays are among many teams looking at 18-year-old Cuban left-hander Gerardo Concepcion.

MLBTR also tells us that Prince Fielder talks could conclude today. Curiously, the Washington Nationals have a news conference set to introduce the traded-for-weeks-ago Gio Gonzalez tomorrow, according to a tweet from Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post. Might they have something else to announce by then? Cue Armageddon among the batshit stir-crazy, reality-detached elements of the Jays fan base. Which at this point fucking seems like almost everybody.

Fingers crossed that Jon Heyman is right, and Fielder gets seven or eight years, which I think would shut up at least a of the people who are astonished and furious that the Jays haven't shown more interest.

Chris Cwik of FanGraphs tries to make sense of Brandon Morrow's ERA, and why his peripherals stay the about same with men on base (though his fly ball rate went up noticeably with men on in 2011, perhaps as a result of pitching up in the zone to get more strikeouts, Cwik theorizes), yet his BABIP soars. Is he simply terrible pitching from the stretch? Possibly, but Cwik doesn't think so. Like much with Morrow, it's rather unclear.

"If he's able to add a few ticks of velocity he could be a very interesting prospect but he can be effective with his current velo," concludes Bullpen Banter in an extensive report on Drew Hutchison. "Hutchison's natural deception and the angle of his delivery add to his appeal but his cross fire finish raises some durability concerns. Hutchison's calling card is his FB command and a mature feel for pitching. He is comfortable changing speeds and has a veteran's feel for sequencing and setting up hitters. His secondary pitches remain inconsistent but flash the potential to be above average pitches. As a command and deception right-hander with a solid three pitch mix Hutchison projects as a mid rotation starter in the big leagues - and soon."

Gregor Chisholm of BlueJays.com keeps bringing it with prospect gold, having an in-depth talk with Jake Marisnick.

Mop Up Duty looks at how fantasy players are looking at Adam Lind and Colby Rasmus.

BlueBird Banter brings us part one of a four- or five-part interview with Jays pitching coach Bruce Walton. Pappy!

Mike Wilner of the Fan 590 writes at Miked Up about Brandon Morrow's dedication to becoming a bigger asshole. On the mound, that is.

Lastly, watch for some Jose Bautista action in the new trailer for MLB '12: The Show. (If you only care about Jose, I guess I can warn you that you can probably turn the clip off after 40 seconds or so.)