Kuzul

Rumours are swirling about Blue Jays shortstop Alex Gonzalez.

Joe Strauss reported in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch over the weekend that Toronto had scouts in St. Louis and that the Cardinals may be interested in acquiring the 33 year old veteran for the stretch run.

Gonzalez is having a big year at the plate power wise, with 17 homers and 50 RBIs at the All-Star break. Gonzalez’s on base percentage is a brutal .296, but his power in the middle infield would be a welcome addition to the Cardinals’ lineup.

Gonzalez is on a one-year contract paying him $2.75 million this year, and is unlikely to figure into Toronto’s long term plans.

St. Louis’ primary shortstop this season has been Brendan Ryan who, while solid defensively, is hitting .194 with an OPS of .547.

As to what Toronto may expect in return for Gonzalez, it is unlikely the Jays would be interested in Ryan or Cardinals’ backup Khalil Greene. It is more likely Toronto would be looking at prospects in return for Gonzalez, the Cardinals system is rich in pitching, but has little in the way of top end offensive talent.

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As we approach the middle of the season and the All-Star break, I thought it would be a good idea to see how our position players stack up against the rest of the league.

To be eligible for the batting average and on-base percentage category, a player must have 175 at-bats or more up to this point in the season.

The Jays have had some surprises from players like Jose Bautista, John Buck, and Alex Gonzalez, so it will be interesting to see how they stack up against others at their positions.

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After Roy Halladay was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, fantasy baseball owners believed the only Toronto Blue Jays worth having were Adam Lind and Aaron Hill. Turns out there are a few other Jays not only worth owning, but that are better than those two.     

It is as if Coors Field has been rebuilt in Toronto. Sure, the Rogers Centre (A.K.A. SkyDome) has also been known as a hitter’s haven, but never like this season.  Somehow average-at-best (and that is being kind) part-time players with .230 batting averages for other teams in their careers have suddenly morphed into powerful sluggers you don’t want to throw 2-0 fastballs to. Either the air is getting thinner inside the Rogers Centre, or Harry Potter has conjured up a spell that is magically guiding Toronto’s fly balls over the fence.       

Here are the Blue Jays that have turned into fantasy heroes after spending the last couple years as fantasy zeroes:

Jose Bautista

This guy is leading the majors in home runs? No, couldn’t be. Let me adjust my glasses. Well, call me George Brett and put pine tar on my bat! Bautista and his 18 dingers are indeed ahead of Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and everyone else in the sport.  

Bautista leading any major offensive category two months into the season is almost as shocking as Al and Tipper Gore’s separation. He has never brought many redeeming fantasy qualities to the table during his eight-year career.  

Most homers in a season? 16, which Bautista has already surpassed without breaking a sweat. Most RBI? 63, and he already has more than two-thirds of that now in only one-third of a season. His best batting average? .254, so Joe Mauer has one less person to worry about coming after his batting crown considering Bautista is only presently hitting .243.

Bautista has not suffered through one prolonged power slump yet, even though his uppercut swing has holes in it and he still chases breaking balls in the dirt like a greyhound chases mechanical rabbits. He may strike out like Mark Reynolds, but now he hits homers like Reynolds does, too.
       
We will all wake up from this dream very soon.  Bautista must have overdosed on four-leaf clovers last St. Patrick’s Day or something.  He might finish with 30 homers and 90 RBI at season’s end, but to think he will keep this pace up is plain crazy. He is the ultimate sell-high candidate if there ever was one.  

John Buck

The Kansas City Royals, not known for their intelligent personnel decisions (Leo Nunez for Mike Jacobs? Multi-millions for Jose Guillen and Gil Meche?), looked smart for a change in the off-season when they cut bait on Buck, who had worn out his welcome because of his low batting averages and lower on-base percentages.

Buck has always had pop in his bat, though. He hit 70 home runs in six seasons with the Royals. Of course, only fantasy owners noticed, and even they did not care much since his constant 0-for-4 games would deflate the value of his taters.     

The homers are coming faster and more furious this season for Buck with him catching for Toronto, though. The veteran backstop has nine homers and 30 RBI in just 49 games, so he is well on his way to obliterating his previous career-highs in both statistics. And his batting average is .255, which might be terrible for many players but for Buck is the equivalent of hitting .300.    

Buck’s track record suggests that he will not keep up this Darren Daulton routine much longer. An 0-for-the-week is on the horizon that plummets his average 20 points. So trading him now when his value is higher than the summit at Mount Everest would be an optimal idea unless you have no other options behind the plate or if you have faith he can actually finish with 25 homers and 75 RBI.

Alex Gonazlez

Toronto has always had a thing for shortstops named Alex Gonzalez. Now the second shortstop with that name to man the position for the Jays this decade has been providing more pop than a general store from the 1950’s.  

Gonzalez, known more for his golden glove and his cannon arm than his home run prowess, has been slugging like he is Brady Anderson circa 1996. A-Gon has 12 homers and 33 RBI in 57 games. To put this in perspective, he has only broken the 70-RBI plateau twice and the 20-HR barrier once since entering the majors in 1998, so to say this was unexpected is like saying a few extra people watched Stephen Strasburg’s first big-league start.  

Gonzalez does not walk, does not steal, and does not hit for a high average. Homers and RBI are all he is good for in fantasy circles. Can he keep up the good work? Every other Blue Jay has been blasting homers regularly since Opening Day, so why can’t he?  Because he is a shortstop and because he has a slightly better resume than Bautista and Buck, I would not be against holding onto him, especially in AL-only leagues where homer-hitting shortstops are scarce.              

Brett Cecil

I’ll bet Pacman Jones, Howie Mandel, and John Cena’s names were mentioned at more fantasy drafts in March than Cecil’s. Only 16-team, AL-only leagues would have brought Cecil up for discussion. You cannot blame fantasy owners for not thinking about him on Draft Day. Cecil posted a 5.30 ERA and 1.65 WHIP during his rookie campaign and was no lock to make the 2010 rotation.

Yet Cecil has worked as many wonders as televangelist Benny Hinn during the opening third of the schedule. He has mixed his pitches perfectly, keeping righties off-kilter with his combination of fastballs and breaking balls, while totally shutting down lefthanded hitters (.143 batting average). Cecil is 6-2 with a 3.43 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP, and a growing fantasy fan base with every quality start he has.    

And this is just the tip of the iceberg in the hero department for the Blue Jays. Vernon Wells, whose body looked shot the past two seasons, is a fantasy stud again (15 homers, 40 RBI). Edwin Encarnacion has been pounding balls over the fence—when he has made contact (eight HR in 90 AB). And Shawn Marcum has valiantly returned from another arm injury to pitch like an ace (5-3, 3.38). 

I am not sure who deserves all the credit for all of these amazing performances. Maybe the coaching staff. Maybe the ballpark. Maybe the strength and conditioning coach.  Maybe the fantasy baseball gods. Maybe the bat boy. Or I guess the players themselves deserve some kudos. Whatever the case, many players are having special seasons north of the border, and fantasy owners are benefiting big time.

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Since Michael Lewis’ Moneyball came out in 2003 detailing Billy Beane and his strategy as GM of the Oakland A’s, we’ve all heard a lot about the philosophy that changed baseball.

We’ve heard about college scouting, OPS, patient hitting and Sabermetrics. We’ve heard about Jeremy Brown, Nick Swisher, Paul DePodesta and Theo Epstein. Above all, we’ve heard how the way to compete as a small-market team is to focus on players fitting a certain description: high on-base, lots of home runs and low strikeouts with heavy focus on statistics and none whatsoever on aesthetic appeal.

I’ve got some potentially upsetting news: we’ve all been missing the point.

Amidst all our excitement over the statistical baseball revolution, we’ve forgotten what Moneyball was all about: economics. Michael Lewis isn’t a sportswriter or a statistician. He holds a Masters in Economics from the London School of Economics. And at the end of the day, Moneyball (unitalicized intentionally when I’m talking about the strategy, not the book) isn’t actually about OPS or Kevin Youkilis. It’s about exploiting market inefficiencies.

The thing about the scouting strategies featured in Moneyball is that they only work when nobody else is using them. The idea underlying the A’s thinking is that while the Yankees and Red Sox have unlimited resources, you’re doomed to fail by doing the same things as them.

So Billy Beane did something different. While the rest of the league was focusing on average, RBIs and aesthetics, he focused on statistics, particularly OPS. This is exactly what’s meant by exploiting market inefficiencies – figure out what everybody else is missing and take advantage of it. As a result Beane made a living catching quality players who were falling through the cracks.

The trouble is that the rest of the league has caught on. Boston’s Theo Epstein is one of the top supposed Moneyball minds in the game. Noticed lately how Nick Swisher and Kevin Youkilis – the two players most highly touted in the book – are starting respectively for New York and Boston?

Remember the fundamental premise: you can’t succeed as a small-market team by doing the same things as the big-market teams. To compete, you have to do something different. So in today’s culture, where the big-market teams are focusing on traditional Moneyball stats, playing Moneyball doesn’t dictate going after OPS and patience at the plate – it dictates doing the opposite.

That’s what the Toronto Blue Jays have finally figured out this season. They’ve spent the past six years under JP Ricciardi rigidly refusing to scout high school prospects, looking exclusively at traditional Moneyball stats and essentially acting like Billy Beane acted up until 2002. Like the rest of us, they missed the point.

Under Alex Anthopoulos’ new regime, they’ve done the opposite. They’ve doubled their scouting staff, malcontent to rely on a DePodestean computer. Their draft strategy centres largely around high-risk high-school kids with heavy upside. They began the season by trading away the club’s biggest star in exchange for prospects.

And in case you haven’t noticed, they swing at everything. Moneyball told us never to swing at the first pitch. This year’s Jays tell us to swing at the first pitch as hard as you can, and quite often it’s ended up as a souvenir.

I began this article by saying that when it comes to Moneyball, we’ve been missing the point. Well, that Jays caught on. This is the new Moneyball. In 2002, Kevin Youkilis was slipping through the cracks as the baseball universe ignored plate discipline. Today, while the powers that be are preoccupied with plate discipline, players like Jose Bautista and Alex Gonzales slip through the cracks. The Jays are exploiting that inefficiency by focusing on performance indicators largely ignored by the teams with a financial advantage.

The only difference is that the indicators have changed. Looking back on Moneyball, Lewis absolutely argues OPS and plate discipline are better performance indicators. But the claim that they’re better is beside the point – what’s really fundamental about those stats is that given their dismissal by high-budget teams, they’re more economic. That’s no longer the case. In 2002 plate discipline was undervalued, and Billy Beane took advantage of it. Today discipline is perhaps overvalued – the undervalued assets are mechanics, aggression at the plate and high-school upside. Moneyball accordingly dictates focusing on those indicators instead.

Most people will tell you that swinging at everything, scouting primarily in person rather than through statistics and focusing on high-school players in the draft is a sign the Jays are no-longer playing Moneyball. I say it’s a sign they finally are playing Moneyball – or at least that they’re finally playing it properly. Call it the new Moneyball. And it’s working.

Courtesy Lion’s Den University Sports Writer Malcolm 

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un-her-ald-ded , adjective

appearing without fanfare, publicity, or acclaim; unexpected.

That is exactly the way to describe the hitting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays, who have transformed hitters’ careers around and have put the Jays’ close to an AL Wild Card berth. Not surprising for a guy who has already won a World Series ring (2001 with Arizona).

The Jays lead the MLB in many offensive rankings. First in home runs already with an astonishing total of 89, first in doubles, and first in slugging percentage. I can go on and on.

The main reason, the rebound of Vernon Wells, and the surprise emergence of Jose Bautista, Alex Gonzales, Fred Lewis, and John Buck.

Bautista, is 1st in the AL in HR with 16, and fourth in RBI with 44. Not bad for Bautista, who all of his career has been considered a very effective bench player with his above-average defence at numerous positions, was acquired for Robinson Diaz, a career minor leaguer from Pittsburgh.

The mastermind in his big bat, is not suprisingly Murphy. The Toronto Blue Jays outfielder was getting started too late in the batter’s box, forcing him to use his shoulders rather than his hands when attacking the ball, making his swing long and wild.

Rather than going through the ball, he was going around it, leaving him vulnerable to inside pitches.

Murphy then personally approached Bautista in the Jays’ weight room, gave him a bat, and told him to swing in front of a mirror. Hours of video followed from Murphy, and suddenly you had here an unlikely possible All-Star and even possibly a Home-Run derby hitter.

Meanwhile, Vernon Wells has also done the same sort of thing with Murphy, working on his swing and pulling the ball. Alex Gonzales and John Buck have seem to have adjusted to the Jays’ “See it and Swing it” approach.

Hopefully the Blue Jays’ bats will continue surging, and make that push for the Wild Card.

One thing is for sure, the main protagonist for the Jays’ success, you gotta say Murphy.

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While Roy Halladay’s perfect game may remind Blue Jays’ fans just exactly how great the pitcher who just left was, I wouldn’t mourn Doc for too long. The Blue Jays’ win over the Rays on May 31st just proves that this team may be just fine without their ace. 

Adam Lind capped off a phenomenal power month for the Jays with their 54th long ball of May. This was not only a club record for the Jays but it was only four shy of the all time Major league record. 

I don’t think any of the current pitchers would say that they don’t miss Doc but the rotation seems to be just fine without him. Shaun Marcum has solidified his status as club ace and Ricky Romero continues to build on his great rookie campaign. Brett Cecil has buckled down quite nicely and Brandon Morrow was excellent tonight against the best team in baseball. Morrow carried a no hitter into the sixth inning for the second time this year. Not too shabby for a guy who the Mariners dumped for Brandon League. 

The Jays play in the AL East, the most feared division in baseball. While this division is still the toughest in baseball, Toronto has a shot. The Rays have been slumping and the Yankees are banged up. The Red Sox dug themselves a big hole in April that they are trying to get out of. I wouldn’t count them out but they have an uphill battle ahead of them. 

Toronto is 3.5 games back from the division lead. This team is also only one game behind the Yankees in the wild card. This is great for a team that no one saw still in contention in June even if Roy Halladay was still a Jay. 

I still think the Jays are one move away from being a true playoff contender. This is Alex Anthopolous’ chance to prove his abilities as a general manager. Spend, spend, spend was the philosophy of Riccardi but a team with this offense should have a “win now” mentality.

Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt are on the trade market. I wouldn’t give up Kyle Drabek or Brett Wallace for other one but these are trades that AA should look in to. The majority of the offense is locked up for years to come but they could use some pitching help if they want to go deep into October. This isn’t a team that needs drastic help but another quality starter would be nice should Cecil or Morrow falter down the road. 

The AL East is not going to get any easier and the Blue Jays find themselves in a great position coming into June. This team needs to capitalize on the current misfortunes of the Yankees and Red Sox and make a serious play at the division or the wild card. Anthopolous has said time and time again that he will spend when the time is right. Let’s see if he can live up to that promise. 

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Back in March this year, the feeling around Spring Training was one of cautious optimism. 

After coming off a humbling 75-87 season, the firing of J.P. Ricciardi and the trade of team icon Roy Halladay, the Blue Jays were clearly embarking to rebuild.

Fast forward to May 9, with a record of 19-14, the water cooler talk was all about our “great young arms”, our “potent offense” and dare I say it—Wild Card! 

And why not? We had just taken 3 of 4 against Chicago and previous to that we swept the Indians.

The Jays are the top power hitting team in baseball with 51 Home Runs and lead the AL in Total Bases with 535

John Buck, with a .237 career batting average, is all of a sudden a .270 hitting juggernaut who’s on pace to obliterate his career highs in every major statistical category. This includes almost tripling his previous bests in HR’s and RBI’s.

How about Alex Gonzalez? The light hitting baseball nomad has either been eating out of Victor Conte’s garbage or is on the hot streak to end all hot streaks. The most glaring stat? His SLG% (Slugging Percentage) is a ridiculous 185 points higher than his career number.

As for those “Great Young Arms”, Ricky Romero and Shawn Marcum are indeed pitching well. However, Romero has been the recipient of great defense and quite a bit of luck as his unusually low .288 BABIP (batting average for balls in play) would suggest. 

Once that number climbs to around .300, Romero’s stats should even themselves out.

Even still, 19-14 is nothing to scoff at. Until we went on the road to face the Red Sox.

After allowing seven walks last night (six in 1.2 innings from starter Brendon Morrow, one of our “great young arms”) we narrowly lost a sloppy game to Boston. However, that was just one game and there’s no way we walk seven again tonight.

Well we didn’t walk seven, we walked eight. Red Sox 6 – Blue Jays 1.

That loud THUD you just heard was the other shoe dropping.

This is to be expected from an elite hitting team like the Red Sox. They are third in the AL with a .353 team OBP and 4th in fewest strikeouts (from their hitters). 

On the other hand, the Jays are in the bottom three in the AL for OBP and have struck out at the plate more times then any other team in baseball.

Home runs are great but nothing kills a rally more than a strikeout or hitting into a double play. There’s a reason why Adam Dunn is playing in Washington and guys like Russell Branyon and Jack Cust can’t keep a job even though they are legit power hitters.

Apologies to my fellow Jay fans out there as I know I can come across as a bit a buzz kill . However, this is still a rebuilding season and when we beat up on some the leagues lesser lights we all need to take it with a grain of salt.

Having said that, there are still lots to be excited about! Lyle Overbay is making Mendoza look like Tony Gwynn so we can expect to see Brett Wallace manning First Base hopefully by July when we make our west coast road trip.

It’s all about perspective.

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This is my first official article as the new Toronto Blue Jays Feature Columnist here on B/R. Quick thanks to the editorial staff for their assistance and to the men behind the curtain who saw fit to give me this opportunity. And a big thanks to my readers who never cease to keep me honest. I expect nothing less.

Cheers!

Jeff

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As I write this, my beloved Toronto Blue Jays are sitting third in the AL East (fourth overall in the AL) with an impressive early record of 16-13. This places us a mere four games behind the Yankees, for the Wild Card spot.

It’s also May 6.

Have a cup of coffee, rummy.

First allow me to preface the remaining article with the following: You will be hard pressed to find a more devoted Blue Jay fan than I. However, I’m also a strict realist who deals in honest, factual reasoning and absolutely does not suffer fools. I’m a shotgun diplomat who leaves the platitudes for the horde of Pavlov’s Dogs that seem to inhabit the sporting news blogosphere.

As for the Jays, sometimes you just need to tell your girlfriend “yes honey, you do look fat in that dress.”

At first glance a 16-13 record looks fairly impressive for a team that was supposed to be a bottom feeder this year. However, when you dig a little deeper you’ll notice that it just isn’t the case.

We’ve played four of nine series’ against teams with winning records last year, Boston, Los Angeles, Tampa, and Texas.  Our record stands at 3-9 in those games, including 1-6 against AL East teams

We have yet to play New York, Detroit, Minnesota, or Seattle and we still have 16 games left to play against Tampa and Boston.  That leaves 99 games left against winning teams from ’09—not including 12 games against the Rockies, Giants, Cards and Phillies, all winning teams from the NL. 

At our current pace we are looking at a record of 33-66 against the winning teams in the AL.  Lets say we run just over .500 during Inter-league games at 8-7, that leaves us at 41-73. 

48 games left to play against the worst of the AL.

Lets be optimistic here and say we have a .700 record against these teams and end up 34-14.  That gives us a record of 75-87.

Coincidentally, that was our record last year. Good enough for 4th in the AL East, a full 28 games back of New York.

Now for some sobering reality about our roster:

Alex Gonzales’ best year offensively was in 2004 with the Marlins when he hit .232/23/79.

To illustrate how much of an anomaly that is, his career per season numbers are .248/10/45.  Of his eleven other seasons, only in three of them did he eclipse 10 home runs and 55 RBI. His pace so far projects to .278/45/123. Needless to say you can cut those power numbers in half and knock off 30 average points. More than expected yes, but Alex Rodriguez, he is not.

John Buck is hitting very well of late (though his avg/OBP are putrid as expected). 

However, in four of his six years in Kansas City, when he was the clear starter, Buck had never hit more than 18 HR or 50 RBI.  His current pace of 27/76 (based on 135 games) simply cannot be sustained.

As advertised, Brandon Morrow has been a strikeout machine. 

But with a K:BB ratio of 10:5, we can expect his ERA to stay at around 5.00. Control is a skill that is slow to develop and expecting Morrow to “figure it out” and start shutting teams down in the next couple of weeks, or even months, just isn’t reasonable. Also, as long as he’s averaging five innings per start, he’s going to decimate the arms in our bullpen.

Now lets quickly discuss Vernon Wells. 

He’s also on pace for a 45/120 season although at a significantly higher average than Alex Gonzalez. Also just like A-Gon, he will not maintain that pace.

That’s not a bad thing either.

His bloated contract puts him squarely in the cross hairs of both media and fans alike. 

However, over the course of his career Vernon has proven to be a very respectable .280/25/90 hitter to go along with great defense in center field. I think we need to stop blaming him for the contract J.P. Ricciardi signed him to and realize that he just isn’t the .310/35/115 guy we all want him to be. 

Jays fans need get off the road to Jonestown this season. 

We are not winning any divisions or wild cards. We are, as expected, a middling team just trying to stay relevant in the cutthroat A.L. East.

Lets just sit back and enjoy the emergence of some great young talent like Brett Cecil, Ricky Romero, and Travis Snider. I suspect that fairly soon Brett Wallace will be here and we should catch a glimpse of J.P. Arencibia and Kyle Drabek come September.

Now take a cold shower and get ready for more kool-aid. 

NHL offseason starts in July!

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