Shannon Stewart and the Many Bewildering Levels of Perplexity

We're not sure if we're supposed to feel sad that Shannon Stewart crapped out in his second stint as a Blue Jays. We feel some sort of sadness, but it could just be a side affect of the lingering malaise that this season has inflicted upon us.

But as confused as we are about how we feel about this latest marginal roster move, we're pretty sure that Stewart's release from the team was well-earned. Stewart's prolonged absences from the lineup because of his old man's legs and his feeble performance (.628 OPS) over the 52 games in which he managed to drag his carcass onto the field pretty much sealed his fate.

All of this to preface the following question: Why is Shannon Stewart bellyaching to Jeremy Sandler about his release?

"In all honesty I don't really understand why I was brought over here, the whole experience didn't make much sense," Stewart told the CanWest scribe.

Really?

Stewart doesn't get why he was brought in at a discount when basically every other team passed on him? And he doesn't get why he didn't get all of the at bats as a DH/corner outfielder when he could barely slug over .300? And he didn't understand why the Jays couldn't have given him a shot to finish off the season in the Majors when he didn't even produce at Menchian or Wilkersonian levels this year?

When we look back at the things that we wrote earlier in the year, we were wrong about plenty of things. But when it comes to Stewart's signing, we pretty much nailed it:

Frankly, Stewart is a guy who has aged quickly, has a fraction of the power you'd hope for from a corner outfielder, can't reasonably play any other outfield position, and has hamstrings that could spontaneously combust at any moment. So we're not printing up the playoff tickets quite yet.

And because everything comes full circle
We just thought we'd mention that the Twins have signed Bobby Kielty to a minor league deal. So order has been restored anew in the universe. Peace be upon us.

Adam Lind is ridiculously awesome

There's some spooky numerological stuff going on with Adam Lind right now.

In 22 games since being recalled on June 22, Adam Lind has 22 RsBI. Weird.

Lind also has five homers, a .361 OBP and a .641 slugging percentage. Which adds up to a 1.002 OPS...which is really good. (Small sample size or not.)

In those 22 games since being mercifully brought back into the fold, Lind has one fewer homer than Alex Rios has in 94 games this season.

If Lind were to maintain that pace over a full season, he'd drive in 162 runs, hit 37 homers, and generally make everyone forget about whatshisname with the stupid chin hair and old creaky legs from the days of old.

(BTW, for those of you who are still pining for Reed Johnson, we'd note that the boy has a .717 OPS in 65 games with the Cubs. So stop.)

All of this raises two questions for us:

1) Who's idea was it to send Adam Lind down for more seasoning?
2) How can you trust the talent evaluation skills of someone who can make such an egregious error?

Mrs. Tao's Baseball Analysis
Our better half, upon seeing Brad Wilkerson's diving catch in the nervous ninth last night: "Holy shit! That's the second time this week that he's made an awesome catch like that! Why doesn't he play more often?"

We love her dearly and admire the straightforward simplicity of her assessment of Wilkerson. She might just be ready to be a JaysTalk caller.

Massive offensive explosion!

Ten hits! Five runs! Put 'em on the boooooooooard...yes! Jays win!

It's just one win, and we're not going to ascribe any more meaning to it than it deserves. But it was a relief to see the Jays actually hit the ball solidly into the outfield with runners on base last night. Notably, Shannon Stewart actually looked a little more comfortable at the plate last night, even if his fourth inning RBI double was a bit of a gift from former teammate Mike Cuddyer.

Gibbons Watch returns
It's been a while since we made use of the Gibbons Watch tag on the blog, but seeing as how we are convinced like everyone else that he's about to get the can tied to him any day now, every decision he makes is going to be examined under a microscope.

Like last night's decision to pull Jesse Litsch after 70 pitches. We kinda get the rationale, given that the Twins big bats were coming up and the Jays have oodles of lefties in their pen now. Still, it seemed like the move of a manager who is coaching to save his job (hello, Carlos Tosca!). Last night's moves worked more or less...well...Jesse Carlson giving up a triple probably wasn't the anticipated result, but they got the win anyhow. But if Gibby continues to be this aggressive in his management style and it doesn't work, he's going to get pilloried.

Then again, he probably would anyway.

What a Mench!

Hey now!

Not only have the Jays made it official by acquiring Brad Wilkerson, but they've also gone out and traded a sack full of mountie quarters to the Texas Rangers for Kevin Mench and his gigantic fucking cranium. (Which, as we pointed out before, couldn't have come from excessive intake of Lik-a-Maid. Swedish Berries, maybe.)

DFA'ed to make room for the two new dudes? Sergio Santos (we barely knew ye) and Gus Chacin. The Machine is dead. Long live the Machine.

Incidentally, it was Mench who hammered a comebacker off Roy Halladay's leg a couple of years back in Texas, so Doc should at least be allowed to get one good lick in on Heavy Kevy before his first game. Towel whipping, bag tag, indian burn, purple nurple...whatever the weapon of choice, Mench should prepare himself for the worst.

Now the question is: where in hell do you find the lineup spots for Stewart, Mench, Wilkerson, and Matt Stairs? And what happens when Scrappy Doo and the PMoD are back in the house in 15 days?

Moreover, What's Edgardo Alfonzo up to these days?

Missed opportunities

Well that sucks.

Not that we want to engage in any discussions of the relative merits of scrappy left fielders. But Shannon Stewart has to take that bat of his shoulder with a man at third and the pitch dead red right down the middle of the plate in extra innings. That was just brutal.

There's no excuse for the Jays handing this game back to the Rays. None.

P.S. We think Shawn Camp may be a double agent. Somebody hook up some electrodes to his nether regions and make him deny it.

Some gems have jagged edges

Yeah, it's May, but we were perched on the edge of the chesterfield in the nervous ninth inning of tonight's 1-0 win over the ChiSox. Rocking back and forth, uttering curse words of encouragement to B.J. Ryan...you would have sworn that tonight's game meant something.

In the end, the Jays win, sweep the series, win their fifth in a row and remain undefeated in May. How's that for meaningful wins?

A few random thoughts below.

The greatest McGowan since Shane
Maybe the lambchops were holding Dustin McGowan back early in the season, because in two starts since razing them, he's been ridiculously awesome. In tonight's 7.1 innings of four-hit, six strikeout, shutout ball, McGowan looked calm and in control the whole way. He was never in trouble, but even when runners reached base, he looked cool as ice on the mound. And maybe that was all a big heap of cliché, but we felt like McGowan was fully in control the entire time, in spite of the Jays lack of run support.

Shannon Stewart does not run like a girl
Didja see Shannon Stewart beat out that throw in the eighth? Or leg out the triple in the sixth? Didja? Because if you did, could you do us a solid and shut the fuck up about Reed Johnson for at least one day? Thanks!

Things we never thought we'd say
John Gibbons managed an excellent game tonight. Seriously. The lineup made great sense, with Scrappy Doo hitting ninth, where he belongs. Moreover, Gibby smartly brought in John McDonald in the ninth (FINALLY!), even if the Prime Minister of Defense didn't need to make a play.

The Mainstream Media is awesome!
For all of the bitching and moaning that we've done week about the media, mad props go to the crew at Sportsnet for catching the ninth inning conversation between home plate umpire Ron Kulpa and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. The Southsiders' pitching coach Don Cooper began chirping about B.J. Ryan's delivery, calling for a balk on every pitch after Paul Konerko's walk. Kulpa eventually took off his mask, looked into the dugout and declared "He's stopping." That Sportnet not only had a mic open but also had a close up of Kulpa on the ready added immensely to the drama.

Speaking of media, welcome to a whole new era
The Drunk Jays Fans are on the air, in podcast form. Their inaugural episode was recorded this weekend, and is sitting on the Score's website for your listening pleasure. The first week's guests included JaysTalk's Mike Wilner, former in-game hostess Jill Clark (mrroawr!) and a certain Blue Jays blogger, who liked to use the words "ummm" and "y'know" a lot, and stopped in mid-sentence to sigh a lot. Not that we're obsessing.

Double your misery

It's not just that they Jays are displaying an historic ineptitude in hitting with runners in scoring position this season. They're also wiping themselves out of innings by hitting into more double plays than any other team so far this season.

Worse still, it is the guys in the middle of the lineup that are doing most of the work producing outs for the other team rather than runs for their own. Vernon "Whipping Boy" Wells and Lyle Overbay have both ground into five twin killings apiece, while Shannon Stewart, Matt Stairs and Scrappy-Doo Eckstein have each grounded into four.

And just for good measure, Frank Thomas ground into three while he was still here.

It's one thing to get guys on base - the Jays are still posting a respectable .342 OBP, fourth in the AL - but seriously, and for fuck's sake, they've gotta stop with this, or we might just go batty.

Here's a challenge for the logicians

So we're catching up on our podcasts today, listening to McCown and Brunt talk to Dan Shulman on PTS, which we figure should be gold. But then the conversation turns towards Reed Johnson, and the everlasting mancrush that all three gentlemen have for him.

That's when it got strange. Shulman said the following in comparing Reed Johnson to his putative replacement Shannon Stewart:

"Shannon Stewart doesn't have the intangibles that Reed Johnson does."

We had to stop the podcast, sit down on a rock like Rodin's Thinker and figure this one out for ourselves.

If intangibles are things that you can't quantify or measure, then how can we judge whether or not if one person has more immeasurable qualities than another? How can we assess the relative value on things which have no palpable value?

Maybe Shulman (along with the two ditto heads in the Fan 590 booth) should have dropped the voice authority and pseudo-expertise and just said flat out "I like Reed Johnson better." Because how ever much you want to pretty it up with false analysis, that's exactly what he was saying.

And really, there's really no shame in that. Except for the fact that Reed Johnson runs like a girl.

Travis Snider skips a grade

Travis Snider is not going to take up a long term residence in Dunedin this year. According to the Manchester Union-Leader, the 20 year-old hitting phenom is on his way to the Eastern League this season, perhaps a bit ahead of schedule.

Given his importance to the franchise, Snider's progress will likely be monitored very closely this summer. If he hits AA pitching well (and his AFL performance would seem to indicate that he will), his ticket may be punched for the big club for April of 2009.

Speaking of left field...
With the moves made by the club and those thrust upon them in the past week, the roster seems to be in place for the the start of the season, with the notable exception of left field. The Reed versus Shannon battle hasn't exactly been cleared up, although if, like the Sun's Mike Rutsey, you're reading the tea leaves, we can expect to see Stewart in left and Reed in limbo on opening day.

Two more weeks of fake games?
God almighty...save us now.

Watching moving pictures...what a concept!

It's amazing how much more you can glean from watching game action as opposed to reading boxscores or watching Kathryn Humphries' attempts at humour. Not that seeing a handful of innings gives a fulsome view of the progress of the team, but it was certainly revelatory to see our boys on the field.

A few thoughts:

Chacin is a Machine in need of serious repair: As ugly as the line score was, it didn't nearly do justice to just how messed up Gustavo Chacin is at this point. His arm slot has dropped noticeably, with two major repercussions. First, he's not able to hide the ball nearly as well as when he came over the top, meaning that batters are getting a really good long look at the pitch before he delivers it. Second, he has absolutely no velocity. Not that he was a flame thrower before, but now his delivery is much more suited to tossing a bean bag through a clown's nose at the county fair than it is to getting big league hitters out. This guy is toast.

Shannon Stewart is not as gimpy as we thought: Stewart worked the count well in his at bats, and looked good legging out a double. Also, we were reminded of the fact that while he has a pop gun arm, he compensates by getting good jumps on the ball as he did when he made a nice catch in foul ground.

How can we not love Buck Coats? Coats crashed into the wall in the 8th inning to make a sweet over the shoulder catch off of Jorge Posada. Also, dude is seriously lanky. Like, Bargnani lanky.

Aaron Hill is in mid-season form: Hill went deep into the count in a couple of at bats, fouling off pitches and hanging in there long enough to stroke a solid run-scoring double late in the game.

Purcey brings heat: David Purcey's control isn't all there yet, but he was dealing in his inning of work. He did get tagged for a Jason Lane homer, but dude definitely has an arm. (Or maybe anything looks fast after watching two innings of Chacin.) He's not ready for prime time, but he's almost there.

Michael Kay is a douchebag: The YES booth of Kay, David Cone and John Flaherty spent close to two innings picking apart a J.P. Ricciardi quote on the strength of the AL East which ended with the words "we just need a little more." We took the quote to mean that the Jays need a little more out of their personnel, but Kay was dismissive, assuming that he was asking for some sort of handout from the league. Flaherty assumed that they were looking for more revenue sharing, while Cone assumed that it meant that they need more fan support. Seriously, two innings spent on a throwaway sentence which probably didn't mean all that much at all.

Photo captions are fun!

"My mom's right...you do gots a big sack!"

Shannon Stewart's signing does not guarantee a World Series berth

Let's be clear: the Shannon Stewart signing is good in as much as it provides some extra insurance for the Jays' left field situation.

Yeah, there were a pile of guys at that position, but they consisted of a 40 year-old whose 2007 season may or may not be a mirage, a mid-range prospect who hasn't exactly lit it ablaze when he got the call, and a goateed short white guy. So, you know...nothing exceptional.

Frankly, Stewart is a guy who has aged quickly, has a fraction of the power you'd hope for from a corner outfielder, can't reasonably play any other outfield position, and has hamstrings that could spontaneously combust at any moment. So we're not printing up the playoff tickets quite yet.

Reed Johnson - Gutsy Gamer, Pouty Pouter
Granted, it's hard to read the tone of a newspaper story, but here's Johnson's first reaction to the signing (as told to Robert MacLeod, who's showing grit and giving 110% himself this spring) :

“I'm going to play somewhere...Whether it's here or for another team I just want to play baseball. I want to get out there ... and work on my swing and try to become a better player. If it's here, great. If not, I'll move somewhere else."

Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays!

UPDATE: The Blair Chimes In
Jeff Blair blogs that interest around the league in Reed is "non-existent", according to a front office source.

We come to bury Reed, not to praise him

Okay, maybe it's a little cheap to spit on the casket of Reed Johnson's career with the Blue Jays before they even lower it into the ground. Still, with the news of Shannon Stewart's signing, you can't help but dig a little deeper into Johnson's career numbers and find him wanting.

Last year, just by eyeballing through the cathode ray tube, we saw Johnson standing further back from the plate and using a longer bat. (He can deny it, but we'd like to think that our seat six feet away from our 27" Toshiba makes us the authority.) We saw Johnson unable to get to pitches on either the outside or inside corners, and we rarely saw him hit anything with a great deal of authority that wasn't a mistake pitch from a bad pitcher.

Plus, he runs like a girl.

The first half of Reed Johnson's 2006 season was extraordinary, if not extraordinarily flukey. His batting average on balls in play in those first 68 games was an absurdly high .409, which likely means that Reed got more than his fair share of seeing-eye squibbers. In the second half of that season, his BAbip dropped more than 80 points, and it has continued to decline in every half-season since.

Granted, he was hurt last year. (Where have we heard that before?) Still, we respect the fact that the Blue Jays' front office is at least taking out some sort of insurance against a further decline.

And as far as the other half of the game goes, Reed has engendered an awful lot of good will for himself by laying out for catches, and for generally being "gritty", "scrappy" and "full of heart". (Cripes, did we even need to bring in Eckstein? We already had a short white guy!)

Don't fret for Reed, though. This season was likely to be his last with the Jays anyways, with Adam Lind and (eventually) Travis Snider coming up quickly from behind him. He managed to cash in on those 12 weeks worth of excellent fortune, and will find a National League team to take him on as a supersub next year, if not sooner.

Don't call it a combeack

Well, mash our taters. The Jays signed Shannon Stewart to a minor-league deal.

And right about now, Reed Johnson's crappy goatee is spontaneously blasting itself out of his chin.

The guess here is that something would have to go very wrong with the rest of the roster for Stewart to make the big club, or maybe there's another move in the offing.