Spring Depth

This is happening.  Actual baseball players are playing actual baseball on actual baseball diamonds.  Now, those players may be major leaguers half-assing it in the early spring, or minor league scrubs whole-assing it with no hope of making an Opening Day roster.  But it's baseball all the same, and it's a glorious thing.

Besides, there are at least a few things are already in mid-season form, like Prince Fielder's bat-flip, for instance.  Is it important that one of the premier sluggers in the game zeroed in on a Brandon Morrow offering and lit him up like a senior citizen's birthday cake?  Of course not.  To me, little tidbits of entertainment like these are the things that makes the otherwise tedious spring training experience more fun.  Even in the earliest games, we get a glimpse of the kind of best-on-best match-ups that keep us watching through the dog days.

Of course, we also get to see some of the kinds of plays that will eventually get real prospects into the majors one day, like Anthony Gose robbing Austin Jackson of at least one extra base, if not two or three.  Seeing Gose zoom straight back off the crack of the bat and track that fly ball perfectly got me thinking about depth on the Blue Jays roster for 2013.

While it's a given that Gose is slated for AAA Buffalo to start the year -- I mean, they aren't even pretending otherwise -- it bears repeating that he racked up a surprising 189 above-replacement-level plate appearances in the big leagues in 2012.  Even the most optimistic Colby Rasmus boosters (and I count myself among them) have to feel more comfortable knowing such a capable defender is available in case he struggles or takes a step backward.  With what should be a more potent lineup in place for 2013, even if Gose brings a bat that... um, let's say "needs maturing", he provides enviable depth in the outfield.

Add to Gose the fairly canny signing of Ryan Langerhans (despite his apparent maiming of Mike McCoy in an outfield collision on Saturday), bringing Adam Loewen back into the fold as a 1B/OF, and hell, maybe even Lance Zawadzki , and you have the makings of a respectable set of AAA outfielders who could be called on in a pinch as a fourth outfielder for -- picking a number out the blue here -- 15 days.

(EDIT: only took me a day or so after posting to realize Zawadzki is actually an infielder, but the broader point about depth in Buffalo stands.  Plus, Moises Sierra is still a thing that exists, so I guess you could throw him into the AAA mix of outfielders.)

Speaking of depth, I might be overreacting to a pretty minor feature of the defensive lineup John Gibbons fielded on Saturday at Joker Marchant Stadium, but I was intrigued by his decision to start the game with Emilio Bonifacio at shortstop and Maicer Izturis at second base, and even more intrigued when he flip-flopped the two of them a few innings in.

We're not quite in Tampa Bay's shortstop-at-every-position territory just yet, but it speaks well of the potential versatility of the infielders available that least three of them can play passably at the toughest spot.  If the withered corpse of Mark DeRosa can log a few innings a week at third, second or a corner outfield spot, there should be more than enough defensive options for Gibbons to spell Brett Lawrie, Jose Bautista, and Jose Reyes, maybe give them a half-day off as the DH, and keep them fresh over the 162-game grind.

There Will Be Hard Times: Vague Thoughts on 2012, 1995, Gose and Batting Coaches

Photo courtesy @james_in_to. He's swell, and has lots of awesome Jays pics here.

I won't bore you with a rehashing the past two months of Blue Jays baseball, which has rushed past us in a furious blur of crazy injuries and depleted lineups and...well...you were there. You get it. And if you were here right now, we'd hug it out, with a couple of additional back slaps and an extra squeeze, just to let you know we're there with you.

Then again, we haven't really had much to offer lately on the blog, which is attributable in part to real life getting a lot more hectic than I'd anticipated. With limited stores of strength and intestinal fortitude remaining, the prospect of tossing out a blog post that would certainly result in my being smeared as a puppet, Kool-Aid drinker, apologist or stooge seemed like a waste of my time and energy.

I try to take all of this with a sense of humour, but I don't always succeed. I've found my own mood about the Jays to be somewhat less than generous lately, which leads to some bile spillage on occasion. But I'm always a bit sad when I tweet out something sardonic on the state of the team, and see that my comment gets gleefully magnified by others. I guess some people can take it in good fun, and others just want to smear their anger over the state of the team across everything. Maybe we all just need to chill a bit.

Before getting on with the business of talking baseball, let me add one thing that I intend as a positive, but will likely sound negative on its surface: Things can always get worse. At some point, the Jays' fortunes will undoubtedly be worse than this. One thing you can rely on in life is that if you get through the bad times, there will be more on the way. You suffer, and you persevere. You take care of the things that are under your control and you don't get upset over the things that are beyond you. That's life.

What's Worse Than This?
If you were to construct a full roster of the greatest Blue Jays of all time, you'd likely find Devon White, Robbie Alomar, Paul Molitor, Joe Carter, John Olerud, Shawn Green, Carlos Delgado, Juan Guzman and Pat Hentgen all in the mix for that team. You might even be able to squeeze David Cone or Al Leiter into the mix, based on the high points of their tenure with the Jays.

And yet, a team with ALL of those aforementioned players went 56-88 in 1995, finishing dead last in the AL East and looking miserable doing it.

The majority of those players had just contributed to championship teams, and most of them would go on to be productive members of either the Blue Jays or other teams in the ensuing decade. So the point here, as much as there is one, is to point out that sometimes good teams have terrible seasons. Sometimes, teams play far above the level of their talent - Hello Baltymore! - and some teams play so far below it that it's hard to imagine how things got so bad.

The 1996 Blue Jays had a lesser roster than the year before, with Alomar, White, Molitor, Cone and Leiter out, replaced by Tomas Perez, Otis Nixon, Jacob Brumfield, Erik Hanson and Marty Janzen. And yet, the latter and lesser squad won 18 more games. They say you can't predict baseball, and you certainly can't expect to track progress in straight lines.

In the coming months, there are going to be many in the "spend to contend" camp who assure you that if ownership just got off its wallet and spent on acquiring free agents or expensive veterans to fill in the roster voids, this team would certainly contend. It sounds so easy, really. You plug in the numbers of "known quantities", and bingo-bango: There's your contender. But the truth is that 29 teams every year fail to win the World Series. Two-thirds of teams will fail to make the post-season, for a multitude of reasons. Some of this is foreseeable, but there's a big chunk of it that is dumb luck. And if someone props themselves up beside the flaming pile of a wrecked season and says "I told you so", just remind them that predicting failure in baseball is pretty much the easiest bet there is.

The Jays might "fix" everything this offseason. They might spend vast sums on all of the proven veterans, build a super-Strat-o-Rific monster team, have the benefit of great health and tremendous contributions from their emerging players, and they could still end up on the outside looking in.

If that's a problem for you, you might want to find another pursuit. There is no "Rookie" setting on the real game.

Anything Gose
I don't want to get too far out in front of the "Anthony Gose is back on track" story, but seeing him finally put a few good swings on balls reminded me of another Jays outfielder after his initial call-up.

In his first two seasons with the Jays, Alex Rios posted a .321 on base and a .390 slugging percentage, managing just 11 homers in 979 plate appearances. At the time, it seemed to me as though Rios was focused on just getting his bat on the ball, and not getting embarrassed at the plate. For a player who was 6'5", it seemed as though he was satisfied to just poke at the ball and manage to put it in play.

Gose's approach in the early days has included him trying to drop lots of bunts, a skill at which he is oddly deficient in spite of his apparent affection for it. He's also taken lots of weak and late swings, hacking down on the ball and rarely lifting it with any authority.

Rios was three years older than Gose before he started to really settle in and start swinging with some vigour, swatting 41 homers and posting a .352 OBP/.505 SLG in the 1209 plate appearances that made up his third and fourth seasons. With another year of seasoning at Triple-A next year, Gose might prove yet that he's more than a slash and burn, fourth outfielder.

Two Batting Coaches?
Chad Mottola's reputation continues to grow, as Gose's improvement coincided with some additional time spent with his batting coach in both Las Vegas and after they both received the September callup.

It's always difficult to know how much impact coaches have on players, but if there's something positive that Mottola can contribute at the big league level, I see no reason why the Jays wouldn't add him as an additional hitting coach for next year. So long as there is some agreement between Mottola and hitting coach Dwayne Murphy on the approach they want to take to addressing specific players, an additional set of eyes on the coaching staff is a pretty minor financial investment that could pay dividends at the plate.

Long Weekend Observations, Opinions, and Sentiments

It’s a good thing, I suppose, that I waited until after the Blue Jays’ recent four-game series in Oakland was over and the team was safely on their way to Tampa, as opposed to blogging on, say, Friday.  My spirits are decidedly better after a couple of back-to-back victories to salvage a series split than they were at the tail end of a season-high six game losing streak – even if that losing streak seems to be a more accurate indication of the talent level of the team right now than the consecutive wins would trick us into believing.

If these are the dog days of summer, in keeping with the theme, the Jays are passing off some mongrel mutts as lineups.  For instance, it was one thing to carry the rather anemic bats of your Omar Vizquels and Jeff Mathises (Mathii?) in the early part of the season when they were mostly glued to the bench and maybe seeing one to two starts per week.  But it’s a different matter altogether to have those kinds of subpar offensive performers dotting a lineup that, on at least one occasion this weekend, was more than half made up of players who started and have spent most of the year in Las Vegas.

And yet.  Against a “playoff contender” by many accounts in the Oakland A’s – a team with very good pitching that’s bumping along at eight games over .500 – they split four games on the road, and might have made it three of four given a little more extra inning luck on Friday.  I realize this probably sounds a little Pollyannaish, since they also came off three straight stinkers in Seattle, but my point (I think) is that even among those teams considered to be just a cut above the likes of the middling Jays, the gap isn’t that big, and when the Jays are healthy, they’re probably on the positive side of it.

Ricky Romero

While I’ve got my rose-coloured glasses on, can we put our hands together for Ricky Romero*?  With just three hits conceded over an effective seven innings on Saturday (albeit with four walks sprinkled in alongside five strikeouts), our enigmatic ace-cum-whipping-boy had one of his best outings in recent memory.  He was TERRIBLE at pitching to the score like Jack Morris would have, as the single earned run he gave up was enough to preclude him from chalking up a much-coveted win.  That honour went to Jesse Chavez for his work in extra innings, the reward for which was a convoluted designation-for-assignment.  ANYWAY, Ricky pitched well, and he just mostly looked like he was in control out there.  He had a glimmer of confidence – dare I say swagger – that had been missing in action for far too long.  It was nice to see, and I was probably happier for him on Saturday than any other player on the team.

* NOTE: putting hands together can be repeated in a clapping motion, or hands may be clasped for a longer period of time in prayer for continued improvement.  Your choice. 

Youth Will Be Served

That’s not to say I’m not also happy for some of the erstwhile 51s who have found their way into the Jays lineup, out of either aggressive escalation of their competition level or sheer necessity due to injury.  It’s easy to get discouraged about the recent trajectory of the season and argue over the organizational response, but the upside is that we’re getting a look at some intriguing players.  I’m not just referring to Anthony Gose and Adeiny Hechavarria here, who are obviously fascinating if possibly in a bit over their heads in their first tastes of MLB action.  I’ve also been interested in Moises Sierra as a potential fourth-outfielder type for a while, and if you can get past a couple of herp-derp plays in the early going for him, he does look the part of a big leaguer just lacking some polish to his game.  It may not be the case that the team will have to hang with these kids for too long, provided injuries to Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus are as mild as has been reported and Jose Bautista progresses a little better in his recovery.  There remains merit, though, in giving these prospects a taste of the big-leagues to see how they respond.  With the Rays, Yankees, White Sox, Rangers and Tigers in the immediate offing, if they’re still here, they’ll definitely get a test.

Stepping Up

Image via Daylife

This 2012 edition of the Toronto Blue Jays has a way of keeping you on your toes, doesn't it?

There's been plenty of virtual ink spilled over the past several days about the return of  a certain rosy-cheeked carnivore from the deserts of Nevada, and the underwhelming-yet-still-fascinating trade the club made on Friday to dovetail with the prodigal son's return.  Especially this time of year, it's easy to spend so much time picking through the entrails of roster moves and transactions, or speculating about the next deal we'd like to see, that we forget to sit back and just enjoy baseball too.

The game is easier to enjoy, of course, when your favourite team is hanging 28 runs on the Red Sox in their own ridiculous ballpark over a three game sweep.  But it's also particularly fulfilling when the players we so desperately want to see fulfill their enormous potential begin to do so before our very eyes -- when the call-ups for which we have pined show signs of that elusive breakthrough, or the acquisitions we believed would pay dividends begin to do so.  Such is the case with what now constitutes two-thirds of the team's starting outfield:  Travis Snider and Colby Rasmus.

As the Jays put the finishing touches on a comprehensive beatdown of the Beantowners this afternoon, I remarked on Twitter that the travails of this season, from the rash of injuries to the Ricky Romero regression, will have been worth it to me if we could look back in the offseason and say that this was the year that Snider and Rasmus cemented their places as outfield stalwarts for years to come.  There was no shortage of question marks about the roster entering the regular season, but the performance of those two players were top-of-mind for me and I'm sure for many others.

But with Snider opening the year in the minors again, and Rasmus struggling in the early going, the bandwagon was emptying quickly.  Now, before everyone hauls out the small-sample-size-stick and begins beating me about the head with it, I know that Snider's 1.112 OPS comes from only the three games in Boston.  But my heavens, it's hard not to like what I see already.  A spectacular diving catch in the ninth inning to help preserve Saturday's victory. A rocket to the deepest part of Fenway Park today, off a left-hander against whom he'd had zero previous career success.  A ringing double off the Green Monster as a further display of the power to all fields that had scouts, fans and front offices drooling for years.  Snider's a little older now, and how I hope he's found whatever it is that great ballplayers have that allows them to maintain their elite form for years.

Because there's little I'd like more than to see a healthy, productive Blue Jays outfield of Snider, Jose Bautista and Colby Rasmus for the next three or four years at least, the way it's supposed to be.  Rasmus, as we've seen, has turned things around dramatically from the lost and laconic castoff from St. Louis from the late part of 2011 and the early part of this season.  While his production has tailed off in the past month -- his OPS has dropped from a season high of .828 on June 25 to .781 entering today's game -- he continues to hit the ball extremely hard, and his .213 BABIP over the same period would seem to indicate there are better results to come.

More revealing, though, is just how big the gap appears to be between Rasmus as a major leaguer and the recently recalled Anthony Gose.  It may have been presumptuous to think that Gose would immediatly rake in the bigs given his somewhat mixed minor league track record.  Again, the small sample size police are free to start their sirens here regarding not only Gose's time in the majors but the Rasmus resurgence as well.  Regardless, it's hard not to compare how the two at least look at the plate and see that one belongs and one -- well, let's just say not yet.  Gose may yet force the issue in centerfield, but I'm very happy to see that Snider is being given a greater opportunity.  If he needs an example of a couple players who've taken advantage of such opportunities, he only has to look to the outfielders to his left.

The Conundrum Out in Left Field

Some folks spend a lot of time trying to imagine the Blue Jays bullpen next season. For us, the item of greater interest is in whose direction the members of the 2012 bullpen will be spitting their sunflower seeds.

Somewhere along the line, the Jays' left field situation got really interesting. At the beginning of the year, we would have figured that Travis Snider would have locked it down and settled into a full-time, long-term role with the team as the Eternal Rebuilding Plan came closer to fruition. But as the season played out, the situation in that corner of the outfield was muddied by the emergence of some and the rejigged roles of others.

By the time next March rolls around, some of the names and faces may well have changed or moved on. Regardless, we've enumerated the long list of candidates for the left field job based on what they've done this year and our view of the likelihood that they'll assume the role at the beginning of next season.

1. Eric Thames: By the end of the weekend, Thames will trail only José Bautista in plate appearances by outfielders this season. He's also second in OPS among Jays outfielders with an unspectacular .770 mark. He's had plenty of opportunity to nail down the position as his own, but a less-than-convincing defensive performance will mean he'll still have to fight his way onto the big league roster next season. His performance at the plate (.314 OBP) doesn't make up for his defensive liabilities, though we get the sense that his aggression (51.3% swing rate, highest of anyone not named Corey Patterson with 100 PAs) is not contrary to the team's philosophy. Apparently, you don't walk your way out of Vegas.

He has options, and if the Jays are squeezed to find room on the 25-man roster, we wouldn't be surprised to see him parked in in the PCL to rake at the start the season.

2. Travis Snider: Were it not for his history with the Jays and his role as the perpetual prospect on the cusp, we'd slide Snider further down this list. If you were to try to resolve this quandry with a cold-eyed statistical approach, there's at least a marginally better argument for Rajai Davis, who bettered Snider in OBP (.273 to .269), and slugging (.350 to .348).

By the eyeball test, Snider is a better fielder than Thames who improved that aspect of his game greatly last year. (If you must, his UZR/150 is 11.4, while Thames is a -18.8 and Davis is a -12.) If they Jays feel as though they can place Snider at the bottom of the lineup and let him work his way through a full season of playing with the big boys, then he's likely to start the season with the team. But his late season injury and his remaining option (yes, he apparently has one for 2012) gives Alex Anthopoulos a fairly legitimate rationale for starting him in the minors.

3. Rajai Davis: The Jays have Davis signed for $2.75 Million next year, with a $3 Million option ($500K buyout) for 2013. That's not a monstrous contract, and it would be easy to move if the Jays were so inclined. But Davis' long list of health issues means that he'll likely have to get at bats in Toronto before he'll be enough of a marketable asset. (Plus, the temptation to have a "prototypical" lead-off hitter might be too much for John Farrell to resist, even if he has toned down the relentless running game through the later part of the season.)

If Davis has a role with the Jays beyond May of next year, our guess is that it will most likely be as a fourth outfielder.

4. Adam Loewen: The Jays won't be able to park Loewen in the minors next year, which means he either makes the 25-man roster or they risk losing him on waivers. Loewen's versatility (he can play all three outfield slots and first base) might earn him a bench role next year, and if the battle for the starting LF job falls between him and Davis, we could see the Jays opting for his bat over Rajai's feet.

In his limited time in the Majors thus far, he hasn't looked out of place (five hits in five games), though the value of September performances are tough to quantify. Still, he's started to make a believer out of us. His Canadian passport means that he'll be the choice of the chattering class, for whatever that's worth.

5. Mark Teahen: It's entirely possible that the Jays choose to eat his $5.5 Million salary for 2012 and move on. If letting that much coin sink to the bottom of Lake Ontario is the cost of getting Colby Rasmus, then so be it. But if they somehow decide to bring him back, he'd be as likely to get plopped into left field as anywhere else. It's a long shot, but then again, he is sorta-Canadian.

6. Moises Sierra: The 22 year-old Sierra has had a decent year at New Hampshire (.342 OBP/.436 SLG/ .778 OPS, 18 HR and 16 SB in 133 games), posting numbers that were marginally better than those of Anthony Gose (who's still just 21.) Will likely merit a promotion to Las Vegas, where the typical PCL inflation will have tongues wagging by June over a possible callup. Unlikely to start the season with the Jays (barring a slew of trades and injuries), but will be on the far outer edge of the conversation.

7. Anthony Gose/Jake Marisnick: Included here because, you know, why not? Both will be in their 21 year-old seasons next year, presumably with Gose in Vegas and Marisnick in New Hampshire. Neither is likely to see Toronto before September at the absolute earliest. But you know you'll be asking about them all year long.

8. Edwin Encarnacion: Allegedly, this is happening. We have yet to see him play the outfield, though we've seen some brief video of him tracking fly balls from a machine. (He looked like he's able to catch soft fly balls shot directly towards him, though for that matter, we'd probably be able to pull that off.) Farrell has said that he'll get some innings out there at the end of games before the season is out, though sometimes we think he makes those sorts of comments to entertain the beat writers.

The Wisdom of Solomon?

Our interest was piqued by a tweet last night from the New Hampshire Union Leader's Kevin Gray, who is covering the beat as the Fisher Cats play for the Eastern League Championship:

Fisher Cats owner Art Solomon told the players before the game: "The way you played (in Game 1) was embarrassing."

This followed a game which the Fisher Cats lost 10-9 in the ninth inning to start the series. (Did we mention that this was the League Championship that they're playing for? We'll probably mention this again.) We were left gobsmacked at the notion that the Jerry Jones of some third-level market could take it upon himself to scold the Jays' prospects as though they were his players. Gray assured us via Twitter that Solomon feeds the boys steaks and looks after them whilst in New Hampshire, but we can't get past the fact that he has no authority to lecture the Jays prospects.

If there were speeches that needed to be given, there's a manager in Sal Fasano who can do the talking.

If Solomon wants to tear a strip off the ushers, or tear into the marketing department, or yell at a popcorn vendor, then have at it. Those are his employees. The future Jays? He should probably keep away and enjoy the fact that these players who have embarrassed him so have managed to get four additional home gates for him. A little less scolding and a little more gratitude might be in order.

Junk from the Tickle Trunk

Because there's precious little out of which we could make a full blog post, here's a few randoms notions which have yet to be formed into an actual idea. (We might not even punctuate this stuff by the end.)

Caravana!
So the consensus is that everyone is just so goddamned gleeful that that Jays have pulled a few of their players into the chilly north to go talk with the fans hither and yon across the country. And ain't it just darned swell that they've gone back to the olden timey days when they did this, and everyone got to know and love Ernie Whitt, and AWWWWW SHUCKS!

Don't get us wrong here: We're not really begrudging this marketing, promotion and PR blitz in the middle of the winter. But we also don't necessarily feel like the Jays owed us this sort of interaction, nor do we think that it is going to seriously move the needle on fan support this year. It's not to say that you don't do it, but winning is the primary thing that is going to get the team to a point where they're playing to something more than a half empty (HALF FULL!) Rogers Centre this year.

Anthony Gose invades my soul
With a lot of empty space to fill up the spot in our brain that obsesses over the Jays, we've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about Anthony Gose this month. The man who came to the Jays in the Brett Wallace trade (which we'll freely admit sent us into paroxysms of rage) seems to sit out there in the ether, like some distant treasure of unknown power and value that we'll only possess after a long an arduous journey.

(Note to self: Avert your eyes next time you see Lord of the Rings on TV. For Frodo's sake.)

The stats that Gose put up this year are pretty difficult to translate into any sort of tangible conception of his future major league performance, though we'll continue to spin the tale about how he had similar numbers to Carl Crawford at a similar age and level.

Lacking anything more concrete than that, we just go and watch this video of him on YouTube and admire the cut of his jib. (Maybe too much.) High socks! No batting gloves! Willie Mays' number!

We're reasonably certain that our Gose fixation is going to turn into a daily scramble towards the boxscores at...well wherever he ends up this year. (Dunedin? New Hampshire?)

Octavio, reconsidered
Maybe it was some Pollyanna notion that we had that, all things considered, Octavio Dotel wasn't a bad pickup and could close for the time being for this team. But the longer we think about his crappy numbers against lefties, and his propensity to give up the long ball, the more that we realize that this is an arm that was never meant to pitch high leverage innings in the American League East.

Sure, Kevin Gregg tried to throw around batters all year, with varying results. But the notion of Dotel pitching to Big Papi in Fenway or Mark Teixeira or Robinson Cano in Yankee Stadium gives us the shivers. It's made us unusually eager to see Brian Fuentes get signed, posthaste.

(Then again, we also have this notion that the Sausage King is going to end up closing this year anyways, so what's the big deal?)