37 Jays in 37ish Days - Darren Oliver and that Old Black Magic

Who: Number 38, Darren Oliver. Left-handed relief pitcher. 6'2", 200 lbs. 42 years old.

Provenance: Born in Kansas City. Graduated from Rio Lindo, California. Up Sacramento Way. Drafted in the third round of the 1988 amateur draft by the Texas Rangers.

Acquired: Signed as a free agent by the Blue Jays in January, 2012.

Contract Status: Blue Jays exercised his $3 million club option in October of 2012. Hilarity ensued. Free agent after 2013 season.

Back of the Baseball Card: 4.53 ERA in 716 games over 19 seasons with Texas, St. Louis, Texas, Boston, Colorado, Florida, Houston, the Mets, Angels, Texas (yup) and Toronto. 1866.2 innings pitched. Stuck out 5.88 batters per nine (15%) and walked 3.40 (8.7%)

2012 Stats: Continued his late career resurgence with a 2.06 ERA in 62 games (56.2 innings), marking the sixth consecutive season he lowered his ERA. Struck out 23.5% of batters faced (8.26 per nine innings) and walked 6.8 % (2.38).

012 Repertoire, as per Brooks Baseball: Four seam fastball (59%, 88.6 MPH average); Curve (24%, 76.12 MPH); Sinker (16%, 89.41 MPH); Changeup (threw 12 all year, 83.68 MPH).

Recent Injury History: Missed a month or so in 2004m and had a 15 day DL stint in 2009. Nothing since. Tommy John Surgery in May of 1991.

Looking Back: It's probably unfair that the memory of Darren Oliver that most Jays fans will carry in to the 2013 season is of the offseason contract communications snafus that became fodder for a few weeks.

It was certainly confusing, and many nasty things were hurled in the direction of the mostly affable middle-reliever. If nothing else, it reminded us of the existence of Jeff Frye. It probably also took some of the shine off that time he hit for the cycle.

Regardless, one would be hard-pressed to quibble with the results that he produced in 2012. Oliver was nasty against all hitters, stranding 84.8% of runners and holding batters to a .213 batting average against.

Oliver was tough on lefties, holding them to a .314 OBP and .330 slugging, but he was even tougher against righties (.252 OBP and a minuscule .262 slugging.)

Looking Ahead: It's hard to resist all of old saws about the value of veteran leadership. Given that Oliver had his ulnar collateral ligament swapped out when Marcus Stroman was five weeks old, one would think he has some perspective on the game to share to two generations of ballplayers coming through Toronto.

Moreover, Oliver made playoff appearances in six straight seasons from 2006 through 2011, so the hope would be that he could provide some ballast when the tides of the season begin to toss the good ship Blue Jays about.

But the expectations on Oliver are - and should be - far more tangible than that. He's not just a cheerleader playing out the string, and to compete in what will be an extraordinarily tight American League this season, the Jays need him to maintain his current streak as one of the most quietly effective relievers in baseball.

Pessimistically: This is the season when time and age finally catch up with Oliver, and maybe he becomes a decent left-handed specialist.The Jays might need to manage his workload to get him through the season.

Optimistically: Posts a sub-2.00 ERA, pitches some of the most important high-leverage innings down the stretch in the midst of a pennant chase.

Hockey Is Back, And Maybe We Should Care Or Maybe Not

Addendum after posting: The Org Wife points out that in this photo, the umpire looks a lot like Joe Paterno. I don't know if it's him, but if so, my inclusion of him was unintentional. I just liked the shot of Gretzky playing baseball.

I used to be an enormous hockey fan.  Or to be more accurate, I was at least an enormous fan of my favourite NHL and major junior teams.  But nearly a year ago, I posted a piece about how getting older seemed to have made me a bigger fan of baseball than I was of other sports like hockey.  As an Edmonton Oilers fan, I had a rejuvenation of interest in the sport in the wake of their amazing 2006 playoff run, but since then, the game and I grew apart somewhat (I blame Ty Conklin).  The space between us got even wider as the NHL lockout  killed off the better part of the 2012-13 season.

Unless you've been living in your tool shed with no television or internet access, you'll know the heretofore-intractable labour dispute between the NHL and its Players' Association came to an end this weekend.  It was the first news that greeted me when I woke up this morning, and even after wall-to-wall media coverage since, my reaction hasn't changed a great deal from when I heard it:  stoic indifference.  Everyone sort of knew a resolution was coming soon.  The fact it came Saturday night/Sunday morning didn't put an exclamation point on the proceedings.  Not much really changed for me, although I realize I'm probably in the minority of Canadian sports fans in that regard.

Now, you might be asking: why is he mentioning all this on what is ostensibly a baseball blog about the Toronto Blue Jays?  Well, it's not like nothing has changed.  For the first time in I don't know how long -- 20 years, I guess? -- the Toronto Blue Jays were the most compelling story in the Canadian sports scene in the months of October, November and December.  Great things were happening with my favourite baseball team, and with the hockey media milling around the lobbies of New York hotels writing stories about make-whole provisions and disclaimers of interest, people were noticing the Jays. It was fun to feel special for a while.

The state of play today, in terms of media exposure and fan interest for the Jays, is different than it was yesterday now that the lockout has been resolved (and to a lesser extent, with the NFL playoffs underway).  Even with the game-changing moves the team has made this off-season, they face stiff competition for eyes, ears and dollars from a finite pool.  Even if you believe the odd rumblings from fans saying they won't come back -- and no doubt, the NHL has some relationship-mending to do with its fans -- I firmly believe Canadian support isn't going to see a substantial downturn.  Hockey will always be king of the Canadian castle in the competition for sports fans here.

I don't mean to be a Negative Nancy here.  To the extent we can measure these things or have access to data on them at all, the Jays are going in the right direction in terms of fan interest, ticket sales, TV ratings and revenue.  Anecdotally, I can go back to my experience when the team barnstormed through Ottawa last winter and know that interest and support for the team, and for baseball in general, is alive and well here.  Today, 12 months later, you can look up the Twitter timeline of our old friend The Ack in Winnipeg to see that the story is playing out similarly on the frozen prairies this weekend -- big lineups, lots of young and old fans.

The people heading to shopping malls to meet Jose Bautista and other Jays aren't all just looky-loos, and they're not all hardcore fans either.  Regardless of their dedication level, the trick now is to keep them and add more in the face of stiffened competition -- and with the off-season they've had, this team is going in the right direction to do that too.

Squibbers Up The Line

The Broadcast Booth:  It won't quite be the same listening to a game on the radio without Alan Ashby in the booth along with Jerry Howarth.  I'm a massive Ashby fan, and Houston is lucky to get him back.  Nobody is going to fill his shoes in the broadcast booth. My personal wish, though, is that Mike Wilner gets a crack at a more prominent in-game role with Ashby gone.  I realize Wilner rubs many the wrong way, and not everyone is a fan, but he's done a difficult on-air job for a long time, and has paid his media dues.  There's a lot to be said for that.  And while it's easy to rag on media personalities (fun too!), it's not easy to go onto the radio or television and be interesting and original a couple hundred times a year.

Oliver:  It's a distasteful bit of business Darren Oliver is engaged in right now with the Jays, isn't it?  I've read plenty on the subject and still don't know whose side I'm on (and if Twitter has taught me anything, it's that we absolutely must take sides on every issue. There is no middle ground).  I don't think the team will trade him to Texas just because he asked, which leaves retirement or a raise.  Part of me says Alex Anthopoulos should tell him to go pound sand, and run J.A. Happ and Brett Cecil out as the lefty relievers to start the season alongside Sergio Santos, Casey Janssen, Brad Lincoln, Steve Delabar and Esmil Rogers -- with Aaron Loup and Jeremy Jeffress a short car ride away.  But then sometimes I think this instead:



Put it this way:  whatever Oliver gets at the end of this -- retirement or a raise -- he'll deserve it.

30 Jays in 30 Days - Darren Oliver Gets Better with Age

Who: Darren Oliver, No. 38. Left-Handed Relief Pitcher. 6’2, 200 LBS. 41 years old.

Provenance: Kansas City, MO. Drafted in the third round of the 1988 amateur draft.

Contract Status: Signed one-year, $4.5 million deal in offseason. Jays hold an option year for 2013 at $3 million, with a $500,000 buyout.

(Ancient) History: 18 MLB seasons. 654 games pitched, 229 games started for Texas, St. Louis, Texas, Boston, Colorado, Florida, Houston, New York (NL), Los Angeles (AL) and Texas.

Career Stats: 4.60 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 1167 strikeouts and 690 walks in 1810.0 innings pitched.

Late Career Stats: 2.85 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 273 strikeouts and 87 walks in 322 innings from 2007 onwards.

2011 Stats: 2.29 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 44 strikeouts and 11 walks in 51.0 innings with Texas.

Bullpen Connections from the Distant Past: In Darren Oliver’s first MLB appearance on September 1st, 1993, he came on in the 10th inning of a tie game in relief of a Texas Rangers closer named Tom Henke. He walked Mike Greenwell on four pitches and was summarily dispatched.

Looking Back: Darren Oliver has been around so long that he predates most of the nerd stats on Fangraphs. Which is fine when you consider that his career only really began to take off in 2007. (Life begins at 36, as the saying we just invented goes.) Oliver’s career looked to be finished in 2005, when the Colorado Rockies released him after Spring Training, and he sat out the entire season. But a decent comeback season with the Mets in 2006 led to three stellar seasons with the Angels and two with the Rangers.

So how did Oliver go from staring into the abyss to being a key bullpen arm for World Series contenders? There are two notable changes that you find when picking through the data from 2007 onward: First, he stopped throwing a cutter. In 2006, he mixed it in 19% of the time, but by the time he arrived in Anaheim, he’d dropped it completely from his arsenal.

Secondly, Oliver found some extra heat on his fastball, jumping up from an average of 86.1 M.P.H. in 2006 to 88.6 in 2007, a level that he’s maintained or improved upon in subsequent years. That increase in velocity might not look as monumental as it actually is. Usually, pitchers will be able to touch a few miles per hour above their average, and a lefty reliever who can get above 90 M.P.H. in a tight spot with their fastball is a valuable piece for a manager to play late in games.

Over the past two seasons, Oliver has stripped down his repertoire essentially to two pitches, the fastball and a slider. That might not be ideal for a starting pitcher, but for a reliever, you can be very effective if you can work with your two strongest pitches and throw them consistently for strikes.

Looking Forward: Oliver has shown the ability to get both righties and lefties out, so he won’t necessarily be limited to “left-handed one-out guy” (LOOGY!) duty. Depending on how effective he is early in the season, and how the back end of the bullpen shakes out, it’s likely that he’ll get the ball in the seventh and eighth innings, especially with runners on.

It will be interesting to watch how Oliver performs now that he’s moved out of the AL West and into the teeth of the toughest division in professional sports. Oliver posted decent numbers last season against the Yankees (.567 OPS against in 18 plate appearances) and Rays (.308 in 13 PAs). The Red Sox touched him up for three runs on a homer and three walks and a .748 OPS against in 18 PAs. The Jays actually gave him his roughest ride in the division, with an .813 OPS against in three games, and three runs scored.

2012 Expectations: With a lot of added arms in a new-look bullpen, the Jays’ ultimate success or failure doesn’t hang in the balance of the 50-odd innings that Oliver will pitch this season. If this year turns out to be the year that it all goes askew and his age catches up with him, there will be other options to carry the load.

But given Oliver’s steady and solid performance over the past four years, we expect that he will at the very least provide a reliable matchup arm in tight spots for manager John Farrell. With the number of tough left-handed hitters on the teams that matter, having an effective answer to those hitters could be worth a couple of wins over the course of the season.