Thoughts from the Weekend, and for the Week Ahead

So if you were following along in the social media spheres, you may have noticed that we made a somewhat impromptu expedition down to Toronto to catch our first live games of the year.

(And yes, we're sorry for not giving you all more advance notice, but it was a bit of a last-minute thing, and we were not expecting to come over for tea and inconvenience you. We really didn't want to put you out.)

Gleaned below are a few thoughts and whims from this weekend past, and for the week ahead.

Flipping for Edwin: We're not trying to be that guy who says he told you so. So we won't. But suffice to say, there is a reason why we're happy he's stuck around. Can you imagine if he were a member of the Oakland A's right now?

Encarnacion's first month (.361 OBP, .644 SLG, seven homers, four-should-be-five steals) builds on at least three strong months in 2011, and gives the indication that maybe he's found a spot where he belongs. Letting him serve as a full-time DH and occasional first baseman and putting him in the middle of the lineup looks good on him.

And if you want a measure of how well Encarnacion is doing, how about the pitch thrown into his ribs with plenty of intent on Sunday afternoon? Maybe he was plunked because the Mariners found his bat flips a bit too pimped out over the weekend, but we'd imagine that the frequency with which he was making the ball leave the park likely enhanced the case for a painful free pass. 

Different Paths to Success: We were pleased to see two outings by the starting rotation that were quite good, even if there is some qualification that prevents them from being regarded as great.

We were especially pleased to see Brandon Morrow "announce his presence with authority" on Saturday, striking out nine again five hits and no walks. We understand the concept of pitching to contact and getting an arm like Morrow's deeper into games, and it would have been nice to see him get through the seventh. But when he's eliciting weak check swings or powering his fastball through swings all day long, we realize just how much we enjoy the version of Morrow that strikes guys out.

(It also makes us wonder if it's possible for Morrow to go 120 pitches on a regular basis, and whether if the pitches beyond his 100th would be of sufficient quality to merit his staying in the game.)

In some ways, Henderson Alvarez seems like Morrow's polar opposite, in that he seems not to have a put away pitch that can get him strikeouts in a tight spot, but the approach seems to work for him. More or less.

For a pitcher who gave up just one run in six innings on six hits, Alvarez seemed to be on the cusp of losing control of his start throughout Sunday afternoon. Four of the six hits were for extra bases, but somehow, the only run that scored was on Chone Figgins' lead-off homer. A homer that he hit, we would add, after Alvarez had his way with him to get the first two strikes of the at bat.

It's possible that Alvarez could be an effective pitcher with a K/9 under 6.00, but we would still like to see him find an approach that allows him to get swings with the stuff he already has in his repertoire.

Adam Lind Hits Fourth: No real item here. Just a reminder, so that you're not caught off guard when the lineups get posted.

As for the rationale, we'll say this: We don't necessarily agree with the notion that lineups need to alternate righty-lefty-righty all the way through. We wouldn't mind see right-handed batters hitting back-to-back (Bautista and Edwin!), but it's probably a good principle to keep your left-handed bats separated, especially if they are vulnerable to being isolated and choked off by a decent left-handed reliever. Though this also raises the question of why a player with such profound platoon splits would be found in the middle of your lineup.

D'oh! Just when we'd reached the "acceptance" stage in the Kübler-Ross model, we skip back all the way to "denial". Expect to see "anger" and "bargaining" at some point in the series versus the Rangers.

Timing is Everything: The 4 pm start on Saturday afternoon was an interesting and pleasant change for us. We're reasonably certain that the last time we attended a late afternoon weekend start, José Canseco was the starting DH for the Jays. On a completely selfish level, the later start allows for some of us from outside the GTA to make our way into town in the early afternoon. But it also lets the game lead into a Saturday evening out, which makes for great atmosphere and good business for the restaurants and bars across the entire downtown.

We heard from some on Twitter who found the timing inconvenient for a whole host of reasons, but considering the crowd of more 30,765 that tuned out, we wonder if the later start on Saturday isn't a better fit for the market.

Infinite Puns for Yu: Of course, Yu Darvish's arrival in Toronto will spur all sorts of discussion about the Jays' rationale for not laying out more and more and more money in order to secure his services. This is why we're relieved that the Jays enter the game on a winning note, and hopeful that they can smack him around for a few innings.

Considering how much swing and miss the Jays have in their bats lately, that might seem like a stretch. But the bats have to bust out at some point, and a dominating start by Darvish will only breathe more life into what we think should be a non-story at this point.

Stringing Something Together

The last time we had occasion to chat in this space, I arbitrarily pulled a ten-game segment of the Blue Jays schedule out of thin air, and decreed that an 8 win, 2 loss record through that stretch would put the team in good stead as they prepared to host the consensus powerhouse Texas Rangers. I realize it's not really a piece of bold sports insight to say that winning 80% of your games is a good thing, but I thought it would be instructive, as a team with some potential to contend for a playoff spot this year, to see whether the Jays could begin to establish some dominance over the lesser lights of the American League – in this case, the Royals, Orioles and Mariners.

Alas, we didn’t see an .800 winning percentage materialize over this stretch – despite getting off to a good start when they beat the tar out of a beleaguered Kansas City team, taking four straight at their ballpark. But then they gave most of it back in Baltimore, and the rest of it back when they dropped the first of three to Seattle. A couple wins on Saturday and Sunday to get back on track, and you end up with six wins and four losses against some of the weaker opposition out there.

It doesn’t seem like much. Plucked out of the context of the entire season, these ten games often left the impression of a streaky and inconsistent team. Something very identifiable went wrong in the losses, like the offence going into witness protection or the defence getting a little panicky and throwing the ball everywhere but the first baseman’s glove in a ninth inning. As always, it’s easy to overreact to missteps like these, because they looked a lot like things a not-very-good baseball team would do. But a not-very-good team might do all of those wince-worthy things and turn it into three wins over the same span; the Jays won six. (And let’s remember that winning six out of every ten games in a season gets you to about 96 wins and, if there’s an ounce of justice in the world, a playoff berth.) At the very least, between these two arbitrary endpoints, the Blue Jays toughed out a winning record despite some significant shortcomings.

At the same time, there are some very good things happening with this team right now. Edwin Encarnacion is stepping into the spotlight with a grin. Jeff Mathis is showing signs of adequacy that were heretofore deemed not to exist. Three pitchers under the age of 25, two of whom were widely thought to be headed to the minor leagues as late as mid-March, are putting together strong major-league starts and going deep into games. Eric Thames is doing his level best to shut up the #TeamSnider apologists like me. While we wait (more nervously by the day) for Jose Bautista to heat up, the rest of the team is, for the most part, picking up the slack. That’s a novel concept for this team.

There’s another tough stretch coming up. Not only do the aforementioned Rangers come to town for three games, but the team then heads to the West Coast for four games against in Anaheim and two in Oakland. Those A’s and Angels teams aren’t exactly setting the world on fire in the early going, but I’m always irrationally nervous about those west coast trips, and usually end up happy if the team gets out of them in marginally better shape than the Donner Party did on its journey to California. But the Jays have at least shown that they can find ways to win even when not everything is clicking. They’ve begun to demonstrate that different parts of the lineup can hurt you – even when the usually fearsome parts aren’t living up to their reputations or hype.

Blue Monday - Five Things We Vaguely Recall from the Weekend

Blue Monday, oh, it's Blue Monday. Got to work, would rather sleep all day...But since that's not an option, here's a few top-line impressions from the weekend.

Who You Laughing At?: Being the perpetual fourth-place finisher, it's hard to resist the urge to give noogies to the perpetual fifth-place finisher. You've got to find someone to pick on, don't you?

This weekend's series against the Orioles should be a bit of a wake-up call to those who figured that the 18 games against the Baltimore boys would be an easy walk-over all year long. The Orioles might have their flaws, and those organizational flaws might be ongoing and systemic. But when you see them on the field, they have the tools to knock the ball around and put runs on the board in a hurry. There are weaknesses in their rotation, bullpen and on defense, but we won't be quick to underestimate Nolan Reimold or Chris Davis again.

Full Tilt Lunacy: Somewhere among all the splendid attributes displayed by Brett Lawrie is a profound confidence in his abilities that is etched into his psyche like the ink is etched into every available spot on his epidermis. So it shouldn't have surprised us to see him take off for home with the bases loaded and José Bautista at the plate on Saturday afternoon. You halfway expected him to pull off his jersey as he took off to display a giant "YOLO" scrawled across his chest. It's hard to imagine Lawrie feeling as though he couldn't make it.

Lawrie then went on to compound the issue by making another out on the bases, getting gunned down by the strong arm or Matt Wieters. In the moment, we wondered if what sort of reception would be given to Colby Rasmus or Edwin Encarnacion or Eric Thames if they were to make two spectacular, inning-ending outs on the basepaths. We highly doubt it would be generous, but when it comes to our demonstrative countryman, there are many who we heard making the case for how those plays were positives. Can't knock the hustle? We beg to differ.

It's fair to remember that for all of the things that Lawrie does very well, he's still young and we're going to be witness to his maturation process over the next few years. Rookie mistakes? He'll make a few, for sure. We just hope that he learns from them.

Edwin Smiles Are the Best: There were weeks on end last season when Edwin Encarnacion would seemingly always wear a sad face with far-away eyes. Like he was miserable, lost, and waiting to be booed or scolded for whatever he'd just done. As someone who has been a fan of EE since he arrived, it was tough to watch, and even worse to hear some fans identify this as a sign of his lack of heart. If anything, we thought he took too much to heart.

So there are few things that are as heart-warming to us as to see the broad smiles and gregarious demeanour that EE has had on display thus far this year. Early in the season, he leads or is tied for the lead on the team in hits, doubles, homers, RBI, stolen bases, slugging, OPS and total bases. For a guy who fans were chasing out of town until well into July last season, Edwin has the chance to be a big part of this year and the future of the team.

Introducing Evan: It was nice to see the Jays give Evan Crawford his shot at an inning of work on Sunday afternoon. For a player who was far back on prospect lists up until this spring, the 25 year-old Crawford has made a quick move up the board with some tremendous strikeout numbers over the past two seasons.

Crawford looked amped up for his ninth inning appearance, but threw strikes down in the zone and touched 93 MPH a couple of times on his way to a one-hit, scoreless inning. Also, on the scouts' 20-to-80 scale, his high socks were a 65. We wouldn't be surprised to see him back before the year is out.

Otherwise...

-Another strong outing for Kyle Drabek, who has surrendered just two earned runs in his first two starts of the season. His 10/4 strikeout-to-walk ratio is also promising, and he may be pitching his way into a permanent position in the fourth slot of the rotation.

-Colby Rasmus continues to impress, and finally had a game where his hard-hit balls weren't directly at a fielder. If you can't see that he's playing well, we can't do much for you.

-Henderson Alvarez pitched well for the most part, but he seriously short-armed his pitch to Chris Davis on Saturday, which was turned around quickly for a tape-measure shot. We're not sure if he was overly concerned with the runner, or just wanted to quick-pitch Davis, but the result was a slow fastball well up in the zone. Let's hope it was a glitch.

30 Jays in 30 Days - Edwin Encarnacion's Offense Is His Best Defense

Who: Edwin Encarnacion, No. 10. Designated hitter, occasional first baseman, former third baseman, winter league left fielder. 6’2, 235 LBS. 29 years old.

Tao-Approved Nicknames: EE is perfectly acceptable, and somewhat endearing. But don’t you dare call him E5, or we’ll write you a stern, scolding tweet to set you straight.

History: Seven MLB seasons and 786 games, with Cincinnati and Toronto. Entering fourth season with the Blue Jays.

Contract Status: Jays exercised one-year, $3.5 million option over the offseason. Free agent after this season.

Career Stats: .260 AVG, .336 OBP, .453 SLG, .789 OPS in 3078 plate appearances. 117 home runs, 392 RBI.

2011 Stats:.272 AG, .334 OBP, .453 SLG, .787 OPS in 530 plate appearances in 134 games played. 17 homers, 36 doubles, 55 RBI. OPS+ of 110, highest of his career.

Splitting the Season into Convenient Portions: In 95 games and from June 1st through the end of the season, Encarnacion posted a .360 OBP/.499 SLG/.858 OPS with 16 home runs and 24 doubles.

Looking Back: There’s something about Edwin Encarnacion that makes it hard for a significant portion of the Blue Jays fanbase to embrace him. Certainly, the Jays made an unpopular organizational about-face at the end of spring training last year, thrusting Encarnacion back into active duty at the hot corner in spite of assurances that he would never darken that side of the infield with his troublesome glove work. And when it went poorly from the outset, with EE making three errors in his first two starts in field, fans pounced on the weakness with choruses of hisses and boos.

There also seems to be something about Edwin’s body language that is off-putting to that angry horde, as though fans are seeking for him to appear more contrite after those gaffes. We’ve heard more than a few fans bemoan the fact that Encarnacion didn’t care about his eight fielding misplays at third, but somehow Brett Lawrie’s six errors are forgiven because he appears dutifully upset by them. (As though we could ever know such things.)

But if there was some perception that Encarnacion wasn’t sufficiently fazed by his bad defense, those struggles clearly affected him at the plate early on. He pressed and struggled through much of the first two months of the season, managing just one home run, striking out 21 times versus just four walks. But as the Jays transitioned Encarnacion out of the infield and into a role which saw him primarily used as a DH and occasional first baseman, his offensive numbers turned around dramatically. In July and August, he’d post OPSs of .909 and .960, and he was the Jays’ second best offensive player for a significant portion of the summer months.

A key part of that success - and part of the reason for our boundless EE optimism - was an improved strikeout rate. EE’s whiff rate of 14.5% was the lowest of his career.

Looking Forward: In spite of the fact that the Blue Jays already have a dozen or so options in left field, they asked Encarnacion to make an attempt at the position in five Dominican Winter League games. Though there isn’t much in the way of reports about how that experiment went, the fact that there’s been no further discussion of the notion probably speaks volumes.

Edwin’s defense at first base was perfectly fine last year, and given the physical struggles of Adam Lind last year, it would not surprise us to see Encarnacion get at least a start per week at that infield corner. Given our druthers, we might even like to see Encarnacion platoon with Lind versus left-handed pitching, though such a scenario seems unlikely at this point.

(Strange, isn’t it, how we’re always stuck talking about Edwin’s glove? It’s clearly the least of his tools, but it seems to overshadow all else.)

Encarnacion should get plenty of at bats in the middle of the Jays’ lineup this year, and given the current hopeless devotion to Lind as the cleanup hitter, we’d expect EE to find himself in the five-hole if he hits well, and maybe seventh if he struggles.

2012 Expectations: Wherever he occasionally plays in the field or hits in the lineup, we fully expect a solid season at the plate from Encarnacion. That 95 game stretch starting in June was no fluke, and if he can carry forward that level of performance, an OPS in the .830 range or higher is well within reach.

You might hope for something more than that out of your DH spot, but the major league average output for the position was an OPS of .764. We can’t see Encarnacion’s performance falling beneath that level, and we can imagine him providing good value at 50 points over the mean. Could he go 100 points above that level? It wouldn’t surprise us and if he does, he’ll be a tremendously valuable piece of the Jays offense.

Farewell 2011 Season, Welcome to 2012

After a roaring end to the 2011 Major League Baseball season, the finality of it all has just started to strike us.

The season is long and intense, densely packed with 162 games over 26 weeks, plus the four weeks of postseason. The days without baseball between the spring and fall are few, and the season proceeds so relentlessly that there's barely time to digest the previous night's game and contextualize it. (Try as we might.) We all tend to get a bit lost in the moment.

So it follows that the moment they stop playing the games, the silence gets deafening. The vacuum that is created from the lack of games to discuss hisses and wheezes and begs to be filled. We would be better served to take some of the downtime to relax, recover and salve some of the injuries, including the repetitive stress on on clicking finger as well as the imagined bruises to our ego. But given the fact that being a Jays fan means fixing your gaze to the future on an almost perpetual basis, the start of the wintertime sabbatical is the time when we'll probably kick our hindsight-fuelled recriminations and unfounded speculation into overdrive.

Oh, the fun we'll have.

Thankfully, we haven't had any frost settle on us in advance of the long winter whinge, as the business of baseball cranked up the machine first thing Monday morning, in a hurry with a flurry. (The other flurry, you know.)

The Excercism of Edwin's Option - It was a no-brainer that the Jays should pick up the 2012 option on Edwin Encarnacion, whose bat carried the team for significant stretches in the second half. From June 1st onwards, EE posted a .858 OPS (.360 OBP/.499 SLG) and hit 16 of his 17 homers in the final four months of the season. As a full-time DH, occasional 1B and emergency 3B, Encarnacion could be a steal at $3.5 million for next year. (And apparently, he might possibly play left field, but more on that below.)

We couldn't be happier to see Edwin come back, as we thought that he endured an unfair onslaught of snarkily cynical scorn through much of the first few months of the season. We can't remember who called him "garbage" on Twitter, but we hope that person feels shame that eats away at their soul every day for such denigration.

We don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but we still figure that Edwin could be a 30 homer, .850 OPS guy in the middle of the Jays lineup next year, even though we said the same thing last year. But this year, we really and truly believe it. For realsies, this time.

If You Like Tony LaCava, and Getting Caught in the Rain: So on the one hand, we hope that the casual fan appreciates the fact that other teams within their highly competitive division are looking at the non-player personnel of the Blue Jays enviously. Boston's potential interest in John Farrell (which we figure was nothing more than someone saying "Sure wish Johnny was still around") and the Orioles' pursuit of Jays GM Tony LaCava should indicate to one and all that the team is not administered by a bunch of nincompoops who stumbled accidentally into their position. These guys know what they're doing.

Moreover, the news from NBC Sports' Aaron Gleeman that O's Meddler-in-Chief and Chief Mediocrity Officer Peter Angelos was unimpressed by LaCava and thought his desire for greater authority over the baseball decisions in Baltimore was overstepping his bounds is a triple shot of happiness because:

1) It means LaCava might return to the Jays;
2) It shows that bad organizations don't appreciate smart baseball people;
3) Baltimore is looking for some stooge with shallow charisma and a desire to be Angelos' hand-puppet through another decade-long cycle of basement-dwelling.

That, kids, is what we in the business (which business?) call a "win-win".

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.

We Believe in Edwin Encarnacion

(Blogger seems to be acting funny again with the photos, so you'll just have to pretend that you can see the photo of Edwin Encarnacion, shining with a heavenly light with the dulcet tones of the choir invisible singing his praises. It's kinda cool.)

Last night, somewhere in between his two home runs, we offered forth two thoughts on Edwin Encarnacion, which we will recycle here. (You'll forgive us for quoting ourself, like we're Chet from Kicking and Screaming.)

Firstly: "You know who still calls EE "E5"? Prickish fucking ingrates. #YeahThatsYouPal"

And then: "You may say I'm a dreamer...But a 20 HR season for EE is not out of the question."

And we all had a good laugh, and then Edwin cranked another home run, and you all stood dumbfounded by our foresight. (Right?)

It's damn hard being an EE apologist, what with the awful start to the season at the plate, and let's not even mention the fielding. Yet, we've felt for some time as though Encarnacion was starting to pull himself out of the funk and make himself into a perfectly good DH. And yes, the thought that he's the next coming of David Ortiz - a no field, all hit late bloomer - may have crossed our mind. Like, a thousand times or so.

It's not just last night's offensive onslaught that has us thinking in this manner, though. For the month of June, EE has posted a .967 OPS (.356 OBP, .611 SLG) with five doubles and four homers in 59 plate appearances. (And if you want to play a little dirtier with arbitrary endpoints, you can back up a couple of days to May 29th, and jack that OPS up to 1.019 and add another home run to the tote board. Just for fun.)

We've heard EE describe in much harsher terms than "E5" earlier this season, as fans torqued up their anticipatory frustration with the franchise and began referring to Edwin as "garbage" and "nothing" and "worthless". We're not so foolish as to use one game to tell you that we told you so. But we hope some of those who trade in hyperbolic vitriol as they preemptively vacate the bandwagon find that the harsh words towards EE are now much harder to summon.

This Here's the Tale of Gordie Dougie Baseball Canada Stud

It's funny to think that is this day and age, legends can be built on little more than boxscores, unrestrained optimism, patriotic fervour and an overwhelming disdain for the status quo. But then, the fact that most of us have very little visual evidence to assess the progress of Brett Lawrie probably helps to add inches and feet to his legend.

It's been at once the most tiring and most tiresome meme of this year's Blue Jays season that the remedy for virtually any deficiency at the plate or in the field is the recall of the "hometown boy" (from 4300 KM away). Edwin Encarnacion bobbled a ball in the first game of the season, and people in our section (231, in case you're wondering if this was you) were calling for the immediate release of "E5" and the ascension of Gordie Dougie, the most scrappinest, Canadianest baseballer ever. Juan Rivera's woes? Release him for Gordie Dougie! Travis Snider's swing is effed up? Summon forth Gordie Dougie!

"I bet you he likes Don Cherry! Knows hockey! Orders double-doubles! Hates Quebec! Drinks strong beer! Says sorry a lot! Plays through injuries! Fights to defend the honour of his teammates! Has a pocketful of loonies at ALL TIMES! Plays euchre! And is really really polite!"

We're not entirely sure why it bugs us so much that there is a thick layer of sickly sweet maple syrupy exuberance for Lawrie. It could be that there is a certain provincial attitude around it that we find off-putting. We're reasonably certain, for instance, that were he from Venezuela, there wouldn't be the fans with marginal other interest in Jays prospects calling for his immediate recall every time Edwin Encarnacion tosses a ball up the line. (As evidence, we'd mention the ongoing discussions around Canadian Adam Loewen, or the popularity of the Jays' move to keep Scott Richmond on the 40-man roster.)

(And none of this is to say that there isn't a compelling reason for considering Lawrie's call up and getting excited about it, because he's hitting the snot out of the ball...albeit in the PCL, where the air is waifishly thin and where breaking balls don't break. Still, as he piles up stats, it's only been recently that he's closed the gap between strikeouts and walks, and we suspect that his willingness to get the bat off his shoulder will be greeted with great enthusiasm by opposing pitchers.)

We don't want to come off as anti-Canadian here, because we're just a pleased as punch to live in this country. But as a baseball fan, we're mostly agnostic to a player's provenance, if only because we've seen time and again how Canadian players get built into something their not when they arrive in Toronto, then slip away in the end, unwept. (Sorry, Corey Koskie.)

But here's the point of the post (and didn't it take us long enough to get here?): We're just about at the point where we're ready to concede that it might be time to give Gordie Dougie a shot.

Edwin Encarnacion has (as we've repeated a few times) regressed in almost every facet of his game this season. His defense is worse (which is hard to fathom), his power is non-existent, and in recent weeks, he's stopped even hitting the ball hard for outs. His plate discipline is in the tank, and he's hacking out of his cleats at just about everything with seams thrown near him. The 30 homer player that we imagined in the offseason? That's not who Edwin is anymore.

And while we're loathe to start the clock on him, it just strikes us at this point that Gordie Dougie could provide the Jays with more production and a decent glove at third over the final four months of the season. We'd peg him to post a .320ish OBP, .430ish SLG, about a dozen errors and maybe 10 homers over the remainder of the season.

Given the rather grim alternatives, we're not going to fight the Lawrie love too much longer.

A One-Sentence Post on...Productivity

Let this roll around your noggin for a few moments, and consider it for all it's worth, and from every angle: Noted slugger John McDonald (pictured above) now has more home runs this season than Travis Snider, Aaron Hill and Edwin Encarnacion...combined.

Whipping Boys: Someone to Despise

We get it: Juan Rivera's body language sucks.

His swing looks as though he's wielding a 20-pound bat, and it looks as though someone has slipped five pounds of sand in each of his cleats. He looks as though he's not necessarily thrilled to have been moved to Toronto, and from the tenor and tone of the tweets and emails we receive, the feeling is mutual.

(All of this is compounded by the fact that John Farrell has used him too high in the batting order at times, making his lifeless corpse smell that much more noxious.)

We also get that Edwin Encarnacion has had a less than stellar start to the season, both in the field and at the plate. (Though he's made a couple of nice plays in the field lately, which don't seem to stand out to the cynical braying hordes.)

But here's the thing: Like all players, these guys are assets, and right now, they have a depressed value. But if you're at all smart at playing a market - or frankly, if you're not completely brain dead - you don't sell off assets at the bottom of their value. And there remains some upside for Rivera and a lot of upside for Encarnacion that needs to be explored before the team casts them off without anything in return so as to speed the arrival of Gordie-Dougie Baseball Canada Man.

(And while we're dropping our oblique reference to the third baseman of the future, let us note that we probably shouldn't be quite so coarse in blaming him for the expectations that people have placed upon him, lest his older sister come kick our ass or strangle us with a hair band. And the truth is that we're as geeked to see him get here and contribute as any of you, but we also know that his development and the team's is best served with him getting some time in at the Triple-A level.)

We're going to repeat this mantra often in the next few weeks, so get used to this: It's a long season. We're six games in, and people are already referring to players as "garbage", which seems like a pretty harsh way to speak of your fellow human beings. (They are people, you know.) Let's just calm down, and observe the first month so that we can get a truer sense of what this team is, and what sort of value these pieces have.

It doesn't make any sense to heap scorn on players and boo your own guys in the first weekend of the season when they've barely had the chance to create an impression for this year.

And by the way: EE had a better season at the plate than Travis Snider last year, and has a higher career OPS than Aaron Hill. So before you send him packing because he got eaten up by two balls on Opening Weekend, you might want to see if he has something to offer in the 25 weeks of baseball that remain.

From the Ashes to the Hot Corner...Again

We remember thinking this sometime after Edwin Encarnacion was acquired by the Oakland A's this past offseason: NOW's when Edwin is going to go nuts and hit 40 bombs, and his iffy defense is won't be in the lede of every piece about him, and it's just a damn shame that we're not going to see that for ourselves.

Well now...

It took us a second to recognize what had happened with the announcement by the Jays that José Bautista would return to the outfield, and Edwin Encarnacion would make his way back to third on a full-time basis. Initially, we were certain that this portended five other deals and speedy callups of future stars, because that's just the way we think in the Anthopoulos Era.

(And as of late, haven't we all been wrong about the other shoes which never did drop?)

This shouldn't have come as a surprise, because manager John Farrell kept referring to the fact that he thought that Edwin could spell JoBau here and there at third. And once you get past the notion that "He's E5! He will ruin you with his defense!", it's pretty easy to make the leap that allows you to play him there every day.

Moving Juan Rivera's veteran, somewhat-disposable bat to the DH slot strengthens the outfield defense (a bit), while swapping EE in for JoBau at third shouldn't be a huge drop off. Once you balance it all out, it does appear as though they really have found their strongest lineup.

We, as Jays fans, have been spoiled by exceptional infield defense over the past five or six seasons. So much so that any downgrade in the field defensively is approached with trepidation. But we can live with a year of growing pains for Adam Lind at first, and the opportunity to see what a lighter, more dexterous Encarnacion has to offer in the field.

Or...to be a bit more pithy: We like it.

The Underdogs...Or Why We Root for the Return of Jo-Jo's Mojo

Everybody loves the Underdog. (Or at least that's what I'm¹ led to believe by that song by the Spoons or whoever.)

But at this point of the season, well before anything worthy of note² actually happens, I find myself picking out a handful of guys for whom I start to root and get overly attached. It happens most years: A couple of years back, I began touting a pre-Garfoose, pre-publishing empire, still-tolerable Dirk Hayhurst as my springtime mancrush , and I'd like to think that the positive vibes that I sent out into the universe precipitated his brief Major League tour with the Jays.³

This year, as others devote blog entries and tweets of praise and worship towards Darin Mastroianni or Eric Thames or Scott Richmond or Zach Stewart, we've (gargh! Tough habit to break) I've misappropriated my affections for the following long shots in this Spring's camp.

Jo-Jo Reyes: Yes, Jo-Jo has been shelled as a Major Leaguer. But we're (fuck it) of the opinion that he was tossed into situations that he was too inexperienced to step into by the Braves. A look back through his minor league numbers shows a guy who may well have some merit as a long reliever (even though newly tweeting Wilner says Farrell sees no use in long men). Reyes posted a 3.11 ERA in AAA and a 3.40 in AA, and had better-than-decent K/9 rates of 7.6 and 8.3 respectively.⁴

Reyes just turned 26 this year, and he's out of options, so we'd at least like to see him get a kick at a healthy few weeks at the big league level to show what he can do.

Josh Roenicke: Lost amongst the cascade of potential closer acquisitions this off-season, Roenicke's is unlikely to start the season with the Jays this April. With Camp, Dotel, Francisco, Frasor, Janssen, Purcey, Rauch and Villaneuva slotting in as the top eight relievers, Roenicke is likely to find himself in Vegas or elsewhere when the curtain rises. Still, there is something about those minor league K/9 rates above 10.0 that make us think that he could be a legitimate back of the rotation option.

On the other hand, he'll be 29 this August, so the future for Roenicke is right about now.

Edwin Encarnacion: We'll never be able to quit Edwin. Even when he was gone (for a week or so), we still figured that 2011 was going to be a year filled with monster homers and huge production for the Jays putative DH.

And are we wrong in thinking that Edwin, shorn of any responsibility for playing in the field, has the capacity to turn the corner like David Ortiz⁵ did in his 27th year and becomes a premium power hitter? Because that's not beyond the realm of possibility.

At least not in my, er, our, er, my mind.

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1. Trying out this "I" thing over the "we" for a day. Just to see how it feels.

2. No, three runs in three FAKE games is not notable. Stop noting it. You're not even allowed to make a mental note.

3. Really. I'd like to think I have that power.

4. His AA numbers stack up pretty well against Zach Stewart's, for whatever that's worth.

5. The distinction, of course, is that Ortiz had always had a good eye at the plate which only improved with age, whereas EE's OBP has declined throughout his career. Edwin posted a .359 OBP in 2006 versus a .305 last season, and this is part of a pretty consistent trend line downwards.

Offseason update (already?)

Rather than ramble on with a long-winded introductory paragraph, pontificating deeply about this and that, all meant to fool you into thinking I have it all figured out.....I'm just not going to bother. Not that I'm better than that (I'm not), but I'm short on time and energy, friends. So let's just muse, shall we?.....

Our favorite hipster reliever - gone
We won't have Brian Tallet to kick around anymore, as the 5-year Blue Jay (really?!) refused his assignment to AAA Vegas and becomes a free agent. As sorry as one can feel for a guy paid a million bucks to toss a few innings of baseball every other night, I do feel a twinge for a player kicked around by the fanbase for posting a fairly brutal 2010 campaign.

It's been stated a few times but bears repeating - used properly, Tallet was once and still could have been a quality asset for a major league pitching staff, as his '06-'08 campaigns can attest. But somewhere along the line, certain of the Blue Jays braintrust determined that Tallet's best role was in the rotation as an "innings-eater" (barf), or at the very least, as a multi-inning longman out of the bullpen.

Evidently, it took 2 full seasons of misusing the dude before anyone could figure out that formula does not compute. And now Tallet faces an uphill battle to land a major league job. Didn't have to end this way, but here we are.

E5 - gone
Slightly less surprising (but still surprising nonetheless), Edwin Encarnacion finds himself among the ranks of former Blue Jays, gone to Oakland on a waiver claim.

In reality, being sent to Vegas mid-season was all the evidence he & we really needed as proof that he was never viewed as a long-term fit at 3rd base for the Jays, but his occasional hot streaks and five homer weekends provided a flicker of hope that he might be. In the end, Encarancion - he of the criminally underused marketing ploy - finds himself swinging for the fences in Oakland (good luck), for now.

Oh yeah - DeWayne Wise - also gone
Kind of figured Wise had a shot at sticking around as a 4th/5th outfielder-type, but like Tallet, he was uninterested in a AAA assignment and has elected free agency. Maybe he comes back on a minor league deal. Either way.

Jays are reportedly interested in Greinke, Rasmus, Dunn, Berkman, Huff......
Again, not proclaiming original thought here, but again, bears repeating..... the Jays will likely be tied to most every player on the market - trade or free agent - to varying degrees, as intrepid GM Alex Anthopoulos kicks every tire on the lot on the off chance there could be a "fit". And why wouldn't he?

If Dayton Moore proclaims that he's trading Zack Greinke, why wouldn't Anthopoulos pick up the phone? Maybe Moore has a Brett Cecil and JP Arencibia obsession? Not that such an offer would even result in a callback, but if there's one thing we've learned, it's that AA leaves no stone unturned. And I love that about the guy.

Richard Griffin brings you John Farrell
Let me tell you something about Rich Griffin - when he's not intent on crucifying JP Ricciardi for all sins real and imagined, he's a hell of a baseball writer. This Q&A with the new skip reveals a little more about Farrell and the way he thinks about baseball. The more I see (er, read), the more I like.

I mean....it's mid-November and I already cannot fucking wait for next season. The Winter Meetings just might be the death of me.

The Tao's Contrarian Corner

In which your generally agreeable blogging pal suddenly gets all up in yo' grill over hot topics amongst the Blue Jays fan base.

You say: Rogers is a bunch of evil bastriches for moving more than half of the Jays remaining games to their just launched Sportsnet One service, denying the team's fans the opportunity to watch them at precisely the moment when interest in the team is blowing up. Money-grubbing iceholes!

We say: Save some of your consternation for your local TV service provider. By dropping all of your rage into Rogers' lap, you make it easier for them to bide their time and delay carrying the channel. And think about it this way: If your cable provider were to day "Fuck it. We're gonna drop A & E, so you'll have to find other ways to watch Intervention and Tanya Memme's spectacular rack on Sell This House", you wouldn't blame A & E for not getting carried, would you?

This is all part of a dance, and Bell and Shaw (who also own or are about to own CTV/TSN and Global respectively) would very much like to see the kids on Jarvis and Bloor twist in the wind for a while as payback for some prior tomfoolery.

Bottom line: Quietly seethe at Rogers for their timing, but call your cable provider like an angry Springer guest until they carry Sportsnet One if you want to see your Jays games anytime soon. Because the idea that the cableco's aren't going to move on this until hockey season is so depressing.

You say: Where the hell is J.P. Arencibia? And why isn't he playing everyday? He should just be playing in AAA as opposed to sitting on the bench!

We say: There's more to a catcher's development than getting reps and at bats. Spending time with the coaches, the pitching staff and the other catchers is an important aspect of JPA's initial stint in Toronto.

Yeah, his first game was pretty spectacular, and he's looked great throwing guys out on the basepaths. But we'd like to see him learn to put up as better target (which, as Drew pointed out, might not be his strongest suit.)

(Secondary thought here: Would it kill JPA to have a glove and chest protector that are different colours? Sometimes on screen, his black glove seems to get lost in his black chest protector. We're sure that the pitchers have a better view of it that we do, but still...would it kill him to grab a Lance Parrish signature mitt to give his boys a bright, unmissable target?)

Also, JPA's first magical game featured him swatting lots of first pitches into the heliosphere, but his subsequent games have seen him get jammed on those early pitches. Wouldn't hurt the kid to take a couple of pitches and work a count here or there.

And all of this is a lot more convincing after watching José Molina go 4-for-4 last night. Oh, you didn't see that? Oops. Sorry.

You say: It's a TRAVESTY and a DISGRACE that Travis Snider isn't playing every day. Future of the franchise! Pasty White Hope! Rosy-Cheeked Phenom! Let him play! Let him play! Let him play! Let him play! Let him play!

We say: The Manager actually has a wealth of productive bats from which he can construct his lineup, which means that Snider and FredDotLew are going to end up sitting maybe more than you feel is necessary. But we actually think that The Manager has done a good job of making sure that everyone gets ABs, and we'd tend to agree with his move to keep JoBau in right field rather than switching him to third and getting Edwin Encarnacion out of the lineup.

Oh, and BTW y'all: Since Snider's return on July 30, he's put up a .736 OPS in 48 plate appearances. EE? .809 OPS in 55 PAs. Just so you're not mistaken.

You say: The format of this blog post makes you think of Lisa Loeb, and that's not a good thing.

We say: Lisa Loeb is kinda hot. We're still not over her. She's so cute, prancing around coquettishly in that little dress. *Sigh*.

Welcome FredDotLew to the T-Dot-O

It's probably a pretty clear indicator of the extent to which we are so far gone in terms of our baseball obsession that we are completely geeked out over the Jays' acquisition of Fred Lewis.

Lewis is a guy who struggled to find a full time spot in a big league lineup, and when things went well for him, he managed a little bit of power, a bit more speed and a pretty-good-but-not-otherworldly OPS. And on defense, don't even ask us because we have no idea how to parse through the factors that allow a man to have both a +29.3 and a -59.9 UZR/150, as though some days he's Willie Mays and some days he's Pete Incaviglia.

Maybe this is overly glib, but given the description above, there's a part of us that keeps thinking of Fred Lewis as the Black Reed Johnson. (Although without Johnson's JV girls field hockey running style, which is a big plus.)

Still, this is a pretty snazzy deal for the Jays, who give up pretty much nothing and get a decent player who profiles well as a leadoff guy (.355 career OBP) and who can step into any of the outfield positions in a pinch. His presence immediately send Jeremy Reed back to Vegas, and gives the Jays some additional strength off the bench.

Of course, that's as things stand today. Where this acquisition gets really interesting is in a week or so, when Aaron Hill comes back from the DL. When the music stops at that point, who is left scrambling to find themselves one of the 25 seats? Is it Randy Ruiz, who is getting no love from The Manager anyhow? Does Travis Snider return to Sin City? Does Jo-Bau slide to third, leaving EE without a spot? Does Lyle Overbay get paid to sit at home and explore further adventures in facial hair?

And maybe the most important question that this trade raises: Is Ghostrunner on First's Lloyd the Barber a Savant, a Soothsayer, a Witch or a Double-Agent, sent by Alex Anthopoulos to infiltrate the Jays blogosphere.

FredDotLew is a social media monster
Love the story, as recounted by Big League Stew, of how Lewis broke the news of his trade via his Facebook page. That's so 2007! Lewis is all over the interwebs, so he may end up wresting the mantle of Most Beloved Jay on the Internet from the rehabbing Dirk Hayhurst. The Pinch Runner's Gospels, anyone?


Travis Snider is a lovable dude
Speaking of the Rosy-Cheeked Phenom, his bat flip on his first homer of the year gave us a little jolt of happiness in the depth of our cockles. Pair that up with a beauty of a diving catch, and our belief in Snider grew exponentially last night.

(Although someone might want to teach that kid how to lay out for a ball. We want to pat Snider on the back and tell him: It's cool and all that you're hard as fuck and you're gonna catch that ball no matter what, but landing shoulder first to catch a ball in an April game scares the shit out of us. Land on your chest and belly if you want to hit the turf, mmkay?)

Friday Rock Out - Because you miss them, don't you?
Since we've stopped tossing up random music clips, we get tweets and emails all the time suggesting this band or those guys who should make the cut. But today's selection is just for us: Cracker's "Low". We've been getting nostalgic lately, and this is a hat tip to our angry white boy days, when we'd pull on our torn denim and plaid and our Doc Martens, groom our goatee and get ready to take on the world with an arsenal of sullen looks and post-adolescent sarcasm. Enjoy.

Everybody's talking about this new decade

Hey kids! Happy New Year and New Decade! Didja miss us? Really, we didn't figure that we'd take that long of a break from blogging and amusing you, but it is amazing how many menial tasks Mrs. Tao could find for us to do around our new house. Apparently, all those boxes won't unpack themselves.

(And once again, many thanks are due to The Ack for keeping the content fresh around these parts in our prolonged absence.)

We really wish there was more to write about on our first morning back, but the past couple of weeks have offered us little to discuss other than decade retrospectives and a shit-tonne of emails about Murray Chass' disdain for poorly written press releases. (We'll spare you our thoughts on both.)

Alas, for today, you'll have to settle for a bit of a link dump.

Alex the Ant gets another backrub from the Toronto press corps: Okay, so I like Cathal Kelly as well, and I enjoy his slightly different take on the Jays' new GM. Reading the couple of paragraphs, I'd anticipate Alex's first coronary episode to come some time before the All Star Break. (Pace yourself, young man!) But really, I just want to get past the honeymoon stage, because this whole love-in with Antholpoulos is getting a little off-putting. Like PDA's on public transit.

Something about the Eternal Building Process from a Baltimore perspective: Someone on MASN's site draws comparisons between the Jays and Orioles' rebuilding. Which scares the crap out of us. (We're nothing like them! We hope and pray!)

Let Edwin Encarnacion be a cautionary tale: We used to live across the street from a convenience store that sold fireworks, and generally they'd be sold to drunken idiots at 2 AM on a weekend night, who would proceed to light those fuckers up and shoot them at one another or at the side of our building. So when we heard that EE took one in the face (and there's a fielding/reaction time joke in there somewhere), we sincerely hoped that it would serve as a warning to the rest of the nimrods out there who play fast and loose with pyrotechnics. But then again, if all of you idiots would like to kill and maim one another with your stupidity and your caveman-like fascination for bright and burning things, then have at it.

(Hey, when did we get so frickin' grumpy?)