Nobody Said It Would Be Easy

It's amazing what a short losing streak can do to a team in the American League East, isn't it?  Make no mistake, the Blue Jays are in the midst of a bit of a funk, but it's not a historically bad spell of losing, nor has it come against teams they "should" be beating with more regularity.  Yet here they are:  at the time of writing, they've been swept in Arlington, after losing two of three in Tampa, and all of a sudden, they're back to being .500 for the first time since April 19.

All of which wouldn't be so bad if the Jays were in a normal, sane, happy division where a team can coast along winning one game for every one they lose, maybe get hot at some point in the summer, and still be in the thick of a playoff race.  But that's not the AL East.  Things are still a little topsy-turvy in the division -- I maintain that there's something altogether unholy about the Baltimore Orioles even being close to first place this late in the season, and I'm stocking up on holy water just in case -- but, as Mike Axisa of Yankees site River Avenue Blues pointed out on Twitter, it's starting to look a little more familiar.

So the Jays will wake up tomorrow far closer to last place in the American League East than they've been all season.  Last place!  After being in a playoff spot just a few short days ago!  The arse is gone right out of 'er!  Would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?  Yes, I would, Org Guy.

Now: let's not be too sarcastically sanguine about things.  Winning is better than losing, and I'd be a helluva lot happier if this team could find a way to win again.  It's a lot more challenging, though, when you're already dealing with health issues in the batting order that created the curious double play combination of Brett Lawrie-Omar Vizquel in the later innings today.  Kelly Johnson's cortisone shot in his leg, stacked on top of Yunel Escobar's departure with a groin issue, will likely necessitate more roster moves.  Don't look now, but the shuttle between the big club and Las Vegas is getting much more frequent, and there are no signs of it slowing down.  We might get an Adeiny Hechavarria sighting on the big league roster before the week is out.  Unfortunately, far too many of his 51s teammates, especially in the bullpen, have been summoned ahead of him, and having Texas take a... well, a Texas-sized chunk out of the pitching staff this weekend didn't help matters.

If there are tickets for flights back to Vegas in the travelling secretary's desk drawer, it feels like only a matter of time before one ends up in Eric Thames' locker.  The somewhat defensible decision to take advantage of Travis Snider's last remaining option year, keeping Thames in Toronto for the start of the season, has simply not been a success.  Unlike the clear improvement over time that we've seen from Colby Rasmus, it doesn't look like more at-bats will make it much better for Thames.  It's easy to say we all predicted this and that Snider should have been up the whole time, but it shouldn't be forgotten that Thames didn't do anything to lose the job to open the year.  Fair's fair, but by now, after -0.5 bWAR on the still-young season, I think the team knows what it has in Thames, and it isn't anything special.  I'd be a lot more optimistic about not only a switch in left field, but an overall improvement out of the position, if Snider didn't seem to have some lingering wrist issues he can't seem to shake.

A Travis Snider injection, or a Vladdy Guerrerro, Adeiny Hechavarria or Anthony Gose, aren't going to make this team an instant contender (or at least not a significantly greater threat to contend than they are currently).  But a winning streak -- a real, honest-to-goodness streak of like seven straight wins -- would sure mean a lot to this team.  The Jays have won four in a row on three separate occasions in 2012.  In the AL East, four in a row just never seems like enough, and there are so many landmines in between those strings of wins.  They need to start dodging more of them.

This Tricky Thing with Thames and Travis

Just a few hours after purposefully burying Eric Thames at the bottom of our completely meaningless Power Rankings, we felt a twinge of something.

Maybe it was guilt over having gleefully dumped over a player who still pulls on the uniform of our favourite team, and whose success and failure still impacts on the Blue Jays' ability to win games so long as he's here. (Setting aside the question as to whether he should be here, at least for a few paragraphs.)

Maybe it was sheepishness, after he crushed a pitch far into the nether regions of Oriole Park to square up the score at one apiece. Or maybe it was sympathy, after seeing the mountainous dogpile of Jays fans who leaped onto social media to heap scorn on Thames after a ball went off his outstretched glove and into the stands for what turned out to be the winning run.

Before the season began, we felt as though the Jays' brain trust was leaning in the wrong direction when it came to the choice of which young outfielder they would carry on the active roster this year, and by all appearances, most of you fall into the same camp that we do. The prevailing winds fill the sails of #TeamSnider, and for good reason. From what we've observed, he's a better all-around player than Thames, and he's never really been given the opportunity to start a season without the spectre of a demotion hanging over his head.

It could be that the Jays were attempting to avoid making the same mistake with Thames, and decided that they would give him the opportunity to prove himself without a fear of failure. And let's face it: Baseball is a game of failure, and part of the development of that tool between a player's ears is shedding the fear that a bad at bat or a dropped ball will result in the end of their baseball dream. So if Travis never got that chance, maybe we should be on board with Thames getting the benefit of some patience.

The problem for us is that Thames doesn't seem to be suited to the role in which he's been placed. Even with the work he put in over the offseason, it looks as though the process of fielding a fly ball is a bit like speaking a foreign language: He'll always be tentative, and he'll never convince you that it comes to him easily.

The hitting is another thing altogether. If you look at some of his plate discipline numbers, it seems as though he's made a correction for the better, with his swing percentage falling from 51.3% to 44.2% so far this season, and his percentage of swings at pitches out of the strike zone falling from 37.9% to  30.3%. But in the ongoing story of "adjusting to the adjustments", opponents are pounding the zone on Thames, getting first-pitch strikes on him 69.4% of the time.

Parsing through those numbers, we get the impression that Thames has taken direction and understood the strategy and done his best to apply it, but it is not one that suits his skill set. This is a guy who was meant to grip and rip and swing at the first good fastball/meatball he sees, usually posting a low on-base percentage but a high batting average. That's who we think he is, and that's not the profile of a player that we'd want to pursue, but maybe -hopefully - he'll prove us wrong.

There's no question in our mind that Thames is working hard, and wants to succeed with every fibre of his being. He also seems to be a pretty likeable guy, and in a different set of circumstances, we'd be pulling for him. If we scan the roster, he's probably the guy to whom we'd relate best on a personal level. Which is why we feel a certain pang of apprehension when it comes to running him out of town and back to Vegas this early in the season. Yes, we understand that this is the lamest rationale for rooting for a player, and it's beneath us to give a fadoo about how nice a guy he is. But when you're tearing down a man's work - his livelihood, for goodness sake - it starts to feel like you're questioning his worth. And there's nothing fun about that.


Travis Snider is an Outfielder. End of Discussion.

Maybe you wouldn't be surprised to hear this, but over the past few months, we've received dozens of inquiries about the possibility of the Jays moving Travis Snider to first base. Maybe it's a whim, or an idle suggestion, and maybe it isn't unprecedented for a stocky outfielder to move to the position. But to put this notion to rest, let's go through the reasons why this is a bad idea.

1) You don't just stick someone at 1B: This isn't your softball team. It might not be the most demanding defensive position, but remember that Adam Lind - who had played the position in college - ground his back into a lumpy pulp taking thousands of ground balls and short hops at first base. And he still struggles with the footwork.

Travis Snider has never played first base professionally, and we've never heard anyone mention that he played it at any point in his life. Would he know his way around the bag? Has he even seen a hard hit grounder that didn't take ten bounces on the outfield grass to reach him? And why would you want to attempt such a stunt at this point in his career? And what would such a move communicate to 29 other organizations?

2) Travis Snider is a good outfielder: Pretty self-explanatory, but worth reiterating. He's a good outfielder. He moves well, reads the ball well of the bat, and charges balls well. Let him stay where he's needed.

3) We have enough problems as it is: If you move Snider to first, what do you do with Adam Lind? And don't say "Just release him", because that's only a solution in your fantasy leagues. He's and asset, and the Jays would do well to help burnish his value and maybe protect him versus some lefties to bump up his numbers. Also, what would such a move mean for Edwin Encarnacion's playing time? Are you squeezing him into a 1B-DH rotation at this point? And who goes down to make room for him anyway?

We get that many of you are as eager as we are to see Travis Snider back in a Blue Jays uniform. But we haven't even made it through a month of games yet, and we should accept the fact that he won't make his return until a regular spot in the lineup opens for him. But that will happen when it happens.

The Snider Thing

Photo via the Las Vegas Sun
I had intended to write up another off-field preview for the 30 Jays in 30 Days series this weekend.

(And really: before I go any further, can we all give a tip of the cap to the Tao for having taken this endeavour on? As it reaches its conclusion, and Opening Day gets ever closer, I think it’s been a fun, insightful exercise to take stock of the roster the way this series has. It’s been a lot of work, though, and Tao deserves our thanks for it. Even if he didn’t take me to Florida with him.)

But instead of adding a preview of Dwayne Murphy or Pete Walker or the guys who tape ankles in the clubhouse, I felt like this time would be better spent discussing the outcome, which we learned today, of the “Battle for Left Field” that had unfolded during Spring Training. Travis Snider was optioned to AAA Las Vegas earlier today, making Eric Thames your starting left fielder for the Toronto Blue Jays. At least for now.

In fact, there wasn’t really a battle at all, in any official sense of the word. When Alex Anthopoulos comes out and says something to the media, even if it sometimes sounds less than definitive or leaves him all kinds of wiggle room, he generally means it. In retrospect, Anthopoulos, along with pretty much every other person in the organization, couldn’t have signalled louder that Thames was getting the left field job unless they walked around Dunedin carrying #TeamThames bullhorns.

It’s not that they were leading the fans on with a false display of real competition for the job; it’s that a lot of us (me included) projected our own desire to see a real competition onto the otherwise mundane preseason preparation in Florida. It was easy to get caught up in a spring training position battle, even a contrived one, because spring training would be as exciting as Uno night at your grandma’s place without some storylines like this.

I love Travis Snider, and I’m sad about this. But I don’t think Travis Snider is getting a raw deal, or getting jerked around by the organization, or being developed improperly, or that he should (SHUT YO MOUTH) be traded. In fact, quite the opposite: this might be the first time in four years that anyone in the organization is being 100% honest with the guy. He knew going into camp that he was probably going to be on the outside looking in on Opening Day. Then he came in and had a pretty damn good camp. And OF COURSE he did. He’s a very talented hitter; he was facing weaker competition than he would during a big-league regular season; and he had (I would think) some degree of certainty about what the end result of this whole exercise was going to be, so he had a chance to just go out and play some baseball.

In “Moneyball”, Michael Lewis looked back at Billy Beane’s ignominious big-league career and contrasted it to the likes of Lenny Dykstra. The picture was of a tightly-wound perfectionist with the highest of expectations wrapped up in him; as opposed to a loose cannon who never understood why anyone would doubt he could play in the bigs, because all you had to do was go out there and play the bloody game the way you know how. Sometimes I wonder if there’s a little bit of that Billy Beane conundrum going on with Travis Snider. The skills and the tools are there. But that absolute certainty is elusive. That faith in his own abilities; that confidence that he can just let it all hang out on the diamond and the inevitable result will be elite-level success; that I’m-good-at-this-and-I-don’t-give-a-shit-what-you-think attitude. With a ticket to Vegas in hand and almost nothing to lose, it’s entirely possible we saw some of that attitude begin to emerge this spring in Dunedin with Travis Snider, and I suspect the organization wants to see if he can build on it now.

You can look just down the dugout at a 21-year-old Brett Lawrie and see that whole package ready to explode onto the Major League scene. It’s the kind of supernova arrival that we fans of Snider have been hoping for – expecting, even – for about three years.

But Travis Snider isn’t Brett Lawrie. He’s also not Billy Beane, or Lenny Dykstra, or anyone else. There’s no template for success in the major leagues. There’s just thousands and thousands of prospects and non-prospects trying to find a way to put it all together. We probably shouldn’t forget that Snider is still – still, after all the false starts and dashed hopes – closer than most are to doing so.

30 Jays in 30 Days - Eric Thames is Gonna Have to Win Our Affections

Who: Eric Thames, No. 14. Batter, and since tradition dictates, also sorta an outfielder. Hits left, throws right. 6’1, 205 LBS. 25 years old.

Provenance: Santa Clara, California. Drafted in the seventh round of the 2008 amateur draft by Toronto out of Pepperdine University.

Contract Status: Thames has 0.115 seasons of MLB service, which means that he’s here for a long time, and he’s quite inexpensive.

2011 Stats: .262 AVG, .313 OBP, .456 SLG, .769 OPS in 95 games and 362 ABs. 24 doubles, 12 homers, 58 runs scored. Isolated power number of .193. 0.9 WAR (Fangraph-ically speaking.)

Looking Back: The battle for the left field job started in earnest in March. March of last year, that is.

Eric Thames came to Jays camp in 2011 as a depth player who had put up decent numbers in New Hampshire in the previous year (27 homers, 104 RBI, 896 OPS). There were asterisks attached to that, given that Thames was old for the level, and the ballpark apparently favours left-handed hitters. Nevertheless, the Jays gave Thames plenty of opportunity to get at bats with the big club in Florida, with a notion that he might be able to step in. Maybe. In a pinch.

Thames made the most of the opportunity last year, earning raves from the organization, and earning himself an unexpected call-up in May of last season. The initial reaction to him seemed to focus more on his follicular achievements than on his play of the field, and while he didn’t exactly blow the doors off their hinges in his first weeks with the team (9-for-42 with two doubles and 13 strikeouts, mostly in DH duty), he was squaring up balls and hitting them hard, even when they went for outs. Which is more than anyone was saying about Travis Snider at that point.

When the Jays eventually allowed Thames out of the batter’s box to play the field on a regular basis, it wasn’t a particularly pretty sight to behold. Though partial seasons of Ultimate Zone Rating are difficult to parse – especially for left fielders, for some reason – Thames sat in the bottom five of that metric among LFs with more than 400 innings played, posting a -6.6. It’s not that Thames is bereft of athleticism, as he made a few highlight reel grabs when running in for balls. But his ability to judge fly balls or to track down anything hit behind him is not nearly up to snuff.

To play that sort of a weak glove in the field every day, one would hope for a bat that posts something more than a .313 OBP with a lot of loud outs as a consolation prize.

Looking Forward: We get asked the “Thames vs. Snider” question often enough that we’ve gone through several iterations of our answers. (We’re workshopping it. Go with us on this one.)

Our sympathies generally rest with Snider because he is younger, a better fielder, a better baserunner, more familiar and because we suspect that his progress has been delayed by his early call-up to the majors. Ultimately, we figure that if either one of the two plays well enough to earn their way onto the opening day roster, we’ll be satisfied with the process.

But our suspicion at this point – based on tea leaf analysis and not much else -- is that the Jays are inclined to move forward with Thames’ bat in the lineup and that they’ll park Snider back in Las Vegas to earn his way back onto the roster. (As for Ben Francisco’s presence in this whole equation? We’re stumped as well.) Thames remains the more controllable of the two players, in spite of being 15 months older than Snider, and thus far, he’s been the better of the two players offensively. If we let our eyes get coldly analytical about this, it makes sense that Thames get the nod.

Our preference might have been that the Jays find a suitor for Thames’ services, and if that were in any way the intention, it would make sense to give him his reps in MLB so as to maximize the return. But somehow, seeing Thames’ bulging biceps and affected glower staring out at us from the Blue Jays’ website, we’re guessing that this team is banking on him being around.

2012 Expectations: Thames is going to have to lose the job in order not to come north with the team. Keeping the job will be a whole other task, but we could see Thames building on last year’s power numbers, and hitting more than 20 homers, and posting an OPS in the high .700’s or low .800’s.

Strikeouts will be an issue, and if he does manage to win the job in left, we hope the Jays’ brain trust is smart enough not to put all of those whiffs directly in front of José Bautista in the lineup. And as much as we’ve heard all of the dandy things about his arm strength, Thames will still need to track balls down in the outfield rather than waiting for the ball to stop rolling so that he can pick it up.

If Thames is going to be our everyday outfielder, we certainly hope he’s worthy of the role.

Friday Buffet - A Little of This, A Little of That

We could have offered up another long, ponderous discussion of the relative merits of prudence versus boldness, but it's Friday, and you deserve better. Follow along as we dip our tongs into some tasty morsels.

All the Young Jays: We're not sure where in recesses of our memory last year's rookie familiarization tour has gone to hide, but we were pleasantly impressed to be reintroduced to the concept once again for the first time yesterday. (For more of the particulars on who came and what they had to say, see Mike Cormack's piece on Sportsnet.ca, and hear some of the audio gleaned from the players by Mike Wilner and Kayla Harris on Fan590.com.)

There's a reality to being the lone MLB team outside of the U.S., which is that few young players have a clear sense of what sort of city Toronto is, and what it truly means to play in Canada. For many young men who have never left their home country before their first trip across the border, demystifying the process and letting them get a taste of what awaits them when they make it to this side of the great frontier might be just enough motivation to focus their minds in the final year or so of minor league ball.

It's one thing to have a great system, but we're impressed by the forethought the Jays' management is showing in preparing the next crop of players before they get their call to The show. If nothing else, it seemed to work well for Brett Lawrie and Eric Thames last year, neither of whom would have been counted on to contribute double-digits in homers last January.

The Next Johnny Mac?: Stemming from his invitation to the Rookie Orientation, there's been a bit of chatter about Jonathan Diaz, who garnered comparisons to John McDonald for his defensive prowess.

(Which, if you think about it, is just about the highest praise that can be doled out in this part of the baseball world.)

It seemed to us as though Diaz has been scuffling around the Jays' system since our blog was in short pants, and though we remember Diaz looking good in the field in a few Spring Training contests last season, it wasn't enough to make his name pop into our head at any point in the interim. Upon a glance at his Baseball-Reference.com page, and we've come to find a different comp for Diaz: He might just be the next Mike McCoy.

Diaz is already 26 (turning 27 by the opening week of the season), which puts him into the same category of "late bloomer" as McCoy. Moreover, Diaz has shown a significant skill in getting on base (.363 OBP in six minor league seasons, .357 at Double-A and .343 at Triple-A), but he seemingly gets the bat knocked out of his hands when bringing it through the zone, slugging at a .296 clip over his minor league career.

He's managed eight homers in those six seasons and 78 doubles over those six seasons, and his base-stealing tool doesn't seem refined enough to compensate for the lack of pop in his bat (31 career steals versus 25 times caught). For comparison's sake, Mikey Mick put up a .375 OBP and .369 slugging in ten minor league seasons, getting his first taste of MLB action at the age of 28.

The Jays aren't especially deep up the middle, and one collision in shallow centrefield could see them starting McCoy and Luis Valbuena for an extended period of time next season. In that context, we could see dropping Diaz into the number nine slot and letting him bunt people over for a few weeks. Just like Johnny Mac did.

Wow...did our generalize anxiety just crank up a notch or what?

The Yoenis Cespedes Myth Machine: We have a theory about Cuban cigars, and it goes like this: Dominicans are often better, but the mythology that's built around Cubans because of how unattainable they are to Americans makes many over value them.

(Which reminds us: We really shouldn't compare human beings to tobacco products, should we?)

We'll confess to having been sucked into the hype around Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes in recent months. His bizarre showcase videos (replete with Christopher Cross musical interludes, leg pressing a full stack plus two grown men, shout outs to Ahman Green and his mom and the roasting of beasts) were amusingly amateurish, and yet, they sold us.

As Cespedes saw his first action in the Dominican Winter League yesterday (three strikeouts in three at bats), Clay Davenport worked through a rough estimate on his blog of how Cespedes' Cuban league stats would translate into the Major Leagues. The article is interesting for those of you who statistically inclined, but for those who'd prefer to cut to the chase, Davenport figures Cespedes' Equivalent Average (EqA) would be around .267. (This would be an OPS around .774
with somewhere between 25 and 30 homers.)

What's intriguing to us about this is that even if the Jays were to throw themselves into the Yoenis Sweepstakes, he's likely find himself in the crowded competition for the starting left field spot, up against Eric Thames, who is two years younger (so far as we know) and posted a .263 EqA last season. Cespedes would seem from some descriptions to be a much better fielder than what we've observed from Thames, but considering the hefty price tag that the Cuban is looking to have met, this is just another expensive free agent deal that the Jays would be wise to pass up.

Ben Francisco Is...Something?

Life in the Era of Alex Anthopoulos is a stitch, isn't it?

The Jays acquired outfielder Ben Francisco from the Phillies yesterday afternoon for pitcher Frank Gailey. (And seriously, who on Earth is Frank Gailey?) Before we'd even made it through 50 characters of the tweet officially announcing the transaction, we were short of breath, dizzy with the possibilities of what the next move in the sequence might be. Was this Travis Snider's final moments in our laundry? Was Gio Gonzalez on his way to walk 90 batters in a Blue Jays uniform next season?

By the time 5 pm rolled around and Alex Anthopoulos' conference call comments began getting tweeted out, and it was clear that there were no subsequent moves to come, we were more than a little confused. So, Ben Francisco is really here to stay?

In trying to wrap our heads around the move, we thought for a moment about Earl Weaver, and his notion that a team needn't have more than nine pitchers, including four starters. That's a tough sell now, but having six position players on the bench so that you can work platoon advantages in your favour is not the worst idea we could think of. Sure, you might wish that Travis Snider would learn to hit lefties, but let's pretend that a pool of rabid gators is going to be let loose on your meaty posterior unless the Jays win 94 games: Would you run Francisco out against left-handed pitchers? Yer darn tootin' you would!

(Setting aside, of course, the bizarrely even platoon splits that Francisco himself has, he would be a better option against the southpaws than Snider, Thames, or maybe even Rasmus.)

Not that we think that any of this actually happens. We're still doubtful that Francisco - supposing he even makes the team - plays as often as Corey Patterson did last year, and we're still assuming that John Farrell would prefer more choice in the bullpen than on the bench. But the notion that the team might work in some regular platoons at first, second and in left appeals to us. If that's where this outfield pileup nets out, we'll be happy to see it.

Scrap Heap Dreaming
There were 29 men set loose and left untendered at the deadline to...um, tender. It's an inauspicious list, though if we had to pore through it (and why wouldn't we?), here are a few notable names that we might consider.

-Hong-Chih Kuo: Sky high walk rates (7.0/9) and injury derailed him in 2011, but for a modest contract (something under the $2.75 million he made last year), we'd think he'd be a decent fit towards the back of the Jays' pen.

-Ryan Spilborghs: Because who couldn't use one extra outfielder in the mix? We like the .360 OBP in 2010, and wouldn't mind him as a bench player.

-Eli Whiteside: Not so much for his bat or his ability to handle pitchers. But he couldn't be that much worse than Jeff Mathis, and he has the most awesome surname-to-hair relationship in the Majors. He could be a Bond villain.

-Joe Saunders: Or as we'll affectionately refer to him, "Joe-Joe Saunders". (Incidentally, Jo-Jo Reyes IS available. But let's not go there.) Saunders is a classic innings-eater, and wouldn't be much more than a fifth starter, but he wouldn't be a bad option to have around given the questions around Kyle Drabek, Jesse Litsch and Dustin McGowan going into the season.

-Jeremy Hermida: We'll always advocate for Jeremy Hermida. We always add him in deep fantasy leagues and on video games, and we'll always remember the year he hit 84 homers for us in a season of 2K baseball. Sign him up, because we can't quit Hermida.

The Eternal Internal Conflict over Eric Thames (and What It Means, If Anything...)

There is no player over whom we've agonized more this offseason than Eric Thames. In fact, we've likely pondered the sophomore outfielder more than all other Jays combined since the season's end. It's somewhat maddening.

We've actually begun writing this piece and set it aside a half-dozen times, because we never felt like it was that worthy of being written in the first place. Or we had never quite sold ourselves on the notion that we were expressing ourselves correctly when trying to figure out why we're so fixated on him.

It's taken some time, but we ascribe our exceeding interest in Thames to four things:

1) His position relative in the pileup of players who might get playing time in left field this season: The Blue Jays are going to have to find room for Thames, Edwin Encarnacion, Travis Snider, and Rajai Davis to get at bats this season between the DH and LF. Were we to come into this equation after a year's coma, sorting out who slots in where would be fairly simple, with EE getting the DH at bats, Rajai getting pinch running duty, Thames taking the everyday at bats and Snider plying his trade in Las Vegas or elsewhere.

Of course, we've a five-year history with Travis, and we keep finding the reasons why he makes sense for the future of the franchise. Add to that the fact that Rajai has probably produced more than either of the youngsters, and our dubious view of Thames' defense, and somehow, it still seems muddled.

2) The discrepancy between the general perception and our perception of him: This has more to do with the casual manner in which Thames has been dismissed as a lousy outfielder with a poor OBP who doesn't merit a slot in the lineup of a team that fancies itself as a contender for a Wild Card spot in 2012. (More on that below.) We hope we're not creating a straw man to scorch, but our sense is that Thames doesn't have a widespread base of support amongst the Blue Jays blogging cognoscenti. But when we watch that quick bat go screaming through the hitting zone, and when we see Thames square up the ball and hit it as hard as anyone outside of Bautista, it seems to us though he has the most important tool in his arsenal, and some remaining headroom before he reaches his ceiling.

Thames' .333 weighted on base average was the fourth best among Jays with more than 200 at bats last year, trailing José Bautista by nautical miles, but also trailing Yunel Escobar (.345) and Edwin Encarnacion (.344) by a somewhat slim margin. His isolated power of .193 was third-best, behind Bautista and J.P. Arencibia, and ahead of Escobar, Encarnacion and Lind.

In fact, it is hardly a stretch to state that Thames is the fourth best bat on this team as it stands today. The .313 OBP is not great by any means, but it bears mentioning that Texas corner outfielder Nelson Cruz actually posted a .312 OBP, and we're pretty certain that there would be joy throughout the land if he were to suddenly find his way into the Jays' lineup next season.

3) The Blue Jays no longer have the luxury of lollygagging around waiting to see if some of this potential turns into something tangibly valuable: Further to what we stated above, the Eternal Building Process seems to have been cut short in the minds of many fans over the past few weeks, and there is a greater urgency for 2012 to be a year in which the Jays move to the next level. So to go through a season of bumps and feeling out contenders for a regular spot in the lineup seems antithetical to those ambitions. Taking several months to figure out who fits where and how is not on the agenda for most fans this spring.

4) What about Travis? To chose to go forward with Eric Thames seems like a repudiation of the rosy-cheeked carnivore. If they both break camp with the big club, the Jays will be left to choose between the two left-handed bats on a daily basis. And while injuries will happen and a five-man outfield would still result in 300-plus plate appearances for each, it still seems as though a choice will have to be made between them.

Snider is better base-stealer and a better defensive option, is almost two years younger and his 82-game 2010 campaign (.255/.304/.463, .331 wOBA, 14 HR, 1.2 fWAR in 319 PAs) compares pretty favourably to Thames' 2011 (.262/.313/.456, .333 wOBA, 12 HRs, 0.9 fWAR in 394 PAs). The big distinction between the two at this point, we suppose, is their strikeout rates. Thames posted a not-great 22.3% K-rate to go with a subpar 5.8% walk rate last season, while Snider put up a team-worst (200 PA minimum) 27.7% K-rate and a 5.4% walk rate.

Though we think there are few who can claim to be bigger fans of Travis Snider than us - we spent years giving him nicknames and praising him in spite of his output - it seems to us that if you were to take your affections out of the equation, the choice for the starting left field job seems pretty evident. We're just not sure that we're comfortable with the answer.

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.

Thoughts at the Halfway-Not-Really-Halfway Break

Hey! Did you miss us last week? We were laid up after a bit of reconstructive surgery (no, really), and doped up like Mark Renton when he sank into the carpet listening to Lou Reed's Perfect Day. At one point in our recovery, we swear we saw Jesse Litsch crawling across our ceiling. So while we were able to take in a lot of baseball, our ability to actually sit up and blog about it was fairly limited. Nevertheless, here we are. Back again.

(Or did you not even notice that we were gone? We're cool with that, we suppose...it's not as though we crave your approval or anything. ROAWR MOAR LUV PLEEZ!)

There are a few contextual pieces that we'll be working on in the next week or so, and we'll likely get caught up in the All Star shenanigans over the next few days, so there will be plenty to update this week. Stay tuned.

Briefly, though, we had a few superficial whims that we thought we'd share to help us warm up the blogging muscle again. We'd hate to pull something.

Eric Thames Is More Than a Facefull of Hair: We were inclined not to get overly excited about the Jays' rookie outfielder, given that prospect experts were lukewarm on him and the ballpark in New Hampshire was held up as a power-inflator. Well, colour us pleasantly surprised.

That swing still seems longer than Tarkovsky Trilogy, but Thames gets his bat through the hitting zone so quickly that it hardly seems to matter. Sure, he's only suited up for 28 games, but the numbers thus far (.382 wOBA, .212 ISO, .876 OPS) are all positively dreamy. (Enough so that we're willing to overlook some of the defensive weaknesses that he's shown, in part because he's also a max effort guy defensively, and we can see his routes to balls improving with time.)

We're loving Thames' presence in two-hole, and we can actually see him staying with the big club from here on out, and for many years to come. The future, as they say, is now.

It's Getting Better All the Time: Mired in an offensive funk (and not the awesome George Clinton sort of funk that you gotta have) for months, it's great to see that a couple of additions to (and notable subtractions from) the lineup have created a much more fearsome scoring machine in the past week or so. This is especially true now that Travis Snider is hitting the ball in actuality in the same manner that he slugs it in our fondest dreams. (Drew/Tao Same Guy Alert: We were pretty much writing this post until we noticed that Drew ghostran with it before we got there.)

Add to that Thames' mighty uppercut, the ongoing awesomnity of Yunel Escobar and a reinvigorated Rajai Davis (who still tries to bunt with runners on second and two outs, but eventually swings the bat and drives in said runners), and the Jays' lineup starts to look imposing around the One Man Gang and Adam Lind.

We're not sure that the pitching of the Clevelanders was necessarily the right test to tell us whether if this offense has started to crank it up and turn it around, but what we saw over the last four games (and since the series against the Phillies, frankly) gives us plenty of hope for the second portion of the schedule.

Bullpen Solutions: So it seems as though the Jays bullpen, constructed over the offseason with cheap-ish deposed former closers, has eventually played out the way we should have figured in the first place: With a bunch of pitchers hurling their way out of the closer role.

So what's the solution? Does the team continue to send Frank Francisco out in the ninth because he throws hard, misses bats (allegedly) and because "he's the guy". Do they give Jon Rauch opportunities here or there, or even let Jason Frasor get his licks in?

Our solution? Well, at the moment, our solution is on the DL. But when he comes back and gets a few innings in, we'd be tempted to let Casey Janssen have a shot at the ninth inning spots. He's posted a 3.12 xFIP thus far this year, and is actually missing bats much more than he used to (8.13 K/9, which is more than Frasor, Rauch or Rzep.)

At this point, we're not sure the Jays would have much to lose in giving him a try out in the role. (Other than Type A status for Francisco, though he seems eager to lose that all for himself.)

Final Thoughts: It's great to be back, kids. See you on the Twitter today, and tonight during the José Home Run Soiree.