San-toasted

In entirely unsurprising yet still disappointing news this morning, the Blue Jays announced that would-be closer Sergio Santos would miss the remainder of the season, after experiencing more shoulder discomfort following a rehab throwing session.

Jays fans got to see all of five regular-season innings from Santos, and in total, the converted infielder has still only pitched 120 innings in his big-league career.  Santos is still largely unknown to a great many fans, but his absence this season still hurts – his eye-popping numbers with the White Sox last season and the electric stuff he displayed when healthy are the sorts of things you can dream on.

A few thoughts on Santos, scrawled out as I watch the Jays take on the team against whom he made his final 2012 appearance, the Cleveland Indians:

Mike Sirotka 2.0?

Well, no.  Not really.  This comparison has come up over and over again, and it’s been troublesome to me.  The idea that the Jays bought “damaged goods” when they shipped prospect porn star Nestor Molina to Chicago to get Santos doesn’t stand up to serious scrutiny or basic logic.

The reason we all remember the Mike Sirotka deal was precisely because it was so out of the ordinary, requiring the Commissioner of Major League Baseball to weigh in as the final arbiter.  Bud Selig pointed out at the time of ruling on the Sirotka deal that it’s up to teams to get the information they need on players before acquiring them:  “I hope that all club executives will take from this dispute a renewed awareness of their obligations under the caveat emptor rule.”  One of the things that fans have come to appreciate about Alex Anthopoulos in his term as Blue Jays General Manager is that he does his homework.  He doesn’t strike me as the type who would fail to do all the necessary checking to ensure the player he was acquiring was healthy.

John Farrell told the media today that it was in Santos’ season debut, against Kansas City, in which he first felt the shoulder pain that would eventually sideline him.  Yes, managers have been known to lie to the media before, and the way Santos was hidden from view during Spring Training may give the more suspicious among us reason to wonder whether the pain might have been present a little earlier.  But if Santos was in fact injured prior to the season, what benefit has there been, or is there now, in saying otherwise?  Saving face is about the only reason I can muster, but all things considered, I prefer to take Farrell and the organization at their word.

(Addendum to this after originally posting:  Santos signed a contract extension with the White Sox after the 2011 season as well, discussed below. Hard to imagine they'd commit guaranteed money to a pitcher if they knew he had a shoulder problem.  Hat tip to Mike Wilner and John Lott on Twitter for reminding me and everyone else about that.)

Dolla dolla bills y’all

Besides, Santos is far from a lost cause for the Blue Jays.  We’ve already seen how critical it is to have a stable of capable bullpen arms, and Santos should still be one when he’s healthy again, for a very reasonable price.  Even if his arm falls off in surgery, the Jays would only be on the hook for the price they paid to get him (Molina) plus $7.25 million – $6.75 million over the next two seasons, and $750K to buy out one of the three club options for 2015, 2016 and 2017 (as always, via the invaluable Cot's Baseball Contracts powered by Baseball Prospectus).

That 2013-2014 salary is less than the Jays will be paying Casey Janssen, who picked up ninth-inning duties (eventually) in Santos’ place and has been nothing short of outstanding.  Yet Janssen got that money when he was signed as a set-up guy, not a CAPITAL C CLOSER.  In a chat with the Tao during lunch last week, we agreed that a contract like that of Santos fits in almost anywhere in the back end of a bullpen.

All this considered, there’s still reason to be optimistic about seeing Sergio Santos striking batters out in the late innings in a Blue Jays uniform in April 2013.  Put a candle in your window.

Observations on the Winter Meetings from a Distance

(From a distance...do we all have the sounds of hoary Bette Midler treacle assaulting our brains now? Awesome...)

We're miles and kilometres and then some away from the action in Dallas, so all of our Winter Meetings observations are being made through eyes that are straining to keep up with every tweet and bleep that pops across our screen. Most of this is conjecture and speculation at this point, but we'd offer a few thoughts that have coalesced here, far from the action.

Big Deal! Jays trade Nestor Molina for Sergio Santos: This deal popped up just as we were about to joke about the lack of action, so it goes to show what we know.

The curious aspect of this deal is the fact that Santos is returning to the Jays after having been in the organization as the prospect thrown into the Troy Glaus deal. We remember subsequently seeing Santos as a SS-converted-to-3B with the Syracuse SkyChiefs, and thinking that while he had a great build, the finer skills (infield footwork and strikezone judgment) eluded him.

In his new role as a power reliever, we'll confess to having a twinge of jealousy having watched him evolve into a big nasty hurler who throws mid-to-high 90's with a nasty slider. So there is some satisfaction in repatriating him. We love those crazy strikeout per nine numbers (13.01!), though the high walk totals (4.12 per nine) might have a tougher time playing in the AL East. (Where umpires defer their decision on close pitches to the Red Sox and Yankees' batters. Bitter!)

The cost - 22 year-old Nestor Molina - is probably a little higher than we'd have liked, especially since we'd started to consider him as THE pitching prospect in the Jays' system. Still, Santos is signed to a very club-friendly deal (three years, $8.25 million with club options that could make it six years and $30 million), and we'd guess that in spite of an all-out delivery, his arm doesn't have that much wear and tear on it. Yet.

Mostly, though, this is the "proven closer" deal for which the casual fans clamoured. Are you happy?

And now, second base: The main observation that we'd had before the Santos news broke was how many potential second base names were being floated as possibilities for the Jays.

We'd mentioned the White Sox' Gordon Beckham as a possibility last week, and part of our subsequent reaction to the Santos deal was that it likely closed the door on more dealings with the Southsiders. However, intrepid Fan 590 radio reporter Mike Wilner tweeted that Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos mentioned that other deals between the two teams are still being discussed.

Aside from that, the names of the Braves' Martin Prado and Angels' Alberto Callaspo have been mentioned as possibilities through the digital scuttlebutt. We've got a soft spot for both players - they often make their way onto our MLB The Show franchises - and both are cheap and controllable, which is something for which Anthopoulos has a sweet spot. Callaspo made $2 million last year, and has two more arbitration years remaining, while Prado is in the same situation and made $3.1 million. (All contract details come from Cot's Baseball Contracts. Much thanks and praise to them.)

Another aspect of their games that Prado and Callaspo share is that they are jacks of all trades in the field, though masters of none. In fact, both do quite poorly in UZR/150's assessment of their work up the middle, with Callaspo posting a -6.8 for his career and Prado even worse, at -8.4. (Callaspo had great numbers at third base, but given how antsy we feel about UZR in the first place, we're not certain whether if that is as a result of a flaw in the formula,for better or worse.)

The other name popping up was the Mets' 26 year-old Daniel Murphy, who posted a very respectable line of .362 OBP/.448 SLG/.809 OPS in 2011. On the other hand, it seems as though the Mets have tried to hide him all over the diamond, and might we remind you that they thought so highly of Murphy's second base word last year that they started the season with Brad Emaus as their everyday option?

All of this discussion is academic should Kelly Johnson accept arbitration by midnight tonight tomorrow. But suffice to say that even the decent options at second are flawed, and another year of Johnson might not be the worst chioce for the Jays.

Because we know you're obsessed, a thought on Fielder: We'd actually started to cave earlier this week, and started to make the argument for going to get Prince Fielder. For the right deal, we supposed, he might just be worth the risk. And with it possibly being a buyers market, couldn't the Jays manage to get him on a shorter (i.e. five-year) deal?

But where this falls apart in our mind is that we suspect that any deal that the Jays could make, the Brewers could and would match. We're finding it hard to imagine the Jays finding the minute point of distinction that would be within their means and their philosophy but above the Brewers' capacity.

And besides, the Cubs and Cardinals might both be looking for a big first base bat, and we suspect that both would go six years or more at top dollar for the big man.

He's big and he's got a neck tattoo

Given the speed at which the closer carousel has spun about this offseason, we're reasonably happy to see that when the music stopped, we were looking way up at the 6'11" Jon Rauch as the most likely option to close games next season.

(Oh, but don't let that stop you from speculating on who will eventually get the role, because frankly this thing is going to get drawn out and dragged through just about every story coming out of Spring Training. And given what a cagey guy Alex Anthopoulos is, we're guessing that there will be platitudes about the "open competition" coming from he and John Farrell, while Rauch and Octavio Dotel and Jason Frasor and - to a lesser extent - David Purcey and Shawn Camp all have their names tossed around as possibilities.)

Given that before the offseason started, we were leaning towards Rauch's teammate Jesse Crain as a good option, we think the Jays made out pretty well on this deal. Rauch posted an xFIP of 4.18 versus Crain's marginally better 4.10, but it took three years and $13 million for the White Sox to wrap up the pseudo-Canadian. For a very manageable $3.75 for one year (with an option), the Jays get a better deal on a guy who - INTANGIBLES ALERT! - has closed out games before.

(Also, we probably hold a special scented candle in our heart for Rauch because he was the last Expos pitcher who we saw pitch in person. On Sunday, September 26, 2004, Rauch cleaned up a mess against the heart of the Phillies lineup in the ninth inning at the Big O.)

For his career, Rauch is a bit worse against lefties (4.91 xFIP v. LH, 3.98 v. RH), which seems to be mostly attributable to a crappy walk rate (3.84 BB/9 v. LH), though it seems as though he tamed that particular flaw last season (2.28 BB/9).

The Jays didn't blow their minds out on a marginal closer, and if there is one thing that we should have all taken away from the later, unproductive years of the B.J. Ryan deal is that overcommitting a lot of money to a guy who's going to pitch 50-odd inning for you is not the best way to build a winner.

With a handful of options emerging through the Jays system and a number of options seemingly available on the free agent wire every year, it's a smart move for the Jays to shun the mythology of the big money closer and make a smart signing like this one.

Brian Wilson walks furiously between the raindrops

Or maybe we should say: Brian Wilson tries to throw around the raindrops.

Because if there is one thing that we've gleaned from our first few consecutive nights of watching the Giants douchey bullpen ace, it's that he has a very similar approach to that of the Jays' jarheaded closer: Keep throwing shit off the plate, and pray to your Affliction t-shirted higher power that either the umpire buys in or the hitters can't help themselves.

Not to belabour a point that we've been making all through these playoffs, but if Brian Wilson had to face the Red Sox, Yankees and Rays with any regularity, we doubt that his stature as a Big League Closer would last for long, given their penchant for keeping their bats on their shoulders.

(And if we were handier with Pitch F/X tools, we'd back this assertion up with a graphy-graph. Alas, Brooks Baseball seems to be preoccupied with stuff other than baseball right now.)

The Closer Carousel makes us dizzy!

The whole idea of the Capital-C Closer role is something that has left us feeling conflicted in recent years.

Sure, we love the iconography of it: The Gunslinger! The Fireman! The Hammer! Mr. Lock-That-Shit-Down! We love the idea of some big, burly guy swaggering out of the bullpen in the ninth with some AC/DC or nu-metal anthem blasting as he loads it up and gets ready to put a final exclamation mark on a Blue Jays win. It's high drama, and great fun. It's the Ghost of Tom Henke, and it haunts us still.

The other side is that we can't entirely understand the whole idea of holding your single best relief pitcher out of the game so that he can continue to accumulate numbers in a mostly meaningless counting stat. If you're about to lose the lead in the seventh inning, we can't quite understand why you'd want to send out some mid-level reliever to get you out of the inning while your best relief guy tilts back in his folding bullpen chair, wiping sunflower seed detritus from his warmup jacket.

It's with this in mind that we consider the whole discussion of the 2010 closer situation.

We read this piece in The Sun this morning, wherein Kevin Gregg asserts his confidence that we will once again reclaim his rightful post as Major League Closer. Such talk makes us think that he needs to get a few opportunities soon before his membership in the Closer's Club lapses, and he's left emasculated by Alec Baldwin when looking to fulfill his daily caffeine requirements.

"Coffee is for closers."

This is where we start feeling anxious about Kevin Gregg stepping to the mound with a one-run lead, and the idea that the Jays are going to hang their hopes on this National League retread makes us really worry about the state of the bullpen.

But then, we set emotion aside and approach this rationally. And we get thinking about it, and we wonder if the Jays aren't better off giving him the role he wants, thereby leaving them with the luxury and the freedom to run Jason Frasor (for our dough, the guy with the best arm/brain ratio in the Blue Jays bullpen) and Scott Downs (who runs like a girl but gets outs when he doesn't hurt himself running) out to the mound in any situation and in any inning.

In a close game, with men on and the Jays in need of an out, we're fine with the notion of leaving Gregg out in the bullpen to clean his goggles and cool his heels while the big boys take care of business.

Even with the lack of a prototypical closer type guy, we're feeling like the Jays' bullpen could be as strong as anyone's this year. At this point, we're at least brave and/or crazy enough to think that we'll trade a few nervous ninth innings for some stability through the rest of the games.

...and finally, a Friday Rock Out memorial
Our favorite Big Star song. Thank you, Alex Chilton.

Close this!

A tip of the casquette to Todd at The 500 Level for his piece this weekend on Joey McLaughlin, possibly the Jays' most frustrating closer of all time.

To illustrate how much of a spirit killer McLaughlin was, it's worth noting that while he saved 31 games for the Jays from 1980 through 1984 (which still ranks as 8th on the Jays' all-time saves leader list), he also gave up 36 homers over that period.

So, you know, lay off Accardo just a bit, wontcha?

Winning Streak!

Two wins against the Rays, and Jays sneak out of the basement.

Accardo looked like an actual living breathing closer today, mowing down Tampa quickly in ninth for his first save as a Jay.

We're ecstatic.

BJ Ryan - Way too much belly itching

So Bo Junior Ryan is on his way to the DL.

Not only that, but he is ominously his way to see Dr. James Andrews to determine whether or not if he'll need surgery to recover from whatever is ailing and causing him to devolve from an All-Star closer to a Jim Acker-level chuck-and-ducker.

Ryan spent the better part of spring training suffering from "the flu", "backaches", and whatever else he could think of to explain his poor performance. What are the chances that all of these were a smokescreen for what was really bothering him?

In the meantime, the Jays will trot out Jason Frasor (18 career saves) to hold down the fort.

And we will spend the next few days with a rosary and a giant pack of Alka-Seltzer.