Blue Jays At The Break: Not Exactly Awful, But Still Somewhat Hurtful

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When the season began, our proprietary Baseball Objectively Nonsensical Emotional Rating System predicted 84 wins for the 2011 Toronto Blue Jays, and thus far the Blue Jays are not far off that pace. Were we to take the .489 winning percentage the Blue Jays posted through their first 92 games and extrapolate from that in an actually pretty dazzling feat of mathematical wizardry, we would find a total of 79 wins: still well above the low-70s lines set by the bookmakers before the season began, and yet still not any good, really. Which is OK I guess. Heading into the year, it looked like this would be one of those sort-of-on-either-side-of-.500 seasons that the Blue Jays have specialized in over the now seventeen years since the lost age of awesomeness -- only twice since 1993 have the Blue Jays been truly horrible (1995, 2004), and only once have they finished less than ten games out of the A.L. East lead (2000) -- and that's what we're going to get, alright. Now eleven games behind Boston and ten behind the Yankees, there's no pretending the Blue Jays have a chance to make it interesting this year or anything like that, so it's really just about keeping their heads above water and hopefully finishing the year on the right side of .500, which, I grant you, is irrelevant in the sense of the long-term development of talent and overall betterment of the team, but extremely relevant in that I watch these games, man, I watch them.  You can be forgiven for not knowing offhand that the Jays have actually been a winning team in four of the last five seasons, but now that you do know that, you can not be forgiven for not knowing I would very much like for them to make it five out of six. 


What are their chances? Let's break things down in the analytic mode we all so enjoy. 


The Outfield: Has Been Garbage + Jose Bautista


Now that Jose Bautista is semi-firmly re-entrenched at third, we can say without reservation that the outfield has been an utter disaster. Defensively, it has been atrocious, and the bats, my god, the bats. Travis Snider was unexpectedly but totally deservedly demoted; Rajai Davis has rocked a legitimately shocking .264 OBP, dwarfed by the comparatively towering achievement of Corey Patterson's also awful .294; and Juan Rivera never failed to fill me with anger and shame. It is miraculous that he is now a Dodger (for a player to be named later, which is totally cool with me so long as they do not later name Juan Rivera). Now that Snider is back and getting better results -- although the jury is still out on aspects of his swing, particularly that one-handed nonsense that keeps happening on breaking balls -- and Eric Thames is up and hitting, you've got to think things are doing to be at least somewhat cooler going forward, right?


The Infield: On the Whole, Borderline Rad


So, Jose Bautista has a very real chance at turning in a better season (by WAR) than either Henry Aaron or Albert Pujols ever managed throughout their all-time great careers. This is to say that we are pretty much set at third now. Had E5 been able to be anything other than seriously one of the worst fielders in the history of Major League Baseball, Bautista could have stayed in right, but it was not to be. (Again, Edwin Encarnacion is, in my view, blameless; love the sinner, hate the sin. Let him be.) Third base was such a massive sinkhole for the Blue Jays for most of the first half, just such a sinkhole, but hey, if Bautista can handle it, at least until Brett Lawrie gets a look, then awesome. Yunel Escobar is turning in a fine, fine season at short, and has been duly rewarded with a contract extension. Adam Lind has rebounded as well as anyone could have hoped, and is on his way to the best season of his career. The only real problem on the infield, now that third base is being handled by a dude having an historically great season, is that Aaron Hill looks lost not only at the plate but, increasingly, in the field as well, and it's a real shame. He's probably on his way out, as there's just no way the team can pick up those extensions, right? I mean, I hope they don't. Everyone likes to rush in to say that Hill is really starting to square-up pitches and make good contact and hit the ball hard, but he's basically a replacement level player right now. It's brutal to watch. I don't think anyone saw this coming. Finally, J. P. Arencibia plays a competent catcher while hitting for no average and maybe twenty homers. I can live with that.


DH/The Bench: Let's Not Pretend Edwin Encarnacion is Even A League-Average Hitter (This is Getting Absurd); Everybody Still Likes John McDonald I Guess


It's the AL, who cares about the bench. And it has been a while since we have had a designated hitter who is someone you really would take a good hard look at and then designate to hit.


The Rotation: Did Not See This Coming


Rickey Romero is pretty awesome, and with even a little run support, everybody would know that, instead of just people who are clever knowing it. And thank goodness for that pretty awesomeness, because what the H happened to the rest of the rotation? Brett Cecil lost velocity and got sent down; Kyle Drabek led the league in walks and got sent down; Brendan Morrow as usual has such stuff but is not exactly translating that to such outings; Jesse Litsch got hurt; and Jo-Jo Reyes is, bless him, Jo-Jo Reyes. But Carlos Villanueva has come out of the pen and given us way more than we could have anticipated; Cecil is back and OK; Morrow might never really put it all together but sometimes he strikes out a tonne of guys; and Jo-Jo Reyes is, bless him, Jo-Jo Reyes. 


The Bullpen: Is Killing Me


I don't know, man, I just don't know. The bullpen's combined fifteen blown saves yeah fifteen blown saves trails on the Angels in the American League. I'm not even doing a thing where I am like, we could be fifteen games better! No, of course not. But I'm not asking for that; I'm not even asking to match Detroit's league-best five blown saves. What if the Blue Jays were just league-average? How much better would that be? Like, if they'd only blown ten, not only would the team be kind of a little bit back in the mix, but I would only have gone to bed angry 66% as often as I did. It's something worth considering. 


The Manager: Am Not A Fan of This Guy


Stop running all the time. Just stop it. Don't. Please. I hate it. It sounds like it's going to be fun, and then it isn't at all. No more safety squeezes. And I'm not even saying you told him to do this, but do not create a culture and a climate in which Rajai Davis twice tries to drop down a bunt with two out and a runner on second in a close game. I do however credit you for your attempt to restrain a rampaging Jon Rauch in what is, thus far, the finest ejection of the season.


In Summation: We Are Largely Junk


Hey. I know what this is. This is not the year. Nobody ever said it would be. I haven't been lied to or misled. I'm OK with how things are going. I'm loving baseball on a day-to-day basis. Nobody's scoring this season, but the Blue Jays are fourth-best in the league in runs. Sure, they're third worst in runs allowed, and a lot of that isn't just the iffy pitching, but incomparably shoddy defense, but what can you do? I heard the other day that the Blue Jays have, unsurprisingly, played the toughest schedule in baseball to this point, but that's the deal. They still have every chance to finish right around .500, which would be fine. On the Baseball Today podcast earlier this week, Keith Law was saying that it's kind of the worst possible position to be in, right around .500, because you can convince yourself that you're a piece or two away from ninety wins and a real contender, when that is often very far from the truth. It can be difficult to see through that, Law said, but on the same show he also pointed out that Alex Anthopolous is doing, on balance, as good a job as any GM in either league, so we can probably trust him to get this right. Or mostly right, right enough that I will not despair.


KS

Your 2011 Toronto Blue Jays: Will Probably Own

This guy and I feel exactly the same way about Blue Jays baseball.

The 2010 Toronto Blue Jays season was awesome.  It was easily the most fun I've had watching a Blue Jays team since 2003, which -- if I may digress briefly -- was about the most fun you can have watching a team that finished fifteen games back: Carlos Delgado and Vernon Wells both hit a tonne (respective tonnes, really), Doc won the Cy Young, and the future seemed to hold, you know, genuine possibility. Then came the muck, shit, and despair: 2004's solid run at one hundred losses (so close!); the unforgivable Carloslessness of 2005; a pretty solid 2006 team that for whatever reason I couldn't really manage to care about except for when Gibbons got into an actual fight with Ted Lilly, which was awesome; a 2007 season where everybody got hurt except Dustin McGowan who pitched a one-hitter but who would of course go on to always be hurt forever; a solid 2008 season that was completely overshadowed and shamed by Tampa Bay's ascendence, which made me hate J. P. Ricciardi so very much more than ever before (it's complicated, yet utterly base); and a horrible 2009 that ended in a player mutiny and, gloriously, the end of J. P.'s reign of smug mediocrity.


After all of that, 2010 was awesome, right?  Going into the season, it was like, "you know what? Young arms. That's what.  Young arms." And then, you know what?  Young arms! Everybody did great! Romero, Marcum (oldest of the young arms), Cecil, Morrow, and sure, Rzepcynski, I've got no problem with that guy. And the bullpen was totally OK: I was disappointed in the venerable Jason Frasor kind of falling apart a little there, but Camp and Downs were steady, and Kevin Gregg, who is both contemptible and the worst, held down the back end of the bullpen admirably when he wasn't walking dudes endlessly and then yelling at Cito for having the temerity and utter gall to take him out of the game.  Jose Bautista emerged as the raddest guy ever and hit a million home runs.  Sure, Aaron Hill and Adam Lind were both wretched, but Vernon hit like the Vernon of old, rather than old Vernon, which was a glorious sight to behold, if you are me, and thus kind of silly on the subject of Vernon Wells.  The Blue Jays got exactly zero men on base throughout the entire season (look it up) but hit a ridiculous number of home runs and pitched well, which made for a totally, completely watchable 85-win team.  Thank you, 2010 Toronto Blue Jays.  I really liked you.


But time is an arrow, man, an arrow. 


THE 2011 TORONTO BLUE JAYS ARE AS FOLLOWS, PROBABLY


Right Field: Jose Bautista. After some deeply odd choices were made, it looks like Jose Bautista will, in the end, be in right, which is great.  His arm is bananas, and in a way where it's actually useful, which is to say, unlike the way Raul Mondesi used to make a big show of gunning it in when there was absolutely no call for it, eliciting oooooos and aaaaaaahs and getting all kinds of attention to for playing the game the right way until somebody said something to that effect to Carlos Delgado in an interview and Carlos indicated (not in so many words) that Mondesi was an asshole and a showboat and a liability.  Carlos being Carlos, though, he classed that up, and probably made an allusion to the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But back to Bautista: fuck yeah!  No, of course he will never hit 54 home runs again, but he'll hit a bunch, and walk, and play a really solid right field, and people will be like mwwaaah his coooontract and I will not like those people.


Centre Field: Rajai Davis.  I am not going to pretend to know any more about Rajai Davis than what I have read in Baseball Prospectus, and I kind of forget what they said, actually, and my Baseball Prospectus is not at hand at the moment. He has played most of his career on the west coast and I don't stay up that late. But I will nevertheless predict two things: (i) Rajai Davis will play a better centre field than the slowing, aging, fattening Vernon Wells did last year, and (ii) he will not hit the 31 home runs Vernon hit last year. Also, have I mentioned previously that I am a guy with Vernon Wells feelings? 


Left Field: Travis Snider.  For whatever reason, I remain unsold on -- and in fact completely unenthusiastic about -- Travis Snider.  He has long been projected to hit all kinds of home runs, and obviously I hope this turns out to be extremely true. Keith Law picked him to break out last year and he didn't, and if I'm remembering right, Law is expecting Snider to really turn it around this year. I am not one to doubt Keith Law, generally, despite the extent to which he was complicit in the crimes of J. P. Ricciardi. Snider is still really young, so it would be silly to say he's a lost cause, but with my expert scouting eye I have noticed he can't hit a breaking ball to save his life.  Seriously, this is some Pedro Cerrano level shit going on right now. It's not pretty. 


Shortstop: Yunel Escobar.  I know the word on Escobar was that he was a complete asshole and everybody wanted him out of Atlanta even though he's young and pretty good. So far, he hasn't really turned out to be an asshole, so I'm utterly fine with this guy. You could do worse, is my firm position on Yunel Escobar.


Third Base: Edwin Encarnacion.  So this is kind of crazy.  After spending the off-season saying Bautista would play third and Encarnacion would be our budget DH and relieve Lind at first (more on that in a moment), it turns out as of yesterday that Bautista is back in right, Rivera is going to DH, and Encarnacion -- aka E5 -- will be at third again.  I have no real problem with Encarnacion, especially not at the bargain price he's playing for this year.  Decent glove, hits some home runs.  These are things that I, as a man of taste and learning, value.  But he is just awful with the throw to first.  Awful.  Last year he was sailing it over and around Lyle Overbay, who, say what you will about his drop-off since the wrist injury, is a fine defensive first baseman. This year it's Adam Lind he'll be winging it over.  This could be a disaster.  But Brett Lawrie, who had a great spring (yeah yeah I know I know) will probably be up before the end of the year, so whatever.


Second Base: Aaron Hill.  Had an absolutely wretched year with no luck at all: his batting average on balls in play was I believe the lowest in the league, but I'm not going to look it up, so let's just agree that it was bad. That's pretty much got to improve, right?  And as awful as he was, he still managed to hit 26 home runs and play a nice defensive second base. I actually have no real worries about Aaron Hill.  This is perhaps naive of me. Call me a naif if you must, but the thing about calling anyone a naif is that in the end it is you who is saying the word "naif" out loud, so you sort of lose.


First Base: Adam Lind.  Like Hill, Lind sucked last year.  There's just no way he will suck that badly again.  It borders on impossible.  His batting average against lefties was .117, and I mean, shit, that's got to come up a little.  He'll be fine.  And he's been totally acceptable at first base in spring training.  This will be fine.  Right? 


Catcher: J. P. Arencibia. Last year John Buck was awful at blocking balls in the dirt. Alan Ashby -- who is so awesome on the radio that I honestly prefer Howarth/Ashby to Cheek/Howarth, which I know is pretty much blasphemy -- basically wouldn't shut up about it.  But he hit a bunch of home runs, so all was forgiven, and then he went away and signed an amazing contract, so good for him.  And now it is time to find out if J. P. Arencibia is ready to play everyday, and I mean, sure, why wouldn't he be? Most catchers can't hit a lick.  He might.  Let's do this. 


Designated Hitter: Juan Rivera would have been a perfect fit with the 2010 Blue Jays, in that he doesn't really get on base, but he hits some home runs.  Though he is late to the party, it is through no fault of his own, and I for one welcome him.  Apparently he looked so bad in the outfield they decided to completely bail on the plan to have Bautista play third. 


The Bench: It's the AL, who cares.  


The Rotation: I was as surprised as anybody that they traded Marcum, whose changeup was so cool, but I have every confidence that Marcum for Lawrie is going to look like a pretty good deal down the road (if it doesn't already). And it is without question a drag that Brandon Morrow is going to start the year on the DL, but apparently he's probably only going to miss one start, so I shouldn't be worried (and yet I am).  What this leaves, at least for the first time through, is a rotation of Ricky Romero, Kyle Drabek, Brett Cecil, Jo Jo Reyes, and Jesse Litsch.  You can't necessarily expect everyone to build off of last year; maybe Romero takes a step back, or Morrow ends up having more injury trouble than they know right now.  But you've got to see this rotation as a strength, and something to be excited about. I say again: young arms.  


The Bullpen: Everybody got hurt and there haven't even been any real games yet. That's not great. Frank Francisco and Octavio "Don't Ask" Dotel are starting the season on the fifteen-day DL, but I don't know, you throw Jon Rauch and Rzepczynski and Frasor and whoever else in there, and this shouldn't be abysmal, right? And that's all you ask from the bullpen from a non-contending team.     


And I say "a non-contending team" because, as optimistic as I am about the Blue Jays' long-term and even the mid-term prospects, this is of course not The Year. The Red Sox could very well be the best team in baseball, the Rays will take a step back but are still going to win plenty, and the Yankees, despite their obvious flaws, will probably win like ninety games.  I've run all the relevant data through Baseball Feelings' proprietary and deadly accurate Baseball Objectively Nonsensical Emotional Rating System (BONERS) projection system.  And here are the results.


2011 TORONTO BLUE JAYS BONERS PROJECTION: PROBABLY LIKE 84 WINS I GUESS.  


It's going to be awesome, though.


KS