New season, same team?

Disappointment will be less as our expectations are much lower

The Toronto Blue Jays open their season tomorrow at Tampa before the Yankees come to town this weekend. I've been away for five months and it's great that baseball is back. I managed to listen to and watch some of the spring training games looking for something different. I watched the off-season moves, hoping that Alex Anthopolous and Rogers would come up with some scratch to sign a big name pitcher for 2014. 

So, what I see is the same players (save Navarro, thank God) on the same team using the same techniques to win and lose games. 

The exception this year is that our expectations were so high this year, while this year I think the fan base will be happy with anything over .500. Certainly, Rogers Media has toned down the rhetoric for this year, and that's a good thing. I think the fan base at Rogers Centre will remain steady, making no gains on 2013, while the fan base around the country will remain tied to the Blue Jays' win-loss record, with some extra interest as it looks like only one Canadian team will make the NHL playoffs.

Let's take a look at this year's roster and point out some of the questionable roster moves for opening day. This article will focus on the hitters, while the next focuses on the pitching.

Overall, this team should be hitting better than they did last year, which was absolutely abysmal. Last year featured some terrible offensive outages due to really poor seasons by Maicer, JP, and Bonifacio, bad streaks by Jose, Colby, Lind, and Lawrie compounded by injuries by most everyone on the offence, leaving them with inferior replacements like Kawasaki, Thole/Blanco, Gose, and Pillar. 

Once again, the key to this year's performance offensively will be consistency and injury avoidance. While the addition of Navarro might help the offensive performance as will a return of Melky to his former self, the team is now lacking formidable speed with the departures of Emilio (who could never get on base anyway) and Rajai Davis (a true weapon), and Anthony Gose sitting in AAA. This means that the team must attempt to move runners forward by ways of the bat. And with a three man bench and no one on the bench particularly good, late game situational hitting will be lacking.

This leads me to believe that while the numbers overall will be better, run production will suffer.

Here's my player by player analysis.

C - Dioner Navarro with a .300 / .465 / .492 slash last year and an all star 2008 (with Tampa) under his belt, this guy brings veteran experience behind the plate, which is what the pitching staff and John Gibbons needs defensively. Offensively, he comes with a caveat, in that there were years where he suffered at the plate. For example, after his all-star year with the Rays where he hit .295, he hit just .218 in the following year. So, it is unclear which Dioner we are going to get this year. Still, it's a huge improvement over the train wreck which was JP Arencibia last year. He seemed to have some power last year too, hitting 13 homers in 266 plate appearance. In Rogers Centre, playing full-time, he might have the potential to hit 20 dingers. I also like the fact that he came from Tampa, a Blue Jays rival, with some knowledge of the pitching system there.

C - Josh Thole is here to catch RA Dickey, and will figure into games only if he manages to crack .200. He was quite the batting disappointment last year, but I think part of that was the fact that he was only in games where the opposing pitcher was the team's ace (in that RA is the Blue Jays ace, and aces tend to play each other).

I am surprised that the Jays chose Thole over Kratz as the backup catcher. In the end, I think the Jays traded offense for the ability to catch and hopes that Thole can have a little bit of offense one game of five. I think it's a very tall order to push Thole into action one day out of five, and I would like to see the Jays play him in two of five games, especially if his offense shows a bit of spark.

1B/DH - Adam Lind has had an excellent spring, with Buck quoting that he was looking like the Lind of 2009. Well with the goatee, he definitely looks like the Dr. Hyde version of Lind in 2013. The issue with Lind always is his back health and his ability to stay consistent. If he can remain warm for 2014 and Gibbons uses him in every day situations (against LHP and RHP) and gives him breaks so that he can rest (using him as DH, sitting him from time to time), Lind can relive his glory from 2009.

1B/DH - Edwin Encarnacion, for a Jay, is Mr. Consistency. From oblivion three years ago when the Jays let him go to Oakland (only to be reclaimed), the former "E5" has turned into a decent first baseman sporting a .275 / .364 / .517 line over the past three years with not much in the way of injuries.

At issue here are the away National league games (against Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati) where both Edwin and Adam can't play.

2B - Ryan Goins -- The Blue Jays draftee of 2009 is the starting 2B, sporting a paltry .177 batting average over spring training. Last year, in his MLB debut, he hit .252 / .264 / .345 over 121 plate appearances, with 2 walks and 28 strikeouts. He is supposed to be excellent defensively.

I seriously question the decision of putting in Goins over Kawasaki. Now, one could point out Muni's slash last year (.229 / .326 / .308) as being worse than Goins, but that OBP is meaningful. Muni drew a heck of alot more of Pitches per Plate Appearance than pretty much anyone else in the majors. He is extremely popular with the fan base, and he is defensively capable all around the infield. One could argue that this year represents that natural progression for Goins, and that it's his time to prove himself at the MLB level. But the fan base loves Muni. He is JAPANESE!!!

The good news is that if Ryan doesn't prove himself, Muni will be on that bus from Buffalo.

SS - Jose Reyes, while defensively average, Jose is a necessary and vital piece of the Jays offense this year. Our hope is that his hamstring doesn't have any issue. His injury last year was not related to his hamstring. I hope that he improves on his already excellent .296/.353/.427 line from last year.

3B - Brett Lawrie -- We were hoping collectively that LAST year would have been the year for Brett, and looking that the downward trend year over year, we find that we have been making excuses for this man's offensive performance (at .254/.315/.397) last year. He had a terrible spring, got injured, tried 2B (stupid idea), and finally broke out after the all star break, where he had a string of 42 games hitting .324 / .384 / .507 before having a meh September. Defensively, he's a gem. If he stays healthy, it will be HIS year to show MLB his star quality. He becomes arbitration eligible next year, and the Jays are going to have to show him the money if he has a great year, which we all hopes he has. He seems to have matured and slowed down his waggle at home plate and seems to have more control.

UF - Maicer Izturis is the team's utility infielder and after a crappy year (his worst year offensively in MLB), we are all hoping that he does better. When he had regular play with Brett's injury, he managed to hit .309 / .351 / .397 over 150 plate appearance, which was pretty good. But he started off terribly and ended the season terribly as well, batting just .167 for the rest of the season over 103 plate appearances. Defensively, he is okay. 

LF - Melky Cabrera, with an undiagnosed tumour in his back and an absolute defensive liability in LF last year, the man still managed to hit .279 last year with no power. This year, he looks absolutely white hot, hitting .400 in spring training. We can only hope that Melky is the Melky of 2011 this year. We shall see if the turf in LF doesn't hurt him.

CF - Colby Rasmus was hot and cold last year, pretty much like the rest of the club, and with a strikeout rate near 30% and a propensity to look foolish against LHP, he can be a frustrating player to watch. Still, overall, he had an excellent year in 2013, batting .276 / .338 / .501. He demonstrates power. Defensively, he has moments where he is excellent, and moments of complete lapses. I'm looking forward to seeing him perform this year, and hopes that he has a consistently good year with a measure of better plate discipline.

RF - Jose Bautista has had an excellent spring, and that wrist and his violent swing hopefully will not lead to injury as it has over the last couple of years. Still, a HR every 15 or so plate appearances is not a bad thing, and his arm and defence is most helpful.

OF - Moises Sierra had an excellent 2013 in limited action as Jose's replacement last September and represents a capable 4th OF for the Jays and represents the good choice versus Gose and Pillar.

The Outsiders: Anthony Gose, Kevin Pillar, Muni Kawasaki and Kratz are the four outsiders looking in. I see all four of them in Jays uniforms at some point this year.

Next: the Pitchers.

Okay. They lost one. So what.

The best teams in baseball win games, the worst teams do too.

When you think about the best teams in baseball, you find that a 1st place team is only going win about 100 games in a season at best -- 108 is really really good. Conversely, the worst teams in baseball might get away with 60 wins -- 54 is really really bad.

So, how do bad teams win and great teams lose games?

Dumb luck

Sometimes, teams win games due to dumb luck: a caught line drive by a fielder in a exactly the right place can save two runs while a blooper to left field can score two runs, which is precisely what happened to the Jays against Colorado on June 17th. In the top of the 8th inning, Colorado had runners at 2nd and 3rd with one out and Lind made a wonderful play to catch a smoked line drive. In the bottom half of that inning, Maicer hit a bloop single to short left which plated Davis and Colby. And that's the difference between a W and a L.

Pitching miscues

You can't expect every Jays starter to go out there and have a quality start every time out. They are going to make mistakes because it is EXTREMELY difficult to pitch well every time you are on the mound. Pitching is extremely mental, but it is physical too. Sometimes your fastball cannot work because you can't connect the mind to the body. That's what happened to Esmil last night, leaving him only with a working breaking ball. It happens.

Hitting outages

What is supposed to happen when your pitching doesn't work is your batting is supposed to pick it up for you. But the bats will run into a pitcher sometimes who stymie you, or you run into a part of the lineup who is just not hitting well (Cabrera and Bautista). If Edwin and Lind have an off night as well then it becomes extremely difficult to manufacture and score runs.

Putting it all together

The fact is that the combination of the three leads to a perfectly playing team to lose 1 game of 3. What happens between winning between 1 and 2 games of 3 is a function of the team's true skill. In the case of the Blue Jays, you are looking at a team with below average infield and LF defense, an unexpectedly overperforming bullpen, an unexpectently underperforming starting rotation, and inconsistency (save Lind and Edwin) in the starting lineup. This leads to a .500 team that is susceptible to streaks.

Bringing back Lawrie and Reyes (and yes, sending down Kawasaki) will improve the IF defence dramatically and should improve the offense too. Putting Edwin at 3rd and letting Cabrera DH for a few days in a row will improve his legs so that he can play better defensively in LF and let Rajai get some playing time. The time to do this (give Cabrera's legs some rest) is now before Lawrie gets back.

The starting rotation is what it is. Lately they've been very good. RA Dickey is not going to have a good season and there's no improvement. Josh Johnson I predict will be on fire as he tries to get a monster contract. Mark Buehrle is fine. Esmil Rogers pitched only  75 innings last year and he's only good for about 8 more starts berore he will be pulled. Chien-Ming Wang has been great so far, but we'll see how he does in Boston against his AL East rivals who know him well. By that time (after the All-Star break), reinforcements in Brandon Morrow and JA Happ should be ready.

And offensively, the players need to get on a roll collectively. Bautista has been very streaky, as has Cabrera, Arencibia and Rasmus. Adding Reyes back to the front of the lineup will increase scoring opportunities and speed at the start of the lineup.

Predictions

The Jays have now shown that they are a good team. Defense has improved as Bonfacio, Reyes, and Izturis get used to the turf. Offense is very very good on most nights and will improve with the return of Reyes and then Lawrie. Starting pitching will be an issue for RA Dickey only. The bullpen I think will continue to shine. In short, if the team can score 5 runs a game and the starting pitching can leave the team with a lead after 6 innings this team will win alot of games, many more than they will lose.

My prediction now is that the playoff race for 2nd place in the AL East goes down to the wire, with the Jays fighting it out for the 2nd wild card spot between any one of the four AL east teams, with about 92 wins. The last 15 games that the Jays play are against AL East contenders and I think it's these games that will determine the playoff picture in the AL East. Look for Texas or Oakland to take a wild card spot with whoever finishes in 2nd in the AL East to take the 2nd wild card.

Munenori, we hardly knew ya!

Tomorrow will be likely be Munenori's last game at the MLB level for a while, as Jose Reyes returns to the lineup 

How did the .229 / .341 / .333 hitter win the hearts of Blue Jays fans?

Munenori Kawasaki, probably about to take a bow
(Tim Sharp/Reuters)

.

His ethic and love for the game

First, it was his ethic towards the game. Flaunted by Sportsnet and its own ownership, Rogers made this guy special. His crazy handstands before the game, the talk about his work ethic, his bows to the other players and to fans, playing catch with fans. his stutter-steal. His spirit is just infectuous. His crazy "I am Japanese" yell in the post game interview after his walk-off, and his curtain call to the crowd after his only home run. Players and fans love him.

He made the fact that the Jays were sucking for a while tolerable.

His approach and success as a hitter

Second, it was that .341 OBP and the fact that he would be 10th in the AL in pitches per plate appearance (had he qualified). He tries really hard, runs out every ground ball, and walks more than he strikes out, the ONLY player on the team to do so.

He walks 13.2% of the time which is in the top 5% in the AL (the average rate is 8%).

His .674 OPS is much better than the .459 he posted with Seattle last year.  He has a WAR of 1.3. He has 4 triples because when he hits a ball in the gap (which is extremely rare), the ball goes to the wall and the opposing team has that much further to run. So, he was absolutely more than what any one could possibly hope for.

He is a decent defender

Finally, he did a decent job as shortshop while Jose has been gone. His fielding was average, as good as Izturis and Derosa at the same position.

 

But what choice does management have?

But, fans, when Jose Reyes comes back, there is no other logical choice but for Kawasaki to go down. Kawasaki cannot play any other position well - he played 10 games at 2B last year (4 started) and that represents ALL of his experience at that position. It wouldn't be fair to take that position away from Derosa, Bonifacio, or Izturis. And none of those three players have options.

There is absolutely no situation where you would pinch hit Kawasaki for anyone on the team. There is no situation where you would put in Kawasaki as a defensive replacement for Jose Reyes or a second basement.

Bonifacio is in a hell of a slump right now, but he will get better. Defensively he already has. Izturis is out of his funk hitting .325 over his past 10 games. And Derosa isn't going anywhere.

My advice to you if you love Kawasaki: take the trip to Buffalo and go see him at a Bisons game. For the Jays management, the choice is clear. Maybe you postpone Reyes return until he is absolutely ready, but the plan is to have Reyes return after today's game, as he is ready, and the team needs him to continue their run.

State of the BooJays: The Jays in May

The Jays had a much better month in May then they did in April, but severe problems still exist.

The Jays started May at 10-17 (seven games under .500) and finished the month of May losing a grueling 17 inning game to finish May at 13-15, two more games under .500. Overall, that leaves the Jays at 23-32.

The Good

There were many bright spots on the team for May:

Hitting (from best to worst):

Adam Lind's May was .346 / .409 / .590 with 4 home runs over 88 plate appearances. He needs to be kept in the lineup against right handed pitchers. This is fantastic for Lind.

Jose Bautista's May was .337 / .446 / .548 with only 5 home runs. He is spraying hits, especially with two strikes and has a different approach to the game which is giving him success.

Edwin Encarnacion had a good month, batting .292 / .364 / .504 with 6 home runs.

Melky Cabrera had a good month, batting .319 / .361 / .460 with 10 doubles. His power is slowly returning but with his bum hamstrings, will the trend continue?

Colby Rasmus is hitting better than expected, batting .263 / .330 / .463 with 5 home runs, but with 28Ks in 95AB, he still has work to do.

Honorable mention to Munenori Kawasaki (for his walk-off win) and his 4.34 pitches / plate appearance, 4th in the AL among players with more than 100 PA.

Relief Pitching

The Blue Jays' overworked bullpen continues to shine with its 3.71 ERA and 1.280 WHIP, solidly in the middle of the pack. But they worked 208 innings in May, the most in the AL.

Brett Cecil is the best surprise with his 1.91 ERA and WHIP of 0.918 and a K rate of 10.5/9. Completely unexpected. His May was very good with a K/BB rate of 5.83, a WHIP of .878 and an opposing OPS of just .476

Steve Delabar with a 2.17 ERA is very very good. His May was better than his April, with a .878 WHIP and 1.98 ERA

Aaron Loup with a 2.40 ERA and 1.10 WHIP is also quite good. His May was also better than April with a .875 WHIP and 1.69 ERA.

Casey Janssen with 11 saves (none blown), a 2.12 ERA and WHIP of .588 is phenomenal despite his sore shoulder.

The Ugly

Starting Pitching

Starting pitching has been truly ugly.

Brandon Morrow with his 6.14 ERA over 4 starts. His last three starts have been particularly bad and likely he will miss a start and may even end up on the disabled list.

A healthy RA Dickey with his 5.82 ERA and 1.500 WHIP. By far, the team's worst disappointment, half of his outings in May have been bad, with 6 or more earned runs. He needs to be better if this team wants to win games. On top of that, to keep pressure off the bullpen, he will always pitch 6 or more innings even if he is getting whomped. His knuckleball is slower. His control is worse.

A not so healthy Mark Buehrle with his 4.89 ERA and 1.293 WHIP. His last two starts have been very good, but he had 3 starts in May with 5 or more earned runs allowed -- not good.

Then, there's Ricky Romero's awful starts and the awful smack to the head of JA Happ.

Hitting

There are two disappointments with hitting in May.

Brett Lawrie. He hit a disappointing .207 / .271 / .391 in May. Though he hit 3 HR, he needs to be better to justify hitting 5th in the lineup. On top of that, he got thrown out of a game (not justifiably so), then got mad at the 3rd base coach and Adam Lind for not running on a potential sacrifice fly. Then, in the next game, he sprained his ankle and put himself on the 15 day DL, after apologizing to his fans.

JP Arencibia hit .208 / .232 / .375 in May. His strikeout rate is down to about 26% in May, which is okay. But with him hitting in the centre of the lineup, he needs to be better. He hit 4 HR in May and 4 doubles, which is half of his extra base production in May.

Honorable mentions go to Macier and Bonifacio have hit better in May, but still they are under the standards that they were known for last year. Hopefully the bounceback continues for both of them. 

Are things looking up?

On the pitching side, Josh Johnson returns this week to pitch in San Francisco. JA Happ will continue his steps towards rehab and might be back before the all star break. Brandon Morrow may need to go on the DL and will likely miss a couple of starts (June 2 and 9) but with two off days, the rotation can be moved to accomodate. Perhaps Ricky Romero will find his stride.

But none of these are necessarily good things. Brandon Morrow, Mark Buehrle, and RA Dickey need to improve for the team overall to do better to and to take pressure off the bullpen. Only their personal improvement will do well for the team.

Chad Jenkins looks to be capable as a starter, and Esmil Rogers also did fine. The addition of Wagner and Perez to the bullpen appear to be good ones, and Loup, Cecil, Janssen and Delabar is great. Look for Dustin McGowan's return to MLB as well. The bullpen looks strong, and with Santos on the sidelines until at least after the all star break and Darren Oliver making a mid-June return, it looks like the bullpen will continue to improve.

On the batting side, things have improved in May massively. Jose Reyes will start his rehab stint shortly and will likely be back before the end of June. Rajai Davis has already started his comeback and will likely be back within a couple of weeks. Brett Lawrie's bat will not be missed, but his glove will be. Look for Brett Lawrie to be back by late June.

Reyes' return will spell the end of Munenori Kawasaki in Toronto. Kawasaki cannot play in another position. Rajai's return will spell the end of Gose's stay in Toronto, unless Cabrera injures his hamstring further. Reyes' return will place pressure on opposing pitchers and I expect continued improvement in hitting overall starting towards the middle of June.

The schedule in June is not looking much better. The Jays have 7 games against the high flying Texas Rangers and faces a series of games at the month towards the Orioles, Rays, and Red Sox. The series against the White Sox and Rockies and the current series are the only "easy" spots in the schedule.

I expect the Jays to go 15-12 in June.

Anthopoulos' state of the obvious

The Jays will get better?



Anthopoulos' career ending mistake? Certainly, not a brilliant move.

Expectations for the 2013 Blue Jays were hyped. With no hockey in the fall and Anthopoulos's moves with the jump in payroll, Torontonians, no Canadians, were hyped up to see Canada's baseball team go to the playoffs, and maybe the World Series.

Instead, the Maples Leafs are going to the playoffs, and the 2013 rendition of the Blue Jays have a very long road ahead of them even to reach .500.

So Anthopoulos met with the media today and made the following severely presiced comments: I'm disappointed, but it will get better. It has to.

The long form of the message is that the individual records of each of these players won't allow this team to continue along this path indefinitely. The starting pitching staff should have an ERA of below 4, and hopefully, it should be around 3.8 or 3.7. Certain offensive players should have on-base percentages much higher than they have: Bonificio, Izturis, Bautista, Melky, and even Colby. The defense should get better.

It just has to, right? Not necessarily.

One has to look at WHY the team, collectively, started off as poorly as they did.

Starting pitching

Mark Buehrle, though Mr. Reliable has had bouts of poor pitching. In five starts with the Marlins last year (July 19 - August 10), he went 0-3, pitched 26.1 innings, let in 24 earned runs, and was terrible. Over the final 8 starts, he averaged 6.9 innings per start with a 3.58 ERA. So let's not worry about Mark Buehrle.

RA Dickey's slow start (4.50 ERA) is not unique to him either. Last year, from June 24 to July 24, over 6 start (+ 1 extra inning pitched), he had a 5.36 ERA over 40 innings and a WHIP of about 1.4.

Brandon Morrow's start is not too far out of line with 2011 so far, but we're still waiting for him to have a stellar start where he goes deep into the game.

And Josh Johnson has had bad periods of time, with a 6.61 ERA over his first six starts as a Marlin last year.

But four out of five doing poorly together? What's up with that? Coincidence?

The offense

Even with Maicer's recent hitting spurt, both he and Bonifacio are both having their worst months in their MLB career, together, at the same time.

We know that Adam Lind and Colby can be inconsistent at the plate. Colby's strikeout rate, however, at 45% is very disturbing. And while there are have been short spurts in his career where his strike out rate was 40%, this is unprecented.
Jose Bautista has started off his season horribly. He has yet to have a multi-hit game. His strikeout rate is over 25% and there wasn't a stretch of games last year where he struck out as much. But he had a 25 game stretch last year where he bat .146 / .284 / .270 at the beginning of the year (except the first game). At least this year he's hitting home runs. He warmed up last year and there no reason to expect anything differently this year.

Melky has started the season hitting .250 / .303 / .300 and while he had a stretch of 18 games last year early on when he bat .231 / .301 / .308. But Melky is just lacking power, and it's troubling .You can expect that for missing 2 months of the season last year, and there seems to be no sign that he won't be doing worse.

Brett Lawrie will come around. Edwin will be fine. JP Arencibia is striking out alot too (at just below 40%), but he has done that before and been an acceptable hitter, especially for a catcher. He's hitting for power and that's all that can be asked of him.

But once against, why is all of this poorness all coming together? Is this coincidence too?

 

John Gibbons

John Gibbons was fired after the Milwaukee series in June 2008. The team went through a 4-13 run falling 7.5 games back in the standings from being 3 games to 10.5 games back. 8 of those 13 games losses were one run losses, including 3 walk-offs and 1 come from behind and 2 late loss ties. The team was 10-19 in one run games. In his last game in Milwaukee, down 8-1, the team stormed back in the top of the ninth with one on and two out to score six runs, falling short 8-7 and seal Gibbons' fate.

In 2008, despite the .279 BA, the team produced around 4 runs per game. Run production suffered dearly under Gibbons.

Sound familiar?

So I wondering what kind of job John Gibbons is doing, and whether Alex Anthopoulos will do the same thing that JP Ricciardi felt like he had to do: fire John Gibbons.

Looking back at the Miked up blog entries (Mike Wilner's daily writings on the Blue Jays) from 2008, it's pretty clear that some major similarities are happening: run production was a huge issue and the Jays are finding ways to lose, especially late in the game by one run. Why?

Is it beyond luck? Baseball at this level is simply more than about numbers. It's about momentum, spirit, and team.

And with so many players performing below average at the same time, you just feel like it has to do with the coaching staff more than coincidence. And given that this has happened before with the same manager, you have to wonder...

Lineups are changing every day. That has to be a bit disconcerting to the players. Yes, the players are to blame, too, but you can't fire the team. The bullpen is doing fine, and they're not on the bench. I really think that this team is quite down right now, and needs an inspirational leader to lead them through. When the team starts performing poorly collectively, it's up to the managerial staff to fix the problem.

Gibbons doesn't have that capability. He didn't in 2008, and nothing sugggests that he does now, unlike Joe Girardi, who can take a team with severe injuries and put together a winner. Unlike Buck Showalter who has found a way for his Orioles to win a bunch of 1 run games and make the playoffs. Unlike Joe Maddon, and now, perhaps, unlike John Farrell.

The team has got to get better. But will it?