Anthopoulos and the mysterious catcher

Get out the shovel

Today, AA talked to the press about the catching situation, hinting that there's a good chance that Mathis (who inked a two year contract extension today), JP Arencibia (who is nursing a broken hand), and Travis D'Arnaud will all be on the team next spring, and that Travis D'Arnaud might start as the DH.

In this case, I really don't believe a word of Alex Anthopolous is saying. And the fact that the press is eating this up as gospel is equally as alarming. Analysis, please.

The position of DH needs to be taken by an experienced bat, not a rookie who has had zero playing experience in the Show. If you look at all of the other teams in the AL, the regular DHs are David Ortiz (Red Sox), Billy Butler (Royals), Kendrys Morales (Angels), Ryan Doumit (Twins), Adam Dunn (White Sox), Gomes (Oakland), Michael Young (Texas), and Travis Hafner (Indians). These are all experienced players with skills at positions other than catcher. Joe Mauer DHs because of his knees.

The Designated Hitter is supposed to be the best bat on the team, and it is supposed to be the best bat on the team who cannot play a position particularly well, whose defensive abilities would be a liability compared to another person on the team in the same position. In other words, Edwin Encarnacion. The Designated Hitter needs to be experienced, knows the game, knows situational hitting, and can threaten in clutch situations. None of these are Travis D'Arnaud.

There have been a few rookie DH hitters who went on to win Rookie of the Year honors. Evan Longoria was a DH in 2008, but he also plays third. Bob Hamelin is another rookie DH for Kansas City in 1994 but he also played 1st.

The position of catcher is highly specialized. Catchers are smart. They run the ball game defensively, calling the pitches, remembering who the hitters are. Athleticly, they need to be tough, crouching for all pitches, taking pitches, throwing quickly to bases, running down the line to cover plays, and being diplomats with umpires. There's a reason why catchers make great analysts in radio and television.

Putting Travis D'Arnuad, who has been called the best catching prospect in the game, at DH would be a waste of talent. He is unproven in the majors at the bat and will likely not be the best bat available at DH (Edwin). He is talented defensively at the position.

So, please Alex Anthopoulos and the Blue Jays, if you are going to consider putting Edwin on regularly at 1st and relegating Adam Lind to another team, please consider the free agent market and get a veteran in there instead of a DH. Travis D'Arnaud is a catcher, not a DH, and certainly not a rookie DH.

Don't kid yourself. Expect a trade of Travis D'Arnaud or JP Arencibia in the offseason, hopefully for a starter.

August 14: White Sox 3, Jays 2

White Sox hang on to win

Why would Charlie Sheen throw out the first pitch? I mean, why not Joe Carter? As it turned out the Jays would need more than two and a half runs to win this ball game.

Henderson Alvarez pitched a pretty solid effort as the Chicago White Sox turned away the Jays' threats in each of the last five innings.

Alvarez's first four innings went smoothly as the Jays took a 2-0 lead into the top of the 5th.

In the bottom of the first, Yunel Escobar singled home Mike McCoy who unsuccessfully sacrified Davis who led the game with a single. Why you attempt to bunt in the bottom of the first with none on and your fastest runner on first I wonder? I really don't know that answer to that one. It's too early to trade an out for a iffy shot at moving over your runner, and it was unsuccessful. Remember that the sacrifice does not always work!!! The Jays left 2 on in the 1st.

In the bottom of the third, Mike McCoy scored Rajai Davis who doubled and then took third for his 34th stolen base (3 behind Mike Trout) and his 15th steal of 3rd base, 5 ahead of Coco Crisp.

Here's the amazing thing about the 2.5 million dollar man aka Rajai Davis: Rajai has had only 74 stolen base opportunities, while Mike Trout has had 180. Mike Trout tries to steal in about 22% of his opportunites, while Rajai attempts to steal in in about 55% of opportunties. If Rajai had the same opportunities as Mike Trout, he would have about 80 stolen bases by now! No one in the AL even comes close to this. So, Rajai should just work on getting on base, and he should be the regular left fielder, day in, day out. When he does get on base, he takes extra bases on 68% of hits, third in the AL among regulars. Simply put, this guy is aggressive, and he wreaks more havoc on the bases than anyone else in the AL. Add to that the fact that he went 3-4 tonight and he's really proving himself to be the regular dude in left, questionable defense aside (he needs to hit his cutoff man, and sometimes he loses focus, despite the catch of the year on the Sunday).

Anyway, enough about Rajai. On to the top of the 5th. A series of four singles by Pierzynski, Viciedo, De Aza (to knock in Pierzynski), and ex-Jay DeWayne Wise (to knock in Viciedo) put runners on 1st and 3rd with 2 out. Henderson tried the "patented" move to third - move to 1st play in order to catch one of the runners sleeping, a reasonable move with two very fast runners. He ended up throwing to first and sailed it high to Cooper, who jumped in an attempt to catch the ball, but it went off of David's glove about 10 feet behind him, which allowed the speedy De Aza to score and take the lead at 3-2.

The Jays threatened in each inning. In the bottom of the 5th, the Jays loaded the bases with one out and Edwin up. But Edwin hit a sharp liner to Kevin Youkilis who made a great catch and a great throw to 2nd to double off Rajai. End of rally. Bad luck.

Moises reached in the 6th with two out but Kelly Johnson couldn't do anything. In the 7th with one out, Hechavarria doubled (his first extra base hit) in the 7th and Rajai walked, but Mike McCoy (who is hitting 2nd in the order, ouch!) and Edwin couldn't do anything. And in the 8th, a lead off double by David Cooper (replaced by Gose) couldn't be cashed as Yunel and Moises lined out while Yan Gomes struck out, leaving Gose on third.  And Colby, on to pinch hit for Hechavarria hit a single in the 9th with one out but couldn't be cashed as Reed recorded his 21st save.

Henderson was strong tonight, pitching 7 innings and throwing only 84 pitches (59 for strikes) while striking out only two, walking none, and scattering out 3 other hits besides the 4 in the 5th over the other six innings. This would qualify as one of his very good outings (his 4th in his last 10th starts). Consistency now is the key for Alvarez. He needs to keep his sinking fast ball down and develop an out pitch so that he can record more strikeouts. Without the strikeout, more balls go into play, and these result in more hits. 21 home runs certainly is alot (9th in the AL) while is K/9 at 3.2 is near the bottom of the list.

When Morrow comes up, who is going to be off of the rotation? There are about 9 starts left for each starter in a 5 player rotation. At 6 innings per start, Romero, Morrow and Happ will be fine. Villanueva will be at his innings limit (which should be 130) after 8 starts so he'll make it pretty much to the end. Henderson Alvarez has pitched 143 major league innings and threw 159 innings (63 MLB innings) and should top out at the most 190 innings, which gives him 9 more starts to take him pretty much to the end. That leaves Aaron Laffey, who threw only 85 innings in 2010 and 56 in 2011, has already thrown 125 innings this year. I think he will be the odd man out when Morrow returns.

Injury updates

Colby pinch hit in the 9th innings and looked sore. His groin will need more healing before he can come back and play center - I am guessing about a week. In the meantime, they are looking at Colby to DH.

Brett Lawrie comes off the DL on Sunday, August 19 (Baltimore) and Floridians can celebrate as he gets a couple of rehab starts down in Dunedin. Just put up alot of warning tape near any hazards so he doesn't dive into a ditch. I think he'll be back for the road trip and look forward to seeing him in Detroit on Tuesday night next week.

Jose Bautista is swinging off a tee. He will need rehab starts too, and soon, before the minor leagues shut down at the end of the month. My bet is that he will be back at the end of August.

Brandon Morrow pitched a fine start tonight in AA New Hampshire (striking out 6 in 4.1 innings with 65 pitches) and will make one more start and will probably make his return in Baltimore during the August 24-26 series.

Adam Lind should be ready to play but with Cooper doing well at first, he's being kept from hitting for now.

JP Arencibia should be back in mid-September. His cast comes off later today and they will evaluate from there.

Transactions and Comments

The Jays extended Jeff Mathis by two years, meaning that he will likely be the regular backup catcher in 2013 and 2014. And they also signed veteran catcher Jeff Torrealba to a minor league contract, which means that with JP Arencibia, Jeff Mathis, and Travis D'Arnaud all expected to be major league quality next year, who is going to catch. There's speculation that JPA will move to DH but that would just be a waste of his catching talent. So, I think an off-season trade is in the offing and it won't involve Jeff Mathis. Quite simply, despite JPA's offensive capability to hit home runs, he has far better value as a catcher than a DH. Edwin is the capable DH/1B, and JPA's numbers and lack of experience does not warrant him value as a DH. One will be traded. The Jays would be far better off in an new and improved Adam Lind at 1st or even David Cooper and leave Edwin at DH.

August 13: White Sox 2, Jays 3

Villanueva pitches gem; Cooper recovers Janssen’s blown save as Jays walk off

It took extra innings to score the third run, but it was a heartfelt win that the Jays really, really needed.

The Jays opened the scoring in the bottom of the 3^rd with an Edwin single that scored Anthony Gose. Kelly Johnson and Edwin all got caught in the ensuing rundown from the single that resulted in the 3^rd out, scored 9-2-6-4-2-5-1-5 (which I believe gets me a pizza if I order it from my work phone).

Carlos Villanueva pitched a gem, retiring 9 in a row before Adam Dunn hit a boomer to center with one out in the 4^th. Other than that, Carlos gave up four other singles. On the way he fanned 9 and walked 1 in a gem of a game from the team’s middle reliever, throwing 85 pitches over the seven innings.

Moises Sierra gave the team a lead leading off the bottom of the 7^th with a home run to deep left-center field. I am getting more and more impressed with this kid.

Brandon Lyon came on in the 8^th to pitch an uneventful inning, with two strikeouts and a fly ball. Then Casey Janssen did what he never did before -- blew a save, doing so on the first pitch of the 9^th to Adam Dunn (who now leads the AL in homers with 33). Ramirez then singled but the defense picked up Janssen with a great throw by Mathis to catch Ramirez stealing second.

Then it was the Steve Delabar show after that, as he struck out FOUR in the 10^th (passed ball) and two in the 11^th.

In the bottom of the 11^th, the Jays then had the White Sox on the ropes as a walk to Kelly Johnson followed by an Edwin single put runners on 1^st and 3^rd with one out. David Cooper then knocked in a single to Alex Rios for the walk-off victory, the first I believe since Rajai Davis’ single in the bottom of the 10^th against the Phillies on June 16.

The Jays needed this celebration to show that a team made up of AAA players can win meaningful games. Peavy was tough tonight, pitching 8 innings of 5 hit ball, striking out 6 and walking 2 over 124 pitches (84 for strikes!). But Villanueva’s gem held up and the only meaningful offense by the AL Central leading White Sox was Adam Dunn’s two homers.

I am really starting to like the work of Moises Sierra and David Cooper, who are hitting extremely well in the majors. Moises is making an excellent case to stay up in the majors while Gose goes back down to brew for a while (though his speed will be missed). And David Cooper can stay at first and Adam Lind can take his time healing his back.

When your starting pitcher can come into the game and give you a string of scoreless innings, it will give the offense the confidence it needs to not press for runs and will make the team more effective overall. Great starts from Villanueva and Happ allowed the Jays to do just that.

August 12: Yankees 7, Jays 10 (no, not 1)

It's the Rajai Davis show as Jays bats wake up



Not photoshopped - Rajai catches this.
 (Fred Thornhill / Reuters)

The Jays struck for 6 runs in the fourth inning as the Jays beat the Yankees in a 10-7 to salvage a game and put an end to a 5 game losing skid.

David Cooper started the scoring in the bottom of the first singling in a Edwin Encarnacion double for the game's first run.

In the fourth, Moises Sierra opened with a single to right, followed by a double by Jeff Mathis to score him. A Yan Gomes sacrifice moved Mathis to third, and Gose took an uncharacteristic walk. Rajai Davis then cleared the bases with a double to give the Jays a 4-0 lead. Mike McCoy, the veteran callup from AAA, singled home Rajai, and then Edwin homered to give the Jays a 7-0 lead through 4.

And JA Happ really came throough and faced the minimum batters through 4 and 1/3rd. A Casey McGehee double scored Andrus Jones to put the Yankees on the board.

Rajai Davis however stole the show again with a bases clearing double to score three (scoring Mathis, Gomes, and Hechavarria)

But JA Happ faced more problems in the top of the 6th as the long ball took over for the Yankees. A solo shot by Jeter followed by a two run no-doubt-about-it dinger from Cano put the Yankees at 10-4. On came Brad Lincoln. Up until the end of the 5th, it was a solid performance, and clearly I think JA Happ was running out of gas by the 6th, as he needs another start to stretch it out.

But there were more problems with Lincoln in the 7th. But it may have been alot worse for the Jays if it wasn't for the play of the year by Rajai Davis, who took a running grab up the wall and took away a definite home run ball by Casey McGehee. This ball is one that outfielders normally give up on. The fence at Rogers is 10 feet tall, and Rajai timed it perfectly to take a run at the wall and use his momentum to go over the wall to make an absolutely spectacular catch to save two runs.

But still, with two out and a runner on 2nd, the Yankees weren't done. Jayson Nix doubled to score Granderson. Derek Jeter doubled to score Jason Nix, and Swisher singled to score Jeter. The Yankees were within striking distance, now behind 10-7. On came Darren Oliver who looked shaky, giving up a double to Teixiera and hitting Robinson Cano (I think on purpose) to load the bases for Andrus Jones, who grounded the ball to a waiting Yan Gomes at 3rd.

Oliver was much stronger in the 8th, striking out the first two before an easy ground ball to Kelly Johnson, who pinch hit for Hechavarria in the 7th.

Janssen came on and closed it with two hard line drives to Johnson who was positioned perfectly followed by an easy fly ball from Nick Swisher to end the game.

Some observations about the game. First, it was good to see Mike McCoy back in Toronto. A utility infielder, he does know how to hit major league hitting and I think puts some stability in the offense over Hechavarria. David Cooper and Moises Sierra can hit. With Adam Lind coming back, Cooper will likely be sidelined put perhaps they will at least leave him on the bench. I hope that Moises (3 for 5 today) gets more playing time but one of Gose or Sierra will be sent down once Bautista is back in a couple of weeks (but they'll only be down for a week as they'll be called up for the September expansion). Anthony Gose is still getting fooled at the plate, striking out on 2 of his four plate appearances. And finally, Rajai is earning a steady look in left for the season as he showed a flash of brilliance in left (which makes up for losing the ball in the lights on Friday night and then some) and tied his personal record of 5 RBIs. Edwin had a 3 for 5 night, short the triple in the cycle. And finally, it was surprising to see Brad Lincoln get roughed up for three runs, his worst outing as a reliever this season.

Now, Alex Rios and the AL Central leading White Sox come to town for four. The Jays will face Jake Peavy (9-8 3.08 ERA), Jose Quintana (4-2, 2.78 ERA), Gavin Floyd (8-9, 4.43 ERA), and Francisco Liriano (3-10, 5.35 ERA) who got roughed up in the last outing. The Jays will throw Villanueva, Alvarez, Romero, and Laffey in return. Adam Lind may return to the lineup, and we will likely see Colby Rasmus later in the week along with Yunel Escobar. I'm thinking that the Jays are in rough for the first two but can win the last two in the series for a nice series split before Texas comes to town.

It's an unrelenting schedule for the Jays, but with the pressure off, perhaps the Jays can take their time in recovering its stars and get the Las Vegasers some more plate appearances.

Were the Blue Jays doomed from the start?

What went wrong?

The Jays season looked promising enough: a great spring training at 25-7, with good performances by a number of starters, good performances by the starters, and a fairly healthy team, with McGowan the only culprit with a sore foot. The team was stronger than last year, with Brett Lawrie being the regular third baseman, a decent hitting Adam Lind, and a strong Colby Rasmus in center field. Bautista was back, and Encarnacion was also hitting well. Arencibia was back for his second full season, defensively much better. Anthopoulos went out and got proven bullpen in Darren Oliver, signed Casey Janssen to a two year extension, got back Jason Frasor, and acquired Cordero who had 37 saves for the Reds last year, and Sergio Santos who had 30 saves for the White Sox. Things were looking up.

And the fans bought into the hype too, buying 22% more tickets than last year (the rest of the league is up 4%) on the hopes of a team competing in the AL East vs a hurt Red Sox, a rebuilding Tampa Bay, and a mediocre Orioles team.

The team really received a one-two punch that did them in for the season. The one punch was losing three of their starters in one week, which I believe led to the demise of Ricky Romero due to the intense pressure for him to perform (the pressure he put on himself -- after the win at Miami on June 22, he has yet to win a game. The bats came to life however and left the team around the .500 mark with hope really slipping away game by game as they stayed roughly five games back of the wild card mark.

But the #2 punch happened on July 26th, when Arencibia broke his hand and Lind left the same night with a sore back. From that point, the team has hit a breaking point. Add to that outages by Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus and you have a team full of not-ready-for-prime time players to fill the spots. It is easy for good pitchers to pitch around a team when you have only four major league players in your line up. Snider's trade away didn't help team morale either.

Now the fans are blaming AA and Rogers for not spending the money on the Jays. Clearly, Rogers is afraid to sign blockbuster agreements. They dumped Vernon Wells' contract (fantastic move) and Alex Rios (good move). Bautista and Encarnacion's contracts are steals and most MLB analysts thing that those contracts are extremely good values for the Jays. They traded away Halladay. And I've explained in another post that the Jays activities represent about 1% of the total action within Rogers Communications, Inc, but the expectation is that they will be profitable. So, the fans are right. The only way that the Jays will spend some money is to build up the team slowly through value, and the team has indeed been making strides in that direction with their payroll slowly on the uptick to correspond with their revenue. The blame is fair, but do you want the Jays to be the New York Yankees? Do you want to spend an average of $63 for a ticket (current is $26)?

My view is that AA took a risk in not signing a veteran onto the pitching staff -- the rotation was too young, with three rookies and new rookies, and a fragile Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow. His gamble failed. A veteran might have not been a good value on paper, but might have stabilized the rotation. I can't fault AA with the initial bullpen choices. Having both Santos and Cordero imploding was not predictable -- it was just bad luck, and it took Farrell time to realize that Janssen and Oliver was up to the task of closer/setup after giving Cordero a reasonable amount of time to prove himself (and fail). Add to that Perez's season ending injury which complicated matters. The depth at relief also took time to resolve, and the Jays pretty much tried everybody on the AAA and AA farm to see if they were ready -- all kinds of relievers came up from AAA and went back down. Chavez, Beck, Carreno, Coello, Andrew Carpenter, Crawford, Pauley, Richmond -- none were ready. Finally, the Jays settled on Loup and had to trade for Lincoln, Delabar, and Lyon -- because no one from the farm was able to step up to the task in the bullpen. And on the starting rotation, Cecil and Laffey make decent #5 starters to replace Drabek and Hutchinson, but there really was no one of Morrow's calibre that was able to step up to the task.

On the hitting side, Lind failed until his return from AAA. He went on waivers and no one claimed him. No one stepped up to the task of being a star left-fielder, and just went it looked like Snider was up to stay, he was traded for the necessary relievers. There were slow starts by Rasmus, Arencibia and Bautista, and both Escobar and Johnson have be somewhat lacklustre. Only Edwin has really really impressed.

Let's face it though -- the injuries would have been insurmountable to any team. I am sure the Yankees would be on a major slump if they lost Cano (their best hitter), A-Rod, Texiera, Granderson, and Russell Martin. The injuries are the culprit here.

And it is clear that the depth of the farm is not there. Many have come up from AAA and AA to pitch and have failed, necessitating AA to go out and trade Snider and Thames. The AAA hitters who have come up have all failed to impress with the exception of Moises. Had the farm been ready with major-league ready relievers and hitters, the Jays would be all right.

So, you ask the question, did AA make bad acquisitions and overhyped the farm system, or did the players fail the Jays in their performances in the MLB? I would blame the players. The farm system has improved vastly over the years in their records and their independent ranks as prospects. But really, the end indicator of the value of a player is their performance in the majors. So, I can't blame AA for the farm acquisitions, but I will blame the players as a whole for failing to step up at the major league level.

In the end, the Jays season went wrong due to a vast and unheard of number of injuries. And the players really didn't step up before the pitchers went down in mid-June. Besides Anthopoulos acquiring a veteran pitcher in the offseason, I really can't fault him for doing anything wrong. And as long as Rogers continues ownership of the Jays, and they will for a long time, their spending will be conservative in nature. I really believe that the Jays will pull the trigger at the trade deadline if they believe they will make the post season -- the increase in ticket sales, playoff games, and ratings will recover the cost -- it makes economic sense to do so. But it makes no sense to Rogers Media to spend $150 million on player salaries when the team is only pulling in $160 million in revenue. Until that point in time, expect AA to stay the course and make spending decisions based on value, not on emotion.