Because You Asked For It: Arbitration Countdown

Tuesday, December 07 2004 @ 08:51 AM EST

Contributed by: Pepper Moffatt

The Jays have until midnight tonight to work out a deal with Carlos Delgado or offer him arbitration. If they cannot, then it is almost certain that Delgado will not be back next season and the Jays will not get any draft picks as compensation when Carlos signs with another club.

This leads me to two questions (which are not the questions of the day):

  1. Which free agents will not be offered arbitration today?
  2. If the Jays don't resign Delgado, where is the offense going to come from next year?


I'm pretty concerned about the second question. According to my handy-dandy Hardball Times, the following Jays had positive RCAAs (Runs Created Above Average) in 2004:

Delgado - 19
Menechino - 13
Adams - 2

That's it. Twenty players had negative values, suggesting that they were below average at the plate.

Delgado is going, Menechino had a career year, and nobody expects Adams to repeat his excellent September performance. There's a very good chance none of these three players will be above average at the plate for the Jays next year. If Wells has another injury plagued season (he had a -1 RCAA in 2004), every Jay could be below average with the bat next year. That's not entirely likely to happen; some Jay such as Reed Johnson could surprise and be 2005's Menechino.

Unless the Jays sign some big bats (which would mean they wouldn't be signing much pitching), where is the offense going to come from? Can pitching and defence alone make for a winning team?

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