The Future of the Blue Jays
Monday, September 12 2011 @ 02:20 AM EDT
Contributed by: Magpie
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Adam Loewen, of course, is not in this group. As he explained "I am not a rookie."
I'm not really going to talk about the future of the Blue Jays. Anthopoulos is accumulating as much young talent as he can, which is a sound idea. He's made three large moves, one of which has worked spectacularly so far (Marcum for Lawrie), one of which was addition by subtraction (Wells for Francisco), and one of which has a chance to help in the long run (Rasmus.) But I still can't see them seriously contending in this division before 2014, unless a whole lot of young pitchers take a surprising step forward. And you would have to be insane to count on that happening.
Elsewhere - are battles for post-season berths still going on?
Probably not, but Tampa Bay and the Angels are still hanging tough. With Josh Becket temporarily on the shelf, the Red Sox are down to one competent starter, and every time Jon Lester gets beat the Sox are in danger of losing six or seven in a row. Tampa Bay comes into Fenway Park for four games this week. Should be lively.
Out west, one assumes that the Angels' plan is to try to stay within reach of Texas until the final weekend, when the Rangers and Angels finish their seasons with three games in Anaheim.
But honestly - none of these AL teams impress me very much. I actually think either
the Angels or Rays would have a better chance to succeed in the
post-season than the four teams that are probably going to be there.
In the Other League, the Cardinals haven't quite given up the ghost - they trail the Braves by 4.5, the Brewers by 6 - but it shouldn't be long now. Arizona and Milwaukee are fighting hard for the right to play Atlanta rather than Philadelphia in the first round.
This may simply be the year to duck, and get out of the way of the Philadelphia Steamroller.
Alex pointed out the other day that Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay has rather suddenly turned into the best pitcher's park in the American League. This is indeed a new development - through 2006, the Trop had actually been the most neutral park in all of Recorded History in terms of its effects on offense. (Through 2006, the Rays had scored and allowed 7063 runs at home, 7072 on the road - and they'd actually played one more game on the road in those nine years.) But only one of the five seasons since then has followed that mold (2009) - offense at the Trop has been suppressed a little bit in one of those years (2008), and by an enormous amount in three of the others (2007, 2010, 2011).
When I last looked at this subject in depth, Petco in San Diego had staked an early claim as the toughest place to score runs in the history of the game. That was based, however, on just three seasons. In the life of a stadium, three seasons is a rather small sample size, and in at least two of the seasons since then the Giants' home field appears to have had an even more oppressive effect than Petco on run scoring. (Magpie reminds himself that after updating the big database after the season, it would be a good idea to gather the data for the 30 current ball parks and have a look.)
Anyway, here's run scoring for each team at home and away so far this season. They're sorted by how much they boost the offense (I just divide runs scored/allowed at home by runs scored/allowed on the road - adjusting for the different number of games played at this point in the season.)
First, the data....
Team GPL RS RA RUNS GPL RS RA RUNS PARK
home home home home road road road road
Texas 74 440 377 817 72 317 254 571 1.39
Toronto 73 352 380 732 73 329 301 630 1.16
Boston 71 392 347 739 74 390 282 672 1.15
New York AL 73 425 305 730 71 374 275 649 1.09
Baltimore 72 315 383 698 72 294 376 670 1.04
Detroit 73 359 326 685 72 331 319 650 1.04
Chicago AL 71 286 308 594 73 301 291 592 1.03
Cleveland 72 294 320 614 71 307 319 626 0.97
Kansas City 73 318 340 658 74 330 370 700 0.95
Oakland 71 305 273 578 74 287 348 635 0.95
Minnesota 72 253 355 608 73 302 359 661 0.93
Seattle 74 243 289 532 71 256 309 565 0.90
Los Angeles AL 74 283 253 536 71 311 305 616 0.83
Tampa Bay 74 271 262 533 70 345 283 628 0.80
Colorado 73 416 377 793 72 251 305 556 1.41
Arizona 71 345 305 650 75 311 303 614 1.12
Cincinnati 71 348 316 664 74 324 324 648 1.07
Houston 71 279 354 633 74 274 356 630 1.05
Milwaukee 72 342 269 611 75 300 316 616 1.03
Philadelphia 71 339 216 555 71 312 245 557 1.00
Pittsburgh 74 262 330 592 71 287 290 577 0.98
Florida 72 281 317 598 72 293 320 613 0.98
Chicago NL 75 303 342 645 70 283 349 632 0.95
Washington 73 287 284 571 70 264 317 581 0.94
New York NL 70 293 315 608 75 352 344 696 0.94
Atlanta 72 296 242 538 74 296 295 591 0.94
Los Angeles NL 71 246 276 522 73 318 274 592 0.91
St. Louis 74 315 307 622 71 358 318 676 0.88
San Diego 72 231 265 496 74 311 301 612 0.83
San Francisco 74 201 237 438 71 283 273 556 0.76
With the exception of the Trop, I don't think there any real surprises here. A few comments nonetheless...
Rangers Ballpark in Arlington is turning into Coors Field south. This needs to be more widely understood. It was merely the best hitter's park in the AL when I looked at this five years ago. The Rangers have scored 440 runs in their home park, more than any other team in baseball. But in road games, six teams in their own league - including Tampa Bay - have scored more runs. The superiority of the Rangers' offense over that of the Rays is largely a Park Effect. (Of course, so is the superiority of Tampa's pitching.)
Fenway and the Rogers Centre are both pretty good places to hit, but neither park has helped the home team's hitters very much (men in white or not.) It's their opponents who have had a jolly time when they come to town. Especially Toronto's. With a couple of exceptions (Romero, Janssen), the Blue Jays pitchers (Morrow, Drabek, Perez in particular) have been simply pummelled at home. Only the Orioles have given up more runs in their own ball park (ah - but this doesn't include yesterday's game! The Jays staff now holds this dubious distinction!)
Comiskey II in Chicago and Comerica in Detroit are now showing up as better parks for hitters than pitchers. This is a new development. To some degree, this is actually a matter of the league changing around them - the Trop has gone from a neutral park to a pitcher's paradise, and the Metrodome has been replaced by Target Field. Of course, old Yankee Stadium has given way to the new, and the new place has favoured the hitters in two of the three years they've played there.
In the other league... well, humidor or no humidor, Coors Field is still Coors Field. The biggest surprise for me in the NL? That would be the Mets. Get their hitters away from Citi Field, and they have the second best offense in the National League (behind St. Louis). Who knew?
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