So is Wilson:

a. In a slump
b. Tiring from playing this season
c. Losing it because of age (33 at the end of the year)
d. Stuggling because of poor mechanics
e. Combination of 2 or more

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I suspect that the increase in Phelps' playing time was a decision that came from above.

http://economics.about.com
New topic:

Instead of acquiring new players, the Jays should work on signing the following players to 5 or 6 year deals. In order:

Phelps
Hudson
Kielty
Arnold
Thurman
and possibly Woodward

I think the Jays (like every other team would have) waited way too long to sign Wells and Hinske. Imagine if JP had offered Hinske a 6 year, $8 million contract out of spring training of his rookie year. I'd imagine he would have taken it. But the Jays waited to see how well he'd turn out, he had a ROY season, and his price went up to $15 million. I'd much rather see the Jays sign people before it becomes clear how well they're going to do in the majors. Sure this means they'll end up giving long term deals to the occasional Peter Bergeron, but this will be more than cancelled out by the money they save on the players who *do* make it.

The idea of it is this: When a player first comes up, he should be far more risk averse (financially) than the team. The team can capitalize on this by offering a guaranteed sum of money which is well below his net expected value. Once the player has earned money in the bigs and proven that he belongs, he knows he'll be able to command a big salary, so you'll have to offer him something closer (though still well under) his expected value.

I probably haven't explained this too well, but does everyone get the idea?

Mike

f. All of the Above

(especially d., or at least he was showing me a lot of d. last night)

There's no reason why Myers needs a whole night off. He's a platoon catcher and he's in great shape. Tom Wilson should never, ever, ever, ever, never, ever bat against a RHP, especially late in the game (325/410/488 career vs. LHP and 227/288/364 vs. RHP).

Mike, while I agree with your argument, I don't believe it is possible to sustain such a low contract over that long a period of time. Say Hinske signed a 6 year, 8 million dollar deal, and went on to win ROY, and then posted a solid second seasons worth of numbers. There is no way based on this that he would continue to play out the remainder of that contract at the pre-existing terms. While it may be easy for teams to sign players to deals below their expected value, it is much tougher to maintain a contract once the player has exceeded the value, especially in long-term deals. It isn't as evident in baseball yet because of the current salary and contract structure, but you see it all the time now in football and hockey players holding out because they want to renegotiate a deal that is highly unfavorable to them.

Now that we are into the dog days, and there are likely to be no top tier call-ups of prospects like last year (like Hudson and Phelps), I am interested in what people think are the most important things (ie. things you are following) for the Jays to accomplish in the remainder of the season. These are my four (in order of importance):

1. finding out if Josh Phelps is a legitimate 1st base/DH option - in my opinion the single most difficult issue to be faced in '04 is Delgado's looming free agency; determining if Phelps is a legitimate replacement is key in fully understanding the Jays' options;

2. deciding who in the bullpen is worth keeping for '04 - with that in mind, I would cut Sturtze immediately and consider doing the same for Service, and then take a shot with some combination of Smith, Chulk and Bowles for the remainder of the season to decide if they have any value at all going forward. This will make some 40 man roster spot decisions easier and give you a better idea of what you have relative to spring training decisions. I also think you keep working Acevedo as they have to see if there is anything worth salvaging;

3. deciding who will be the shortstop in '04-'05 - in my view neither Adams nor Hill will be ready until mid '05, at the earliest, and Bordick has consistantly maintained that this is it for him. Given that, I think you need to decide if Woodward is the guy or just a utility guy; I would also suggest taking a shot with Alvarez for a stretch (in fact, I was a little disappointed to see Berg come back ahead of Alvarez);

4. deciding whether to offer arbitration to Cat - this decision is dependent upon two things, how Cat plays and maybe more importantly, how Johnson plays. I can't help but think 4th outfielder when I see Johnson, but so far he has played better than that. I think if Johnson plays like a legitimate starting outfielder then you could afford to let Cat go and spend the $3-4 million on pitching. If not then, I think you have to keep Cat because Gross/Werth may not be ready for '04.

All in all, less exciting and perhaps not as important as the stretch last year but still some things to watch.

i agree fully with points 1 and 2, about point 3 we have Sequea and Alvarez to have a cup of coffe in sept. and to show up in spring training. I do not think that Woody will hold to be a ML regular, and the search for a Bordick type of a year rental.
i think we are going to miss ( just a little bit ) Stewart bat, but Cat is not an answer an THAT money should go to pitching.

I personally would like to see Kevin Cash get called up. I don't know what the catching situation will be next year. I'd like to see Myers/Cash next year but I imagine Myers will want a bit of a raise. With GQ neck and neck with Cash on the catching depth chart, I'd like to see Cash get some major league at bats so we know what we have and maybe to showcase him.

I have a theory with Jays pitching. The Jays preach the low strike way too much. None of their pitchers throw high stikes (on purpose) and it's been that way at least 4-5 years. i think hitters tee off on Jay pitchers simply because they know where every pitch is going.

The Jay theory is that low pitches are less likely to be hit for extra bases than high pitches. I think this is only true if you throw both low and high. If you only throw low pitches, any pitch that misses even a few inches high, gets hammered.

Roy Halladay can survive this system because of his incredible control, however normal pitchers cannot. Look at the list of pitchers that have left the Jays in the last few years to success elsewhere. Woody Williams, Robert Person, Estaban Loaiza, Graeme Lloyd, Brandon Lyon, Steve Traechshel, Peter Munro etc. While I admit this is not an all-star team, these pitchers have definately performed better elsewhere than in TO. How may pitchers have performed better in TO than elsewhere? Maybe Frank Castillo (although he pitched pretty good for a half season in Boston after leaving the Jays), but who else? I leave David Wells and Roger Clemens out of this discussion because I don't believe the Jays pitching philosophy ever affected them (as star veteran players, i doubt the Jays had any ability to change their pitching patterns).

Watch the best pitchers pitch. They all throw high strikes. Yes it's true Roger Clemens, Pedro, Randy, Schilling have amazing stuff. But watch Mussina, Maddux, Zito. They aren't afraid of the high strike. The only guy I know of who succeeds without the high pitch is Glavine (although I admit I'm not sure about Moyer and Hudson, I haven't seen them much lately).

I'm not saying the Jays pitchers should throw a 50/50 mix of high and low pitches. However they should throw enough that the hitter cannot just concentrate on the low pitch. Maybe 10% is enough, I have no idea, but I gotta figure it must work better than never.

Kevin Cash should be up for a good many MLB AB's for the very fact that the guy is a few months away from turning 26. What you see is what you're going to get, let's get on with it.

Instead of acquiring new players, the Jays should work on signing the following players to 5 or 6 year deals. In order:

Phelps
Hudson
Kielty
Arnold
Thurman
and possibly Woodward


I don't think the Jays waited too long on either Hinske or Wells. To have offered either of them a 5 year contract before they did ANYTHING at the ML level is, in my opinion, more risky. Even if the Jays signed them to 5 year, $8 million contracts they'd likely be getting $4-5 million, combined, over the last 2 years. If they aren't good players that's a bit of a noose on a team that's spending a fraction of what the Sox and Yankees are.

However, I think the Jays waited a year too long on Halladay (and that's not saying this in hindsight - most of us agreed that it should have been done with Hinske and Wells).

I'd explore how interested Phelps, Hudson, Kietly and Thurman are to long term contracts, but it's certainly possible that they'd be willing to go year to year if the offers were low. Of those, I'd be most comfortable with Hudson and Kielty right now. I still think there's value in waiting until a player is proven at the ML level.

I don't think there's any value in signing Woodward. He's not going to dramatically improve, so you're not locking in any savings. Arnold hasn't even shown that he's a good AAA pitcher yet. Maybe it'll come, but maybe it won't, so why guarantee him anything?

And I'd be less likely to sign pitchers early due to their higher injury rate (which, knock on wood, the Jays have seemed to be pretty lucky with).

http://economics.about.com
While it may be easy for teams to sign players to deals below their expected value, it is much tougher to maintain a contract once the player has exceeded the value, especially in long-term deals. It isn't as evident in baseball yet because of the current salary and contract structure, but you see it all the time now in football and hockey players holding out because they want to renegotiate a deal that is highly unfavorable to them.

How many times in hockey has a player sat out while he's had a contract because he wanted a better one? Five or six maybe? And in most of those there seemed to be some link between the player wanting a better contract and possible links to organized crime.

I have no idea how often it's happened in football. It's not a sport I actively follow.

Mike

And in most of those there seemed to be some link between the player wanting a better contract and possible links to organized crime.

I think you're probably talking about a few russian players that there have been rumors regarding their links to crime, but this is hardly a substantial number compared to the total number of holdouts. This issue has clearly been a problem with players who haven't reached unrestricted free agent status yet, regardless of nationality or affiliations who put up great numbers on contracts that pay them far less than current market value. Jason Allison, Jason Arnott, Petr Nedved, Kyle McLaren, Paul Kariya, Scott Gomez, etc. are some of the North American guys who've done this in recent seasons.

The point I was trying to make was that even if it was possible to have the foresight to make these deals ahead of breakout seasons, surely the player would want to renegotiate a long term deal if it paid him far less than players at comparable levels. If Hinske was still roughly making an amount close to his rookie salary after 4-5 years while putting up Rolen-type numbers, I strongly doubt he would be happy to play out the contract at those terms.

Petr Nedved... North American ???
He plays in North America, he is Czechoslovakian though.

http://economics.about.com
Jason Allison, Jason Arnott, Petr Nedved, Kyle McLaren, Paul Kariya, Scott Gomez, etc. are some of the North American guys who've done this in recent seasons.

No they haven't.

None of these players had a contract when they sat out. Big difference.

You're confusing two issues. One is players wanting to renegotiate when they have an existing contract. The second is players who don't have a contract but aren't free agents. Baseball doesn't have to worry about that because any players in those situations must go to salary arbitration or be released and become free agents.

The point I was trying to make was that even if it was possible to have the foresight to make these deals ahead of breakout seasons, surely the player would want to renegotiate a long term deal if it paid him far less than players at comparable levels.

Do you think Vernon Wells is making anything near what he would if he were a free agent?

Mike

Wells contract has already made him a steal. Knowing he's locked up for the next four years at such a low price is exciting. I'm surprised St. Louis didn't take the same approach with Pujols.

Petr Nedved was born in Czechoslovakia, but he defected to Canada.

Right Mike, they were restricted free agents. I thought that was a possibility but didn't want to throw it out there without checking (and, frankly, was too lazy to check).

And a note about Wells... Espn's Page 2 has him as the no. 7 most underappreciated athlete today (ahead of Brian Giles... Ron Francis is no. 1 ).

You're right Mike, going off the top of your head is the first way to lose an argument. The only guy who actually had a contract that held out was Yashin, and everybody knows how that played out.

Wow, slow day today.........

Some tidbits from Auburn:

Record: 36-9 for an .800 winning percentage.

Big Vito Chiaravolloti will be the leader in all 3 triple crown stats as soon as Aaron Hill falls off the BA leaderboard for a lack of ABs. For the year Vito is .353/.468/.626.

Where Auburn ranks compared to the second place team in each of the following:

BA - .295/.270
Runs - 300/241
HR - 40/25
Walks - 224/192

http://economics.about.com
You're right Mike, going off the top of your head is the first way to lose an argument. The only guy who actually had a contract that held out was Yashin, and everybody knows how that played out.

No worries. I do it all the time. :)

The Yashin thing was ugly... tho losing him was probably the best thing that ever happened to the Senators. I was cheering for them like crazy during the playoffs since my team, Calgary, is so amazingly awful.

Mike