I'm not a huge Chris Gomez -- really, who could be? -- but he does have a couple of things going for him. He has historically hit LHP very well, meaning his platoon numbers are more impressive than his FT numbers, and he has played some second base, important on a team with a 2B who can't hit LHP.

Still, he will be 33 and was never a great defensive SS. He could probably be had for $1M or less.

I pray to God that if they did sign Gomez, it is for less. Much less.
-------------------------------
Are there non-tenders in whom the Jays could have interest

I have qualms about guys who only occassionally play short, sort of implies lack of confidence in their ability to play the position, plus these guys aren't exactly known for their bats. I think I would opt for a minor league all glove, no bat type over the shortstop choices presented.

Sorry for asking about the Jays' interest in non-tenders. I did go check out the other thread. I agree with Iain, of course: paying any of these three possibilities more than the minimum seems like folly. Where's Rey Ordonez?

The Seattle Times says that the club will go after Aurilia, meaning that SS Carlos Guillen might be traded to either the Rockies or the Jays, the other two teams in the hunt for Aurilia.

Guillen would be nice. What would we have to give up? How much does he make?

Like I said in the non-tender thread, I think we should go after Menechino to platoon with Orlando because Frank has historically hit lefties well and Berg's platoon splits appear to be an aberration. Berg was a league average SS both in fielding percentage and range factor for the Jays in 2002 so he can be Woodward's backup

On Baseball-Reference, Chris Gomez' most similar batter through age 32 is Mike Bordick.

Over on Bordick's lists of comps, Gomez is the most similar for age 32. Taking a look at Bordick's similar batters through age 37 has some interesting names: Tony Pena, Shawon Dunston, Cookie Rojas, Phil Garner, Phil Rizzuto*.

An asterisk by Rizzuto's name? That means Hall of Fame; wow, Rizzuto must have been better than I thought. Nope. Career line of .273/.351/.355. Range factor and fielding percentage slightly above average; sub 100 career OPS+. Nice little career, but no Hall of Famer, that's for sure. So I check out the Hall of Fame's website, assuming that it will tell me that Rizzuto was elected into the broadcaster's wing. Holy Cow, I was wrong; 1994 Veteran's Committee inducted him.

Can anybody shed some light on why Rizzuto is in the Hall of Fame?

Guillen would be nice. What would we have to give up? How much does he make?

I think he just recently signed a one-year deal for about $2.5M.

Can anybody shed some light on why Rizzuto is in the Hall of Fame?

1) Defense
2) He was Scooter...a "Yankee Great"

The first reason may have some merit to it but the second is pure BS.

None of the shortstop choices are particularly appealing.

Baker refers to Looper as an established closer. As I said when Acevedo was signed, no one should confuse "has closed in the past" with "is a closer". Looper is no more an established closer than Aquilino Lopez or Justin Speier or Kerry Ligtenberg.

People often misunderstand batting stats from that era. Rizzuto was quite an effective leadoff man (or top-of-the-order man in general) for most of his career; he was a superb defender as well, generally considered to be peerless at starting the double play.

The modern player most similar to Scooter was Ozzie Smith, who was a little bit worse with the bat and a little bit better with the glove. Ozzie played six more seasons than Scooter (who also missed three full prime seasons, his age 25 to 27 seasons, due to World War II), so his Hall of Fame credentials are questioned less.

Anyway, as far as the Jays' SS choices go, I think Damian Jackson would be OK, as he has always been a good defender. I have faith that Woody will hit enough this year to make the question of platooning him a non-issue; what is really needed is a pure defender who can make 30 starts (mostly when HLH pitches) to give Woodward the rests his oft-injured body needs, and to be an occasional late-inning defensive replacement.

Looking at the numbers over on baseball-reference, I can't see how Jackson, Gomez, Menechino or Carlos Guillen could be considered a defensive upgrade over Woodward, although Gomez seems slightly better than the other three defensively. But unless JP can somehow fuse Gomez's defense with Menechino's offense, I think the Jays would be better off with Sequea and Woody.

Johnny, it's best not to look at Range Factor when assessing defensive range. For a readily-available source, try Zone Rating (available at ESPN.com) or MGL's Ultimate Zone Rating... a very sophisticated metric.

Remember that errors are a part of assessing defense too, and Woody makes a lot of them.

Thanks, Craig. I'm reading up on UZR now. Whether I'll ever understand it....

Hey
If you look at Menechino's 3 year average vs. left handed pitching (.279, .395,.426), he could be the perfect partner for Orlando. Now if only he could play some shortstop. Any information on that ?

Here are some numbers I came up with to compare the FA options to Woody. I've also thrown Tony Graffanino into the mix... until I hear that Tony hates Toronto, I'll be scratching my head at why J.P. apparently didn't pursue him.

Defence

Fielding Percentage, Range Factor, and Zone Rating in the following table are career numbers as a shortstop. Win Shares per 1000 innings are 2003 numbers as a shortstop - Damian Jackson's 2.23 has been omitted as he only played 82 innings at short in 2003. As for Frank Menechino, he's only ever played 62 innings at short in the bigs, so I wouldn't take any of his numbers too seriously.

		FP	RnF	ZR	WS/1000
Chris	Wood.	.964	4.37	.843	5.30
Rich	Auril.	.972	4.16	.848	5.23
Royce	Clayton	.973	4.47	.860	5.36
Deivi	Cruz	.978	4.28	.842	4.30
Chris	Gomez	.972	4.07	.840	3.97
Tony	Graff.	.962	3.53	.869	6.38
Carlos	Guillen	.969	2.77	.844	6.05
Shane	Halter	.963	4.05	.825	3.80
Jose	Hernan.	.969	3.99	.845	4.44
Denny	Hocking	.980	3.21	.819	8.44
Damian	Jackson	.948	3.91	.847	
Frank	Mene.	.920	3.34	.846	
Rey	Ordon.	.976	4.28	.856	5.92
Tony	Womack	.964	3.73	.801	3.47
	Average	.965	3.87	.842	5.22

By these numbers, Woody looks like a passable shortstop.

Hitting

The numbers given here are for the past 3 years. Apologies for not including AB.

		-------	vs LH ------	-------	vs RH ------	-------	Total ------
		AVG	OBP	SLG	AVG	OBP	SLG	AVG	OBP	SLG
Chris	Wood.	.229	.300	.362	.272	.317	.450	.261	.313	.427
Rich	Auril.	.283	.329	.531	.290	.337	.456	.288	.335	.472
Royce	Clayton	.271	.340	.398	.239	.293	.351	.246	.304	.366
Deivi	Cruz	.252	.292	.383	.258	.281	.371	.256	.284	.374
Chris	Gomez	.217	.244	.327	.274	.314	.418	.260	.298	.397
Tony	Graff.	.293	.367	.497	.250	.313	.353	.271	.340	.423
Carlos	Guillen	.262	.317	.372	.266	.345	.384	.265	.338	.381
Shane	Halter	.259	.304	.420	.245	.313	.399	.249	.310	.406
Jose	Hernan.	.271	.339	.562	.249	.307	.382	.254	.314	.423
Denny	Hocking	.249	.310	.339	.247	.307	.339	.248	.308	.339
Damian	Jackson	.269	.332	.342	.241	.305	.345	.249	.313	.344
Frank	Mene.	.279	.395	.426	.200	.336	.308	.229	.358	.351
Rey	Ordon.	.232	.286	.296	.266	.303	.363	.258	.299	.348
Tony	Womack	.216	.276	.269	.272	.309	.360	.258	.302	.339
	Average	.256	.317	.395	.255	.313	.377	.257	.315	.385

Not much wood available to complement Woodward. But I'm not sure what to say beyond that. While these three-year splits say the backup shortstop should be a lefty-beater, Chris's 2003 splits say quite the opposite:

vs LH   .307   .360   .485   101 AB
vs RH   .242   .298   .359   248 AB

It will be interesting to see how this eventually shakes out.

I read the Seattle Times article that stated that Guillen could be traded to the Jays. I dismissed it because I was under the impression that a player who just signed a contract couldn't be traded for a period of time. Am I right?

Cristian, that provision only applies to players signed as Free Agents.

If we could somehow only pay no more than 1.5 million for Guillen, I'd be all for it (considering what we give up of course). I just think Carlos is over paid at 2.5.

I'm sort of ambivalent about trading for Guillen because I agree that he may not represent a huge upgrade over Woodward. However, Guillen's stats need to be looked at in the context of Safeco Field. His OPS+ for the last two years are 98 and 102 which aren't too bad from a shortstop. He walks at least 10% of the time. His major problem has been staying healthy. I don't know if he's available or what he would cost, but he certainly is a cut above the Chris Gomez's or Damian Jackson's of this world. My feeling continues to be that the remaining budget should be spent on pitching (i.e. upgrading from Towers or filling in the bullpen). I don't have any concrete stats about this but the alternatives to Woodward seem to have the prospect of providing less benefit than the potential upgrades in the pitching.

When you start talking about names like Frank Menechino, Chris Gomez and even Carlos Guillen (whom I think it would be crazy to spend 2.5 million or even 1.5 million on), the Jays are better off just going with Sequea and spending the money on relievers. I know someone mentioned Baez rejected a 2 year/4million deal from the Indians, but that doesn't necessarily mean he'd get that on the market. If the Jays could nab him for a deal similar to that or even slightly more, I'd go for it. But unless they can get Aurilia, I don't think they should waste what money the have left on the very limited and unsatisfactory options that seem available in the infield at the present time.

Slot Woodward in at SS and use the available money left in an effort to come up with either Looper or Baez, (whom the Mets are after)

I agree that Sequea + Woody seems to be the best SS option right now. My second choice would be Chris Gomez and third would be a Guillen trade (but only if the Jays were on th ehook for well under 2.5 million). If Sequea becomes the back-up, I'd call it a successful offseason and pocket that million or two and see what's happening in the standings around the trade deadline.

For all the Jays' problems at shortstop, they still don't compare to the 2003 Tigers (but then, who in the history of baseball does?). Check this quote from Jim Baker on ESPNinsider today:

Players that have on base percentages higher than slugging averages are in the minority and are something of a curiosity. When they pull that off having an OBP of .292, then there's a problem. That's what Ramon Santiago did in 2003 for the Tigers. Omar Infante achieved the same trick, only with a .278 OBP. Needless to say, the Tigers didn't get much of their shortstop hole when they were batting.

Ouch. That's a dilly of a pickle :)

Based on Menenchino's stats versus lefties, I'd support Geoff's plan of playing him at second against southpaws, while O-Dog handles the righties, if the Jays believe Berg can handle shortstop and backup Woody. Berg had a poor ZR of .765 in 2002 and didn't sniff SS in 2003, but in every previous year he was above .800 and was given at least 100 innings at SS. Based on his poor performance there in 2002 and his lack of play in 2003, I think the Jays view him as a 2B/3B backup, but Menenchino/O-Dog could be a nice platoon at 2B.

Regardless, I'd be among those just as happy to go with Jorge Sequea or Jimmy Alvarez than someone like Gomez or Guillen, especially if we have to pay the latter a sizable amount of money. My question is why is Sequea's name always brought up, as opposed to Alvarez's when the latter played more games at SS for Syracuse last year and put up basically identical stats to Jorge?

Re: Alvarez, there's no talk of him playing SS for the Jays in '04 because he's now property of the Red Sox.

His real name is Francis DeJesus Alvarez.

By these numbers, Woody looks like a passable shortstop.

For less than $800 K, compared to what Guillen makes and what Aurilia is likely to get, Woody looks like a bargain. His defensive problems were more to do with inconsistency than a lack of ability. His dramatic improvement against lefty pitching last year and slight decline vs. righties were surprising, but he hits enough to deserve another crack at the #1 job.

Now if only (Menechino) could play some shortstop.

Dave Berg hit 304/353/506 against lefties last year, making him a solid 2B platoon candidate; if only he was slightly more mobile. I really don't know about Menechino's glove at short, but since I'm still a Woodward believer, I'd be happy if they sign someone like Frankie to a reasonable deal and allocate the majority of the remaining budget to another reliever.

why is Sequea's name always brought up...?

Well, he's already on the 40-man roster and might get more of a look in spring training. Sequea is a year younger than Alvarez and doesn't strike out as often. They both figure to start the season in Syracuse, but either one could be called up if there's a need in Toronto.

Bill James' take on Phil Rizzuto was that he had one MVP season, and the rest were really not much better than average. Rizzuto's defensive stats do not remotely compare to Ozzie Smith's, nor did his defensive reputation. The Yankees of the 50s however won most consistently than any team. Rizzuto's in the Hall of Fame because of his great season and because of his role on a great team, and he certainly is not the only Hall of Famer who is in for those reasons.

I once was returning from the States by plane, and as I approached the customs desk, I noticed that Rizzuto was in front of me. The customs officer noted that Rizzuto was an American and asked if he was visiting Canada for business or pleasure. Scooter replied in a booming voice "I'm here to broadcast a ball game", obviously indicating that it was both business and pleasure.

Nice catch, Spicol. That's an even better reason why Sequea is ahead of Alvarez in the Jays' plans.

Mike Green,

Great story. One question, though: how did you resist the temptation to burst out with: "Holy Cow!"?

My best guess is that I remembered the time I was crossing Bloor Street at about 7:00 p.m and I saw Knowlton Nash coming towards me. I thought about saying "Good Night" the way he did on the news every night, couldn't bring myself to do it and was left with a ridiculous grin on my face. He looked at me like I was nuts.

Strickland re-signed with the Mets. Strike his name off the list.

How does someone named Francis DeJesus end up being called "Jimmy"?

How does someone named Francis DeJesus end up being called "Jimmy"?

Excellent question!

How would you guys feel about Ordonez at short? I think his defence would be well worth the downgrade in offense. I really dont want to see Woodward out there again...

I miss the days of Damo & Tony

Cheers

Mike, excellent Rizzuto story.

Bill James' take on Phil Rizzuto was that he had one MVP season, and the rest were really not much better than average. Rizzuto's defensive stats do not remotely compare to Ozzie Smith's, nor did his defensive reputation. The Yankees of the 50s however won most consistently than any team. Rizzuto's in the Hall of Fame because of his great season and because of his role on a great team, and he certainly is not the only Hall of Famer who is in for those reasons.

Actually, Bill has renounced his take on Rizzuto in The Politics of Glory. Now that he has the Win Shares method of analyzing defense, Bill admits his defensive analysis of Scooter was wrong and that he was legitimately an outstanding player and a legitimate Hall of Famer. I think he takes this view in the new Historical Baseball Abstract, I don't have it with me.

In the fielding letter grades in Win Shares, James rates both Rizzuto and Smith as A+ shortstops, along with 20 other shortstops in baseball history.

According to Baseball Prospectus's Fielding Runs method of evaluating defense, Rizzuto was 10 runs above an average shortstop, per 100 games, for his career. Smith was 11 runs above an average shortstop, per 100 games, for his.

And remember, Rizzuto missed his three prime defensive seasons (ages 25-27) due to the war.

Thanks, Craig. I didn't know that. The Yankees of the 50s did have a bunch of pitchers who only succeeded when they were with the Yankees. Yogi was a fine catcher, but it makes perfect sense that their shortstop was responsible for part of it.

I tried to check BR to see how many Gold Gloves Rizzuto won. It wasn't there, but BR's masthead says "Happy Halladays". I'll second that one.

I'm surprised that JP would even talk to Baker, after that WHITE JAYS trash he wrote.

How would you guys feel about Ordonez at short? I think his defence would be well worth the downgrade in offense.

Ordonez will be 32* (Cuban 32). Many analysts believe he was an overrated defender at his peak. I can't believe that his defense is any great shakes now.

His alien-induced 800+ OPS of last year will make for a nice Strat card, but his true offensive skills lie around the 600 OPS mark, somewhere in Huckaby territory.

I wouldn't want Ted Rogers spending my next cable bill on Ordonez let alone a major league salary.

Mike, that's the problem with Gold Gloves... they only start giving them out in 1957! Scooter retired in '56, and by that time he was a part-timer for three years.

I would bet Rizzuto would have won a large number of Gold Gloves. As it was, he led his league in defensive win shares four times ('41, '42, '47, '50). Boston shortstops won in all three of Rizzuto's prime years in which he did not win (Pesky in '46, Vern Stephens in '48 and '49) and it's safe to say Rizzuto would have won in '48 and '49 because Stephens was unfairly considered barely adequate at short. (Stephens, from what I understand, played short the same way that Jose Valentin does... a minimum of effort, very deliberate, powerful arm... and has similar effectiveness).

Of Rizzuto's other top seasons, Chico Carrasquel led in WS in '51, Pete Runnels in '52, and Billy Hunter of the Browns in '53.

Carrasquel in '51 was in his second year and had eye-popping defensive numbers, even his raw numbers are amazing. Plus, his defensive reputation was awesome. I'd say that by '51 Rizzuto wouldn't have been winning Gold Gloves anymore.

Pete Runnels in 1952 is one of those wacko Win Shares things tha shows why one-year defensive stats aren't always good to rely on. Runnels wasn't a good enough second baseman to stick there longterm despite winning two batting titles. He sure as hell wasn't a shortstop. This was with the Senators, and Bill James should know exactly why Runnels has huge WS in 1952, even though he professes it just a quirk of the system.

The whole Washington pitching staff in '52 was righthanded. They had only 59 innings from lefties. James knows this well, because he uses it in discussing Ed Yost in a bunch of places (in '54, they had four lefty starters, a huge difference)

Something in that extreme pitching staff is inflating Runnels's numbers. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The point it it's a fluke. But Runnels would never hav won the Gold Glove, but I don't think Rizzuto would have either. Probably Chico Carrasquel.

So my best guess is that Scooter would have won six Gold Gloves if they had been around in his day. You can add on three for the war years, when he was the best defensive shortstop in the world but was drawing his paycheques from the U.S. Navy.

I was going to put this in my previous comment (with which it fits) but it's too extraordinary to leave there.

Billy Hunter led AL shortstops in Win Shares in '53, as I mentioned in my previous comment.

Billy Hunter in '53 was a true rookie and didn't hit worth a tinker's damn (.219/.253/.259) and still made the All-Star Team. That is amazing. If anyone is old enough to remember Hunter, what was he like? His glove must have been incredible. (He later managed the Rangers in the 1970s, but even that was before my time).

Huh. Apparently Hunter was hitting .252 at the time of the All-Star Game, so he must have hit about .170 the rest of the way.

He hit the last home run in Browns history on September 26, 1953. It was his only home run for the Browns.

Craig,

What's with the GGs? Bill James indicated that for some time (was it only one year?), they gave out GGs for the majors, rather than by league. Roy McMillan won the GG over all the shortstops in the late 50s.

Baseball Reference doesn't have the joint GG year or years.

I checked again, and Rizzuto's defensive reputation must indeed have been very good. In 1949, he won the most outstanding shortstop in the majors award over Pee Wee Reese. Rizzuto went .275/.352/.358. Reese went .279/.396/.410, hit 16 homers and scored 132 runs. Reese had a pretty good defensive reputation himself.

In any event, Rizzuto's particular strength seems to have been his ability to turn the DP. Was it him or Stirnweiss/Coleman? Usually most of the credit for turning the DP goes to the second baseman.

Mike, only in '57 was the Gold Glove given out for the whole major leagues.

As far as turning the DP goes, Rizzuto's Yankees had a superb record at turning double plays no matter who the 2B was. They were great with Jerry Priddy, great with Joe Gordon, great (OK, less great) with Snuffy Stirnweiss, great with Jerry Coleman, great with Gil McDougald, and great with Billy Martin.

They were great under Stengel, real good under Bucky Harris, great under Joe McCarthy. I think Rizzuto had a lot to do with it.

MGL's UZR, 2000-2003, min 120 games is up:
http://www.baseballstuff.com/tangotiger/UZR0003.html

Chris Woodward weighs in to be just as good (and better than most) defensively as any of the possible replacements mentioned in this thread.

For defence metric watchers, UZR has roughly the same ratings as defensive win shares and BP's defensive ratings for the Blue Jays. Woodward's UZR is completely average (a bit better than he scores on the other metrics). Vernon Wells scores below average UZR as he does on BP (he was a little above on defensive win shares). Eric Hinske scores significantly below average on all metrics, but not as poorly on UZR. Orlando Hudson scores very well on UZR, but not leading the league as he does on defensive win shares.

Personally, I take all three ratings with a grain of salt, but I do find an amalgam of the ratings quite persuasive. For instance, using this "measure", the best three defensive second basemen in the American League are Orlando Hudson, Mark Ellis and Adam Kennedy. They are relatively close in ability, but significantly better than the next group.

Stupid greymatter... I'll try again.
Can we all finally agree that we Bauxites have grossly overrated Vernon Wells' abilities as a defensive CF? We now have three advanced metrics which rate him as an average CF (at best). Can anyone think of any reason why all three of these measures (UZR, Win Shares, and the BP ratings) could be wrong?
Craig, I was wondering specifically what you thought, because I know you've been a big booster of Vernon's D in the past (hope you don't feel put on the spot). I know Mike Green has agreed with me about this in the past.

Can we all finally agree that we Bauxites have grossly overrated Vernon Wells' abilities as a defensive CF?

I've never personally offered an opinion on Vernon's D, but no, I don't necessarily agree with that suggestion. At least, not until I see how Vernon stacks up against center fielders through some stretch of history, rather than just the 2003 season. It's entirely possible that we're witnessing a great center fielder, there just happen to be several players playing an even better center field at this point in time, pushing Vernon down to 'average' in the context of his era.

UZR is the best of the bunch. I think it supercedes the others, so agreement is to be expected. Diamond Mind rates Vernon as VG range and FR arm. My personal bias would be to use a UZR-Diamond Mind consensus. Also interesting would be what Primer's Mike Emeigh has to say when/if he releases his analysis of 2003.

I don't think UZR fully accounts for how hard and flat balls are hit.

Does UZR normalize for league? I thought it simply compared how many balls a player should get to with the number he DOES get to - without any comparison with his contemporaries.
(I may very well be wrong, I don't pretend to be an expert on UZR - just wondering.)

BTW, Vernon scored better under UZR in 2003 than in 2002:

These are his numbers in centrefield only

2002 (137 games) -9 range, +2 arm, -7 total
2003 (141 games) +7 range, -3 arm, +4 total

These numbers confirm my observations: Vernon had to learn the parks and the hitter. He's got above-average range now (but not excellent range) and an indifferent arm.

Robert, I agree with your subjective impressions (I would have Vernon's range as a little above average). I do think that UZR, and the other methods, overstate the fluctuations. I do not believe that his range was as poor as it appeared in 2002 or as good as it appeared in 2003. I also doubt that his arm fluctuated much over the two years.

I actually found Woodward's numbers more interesting than Wells'. According to UZR, BP or winshares, he was entirely average defensively. I don't know the Diamond Mind rating. Subjectively, he has a reasonably quick first step, although he is not fast, and a fine shortstop's arm. His footwork is often sloppy, and he is definitely not agile. Do others see his defensive plusses and minuses in the same way?

Incidentally Robert, UZR does attempt to account for how hard balls are hit (through the use of a consensus of 3 stringers) but not how flat. It strikes me that the best way to judge this (at least for fly balls) is not by subjective rating, but by time from contact until the ball hits ground or leather. If you combine time from contact and zone, you have in my opinion a good evaluation of the difficulty of the catch (or shall we say "fielding opportunity").

PBP guys should bring a stop-watch a record "hang time". That, and location can then be fed into a computer and you could plot the trajectory and velocity of the hit. But really, hang time and distance from the location of the ball to where the fielder started from are the two things that determine batted ball difficulty.

Woody was AV, with a 127 error rating (more errors than average) in Diamond Mind.