Perhaps the bench coach will help Tosca manage the bullpen better (or perhaps not overmanage it).

Nobody in baseball thought that Pete Walker would make a worthwhile addition to their team? Everybody is perfectly content with their fifth starters and bullpens? How odd.

The players signed look like Ricciardi's usual bunch of "some upside, probably AAA-filler." Can Hall play centre? I noticed he stole 33 bases. Oddly, he also played a few games at second.

The Jays decided they didn't need a bench coach in 2003 (and didn't have one when Tosca took over in 2002, iirc). What changed? Interesting that Breeden has served as both a hitting coach and a bullpen catcher.

http://economics.about.com
In the news release "Blue Jays sign four players with invitations to Spring Training" the Jays mentioned that they'll have a total of 50 players in "Major League Spring Training". We know from the article that Walker, Chiaffredo, Hill, Campos, Hall, Matos, and Maurer will be seven of those players. So there's 43 left and I assume everyone on the 40 man roster will be there.

Who are the other three? I'm guessing they'll be Chen, Durocher, and Hermanson, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyone know?

Cheers,

Mike

http://economics.about.com
Can Hall play centre? I noticed he stole 33 bases. Oddly, he also played a few games at second.

I'm not sure. I must admit, I don't know anything about him, and I'm an Expo fan. His Harrisburg Senators bio lists him as an infielder. We can also learn that his favorite musical group is No Doubt.

Cheers,

Mike

The press release mentions the Jays will have 50 players at major league spring training. In addition to the players on the 40-man roster, the 11 following NRIs have been confirmed:

Juan Campos
Bruce Chen
Chi-Hung Cheng
Paul Chiaffredo
Jayson Durocher
Noah Hall
Chad Hermansen
Aaron Hill
Josue Matos
David Maurer
Pete Walker

That's 11 players, for a total of 51. What gives?!

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/minors/winterhotsheet.html
This is kinda unrelated but It's about Jays players, so why not...BA posted their Winterball prospect Hot Sheet...Rios is #1 and Quiroz is #5.

1. Alex Rios, of, Caguas (Blue Jays)
Eastern League MVP is also your Puerto Rican League MVP after batting .348-12-37 in 40 games, eclipsing the 11 home runs he hit in 127 games at New Haven. Now leads the playoffs with 11 RBIs as his prospect status continues to skyrocket.

I don't want to post too much, so just COMN for link...

I would think Russ Adams would get another invite, as he did last season. Also David Bush seems like a likely candidate. Harper and Hanson may go straight to minor league camp to make room as they are both much further off from the majors and lower profile.

http://economics.about.com
That's 11 players, for a total of 51. What gives?!

Chi-Hung Cheng was invited to minor-league spring training, not the major league one.

Other than that, your list is the same as mine. That's good.

Cheers,

Mike

Did Chi-Hung Cheng recieve an invite? Seems unusual to invite an 18 year old with no professional experience to major league camp.

Caught my mistake... Chi-Hung Cheng is invited to minor league spring training.

And in regard to these players, well, it seems like they have incredibly good peripheral stats, especially for guys signed as Minor League free agents. Along with Rios, Gross, Arnold, Quiroz, Mcgowan etc., they should help the Skychiefs go from worst to first. I don't think there's been this much talent on an AAA team in a while...

Ah... should've waited another nanosecond before posting and I would've gotten my answer from Mike M.

Nobody in baseball thought that Pete Walker would make a worthwhile addition to their team? Everybody is perfectly content with their fifth starters and bullpens? How odd.

Mmmm. It's perhaps a good time of year to sneak players through waivers as all/many of the 40man rosters are full. I haven't looked at his stats in quite a while and '03 probably looks pretty ugly, but I thought he was a pretty effective pitcher, being the best of the waiver claims by JP. If Haines doesn't flatter in the spring maybe Walker fills a spot for the multi-inning role that no one seems suited to fill as of right now.

http://economics.about.com
Ah... should've waited another nanosecond before posting and I would've gotten my answer from Mike M.

What can I say? My real work is boring me. :)

Cheers,

Mike

I would think Russ Adams would get another invite, as he did last season. Also David Bush seems like a likely candidate. Harper and Hanson may go straight to minor league camp to make room as they are both much further off from the majors and lower profile.

IIRC, several players from the minor league camp have seen action in regular spring training games. Last year, Pond, Chiaffredo, Gross, and most notably Reed Johnson saw some playing time at ST. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the likes of Adams, Bush, and Peterson in the spotlight, even though none of them are officially on the major league spring training roster.

I'm not surprised that Walker made it through waivers. He's not good enough to make a difference on a contender and at 34 doesn't have enough upside for most rebuilding teams to consider taking him.

I suspect Bob File and Justin Miller will suffer similar fates in the spring/early summer if they are unable to perform up to par.

Can Hall play centre? I noticed he stole 33 bases.

Hall played all three outfield positions for Oriente of the Venezuelan League this offseason (and at 217/324/300, didn't hit a lick) and played CF for the Saint Paul Saints in 2001 but Harrisburg used him primarily as a LF/RF.

These signings happened in December (and Pistol broke the story then) so I don't know why the Official Site is just reporting it now. Maybe that has something to do with 50 being used as the invite number. I wouldn't read anything into it.

http://somecalzoneforderek.blogspot.com/
HIJACK: It seems Terrmel Sledge's unexplained power surge in '03 has been explained.

What kind of precedent is it for members of the 40 man roster to get invited to Spring Training - I can't see the benefit to having D.J. Hanson, Jesse Harper or Francisco Rosario come to big-league camp. Similarly, is Justin Miller healthy or expected to be when camp breaks?

#136018 Posted 01/13/2004 09:18 PM by Jurgen:

HIJACK: It seems Terrmel Sledge's unexplained power surge in '03 has been explained.
------------------------
Ughhhh...and I'n sure there's many more like him...wouldn't shock me if Hinske and Carlos fell into that group as well --- but even IF (and that's a bif IF), I'm sure they'd be more careful about getting caught. That's a rough blow for the Expos though, who were relying on Sledge for their outfield.

What is stupid about these players getting caught is they knew testing was coming and they still did not stop using the substances. Had they gone clean for a reasonable amount of time before testing started they would have been fine. Steroids aren't habit forming. I would recommend a cat scan as well as the suspension to insure that these players possess a brain.

That's a rough blow for the Expos though, who were relying on Sledge for their outfield.
*******

There's no blow to the Expos. There are no reprecussions in terms of suspended playing time for a first drug offense. (He is, however, banned from representing the U.S. for the next two years.)

Mind you, that raises a question in my mind (albeit somewhat trivial considering how infrequently this happens): Does a positive test at the Olympics even count as an "official" MLB positive test?

Anyway, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Expos ignore Termel Sledge once again in 2004. The outfield looks to be Wilkerson, Everett and Rivera, with Endy Chavez (he of the eye-popping .648 OPS) to fill in at centre when Everett gets too banged up and/or Wilkerson looks out of his depth.

The other three look like long shots to fill out the club's big league roster and will most likely play for Syracuse next year, potentailly coming up in the case on injury. Matos seems the most promising, and if I recall correctly used to be a reasonable prospect before he got injured in 2001, or so.

I'm quite interested to see what effect Breeden will have on Tosca's in-game pitching tactics. I'm a bit suprised to see them hire a man whose speciality seems to be pitching, when I think almost every observer of the club would indicate that Tosca's biggest weakness is pitching staff management.

I think the bullpen usage was an issue last year...not so much in yanking starters at the wrong time but in overplaying platoons and using 3 pitchers in the same inning fairly often leaving the pen needlessly used up for the current game as well as the following game.

Hopefully with guys that have more experience and a better track record of success there will be the confidence to leave guys in to pitch complete innings or even (gasp!) multiple innings with more regularity. I'm not sure what Breeden's role will be in that respect but another experienced voice on the bench can only help.

Breeden's hiring is interesting because it doesn't seem like he has any connection to Carlos Tosca. My impression is that when selecting bench coaches, managers tend to choose old cronies or mentors: Don Zimmer for Joe Torre, Cookie Rojas for Buck Martinez. The bench coach is a confidante who thinks much the same way as the manager and will probably hang out with him on the road. Breeden, by contrast, seems to have been hand-picked by JP, and as pointed out above, his strengths lie in the one area (pitching staff management) that Tosca really struggles with. This isn't the same kind of direct message JP sent when he made Tosca Buck's third-base coach, but it's similar.

Regarding the steroids, we should try to keep in mind that steroid use is not illegal in baseball. MLB has had many opportunities to implement testing for performance-enhancing drugs, but for various reasons -- including fierce opposition from the union and a perhaps justified fear of the results -- it hasn't done so. It's difficult to criticize a young man for taking steroids when (a) they're not banned, (b) the players against whom he's competing are taking them, and (c) he's probably barely out of his teens. Let's be prepared to cut them a little slack.

Barely out of his teens? Terrmel is 26 years old. As for the legality of steroids, we should be asking whether or not they are illegal in Canada, not the U.S. Terrmel's last two ports of call have been Ottawa and Edmonton.

Jordan,

Sorry. I now see that you argued that steroids are not illegal in baseball, not the U.S.

Breeden's hiring is interesting because it doesn't seem like he has any connection to Carlos Tosca.

Tosca and Breeden were with the Royals and Marlins together. I don't think they ever served on the same coaching staff (except for when Breeden was a roving instructor), but it's probably safe to assume they knew each other reasonably well. To me, this looks like it was Tosca's choice.

Coincidentally, this is the second time Breeden has been the bench coach for a manager who never played professionally (John Boles being the other manager).

Breeden's hiring is interesting because it doesn't seem like he has any connection to Carlos Tosca.

Spencer Fordin's article implied that Tosca and Breeden must have had some relationship (the extent of which can only be guessed), while coaching at the same time in the Marlins and Royals organizations.

Barely out of his teens? Terrmel is 26 years old.

Cristian, I wasn't thinking about Termel specifically, so much as about when most young players first face the choice of taking steroids, which is their teen years. It's inconceivable to me that an American high school athlete these days has not had the opportunity to use steroids before graduating; if he's a football player, I highly doubt he would've made the team without them.

The impressionability of young, highly competitive athletes can't be overestimated. Between the cover of Men's Health, any number of bodybuilding magazines, and every freak-show member of the WWF, there are just so many steroid-enhanced images of male power and prestige out there -- it's as bad for the body image of young males as the scarecrows featured in fashion magazines are for young females. In the college or minor-league baseball context, add to that the organizational demand for power (on the mound and at the plate), the fact that you're scrapping to keep a scholarship or a job, and rich role models like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa ... really, the remarkable thing is that steroids aren't more widespread than they are.

None of this is meant to excuse steroid use, which should be banned in baseball on health grounds alone, let alone on the grounds of the integrity of the competition. But it's important to put these kinds of mistakes young players make into a context.

Ryan, thanks for the correction on Breeden.

Breeden was part of the purge of Marlins coaches and scouts, when John Henry left for Boston and Jeffrey Loria arrived from Montreal. Another good baseball mind in the Jays dugout can only be a positive thing; maybe Joe would have known the rule Bordick, Butterfield and Tosca forgot on that tag-up play in August.

Criticism of Tosca's bullpen management hasn't been entirely fair. Who knew that the Politte who dominated the AL in the second half of 2002 would be a no-show last year? Creek and Tam were failed experiments, Service and Acevedo patchwork attempts. At least Lopez and Kershner emerged as pleasant surprises. The skipper will look a lot smarter this year, with or without input from the bench coach, if Speier, Ligtenberg, Adams and de los Santos do their jobs well.

I hated Tosca's frequent pitching changes as much as anyone, but only because I hate having to sit through the damned things. They're boring and I can only take so much of Rob Faulds saying "Get the BOOM! Tough actin' Tinactin!"

That said, I don't think those regular trips to the mound had much of an impact on the team. Regardless of whether Tosca used one bad pitcher for two innings or split it up among three bad pitchers, he was still forced to use bad pitchers. It usually didn't matter who he went with since just about everyone on the staff was capable of blowing up at the drop of a hat.

The one major drawback with Tosca's approach last year is having a drained bullpen if the game goes into extra innings. Tosca definitely should have been planning ahead more than he was. As far as I can tell, though, that never became much of an issue in 2003.

Re. Steroids....
Someone I know has made the argument that atheletes want to experiment with steroids. His argument is that atheletes are driven, by themselves as much as those around them, to push their bodies to the limit of what it can and cannot do. The long hours of training, foresaking many of lifes pleasures, the dedication, single mindedness, the putting off of plans for a career, family etc., these are the price they pay for this drive. If steroids or dietary supplements prove a more exigent means to jump higher, run faster or hit a baseball farther, then that is what atheletes will do; all in an effort to be better.
Not being an athelete I don't know how much stock to put in this argument. But it is a viewpoint which is buried under the rather simplistic STEROIDS ARE BAD.

http://economics.about.com
Someone I know has made the argument that atheletes want to experiment with steroids. His argument is that atheletes are driven, by themselves as much as those around them, to push their bodies to the limit of what it can and cannot do. The long hours of training, foresaking many of lifes pleasures, the dedication, single mindedness, the putting off of plans for a career, family etc., these are the price they pay for this drive. If steroids or dietary supplements prove a more exigent means to jump higher, run faster or hit a baseball farther, then that is what atheletes will do; all in an effort to be better.

This isn't limited to athletics either. A lot of American universities are having problems with their top students abusing Ritalin in order to get bigger grades. In some graduate economics departments I've heard between 50-75% are using. I don't think the problem is that bad in Rochester, but at the same time, I've seen highschool kids selling on campus, and I knew who to get it from if I was interested.

Cheers,

Mike

glad to report that Chi-Hung Cheng spent a couple of hours in the pool at our condo with me and my six year old son and had great stuff with a small beach ball. Good Kid.

glad to report that Chi-Hung Cheng spent a couple of hours in the pool at our condo with me and my six year old son and had great stuff with a small beach ball. Good Kid.

glad to report that Chi-Hung Cheng spent a couple of hours in the pool at our condo with me and my six year old son and had great stuff with a small beach ball. Good Kid.