How many 26 year old starters who get a 4 year guaranteed deal for ace-like money can you say are a bargain? Showing younger guys how to stay durable and healthy and improve their chances of making the big leagues is something few other players would think of doing on their own. Especially not after they won a Cy Young and shook hands on a deal that sets them up for life. Halladay was already my favourite Jay because of what he overcame and his performance and personality. But he's the gift that just keeps giving.

Thanks to A and Gerry for pointing out the articles in the Thursday update thread.

If you're reading the Star today don't miss the article by the woman fencer. It's hilarious. I know nothing about fencing but I'll be rooting for her at the Olympics. Also, the last paragrah in the Griffin article is the best analysis I've ever seen from him. I also noticed that Wells has apparently shed 20 pounds. I'm not sure I like that. Why mess with success?

Vernon's TWENTY POUNDS lighter? damn. I didn't think he was overweight last year...hope the weight loss didn't come at the expense of muscle mass.

Good luck trying to find fencing on TV, even during the Olympics. If you're lucky, you might be able to find it at 2am on one of the French channels. Amazing sport, but apparently people would rather watch curling...

"...but I saw McGowan the other day and we may have another Doc, possibly, in the next year or so."

Gilly is stoked.

What's wrong with curling?

McGowan and Doc - Hopefully McGowan continues to develop this year and can make the team next year out of spring training. Having two power arms in the rotation would help close the gap between the Jays and the Sox and Yanks. There is a good chance we will see McGowan in The Show this year but I don't think the Jays will rush him. Injuries and disappointments in the rotation could push his arrival but I'd like to see him with a bunch of AAA starts under his belt before being promoted. Now ould also be the time to attempt to draft another Halladay or Mcgowan - I know they don't just grow on trees but Scott Kazmir, taken right after Adams in 2002, would look good at Dunedin this year.

http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/tor/news/tor_news.jsp?ymd=20040221&content_id=639629&vkey=spt2004news&fext=.jsp
Spencer Fordin's story today on the Jays official site had a good quote from Miguel Batista on Roy Halladay (COMN):

"He's a maniac. He's a workaholic. I come here sometimes at 8 a.m., and yesterday might be the only time I beat him to work," Batista said. "He runs like a horse, comes in here for a workout and then goes out to run some more. He's more than a hard worker -- he's very committed to what he does, and it's an admirable thing to watch.

"A guy that just won the Cy Young, usually they relax, but not him. He's been down to business since I've been here."

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/teams/tor/photos
The Associated Press spring training photos for the Blue Jays are finally starting to trickle in. COMN for the Jays gallery.

Now ould also be the time to attempt to draft another Halladay or Mcgowan - I know they don't just grow on trees but Scott Kazmir, taken right after Adams in 2002, would look good at Dunedin this year.

Or Cole Hamels or Greg Miller. But it's the Jays' philosophy to make a safe first round pick and draft pitching in volume thereafter. We'll see how that turns out. Obviously first round calibre prep pitchers who do stay healthy are likely to be extremely valuable. But if they don't make it you're often left with nothing.

That said, eventhough the Jays have a pretty good idea what Adams will be they would not be able to trade him for Kazmir, Hamels, or Miller today and it's only a season and a half later. Sometimes it IS worth rolling the dice to risk getting nothing if you potentially trade a good player for a star player.

I do think that when the Jays feel they have good league depth at every level, maybe after two more drafts, they will start taking higher risks on higher end prospects.

Thanks for the link, Ryan.

Speaking of losing weight, Bruce Chen is looking slimmer.

Hinske's face and shoulders look a lot slimmer. Here's hoping it makes him more durable and quick on his feet. Fantasy sleeper.

I love the Bruce Chen with Miguel Batista photo
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/photo?slug=flsm10102211911.blue_jays_spring_flsm101&prov=ap

"This....is a ball"
"Ohhhhhhhh"

If you're going to second guess the Russ Adams pick a couple years ago, the player to question the Jays not taking is Joe Blanton.

Vernon's TWENTY POUNDS lighter? damn. I didn't think he was overweight last year...hope the weight loss didn't come at the expense of muscle mass.

Without getting into technical garbage that I don't even really understand, but length of the muscle is more important for strength then girth. So while looking slimmer, by doing active stretching (like Yoga) as opposed to static, Vernon might actually be stronger this year. Or maybe not, and I could be talking out my @ss. If you by a Chapters, pick up a book called Real Men do Yoga, the first few chapters are all about the length of muscles, etc. Having a Yoga instructer for a girlfriend, you learn to appreciate flexibility. ;)

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/photo?slug=flsm10202211912.blue_jays_spring_flsm102&prov=ap
Tassle, if you post an URL in the Homepage field when you comment, it will be linked. Then you can say COMN and people will click on your name. But thanks for the picture.

As far as anyone in camp knows, it's the first time a Jays pitcher has taken rookies under his tutelage in such a manner. And while pro sports is full of shared training information, it's also believed no other pitcher in the major leagues shares his training secrets with fresh-faced rookies.

How lucky are Harper and McGowan that Doc is showing them how it's done so they might not have to learn the hard way? This will filter back down through the minor-league camp and the whole organization. Halladay is a class act, a terrific role model for these talented kids. If you could measure intangibles, this would be off the scale.

Wow, people who know what fencing is! This site continues to surprise. I was a fencer for about 9 years, I guess I'm retired now if I can be retired from something at age 20. Not to toot my own horn but I was top 20 in the US at one time and a 9 time Junior Olympian. About fencing on tv? never going to happen. I wish there could be a way to see it but they only show it on tape delay around three in the morning if at all. Did you happen to know the person's name who the article was about? I'd be very interested in reading it, if you could email it to me that'd be great (COMN for email). Thanks

Used to fence in the early seventies in Toronto with John Andru (the Canadian Champion Sabreur,) and Miu Betlem, women's foil. Broke my little station wagon hauling metal-mesh pistes around from gym to gym. If "sitting down" in fencing posture isn't the most leg-burning experience possible, I'll duckwalk out to dead centre and back at Comerica Park.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1077318610826&call_pageid=968867503640&col=970081593064
I'd be very interested in reading it, if you could email it to me that'd be great

COMN

Weight is extremely important. For hinske, the extra weight he was (or maybe is still) carrying can cause injuries to his knees, and not only deteriorate his play. ditto for wells. ditto for every ball player. Remember mondesi in 2000, or david wells last year.

It's great that the organization itself is setting the tone by getting everyone involved. JP and co. identified conditioning as a priority, and they are getting the players sold on this. Even though people will disagree, a good clubhouse, with a great attitude, is the best thing the new administration created.

For hinske, the extra weight he was (or maybe is still) carrying can cause injuries to his knees, and not only deteriorate his play. ditto for wells. ditto for every ball player.

While losing some weight does indeed seem like a good thing, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this had something to do with the whole steroid issue. I think this probably applies more to Hinske than anyone else, but I'm a little suspicious that what seems like more players than usual, have lost significant amounts of weight. I'd be curious to know how much weight Bonds lost? Giambi? Delgado?...

While losing some weight does indeed seem like a good thing, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this had something to do with the whole steroid issue.

Well that's a pretty major leap. Hinske is back to the weight he was in 2002 when he won the ROY. He put on the weight while he was injured, which happens to a lot of atheletes when they get hurt, especially NFL players. THey continue to consume the same calories, but don't expend as much.

I read a really good article in Men's Journal last summer, the amount of work that Barry does in the off season is phenominal, I would seriously doubt he was on roids.

On a more general topic, there was a bulk up phase that baseball went thru about 10 years ago, but muscle didn't necessarily correlate with success. Ruben Seirra was one of those players, basically he got too big to beable to get around fast enough. A long, lean body (a la Ted Williams) probably correlates to a better bat speed.

Just a follow up, looks like Men's Journal has pulled the article, and the workout of their site. Unfortunate, it's the May 2003 issue if you have access to back issues. A funny thing abut the workout he does, is the magazine warns you not to do it alone because you might break your wrist. That's what swinging a 25 pound bat will get you I guess...

One thing you have to remember with steroids, they don't cause you to magically grow muscle. What they do is speed up the recovery process between workouts. So a steroid using athlete can work out more often, requiring less down time which allows them to build muscle mass faster. Bonds workout habits may very well fall into the pattern of a steroid user. It will be interesting to see what his body mass looks like this spring. I don't know how many of you remember what Ben Johnson looked like when he ran 9.79 versus what he looked like when he was allowed back into competition. The difference was quite startling.

Blanton over Kazmir in the Adams 2002 pick - I'll stick with the power lefty, simply because he is a power lefty.

For all those curious about the Diet Wells programme, Mark Zwolinski will provide you with a good read. Vernon forked over $6,000 to have a specialized diet constructed for him based on analysis of his blood. I don't understand the scientific mumbo jumbo that allows them to determine these things but if you do have the Wells family over for dinner you'll have to avoid poultry...I'm not entirely sure of the relevance to baseball but I was surprised, given V-Dub's personality, when he talked openly about the abstention required from alcohol and sex for his diet to work (we also find out those weren't the strictest orders given by a doctor).

...That article also includes a fun picture of Woody, O-Dawg and Wells all contending for a flyball -- Hudson's got one heckuva verticle leap.

Griffen *almost* wrote an article that didn't in any way, shape or form berated the Blue Jays (mostly because it was about the Yankees). Then he adds this...

Make no mistake, when A-Rod refers to the passion of "east coast baseball," there are only two teams to which he is referring. It'll be interesting.

Why?!?

I've rather enjoyed Mark Zwolinski the last couple days. Before the beginning of Spring Training I wasn't familiar with his name but at this rate I'd love to see him take a few more column inches from some (one) of his co-workers.

I think even if you stuck with college players in '02, the White Sox did quite nicely to get Jeremy Reed in the second round. Regardless, the White Sox scouts saw something in Reed that other teams didn't. Not enough to take him in the first round but enough to take him after the Jays and the A's (with their mass of high picks) were done picking.

And that may stem from the fact that Reed's college numbers were good but not tremendously so. Or that he played outfield instead of middle infield, and the "numbers" say college middle infielders are historically the most successful pick. I think the biggest reason the Jays took Adams and not someone else in the first round though was that they felt the A's with their seven or whatever picks would not let him slip to the second round. Which is almost undoubtedly true.

It's very easy to second guess after the fact of course, but I'm not really criticising the Jays for that particular year. The A's and the Jays probably had Reed on their radar but just didn't rank him high enough, I don't know. But neither team got him. And these are organizations that can't afford to lose star calibre talent if their scouting staffs are focused almost exclusively on college.

And that may not necessarily mean rigidly following historical data which happens to favour college middle infielders. What if data from 50 drafts is as meaningless as batting average from 50 at bats? I mean we're talking about a success rate of less than 20% at best and how are we to know that it isn't as meaningless as a player batting .400 in Tuesday games? What if circumstances and development in knowledge and sophistication at the amateur level in even the last 10 to 20 years has made it so the data from prior years doesn't mean as much? And the Jays more than anyone should know that college data is far from gospel as they showed when they took Kurt Isenberg in '03. Jeremy Reed's pure hitting ability combined with plate discipline is obviously off the charts which wouldn't be reflected in his average college K/BB stats. And this is a centerfielder with speed. This is not a player who should have fell past college focused teams.

To clarify my rambling points, my concerns about the '02 draft was not actually being focused on college I guess, but choosing to go the 'safe' route with your highest draft pick as opposed to looking for a player most likely to be a star. Trusting historical data rather than concentrating on the pool of talent for this particular year in a vacuum.

I like Russ Adams a great deal. But his trade value compared to Kazmir, Hamel, Miller, and even college guys like Blanton and Reed just isn't as high. Maybe that's because his package as a player is underappreciated and maybe he's not done improving offensively as a pro. I guess if you're 100% sure that he will play in the big leagues for you then it doesn't matter what his trade value is. But you can't dismiss the double advantage those other players offer in both the potential to be stars and significantly higher value on the trade market.

Blanton over Kazmir in the Adams 2002 pick - I'll stick with the power lefty, simply because he is a power lefty.

My point was that there was no chance the Jays were going to take a HS lefty, especially when signability was an issue at the time with Kazmir.

I agree that the Jays weren't going to take Kazmir but my point is that to be successful long-term they are going to have to start drafting the best player available and that includes prep players. Hindsight is always 20-20 but Russ Adams was not the best player available.

Dean, you've already made your tiresome point. Over, and over, and over again. Do you have another one?

Especially since there won't be any conclusive evidence for a few more years about who drafted well (and who didn't) in 2002 and 2003, I'm hoping you'll give it a rest until then.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/Sports/2004/02/22/356543.html
The first big-time comparison of the spring was tossed out yesterday. Asked about top shortstop prospect Aaron Hill, a former No. 1 pick, Ricciardi said: "He might be a future Jeff Kent or a Craig Biggio." --Bob Elliott
COMN

Wow. Reading further along in that piece - I didn't realize FLop was compared to Tejada last year out of camp or, that JP predicted a 30 HR season for him? That sounds out of character for JP - unless of course he was pumping up his trade value.

This is such a great time of year. Plenty of newspaper articles, plenty of preseason hype, plenty of speculation, plenty of hope. I'm looking forward to seeing what Spencer has to say tomorrow. Good job on that one coach.

I didn't realize FLop was compared to Tejada last year out of camp or, that JP predicted a 30 HR season for him?

Wasn't FLop traded before spring training last year.

Coach. The Jays have the 19th pick in the draft I think. They should pick a HOFer similar to Roger Clemens with it. He was picked 19th overall by the Red Sox out of the University of Texas in 1983. That way they can have a star pitcher in the rotation by 2005. :-)

As the sarcastic comments of MatO's post imply, it's obviously very easy to second guess picks after the fact. Why didn't the Jays take C.C. Sabathia or even Mark Prior ahead of Felipe Lopez in 1998? Why didn't the Jays go with Adam Wainright or even wait to take Dustin Mcgowan in the supplementary round instead of going with Miguel Negron in 2000? It is impossible to predict future success for anybody and that's why the draft is such an inexact science. Just a comment though on Kazmir --- the reason so many teams passed on him was not because of his talent, it was because of the ridiculous amounts of money his agent Scott Boras demanded from whoever signed him compunded with the fact that high school pitchers who throw 95 tend to get injured. Hence, the Jays certainly wouldn't have had the money to sign him regardless of what they thought of his abilities. And as Coach pointed out, only time will tell whether his talent actually does produce MLB success and whether he can actually stave of injury.

I didn't realize FLop was compared to Tejada last year out of camp

He certainly wasn't. You're off by more than a year, Eddie. J.P. made that remark at the winter meetings in 2001, less than a month after he took the Toronto job and before he'd ever seen Lopez in any camp.

The kid arrived at 21, looking sensational. Playing out of position at third, he had no trouble adjusting to big-league pitching. He slugged over .500 from the right side in that first callup, and he has tremendous bat speed, so Tejada didn't seem like such an outrageous comparison at the time. I made it myself the next spring in a fantasy column. As it turns out, perhaps that early success was Felipe's ultimate downfall, as he thought it was always going to be easy in the Show.

Once Ricciardi and the coaching staff got a better look at his work habits and non-existent self-discipline, the bloom was quickly off the rose. Being farmed out to Syracuse on 2002 was supposed to be a wakeup call, but it didn't seem to help Lopez, who may soon run out of chances to grow up and make the most of his talent.

Anyway, the Kent and Biggio comparisons aren't supposed to be guarantees or predictions, they are simply a flattering way to describe Hill's game. I hope Aaron starts -- at short -- in the first televised spring training game, so we can all get a better look.

Right. Funny how time flys...

http://www.canoe.ca/Slam020330/mlb_tor4-sun.html
Personally, I don't ever remember any print media that had Ricciardi "predicting" Lopez to hit thirty homers eventually. I do remember this from a Ganter piece:

"I didn't draft them, I didn't sign them, I didn't develop them, but I have to make a decision on them and one of the decisions was to let Lopez play every day," Ricciardi said.

Ricciardi compares the Hinske and Lopez tandem to what the A's did a few seasons back with Eric Chavez and Miguel Tejada

"Are (Hinske and Lopez) going to be those guys eventually? I compare them from a standpoint of inexperience, not from what I think future results are going to be," Ricciardi said.

March 30/'02

What's Elliott going after here anyway? Yawn.

To a certain extent, there's some spinning going on by Ricciardi when talking about how good a player will be in the future. He's not going to come out and say "Player X is a low-life, good-for-nothing clod and I'll do everything I can to rid myself of his presence" even if he actually felt that way (and I'm not saying he did with Lopez). I remember Ricciardi saying at the same winter meetings that Raul Mondesi was a great player.

Even though Ricciardi has a tendency to be brutally honest in the media, I can't recall him being anything other than quite positive about the abilities of players who may have some trade value. He's like just about every other baseball person in that regard (Larry Bowa excluded). Even if Ricciardi did predict 30 home runs from Lopez, that doesn't necessarily mean he thought the prediction was realistic. Fans and members of the media alike should know enough to take all predictions and comparisons about players with a grain of salt.

One thing you have to remember with steroids, they don't cause you to magically grow muscle. What they do is speed up the recovery process between workouts. So a steroid using athlete can work out more often, requiring less down time which allows them to build muscle mass faster. Bonds workout habits may very well fall into the pattern of a steroid user. It will be interesting to see what his body mass looks like this spring. I don't know how many of you remember what Ben Johnson looked like when he ran 9.79 versus what he looked like when he was allowed back into competition. The difference was quite startling.

Iain, but wasn't Ben on the juice when he came back? Hence his getting the lifetime ban? Or have I got this all backwards.

All I know is that Hinske (who's weight loss partially started this) is back to his playing weight from 2002, and as even he says, last year he was hardly a candidate for a steriod user.

As for Wells, I got my first good look at him yesterday on the Score, he looks buff as all hell. Looks like his body fat is way, way down. Definately "lean and mean" as my girlfriend would call it. I wouldn't doubt if his bat speed was faster this year than last year. Now only if he could learn to take a few more pitches...

I wouldn't doubt if his bat speed was faster this year than last year.

Should read "I wouldn't doubt it if his bat speed was faster this year than last year". Which doesn't read that well, how about I wouldn't be surprised if it was faster.

Coach, my point is no more tiresome than reading about Oakland's and JP's new way of discovering talent and people gushing over Vito and Vermilyea. Baseball at the major league level requires athletes with baseball skill. Shortseason triple crown winners who were old for their league don't impress me, remember Jeremy Johnson @ Medicine Hat a couple of years ago? Yeah lets draft a Hall of Famer with the 19th pick, college or prep.

Vernon Wells' comments in the Star were very interesting. Apparently JP had a frank discussion with Hinske and Wells in the fall about weight loss, and the results we now see. It sounds like this was very well handled.

I'll be watching the defensive numbers of both this year to see if good results came from this effort.

Even though Ricciardi has a tendency to be brutally honest in the media, I can't recall him being anything other than quite positive about the abilities of players who may have some trade value.

Or even if they don't. I remember the Gonzalez trade - people were asking Ricciardi who the PTBNL was going to be, and he said, "It's someone you're going to like." Well, maybe we do like Deschaine, but now that he's been released, it's kind of academic.

I don't mind him hyping players. It's part of his job.

Hmm. Maybe I need to look and see if I have an extra $6K lying around and join Vernon's diet plan. :)

Coach, my point is no more tiresome than reading about Oakland's and JP's new way of discovering talent and people gushing over Vito and Vermilyea. Baseball at the major league level requires athletes with baseball skill. Shortseason triple crown winners who were old for their league don't impress me, remember Jeremy Johnson @ Medicine Hat a couple of years ago? Yeah lets draft a Hall of Famer with the 19th pick, college or prep.

You don't get it, do you?

Saying something over and over again doesn't make it so. I don't care who impresses you or doesn't impress you. In fact, NOBODY gives a crap who impresses you. Who impresses *you* doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Once you've given your opinion, you are expected to back up what you say with argumentation, with data, with something other than repetition.

I will say one thing about your point. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR PERFORMANCE. None. Bad A-ball players don't become MLB All-Stars, not without stratospheric improvement in their performance. It does happen. It's NEVER likely to happen. A high level or performance is a prerequisite for becoming a good player later on. Nobody is saying Chiaravalloti is going to be a star. He has shown, though, that he's a good prospect - something that FOXsports.com, for one, agrees with - he was #76 in their Top 100 Prospects, pretty good for a guy nine months removed from being picked 440th overall.

As for Kazmir versus Adams, you know damn well that was a signability issue. Kazmir got, as I recall, about twice what Adams got. Until YOU are paying out the extra million dollars, your criticism doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Further to Craig's point: It was a surprise that Kazmir signed for as little as he did. Pre-draft speculation was that he would hold out for a lot more, which decreased his value as a potential draft choice. So it's not even fair to compare Kazmir and Adams on the basis of signing bonuses, because that underestimates the expected difference in cost at the time of drafting.

For people following the steroids thing, did anyone else catch the documents unearthed by The Smoking Gun?

wow... so there's some hard evidence involving gary sheffield... these are the guys who got the doc involving the michael jackson incident too I believe...

What evidence? The "evidence" is a package receipt from Sheff. Everybody knows Sheff was a BALCO client, and he has said as much publicly, including that he has used custom-designed supplements from BALCO.

Right now, that's all we know. More stuff is going to come out, but right now this "evidence" tells us a lot less than Sheff himself has told us.

So VW and Towers are on the record saying they want juicing affenders to be more heavily punished and also have their identities revealed... I was watching Jim Hodge and he said that they did that with this cyclist in europe and he eventually killed himself b/c of the infamy that such exposure generated....

Test

Craig B - whoever you are nice run at me. What nerve of yours did I step on. Should all of your posts be written in stone because you are Craig B? I've been a Jay fan long enough to remember who Alvin Woods is - there was just a article about him on the Jays site. I've also been a Baseball America reader and subscriber since the early 80's. Furthermore I work at a public accounting firm so I have seen the odd ratio and statistic. Finally I am a passionate fan, my seven year old , much to my wife's chagrin, can name the Jays order and questions why guys aren't in their slots on various nights. I have watched the Jays draft almost nothing but highschool guys, 1993, and except for Carpenter have nothing to show for it, so I don't think the Jays should stick with only prep drafts. Because I have been an avid BA reader I have watched Vitos and Vermilyeas almost every year explode upon the scene in a short-season league and be gone in two or three years. I honestly hope they make the Jays, because I am a fan, but history is against them. Yes you can name exceptions, but by and large 15th round 1st basemen don't. So Craig B and MattO, take your runs at me but don't assume you two are the only ones who know anything about baseball, the draft, and player development.

http://economics.about.com
So Craig B and MattO, take your runs at me but don't assume you two are the only ones who know anything about baseball, the draft, and player development.

Wow. You really are clueless.

All (or possibly almost all) of us think you know your stuff. That's not the issue.

We've all heard your point. About a million times. Some of us agree, some of us don't. Do you have another one?

I've been a Jay fan long enough to remember who Alvin Woods is - there was just a article about him on the Jays site.

But not long enough to remember that his name is Alvis Woods. Not Alvin.

Low blow, I know. :)

Dean, I didn't set myself up as some kind of authority on the draft or player development. God knows, I'm not. I was simply addressing your point. You know, the one you are hammering over and over again like a robot gone berserk?

I honestly hope they make the Jays, because I am a fan, but history is against them.

Which is exactly the point I was making above. They aer not *likely* to become good MLB players. They do have a shot.

Dean. You and I had our little debate over on another thread. Anyone could have joined in then. I got bored with it and there was no other interest in the topic and the thread died. You then entered this thread and started all over again which I think annoyed some people. Anyways, I gather from your last post that you're finally coming over to my side of the argument.:-) But since you're in public accounting you know the CA is always right.;-)

Mike Moffat - I thought this was to discuss and express our opinions - at no time did I get personal - clueless? Nice.

Saw an old Baseball America article today that jogged my memory about this thread. It's from just after the 2002 draft... the speculation by Jim Callis is that it would take $3.7 million to sign Scott Kazmir. No wonder everybody passed.

Here's the Google cache of the article.