2005 WARP3

Rios:        3.5 (481 AB)
Mench:       4.8 (557 AB)
Cat:         4.9 (419 AB)
Encarnacion: 3.7 (506 AB)

Wagner would be a great addition in my mind. I think it would be a great sign for the Jays to be able to lure someone at that stage of their career. Billy is obviously looking for a chance to win, having never made it past the NLDS. Does anyone remember, was Houston interested in resigning him when he left or did they just decide they where gonna hand it over to Dotel and let Wagner go. Move worked out pretty good for Houston and Brad Lidge, this years postseason problems aside.

I suspect it's because of the old turf.

And on a completely unrelated topic, is Roger Clemens the first modern pitcher to lose the Cy Young award twice when he won the ERA title with an average under 2?

You do realize that's it's ERA, and not FIP, that relies on a fielding metric, right?

Yeah, I know what you mean. I see the same argument but I think that the total lack of interest in Delgado when he was going-the ridiculous offer made by Godfrey of $12MM/2 or whatever it was kind of created the impression that that's what the Jays valued him at. If they'd just said "We can't afford you" that's one thing, but JP's reaction to the whole thing seemed to give off a "Not only can we not afford you, but we don't want you anyway." Others have mentioned Delgado's perceived lack of leadership as the reason; whatever it was, to me at least the team gave that impression.

Just for the sake of being clear about my position from last winter, I thought it was the right move at the time and still think that it was (assuming that they had no inklings about the budget; I'd have thought that they could have negotiated a FLA style backloaded contract with him just as easily as the Marlins along with something limiting his 10 and 5 rights if they knew of the possibility of a budget increase and wanted to protect themselves against it not coming about). JP and the current crew doesn't seem to do goodbye's very well though and I think that would make a re-acquisition more awkward than it has to be.

I am a big fan of Javier as well, but he has had a rough couple of years in '04 and '05.

But his generic stats this year seemed a bit misleading:

• WHIP was approx. 1.25
• He struck out 192 in 215 2/3 innings
• He gave up 223 hits in total
• But his ERA was 4.42

I figure somebody on the site with a lot of stats expertise will clarify this mystery for the people reading at home...

It seems like either Vazquez had poor fielding support, or perhaps he is a huge hit-or-miss guy: one day he takes a team down, some days he takes his own team down.

I think if he is available on the trade market -- and especially if he is being discounted by the Yankees -- then we should try for him, depending on what we have to give up to get him.

I want to see improvement. I'm all for spending the surplus if we can guarantee ourselves improvement. Will Burnett guarantee improvement? I don't know. However, trading for Delgado and paying him 16 million or signing Giles at 12 million will guarantee you improvement, or if they don't, do the closest job that any available player will do.

But you also have to look at using money efficiently. Spending 20 million a year on Burnett will stop you from signing someone who can guarantee more improvement like Giles. In the end, we don't have unlimited funds, so we need to think about what players will be available for sale in the future and predict how much should be allocated for that time.

If we had 30 million dollars and Burnett was the only free agent available and every MLB player wouldn't be a free agent for the next 4 more years, I would throw the whole 30 million at AJ and hope he signed here.

I figure somebody on the site with a lot of stats expertise will clarify this mystery for the people reading at home...

Here's another clue for you all. The walrus was Paul, and the BOB in Phoenix is one of the better home run parks in the majors - not Arlington, US Cellular, or Cincinnati, but not far behind...

I'd like to see the Jays take two kicks at the can. One major injury in 2007, and the club would have nothing at all to show for all those years of rebuilding.

It's not at all worthless.

Every dollar spent on A.J. Burnett is a dollar not spent on hitting. Once you've spent that much money on a low end #2 starter, you start resorting to ideas like trading for Kevin Mench because you can't afford a really good hitter.

This team has a ton of pitching and no hitting. They have a minor league system full of pitching prospects and not a single hitting prospect of note. Not one!

The Jays draft theory (as explained by the media) was that they should load up on arms, because good hitters were easier to acquire than good pitching. So what have the Jays tried to do the last two years on the free agent market? Acquire pitching.

Now the plan appears to be to acquire A.J.Burnett to replace Dave Bush in the rotation, a move that might get you what.. An extra win? Two at most? Meanwhile they don't have a single top-tier bat on the team and some pretty significant holes, such as right field.

This plan makes no sense, unless you're pretty confident that one day A.J. Burnett's "stuff" is going to trangsmogrify him into Roger Clemens. And soon. Very soon.

Abreu is signed for the next 2 years at 13 million in 2006 and 15 million in 2007. It seems like a reasonable amount of money for one of the top 10 or 15 hitters in baseball, and you're only commited for 2 years in case of injury or regression, which is much, much less than you're going to find on the free agent market. If that's an exorbitant amount of money for this team with all this money to spend, I'm not sure I'm very optimistic we're going to get anyone of any real value this offseason.

I would assume that everybody who doesn't like someone because they're "expensive" is implying that the money could be spent better somewhere else. I haven't seen a single person on the Box who has suggested that the Jays not spend their entire budget. Not one.

I agree dumping Batista is silly. I would like to hear what people think the salary savings should be saved on. I have a feeling the answer will either be something like "Jim Thome" or "Adam Dunn, after we trade two minor league non-prospects to get him".

That's one interpretation. I see acquiring a solid starting pitcher as a step towards trading Chacin and/or Towers for hitting. And if you check out that Ricciardi interview with Rosenthal, JP does not sound like a man inclined to give Burnett a stupid contract.

As always, I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt until they actually go ahead and do something like sign Burnett for 4 years $50M or trade Bush for a bag of balls (or Kevin Mench). The last two moves they made that I thought were bad at the time were Schoeneweis and Hillenbrand, so I'm still pretty confident the Jay front office is smarter than me.

I think Abreu is a little pricey at an average of $14 MIL per season, but if the Phils could slice some of that off...then I think it might not be so bad an opportunity.

Or, if we shipped someone there as a salary dump, that could work too.