Anyway, is 81 worth, if not celebrating, at least recognizing?

Sure, in much the same way that white bread, Cheeze Whiz and network television needs to be celebrated/recognized.

It's quite possible that we'll be dry the rest of the way through the leagues, unless there's still some love for Romero out there.

I'd be surprised if Romero makes it - though he did have a few good starts, so it's possible he impressed some of the right people - but I'd expect Diaz to show up.

McDonald is great defensively but Olmedo is just as good at SS and should be the backup over Adams (1000 at 3B over 7 innings) .

There's an argument that Olmedo should start ahead of McDonald, no? His weak bat is still better than McDonald's. WIth all the caveats of visual observations clearly understood, I have subjectively liked what I've seen from Olmedo defensively.

Bad surprise in Adams & Thigpen (1B).

I think Thigpen's poor defense at 1B is moot. He's shown so little with the stick that a role as a platoon first baseman is highly unrealistic. He'll be an emergency first baseman, no more. His future, if he has one, is behind the plate.

CF - 13th between Sizemore and Young, Rios would be just ahead of Sizemore

Do we chalk up Wells' descent to the middle of the pack to his injury? Or is this the natural decline of a 28-year old with his particular body type? While not heavy, per se, he's not especially lithe. I don't see him as a center fielder come his early 30's, unless he can coast on his reputation much like Puckett and Griffey did.

I feel Olmedo is redundant at this point.  JMac is undercontract for two years - we don't need two defensive SS who can't hit worth a lick.  Olmedo looks a worse hitter than JMac at this point,  though he'd seem to project to a higher OBP based on his AAA performance.  Regardless, I see little point in having both of them unless we can't find a Zobrist, Arias, Callaspo (wife beater), Aybar, Escobar, Harman, or other youngster to groom.

As for Wells, the sooner he's moved to right field, the better.

Lind looks so goofy when he runs, that the assumption is he's a poor defender.  It's good to see that the stats don't bear that out.  A few of us opined earlier in the year that, though awkward, he looked effective.

As for Adams, his defence really sucks.  I think the Jays should offer Towers for Mackowiak.  SD had apparently showed interest in acquiring him at the deadline.  He'd be about $3m if he accepted their tender.  Mackowiak has a club option for $3m.  Mackowiak is what Adams should aim to be, but likely never will. 

I'm thinking better safe than sorry - trade for Mackowiak and maybe non-tender Russ (he's out of options - he'd have to be on our active roster next year or lost to waivers anyway).

I have a feeling Adams would sneak through waivers. Besides - who cares? He'll never be a major leaguer with the bat (262/329/401 in AAA in his age 27 season) and his defence is horrible. According to the numbers above he's worse even than Troy Glaus!

The focus should be on getting VW to about 1/3 of the value of his contract. If he can get back to being one of the top 10 ML CFs for the next couple of years (maybe even as productive with the bat as Juan Pierre or Mike Cameron!) the Jays have a shot at scoring enough runs to make the playoffs. After that, they are stuck paying him $100M to be a AAAA RF for another 5 years.

I'm not unhappy with JP. He's put together a 15 man deep QUALITY pitching staff, with more on the way. Even with only league average health the offense would be good enough for us to compete for a play-off spot.

In 08 we need to maxamize every offensive opportunity. I suggest Lind/Johnson in LF (Johnson has been FANTASTIC this year for a guy just having had back surgery! Let him get healthy over the winter and we've got the old Sparky back. FURTHERMORE, IM(H)O he deserves the chance to succeed), Wells in CF, Rios in RF, Glaus at 3rd, the Prime Minister at SS, Hill at 2nd, Overbay at 1st, Zaunnie/Thigpen at C, and Thomas/Stairs at DH.

I say we tell Stairs that unless there are injuries you get 300+ at bats at DH, we tell Thomas you get the 150 to 250 at bats against lefties. This gives us an amazing DH against both righties and lefties. If Stairs won't stay, so be it. If Thomas grumbles so be it also. (Thomas and Stairs will both be VERY important as pitch hitters when lefties replace righties and visa versa). Hill and Rios are both break-out candidates, Hill as Molitor and Rios as Barfield.

We NEED a quality, near ready for prime time, 3rd to back up Glaus. Even if we have to trade young pitching to get it. That is the ONLY defensive/offensive spot we MUST upgrade in. Luna can go get em reasonably well but has the bat speed of a guppy.

The bench will decide 08. Stairs and Thomas are both ancient, Glaus' body plays more like 43 than 34, JMac must be closely monitored. JP will need to really scour the league for the bench and make sure he has enough AAAA guys stashed at AAA  to see us through some ow-ies.

Three or four years ago I felt 07 at the earliest but more likely 08 and 09 were our "window." I still feel the same. 

Is it spring yet?

John,

I'm not real good with defensive stats but, if the argument is that our ggreat itching derives from our great defense, then it seems to me the pertinant question is this - given that McDonald's bat is clearly a drain on the offense, how does his defense compare to the more obvious alternatives that might be available this offseason?

Obviously, Nioka isn't going to be easily compared but for the rest - Ekstien, Uribe, Renteria, Wilson, Tejada, Lopez....how much do we lose defensively if we replace Mcdonald with one of these?

Tallet for Zobrist.....Towers for Mackowiak.....and a 50/50 platoon for Stairs and Thomas....Lind/Johnson platoon in LF....Doc/AJ/Dusty/Marcum/Janssen in the rotation....Gus and Jesse back in AAA waiting for the injuries....

That gives us:

• Lind LF
• Hill 2B
• Rios RF
• Glaus 3B
• Overbay 1B
• Thomas DH
• Wells CF
• Zaun C
• MacDonald SS

bench:

• Stairs
• Johnson
• Zobrist
• Thigpen
• Mackowiak

Pitching Staff:

1. Halladay
2. Burnett
3. McGowan
4. Marcum
5. Janssen
6. Ryan, Closer
7. Accardo, Closer
8. Downs, setup
9. League, setup
10. Frasor, 7th
11. Wolfe, long relief

(imagine that bench!)

We still own his rights - he can be tendered at about $3m, I believe.  He's Arb eligible for 2008 and 2009.  Unless we lost those rights when he was waived to the minors last year?

I don't buy that the Jays can't compete because of payroll. The team finished 13 games below .500 on the road, and if they win tommorow they'll be 19 games over .500 at the RC.  No other AL playoff team has a road record even close to being that bad.

Reed Johnson has clearly lost it and it's not coming back. Lind is coming on strong and even John-Ford Griffin has plenty of pop. It seemed like every time he started in August, the Jays lost, yet management was oblivious. What was he doing to get himself in shape? Exercising his digits with Tiger Woods 2007 or some such totally lame waste of time. Mentally, he's lost his sharpness, too. From getting hung out to dry on a hit and run that turns into a strike 'em out, throw 'em out double play, to losing track of the outs, there's a pattern there, and it's not pretty.

I'd say JP is most safely described as a below average AL GM.

HA! Ask some Baltimore and Tampa fans what they think of that argument. The Jays are a good team that could have won 90 games this year, have some legitimate star players, and might win 90 next year. He's made some great trades (acquiring Accardo, Wolfe, Overbay, and Glaus for a group that did not figure in the team's long-term plans), signed some outstanding players (Burnett, Ryan, Thomas), and created a buzz around the team. Attendance is up dramatically(from 23,647 to 28,845 per game) . Not all of his moves have worked out - but they never do. The farm system isn't great. Every GM (even Gord Ash! gasp!) has his bad moves. He has built a team to be competitive from 2007-09.  He deserves a chance to see it through. It is not time to tear it all down and rebuild, which is exactly what a new guy would do.

Usually, if you are on the same side of an argument as Richard Griffin, you should re-assess your position.

Reed Johnson has clearly lost it and it's not coming back.

He had back surgery this spring! Let's see what kind of shape he's in next March before writing him off. Adam Lind and his 681 OPS might not be the answer in LF. In fact, he might not be good enough to be a major league regular.

Vernon Wells is the single biggest reason this team hasn't performed better this year. I am blown away that he gets such a free pass.

Westcoast Dude, you say; "Reed Johnson has clearly lost it and it's not coming back."

I say, WAPOBS! With the first four letters of the acronym standing for: What a pile of...."

Sparky, you're the man!

Let me just say that I would be extremely surprised if Adam Lind didn't prove to be much more valuable next year than Reed Johnson. As great as it is to watch a real hustler give his maximum effort all the time, we need some lefthanded power from left field, and Lind still shows some promise. Johnson was a productive hitter for a few weeks once.

 Likewise, I would be surprised if Matt Stairs contributes as much next year as Mr. Hurt. I'd still love to have Matt around to PH for McDonald approximately once a game, and fill in at 1B or DH as needed.

 Lordy, it's going to be a long winter!

Reed is a good fourth outfielder and bench player - and has good platoon splits.  I think Lind will be our leftfielder next year though.  Also, we'll likely have Dave Smith, Aaron Mathews and Ryan Patterson at Syracuse next year who might all figure to be good fourth outfielder or platoon partner for Lind.They probably wouldn't be ready out of Spring Training though, might not figure as a cheap alternative to Reed for next year.

I have two questions for the experts:

1. Is Hill Arb-eligible as a Super Two this offseason?
2. If AJ opts out next year, would we be entitled to FA compensation?  (ie Could we still qualify him after he opts out?)

"Lets all hope for some good luck in '08 letting the team have the offense and pitching/defense all click at the same time for just one year."

As well as the Yankees and/or the Redsox having the luck the Jays had this year.

Your early 2008 ZIPS projections

Not the most upbeat forecast, though I guess that's the point of these things: cold, sober disinterest.
* Marcum still plagued by gopheritis
* no growth for Rios
* regression for Hill
* Wells' modest bounceback not enough to offset the age-related erosions of Glaus, Overbay, Thomas
* Wells' contract seemed to be predicated on his "optimistic (15%)" forecast being his true level
* Olmedo and MacDonald are offensive (in both senses of the word) clones
* no .500 sluggers (just where are the big scary bats?)

We need MyLegacy's zippity-doo-da-zippity-ay projection to temper the .500ness of Dan's ZIPS forecast. It's going to be a long, cold winter Roger. How about some of your eternal sunshine (from your spotless mind)?

Just for fun, I took the projections for the expected regulars (bumping up McDonald by 50%) and tweaked the bench guys plus added in a handful of at bats for pitchers in interleague to get the team outs total to the league average. Using the SB version of the basic runs created formula I came up with 759 projected runs (2007 actual 753).

I did the same for the pitchers, giving Chacin the missing starts (or assuming Chacin-like performance from whoever) and massaged the relief innings plus cut back Ryan to 39 IP as a hedge to get to 1,441 innings (2007 Al average), bumped up the earned runs to get to total runs and ended up with 696 runs allowed (2007 actual was 699). The pythag is 88 wins.

So ZIPS calls for a repeat of 2007 more or less.

The Chuckster postulates: "We need MyLegacy's zippity-doo-da-zippity-ay projection to temper the .500ness of Dan's ZIPS forecast. It's going to be a long, cold winter Roger. How about some of your eternal sunshine (from your spotless mind)?"

Mylegacy pontificates: Zips sees us having great pitching and defense. I concur. Zips sees our offense being offensive; how dare those rogues! The only person connected to the team that didn't have multiple surgeries was JP's nasal spray supplier. Give the 07 offensive personnel even reasonable health and a berth in the playoffs are assured!

I assure you.

PS: Chucky, as to my mind being "spotless" I would suggest either of my first two wives would say a better word might be "vacuous."

Why is everyone so impressed with ZIPS anyway? Those projections are wildly wrong far more than they are spot on, in my experience. I think I chould just eyeball a player's recent history and allow for known factors like age or injury and just spitball projections that were in the same neighborhood of accuracy and lord knows I'm nothing special at predictions.

I don't believe I've ever looked at a set of ZIPS that i didn't shake my head in amazement at some of the conclusions.

I think the ZIPS numbers seem reasonable though I share the previously mentioned pessimism over those for Hill and Rios.

It is not a given that young players will simply keep improving every year, without exception, as they move to age 27. Big gains are often followed with regressions, though sometimes minor, in what is more often an incremental two-steps forward-one-step-back improvement than a fluid continuous one.

That said, Hill's 320/390 forecast would represent regressions on both the OBP and SLG fronts, which I don't see happening. I am expecting a regression in power (though not to 390) but improvements on the OBP front, perhaps even enough for a net gain to his overall offense. Still, if Hill v.2007 doesn't improve a lick for the next several years, he will still be a very valuable property given his league average offense (for all hitters) at a demanding defensive position that he plays very well, and for very little money.

Rios' age 27 ZIPS projection has him repeating the 350/500 of his past two seasons. That lack of growth in his prime would be disappointing and an OPS closer to 900 than 850 is what I would anticipate.