This is a very interesting analysis -- thanks, Alex.   It certainly contradicts the claim that the Jays bullpen "stinks" (to quote one Bauxite who keeps insisting on it).

On the other hand, it's a reminder that the Jays do need to improve their pitching (both starters and relievers) if they want any chance of contending this year.   Right now, the Jays rotation is:  Marcum, Romero, Cecil, and pray for rain.  (Well, no point praying for rain at home, with the roof, but you get what I mean.)

Reinforcements are on the way -- Litsch will be useful, and maybe Zep too, and maybe even Mills or Drabek soon -- but I worry that the Jays will stubbornly keep Morrow in the rotation for the whole season, no matter how badly he performs.  Sure, we can all agree that Morrow has a great arm, and great potential, and I'd love to see him put it together -- but potential doesn't always translate to the majors, and one team has already given up on Morrow after endless frustration.  Some people are comparing Morrow to AJ Burnett, but Morrow has worse control than Burnett ever had.  In his last start, with a 3-0 lead, he walked TWO batters to lead off the inning.  If you can't throw strikes when you're leading 3-0, when will you throw strikes?

As for the bullpen, there's some good pitchers there, and some depth, but nobody who seems logical for the closer's job, and nobody who seems even CLOSE to claiming the closer's job for the 2011 season after the likely departure of Downs, Frasor and/or Gregg.  I can see why Ricciardi went out and signed BJ Ryan -- the Jays just seem incapable of developing an ace closer internally.  If this team had a closer of the calibre of the BJ Ryan of a few years ago, it would make a massive difference for the team's future.  Sure, you can talk about the potential talent of a Roenicke, or a Stewart, or even Rommie Lewis if you want -- but none of them has established anything yet.  It's pretty speculative to predict that anyone in the current system could be a real ace-calibre stopper in 2011.

"It certainly contradicts the claim that the Jays bullpen "stinks""

 

It does? The bullpen has a negative WPA. That is the clear weakness of the team.

Speaking of Morrow, after a somewhat slow start Johermyn Chavez is starting to heat up in the California League.

I find that the California League is such a launching pad that it's very difficult to evaluate prospects who play there.  Chavez is hitting .300+ and there are like 5 guys ahead of him on his team.  I guess that's what you'd expect when playing for High Desert.  Superficially, D'Arnaud has similar numbers to Chavez but he's having a far better season just based on context.

The bullpen has a negative WPA. That is the clear weakness of the team.

Which doesn't mean it stinks. By AL standards, it's a thoroughly average bullpen. Toronto relievers are 8-8, 3.95 with 15 saves - the league average is 7-8, 3.94 with 11 saves. Whereas the rotation has an ERA of 4.57 against a league average is 4.30, thanks in part to all those bases on balls issued by the starters (hello, Mr Morrow!)...

The big key for growth is clear weaknesses and then fixing them. If you have a team of 25 league average or just below guys then it is hard to improve. If you have 5 greats and 3 horrids though it is easy. If you are Baltimore nothing is easy :)

Right now, on offense, the 'horrids' are a challenge as only 3 guys are sub 110 for OPS+ among regulars and 2 of them are Lind & Hill. Overbay is the 3rd and he needs to be replaced soon and I suspect he will be. Encarnacion is at 170 btw and Molina is higher than Lind with McDonald close behind - who'd have thunk?

Eveland's 63 ERA+ being removed is a very good thing, now if we could just get Morrow's 61 off the books...

In the pen Gregg/Camp/Downs/Lewis have been solid if unspectacular. Frasor & Janssen have been endurable. Roenicke could be tossed with no pain and will be when Tallet returns. Purcey we have no idea on yet.

So the easy moves are to replace Eveland (done) and Morrow (not done). Morrow might come back to the 100+ ERA+ we all thought he could provide (based on raw talent). The easy choice has been made, lets hope the replacement is solid.

Next easy choice? Overbay being released and Brett Wallace coming up seems obvious, but after that it is hard to say. Various bench and 6/7th relievers are replaceable but won't make a big difference.

Thus Morrow being sent down once we have 2 starters ready, and Overbay being let go for Wallace both seem easy choices. The lineup will suffer soon though as Buck, Gonzalez, Bautista, Lewis are all unlikely to stay near their current levels. Lind & Hill recovering won't be enough to compensate for 4 guys dropping. We need Overbay either to hit again or be replaced, while Morrow learns to throw strikes and Eveland's replacement pitches well.

Maybe someone could help me out. I see the Vegas odds on tv, and I'm totally clueless on how they work. What does the -190 stand for?

I believe -190 for the Jays means they are 1.9-1 favorites to win the game.  To win $1, you'd have to bet $1.90.

The most amazing WPA stat for me is that Jason Heyward leads all of baseball, with a comfortable lead over the likes of Morneau, Miggy, and Youkilis.

All you Gustavo Chacin fans out there can rest assured that Chacin is back in the big leagues where he belongs as he got recalled again today.
The bullpen is bad and and the Jays have a guy with closer experience in the rotation who is not faring well in that role, i wonder if there is any temptation to move Morrow into the bullpen, lets hope not although it would probably help the rotation and the bullpen in the short term.

Brandon Morrow's struggles have extended beyond walks.  His FIP is actually a respectable 3.97, but it understates his troubles.  The opposition BABIP of .387 is fuelled by a high 24.2% line-drive rate and a low 4.2 IF/FB rate.  When the ball is  hit, it is being hit hard.  Still, the decision what to do with him ought to be propelled by development issues.  Is he frustrated and not progressing, or is his attitude one of determination?  If the former, he should probably be sent down; if the latter then he should probably be working out at the major league level.  The X factor, again.  No statistic can measure it. 

Anybody claiming that Wallace should be called up (including Mr. Law), just hasn't been paying attention lately.  Wallace has been struggling for a while at Vegas.  His numbers aren't where they should be for a promotion.

I'd suggest that the SP result (as far as expectations for the rest of the year) are skewed by the Eveland/Tallet factor.

YES Morrow will be in the rotation all year (barring injury and with maybe a September shutdown) and yes, odds are he'll have the highest ERA of anyone with 20 or more starts.

BUT even so, I think the rest of the guys who pitch in the open spot will do considerably better than what we got there to this point.

and it's quite possible Cecil ends up with a better final contribution too.

Personally, contenders or not, I wouldn't take Marcum.Romero/ Cecil/Morrow out of the rotation (unless I was giving up on Morrow as a starter altogether) for any pitcher we can practically expect to get.

When you consider the plethora of options for the other spot....I'm ok with the starters.

Look, if the Jays are going to rebuild then they might as well go ahead and rebuild. That means patience. I don't care if Morrow doesn't win another game all year; if I think he's got the potential to be a big-time pitcher then I stick with him. Is there someone else who should obviously be getting major-league starts ahead of Morrow? I don't think so either. Certainly you don't want to go jerking him around like Seattle did. He's learning on the job. It's not always going to be pretty, but this is baseball and these things take time. Same thing goes for any player the Jays are counting on in the long run--Hechavarria, Arencibia, Wallace, Drabek, whoever. Do you want 'em fast or do you want 'em good?

I'm with Matthew ; there's no reason for Morrow to be removed from the rotation unless he's hurt or the team is still in the race come July 31st. Let him learn to throw strikes with the best coaches available in front of an MLB defense - the last thing I'd want is him getting discouraged by the PCL environment. It's not like he's holding back anybody better from getting their crack at the bigs, and it's imperative that the team figures out what they have in this guy.

""It certainly contradicts the claim that the Jays bullpen "stinks""

It does? The bullpen has a negative WPA. That is the clear weakness of the team"

I like Magpie's answer, but the original post hints (the post frames it positively but if my understand of WPA is correct it works negatively too) at another one... a few bad performances in high leverage situations will skew the numbers down.

I'd bet that the the closer auditions at the beginning of the season really drag that number down. It isn't that far fetched to believe that the pen will be average the rest of the way.

To say that the pen is a clear weakness of the team is kind of an odd statement, I think... it has been the worst of the three categories thus far, but well, we'll see, there's more than enough time for it to be the best. We've seen enough nobody relievers over the past few years put up good numbers, we still might yet see a call up next month who dominates in high leverage situations. Probably not, but JP was good at pulling those rabbits out of the hat (Carlsson, Camp, Accardo, et al).

Morrow might be ticketed for the pen, but I hope not until at least next year. He's been a puzzling pitcher to watch. "Don't think, just throw, Meat."

Maybe someone could help me out. I see the Vegas odds on tv, and I'm totally clueless on how they work. What does the -190 stand for?

Yes, this means you have to wager $190 to win $100 in case the Jays win the game. This is actually a very bad line to bet on. To break even, the Jays would have to have a 65% probability of winning this game. That is too high for any baseball game since the luck component in any given game is too large, even Tampa vs. Astros.

If the line is +175 you get $175 for every $100 you bet. For the same reason as above, this is a good line to bet on because you only need a 36.4% probability of winning for the underdog for this to pay off. In other words, today's odds suggest that a 100 win team goes against a 100 loss team.

Hmm... Wallace was over 1000 for OPS not too long ago right? Now around 800. Does suggest more time would be a good thing for him.

Sigh. Just keep getting frustrated with Overbay. He is on the wrong side of 32 and is gone after 2010 anyways. But if the Jays feel Wallace needs more minor league time then I guess it is best to leave him there, even though some ML experience might help.

Morrow is a more interesting case though. He seems the weakest in the rotation (big 4) right now and we have 2 guys rehabbing in AAA plus other prospects. I'd leave him in over a Tallet or other vet but what about Rzep and Litsch?

Of course, right now Rzep is not close to being ready it seems with 21 hits (3 HR) given up in 6 1/3 IP while Litsch also gave up 3 HR in 12 2/3 IP. Mills is solid down there and might be worth giving a few starts to in the 5 hole, Ray has a good ERA but poor BB/9 thus should stay in AAA imo. Gonzalez is the other sub-26 year old and has stunk this year.

Drabek has been fine in AA but not lights out. Boone has been impressive and should get a AAA shot. Stewart has been giving his fielders whiplash from those 8 HR.

So Morrow looks safe for now in his slot. Until Listch and Rzep can avoid giving up dingers and Drabek gets a AAA shot I don't see the pressure to move things around beyond what has been done.

There does come a point with a young player when it is better for the player to be sent down.  If Morrow has an ERA over 8 in late June, you might reach that point.  Not because the team will do better with some other starter in his place in 2010, but because a pattern of failure is bad for his development. 

The Rays starting pitching has been amazing.  People talk about the Blue Jays home run hitting being unsustainable, but I think the Rays starting pitching has been at least as unsustainably good as the Blue Jays' home runs.  If you add up the ERA's of Davis, Niemann, Price, Shields and Garza, you get 14.75, a straight numerical average ERA of 2.95 (not innings weighted).  Those guys are really good, but they're not THAT good.

If the Jays added a guy like Roy Oswalt, I think they would have a shot at the Rays, with their power, and a rotation of Marcum, Romero, Cecil, Litsch and Oswalt (or whomever).  To me, Morrow looks like he needs a lot of work.

1)  The Bullpen has been improving nicely, but most definitely stunk for at least the first month, and is still poor overall. That being said, the surprisingly nice addition of Lewis has meant quite a bit to the recent improvement - and when many of us were complaining about the bullpen earlier, this kind of callup was what we had in mind to help (although we were using Mills as the potential callup at that point), to go along with the dumping of the Accardos and Valdezes.

2) As for Morrow - I mean it doesn't really matter if you're looking short term or long term, because there is absolutely zero good in consitently starting a pitcher with an ERA pushing 7 - especially when there might be younger and better options like Litsch and Rzep ready to go. I mean look at his numbers - they are simply unacceptable, even for a project.

You couldn't make this one up - apparently when the Orioles flew in last night, Adam Jones was kept behind by Canada Customs officials for some extra background checking and didn't get away from the airport until 5am.  Why?

"Team sources tell Mark Viviano Jones was a victim of mistaken identity.  Canadian officials thought the O's outfielder was Adam "Pacman" Jones, the football player with a criminal record."

http://wjz.com/sports/orioles.adam.jones.2.1721487.html

Next easy choice? Overbay being released and Brett Wallace coming up seems obvious,

I think there's a much easier choice than that.

Move Overbay to the bench, and move Bautista or Snider to 1B.

And then we can wait for Wallace to force his way up.

I guess I just don't get the whole "start him or release him" thing with Overbay - he would be a nice bench bat for us, and we certainly have room for him on the bench, as McCoy and Reed aren't exactly impressing.

Pitchers who suck early can be good. Quick examples that came to mind were Greg Maddux (76 ERA+ in his first full season over 155 IP), Tom Glavine (4 years under 100 for ERA+, last 3 with 180+ IP each last at age 24 with 3.3 BB/9 and 5.4 K/9 - the next year he won a Cy Young), Randy Johnson (82 ERA+ over 160 IP his rookie season at age 25).

Of course Morrow is not any of these guys but it is worth noting that young pitchers can take awhile, even great ones.

Another helpful way to think about it is in fractional odds (as opposed to the really stupid American -/+ system). If the Jays  are -200 and the Orioles +170 (as Yahoo reveals at the moment) what that means in fractional odds is the return on the Jays is 1.5/1 (1.5 for every 1 bet) and for the Orioles 2.70/1 (2.7 for every 1 bet). At these odds as Moe mentions the Jays need to win 2 of every 3 while the O's need to win just under 2 of 5 to break even - the spread in results being the House's take. Of course this is all moot because the Jays are going to crush the Orioles tonight. If you want to get into the really ridiculous right now the Yankees are -270 against the Indians, or 1.37/1;  the Yankees need to win 3 of 4 in this situation to make a slight profit

FYI the conversion isn't difficult - for a negative number x  its 100/x +1 so when dealing with -200 x=200 so 100/200 + 1 = 1.5; for a positive number its x/100 + 1, so in this case when x=170 its 170/1 + 1 = 2.7

 

I would like to know why Roenicke is with the Jays. His control is worse than Morrow's. It's time to free Trystan Magnuson from AA and bring him up with the Jays. By the way where is BJ Ryan pitching these days? I can't find him on any minor league or independant league roster.

Good info on betting odds. I love to listen to pitching talk. I have been thinking about the June 1st start. 1) Its against TB. 2) Schedule is TB,NYY,TB 3Gm series. 3) Cito says we have discussed this (with AA) "we don't want to shut down anyone we want them to finish the season so do we give them extra days off". I guess baseball is a game that is played for 3 hours and then discussed past & future for another 1-2 hours (more or less). I think that the 5th starter stays in the rotation and is not skipped due to off days BUT the 5th starter can be a different guy each time.
Right now I am disappointed with our "great pitching depth" because I thought there would be a lineup knocking on the door. No SP candidate is banging the door down. This bothers me, but my choice is Mills (June 1st) so I read the "game recap" on his pitching to fool myself that he will do a good job. So in his last start (3.1IP 10hits 8ER) in the 4th inning "singles on a Gb to 2nd baseman J Merchan" and "singles on a GB to CF J Padilla" happened. Also in previous games these ground ball singles happened. Now is this weak defense or bad pitching OR we cannot tell. Correct me if I am wrong (30+ years of watching the Jays and I am unsure), the ball was hit and bounced to the 2nd baseman and the ball hit the ground in the infield, found a hole and got to the center fielder. Can I give B Mills an excuse and say an infield with better range would have got outs for him? Anyone know how good LV's infield defense is.

Given that Wallace is still learning the position, I wouldn't mind having him on the same team as Lyle for some period.

Of course, the team would have to find a way to keep them apart during batting practice.  

Move Overbay to the bench, and move Bautista or Snider to 1B.

Since his defensive problem is reportedly almost entirely in his throwing, why not put JB at third and EE at first?

I was thinking that all the time EE was injured, that we could flip him to 1B and have Jose take over 3rd.....but you know what? EE is flat out better defensively than Jose at the hot corner.  Jose might not have made the ugly errors that EE does occasionally, but hot shots ate up Jose with regularity over there, just going right through him...and that rarely happens to EE.

I understand the stats have always painted EE as some sort of horrific defender......but I'll be damned if he hasn't been a pretty darn good, if mistake prone, defensive third baseman ever since we traded for him. Maybe Butterfield has helped him, or maybe he's benefitted from better fielders around him in the infield, I don't know. He has regular brainfarts out there no doubt, but he also flat out makes plays out there. and pretty ones, too.

At first I thought Jose was an upgrade defensively over at 3rd - but he kept getting beat by balls that don't get by EE. 

I'd keep EE out there.

From snippets in the media, I think Overbay was one of the complainers last year, regarding him not playing

against LH, so if the jays benched him with this his contract year, I think the team will have a troublemaker on

the bench, so I would rather move him or DFA - but a benched Overbay, is a clubhouse cancer in waiting.

I'm not that excited about Wallace yet - he's hitting .294 in Las Vegas, which is an environment favourable for hitters. I'd be surprised if he hit .240 in Toronto. Give him a bit more time.

Also, Overbay brings one thing to the table that hasn't been mentioned here: he's exceptionally good at scooping bad throws. This will help EE and the other infielders. Wallace is presumably still learning how to play first (since he was recently converted from third).

Brandon Morrow's peripherals are better than they've ever been before in his career as a starter. Even if they weren't, though, I still wouldn't want him replaced this season.

Given that Wallace is still learning the position, I wouldn't mind having him on the same team as Lyle for some period.

Of course, the team would have to find a way to keep them apart during batting practice.

You never know, Wallace could give Lyle a few batting tips :)

Someone certainly seemed to give Lyle a tip or two...a liittle late to the party, but the more the merrier, Mr. Overbay. I can't believe this roster now holds the single month HR record for the Jays (51?) over some of the past ones. Crazy, crazy team to watch. It's the exact opposite of what I complained about a few years ago when Stairs seemed like the only guy on the team "not getting cheated" on his swings, so I'm very happy now.

Another oddity.  If Overbay ends up in Toronto for the whole season (which does seem unlikely), it is possible that the club ends up with every starter hitting more than 20 homers except for the left-fielder. 

Shi Davidi tells us that the brain trust is as puzzled as everyone else about what to do with the 5th spot in the rotation.

Doc throws perfect game. Bittersweet for sure.

I just watched Roy Halladay throw a perfect game against the Marlins. 

For me, this is the ultimate.  That was as ... excited and triumphant as I have felt in years and years.

I hope I'm not the only one that chose to fire up the 'ol MLBtv today.

I think bumping Mills back a day and starting him on Tuesday is the likeliest scenario.  But have an eye on Rzep tonight as well.  If he's pulled early while pitching well, that'll give us our answer.

Check that - Lott tweets that Tallet will get the start Tuesday.

With Cecil's 8 innings yesterday and Romero's CG today, the bullpen is completely rested and actually needs work.  With Morrow and Tallet starting (and Marcum and an off-day to follow), I hope that Cito has a short leash with both and especially Tallet.  Personally, I'd be really happy if one of Frasor or Janssen was scheduled to follow Tallet after one pass through the batting order.

Overbay seems to be thriving in the less-pressured 7th slot in the lineup.   Is it time to try the same with Hill?  Maybe switch him with Gonzalez, so he's in the 6th slot?  Gonzalez would seem a reasonable choice to bat 2nd in the lineup.

In other news, MLB.com is providing the most misleading headline of the day:  "Snider not quite ready to come off DL."   Not quite ready??  In reality, it could be several weeks before he returns.  If you read deeper into the story, you discover that Snider will be "re-evaluated" on Monday.  If he passes that test, he's allowed to do swinging exercises and hitting off a tee.  If he passes that, he'll be allowed into extended spring training.  If that goes okay, he'll be assigned to Dunedin.  Presumably from there he would then get a turn in Vegas as well, although the story doesn't specify.   Anyway, each of those steps could take days or weeks.  As far as I can figure out, it might be late June before we see Snider in a Jays game.  Or even July.

On a positive note, the Jays don't seem to need Snider's power bat at this point anyway....  They're within 5 home runs of the all-time record for homers in a month....