Weird: According to Baseball Reference, the park factors for Toronto in 2010 are 96 for hitters and 95 for pitchers. Those numbers have been in decline since the turn of the millennium - in 2000 the multi-year park factors were 103 and 103. What's changed since then? The turf has evolved, and maybe other parks have become more favorable to hitters recently, but can that really explain all of it?

Newer, more hitter friendly stadiums?  Park factors are relative, so even if the Dome plays the same as it always has, having more hitter friendly parks in the league will make the Skydome appear more pitcher friendly.

"#jays have signed inf nick green, who will likely rpt to big club. Had been with LAD. Roster move needed to make room"

A tweet from SportsnetBerry and retweeted by John Lott of the National Post

SportsnetBerry 

Nick Green.

Why?

I don't see the point either Gerry, maybe the report isn't accurate but I'm assuming sportsnetberry is the same Berry that works for Rogers and John Lott retweeted it...

Seems awfully redundant if true though, what does he bring that Mac doesn't have already.  The only thing I can think of is maybe some team desperate for a ss like the angels right now has swung a trade for Macdonald..?  Seems doubtful but I don't know how else to make sense of this move.  Cito doesn't even use his bench as it is.

I'm hoping that Davis's speculation is unfounded and that Green was signed to be depth at AAA.  I don't see why the Jays would be interested in him otherwise.

Looking at Green's stats I don't see why the Jays would chase him down either. A 71 OPS+, played more at 2B than SS, really nothing we don't already have in the bigs.

One does wonder if another shoe is about to drop. It could be that McDonald is going to be given an extended leave, or it could be a trade of Alex Gonzalez. It wouldn't shock me if AA found some contending team that needs a good shortstop who was willing to overpay today but might not be willing to in a month. Strike while the iron is hot.

Maybe they just like him better than McCoy. Who's better at keeping the bench level?

McCoy has been sent down as per many different twitter sources.

Mike McCoy has been sent to Las Vegas.  I don't think this is a big move for the Jays, the bench doesn't get that many at-bats.  McCoy had been rotting on the bench and probably needs some at-bats so he keeps his skills from failing from lack of use.  Unless someone gets injured or traded McCoy was going to get less than 100 ab's the rest of the way.

Hopefully McCoy will help the Vegas squad that needs to generate some more wins.

what's the mystery? McCoy is useless. Green should be a marginal upgrade, just like Wise over Reed.

What a great team win against the Giants with Zito on the hill!  Edwin Encarnation had half the hits, all three RBIs, the game winning home run in the eighth and a spectacular snag to end the game. What's not to like? Morrow weaved his way through six and then Frasor, Downs, and Gregg were perfect in relief. Bautista managed to score a key run and manufactured an awesome outfield assist to hold the fort.  Has the ship been righted?  Keep it coming!

Hopefully Listch has more success than last time.

As he lost anything since the injury?

Was at the game last night - a good time was had by all present.

- It was not a good day to be Aubrey Huff, and you can't help but think that it was karma. Gonzalez's long foul drive ricocheted onto the field and back into Huff's possession. Instead of tossing it into the stands, or even locating a small child and giving him the ball, Huff tossed it over the left field fence, earning a round of boos. Then, he didn't run out his double to right, winding up on second instead of third. Finally, Huff was badly fooled by Batista on Pat Burrell's single to right: Batista raised his arm, so Huff thought he might catch the ball and was late getting started when trying to score.

- On that play, third base coach Tim Flannery earns a Bonehead Award. What was he thinking? Morrow had just given up a double, a hit batsman, and now a rocket to right, and had been struggling all night. Huff was late reaching third (see above); had he been held there, the Giants would have had the bases loaded with nobody out, and would likely have scored many runs. As it was, they only got one.

- I had forgotten how slow Bengie Molina is. I am 50 years old with somewhat cranky knees, and was never an athlete even in my prime, and I'm reasonably certain I would at least come close to beating Bengie in a foot race. (Jose Molina, while not particularly fast, is significantly faster than his brother; if they raced around the bases, Jose would beat him by a base and a half.) Bengie is slow enough that watching him attempt to run was almost worth the price of admission by himself.

- I don't know a lot about the newfangled Wins Above Replacement (WAR) stat, but shouldn't Encarnacion be given one WAR for this game? He drove in all three runs and made a spectacular play at third to end the game. He won the game all by himself.

- The Giants' third baseman, Sandoval, is a rather large man. I assume that he is athletic enough to play third, which is an impressive accomplishment; he looks like he has the body of a DH.

- Barry Zito has an impressive changeup. That is all.

- Morrow obviously has a lot of ability: he didn't have either his best stuff or his best command (it took him nearly 30 pitches to get out of the first), but he still managed to keep the Jays in the game for six innings. Getting him even-up for Brandon League could wind up being an act of grand larceny.

What's the mystery? McCoy is useless.

That's pretty harsh.  He only hit .200 in 50 at-bats but he's been pretty good defensively with just one error on the season and he's made some nice plays like this one.  I also remember a nice play from third he made to end a ball game in Cleveland earlier this year as he made a nice throw on the run.

I don't get this move either but we'll see what this Nick Green character can do.  Maybe he'll hit like Nick "The Slasher" McGurk.

It is interesting to see how AA operates. Replacing McCoy with Green after replacing Reed with Wise suggests he isn't adverse to making minor player shifts in an effort to improve. Namely, he doesn't decide "well, we have someone sorta like player abc so lets just stick as is even though this other guy is a bit better". I don't think JP or Ash ever did those type of moves (could be wrong).

Any thoughts on who should represent the Jays at the all-star game, if the selection is done fairly?  (Or selections -- there's a remote chance that the Jays could have two representatives, although that seems very unlikely.)   This could spark an interesting debate among Bauxites.  The Jays all-star rep could arguably be Wells, or Romero, or Bautista, or even Gonzalez.

The Toronto Star has made a case that Gonzalez merits consideration as the Jays rep at the all-star game.   Maybe he's not the Jays best player this year, but the conventional wisdom on Gonzalez -- that he merely had a hot start and rapidly tailed off, as some Bauxites argued -- seems to be wrong.  Gonzalez has actually improved his numbers since late May.   On May 29, his OPS was .794.   Since then, he has bumped it up to .819.   His OPS is fourth-highest on the team, and his hitting has been timely:  he has the 3rd-highest RBI total on the team.  For a shortstop, this puts him far above replacement value.  In fact, he has the highest OPS of any shortstop in the league.  So, rather than assuming that Gonzo had a hot start and a rapid fall to normality, it could be argued that he's having an excellent season, despite a bit of a slump in May.

However, I'm not seriously arguing that Gonzalez should be the sole Jays rep at the all-star game.  Bautista seems like a more natural choice.  Anyone want to weigh in on this?

As of right now, Gonzalez has been by far the best SS in the AL all year, so he should definitely make it.

Buck has arguably been the best C in the league this year, so he should probably make it.

Wells should make it, but that's a tight race in the OF.

I don't think Bautista makes it, unless he turns it right around again.

For what it's worth, ranked by WAR:

Romero 2.5
Gonzalez 2.3
Marcum 2.1
Wells 1.6
Buck 1.5
Bautista 1.5
Cecil 1.4

Jeter will be voted in, of course, but I don't see an obvious candidate to be his back-up. Gonzalez would appear to be in the running. Such a selection would presumably squeeze out Wells and Bautista, particularly if the plan was to include a Jay SP as well.

That's pretty harsh.  He only hit .200 in 50 at-bats but he's been pretty good defensively with just one error on the season and he's made some nice plays like this one.  I also remember a nice play from third he made to end a ball game in Cleveland earlier this year as he made a nice throw on the run.

thing is that Green is at least as good as McCoy defensively - but more importantly, with Wise, JMac, and Molina, we don't need defense so much from our other bench guy.

Green is no great shakes, but he's a guy that might be able to give us an OPS approaching .700, instead of the ops approaching .500 that McCoy gave us. (I mean really - calling a .519ops "useless" isn't harsh in the least).

It really is atrocious what we've received from the likes of McCoy/Reed/Ruiz this year off our bench....completely unacceptable....especially when you look around our division and see what our rivals have received from the likes of McDonald/Hall/Thames/Jaso/etc.

Personally, I'd rather we had given Hoffpauir or Lubanski a chance instead of Green.....but I'm still happy we're not stubbornly sticking with the likes of McCoy and Reed for no reason in particular.

I mean really - calling a .519ops "useless" isn't harsh in the least

Moving the goalposts. You called McCoy useless, not his OPS. That rests on the assumption that he is a .519 OPS true talent player. Which is a very harsh conclusion to draw from 54 PA.

For the McCoy/Green role, all I really want is a versatile and good fielder. That guy is never going to start even if someone gets hurt. But I'd like a sure hand in case the starting 1B/2B/3B/corner OF gets hurt. Like Scutaro, or Miguel Cairo. If Nick Green can handle that, great.

Also, Litsch! And the overdue Hill, obviously, had to be the guy who finally squared Cain up. And Bautista had the excellent catch to bail out Camp, who was the least effective pitcher on either team today and thus obviously ended up with the Pitcher Win.

Calling McCoy's .514 OPS useless aint harsh provided you concede that he was pretty clearly the best defensive player on the club with a UZR/150 over 50, wherever he played.  He was Bill Mazeroski at short, Mike Schmidt at third, and Devon White in the outfield.

For the McCoy/Green role, all I really want is a versatile and good fielder. That guy is never going to start even if someone gets hurt.

And yet, McCoy has started what, eleven games this year?
He was the regular 2B when Hill was injured early on and has 50 AB compared to 44 for John McDonald.

Wise or Green will be out once Snider comes back.

Yeah, true. I just figure Green will only start if Hill has a minor, day-to-day injury - if Hill gets DL'd Hoffpauir or some other minor leaguer probably gets the shot. That may not actually be true.

As much as I'd like to see Hoffpauir, with Bautista and Encarnation on the roster, I think it's pretty unlikely.

I could see Snider getting a long rehab in the minor unless Lewis is slumping hard.

Moving the goalposts. You called McCoy useless, not his OPS. That rests on the assumption that he is a .519 OPS true talent player. Which is a very harsh conclusion to draw from 54 PA.

well, I might argue that being 29 years old, and apparently a premium defensive player, makes his 60 careeer total PA enough to draw a conclusion about his usefulness.

But, instead of arguing, I'll gladly change my thoughts from "McCoy is useless" to "McCoy has never been useful, and at 29, there's precious little reason to wait on him".

Every winning club needs a signature extended soundtrack for the clubhouse, and a link through robotrader on zerohedge gave me an epiphany: "More, more, more" by the Andrea True Connection would be perfect. The oldtimers will remember it from 1976. While there is a 3 minute HQ audio version for eye candy, my fave is the 6:25 extendo version.  The summer of '76 in Toronto was swingin' hot and the promise of the Blue Jays was a prospect we all looked forward to. The fruition has now arrived.  More, more, more!

So much for my theory that Tallet would solve the bullpen woes....

According to Bastian, Edwin Encarnacion has been sent to Las Vegas.  I assume Hoffpauir or Emaus will be called up.  This could be why Brian Dopirak was taken off the 40 man earlier this week.

So much for my theory that Tallet would solve the bullpen woes....

I still think he will. but, like many relievers, Tallet has days where he doesn't have his best stuff. I didn't see today's game, but if today was a day where he wasn't at his best, I'm surprised he was left in the game as long as he was and allowed to give up 5 runs.

About Tallet -- I was being somewhat facile, since I know that you can't judge any pitcher from a single game.  I hope Tallet bounces back and provides some much-needed stability to the Jays bullpen.

About Encarnacion -- if he's being sent down, I would agree with it.  Aside from about 2 games in May, he's had a dreadful season, again.  His OPS for June was below .700 and sinking.   On the off-chance that his slump is injury-related, he'll get time in Vegas to work through his mechanics and recover fully from any lingering effects of the injuries.  And the Jays can find out if someone else is a better choice at 3B.  The Jays will have to figure out a 3B strategy for 2011, so they might as well begin now to look closely at the options for 2011.   Encarnacion was already being hidden in the 9th spot in the lineup.  That's not where you want to put your 3B.  The Jays already have Hill and Lind in big slumps.  They have to let Hill and Lind work through it, because they'll probably rebound, but Encarnacion is not in their category of hitter.

Bastian reports Jarrett Hoffpauir has been called up from Las Vegas.

The Jays also traded Jorge Padilla to the Mets for a PTBNL (who knows if they will ever receive the player), as he wasn't receiving much playing time in Triple-A.

Every winning club needs a signature extended soundtrack for the clubhouse, and a link through robotrader on zerohedge gave me an epiphany: "More, more, more" by the Andrea True Connection would be perfect. The oldtimers will remember it from 1976.

This oldtimer remembers that song from 1976 - and, no offense, but I have this to say on the subject: dear Lord, no. Repeated listens to this song would force me to throw a large heavy object at whatever device was playing it. Disco is Bad.

Nice to hear that it's Hoffpauir who's being promoted.  He's had a great season and he deserves the shot.  He might even have a long-term future with the Jays, who knows.  Let's just hope that Encarnacion's at-bats are not handed to Nick Green instead!

They have to let Hill and Lind work through it, because they'll probably rebound, but Encarnacion is not in their category of hitter.

While I more or less agree with this statement instinctually, a dispassionate assessment might suggest otherwise. Here are each player's seasonal OPS+s ranked from best to worst, including 2010.

Encarnacion (27 yrs, 5 mos)
112 (2010)
108
108
101
 93
 92
career: 103

Lind (26 yrs, 11 mos)
144
100
 77
 69 (2010)
career: 110

Hill (28 yrs, 3 mos)
117
107
 92
 91
 84
 79 (2010)
career: 100

 

 

It really is atrocious what we've received from the likes of McCoy/Reed/Ruiz this year off our bench....completely unacceptable....especially when you look around our division and see what our rivals have received from the likes of McDonald/Hall/Thames/Jaso/etc.

Seriously? Without even looking I'll guess those four guys have as many AB EACH as the Jays 3. The only thing Clarence's bench can be reasonably expected to do is play good defense. No matter how many times you hear broadcasters talk about how important it is for bench players to be ready to perform even if they are lacking the ABs, it really isn't as easy as you seem to think it is. Expecting much better from a Clarence bench is folly.

Disco is bad.

 Remember Linda You're No Good  Ronstadt in the summer lightning and thunder at the CNE? Andrea True Connection owned 1976, maybe even the decade. Was that the seventies sound?   How about a hologram of Andrea True as she is now at 66 and thriving in Florida, in 3-D like the hologram in the movie, Total Recall.

Disco is Bad.

A common misconception.

On the radio yesterday, Jerry and Alan gently pointed out that Encarnacion did not run out the dropped third strike and actually put himself out by leaving the batters box.  There was a runner on third at the time.  It was not the first time for Encarnacion. Jerry and Alan wondered if Wells or Hill might have a word with him about it, but demotion seems to be a much more effective way of delivering a message.  With the side benefit of rewarding Hoffpauir, who will hit major league pitching if given a chance...

Disco is Bad.

A common misconception.

I don't know about that.  I'm 6' 2" and I had platform shoes.  That's pretty bad.

Jerry and Alan gently pointed out that Encarnacion did not run out the dropped third strike and actually put himself out by leaving the batters box.

You're far too kind. J & A have been RIPPING EE for this for weeks now, talking about how awful his body language is on the field and how his lack of effort is completely unacceptable at ANY level. Alan in particular, as a former player, never misses a chance to provide a solid critique on a player if he sees fit, and has been very unimpressed with John Buck's unwillingness to get down and dirty in a proper blocking position when he calls for the changeup. Alan is awesome.