My comment: I would say, no, this year's Jays didn't have an optimum strategy, but since none of the available personnel were exactly on-base machines (or at least they weren't really acting like it), it's better to have the home runs than not have the home runs. The Jays were sixth in the league in runs scored; they would have been a lot lower down without the homers. True: c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre, but it's better to be magnifique than not.

A few questions on the statistics would help us all figure out how best to interpret this and what the Jays might do about it:

First, do we know what the overall Jays' average for BABIP turned out to be and how does that compare to the average for the AL and to all those other teams shown in your scatter diagrams?  For sure, if their BABIP was historically low and comparatively low this year, then some of the result was bad luck and only some was bad management.

Second, is there any way of calculating how many pitches it took the typical Jays batter to complete his at bat, as well as how that compares to the other teams in the AL this year?  In the same vein, how many pitches per inning did the Jays' opponents' pitchers require compared to the Jays' pitchers for the same game? 

For me, I saw too many times when Vernon Wells and Aaron Hill (among others) appeared to go through entire games swinging at the first or second pitch and popping it up.  [The Yankees, by contrast, are said to be more patient]  Does this perspective really offer a hellpful explanation?  if it is true, this seems to be particularly bad management on the Jays' part.  one that creates a downward spiral of badness.  If VW is supposed to be waiting, according to Cito, to receive his preferred type of pitch before he swings, I would think he would benefit from seeing more pitches from which to judge which pitch is which, as it were.  If VW or his peers swing way too often at the first or second pitch only to send it high into the ether above the infield, then the opposing pitcher gets through more innings with fewer pitches, and so in later innings, is much less tired than some Jays' pitchers would be at the same time.  Did that happen?

Finally, what is the predictive power of walks, in terms of estimating how likely a player is to get a hit?  We all seemed to see such a correlation when it comes to Bautista - he appears to have a great 'eye' for where a pitch is likely to go, which should help both the number of hits and the number of walks.  So if you just get your hitters to take three more walks in total than otherwise in a game, they won't be able to do that without also seeing better the pitches that they want to swing at.  The advantage grows each time the batter heads to the plate, the pitcher may take 6 pitches to finally walk the batter, not to mention the X extra pitches that the extra batter requires to go out himself/.

First, do we know what the overall Jays' average for BABIP turned out to be and how does that compare to the average for the AL

Fangraphs and baseball-reference can answer many of these questions.

BABIP: Toronto, 269, AL .295.

Wells saw 2095 pitches in 646 PAs, an average of 3.2 per PA. His 127 OPS+ was just 5 points lower than his career best.

Am I imagining things or are the Jays doing something "historical" every season now but always in a bad way.

I would refute this with a couple things. One the Jays scored about 40 less runs this season than last and that is with all the home runs. Despite having mostly similar personal other than C and SS. True offense was down this year but still their relative rank was the same. Last year they were also 6th in AL run scoring, but if you look at the numbers a bit closer their offense was a tad stronger last year. I think they just traded philosophies for something that had no short term gain, but possible long term negative effects if Lind and Hill are not able to regain their approach. Funny enough I think Bautista, Wells and Buck were the only ones who did the HR thing right. They went for it without hurting their OBP and avg. They launched bombs but were still able to get on base at better than career avg rates. This is something that most of our other lineup was not able to do. The power was there for Lind, Hill, Overbay, EE and others but at the expense of huge points off their career walk rates and BA.

That is a great find James, I hadn't heard this mentioned anywhere else.  It sounds like it was a case of "go big or go home" from the batters. 

....I think they just traded philosophies for something that had no short term gain, but possible long term negative effects if Lind and Hill are not able to regain their approach.....

That's an interesting and significant question -- is it better for a team to have HR power or OBP strength?   Is it more important for players to know how to hit home runs, or how to get on base?  And when there is a deficiency in one or the other of those skills, which is easier for players to learn or re-learn? 

My assumption is that HRs are more difficult to hit than singles, so it's better for the Jays to have the home-run power now and to learn the OBP in 2011.  The team's OBP is likely to improve next year anyway if Hill and Lind bounce back and if Snider improves -- but of course the HRs are likely to decline next year, which could offset any improvement in OBP.   In any event, I still tend to believe (on intuition) that it's better for the Jays to know how to hit HRs, since the OBP cannot be as difficult to learn as the HR power.  But who knows -- I could be totally wrong about this.  It will be tricky for the next manager to achieve the right balance -- improving the OBP without losing too much of the HR power.

One point in slugging I believe is worth (from what I read on fangraphs and elsewhere) more than one point in OBP. Of course the best players come with both.

As for which is easier to get, the answer is definitely power. The general trend for prospects is to maintain their OBP approach and when their bodies fill out to replace singles with doubles and doubles with homers. A player coming to the majors and raising his OBP significantly is much rarer than raising their ISO and hr rate. The general answer that is if a player doesn't have good OBP skills when they hit the majors they will never develop it. I don't see why you would doubt this. What is harder to do, swing as hard as one can or selectively learn which pitches to swing at and to not swing at. This is why Bautista to me is not a fluke. He's always had a good eye (+10% walk rate) and his power this year came with him maintaining his excellent walk rate. He just wasn't swinging at everything in the zone, which is something Wells, Lind and Hill do.

Lind is the big question as regards to the OBP recovery for next year. Despite Hill's numbers last year, Lind was the one with the more impressive numbers. Hill will never be a good OBP guy. He just doesn't draw walks well, and the only time he did it (early this year) he hit awfully. His best results is to be a .285 guy with .320ish OBP but lots of doubles and homers and good defense. He is a line drive hacker.

This was really fantastic, I appreciated this immensely, even if I'm not sure what it means exactly.

....The general answer that is if a player doesn't have good OBP skills when they hit the majors they will never develop it....

Yes, I agree, but then you mentioned Lind, Hill and Wells as "swinging at everything in the zone."  That might be somewhat true this year, but Lind had a .370 OBP last season, and Wells had a .331 OBP this season and a.343 OBP in 2008, so both of those guys have been capable of getting on base in the recent past.  And of course Overbay had a .372 OBP last year.  That's why I said that the Jays have to "learn or re-learn" how to get on base.  They have done it in the recent past -- they just need to do it again.  I guess I'm a little more optimistic than you are about it.

Lind did have OBP skills, as does Overbay. Both plummeted this year. Overbay has a track record of good walk rates, so unless he is in a career decline he should recover. Lind I'm more torn on.

Wells and Hill though are not good OBP people. Never have been, never will be. Sure .330-.340 is decent. But that's their ceiling, and only if they maintain a good BA. Bautista, Overbay, Snider and Lind are really the only batters here with a record of good OBP. Well Escobar too to some extent, but it's clear he took the hack first approach too on coming here.