....If Reyes pitches well today, Cecil will have one chance to stay away from Las Vegas....

Gerry, that's a very bold and provocative statement.  I  wonder if Farrell will be quite so ruthless with his starting rotation.  Cecil did very well in 2010 -- would the Jays demote him so fast?  Over on the other thread, Mike Green is confidently predicting that Cecil will be better in a couple of starts, and I'm sure there's a significant faction of fans who would agree.  I suppose it depends on how the Jays are assessing Cecil's problems -- does he have a mechanical issue that he needs to work out in the minors?  Or is he doing everything right and just needs another game or two to recover any missing velocity and to get better luck? 

At the same time, there's clearly an approaching logjam of pitchers on the Jays roster, and something must be done.  Cecil has options, and it would temporarily solve some roster problems if he could benefit from a stint in the minors.  With Francisco ready to return to the Jays soon, there's precious little room in the bullpen for Reyes if he pitches well today.  If Reyes can go 6 innings with good results today, and if he puts together another decent start, the Jays might like to keep him in the rotation, even after Morrow's return.  Demoting Cecil would solve that little problem.

There's still the question of how to make room for Francisco in the bullpen. It looks like a real dilemma.  If we assume that the Jays are fully committed to the high-paid relievers (Frasor, Rauch, Francisco, Dotel), and if we assume that Camp and Villanueva have pitched well enough to keep their jobs, this leaves only Rzepczynski and Purcey who could be moved to make room for Francisco.  And at this point, Zep looks too valuable to demote, even though he has options.  Purcey currently seems to be at the bottom of the bullpen depth chart, but do the Jays want to risk losing him on waivers?  I would imagine that Anthopolous is trying to work out a trade -- maybe for Frasor or maybe for Purcey.  When everyone is back from injuries, there is basically a surplus of two veteran pitchers, and I'd have to think that AA is trying to trade one of them.

I admit that I stayed up. I don't feel good about myself, but there you go.

Are we concerned that we have replaced one centre fielder with no plate discipline with another centre fielder with no plate discipline and no pop? Well I am concerned. Rajai Davis has terrific speed, but yikes. Also, Aaron Hill already looks beleaguered and forlorn. I hope he gets a couple of solid knocks today to make him feel better about his place in the world.

And Bob Davidson. my goodness.

It would take a lot more than one good start to justify keeping Reyes on the ball club over Cecil. Cecil's velocity was down in the spring, and is now back basically where it was. His location and the sharpness of his off-speed stuff isn't quite there yet.

Cecil has a significant positive history both in the major leagues and in the minor leagues. Reyes does not.

The pitching staff is in excellent shape. The key thing for Anthopoulos to do is to find a replacement for Rivera.

The question for Cecil is what does it take to get him back to his 2010 form?  If, as Mike Green suggests, it is almost there and in one more start Cecil will be better then I agree that Cecil stays up.

But if Cecil struggles again in his next start what will the Jays do?  Will they leave him out there to struggle until he finds himself?  If Reyes cannot get the job done then I agree Cecil is a better bet.  But my suggestion was based on Reyes pitching better.  If Reyes and Litsch pitch well, and if Cecil does not, then I think the Jays will send Cecil to Las Vegas for four or five starts to get himself corrected.  Again I am assuming three things there, if any one of those turn out to not happen then my theory falls down.  But the Jays have shown a reluctance to lose Reyes, and he cannot be sent down without exposing him to waivers.

Lets say the Jays do keep Cecil in the rotation, but they want to keep Reyes on the roster.  If Reyes, a lefty, goes to the bullpen, does Rzepczynski get sent down?

And then, when Frank Francisco comes back the pitcher who may go to AAA is Carlos Villueneva who has pitched well so far.

The Jays do have too many bullpen pitchers and something's gotta give.

 

The key issue underlying my comments is that the Jays believe in Reyes and don't want to lose him.  Mike uses the words justify.  The Jays only justification is in the accumulation of assets, in a year when you are not intent on competing, to increase the assets of the organization in an attempt to move some of those assets to better your farm system.

If the Jays give up on Reyes then all of these words are for naught.

Well, Gerry, your words have given us food for thought, so they are not for naught.

What happened to the gaggle of fans who argued for months that Juan Rivera has nearly an .800 career OPS, almost as good as that of Vernon Wells, and therefore he deserves a fulltime spot on the Jays roster?  They should be weighing in now to argue that an 8-game sample is too small of a sample size to draw any conclusions from.  Anyone?  Or will they let the anti-Rivera argument carry the day?

There is a balance between accumulating assets and playing obviously inferior talent at the major league level. Too much of the latter and the club will risk alienating a fan base that (it seems to me) is poised to support the club well.

Hopefully, Cecil pitches well in his next start and the point will become moot.

Great game last night.

I know I am a couple days late but I have a question regarding Mr Drabek. Where is this plus plus curve ball that I heard so much about? I don't think I have seen a curve ball at all from him. As a prospect it seemed all the reports talked about his outpitch being a plus curve ball. Have I just missed them or whats going on? Thanks

It isn't an 8 game sample size with Rivera. It is 4 years where he has delivered below average offensive performance for a corner outfielder and significantly below average offensive performance for a DH. There is absolutely no reason to believe that he will be better at age 32 than he was at age 29-31.

Mike, I agree with you, of course.  But the counter-argument, for what it's worth, is that Rivera posted an OPS of .810 in 2009, when he was 31, and that's barely a year ago.  That's the central pillar of the pro-Rivera argument, which we heard a lot in the off-season, and I'm wondering if anyone is going to argue that it's still valid.

I stayed up till 3:30 Atlantic time to watch, slipping into semi-consciousness a few times along the way. The problem was, after that horrendous call, my adrenaline was flowing so much I was done for sleeping and remained awake until long after the game was done!  Really, if that's obstruction then why isn't it called 4 or 5 times a game because that is how often it happens!  I recall just a few games ago a Blue Jay (Rajai maybe?) actually slowed down a bit to mess up the SS's view and it worked without a call.  Obstruction on Yunel but not on A-Rod's shout?  The only reason I can think of is that Davidson was makling up for his bad call at 3rd base earlier in the game.  I prefer to think it is just incompetence and didn't know until I read above that it was he who took away the triple play after "the catch" on '92. 

 

 

 

I think the MG-CF discussion is missing one point -not that Rivera should or would do better than Wells, but that he COULD be of equivalent value offensively at a fraction of the cost. Likely? no. Possible? definitely.
If either of you is going to argue that the trade should not have been made on the basis of Rivera sucking, and not doing better than Wells (In 8 games! Come on) then nobody will be able to explain the value of getting rid of that contract. I just think this is a pointless discussion to be having, is all.

I checked with Brooks Baseball for the last five Blue Jay starters.  Brooks baseball compiles the pitch FX data.  I was specifically looking at swinging strikes which is one way of looking at pitchers ability to fool hitters.  So swinging strikes by starter are as follows:

Jo-Jo Reyes 4

Jesse Litsch 10

Ricky Romero 12

Kyle Drabek 10

Brett Cecil 2

 

Cecil wasn't fooling anyone last night.  I wasn't able to put my finger on it but his pitches are just not sharp.

How about Vernon Wells is hitting .111/.179/.139? Sample size yes but what I'm saying is I'm the least bit worried about Rivera's performance. They could cut him and pay out his salary and pencil EE in the DH spot everyday (Nix 3b) and I'd be fine with it. Angel fans can't be happy about obtaining Vernon's contract right now... I still can't believe AA moved that thing.

or I'm NOT the least bit worried... haha

Lexomatic, I'm certain that absolutely nobody is questioning the Vernon Wells trade.  There was universal acclaim for that trade.  The point is:   having acquired Rivera and his bloated contract, do you play him or dump him?  How much of his contract should the Jays offer to pay to any team that might be willing to take him?  Do you bench him, even though it damages his potential trade value (which might be non-existent anyway)?  Is it better to put Nix at 3B, Encarnacion at DH and Rivera on the bench?  (Some of the Jays beat reporters are already suggesting that scenario.)

I saw the whole game last night. Exciting but frustrating. The Jays should have won it easily on many occasions. We had numerous runners on third that we couldn't bring home.

Just a little defense of Snider- Gerry I think you're being far too harsh on him. He did make a mistake on reading the Bourjos double but that was basically his only mistake all game. Combine that with the great catch that he made off Wells to save the game and I would say that he's at worst even on the night.

I've got to honest, I have no idea who the Jays should send down when FF returns. My guess is that it will be Villaneuva, taking into account Zep's track record, the Jays management's fawning over his recent performances and Purcey's lack of options. Either way, it will be a very difficult decision to make as Villaneuva was very impressive last night.

Anyone arguing against Rivera based on his poor start this year (and poor stats last year), should be arguing even harder against one Aaron Hill.

Sano, I'd also consider how poorly he played the 5th run sac fly a mistake. It hung up in the air all day and a good OF circles into the catch so he can instantly make a strong throw home. It was a fairly shallow fly ball and had he done so the Jays would have still had a 5-4 lead. As well, Travis needs to work on his sliding - he stole 2 bases but on each I thought the umpire could have rung him up after calling him safe because of how he pops up on the bag.

I still do not understand what Rzepczynski is doing in the major league bullpen. The team has no intention of competing and there's still a lot of reasons to think he can be an effective SP. Send Zep to AAA to work on stretching himself out - you may be sacrificing some talent from your current roster but it would help in the long-run. Marc could always return to the bullpen if need be. Until then, Farrell has more than enough arm to get by.

Why not carry an extra guy in the bullpen and send someone like McCoy down?

McCoy WAS sent down - for Richmond.

He ripped off a bunch of good curves in his last inning of work.  Other than that, you're right, he hasn't used it much.

Rivera looks lost at the plate.  If opposing pitchers keep painting the outside corner, Juan is going to have a tough time.  He's stepping in the bucket instead of driving into the ball.  The hits he had in game 1 on Friday were missed locations on the inside half  of the plate.

Anyone know of a site where I can see video of Hill from years past?  I used to love his short, compact swing, and now he looks long to me.

....should be arguing even harder against one Aaron Hill.....

Seriously?  Hill is younger than Rivera, has far greater defensive value, and produced a 2009 season that was superior to anything Rivera has done in the past four years.

But I accept the larger point:  Hill's slump since 2009 is getting worrisome.

seriously.

Hill is 29, Rivera is 32.

Hill has a .452ops this year, Rivera has a .444ops this year.

Hill had a .665ops last year, Rivera had a .721ops last year.

Hill had an .829ops the year before, Rivera had an .810ops the year before.

Hill has a career .748ops, Rivera has a career .786ops.

Hill has a career best .829ops, Rivera has a career best .887ops.

Aaron Hill should never bat 2nd in a lineup. Ever. He doesn't get on base and almost never hits it to the right side. It's a little confusing to see Snider locked into the #7 spot while the rest of the order shuffles around. Is there something Travis does/says that leaves managers to believe he's better off at the bottom of the order? Nix, Rivera, and Hill were all moved into the 2 spot and even Arencibia has leapfrogged Snider in the order already, and it just makes no sense.

...and the defensive comparison would be.....?

If Hill defended like Rivera he wouldn't be in the bigs.

Aaron Hill should never bat 2nd in a lineup. Ever. He doesn't get on base and almost never hits it to the right side.

On the surface, it seems the minor league farm products seasons ago don't possess much plate discipline although many ways to get on base.

Is there something Travis does/says that leaves managers to believe he's better off at the bottom of the order?

.154/.290/.308. I think that if Snider ever demonstrates that he's a middle of the order hitter, he'll be put in the middle of the order. Right now, he has the same ba and obp as Juan Rivera, whose identical performance according to most, has earned a trip to the garbage can.

"....should be arguing even harder against one Aaron Hill....."

Seriously?  Hill is younger than Rivera, has far greater defensive value, and produced a 2009 season that was superior to anything Rivera has done in the past four years

CF, if you`re going to quote somebody, why not include the entire quote instead of trying to misrepresent what the poster had said.  Go back and read what preceded `should be arguing even harder...`

 

.206/.216/.235 - That's the beauty of a line Aaron Hill is putting up, if you're silly and inclined to read into insanely small sample sizes. Snider is 2nd on the team in RBI and has brought the runner home from 3rd with less than 2 out both times he's had the opportunity. He also brings speed to the table.

Here's the entire quote, and I fail to see how I misrepresented it at all:

"Anyone arguing against Rivera based on his poor start this year (and poor stats last year), should be arguing even harder against one Aaron Hill."

I'm not a lawyer, but I've pored over this entire comment several times and I fail to see your point.  How did I misrepresent it? My main point is that Hill is a far superior defender than Rivera.  Rivera's poor start in 2011 and his poor stats in 2010, of course, should surely include his poor defence.  Or do you think that the words "poor start" and "poor stats" should somehow exclude his defence? 

Everyone has been commenting on Rivera's crappy defensive abilities.  The contrast with Hill couldn't be any more dramatic. It's surely relevant to any comparison of those two players.

 based on his poor start this year (and poor stats last year)

 

in reality Callaspo distracted himself.

Yes, it looked like he anticipated a problem with the approaching baserunner that never actually materialized. Terrible call.

The bullpen was great until Jon Rauch came in.

Nah, he was fine. Strikeout, strikeout, flyout to left.... oops.

I still do not understand what Rzepczynski is doing in the major league bullpen.

Agreed - I'd like a little more convincing that he can't be a solid major league starter. His track record, in the majors, as a starter, is a hell of a lot more impressive than Jo-Jo's.

Aaron Hill should never bat 2nd in a lineup.

I also think Hill should be hitting sixth or seventh, but I never think this matters half as much as we worry about. And what the hell - he looks like a number two hitter! He's a second baseman! He wears number two! And I seem to remember everyone saying, for years and years, that this was Hill's ultimate destiny - that he might someday become a number two hitter! As we all recall, he started out usually hitting in the bottom third of the lineup, but in mid-April 2008, John Gibbons decided that Hill was ready to fulfil his destiny and hit at the top of the order. He suffered a season ending injury about six weeks later, but his claim had been staked, and he began the following season batting second, where he had the best year of his career. By a mile. Cito Gaston, who was generally never a guy to mess with something that's working, left him there. Gaston did talk a little about moving Hill into the heart of the order, but that never did happen. (What happened instead was Hill simply stopped hitting, and Gaston got him out of the two hole and down towards the bottom of the order.)

But while Hill might be effective hitting second in some kind of lineups, I don't think he's suited to batting behind a guy like Davis. If you're going to have someone like Davis on your team, hitting at the top of the order, and trying to run - you need a guy hitting after him whose natural game involves taking pitches and working the count. That's not Aaron Hill, or anyone else on this team come to think of it, and if Hill were to be taking pitches to let Davis steal (which I think is always, always a stupid thing anyway, no matter who's hitting) - it will not end well.

the Jays believe in Reyes and don't want to lose him.

Go figure. I assume that they like his arm, and hope they can teach him how to pitch. Baseball teams have always believed that they can teach a guy how to pitch (or how to hit) and they probably always will. Just because it's never happened is no reason to give up on the program...

that was basically his only mistake all game

That's a little like saying so-and-so was a nice guy every day of his life, except for that one day when he went to the mall with a sub-machine gun.... And please. Left field ain't Grand Central Station. There aren't a lot of plays out there, and he still messed up twice. This is going to happen - he's still a very, very young player, and young players make mistakes. You have to live with it, and hope he grows out of it.

What a frustrating way to lose a very interesting baseball game.  That was a really bad call by Davidson.  I agree that Callaspo created his own problem by worrying about Escobar.  If he just goes to the ball, he makes the play.  If Escobar hits him, then it's clearly interference.  The Jays got punished for Callaspo's indecision.  Speaking of Escobar, it's good to see him back in the lineup.

I also agree that Cecil is now a candidate to be sent down.  His velocity in his last start was not back to what it should be - he was throwing 87, 88, 89 with his fastball, and he was getting hit very hard.  He needs to get straightened out.  Not like he's a long established guy in the rotation here.  In 2009 he had an ERA in AAA of 5.69 and 5.30 in the majors.  In 2010 he was 4.22 in the majors.

Regarding Rivera, he has been a very, very poor hitter in April throughout his a career.  His career OPS in April is .646.  Even May is well below his other months, at .716.  His average OPS for the last 4 months of the season is .824.  Sure, his results have terrible so far.  Davis, Hill, Snider Encarnacion and Rivera have not hit well at all, but it's only 8 games.  Players go through 8 game slumps in the middle of the season and people hardly notice.  The stats at the start of the season can just look really ugly, and people notice that.  You can bet the Angels fans have noticed Wells hitting .111 with 1 extra base hit and 2 RBI's.  They mentioned in the pregame show today that Farrell and the coaches thought Rivera might be having a tough time adjusting to the DH role. 

The Jays bullpen has been incredible.  They have 6 relievers with ERA's of 0.00 and 1 of them was sent down to AAA.  Pretty tough when an ERA of 0.00 isn't good enough to keep your job.

So far today, Reyes had a bad first inning, then seemed to be righting the ship, but has now given up a couple more runs in the 4th.  A dropped fly by Davis hurt, but then Bautista just made a great diving catch to end the inning. 

Bautista was just picked off first again.  That's 2 for him in that department this season.  When the Jays stated making noise about being more aggressive on the bases this year, I got nervous.  I'm even more so now.  They have run into a lot of outs, and had a few guys picked off.  Some poor fielding on Friday by the Angels saved them from 3 more guys being gunned down on the bases in addition to the 2 who were thrown out in the game.  I guess you can make the arguement that putting pressure on the defense forces them into those types of mistakes.  I would love to see some stats on the number of runners thrown out on the bases on a team by team basis, including caught stealing/picked off.  It would also be interesting to see something on whether or not teams that run a lot force errors by the opponent, and if so, how many.

It seems that Farrell really likes to use these small sample sized batter-pitcher matchup numbers in helping to make lineup decisions.  You know the ones - "well, this guy is 4 for 9 vs this pitcher, so want him in there".  I have never seen an analysis on this to see if it has any validity.  Does a player's prior history vs a pitcher in a small number of AB's have any predictive value in how a player will perform against that pitcher in the future?  Given how much credence that current managers seem to place it this type of stat, you would think somebody, somewhere must have looked at this.  Managers are making actual decisions based on it.  Wouldn't you want to know if it worked or not?  I don't mean the occasional anecdotal "evidence" like when Nix was started against somebody a few games ago because he had hit 1 (!) HR against him in his career, and he went out and hit another one.  I'm talking about a proper study of a significant sample size.  I suspect such a study would show that the effect doesn't exist.

I believe somebody touched on this the other day but because the decision is made for 1 game which is obviously a small sample size the study wouldn't resolve anything. I believe the example was Johnny Damon who has ripped Doc in his career. Chances are if they played a full season against each other Damon's numbers wouldn't look so pretty but when a manger is penciling a lineup together his decision is based on only (generally) 3 AB's.

Baseball teams have always believed that they can teach a guy how to pitch (or how to hit) and they probably always will. Just because it's never happened is no reason to give up on the program...

Are you saying there's never been a pitcher who looked mediocre or worse in his early career and then turned out to be very good?

Anyone remember Cliff Le''s 94 career ERA+ as he took the mound for the first time as a 29 year old?

But a study would show if previous batter/pitcher results are an indicator of expected future results ON AVERAGE.  Of course, you can't predict the outcome in any 1 game, but if previous good results vs a pitcher indicate, on average, that a player is more likely to hit well vs that pitcher in future AB's, then that would be a very useful tool in making out lineups, pinch hitting, bringing in certain relief pitchers, etc.   Teams are doing that now, because they think that this effect is real.  I suspect that it is not, and it amazes me that actual decisions are being made by major league managers based on this stuff.  

You sometimes see a clearly superior player on the bench because some other player has had success vs a certain pitcher in say 10 or 15 AB's.  Just based on random distribution of outcomes, you are going to have those kinds of differences in a player's results.  If a guy is, say a .275 career hitter, and he's faced maybe, what, 200 current big league pitchers, against many of whom he has only a very small number of AB's, just due to randomness, he's bound to have some guys he's hit under .100 against and some guys he's hit over .400 against.  Maybe some of that is due to a particular combination of hitting and pitching styles that makes for a real, repeatable ability rather than randomness.  This is the current "wisdom" - that those differences indicate repeatable ability vs a certain pitcher.  Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever bothered to check this, and yet actual game decisions are being made based on it.

Sorry, my last comment was in reply to JB21's observations about a possible study of pitcher/batter results.

All kinds of guys do learn how to pitch. Which creates the illusion it can be taught.

Speaking of pitchers trying to figure things out: I wonder how long Purcey will last on the team. Farrell doesn't seem to have a lot of faith in him - you'd think there'd be a spot for him in a 14-inning game, instead of making Camp work for a 3rd day in a row - and he isn't showing a whole lot when he does get a chance to work.

Richmond down, Patterson up and possibly in CF tomorrow night.

 

I missed today's game - was Davis benched to send a message following his error, or is he hurt?

Davis was taken out of today's game after he seemed to be running awkwardly after a ball in the OF.  On the broadcast, they suspected that his ankle that he injured last weekend may be still bothering him.  Snider took over in CF for the rest of the game.

Juan Rivera's offense isn't the problem.   It's too early in the season to worry about it.   If he hits well enough to trade, he's hitting well enough to keep, so that will be an interesting decision.   Juan Rivera's below average defense isn't the problem.   He's better in left field anyway.   As long as he gets some time in the outfield, he'll have trade value.   How much value, depends on his offense.   Juan Rivera's running ability is the problem.   He runs slow, like he's afraid of getting hurt.   That is the biggest sin.

Brett Cecil's velocity is slowly increasing, which is good.   His control is not getting better, which is worse.   The Schedule has 11th (Sea): Litsch; 12th (Sea): Romero; 13th (Sea): Drabek; 14th: Off Day; 15th (Bos): ???; 16th (Bos): ???; 17th (Bos): Morrow.   That means the Jays can skip Cecil's, Reyes' or Litsch's next start.   Ideally, at this time, I would recommend skipping Cecil's start.   He can be available to relieve Reyes (if needed) on the 15th.   Any decision on who gets sent down should wait until then, if not the 16th.

Marc Rzepczsynski said, to the effect, "he would rather be in a major league bullpen, than starting in AAA".   Every game he's on a Major League Roster, he earns approximately $2600.00 per game (through 9 games: $23,400.00).   To earn an equivalent amount in AAA, he'd need to play, at least, over a full third of the season there.   That's a no brainer.   If needed to start, it shouldn't be hard to stretch him out.

Most bullpens have four relievers they trust and three relievers not-so- much.   When Frank Francisco returns from the D.L., Carlos Villanueva will most likely be sent down to join Casey Janssen in AAA.   That gives this team 9 relievers they trust, a depth no one else has.

Rosters can changes from  day-to-day, week-to-week making all the above less than accurate.

I think Rzep is a really good reliever.  That's because he's a really good pitcher.  And he belongs in a major league rotation.  When Morrow comes back, Reyes should move to the bullpen and Rzep to the minors where he resumes his career as a starting pitcher.  He'll likely get an opportunity to join the Jays rotation before too long.