Giants Win - Now What?

Awards announced. Grousing. Members of BBWAA defend interpretation of "most valuable". Grousing. Managers hired. Grousing. Free agents signed. Grousing. Free agents not signed. Grousing. Trades made. Grousing. Trades not made. Grousing. Season starts. Some teams overachieve. Some teams underachieve. Somebody wins the World Series when no one thought of them as the best team in baseball for even one minute. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

You know, the usual.

No playoffs for a 19th straight season. Grousing.

For some reason, not even having an "exciting product on the field" seems to satisfy some fans. They always want more, more, more!

Awards announced. Grousing. Members of BBWAA defend interpretation of "most valuable". Grousing. Managers hired. Grousing. Free agents signed. Grousing. Free agents not signed. Grousing. Trades made. Grousing. Trades not made. Grousing. Season starts. Some teams overachieve. Some teams underachieve. Somebody wins the World Series when no one thought of them as the best team in baseball for even one minute. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

You forgot the Hall of Fame voting.
/grousing

Per MLBTR,  the Blue Jays have received permission to speak with Matt Williams about the managing job.

HOF voting will be big time grousing with the 'steroidMLS ballot' of Clemens, Bonds, Sosa etc.

Matt Williams eh? Didn't think of him as a potential manager before .... would fit the AA method of doing the the unexpected.

Does a year of Haren at $15.5 or Santana at $13.5 strike anyone's fancy? I wouldn't imagine the cost to acquire their respective option year from the Angels would cost much. Certainly neither of their 2012 seasons were impressive but given what the new revenue picture might do to mediocre-player salaries, it might be worth a one-year flyer.

Haren saw his ERA+ drop drastically from 119 to 87 but his K/9 was off by just 0.1 and his BB/9 matched his career rate dead on. His HR/9 jumped to 1.4 from a career rate of 1.1 so that could be a concern which a bit of scouting (which the Jays should've done) would help in knowing if it is real or a fluke. If the scouts feel he is still the 116 his career ERA+ says (basically, if his HR/9 is likely to drop) then I'd go for it but try to dump Lind's salary on them in exchange.

Ervin Santana? His HR/9 doubled vs 2011 while BB/9 and K/9 got worse as well. His H/9 was lower than his career average which, given the other stats, is probably the bigger fluke. I'd be very nervous about going near him.

"I'd go for it but try to dump Lind's salary on them in exchange."

Why on earth would the Angels take on Lind's $7 million when they could just buy out Haren's option for half that?

I'm a bit wary of Haren, but wondering about Kyle Lohse. BB takes? Is he a guy who just needs to be in the NL to succeed, or has something changed in the last couple of years?

Well, if they see value in Lind why not? :)

Of course the Angels had a massive surplus of OF/DH/1B last year with Wells, Trout, Hunter, Morales (1B/DH), Trumbo (LF/RF/DH/1B/3B) and Peter Bourjos to go with Pujols. Hunter is a free agent, Bourjos has OPS+ of 69-116-73 his 3 seasons in the majors, leaving Wells/Trout/Trumbo in the OF and Morales as DH and Pujols at 1B.

Now, Wells they'd love to dump at this point but I don't see the Jays taking him. The Angels weakness is their rotation, but outside of prospects there isn't much we could send them to help there either. So, yeah, no fit.

Actually, Dipoto has stated that he wants to improve his bullpen, and given the Jays depth (especially if Oliver and Lyon/Fraser return), there may be a match.

Brian Butterfield has followed Farrell to the Red Sox.

Here we go ... Alex, this ones on you.  As I stated earlier in the poll thread I think hiring Farrell has been AA's worst move and has already cost the Jays in terms of their player development, and now with BB gone, also their potential future development -- to say nothing of their rivals gaining new insights into Jays players and practices.  I'm annoyed.

"....to say nothing of their rivals gaining new insights into Jays players and practices...."

Like how the Jays gained all that inside intelligence on the Red Sox in 2011 and 2012?

Perhaps the Jays should hire Bobby Valentine for 2013 for his insights into Red Sox players and practices....

".... I think hiring Farrell has been AA's worst move and has already cost the Jays in terms of their player development...."

How has Farrell damaged the player development of the Jays? I really don't see the evidence here. Are you saying that Lawrie, Gose, Hechavarria, JPA etc are worse than they were two years ago? I think they've progressed roughly as fast as anyone could have expected. Nobody could have reasonably expected Lawrie or JPA to be superstars in their sophomore seasons. If Lawrie is hotheaded sometimes and occasionally undisciplined on the base paths, it might be partially Farrell's fault but it doesn't mean that his "development" has been damaged. And I'm struggling to think of what else you could mean by Farrell's impact on "player development."

If Haren & Santana are no good then LAA would have to most likely buy out the options 3.5 +1mil. That would still save them a lot of money.
But if some team was willing to take them for nothing they save $4.5mil. They could be DFA and hopefully someone picks them up before TB because they would be incredible there. TB makes struggling players into very good ones. But TB would have to pay almost $30mil and then get a draft pick.

There must be another story about Butterfield.  When farrell joined the Jays basically told him he was keeping Butterfield and a couple of the other coaches.  Teams usually allow a manager to name a couple of coaches but usually there are several hold-overs.  If AA wanted to he could have offered Butter a contract anyway, and told the new manager that was a condition of his hire.  Plus, as has been pointed out earlier, AA has had plenty of time to know this scenario was about to unfold.

So I have two theories.  One, Butterfield wanted to move closer to his New england home and the Jays accomodated him.  Or, two, the Jays wanted to clean house.

Like how the Jays gained all that inside intelligence on the Red Sox in 2011 and 2012?

Of course I'm not aware of how all these things work precisely but I don't think knowing the enemy well hurts at all.  The one incident I do know about is that Travis Snider seemed to finally "get it" that he needed to change his approach after Farrell talked to him in great detail about how the Red Sox pitchers approached him as a hitter. 

No this does not mean I think we should hire Valentine.

I agree with both of Gerry's theories (which are not mutually exclusive), and would add three other factors:

1) Butterfield has been repeatedly passed over for the manager's job in Toronto. He can take a hint. He wants to be a major-league manager some day, and it's not happening in Toronto. It might not happen in Boston either, but at least for him it's a fresh start and a new sense of hope.

2) He's probably getting a pay raise in Boston.

3) The tradition is that the new manager is allowed (or encouraged) to hire his own coaches. The new manager might well decide to hire a different 3B coach, so why would Butterfield hang around to see if that happens? If he has a choice between a firm offer from Boston and a possible offer from Toronto (with the knowledge that the Toronto offer might never happen), it's completely understandable that he would choose the security of the Boston offer.

Everyone says that Butterfield is a good guy, a hard worker and a good teacher of infield defense. That's probably true. But he's not irreplaceable or indispensable. Coaches seldom are. Does anyone feel that the Jays were damaged by Arnsberg's departure? It happens.

Or, two, the Jays wanted to clean house.

If that explanation is true presumably we'll see Murphy, Walton and others out the door once the new manager is named and can bring aboard his own guys. I guess maybe Farrell bonded with Butterfield and the front office might view him as part of the disconnect that apparently occurred between Farrell and a number of the players, but I just have a hard time (maybe unjustifiably) believing that Butterfield was a substantial part of the in-house problem.

I'm more inclined to view it as Butterfield getting a chance to be closer to home and get a fresh start, as oppposed to being stuck in a place where he's repeatedly been passed over for the managerial position (when he was interested) and was almost certainly going to be again.

And I'm struggling to think of what else you could mean by Farrell's impact on "player development."

I'm just using what I think is a common sense notion that competence and continuity are good attributes for players who are developing and that a lot of upheaval is normally not as good. And then on top of that as I stated in the poll post "What do we have to show for the two years that he was here?  A young team like the Jays seemed to regress rather than improve under Farrell." I'm thinking primarily about the young starting pitchers -- but also, as has been mentioned, our hitting stats in the 2nd half (EE excepted) seemed to all fall off a cliff. I can't recall another group of Jay hitters, that as a team seemed to lose it so bad.

Brian Butterfield has followed Farrell to the Red Sox.

Sigh.  This is not a good sign. 

Mike Green, I guess you believe in Butterfield, so I think I know how you feel.
I believed in David Purcey, that he just needed a longer opportunity here. Well he got his opportunity elsewhere. He was not able to use it. As a hard throwing LHP he has many more opportunities.

The new hiring will tell us something about the Jay's belief in their chances of competing in 2013. An experienced manager with some success & strong off season moves will mean that there is an element of seriousness to competing in 2013. A rookie manager & small moves for patch work & looking to the future IMO means another development year. Of course we could be like Oakland & CWS in 2012. Lucky IMO unless they can do it again in 2013.

We need luck as well Vizquel & B Francisco did not give us what we expected.

Agree, Butterfield's departure is not a good sign.

Losing the guy who is arguably the best infield defense coach in the game is a bad thing, made worse if your team's starting rotation is already young and/or shaky. I don't know if he's irreplaceable, but he may well fall into the category of "this organization is not able to replace him."

Meanwhile, organizational depth in major league starting pitching options is dropping, despite the fact that this is the team's biggest problem. If we have injuries in 2013, our problems could be greater than 2012. Barring whatever AA does next - but with so many holes to fill, it's already a challenging assignment.

This organization has gone backwards in 2012, in so many ways, and the window for success is starting to look like 2015 or later. Unless the slide reverses, it's going to push us to the point where "trade Jose" starts to become the smart option.

Butterfield was not able to work his magic with every infielder who came his way, but I imagine that if you asked Orlando Hudson, Aaron Hill or Brett Lawrie what they thought of him, you'd get some pretty good reviews.  What was surprising to me was how fast some of his charges learned; I personally treat this as a credit to both teacher and students. 

I know Butter is highly regarded and he seemed like a genuinely good dude, but if the market value for Farrell AND Carpenter is Aviles, wouldn't the market value for Butterfield be pretty negligible? 

Fans' disappointment over Farrell/Butterfield's departure has very little to do with their value; it's about the optics of the situation and the organization's reputation.

Looks to me as though the Red Sox are poaching the Jays' best coaches. I imagine that, like players, coaches also care a lot about winning and seeing organizational improvement. The Red Sox have cleared out a lot of salaries, and they have a big budget and a good farm system. It's a good opportunity and probably a nice change for coaches who have seen the Jays spin their wheels a bit (the Sox probably offered them more money, too).

Also, I think we can be pretty sure that Murphy will not be replacing Magadan as the Red Sox hitting coach.

I'm with electric carrot - at least in retrospect, hiring Farrell was a terrible move for the organization. What was originally thought to be a coup for Toronto (and a blow to Boston) has rebounded massively against the Jays. It could get even worse if Florida hires Mike Redmond.

Ultimately, however, I'm not opposed to clearing house. The question is whether they can bring in elite managing and coaching talent.

Well, with this great coaching crew we saw the team go sub-500 over 2 seasons so they cannot be _that_ great.

Remember when the pitching coach in Atlanta (Leo Mazzone) was viewed as a super-genius worth a ton? After he left Atlanta he lasted just 2 years in Baltimore as the teams had ERA+'s of 85 and 89 vs 87 after he left and 95 before he came. He hasn't coached since as far as I can tell.

Coaches are useful but measuring just how useful is extremely hard and even cases that seem obvious may not be.

Just because it isn't easy (especially for fans) to evaluate the contributions of a coach doesn't mean that those contributions don't exist. All we can do is go by observable results and comments by others in the game (for example, Omar Vizquel's praising Butterfield at season's end). For sure, it's an imperfect science, and the chemistry between one player and a coach (such as EE / Luis Mercedes) might not be there between that coach and another player. But I have no doubt that good coaching can make a significant difference in at least some instances. I don't subscribe to the Mike Wilner school of thought, i.e., that it's all on the player and coaches essentially don't make any difference.

Oh, agreed that coaches make a difference, the question is how much and what is the 'replacement level' for coaches? It is extremely hard to figure out the signal vs noise when it comes to this.

Butterfield seems to have done a great job yet in defensive efficiency (ability to turn balls in play into outs) since he came here in 2002, yet the Jays ranked #16 in MLB last year, as they did in 2011, 19th in 2010, 28th in 2009. Going back further we get better results... 3rd in 2008, 2nd in 2007, 10th in 2006, 12th in 2005, 17th in 2004, 27th in 2003, and 20th in 2002. Something changed after 2008 but nothing obvious in players (Hill / Scutaro took over the middle infield over Inglett/Eckstein which should've been a net positive, as would be Snider over Lind in LF although Bautista/EE got time at 3B starting then too) that would explain it (3B loss should've been replaced by improvement in middle).

Maybe Butterfield did do a great job at first, but diminishing returns occurred over time. Who knows for certain but in the end I don't see him as being worth the amount of stress fans will feel over the next while.

Well said, greenfrog.

When a coach is well thought of and has multiple suitors, as Butterfield has had over the years; or sustained success, such as Dave Duncan or Don Cooper, they can be very valuable.

I think one big reason AA has allowed all his coaches to walk is to avoid a repetition of the Farrell hiring, where by all accounts, it was conditional on retaining Bruce Walton as pitching coach.

John, last year we had 2 plus defenders in Lawrie and Escobar. 16th of 30 may be pretty good. And Butterfield had little or nothing to do with Eric Thames or the other crappy OFer's the Jays have trotted out the past while.

Butterfield will help the Red Sox counteract some of the damage caused by the useless manager they just hired.

I'll be glad when the whole Farrell soap opera is finally behind us. What a mess.

So it turns out that Ricky Romero secretly had surgery to "clean up" his pitching elbow -- two weeks ago. He also had plasma injections in both of his knees. He insists that the elbow problem was not the cause of his pitching woes in 2012, but that might simply be an excuse for his failure to tell the public about it during the season. (It's unclear if he told the team about it.) To me, it seems difficult to believe that the elbow soreness was not one of the reasons for his poor pitching this year.

From a John Lott story:
He said he could not remember when the condition arose, but the spot became “a little bit more sore than usual” and “built up little by little.”

Actually it seems that Romero did not tell the Jays management about the elbow soreness during the season either. From the Lott story:

He said he will never know whether the injury affected his performance, but he added that the experience taught him to be be more candid with the training staff in the future. During the season, both Romero and Farrell said Romero had no medical problems with his arm.

I can't blame Romero, really. Pitchers live with pain - pitching is an unnatural act, and pitching a lot hurts the arm. It's hard to tell the difference between pain resulting from normal wear and tear and pain resulting from damage. (Sadly, I know this from experience.) Maybe this means that he'll improve in 2013 (he said, somewhat optimistically).

I'm sad about Butters. He was the best infield coach in the known universe, and he had been in these parts forever. You can't blame him, though - the Sox were offering him a job, and it was not clear whether the new Blue Jay manager would keep him on.

And I don't care about John Farrell any more. He isn't with the Jays - he is now one of The Others, and he is dead to me. Let's focus on the new guy, whoever he turns out to be.

Wonder how the players are feeling right now, especially Bautista. Beginning to feel like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Can't help the free agent search much either. They really need a good manager hire now for optics as much as talent.

Since the Sox didn't jump at Murphy, hopefully AA finally got the message ..

The White Sox have extended Peavy, per MLBTR. 2/$29M plus a vesting option for 2015. Seems like a good move - Peavy must have been very comfortable in Chicago. In any event, the FA pitching market just got thinner. Really, could the Jays' 2012 season get any worse?

Cross Ervin Santana off the available list. The Royals picked him up for a minor league reliever.

The Jays have picked up the option on Darren Oliver and declined the option on Rajai Davis. However they did resign Davis for a lower amount $2.5M versus the $3M option.

I am not sure if the Jays picking up Oliver's option means he has decided to return for 2013. I doubt he would have decided yet.

Brandon Sisk will have to be put on the 40 man roster to be protected from the rule 5 draft. We will see. He also has all his options intact.

There was discussion on picking up Davis's option. AA said $3mil with $500K buyout, so he said it is a $2.5mil expense either way.
Subtle but brilliant, I think. He can now be traded and the receiver only pays $2.5mil.
D Oliver's option had to be picked up. He can retire & get paid nothing. I do not know if he still has to take up a 40 man roster spot. If he is as good as 2012, IMO he has more value to a legitimate contender. So IMO he will probably be traded even one of those "trade his rights for..."