There's a red moon rising on the Cuyahoga River.

Hall of Fame lyric (Rock and Roll HoF, that is).

So today we have Loup, Oliver and Perez well rested, with McGowan in good shape (10 pitches yesterday, 2 days off before that), and Wagner also available (4 pitches, 2 days off before that and just 6 pitches that game).  Delabar has pitched in 2 straight but just 7 pitches between the two games.  Cecil and Janssen should have today off after throwing 20+ pitches each yesterday and not doing well.

Dickey gets the start this afternoon.

I thought Cecil looked good last night, actually. A questionable call vs. Swisher and poor defence from Reyes did him in.

Tangentially related to the Kawasaki chants, I was in Japan last week and took the opportunity to go watch an NPB game (Orix Buffaloes vs Seibu Lions). Everyone should go if they have the means. So much fun. I got to watch Esteban German lead off, and Ryan Spillborghs bat cleanup!

Every player in Japan gets their own chant, without exception. The outfields are occupied by the hardcore fans of both teams waving flags (some players have their own flags), and they have dedicated trumpet and drum players who go to work throughout the game. Which means that even though the attendance was terrible (Orix are pretty dreadful), there's still a lot of atmosphere. The Kawasaki chant is weak in comparison. There's a lot of emphasis on making the game fun for everyone, and at one point between innings the jumbotron even played the team song of the away team, which I guess demonstrates respect or something.

The Japanese sure love small ball though. In the bottom of the first Orix got a leadoff double, then proceeded to sac bunt the guy over, and sac fly him in. It's the first inning, guys! That run ain't gonna win you the game! (It didn't, they lost 7-2)

Factoring in the park food, where you can get stuff like octopus balls and fried noodles, and the beer girls who walk around the stands all game pouring drinks straight from their backpacks, and a good time is to be had.

AA just told the media that the Jays will not sign Phil Bickford.  It appears to be a physical issue, not dollar related....more to come.

My pet peeve today is this "Raise the Bar" campaign for Delabar. People are obeying it so devoutly that their thumbs are getting sore from retweeting and texting. Are people really such sheep?? Someone tells them to campaign, and they spend hours and hours doing what they are told? Steve Delabar is a nice guy and an inspirational story, but why are people so quick to go along with corporate promotional schemes? And MLB is a corporation, make no mistake.

I'm really not sure what your issue with the Delabar campaign is.

He seems like a nice guy and has a great backstory. And, from a personal perspective, I'd much rather watch him pitch to a batter in the All-Star game than Tanner Scheppers or David Robertson. I could see you taking issue if some very deserving candidate was on the final ballot, such as Josh Donaldson, but when there's really nothing to pick between the players I'm not really sure it's insightful or appropriate to call people sheep for voting to see their favourite team's candidate.

This will probably never happen without someone else getting injured or one or more of the same people getting re-injured, but who gets sent down when Lawrie, Cabrera, Morrow, Santos and Happ return and no one else gets injured/traded?

Nope, you're totally misunderstanding my point. It's nothing to do with Delabar. It's about people responding in Pavlovian fashion to corporate advertising campaigns. This is not even an all-star ballot. It's people sending literally THOUSANDS of text messages, in response to an MLB promotional campaign.

And if I could add a bit more to my rant: the texting/tweeting promotional campaigns are as bad as the "make noise" signs on the scoreboards -- but worse because so many fans are spending hours on their cellphones to comply with the corporate directive. I'm going to unfollow the Blue Jays twitter feed because it's become so tiresome.

#LoveThisTeam #RaiseTheBar #MaybeNot

CF, is your issue that it's a lot like ballot box stuffing?  There was that year in the 50s when (as I recall it) a Cincinnati newspaper printed up a ballot and the NL All-Star team ended up as all Reds save for Stan Musial. 

MLB is all sales and marketing. "Cheer for this group of players who have nothing to do with your city instead of that group of players who have nothing to do with your city."

Compared to the crowning achievement of convincing people to repeatedly pay $10 for a lousy beer, mass all-star voting is pretty inconsequential.

And if I could add a bit more to my rant: the texting/tweeting promotional campaigns are as bad as the "make noise" signs on the scoreboards -- but worse because so many fans are spending hours on their cellphones to comply with the corporate directive.

China fan, I'm with you 100% on this.  In fact I would take it much further.  I refuse to be on twitter at all because it just seems like endless noise and advertising to me.  I personally find that the more technologically hooked in you are the more vulnerable you are to propagandizing of all kinds and the less interesting, original and insightful you become.  Where I disagree with you is with your implied expectations of fan culture -- which as I've stated elsewhere, I think is at the lowest level of the food chain and where my expectations for behaviour are slightly higher than insect level but lower than wolf pack.

That was one ugly swing from Rajai Davis.  How far in front of home plate was that?

Bonifacio not pinch-running for Arencibia?

Who would catch if the Jays tied it?

My mistake, I thought Thole was out of the game.

Drew Hutchison gets the start for Dunedin tonight.  He will be followed by Drabek.

If Davis had pulled the ball a bit more down the line, the decision to not pinch-run with Bonifacio could have been very costly.  I guess the thought behind it ran something like this.  If Davis singles or walks and you have pinch-run Bonifacio for Arencibia, when the Indians bring on a lefty to face Thole, you'd be reluctant to pinch-hit DeRosa because you wouldn't have a catcher left. 

I nominate Randy Newman for Jays play-by-play man.

is your issue that it's a lot like ballot box stuffing?

Well, you can see why some might find it droning, cultish and lame. I'm not sure "compliance with the corporate directive" is the most precise way to put it - it's not compulsion so much as a bargain. Vote 1.8x10^4 times, tell the world, become cog in marketing machine, get high-five from team and concomitant sense of belonging. And yeah, it's easy to draw uncomfortable parallels to baseball fandom as a whole - all spectator sports monetize alienation on some level - but baseball is rich and interesting and beautiful and unsolved and so on. This is just a propaganda campaign. I love that MLB's twitter presence engages fans and helps mint new ones, but is it ever shameless sometimes. Bored? Come strengthen your bond with the Blue Jays by voting a hundred times for Delabar!

I wouldn't mind seeing Delabar get in, of course.

I see the Delabar vote as silly fun.  I did a stack of voting myself just because I love the idea of a guy from the Jays getting in over a Yankee and a Red Sox (and whoever else was in the running).  It gives fans a feeling of control they don't normally have - we can cheer all we want but this is the one time we have any say over who is on the field (well, this and the earlier AS voting).  With the unlimited votes per email address it went coo-coo I suspect and a few took it a bit too far but I don't see much difference between that and all of us wasting time here chatting it up.

Lame.  That's it.  If you want to see how much passion fans have for their team/player, this is not the way to do it.  Make them go distances to vote more than once (by bicycle, of course!).  Or make them compete in baseball trivia games at bars/cafes or whatever.  Or make them organize large rallies in public venues.  Yonge-Dundas square for Delabar!  Six hours after the National concert ends...Count up the admissions (through the turnstiles, no cheating) and add it to his total.

Sigh. Jose Reyes comes back, and suddenly this team turns back into the same team that was so painful to watch in the early season. Correlation not causation, I know, but it's damned depressing.

AA, if you're possibly still wondering at this point - sell, with an eye to 2014.

It's about people responding in Pavlovian fashion to corporate advertising campaigns. This is not even an all-star ballot.

 

Maybe I still misunderstand your objection, but don't the retweets not count as votes? I thought they did (I've not actually voted in either case). If so, isn't voting on All-Star ballot of sorts exactly what they're doing?

It's not a good way to measure fan passion or dedication or to elect the most deserving player and it's entirely an MLB marketing campaign that you may or may not like, but I don't understand what makes it Pavlovian as opposed to fans voting on their favourite players? The ease of this is facilitated by technology and you may find the nature of the Final Vote campaign objectionable, but is filling out an all-star ballot Pavolvian?

The problem with poor/selective Offense is anything that goes even the slightest wrong loses Ballgames. Every time the Hitters try to overachieve and do more than possible, they underachieve badly, like now. After the 11 game winning streak, there were 20 games until the All Star Break, 9-11 keeps the team at .500, while 10-10 keeps them 2 games up. Presently, with 3 games to play, Toronto has 6 wins.

Thomas, people are free to do whatever they want. If someone wants to spend 5 hours sending 10,000 text messages to vote for Delabar or someone else, that's up to them. (Although it seems like a ridiculous waste of their time, and far different from filling out an all-star ballot once per game or whatever the old tradition was.)

But once it begins to occupy the heights of Twitter with a greater volume of corporate advertising, it becomes annoying to others. I had to unfollow the official Blue Jays twitter feed since it was becoming totally filled with "RaiseTheBar" tweets. I find it annoying to be besieged with corporate hype just because I follow the Jays twitter feed or the twitter feeds of some fans. The solution is fairly simple -- the unfollow button -- so I only mentioned it in Batters Box because I was curious whether other Jays fans were enjoying it or finding it annoying.

Anyway, of course this is not a massive issue -- I specifically called it a "pet peeve" because I recognize that this is something that may be a personal reaction of my own. It seems that a few people agree with me and a few disagree, which is fine. People are free to join the commercially driven hype if they wish. I just find it one of the less pleasant signs of the times.

By the way, Twitter is different from text messaging, which is one of the points that I was making. Text messages are private, while tweets are supposed to be for a wider audience, so normally people on Twitter should try to refrain from a deluge of advertising and commercially driven hype. Of course there are tons of celebrities who fill their Twitter feed with advertising for their sponsors. I try to avoid them too. But I'm a little saddened that MLB is shifting the ratio so heavily towards advertising on their Twitter feed, as opposed to the useful news-driven feed that it previously was. All the "retweets" of #RaiseTheBar were basically advertising, not information.

Finally, as to the word "Pavlovian": this word seems accurate when MLB encourages fans to vote 5,000 or 10,000 times for their favorite player by text message or retweets on Twitter -- and then fans actually do it, spending 5 or 6 hours of the day on their cellphone or computer, doing what MLB tells them to do. It's different from filling out a fan ballot which takes 5 minutes per game. If they want to spend hours doing what MLB tells them to do, fine, but I don't want them filling my Twitter feed with boasts or retweets about it....

CF, I understand your point better now. Thanks.

It's been reported that the Diamondbacks are interesting in acquiring bullpen help. I hope AA is on the phone with them regarding Oliver and, if the players are right, Janssen. If not now than in a couple of weeks if the situation does not improve.

It was my understanding that the retweeting was for an opportunity to win a trip to the ASG, so there was a contesting element as well

China Fan: That makes sense to me.  I was getting sick of the Jays non-stop tweeting/retweeting of 'RaiseTheBar'.  While fun as a diversion (I did a fair number, but not 1000) it was just something I did to clear my head during work (stuck on a phone meeting it is something to do that allows you to still hear them yak) it got to the point of annoying by the end and I was glad it was over.

Now back to debating Lawrie at 2B - bad idea or stupid idea?  Heh.  Actually, there are worse things they could try (more Bonifacio PA for example) but I suspect this is a multiple moving parts situation.  It could even been waiting until the offseason moving parts.  Perhaps they use 2013 to find out if Lawrie can handle 2B, and if so then the Jays go get a solid 3B in the winter.  If not then they hunt for a solid 2B.   If they were closer to a playoff slot then they'd be hunting right now for someone to take over 3B or 2B with Lawrie going to the other slot.  Instead a wait and see approach is probably best and if the Jays pull off another 10 game winning streak then they can debate a trade just before the deadline.

I wonder if Kevin Pillar will be the opening day left-fielder in 2014. It's looking more like that. 

Here is Gibbons on the importance of the home run to this club.  I don't agree with the emphasis- it sends a bad message to the hitters.  When you have 5 hits and 2 walks in a game like yesterday, you will normally lose.  If one of those hits is a homer, it is likely to be a solo homer and you still lose. How about "that kid Salazar was tough today"?  It's a bit funny to obliquely point a figure at Jose Bautista when he was the only hitter to actually put a good swing on a Salazar pitch.  After a game when Bautista lines a double into the corner, you don't want to be suggesting that the club is failing because he and Encarnacion are not hitting homers. 

 

I don't agree with the emphasis- it sends a bad message to the hitters.

Neither do I, but I think Gibbons was describing how his team scores. I don't think he's recommending it.

But it sure brings back memories for me. I used up a lot of virtual ink on the Blue Jays' dysfunctional offense during Gibbons' first term. In that term Gibbons showed us how good he is at fixing bullpen problems - ring a bell? - but how offensive problems seem to leave him somewhat baffled. He can see the nature of the problem, but has trouble finding ways to deal with it. That's how it goes. No manager is good at everything.

When the manager contributes to the problem by preferring players with more punch (or potential for punch) over players with more ability to reach base, it's not just a descriptive problem.  Obviously, the manager doesn't control the talent available to him but he does fill out the lineup card.  I agree that every manager has strengths and weaknesses, of course.

Incidentally, Gibbons' strength in managing the bullpen comes at something of a cost.  The decision to lengthen the pen and (to a degree) hoard talent there rather than to shore up the rotation is something that he surely signs on to.  It is true that Esmil Rogers did make it to the rotation eventually, but the club has been slow to do this.  This hoarding of resources in the pen comes at cost to both the rotation and to the bench (because of the roster squeeze).  I don't mean to lay all of this on Gibbons; it appears to me that this is a shared approach with Anthopoulos.  It would be better if there was some creative low-level disagreement on this point, I think. 

I didn't vote for Delabar in protest of the 8 man bullpen. If it's needed, our top two non-closing relievers could use the time off.

"I wonder if Kevin Pillar will be the opening day left-fielder in 2014. It's looking more like that."

So is Melky getting traded, or is Lind hitting poorly enough the rest of the way for his options to not be picked up?

There are lots of possibilities- Lind traded or option not picked up/Melky injured or suspended in a Bud sweep.  Or maybe they keep Lind/Melky/Encarnacion on the theory that one will probably be injured for at least 6 weeks in a year.  Melky gets most of his time at DH.  My guess is that one of the above will happen, but I wouldn't want to guess which one.

I remember AA saying the budget was at its limit, or close to it and a lot of guys go up in pay next year.  Johnson leaving would help ($13.75 mil saved), Lind is a $5 mil decision ($2 mil buyout or $7 mil for next year) and if he keep a 110 OPS+ then he'd probably be worth that much (the $5 mil difference).  Oliver cuts $3 mil off payroll, Davis $2.5 mil (unless resigned).  Potential savings vs this year of $22.5 mil ($3 mil for Lind as it is $5 mil this year vs $2 mil buyout so a $3 mil savings, or they keep him for a $7 mil salary for 2014)

Big increases for next year?
Buehrle: $7 mil
Reyes: $6 mil
Encarnacion: $1 mil
Dickey: $6.75 mil
Lind: $2 mil (if kept)
Happ: $1.5 mil
Santos: $1 mil
Rasmus: arbitration, going up by at least $3-5 mil I'd think if not more
Cecil, Rogers, and JPA all going to arbitration for the first time so $1-3 mil raises each most likely.

So a fixed increase of $23.25 no matter what (plus $2 mil for Lind), then probably another $10-15 mil in arbitration.  Thus $33-$38 million is needed just to stand still.  Potential savings was $22.5 mil if Lind is let go, $19.5 if he is kept.  That means a $14-$19 mil dollar gap unless Rogers ups the budget again for 2014.  And that is without resigning Johnson or Davis.

Best ways to free up more cash?  Assuming trade partners can be found...
1) Cabrera: if suspended again might be hard to move, but otherwise might be moveable at the deadline and hopefully one of the kids (Pillar, Gose, Sierra) can step up and take over in 2014 with Davis getting most of the time this year.  $8 mil there
2) Buehrle: If someone is crazy enough to take on that contract ($18 mil and $19 mil the next 2 years) then take advantage AA
3) Janssen: $4 mil next year or trade and use the pen depth to cover
4) Bonifacio: $2.6 mil this year, probably the same in arbitration so let him go, trade him, do whatever unless he remembers which end of the bat to hit the ball with.