Its Esmil Rogers, Thad Weber and Mickey Storey, with Brett Cecil as closer, taking on the Sawx tonight. How will that turn out? Rogers has been "off" for the past few starts and unless he finds his sinker in the back of his locker he might be in for a long night.
The Jays face John Lester and his 4.27 ERA. Lester has been up and down this season.
I'd rank them 1995, 2004, 2013, 1994, 1987. 1995 and 2004 both were periods where hopelessness hit hard - seeing potential HOF'ers leave, guys who were the best or near best at their positions due to stupidity/cheapness on the clubs part (Alomar due to Ash being cheap pre-1995 dreaming salaries would go down then not talking to him before doing the Cone trade, Delgado due to JPR lowballing in negotiations then not even offering arbitration) plus the team not showing any real hope to fans for anytime in the near future. This year there is still hope for next year at this stage, but if the Jays do a fire sale in the winter then this year could climb the ranks of 'oh crap' fast.
I don't think I could list 1994 and 1995 among the most disappointing seasons. They had just won two straight World Series, which no team had done in my lifetime. A couple of down years were tough after a decade of relevance, but the glow was still there, at least for me.
This year, more than any year I can recall, has been about unexpected underperformance. The entire starting pitching staff projected to start the year (Dickey, Johnson, Romero, Buehrle, Morrow, Happ) has been terrible, with Buerhle "leading the way" in ERA+. The defense has collapsed at times, second to AAA Houston in unearned runs, third in errors. Both second basemen brought in to provide a best-case of average performance have been at or below replacement level. Injured players have been left to play too long (Melky, Arencibia apparently) or brought back too soon (Lawrie, Romero). Aside from the bullpen (itself fraying around the edges now), this season has stunk. The pre-season projections were both hopeful and reasonable. The top five paid pitchers have produced about zero on field value (Dickey, Johnson, Buehrle, Romero, Morrow). There's simply no way to recover from that sort of disaster - those guys should have been "worth" 10-15 more (team) wins among them in an average year.
Do the coaching and development stink for this franchise, or has it just been a few unlucky years? That, to me, is a key question.
AY, I discussed this question with a friend briefly at the game last night. I’m of the mind that I think you do sign Johnson at that price range. I generally lean yes, you should roll the dice at that price given that the rotation alternatives do not really have the same upside for 2014 that he does, even if he is a serious question mark (as many of them are).
My friend made the counter-point that one problem with Johnson is that if the team commits to him, the reality is that they’re going to give him a long leash, based on his pre-2012 track record and the price they paid for him. A benefit for most of the rotation alternatives is that they can be swapped out after 2-3 bad starts if it becomes apparent that they aren’t ready or need more injury recovery time.
I don’t think that swayed me, but I do think he’s right that if the Jays brought back Johnson you’d be looking at at least 15 starts, even if he was underperforming again. He suggested that maybe you could find a cheap one-year alternative, but I’m not convinced that this same downside wouldn’t apply if the team signed this year’s Kyle Lohse, for example.
Regarding Johnson, I think an even larger concern than performance, at the moment, is his health. It would be one thing to gamble that his peripherals portend a better future, if you could be confident that he'd give you 180 innings. Now he appears to be a wild card on two fronts: health and performance.
While some could have argued, heading into 2013, that Johnson had pitched 180+ innings in 3 of his previous 4 seasons (and thus could be considered fairly reliable), they can now argue, thanks to the magic of arbitrary end points, that he's only reached that figure once in the past 3 seasons.
I think Johnson will receive numerous lowball one-year offers and will be able to pick and choose where he'd like to attempt to reestablish his value (if I'm him, I'd opt for a nice quiet pitcher's park like San Diego). I am doubtful that he'll see an offer of 7-8MM and can't imagine anyone offering a multi-year offer. But when it comes to the pitching market, I've underestimated things before. So who knows what madness this off-season will bring? Ryan Madson had made over 10MM the past two seasons, in two separate contracts, pitching not a single inning.
