Tag: Toronto Blue Jays

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Jeter’s Batting Stroke

The idea that Derek Jeter can somehow shorten his stroke or change his batting stance in order to restore some of his lost effectiveness is ridiculous.

Baseball players, like most athletes, achieve success by optimizing every aspect of their game until they are competitive with the best athletes in the world in their sport. This happens in their late teens and early 20’s. By the age of 30, most athletes are in decline.

There is nothing for Jeter to find in his batting stroke or his stance, or his head, or his diet, or his preparation, or his discipline, or anything. Jeter lost his real effectiveness years ago. Like Cal Ripken, he was allowed to trade his moderately decent offensive skills for a few more cycles in the field and the illusion of defense. The illusion of defense is easy. Nobody knows if you should have had that runner at first but didn’t because you were too slow, or your arm was too weak. Nobody knows if you should have reached that ground ball to the left that got through. Nobody knows if you should have been able to turn that double play. All the average fan knows if whether or not you fumbled the ball, or if you got a hit. Even mediocre shortstops can catch most of the balls they can reach.

Because I am a Blue Jays fan, I hope the Yankees do everything they can to gratify the peanut galleries and keep Jeter out there, day after day after day, at shortstop. I promise you: he will come out of his slump if you give enough at bats.

Blue Jays fans understand the difference a less famous but more talented defensive player can be: Devon White replacing Lloyd Moseby. It was a revelation. I didn’t know balls hit into the alleys could be caught.

That said– please don’t come back at me with “well, Jeter’s having a pretty good season, isn’t he? The adjustment worked.” Jeter had a sub-par season last year. Most players who have a sub-par season– like most teams that have a sub-par season– will bounce back to some extent. That won’t change the essential equation: Jeter’s defensive effectiveness is long gone, and .280 with 18 homes runs won’t obviate the Yankees’ need for a new shortstop.

I would also bet that long-time, faithful Yankee fans will be a little startled when the new kid gets to play. Habituated to Jeter, they will be a bit surprised to see ground balls that they thought were going through snatched up and turned into outs.

Update September 2011: as you may have noticed Jeter has brought his batting average up to a respectable .290 or so. However, he still only has 4 home runs, and not much else to show for it. So, essentially, my assessment here holds.

Other exhausted talents: I’m glad to see Tampa Bay struggling after signing Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon. Had the Blue Jays signed either of them, I would have been seriously depressed.

The Blue Jays 2011 version have a respectable club. Everything depends on which way the talent breaks: they have a lot of young players, especially starting pitchers, who could be fabulous, or merely good. Romero, Murrow, Cecil, and Drabek — nobody knows if these are tomorrow’s stars or tomorrow’s 4th and 5th starters on average teams.

They play in what continues to be the toughest division in baseball, a disproportionate share of their games against three of the best teams in the American League. According to baseball writers, Boston will win the World Series, the New York Yankees will struggle with Tampa Bay for the wild card, and even the Orioles are ready to move up. So the Blue Jays, in 2011, are up against four of the best teams in baseball.

I’m appreciative of the fact. The Jays are entertaining to watch lately. But they are up against a few very good, very well-financed teams, so I doubt they will finish any higher– or lower– than 3rd, again. And again. And again.

Their only real hope is that Boston and the Yankees have serious pitching problems– and they might.

The American League Eastern Division is probably, this year, the division of death.

3000 Hits

3000 hits, by the way, is really remarkable but not for the reasons most people think it is: what is remarkable is that these players– decent hitters, all– were so successful in avoiding serious injuries. You have to be good to get 3000 hits but you also have to be pretty lucky. Chances are pretty good that there are more than a few hitters with 2000 career hits or less who were actually better players than Derek Jeter… when they weren’t injured.

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Your Reward for Buying a Ticket

It’s a lot of money– $72. For a ticket to a Blue Jays game.

Nobody goes to Blue Jays games. When the Blue Jays were very successful and packing them in–18 years ago, now– tickets were about $30 for the same seats. The stadium was full– 50,000 people coming out every night to root for the Jays. If I remember correctly, the Jays were the first team to break the 2 million mark in annual attendance.

Now that nobody wants to come, the tickets are $72 each.

Why don’t they lower the price? One guess. Obviously, because there is no competition. Who is is going to fill up a baseball stadium by charging less than the Blue Jays? Nobody. That’s how baseball operates. In exchange for this special dispensation from the usual rules of competition and free enterprise, you get…. what? Yes, there is a reason why there is only one top-tier professional baseball league– because the government officially allows them to stifle competition. In exchange for that, you get to buy the team a stadium, pay $72 for a lousy seat, and buy cold chicken and fries for $14.95.

If the stadium is empty, why not lower the prices? I believe they are afraid that it will alter the public’s perception of what they should pay for a major league ticket. And once lowered, it will be difficult to fool us again.

So when nobody else wants to come to a Blue Jays game but you do, and you are generously willing to pay the outrageous sum of $72 for a lousy seat (there are no good seats anywhere in the Skydome, or in most stadiums), what exactly do you get for your hard-earned dollars?

You don’t get to see a replay of close plays. Nope. You should have stayed at home if you want to see if a runner really beat the throw to second base.
You get assailed with noise and flashing lights emanating from every square inch of the stadium. Constantly. All the time. After a while, you realize that the owners of these professional teams are desperately aware of the fact that their product is actually quite dull and uninteresting to most people most of the time so all the special effects are required to prove to you that you are having an exciting experience.

You get to buy crummy food for high prices, warm beer, ugly, cheap souvenirs, a “program” that consists mostly of lavish praise for mediocre players, and over-priced shirts and hats with the precious logo on them.

Within five minutes of the start of the game, half the stadium decides to get up and buy something to eat or go to the bathroom, forcing you to stand up to let them pass, five, six, seven times.

The seats are too small to ever feel comfortable.

The netting in front of home plate, to protect the fans from the rare event of a fluke foul tip hitting someone in the head, is annoying and ugly. I bet it’s possible to have a reasonably safe normal backstop without that massive, ugly net.

Most people seem to spend most of the game waiting to see if they get shown on the jumbotron video screen. When they do get on the screen, they jump up and down with excitement, spilling their beer. Then they go home happy, having paid $72 to see themselves on a giant TV screen.

I can’t prove it but at times it seemed like they were playing crowd noise through the speakers, as a way of hyping the alleged excitement of what was going on on the field.  I have no doubt that it is something they would do if they wanted to, while holding nothing but contempt for spoil-sports like me who want to hear the honest sound of a stadium crowd.

Every player on the Blue Jays is presented as some kind of god-like super-athlete of unspeakable accomplishments.

It’s hard to believe that on May 9, this conglomeration of staggering talents is in third place, 5 games back of Tampa Bay.

The Blue Jays in 2010 are a very odd team so far. This was a rebuilding year– they traded away their best pitcher, Roy Halliday– yet, so far, they are hanging in there in the American League East, in third place. They are five games back of Tampa Bay and the Yankees, but in any other division, they would be first, or close to first.

They lead the league in home runs, and they have had four starting pitchers throw no-hitters into the seventh inning. Four different pitchers. They also have five players hitting below .200, including the hugely expensive Lyle Overbay, and last year’s breakout star Aaron Hill.

Unfortunately, Alex Gonzalez, who leads the team in home runs with 10, doesn’t seem likely to continue the pace. Vernon Wells is a nice guy but, like Overbay, ridiculously overpaid given his achievements. I don’t expect much from the Blue Jays in 2010.

The hope for this team for the future is the five or six starting pitchers (Marcum, Romero, Cecil, Morrow, Eveland– and young Drabek in the minors), who look very promising, along with Adam Lind and 20-year-old Cuban prospect Adeiny Hechavarria.

Those starting pitchers, seriously, look like the core of a very strong starting rotation in another two or three years.

Travis Snider has yet to show he can handle major league pitching. Bautista and Fred Lewis are place-holders. I like John Buck so far.

But the Blue Jays will never again be able to match the Yankees and Boston in spending (as they did in 1992-93), so, this season, and all the rest, the Blue Jays will likely finish 3rd.

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Batting Average

No manager or coach can tell you something that you can do that will work at any particular at bat. Runners on, a tie game, 9th inning– the pitcher might simply, on that particular occasion, out-smart the hitter. He may have excellent control. He might be able to place that hard fastball low and inside and over the plate: ground ball double-play, game over.

The Blue Jays, for about two weeks now, have looked a lot like the Blue Jays of 2008: excellent pitching, terrible offense. Halliday just pitched seven shut-out innings and the Blue Jays lost, 1-0, to a relatively weak team, Atlanta. Vernon Wells– one of the stars, reputably, of the Blue Jays offense, has gone 5 for 28 in the last week. In those seven games he has walked twice and doesn’t have a single RBI. You can’t fault him for a single at bat– shit happens. But Wells has a lot of stretches where he is worse than ineffective: he is a net drag on the offense. He doesn’t walk: he hits into a double play. He comes up to bat with Hill or Scutaro on base in a close game and produces nothing but outs. He comes to bat early in the game with nothing on the line and hits a single. He is having a terrible month.

Adam Lind is 5 for 27. Scutaro 5 for 26. Rolen 4 for 21.

One thing you learn from baseball is that anecdotal evidence is meaningless. For most of his career with the Blue Jays, Wells averages about .300 with 25 homeruns. At the end of 2009, I suspect he will once again end up with about 25 homeruns and an average around .290 – .310. That means in July or August or September, he will pick up the pace and have a hot week or two, and Blue Jays fans will line-up for Vernon Wells bobble-head day.

Conversely, someone gets a lot of hits– like David Ortiz used to– and the fans begin to think he has some special gift for hitting in the “clutch”. In fact, he just hits well. He gets lots of hits. You seem to remember him always getting a hit when it matters because you are more likely to remember when it matters, but if you check, you will find that good hitters simply get lots of hits. At the end of the year, you will find that they are all pretty close to their career averages.

The manager can’t give any hitter a secret that will guarantee a hit at any particular at bat, and I doubt that either the manager or the hitting coach can have a deep effect on a player’s ultimate ability to hit a ball. The ability to get a hit, in my opinion, is almost entirely a function of the physical skills of the player, and those skills don’t change quickly over a player’s career. They peak at about age 28 and start declining slowly thereafter. (That’s why a player who dramatically improves his performance after the age of 30 should be suspected of cheating.)

The Blue Jays have lost five games in a row because too many of their hitters are slumping at the same time. The Blue Jays are neither as good as their first month or as bad as the last week. I suspect that, once again, they will begin to average out as a fairly good team, with good pitching and defense and a middling offense.

The offensive production of a team is entirely a function of the number of players who are hitting well. The Blue Jays started this season with a dramatic improvement in their offense over last year. The only changes to the line-up were the return of Aaron Hill– who might be the real deal– and the addition of Marco Scutaro as the regular short-stop. Rod Barajas and Scott Rolen hit well over their career averages, for a while. Inevitably, they will revert back to something like what they did last year and the year before. Lyle Overbay, as always, looks like someone who should be hitting a lot more than he does. Over this dismal past week, he hit .350. Fabulous, except that he only walked twice, didn’t hit a single home run, and drove in only 3. If Wells and Rios and Rolen are not driving in runs, Overbay is not picking up the slack.

In short, do the Blue Jays really have an improved offense in 2009? Or did a number of players simply have a good month at the same time? Are they really the 2008 Jays in disguise?

The Blue Jays offense should be better this year with Hill back in the line-up, and, marginally, with Barajas instead of Gregg Zaun behind the plate. Lind will perform better. Rios is a mystery: he could hit 30 homeruns and bat .300 or he could hit 15 homeruns and bat .230. Travis Snider clearly was not ready for major league pitching, but he will be. He probably won’t be a big factor this season.

What I worry about is that you can’t win the East Division or the Wild Card with a team largely comprised of players like Wells, Overbay, Rolen, and Rios, all taking turns slumping, and not being particularly dominating when they aren’t, and certainly not with players like Bautista and Millar using up valuable at bats.

Who would you think would be the highest paid Blue Jay? The one who performs the best? How good is management at predicting, when they offer a player a contract, how well he will perform?

It might surprise you to know that Scott Rolen earns twice as much as Vernon Wells and about five times as much as Aaron Hill. Or that B.J. Ryan earns almost as much as Roy Halliday. Or that Aaron Hill, earns half of what Vernon Wells gets paid. Or that Lyle Overbay earns way more than Vernon Wells.

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The 2009 Blue Jays

As of today, the Toronto Blue Jays are 9 games above 500. That’s a remarkable start.

Baseball is unlike hockey and basketball in this respect: April matters. The Blue Jays could play .500 baseball the rest of the season and still have a good shot at the Wild Card. In fact, last year the Jays did pretty well play .500 most of the season— but they didn’t have a 19-10 start to play with.

Most baseball writers that I have scanned think the Blue Jays are not for real. They point to their relatively easy schedule, and the fact that some players, like Kevin Millar and Marco Scutaro, are performing above their career norms.

Partly true. It is also true that one of the reasons that Baltimore and Detroit and Cleveland and Minnesota are seen as “weaker” opponents is that they were beaten by the Blue Jays, and the Blue Jays do not have a lot of big names in their line-up. Ever heard of Adam Lind? Aaron Hill? Lyle Overbay? Travis Snider? Rob Barajas?

On the other hand… Blue Jays’ pitching has been average, at best. Last year, it was the best pitching staff in the majors. Unfortunately, they lost A. J. Burnett to free agency, and two very promising talents, Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan, are injured. On the plus side, rookie Ricky Romero has been impressive– now he’s out with a muscle pull. Jesse Litsch, also on the DL, and Scott Richmond have been solid. Rookie Brett Cecil gave up one earned run in six innings as a fill-in fifth starter. Their relievers have been excellent, but that’s nothing new: no relief corps has been better than the Blue Jays’ over the past three years. The weak spot: B. J. Ryan, who has nothing so far this year. One hopes and prays the Blue Jays don’t waste a month trying to figure out if he is going to get it back– not with Scott Downs pitching the way he has.

I think the Blue Jays have a shot, mainly because their pitching is likely to improve with the return of Romero and Litsch, and possibly Marcum. Tallet will then be available to the bullpen again, which improves that area. Or maybe not. In his past two starts, 13 innings, Tallet has allowed one run.

Yes, Scutaro is not likely to maintain his current pace, and Rolen and Overbay will probably settle into an average average average, and Well’s hasn’t convinced me that he is a real star who can carry the team for a few days once in a while.

But Alex Rios might yet find his stroke.

Barajas has also been knocking the ball silly the past month and that is not likely to continue, but they will get some production out of him.

Aaron Hill is a solid 20 HR .290 hitter. Maybe he has a good year and bits 28 HR, .315.

You know, I don’t see it. I don’t understand why the Blue Jays suddenly lead both leagues in most offensive categories. Where’s it coming from? Not from Wells or Rios or Overbay. But whenever I hear someone say their balloon is about to pop, I look at the team and think– maybe not. In the last few years, it has not been unusual for a team to come out of nowhere and make a run at the World Series. The White Sox. The Rays. Philadelphia. Florida. Anaheim.

As a fan, I have high hopes for a team that is currently performing well. I suspect that they will come down to earth to some extent once they face better teams this month.

Last year, the Blue Jays were .500 against the Yankees and Red Sox. If they do that again this year, and if the Rays and Orioles continue to struggle, there is a real chance the Jays will take at least the Wild Card.

So I’m predicting 94 wins and the wild card. And if they get that, anything’s possible because Halladay remains one of the two or three best money pitchers in the American League right now, and an excellent bullpen, solid defense, and a couple of good hitters can take you a long way in the playoffs.

One more possibility: Adam Lind may be the next great power hitter in the American League. Everyone starts somewhere.

As I write… the Blue Jays are leading the Angels 7-0 after two innings. The devastating offense continues. ..

Almost all of the columnists who feel that the Blue Jays are not for real insist they have had a very easy schedule so far– they haven’t had to face any teams from their own division. Except Baltimore. (Which was picked by some pundits to contend this year.)

Among the other teams they faced: Detroit, Minnesota, Cleveland, Oakland, Texas, and the White Sox. All of these teams except Cleveland and Oakland are at or near .500. Kansas is in first place and is the only team to win a series from the Blue Jays this year. Soft schedule? Maybe. But last year, the Blue Jays finished with an 86-76 record largely because they lost to inferior teams while doing relatively well against the better teams, like Boston and New York (.500 combined).

Managing Middles

Sometimes late in a close game you will see a manager position his infielders so that they are “guarding the line”. Why? Allegedly, to prevent doubles. Well, that’s a good idea, isn’t it? So why not do it all the time?

Think about it. Why not do it all the time, if it’s a good idea?

Because it’s not a good idea. Because everybody knows that you will give up more singles and get less outs and ultimately give up more runs if you do that.

So, are managers saying that they are willing to give up an out in the late innings of a close game in order to reduce the number of doubles that are hit against them? That’s crazy. Yes, it is crazy.

I suspect that this move is just another case of the manager having to manage because… what else is he going to do? Go out onto the field and catch a fly ball? Hit a homer? Double-off a potential stealer?

No– he can’t do that. So the manager, feeling an overwhelming compulsion to do something, anything, will make a stupid move like a sacrifice bunt, intentional walk, or ‘have his infielders “guard the line”.

Remember what Keith Richard said when he was asked once why he didn’t sing more. “Then what would Mick do?”

Best Blue Jays

Hitter: Aaron Hill, Adam Lind
Outfield Arm: Rios
Infield Arm: Rolen
Infield Glove: John MacDonald
Starter: Halladay
Reliever: Downs
Oddest Combination of Skills: Lyle Overbay
Best Looking: Scott Rolen
Ugliest: Lyle Overbay
Is never going to be as good as the organization thinks he will be: Alex Rios.
Why is this man so successful? Jessie Litsch
Player the fans would most like to see traded to the Yankees: Ryan.
Player on another team the organization would most like to have: Zack Greinke
Manager’s Biggest Asset: Striking ability to stay out of the way of his players.
Manager’s Biggest Weakness: Loyalty to established, expensive, under-achieving veterans and irrational belief that facts have no relevance to decisions on the field.

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Blue Jays 2008

The consistent mediocrity of the Toronto Blue Jays is a wonder to behold. We know that Tampa Bay and Baltimore, enjoying a brief surge right now, are going to fall back and end up fifth and sixth. And we know that the Red Sox will dominate the division, and the Yankees are vulnerable. Doesn’t seem to matter: almost every year since their World Series Championship in 1993, the Blue Jays must just enough talent to finish 3rd. Given the annual disappointment with this team, I’m ready to start wishing they would finish last so they could purge themselves of this steady succession of over-rated, underperforming hitters and rebuild.

I had thought this year might be different. They have a lot of young, strong pitching arms, a very good bullpen, and what looked like a reasonably productive offense. But over the last 10 games, the Blue Jays get few men on base and then consistently fail to advance them. Their starting pitching is fine, typically going five or six competitive innings. Then it’s almost as if the failure of the offense to take advantage and produce runs begins to eat away at the pitching staff and their defense collapses.

The two biggest problems were the DH and first base– the two most important positions to the offense, and the only positions in which power numbers obviate the need for any particular defensive skills or speed. Those two positions, occupied by Frank Thomas and Lyle Overbay (until Thomas was released last week), produce virtually nothing for the Blue Jays. If your outfielders and catcher aren’t producing– and, for the Blue Jays, they aren’t– then your DH and your first base should occasionally carry the offense. They didn’t last year, until Frank Thomas got hot– too late– in August (and even then, Overbay continued to struggle), and they’re not doing it this year. Rios showed promise early last year, but his power numbers dropped off significantly, and Wells has been a disappointment since receiving a fat long-term contract. Stairs, who occasionally subs in left field, has probably been their best hitter for the past two years and the good news, I hope, is that he won’t be forced to share as much playing time with Frank Thomas any more. Shannon Stewart won’t help the offense much, but his weak arm in left field is certainly going to hurt the defense.

I’m not a fan of David Eckstein, but it has to be admitted– and this is gruesome– that he has actually been their offensive sparkplug the last week. So how do you know when your offense is in deep trouble? When David Eckstein is your offensive “sparkplug”. Personally, I’d still rather see John McDonald out there every day, and I’ll bet most of the pitching staff would as well. For the record, Eckstein is only batting .245 right now with, of course, no power numbers to speak of. He tends to weasel his way on base, and he steals occasionally, but the steal is over-rated as an offensive tool, just as the double is under-rated.

The Blue Jays get very little power from their catchers, but then, unless you’re the Yankees with Jorge Posada, nobody else does either. Still, it would be helpful if your catcher would drive just a few runs in now and then.

It sounds odd but, given all the observable deficiencies in the Blue Jays offense, I still have trouble seeing why they are so bad lately. Roy Halliday started a game in the Skydome against Texas in which he appeared to be dominant. For five or six innings, he held them off the score sheets. The Blue Jays were facing a mediocre pitcher, Vicente Padilla (WHIP 1.69, batting average against of over .300), but except for the occasional single or walk, couldn’t muster the slightest offense against him. You had Thomas, Wells, Rios, Overbay, Hill, Stewart, all parading through the batter’s box to absolutely no discernable effect. Eckstein got on base a few times– and stayed put.

The Blue Jays, even if they are playing well, are going to have games like this occasionally, in which they simply, inexplicably struggle. Even very good teams will have the odd off night against a weak pitcher. But the Blue Jays do this game in and game out for ten, twelve games in a row. It’s baffling. I resist cheap, abstract generalizations like “they lost their focus” or they don’t have enough “passion”, but if I ever saw a team on the field that no longer cared about results, it was the Blue Jays in the 8th inning on Friday night against Kansas, in which they gave up six runs and the lead after two misplayed balls and a moment of pure indifference (see sidebar). If I had been John Gibbons, I think I might have taken Wells out of the game for an inning, just to send a message. That might have been a mistake– but it would have been very tempting. Do we not have some hungry young players at Triple-AAA who would love a shot at the big leagues and who might actually get angry at themselves for making a stupid mistake, or for failing to drive in an important run?

The truth is that J.P. Ricciardi is probably quite right when he blames himself for the poor offensive production lately. That is, he chooses the players: the players he chose are not doing the job. We love to think a great inspirational club-house speech can rally a team to perform better than they would otherwise, but the truth is that no amount of emotional energy can summon talent where it does not exist. The truth is that the players on the field, Wells, Overbay, Rios, Zaun, Stewart, Hill– may just not be all that good. We hear coy allusions to injuries that some of these players “played through” last year, and the year before, and the year before that, as if these players had some kind of admirable sense of self-sacrifice which allowed the team to benefit from their mediocre performances even while they were injured– enough already. If you can’t play because you’re hurt, say so, and get off the field, and the team can at least face the facts and commit to an alternative plan.

If I were Blue Jays management right now, I might do nothing because Rogers Communications, which owns the team, won’t give me any more money. If there was money, I’d go shopping for a new catcher and first base. Listen– would the Yankees take Vernon Wells and Jeremy Accardo for Jorge Posada?

Low point of the season so far: Friday, April 26. With a 4-2 lead in the 7th inning, A. J. Burnett began to struggle with his control and gave up a single and walk. Scott Downs then came in and elicited a perfect double-play ball which Eckstein booted. Downs failed to get anyone out and the Royals– on a seven game losing skid– scored six runs, high-lighted by the infield defense practically ignoring a playable ground ball between first and second and Wells booting another ball in centre, and Gibbons intentionally walking Pena (.143) to load the bases to get to DeJesus, who is currently hitting .414! (DeJesus, of course, drove in two more runs with a single.) At this point in the game, it honestly looked like the Blue Jays really didn’t care anymore. They fell back to 10-14 on the season, 4.5 games out of first, in last place, after less than a month, while the Yankees are struggling.

Added April 30: The Blue Jays just lost two games in a row to Boston in which their starting pitcher went 8 plus innings without giving up more than a run. Yes, that’s brilliant pitching… and sustained offensive mediocrity. In the 8th inning, the Blue Jays had runners on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. They got one run out of the deal, to tie the game.

 

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The 2003 Blue Jays

Here’s the starting lineup for the Toronto Blue Jays as of June 24, and their batting averages (from a game against the Expos– hence Halladay):

jays2003.jpg (53276 bytes)

I’ve been following the Blue Jays since about 1983 and I doubt they have ever had as formidable a hitting line-up as they do now. Five batters over .300, six, if you include Shannon Stewart, who is currently on the DL. Average, of course, is not the most important number. Wells and Delgado lead the league in RBI; Delgado leads in homers, and Wells is fourth or fifth. The Blue Jays hit for average and power and they take a lot of pitches. They lead in almost all offensive categories: average, on-base percentage, hits, runs, etc., except home runs. They are third, currently, with 97, about ten behind the leaders, the Yankees and Texas.

Baseball is game of streaks, so it pays to be careful before making judgments about how good a team is. The Jays have periodically shown flashes of inspiration in the past decade, but seem to always end up in third place, behind Boston and New York.

Are the 2003 Jays the real thing? Do they have the horses to make the wild card, or perhaps even over take the Yankees?

The most obvious weakness of this team is the pitching. For the first month, Jays pitchers were as horrible as any Blue Jays staff has ever been going back to 1982. The fact that they are still near the bottom of the league in pitching stats, however, is more indicative of that horrible month, during which they went 8-18, than of the quality of their current staff.  Roy Halladay, Kelvim Escobar, and Mark Hendrickson have pitched very well in the past week or so, and Corey Lidle pitches well enough to win, usually. But the bullpen is unusually week, and Cliff Politte has not yet shown that he has solved their closer problem. I watched Politte today, one day after he gave up a home-run to lose a game the Jays should have won to the Expos. His off-speed stuff was well off the plate and his fast balls were high in the strike-zone and didn’t fool anybody. He gave up a single, and two fly ball outs within inches of the outfield wall. The Jays won, but it was a white-knuckle victory, especially after Halladay had given them 8 innings of two-hit ball.

For all the deficiencies of their bullpen, the Blue Jays have been playing terrific ball for the past month and a half. Only the Mariners have been equal to them over that period. That’s long enough to justify the opinion that the 2003 Jays will be competitive. They have closed steadily on the Yankees and Boston and currently sit 2 games back of New York, .5 games up on Boston. It is fair to say that almost no baseball pundits picked them to play this well. Of course, we’re not half way through the season yet.

The Blue Jays virtually never sacrifice bunt or steal. If you believe in the sacrifice bunt and the steal as offensive weapons, it’s hard to explain why the Jays lead the league in almost all offensive categories.

It also appears that baseball writers, while noting the spectacular offense, haven’t generally noticed that the starting pitching has improved dramatically. Halladay has 11 consecutive wins, and the rest of the staff — except for the bullpen– has pitched well enough to win most nights.

The Up Side: This team can score runs! Look at the averages above. The Blue Jays lead the league in most offensive categories, including batting average with runners in scoring position, and in scoring position with two outs.

Both Hinske and Stewart are due to return from the disabled list soon and Hinske, last year’s rookie of the year, at least, will be an improvement at third over Mike Bordick (.260, 2 hrs.). The Blue Jays lead all of baseball in runs scored, and Delgado and Wells lead both leagues in RBI. Delgado theoretically could drive in 160 runs this year, though it’s not altogether likely he’ll maintain this pace through the second half. Delgado should be a shoe-in for first base on the all-star team and Wells should be starting centre field, but he is not well-known outside of Toronto and the baseball writers association. Greg Myers is having a career year at 38 years old. Catalanotto had an off year last year with injuries, but his performance this year is not a fluke. Even the subs, Howie Clark and Reed Johnson, have hit remarkably well. In fact, the Jays would obviously like to find a way to keep Reed Johnson in the line-up after Stewart returns, but this is now a tough line-up to crack.

Pitching has been up and down, but has improved significantly since May 1. Halladay, Escobar, and Hedrickson have pitched very well in the past four weeks. Escobar has always had dominating stuff, but the story was that he occasionally lost focus and was prone to giving up the big inning. Hedrickson pitched poorly for a while but improved when manager Tosca made it clear his job was on the line.

The best indicator of all is the relative youth of the Blue Jays line-up. Young players are cheap, and they tend to improve. That may sound like common sense, but it’s surprising how many baseball teams (like the New York Mets) ignore that simple axiom. Vernon Wells, Orlando Hudson, Eric Hinske, Josh Phelps, Chris Woodward, Howie Clark, and Reed Johnson are already performing well and will likely get better in the next few years. In fact, their performances this year, so far, are somewhat extraordinary, which raises the suspicion that some of them will cool off later in the season. Is Hudson really a .300 hitter? Can Josh Phelps handle the slop pitchers will start to throw at him once they realize what he can do to a fast ball up in the strike zone? Will Hinske continue to improve defensively at 3rd base? If Catalanotto slumps, will Wells start to see more junk pitches?

Josh Phelps is the only hitter in the current line-up who still swings at bad pitches. It’s a scary thought– what if he gets some plate discipline? What if Hinske comes back and hits .300 with power?

The Blue Jays don’t seem to be intimidated by strong, power pitchers. They hammered a finesse pitcher, like Andy Pettite, and they hammered Vasquez in Montreal and scored five runs against Wood in Chicago. The only team that has given them trouble in the last month has been St. Louis.

The Blue Jays swept both Boston and New York in 3 and 4 game sets, the last time they played their divisional rivals.

The Down Side: relief pitching remains a major problem. Politte has given up far too many home runs, and Sturtze and Tam have been ineffective. This is the one area of the line-up Ricciardi might be thinking of improving. Any teams out there with a good strong, durable reliever to trade for a premiere lead-off hitter? Shannon Stewart is a terrific player, but the Jays are awash in good hitters and outfielders right now. Stewart becomes a free agent next year. It would not be a dumb idea to trade him now for a good relief arm or two.

The question of depth is often raised with young, over-achieving teams like the Blue Jays. Often they ride career years by a few key players, disguising their weaknesses with astute management and a bit of good luck. Delgado and Wells are indeed having outstanding years, but when Delgado recently drove in only one run in six games, the Blue Jays still went 5-1. The two bench players called up to replace Stewart and Hinske are batting .325 and .450, with power. Woodward and Hudson, shortstop and second base, are batting a respectable .265 and .298. In their last two starts, Hendrickson, Halladay, and Escobar have each allowed two runs or less each.

The Blue Jays are not a fluke.

This is a remarkable team. It is unknown, except for Delgado and maybe Halladay, but likely to overtake the Yankees within the next two weeks.

Fistfull of Dollars: Blue Jays Payroll is about $80 million, solidly in the middle of the pack, and well below the Yankees’ $175 million.  Below is what the Yankees get for their $175 million:

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Blue Jays Pitchers –

Starters:

Roy Halladay
Mark Hendrickson
Cory Lidle
Doug Davis
Kelvim Escobar

Relievers:

Cliff Politte
Tanyon Sturtze
Pete Walker
Jeff Tam
Aurilio Lopez
Doug Creek

In their 25 year history, the Blue Jays have had three great offensive line-ups.

The first, roughly 1983-1987, featured George Bell, Lloyd Moseby, Jesse Barfield, Tony Fernandez, Damaso Garcia, Rance Mulliniks, and Ernie Whitt. Willie Upshaw holds the team record for longest period of coming out of his slump. In fact, he’s still coming out of his slump.

The second, roughly 1992-1994, featured Roberto Alomar, Devon White, Kelly Gruber, Ed Sprague, Pat Borders, John Olerud, and Joe Carter with trade-deadline guests, Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, and Rickey Henderson. I suspect both Winfield’s and Henderson’s contributions were minimal, but Molitor joined Olerud and Alomar as three of the best hitters in the league in 1993. The Blue Jays won two World Series with this team, including the infamous 15-14 victory over Philadelphia in game 5, and, of course, Joe Carter’s walk-off series-winning home-run off Mitch Williams..

Joe Carter and George Bell were dominating for brief periods. Olerud was an outstanding hitter at times, and extremely consistent, if unspectacular. He’ll have a 3,000 hit career but won’t make the Hall of Fame. Delgado is probably the greatest offensive threat to ever wear a Blue Jays uniform.

But of the entire pack of them, Roberto Alomar was, in his prime, the best all-round player the Blue Jays ever had, and the most likely to be the first Blue Jay to go into the Hall of Fame (as a Blue Jay)..

 

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Blue Jays in 1998

Well, Cal Ripken finally sat down. He notified his manager 30 minutes before game time that, in his infinite grace and wisdom, he would sit out one game. Half of baseball was frantic. I even heard some sadly misguided fans talk about what a great, unselfish player Cal has been.

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Unselfish! What’s wrong with this picture: Cal Ripken tells his coach when he will and when he won’t play! For the record, aside from Ed Sprague and some no-name, Cal Ripken has the worst offensive stats of any third baseman in the league. I wonder if his manager thanked him for sitting out a game.

Anyway, we saw the “great” Cal Ripken live, in person, at the Skydome on Monday. There was some announcement on the PA and then everybody was supposed to stand up and cheer him. I stayed in my seat.

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We had decent seats, 15 rows back along the first base line, just beyond the infield. For four of us, that came to $117.00, including tax. Unlike most major league teams in the U.S., the Blue Jays pay their share of property taxes, $7 million for 1998.

We bought hot dogs and coke on the way, knowing we weren’t allowed to take cans of pop into the stadium. When I popped in one of the entrances to ask where we pick up our tickets, a nice man, a Jays official, offered to get us a cup for the coke. Very decent of him. You sometimes think professional sports organizations are rather tactless and ruthless about getting your money. They are, but at least the Blue Jays have the good sense to show a little decency here and there.

Most people spent the first twenty minutes in the dome looking at the jumbotron to see if the camera is zooming in on them. Fans in the nose-bleed sections will put on a show, take off the shirts, and dance. They have their reward. As soon as the game started, a steady stream of people began leaving their seats for the bathrooms or concessions. I estimate that I saw half of the first 30 pitches. A little boy to the right of us left his seat for the aisle, requiring us to stand up, 13 times. If I was his father, I’d tell him he could leave twice during the game, whenever he chose.

Shawn Green has an amazing ball-player’s body. If Norman Rockwell drew us a ball-player, and wasn’t joking about it, he’d come up with someone who looked like Shawn Green: tall, lanky, angular, with a whip for an arm and an easy, efficient gait. His cap sits low on his forehead just like a ball cap should. I love watching him.

Roberto Alomar, on the other hand, looks like a ballet dancer. Nothing wrong with that– he moves like a ballet dancer too. He’s probably the best all-round player in the game, when he’s not spitting at umpires. The home-plate umpire in this game, by the way, was the very same John Hirschbeck, and his strike zone is still pretty wide. Roger Clemens had 15 strike-outs on the night, not a few of them due to Hirschbeck’s generous zone. At one point, after a called strike that looked pretty low, Alomar turned to him and glared, but didn’t spit.

The Blue Jays are probably not going to make the wild card. At this stage, they would have to win all their remaining games and Boston lose all of theirs. Still, they have made a terrific race out of it after being more than 12 games behind at the end of July. The Jays have the major’s best record since July 31st, right after they dumped Randy Myers, Ed Sprague, Mike Stanley, and Juan Guzman. They were, supposedly, throwing in the towel, but something wonderful happened. Their “fall-back” outfielders, Stewart, Cruz, and Green did what many of us thought they would do two years ago: they ran down balls in the gap, hit the cut-off man, and brought some excitement into the field. They also began to hit up a storm, steal bases, and run up the pitch counts. Tony Fernandez, moved to third base where his defensive lapses don’t hurt as much, batted over .400 in September. Carlos Delgado is establishing himself as reliable RBI man. And Blue Jays pitching, including the young and untested Escobar and Carpenter, as well as the best pitcher in the League in Roger Clemens, began to smother opposition bats.

Everyone thinks the Blue Jays will do it next year. Well, hope springs eternal, but it is a known phenomenon that teams that improve dramatically one season often fall back the next. They would need to re-sign Canseco, but I doubt he will produce another 44 home runs, or survive the full season without injuries. Toronto’s pitching is solid, but I’m not sure that Person is going to be a great closer, and I wonder if Plesac and Quantrill can continue to work miracles out of the bullpen. Roberto Alomar has made it known he would love to play for Toronto next season. Alomar’s a cypher. What does he care about, other than baseball? Who knows? But he is, without a doubt, the best second baseman in baseball. If the Blue Jays were to sign him (he is a free agent at the end of the season), I would bet they will do very well in ’99. Alex Gonzalez is solid defensively, perhaps one of the two or three best shortstops, but he needs to cut down on his strikeouts. Behind the plate, the Jays are solid, if unspectacular. Santiago could have a great season. Then again, he could bat .240.

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Jays in ’99? Possibly. Jays in ’00? Given the same line-up with two more years of maturity– almost certainly.