Archive for the ‘Griff Bag’ Category

As you’ve probably heard, somewhere beyond all the trade innuendo of these many past, insufferable off-day hours, the Oakland A’s are a streaking, surprising club, having just swept the New York Yankees, and looking to add pieces– like Yunel Escobar, we’re supposed to believe– for some kind of a charge at the one-game Wild Card play-in.

Well, to think like that, they’d have to be looking past Brett Cecil, who the Jays send to the hill tonight at Rogers Centre in a somewhat meaningful game for both him and the club. JA Happ is sitting in the bullpen, waiting for Cecil, Laffey, or Villanueva to crack, and the way the other two have looked of late the safest money would seem to be on Cecil, even though he hasn’t been particularly awful either.

Cecil took the loss in his outing against the Yankees last week, but only gave up three earned on six hits through six innings, with five strikeouts and only two walks. That’s a completely fine stopgap outing for a team trying to hold on until they can make a deal for some front-line pitching help, or at least until August 11th, when Brandon Morrow is eligible to come off of the 60-day DL (according to Wilner’s best recollection, via Twitter).

I speak of Morrow’s return with optimism for a reason: John Lott of the National Post tweets that John Farrell told reporters today that the Jays’ ace is throwing live batting practice today, and if all goes well, he’ll be making a rehab start for Dunedin on Sunday.

Scuttlebutt

Both via the invaluable MLBTR, Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tweets that the Jays are among the teams who have had interest in Zack Greinke (Okaaaaaaay), while Peter Gammons tweets that the Marlins told teams they would only trade one of Anibal Sanchez and Josh Johnson, so it would take a “blowaway” offer to land JJ.

If he does move, Jack Moore of FanGraphs wonders if Johnson will be able to solve his problems pitching out of the stretch, which have been a major issue this season.

Gold from Gregor, as BlueJays.com’s Chisholm tweets that Sergio Santos had surgery today, and that John Farrell says that the rotation is constantly being evaluated, which, like I say, could be trouble for tonight’s starter Brett Cecil. Chris Toman adds that Farrell says he’d be comfortable moving Cecil to the bullpen– where a lot of us were thinking over the winter he might be best suited for anyway– and notes that of the eight starts he’s made this season, this is the first time Cecil’s been paired with JP Arencibia and not Jeff Mathis.

Speaking of rotation changes, Robert MacLeod of the Globe and Mail writes about the Jays’ rotation tumult, noting that the club has been clear that any of their struggling pitchers could be replaced by the newly-acquired JA Happ, or anybody else who may come along. They then quickly realized that they forgot to mention that Ricky Romero, who has struggled as much as anyone, has a shit-tonne more rope than, say, Aaron Laffey.

In the National Post, John Lott writes that Jason Frasor will be out for a month, but that Jose Bautista continues to progress nicely, and may be hitting off a tee by the end of the week.

Speaking of Bautista, our old friend Dustin Parkes tweets that he heard Eric Byrnes on KNBR radio in San Francisco, saying that he thinks the Giants are going after the Jays’ slugger. Um… right. Good luck with that.

Jays Prospects talks to Marcus Stroman, the first-rounder who is finally getting comfortable with the Vancouver Canadians, and still may find himself in the Majors this season.

Lastly, for your between-innings viewing pleasure, here’s today’s edition of Getting Blanked…

TV: Sportsnet

And now the lineups, by way of the live box score at theScore.com. And for those of you who’ll be out and about, be sure to follow all the action on your phone with Score Mobile…

Toronto Blue Jays

B. Lawrie 3B
C. Rasmus CF
E. Encarnacion 1B
A. Lind DH
J. Arencibia C
K. Johnson 2B
Y. Escobar SS
T. Snider LF
R. Davis RF

B. Cecil LHP

Oakland A’s

C. Crisp CF
J. Gomes DH
J. Reddick RF
Y. Cespedes LF
C. Carter 1B
B. Inge 3B
D. Norris C
B. Hicks SS
J. Weeks 2B

T. Blackely LHP

Image via Mike Stobe/Getty.

Holy shit, am I doing this somewhat on time, for once? It sure as hell looks like it, because we’ve got a fresh-ish new Griff Bag in our hands, and I’m pretty sure you’re already about to get a taste of caustic hijacking of it, which, as I may have mentioned before, sounds kind of disgusting, flavour-wise. But I’m sure it’s all good, as it’s time for me to answer Richard Griffin’s mail bag from over at the Toronto Star! And if I can be perfectly honest with you, this is probably the best fucking one I’ve ever done– by an evil margin. Don’t believe me? Read it and find out.

As always, I have not read any of Griffin’s answers.

If there’s a question you’d like me to answer, submit it to Griffin here, and maybe he’ll select it for a future mail bag. Fingers crossed!

Q-Hi Richard Stoeten,

With Rasmus starting to look like the keeper we hoped he would be and with the continued development of some of our top prospects in Las Vegas, I started putting the pieces together for 2013. What I realized is that aside from a potentially potent offence, we may have the best defensive team in the majors next year. The Jays could potentially have a starting OF of Rasmus, Gose and Bautista, an infield of Lawrie (3B), Escobar (SS), Hechaverria (2B), D’Arnaud (C) and your pick between Lind, Cooper, Gomes, Arencibia, or Encarnacion at 1B. That’s a lot of youth in a starting side but would I be right in saying this would be the top defensive team in the league if you believe all the reports on Gose, Hech, and D’Arnaud?

All the best,

Aaron Hickey, Sydney, Australia

Sure, that would be a pretty good defensive unit, based on the hearsay we’ve… uh… heard, but who the hell’s to say it’d be the best? And furthermore, who really cares if it is or isn’t quite? Especially because I have a very hard time believing we’ll see anything like it come next year. Shit, I mean, even d’Arnaud isn’t a lock to be in the Opening Day lineup next year, and he’s got by far the best chance of the three guys in Triple-A you name.

Like, I get that people are excited to see some products of the Jays’ vaunted farm system, but I’m just not sure Hechavarria and Gose are the guys– not in 2013, at least. Playing Gose in left is quite a waste of his primary way of providing value, and as good as Rasmus has been over the last month or so, I’m not sure his bat plays in left in an ideal world, let alone Gose’s.

And that’s the thing with Hechavarria, too. Reports have been encouraging this year, but these are still guys who are really going to struggle to hit Major League pitching, in all probability. In the hitter’s wet dream that is Las Vegas the numbers look gaudy, but neither Gose nor Hechavarria can boast an OPS higher than that of David Cooper or Yan Gomes, and Gose is behind Moises Sierra, too– hardly a murderers row at the big league level. In fact, the .817 OPS Gose is sporting is behind the ones put up by d’Arnaud, Travis Snider and Adam Lind by 160, 231 and 298 points respectively.

Desmond Jennings of the Rays, for example (see what I did there?), was twice a higher rated prospect than Gose has ever been, according to Baseball America, and he played parts of three seasons in Triple-A, including the bulk of 2010 and 2011– when he was 23 and 24. Gose, on the other hand, won’t turn 22 until August.

There are plenty of ways in which the two players aren’t comparable, sure, but the point is, there’s no need to rush talent like Rasmus or Travis Snider, out of your organization just to find a place for someone because he might possibly be ready-enough to not completely fail.

Frankly, I’d be very disappointed if the Jays didn’t give Snider the bulk of playing time in left field for the rest of this season, with a view to determining whether he can be their Opening Day starter there in 2013, with Gose slated all the way to be back in Vegas until Snider, or whoever else may be brought in ahead of him this winter, is hurt or needs replacing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Late as usual, but so what? No, we haven’t got a fresh new Griff Bag in our hands, but you’re still about to get a taste of caustic hijacking of his most recent, which… actually… sounds kind of disgusting, flavour-wise. But I’m sure it’s all good, as it’s time for me to answer Richard Griffin’s mail bag from over at the Toronto Star!

As always, I have not read any of Griffin’s answers.

If there’s a question you’d like me to answer, submit it to Griffin here, and maybe he’ll select it for a future mail bag. Fingers crossed!

Q-Hi Richard Stoeten,

Your mailbag rocks. Please do it regularly. Rather frustrating when I try to look for it on Fridays and came out emptyhanded.

 Questions:

1-The current Washington Nationals team, any leftover from the Expos era, whether they are players or management?

2-What so good about Bryce Harper? 19-year-old playing every day?! Who would you compare him to?

3-If you have to point your finger, who will you blame for the current Jays’ mediocrity? AA’s bad assessment of the AL East state? Farrell’s lack of experience? Lack of leadership/maturity amongst players? It seems like they lost something from last year.

4-When JP was in charge, he tried to trade Rios for either Lincecum or Cain. I think he would still be around if he were able to get that done, agree? Was this rumour real or not? Supposed Rios did live up to his potential (5 tools), would you still make that trade — an all-star fielder for an all-star pitcher?

5-What is so good about Buster Posey? Is our d’Arnaud as good? How can he earn respect of his pitchers being so young? And batting cleanup too? He is no I-Rod, no?

Thomas Lam, Richmond Hill

Shit… so many questions off the hop. Let me see…

1) Roger Bernadina was signed by the Expos and is still playing for Washington, so yes, there are some holdovers, but I have no idea, in terms of the management side, though I wouldn’t expect a whole lot. The Nats even have their own Henry Rodriguez, which is such a soft gag I’m sure Griff must have used it.

2) Not bad, huh? Age matters, and as impressive as Brett Lawrie was tearing up the Majors last year at 21, when he was 19, as Harper is, he started the year in A-ball. Now, as we’ve seen with Lawrie, a hot start doesn’t always mean it’s smooth sailing from here, but holy shit, Harper’s a tremendous talent.

3) They haven’t lost anything, it’s just not that easy to make meaningful headway in the AL East and the Jays felt their best approach this winter was to keep thinking long-term at the expense of the short. They weren’t wrong, but that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating to watch them now and think of what could have been.

4) Obviously, knowing what we know now, you’d go back and make that trade– whether it be Cain or Lincecum– in a heartbeat. Most do believe that it was a real thing– and I know that I’ve personally suspected that it’s falling apart is one of the reasons Alex Anthopoulos likes to be so careful with the media– but we really don’t know. More importantly, I think, is to not get too fucking gloat-y on this notion about Rios and his failure to live up to potential. He’s had a pair of 5 win seasons, per FanGraphs, two more above 3.5, and he’s been above average with the bat in five of the last seven seasons, while usually playing pretty good defence in the overall, and mostly in centre since moving to Chicago. He’s put up 2.77 WAR per 150 games played in his career. You could do a whole lot worse.

5) Posey had a four win season as a rookie, and sports a career wOBA of .353. If he had enough plate appearances to qualify for the leaderboard, that mark would put him fifth among MLB catchers over the last three seasons, ahead of Brian McCann, Alex Avila, and Carlos Santana. So… he’s an above average offensive catcher, which is what they say of d’Arnaud too, but I have no idea just how close they are, and it’s way far beyond me to try and say that d’Arnaud might ever be able to find himself in such company. I don’t mind pointing out, however, that JP Arencibia and his .297 wOBA would rank third-last on the same list, ahead of only Kurt Suzuki and Miguel Olivo.

As for Posey hitting cleanup, who the hell else on that team were they going to ask to do it? And the notion of a catcher being too young or failing to command the appropriate respect is, I think, completely, ridiculously overblow. Posey and Santana have both done it recently with no problems.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s over a week late, but so what? No, we haven’t got a fresh new Griff Bag in our hands, but you’re still about to get a taste of caustic hijacking of his most recent, which… actually… sounds kind of disgusting, flavour-wise. But I’m sure it’s all good, as it’s time for me to answer Richard Griffin’s mail bag from over at the Toronto Star!

As always, I have not read any of Griffin’s answers.

If there’s a question you’d like me to answer, submit it to Griffin here, and maybe he’ll select it for a future mail bag. Fingers crossed!

Q-Hi Richard Stoeten,

I recently read an article speculating about a trade of Edwin Encarnacion by the deadline for a maximum return while he’s swinging one of the league’s hottest bats.

There also seems to be a lot of online chatter about how the Jays will find a place in the line up for both J.P. Arencibia and Travis d’Arnaud for as early as next year, if not by the end of the season.

So here’s the question, what are your thoughts on the likelihood of the Jays easing d’Arnaud into the catching role next year by having JP and d’Arnaud split their time between catching and DH’ing? 
Perhaps J.P. catches about 100 games, having some off days and DH’ing the rest while having d’Arnaud catches about 60 games and DH’s the majority of the rest of games?
 While the team may not wish to put a rookie into the DH role, it allows for d’Arnaud to ease into the catching role while keeping both of their bats in the lineup.
 Perhaps in the possible absence of EE’s bat and rather than making a big free agent splash to sign a DH, or re-sign EE, this could be a low cost option to allow for money to be spent on a starter or other area of need.

Cheers,

Robert Lynch, Ottawa

The thing about that plan, Robert, is that it assumes Arencibia’s bat is one that needs to be kept in the lineup. The truth is, it’s really not. He hits well for a catcher, but that’s about exactly where it fucking ends. So, if you go with some kind of a plan to keep both him and d’Arnaud in the lineup, you’d be doing so at the expense of carrying on the roster a better DH than the rookie d’Arnaud– which shouldn’t be difficult to find– and a better-hitting catcher than Arencibia, which you already probably have in d’Arnaud.

True, it might be good to bring d’Arnaud along slowly behind the plate, but giving two-ninths of your plate appearances to a pair of catchers– one a rookie and the other with a career wOBA of .304– does a massive disservice to your lineup. It’s just not an acceptable position for a club with pretenses of being a contender to go into a season in. Add in the fact that Arencibia could likely be packaged in a trade for some much-needed immediate rotation help and it makes it an even worse idea.

In fact, if there was any time in which to enact such a plan, it’s now. Or at least if not right this fucking second, at some point this season. I mean, with full-time at-bats currently going to some combination of David Cooper, Yan Gomes and perhaps eventually the ghost of Vlad Guerrero, the Jays don’t have a whole lot to lose by going the d’Arnaud route– and depending on what sorts of moves are in store as the trade deadline approaches, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it come to fruition.

Read the rest of this entry »

Griffsmas week (?) continues here at DJF, as we finally have the latest Griff Bag fresh and hot in our hands, which mean that you’re about to get a taste of caustic hijacking, which… actually… sounds kind of disgusting, flavour-wise. But I’m sure it’s all good, as it’s time for me to answer Richard Griffin’s mail bag from over at the Toronto Star!

As always, I have not read any of Griffin’s answers.

If there’s a question you’d like me to answer, submit it to Griffin here, and maybe he’ll select it for a future mail bag. Fingers crossed!

Q-Hi, Richard Stoeten,

Enjoyed your baseball acumen and ‘mailbag’ very much. I wish that is more frequently published.

 Regarding the first Brett Lawrie incident which ‘earned’ him a four-game suspension, I was more dismayed by the umpire’s action, especially calling the last strike (which was clearly a ball) in order to teach him ‘a lesson’.

 This call might have a bearing on the Jays’ record, and affect the Jays’ standing and chances of earning a wild card at the end of the season. Why does MLB allow the umpires such behaviour? Is it because of the MLB/Umpire labour agreement? I am also surprised that almost no one in the media questioned the umpire’s ‘right’ to ‘teach’ Brett a lesson.

 Please help to explain this situation. Thank you.

Nicholas Wong, Markham

Yes, you certainly are “Wong.” Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! [deep breath] ahhhhhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Read the rest of this entry »

Does anyone even bother to read these fucking preambles, or are you all just jonesing the way I am to get to my weekly-ish little caustic hijacking of  Richard Griffin’s mail bag from over at the Toronto Star. (Or, y’know, not really caring either way… most likely).

Whatever the case, let’s get to it!

As always, I have not read any of Griffin’s answers.

If there’s a question you’d like me to answer, submit it to Griffin here, and maybe he’ll select it for a future mail bag. Fingers crossed!

Read the rest of this entry »

Because there’s still a lot of time to kill this evening before Dan Haren’s first pitch in Anaheim, and because there’s no better way I can think of to jump back into the blog with two feet after a week mostly off, it’s time for my weekly-ish little caustic hijacking of  Richard Griffin’s mail bag from over at the Toronto Star.

Keep in mind that his was posted way back on April 27th, so– in what’s probably as good an indication of why you hear the words “small sample size” so much this time of year– a lot of things have kinda changed since then. Don’t worry, though, my ability to shit on dumb questions hasn’t.

As always, I have not read any of Griffin’s answers.

If there’s a question you’d like me to answer, submit it to Griffin here, and maybe he’ll select it for a future mail bag. Fingers crossed!

Read the rest of this entry »