2010 Blue Jays Season Thread

[Jason14h]

That isn't really their problem at all.

The Jays have had some very good seasons where they could have competed for the playoffs if they had that 1 franchise batter. Go through every team in the MLB. Who is the Jays franchise batter? Wells? The only teams with a worst franchise hitter would be KC, Pitts, Houston, Arizona (Maybe), Baltimore..... Hey see a pattern developing here.....

Let's say for arguments sake that Lind had continued his success from last season to this year. .300 hitter, 20 HR, 65 RBIs at this point. That would probably equate to 5-7 more wins.

That would put this team 10 games over .500. In a rebuilding year.

The Jays can never outbid for a franchise hitter, so we need to draft one. Finishing near the bottom of the league for a few years would certainly help the chances!

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by moon

The problem the Jays have had, outside of the garbage excuse of their division, is that they have overrated the readiness/ability of their young guys and overpaid on bad players.

I don't think it's quite that simple. Overrating the young guys like Marcum/McGowan/Litsch led to the best pitching staff in the majors in '07.
"Overpaying" for Ryan or Burnett was the only option the Jays have, players have no incentive to sign with the Jays at a discount - they never offer competitiveness (because of the division).

Another thing that gets underrated with hindsight is luck. The Jays had terrible luck the past few years, statistically and anecdoatally.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

The Jays can never outbid for a franchise hitter, so we need to draft one. Finishing near the bottom of the league for a few years would certainly help the chances!

Not neccessarily. You can get good hitters anywhere in the draft, you just have to be willing to go over slot to sign them. Many of the bad teams at the top of the draft are often passing on guys due to signability. The Jays simply would not do this under Ricciardi. Under the new regime they seem more willing to do this, and to be more active with international free agents.

[Caged Great]

Bumping the prospect signing list again because the Jays came to terms with one of their 2nd round picks 3B Kellen Sweeney today. Signed him for 600K plus tuition. They also signed LHP Sean Nolin who was taken in the 6th round

There's only 9 or 10 players left that the Jays really sign, but there's still 20 or so days left till the deadline.

RHP

1st - Deck McGuire
2nd - Justin Nicolino
4th - Sam Dyson
10th - Tyler Shreve
17th - Myles Jaye
21st - Chris Marlowe
25th - Brando Tessar
28th - Adaric Kelly
31st - Luis Benitez
36th - David Whitehead
37th - Chad Green
39th - Nick Vander Tuig
46th - Connor Smith
47th - Gabriel Romero

LHP

6th - Sean Nolin - Signed
7th - Mitchell Taylor
8th - Logan Ehlers
13th - Tyler Painton
15th - Zak Adams
43rd - Ronald Schreurs

Catchers

27th - Eric Arce
48th - Nick Studer
50th - Kelly Norris-Jones

2nd Base

44th - Mott Hyde

Short Stop

9th - Brandon Mims

3rd Base

2nd - Kellen Sweeney - signed
18th - Kris Bryant
41st - Seth Conner

OF

12th - Omar Cotto
22nd - Aaron Westlake
45th - Phil Diedrick

[Caged Great]

The guys I think the Jays should make a really push to sign are Cotto, Bryant, Mims, Taylor, Ehlers, McGuire, Nicolino, Dyson, and Shreve

If they got 5 or 6 of those guys to sign as well, then it would be a pretty good haul from the draft. They've already signed 23 players out of 56 that they drafted

[calculoso]

Has anyone figured out how much they spent on signing bonuses this year and how that compares to other years?

[Ziggy Lidstrom]

Originally Posted by moon

That isn't really their problem at all.

As the resident Cardinals (and in many peoples eyes Jays hater) equating their problems to not having a guy like Pujols who is easily the best hitter of hi generation and possibly a top 5 guy of all time when is is done is just silly. Throw in the fact that he was a 14th round pick and it makes no sense at all.

The problem the Jays have had, outside of the garbage excuse of their division, is that they have overrated the readiness/ability of their young guys and overpaid on bad players.

The Jays seem to have corrected this problem, although it is very, very early, but JP did develop guys but made the mistake of thinking they were ready to early and wasting money on FA's like Thomas and Ryan.

The Jays issue isn't that they can't compete with NY and BOS but that they have to choose the right time to do it and that has to coincide with young guys taking the next step. When that happens then that is the time to spend money. JP chose the wrong time to make that next step and spent the money too early.

The thing about competing with those two teams now is that they produce as much young talent as other teams but still make bad signings. Yes the Jays can go head to head year after year but they can for say 5 years out of ten if they make smart decisions in bringing up their own talent.

Sure it woudl be great if they could luck out and get a talent like Pujols or Cabrera but if that is the plan you are not going to be successful for the most part.

For me the key is not to stop whining about the division, stop trying to win when the time isn't right (which the Red Sox have actually done) and build the team to compete for 5 years out of ten instead of being mediocre for 10 years out of ten.

Moon, there is so much wrong with what you have said. first the contradictory comparative analysis you offer. the Jays are not, contrary to the early part of post, competitive with the Yanks and Sox. Those two are teams like St Lou, LA(before the divorce), and the LAA to a degree, in that they are always able to spend on their farm systems and land big time free agents. We have a competitive budget for a team, but all those teams have or had comparable budgets to the jays, but those teams all spend a lot on their farm teams. This was the first year the jays have had this much to spend on the draft and international talent in a long time. They have had to go overslot on numerous deals. the dickie thon bonus is first round money for a guy drafted in the sixth round. Under JP's reign he never saw the value in a strategy like that. That is the other issue I have with your post. Trying to criticize so, seemingly, vehemently about JP's shortcomings but fail to notice this.

Also, Ryan wasn't a terrible deal. That kind of proves your intentions. He was an all star closer his first season. You can't predict injury or regression like with hill and lind, so it kind relates to what Gozer said, where he stated it in a more succinct fashion. And choosing to compete as you say, is kinda what AA is doing, so perhaps you be less caustic of him than jp since you have similar ideas.

And the Division excuse is not garbage. The only reason the NL has a division with 4 50 win teams is because the NL is generally weaker and all those teams beat up on basement dwellers like the dbacks and the pirates. Our cellar dwellars are the indians who sweep us after four games and the orioles can surprise. So the jays are in tough with 3 teams superior to them. The rays are an anomaly since they were putrid for 12 seasons only to have the resulting talent blossom into players like crawford, longoria, niemann, price et. al.

[JayP]

The big issue with baseball is that you simply cannot look at payrolls and judge if a team is a small market team or not. Unlike any other North American pro sport, there is a huge difference in the amount of money put into the development systems between the top and bottom spending teams.

The big problem with JP's era is that he went for a backwards approach of dropping all his resources in the MLB club and then settling for value draft picks and refusing to pay over slot. Even though the Jays may have had a reasonably high payroll (10th-15th in the league) I guarantee their total baseball costs were nowhere near teams who had a similar pro payroll.

AA has the exact opposite approach (as we've already seen with the dips into Cuban talent) and that's the best possible thing for the Jays. The only way to compete in the MLB without spending huge cash like only 5-7 teams can is to build from within and try and time things so young players contribute at the same time (ie; Rays, Twins).

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by calculoso

Has anyone figured out how much they spent on signing bonuses this year and how that compares to other years?

The Jays have spent 6 million in confirmed contracts (the ones the media knows the salaries for) and an additional 3 million in the rumoured contracts.

The record for most spent in one year by any team is just a shade over 13 million, which if the Jays sign McGuire to a 2.5 million dollar contract (which is about what he'd get), then they'll be really close to that figure without signing anyone else.

Prior to the season they said they'd spend 16 million on the draft.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by JayP

The big issue with baseball is that you simply cannot look at payrolls and judge if a team is a small market team or not. Unlike any other North American pro sport, there is a huge difference in the amount of money put into the development systems between the top and bottom spending teams.

The big problem with JP's era is that he went for a backwards approach of dropping all his resources in the MLB club and then settling for value draft picks and refusing to pay over slot. Even though the Jays may have had a reasonably high payroll (10th-15th in the league) I guarantee their total baseball costs were nowhere near teams who had a similar pro payroll.

Was that the famous Moneyball theory?

[moon]

Originally Posted by Ziggy Lidstrom

Moon, there is so much wrong with what you have said. first the contradictory comparative analysis you offer. the Jays are not, contrary to the early part of post, competitive with the Yanks and Sox. Those two are teams like St Lou, LA(before the divorce), and the LAA to a degree, in that they are always able to spend on their farm systems and land big time free agents. We have a competitive budget for a team, but all those teams have or had comparable budgets to the jays, but those teams all spend a lot on their farm teams. This was the first year the jays have had this much to spend on the draft and international talent in a long time. They have had to go overslot on numerous deals. the dickie thon bonus is first round money for a guy drafted in the sixth round. Under JP's reign he never saw the value in a strategy like that. That is the other issue I have with your post. Trying to criticize so, seemingly, vehemently about JP's shortcomings but fail to notice this.

The Jays should easily be able to out spend a team like the Cardinals.

Sure they aren't Boston or New York but there is no reason they can't spend as much as the top 5 other teams in the majors considering the market size.

Nothing was stopping the Jays from spending money on their farm system but the Jays.

Also, Ryan wasn't a terrible deal. That kind of proves your intentions. He was an all star closer his first season. You can't predict injury or regression like with hill and lind, so it kind relates to what Gozer said, where he stated it in a more succinct fashion. And choosing to compete as you say, is kinda what AA is doing, so perhaps you be less caustic of him than jp since you have similar ideas.

It was a bad deal because outside of a few guys for the most part closers have a. fallen off and b. been easy enough to replace with cheap guys. Much better to spend that money on areas that are hard to fill then on a closer whether Ryan is healthy or not.

Also not sure how I have been "caustic" towards JP.

And the Division excuse is not garbage. The only reason the NL has a division with 4 50 win teams is because the NL is generally weaker and all those teams beat up on basement dwellers like the dbacks and the pirates. Our cellar dwellars are the indians who sweep us after four games and the orioles can surprise. So the jays are in tough with 3 teams superior to them.

The Jays have finished behind teams in the Central and West routinely over the last couple of years so just moving divisions is not getting them into the play-offs.

The fact the Indians swept the Jays says more about the Jays then the quality of the cellar dwellers.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by moon

Nothing was stopping the Jays from spending money on their farm system but the Jays.

That's true, Rogers Baseball Operations didn't see the return-on-investment so they hadn't invested.

Comparing win totals isn't an honest evaluation either, if the D-Backs played the Yankees eighteen times a year then the records would be different. Maybe you think the Jays/fans eggsagerate the difficulty of the division, but it is a legitimate obstacle.

[flames_1987]

Tom Pelissero Minnesota sports personality tweets

"Hearing something's going down between #Twins & #Jays, probably for bullpen help. Downs or (more likely?) Frasor. Not done. Could be quickly"

[jeremywilhelm]

Mauer?!

[flambers]

Originally Posted by jeremywilhelm

Mauer?!

I hope a solid 3rd Base or a solid outfielder prospect.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Was that the famous Moneyball theory?

Well, partially you could say it is.

When people think Moneyball, they usually think OBP and advanced stats. But at it's core Moneyball is simply trying to find an inefficiency in how most teams are run and exploiting it. Back in the early 2000s it was an over-reliance on using out-dated stats (AVG, RBIs, etc.) to judge players and drafting "high potential" high school stars over college players.

I'd say that's AA's approach is very similar as he's clearly isolated going after international talent (something that even highly regarded development systems (ie; Twins) haven't done to a great extent) and devoting more resources towards development as a whole.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by moon

The Jays have finished behind teams in the Central and West routinely over the last couple of years so just moving divisions is not getting them into the play-offs.

The MLB's unbalanced schedules have a huge factor in that too.

Move them out of the AL East and there's 40 less games against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays.

[moon]

Originally Posted by JayP

The MLB's unbalanced schedules have a huge factor in that too.

Move them out of the AL East and there's 40 less games against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays.

The Jays have shown that they are more than able to lose games to more than just those teams.

Sure it makes it tougher but based on their talent level and how they have played teams overall I don't think the Jays are winning either the Central or West if moved into those divisions.

[flambers]

Originally Posted by moon

The Jays have shown that they are more than able to lose games to more than just those teams.

Sure it makes it tougher but based on their talent level and how they have played teams overall I don't think the Jays are winning either the Central or West if moved into those divisions.

Maybe not this year, but the Jays would have a really good shot at it in a year or two if they were in the Central or the West division.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by moon

The Jays have shown that they are more than able to lose games to more than just those teams.

Sure it makes it tougher but based on their talent level and how they have played teams overall I don't think the Jays are winning either the Central or West if moved into those divisions.

Because the Indians swept them once? How about the Jays sweeping the O's 3 straight series this year - that doesn't count for anything?

I could look at every half decent team in the MLB and find a series against a terrible opponent where they could have done better.

Pretty easy for a Cardinal fan (24th hardest schedule) to tell Blue Jay fans (t-4th hardest schedule) that it doesn't matter what division they play in. That's not just a 2010 thing either - over the last half of the decade, the Jays are consistently in the top 10 and usually the top 5 while the Cards are consistently in the bottom 10, almost always in the bottom 5, and have had the easiest schedule in the league twice in the last 4 years. Switch divisions and the Cards aren't World Series champs in 06.