Memo From the Toronto Blue Jays Marketing Department

The Jays marketing department announced a new slogan for this season:

YOUR 2009 TORONTO BLUE JAYS: IT IS WHAT IT IS

I hate to get all gloom and doom after a series of extra inning losses on the road, but the tenor around the team is so different, so markedly different and depressive that even I can't keep my chin up. I won't discuss the possibility of Halladay being traded here because I don't know that I can. Things look rough. Rough enough for the National Post to run letters-to-the-sports editor in which clueless fans refer to the Jays as a "glorified farm team." What the fuck?

I'm a little worried and a lot disappointed over how much coverage the last week of hearsay has received compared to the action on the field. Even at the beginning of year when things were both hunky and dory there wasn't the crush of media attention. It sucks. But, as the marketing slogan says, it is what it is. The Jays will likely continue to be a pretty good team in a pretty tough situation. I'm not afraid of a lifetime of also-ran status, I'm afraid someone might just pull the plug.

Confrères and Cohorts

One thing I can certainly count on is Scott Rolen. Scott Rolen has a quote in a recent New York Times baseball blog Bats post that warms nearly every cockle of my heart. The post covers new video technology (Hit F/x) that tracks all movement on the field, including fielders, baserunners, and balls in play. Exciting stuff for a stats nerd, no?

When asked what he thought about the possibility of new metrics, Rolen stopped short of issuing the dreaded dismissive hand wank gesture. Scott Rolen is no hard-headed traditionalist lashing out from fear. Rolen instead crafted a thoughtful response (emphasis mine):

I don’t believe that baseball is a game that can be encapsulated that way. That’s the beauty of the whole game.

Impressive. Scott Rolen is more concerned with the aesthetics of baseball to worry about tedious number crunching. If I wasn't such a nerd, Rolen's eye for style would probably bring me to tears.

Have it Both Ways

via IO9 and Filmdrunk

If you were lucky enough to tune into maker of sense and teller of truths Jeff Blair hosting Prime Time Sports Tuesday afternoon, you'd have heard yours truly chiming in as the first caller of the show. I'm still a low-level blogging scumbag not a big swinging dick like Parkes and Stoeten so I have to call in and sit on hold like a chump when I wish to take to the airwaves. My question (point?) was this: could we not perceive dumping BJ Ryan as an attempt to make the club better rather than the fire sale Blair questioned JP about? Were he really the do-nothing lay about some might suggest; wouldn't he be content to keep wheeling Ryan's decreped bones or letting him rot in the bullpen to risk paying him to do nothing? Sunk cost friends, money that isn't coming back. His cost is now set, at least he won't cost you dollars on the pitching rubber.

While I appreciate Mathias of Mop Up Duty's efforts to make BJ Ryan appear competent over the month of June (1.04 ERA, 1.38 WHIP) it just isn't true. Ryan's June FIP - 5.92! on a BABIP of .189. K/BB Rate - 0.50 (3 K/9 to 6 BB/9) Batters swinging at less than 40% of his pitches, though they contacted over 90%. Just bad all around.

Is it a shame and a sin to wash their hands of all that money? Of course. At least he's no longer a detriment to the ball club. Yet people are mad at the GM again. So last year he held on to underperforming players and we got mad. This year he cuts his losses with an underperforming player and we get mad again? I don't get it. A player without trade value as well as on-field value is worthless; no matter how much it costs.

Call the Meeting of Brandon League Apologists to Order!

Poor Brandon League. Give up game-winning tater tots certainly isn't a good thing, but let's be real for a second. He pitched well. Really well. One mistake that wasn't even a mistake. Watch the video here and note that pitch didn't really miss. If anything it was a little further inside than Barajas wanted it. Perhaps another angle:


Hardly a meatball, that's a 96 mph fastball down and in. Burrell ran into it, the game ended. It didn't move as much as many of his fastballs (back into the right hander) so I guess that means it didn't move enough. Deep sigh.

Much love and appreciation to Brooks Baseball pitch fx database! Support their fight against ALS here

The Downside of Tubed & Cured Meats

As any ball fan knows; throwing down a couple nicely cooked sausages is a great idea. Fun to eat, easy to cook, exciting to garnish.

That said, one must always be wary of sausages (Royal or otherwise) as they generally contain by-products, fillers and all manner of false food items. One cannot gorge himself on sausages lest his afternoon be ruined by nauseau and meat sweats.

MLB.com: NSFW

Really MLB.com? "Scott Rolen has a good day against the Yankees" is your video teaser and you include TWO charge-and-throws and a rope that, in a delightful bit of irony, is a home run in almost every other park in the league? For shame, mlb.com video team. As US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said:

I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it.

Those two charge-transition-throw plays were pretty much as good as it gets. Watching as many Mariners games as I did last season, I could have confessed at gun point to believing Adrian Beltre fielded the slow chopper/roller better than Scott Rolen. I've since seen the error of my ways, and I'm a better man for it.

The Antidote

The rare Monday getaway afternoon game did much more than stop the Jays losing skid; it scratched me where I itched. Every nook and cranny of baseball nerd got a good seeing to Monday. Ricky Romero is awesome. Johnny Mac's home run trot going over with grace & dignity unseen since my first confrontation with a front-clasping bra. Brandon League settling down to blow away two hitters worth in upwards of half a billion bucks. It was only one game but damn if games like that make up for a lack of Meaningful Baseball in September. Almost.

Housewarming

Sooo, this weekend series isn't going well. At all. The Yankees welcomed the Jays into their new home just like I was welcomed into mine: poorly.

• I started the lawnmower only to see a damn snake emerge from the motor housing—Johnny Damon takes Halladay deep to win Saturday's game. Both unsettling and scary.
  
• A bird shit on my person as I "pulled weeds" or "stood around feeling completely overwhelmed"—BJ Ryan is paid to throw baseballs professionally. Both cruel and unnecessary.
  
• The Rogers guy and I follow wires around my new basement (before I actually moved in) when suddenly a makeshift bong and "funk gun" fall out of the dropped ceiling—Brett Cecil loses the ability to throw strikes. Both embarrassing and avoidable.
  
• A groundhog of Caddyshack proportions lives under my shed—Hideki Matusi's bulbous skull suddenly houses a working, sentient brain. Both maddening and right the fuck out of left field. Even worse: I have a shed.

It is all quite frustrating. It sucks even. Worse than the clearly vermin-infested exurbs. Not even the sight of MOS DEF at Bay and Wellesley yesterday could assuage this awful feeling I have: the Jays season is now done, leverage-wise.

All is not lost though! Adam Lind is putting on a damn show for his future Yankee employers from the middle of the Jays lineup. I could actually hear Iracane drooling and it wasn't from a grilled chorizo. Scott Rolen extended his hit streazzzzz and the poor Jays bullpen shakes and shudders but will not (completely) fall. League, Camp, and Carlson all have FIPs under 4, only Camp's ERA is in the same neighbourhood.

The All Star break can't get here fast enough. The Jays have some decisions to make as they could figure into the trade market significantly. Could they trade Brian Tallet as frequent Jays referencer John Paul Morosi suggests? They very likely could, but who else? Morosi hints that any number of bullpen arms could be on their way. Jeremy Accardo for a quad-A roster filler to be named later sounds about right. Frasor's value will never be higher than right now, which I have mixed feelings about. The Sausage King is one of the longest tenured active Blue Jays, a fact that means next to nothing to me. The potential exists for him to one day become wildly overpaid like Justin Speier. Until that day; pity the poor Sausage King. He's basically a homeless guy who's slept on the same street corner for years. Transient permanence.

Novel Ideas Abound

Cito must have really dug deep into the recesses of knowledge to realize hitting your three best hitters (by OPS) consecutively in the heart of your order is a good idea. They're also your toughest regulars to pitch to (top three in pitches/plate appearance, Rolen tied with Marco Scutaro.) Cito even went ahead and L-R-L'd them, stopping a long-running Gaston trend of helping match up happy managers like Joe Madden get his hot lefty-on-lefty action. Desperate times clearly call for desperate measures.

A less than novel idea is using Brett Cecil out of the pen. I know it was just a way to get him work, but no fucking way do I want to go down this road. Look at poor Brandon Morrow, languishing away bouncing back and forth. Let the valuable men start the games, let the fill-in trash finish them.

I thought I had a bunch of clever things to say about Ricky Romaro (he's good!), bringing Vernon Wells in for defence (Lulz!) and trading Alex Rios (don't be retarded!) but THE VIDEO OF DEVON WHITE'S TRIPLE PLAY CAME ONLINE YESTERDAY. Watch and enjoy.

Damning with Faint Praise

I talk a lot about players I like (or love) yet I would be hard pressed to define what it is I like about them. Sometimes a player's uniqueness catches my eye, sometimes their greatness. Sometimes it's about personality, other times it is just their goofy name. Brandon League doesn't really fit it into any of these categories. Watching him last night, I sort of got it: he's completely unpredictable.

Unpredictability isn't something I inherently enjoy; Scott Rolen and Roy Halladay are certainly predictable. Predictably awesome and predictably resolute in their pursuit of next-level achievement, traits that certainly have their place. Brandon League isn't unpredictable in a boring way either. Shawn Camp or even The Sausage King give you that feeling in your stomach, that "Jesus Christ just don't fuck it up" unpredictability born out of their bland crappiness and/or serviceability. Brandon League doesn't have that.

I've probably linked to Professor Hale's post on Brandon League's wacky sinker a half-dozen times, mostly because it continually blows my mind. I'll let the man himself explain:

Brandon League has a pitch that nobody else in the majors throws, that I would venture to say nobody has ever thrown- a 97 mph sinker. It boggles the mind...but hear this: League is not just a promising youngish power arm. He’s a total freak who could be a one-of-a kind pitcher.

Amazing. That is why I like Brandon League. Every time he takes the hill, I know I'm seeing something unique. Something weird and wonderful. That originality combines with, you know, the actual baseball game he's competing in to tease me in incredible ways.

Every Blue Jays fan asks the same question when the bullpen doors open:

Which Brandon League will show up tonight?
Will he be unhittable? Will he have any clue where the ball is going? I alternate between expecting him to be untouchable and just hoping he will, always knowing that a misplaced slider or inevitable bout of wildness is waiting to derail the outing. What about a poorly timed hit by pitch! League's always good for one of them a month. It's all great. The possibility that Brandon League will come out, blow away three consecutive hitters in a completely unfair way will have me cutting him slack long after Cito grows tired of dangling League on a leverage yo-yo.

I'd like to say "baseball needs more guys like Brandon League" here, but it just won't happen. Oppressive coaching, the quest for return on investment, and normal human musculature prevent too many guys like League from making their way down the pipeline. Having a wildcard in the mix, someone I'll remember long after he's moved on has value beyond a win or loss in late June.

A Farewell Note to This City

You may have noticed things moving a little slowly around here this week. I've packed up the Barbershop and moved out of Toronto. Lloyd the Dead-eyed Suburbanite at your service.

This doesn't mean too much as far as GROF is concerned, aside from my new mancave from which to issue my missives.

I'm going to miss the crap out of Toronto, the city I enjoy so much. But I move with zero regrets. I have other stuff to think about aside from my proximity to clover coffee machines and 4am nachos. Not that I won't long for those things, I'll make do like the rest of the slovenly croc wearing mouth-breathers universe outside the 416.

Moving sucks, I'm literally standing in my kitchen without a stick of furniture right now. Moving also sucks because I haven't seen Scott Rolen do anything awesome in two days! TWO! And I know he's been doing awesome stuff. Dammit.

So bring on the Phillies and new challenges and shit. I'll be back after a brief hiatus (two days tops, my blood starts to itch without regular exposure to blogger gamma rays) ready to do what must be done. Later hipster jackasses!

Albino Warlord Wields Awful Axe of Doom

Lots of Lyle Overbay love going around the blogosphere these days. Your boy Eyebeleaf crunches a few numbers in showing Lyle the Love for his excellent (yet unfortunately platooned) season thus far. The Ack came with more respect for Overbay's ability to get on base and remain under-appreciated.

Lyle's getting love for good reason. Overbay's .395 wOBA is among the best for first basemen, just below that of Justin Morneau and Miguel Cabrera. Most encouraging is the return of Lyle's powerstroke. His 16% Home Run/Fly Ball rate is a return to the Overbay Salad Days of 2005/06. Sure, he's patient and that's a good thing. But let's have a little fun here.

THE MAN HITS BOMBS!

Lyle Overbay seems to hit nothing but no doubt bombs to right center field. Hit Tracker Online currently ranks Overbay 13th in average standard distance for his prodigious tater tots. Lyle's been dropping bombs like war monger with oil interests. Check out his Hit Tracker profile, there are links to video of each of his homers this year. I think this is my favorite. The atmosphere inside the Library on Bremner (aka the Rogers Crematorium) allows for the true, sickening crack of the bat to reverberate inside you skull, like Lyle's Viking ancestors laying waste to Newfoundland. Now that is something I can get behind.

My Mind Remains Blown

Pretty much every day, Scott Rolen has done something awesome. If it isn't a funky, clever slide around a tag (don't sleep on his deft one-handed plate tag seen above. Its slickness belied its degree of difficulty) to a charge-and-throw off balance, Scott Rolen's been everything I ever wanted. And more. It was nice to see him pick up a home run in Philadelphia but, let's be honest, that's not his game anymore. And that's okay.

The GBOAT cries are good fun and all, but let's seriously think for a second: is Scott Rolen the greatest Blue Jay of all time? In terms of his body of work, he's right up there in the conversation.

In terms of position players, he has to be close. Roger Clemens has the best numbers of anyone to don Blue Jays colours. That much is hard to dispute. Roy Halladay could well be the greatest Blue Jay of all time, being a home-grown product and all. Carlos Delgado is a class-act and slugger of some regard, but the only player that competes with Scott Rolen's career is Roberto Alomar.

In many ways, Alomar and Rolen's career's are quite similar. At their peaks they were very different players, though they followed equivalent arcs. Alomar had two more huge years than Rolen, though Scott's 2004 season was insane! 1.007 OPS, 31 home runs, and a whole lot of general awesomeness.

Nearly a 5 win offensive player coupled with his 2 win defense and his ability to play every day made him with 8.8 WAR in 2004!! Remember Albert Pujols was worth 8.9 last year. Rolen had 2 seasons worth more than 7 WAR with at least 2 more seasons with WAR of 5. So yeah, he's good. Just eyeballing and guessing, I'd say Roberto's best season was worth around 7 WAR. I'd say he had 5 or 6 seasons of 4.5-5.5 win ball. Certainly impressive.

When discussing two complete players - offensive numbers aren't enough. Thankfully Baseball Reference supplies advanced defense stats that, while not perfect, will at least fill in for now. Be forewarned: the results are mildly shocking.

It turns out, according to Baseball References Total Fielding Runs Above Average, that Roberto Alomar was Jeter before Jeter. For all the jumping, flipping, turning magic we remember, he wasn't that good. I'm floored. Alomar's best year with the glove was 1998 with the Orioles; worth 11.3 runs above average. For his career at second base, Alomar's value is -29.5 runs above(below?) average! These stats obviously aren't the be all or end all, and Robbie certainly had style. That's got to be worth something.

No matter the system, Scott Rolen's defense stands up. While UZR hasn't shown him the love this year, his past years have been off the charts. How does 130.3 career runs above average grab you? By the swollen balls, I can only assume. Rolen's 2004 season counted 26.5 runs above average, not to mention four other seasons in the teens and two more just under 12. Holy. Shit. The recent talk of best defensive third baseman ever is more than just talk (though Brooks Robinson benefits from playing forever, he had two seasons with more than 30 runs saved above average, though the were during the offensively depressed late sixties. Still, yikes.)

I don't think any of us knew what we were getting when Scott Rolen came to town. What we've got isn't even half of what he was, which really says a lot. What we do have is the consummate professional who altered his game as his body changed, allowing him to make positive contributions to wins and my style-inclined heart. Scott Rolen may have lost too many years to injury to classify as a sure-thing Hall of Famer, he's still a pleasure to watch. We're all very, very lucky. GBOAT!

Rhyming and Stealing

Marco Scutaro is bound and determined to make me love him. Holy Shit.

Fancypants Moving Image courtesy of the beloved Fightins and Tug Haines

Everybody's Hurt

Halladay to the DL with a groin injury. Scott Downs to the DL with an inexcusable injury. Inexcusable in that HE SHOULD BE ABLE TO RUN TO FIRST BASE. I know I come off like a ranting Toronto Star commenter, but let's be serious. I have no sympathy. None. Casey Janssen's got something wrong with his surgically repaired shoulder aside from it's inability to throw a baseball past a Major League hitter. All this happens on (IRONY ALERT) the same day Jays trainer George Poullis is named to the All-star team.

Bring on the kids

With Brad Mills on the way to replace Janssen, should we expect to see Brett Cecil take Halladay's turn? Fabio Castro? A shitballer to be named later? Things just got mighty real. Extra real when you consider 8 days rest Frasor, one-trick pony all out of tricks Jesse Carlson and leverage-adverse Brandon League are now holding down the back of the bullpen.

Luckily it Won't Matter Tonight

I've come a long way on Scott Richmond. I love his slider, I love his ability to get right handed hitters out. But he is going to get DESTROYED tonight by the Phils left handed sticks. Chutley, Ryan Howard, Raul, Victorino, even the Ghost of J-Roll is going to feast on maple-glazed Canuck tonight.

Guess Who's Back with the S1W's

While Stoeten of DJF points to Richard Griffin getting it right on Alex Rios and Nick Leyva coming together and dry humping the Jays chances to win until it was bruised and tender, I'd like to give Professor Griff credit for something. EFFUSIVE SCOTT ROLEN PRAISE!!

Scott Rolen is the best defensive third baseman the Jays have ever had and may be one of the best ever in the majors. Brooks Robinson leads the way. Rolen prepares and is as focused as anyone on the team.

Church Dick, church.

Scott Rolen Eats Your Cheesesteak

Good evening Philadelphia. Scott Rolen sends his regards. He'll do it all damn night, too. He's just too damn classy to say it. He doesn't get involved in that sort of banter with the riffraff.

Better things like 2 hits and 2 walks in 6 trips, including the game-winning ribbie. Mmmmmmmm, that's damn fine. What's that? His single to win the game was a bleeder to right field? Son, the only thing bleeding around here is [REDACTED FOR DECENCY. THIS ISN'T SOUTH JERSEY, WE TRY TO KEEP IT ON THE UP AND UP AROUND HERE.]

Can you give us a second Philly? I need to talk to Toronto alone.

Pssst, Hogtown. Watch this series with the Phillies very, very carefully. Scott Rolen hasn't played for the Phillies in SEVEN years, and still they boo. Why?

Because they're sad, bitter, strange little people with odd accents and diabetes. They hate anyone and everyone despite winning the World Series last year. He's their Vince Carter. They just can't let it go.

Learn from their infinte sadness Toronto, don't let it haul you down too. We need to be better Toronto. It's a slippery slope, trust me. They love Matt Stairs too, the similarities are eerie!

So yeah my East Coast friends, congrats on winning the World Series last year. Do take the time to enjoy it. We here in Toronto enjoy the work of your former employees Scott Rolen and Rod Barajas.

I kid the good people of Philadelphia. Read the Fightins every day!