Monday, May 11, 2009

Erectus Interuptus

Listen Ump, I'll hit Alex Rios third if I damn well please
The Brett Cecil love is coming fast and furious, but "win two tomorrow" Cito had to go and ruin it:
Don't forget, Cecil was a closer in college, so he can pitch out of the bullpen, too....But I can't say enough how (Cecil) pitched," Gaston continued. He went out and threw strikes. You hope it's the start of something good for him.
Seriously Cito? IT IS a good START for him, in his career as a potential number 2 STARTER.

Never mind that your bullpen is already one of the best in the game. How can you advocate wasting a talent like Cecil's in the bullpen? Just look at the Jays bullpen, for example. All scrapheap finds and reclamation projects. No place for a highly-touted draft pick. The last thing I need in my life is play Canadian J from 3:10; explaining over and over (and over again) how much more valuable an arm like Cecil's is in the starting rotation. 140 innings versus 60 innings, not a debate.

Perhaps you'd move Cecil into the bullpen after the all star break, as an anonymous commenter suggested. Acting under the assumption the Jays will still be contending at that time (p!), the team simply doesn't benefit for a list of reasons. Adding another lefty back there serves no real purpose. I love the way Tallet's pitched; but if the choice is between him and Cecil I'll take the kid until the numbers tell me other wise. If you are simply going to showcase another of the fringe starters, I guess I'll understand. Once again it comes back to skills and ceilings. Right now Cecil's is higher than any of the young pitchers, he deserves the best shot to succeed.

Awesome Stuff from the Fangraphs Institute of Baseball & Divorce


Who knew? The good people at Fangraphs recently added two new features to suck your life away. Firstly, they've added in-season ZIPS projections. Adding the rest of season projection to what Aaron Hill's already done, you get a line of .311/.358/.466 or a .824 OPS. So he'll slow down but only drop 80 points from his current OPS? Sold. ZIPS figures Alex Rios will pick it up and OPS .809 over the remainder of the season. Sold again. Check out each player's ZIPS on their individual pages.

You'll also notice they added Bill Jame's speed score to the advanced stats tab. The speed score is "an average of Stolen Base Percentage, Frequency of Stolen Base Attempts, Percentage of Triples, and Runs Scored Percentage." Unsurprisingly, the Jays speediest players this season have been Vernon Wells and Alex Rios. Somewhat surprising to see very, very large man (or Manmountain) Scott Rolen rank fourth this season and fifth in 2008. This isn't a baserunning metric remember, a distinction clearly embodied by the Blissfully Oblivious Gazelle's (TM Tao) speed score ranking significantly higher than his "do you have any idea what you're doing out there" metric. The oft pinch-run-for and slightly wooden Adam Lind once again ranks as a great Jays baserunner.

8 comments:

  1. Isn't our young friend Cecil on a strict innings count this season?

    Might putting him in the 'pen help save that arm?

    Perhaps that's why The Cito is talking about moving him to the 'pen.

    How many innings can the stud throw this year, anyway? Is 140 the cap?

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  2. He's about 140 innings, using the last year plus 30 rule. I'd rather just skip him a few times than send him to the bullpen sinkhole. You'd then have to re-stretch him if you need him to start again.

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  3. The next time that's a bad thing will be the first

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  4. you should have used an "inverse boners" tag on this.

    oh, and Fuck Off, Yankees.

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  5. 140 is the number I got as well, but they're gonna have to be pretty creative to find ways to limit him to around 23-25 starts. But he should see no part of that bullpen.

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  6. By the way, I love Fangraphs. And I definitely love those ZIPS projections for fantasy purposes especially

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  7. Hahaha the Brett Cecil stuff in hindsight

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