Expansive Thinking

Brave men and ESPN buddies Bill TPA and The Common Man, the high-quality dudes behind The Platoon Advantage as well as weekend Getting Blankards, recently undertook a daunting but interesting exercise. In their infinite wisdom, they went ahead and added two big league teams for the 2012 season. Not content to simply realign the leagues, the decided to fill the rosters of the new teams. 25 players per team aren't going to come out of thin air so...expansion draft time!

The guys asked us to protect 15 players ahead of the first round, then pull three exposed players back. Another round of picks then another three get protected. Read the introductory post, the first round of picks and the second/third rounds.

As this is a 'real team', contracts count as does age, I suppose (read the rules here). The Jays have so few albratross contracts so I didn't have much to worry about on that front. I simply tried to protect as much talent as possible.

With no further ado, here is my list with some general commentary following.

1. Jose Bautista
   
2. Ricky Romero
   
3. Brandon Morrow
   
4. Travis Snider
   
5. Brett Lawrie
   
6. Yunel Escobar
   
7. Kyle Drabek
   
8. Marc Rzepcyznski
   
9. Adam Lind
   
10. Zach Stewart
    
11. J.P. Arencibia
    
12. Anthony Gose
    
13. Rajai Davis
    
14. Henderson Alverez
    
15. Travis D'Arnaud

With the 21st pick in the first round, the Portland Webfoots select Brett Cecil of the Toronto Blue Jays. And the crowd booed Toronto's inept GM lustily.

Time for round two! My protected players:

1. Carlos Villanueva
   
2. Aaron Hill
   
3. Deck McGuire

And with the first selection of the second round, the Portland Webfoots select Eric Thames of the Toronto Blue Jays. And I feel shame. To the third and final round!

1. Adeiny Hechavarria
   
2. Carlos Perez
   
3. Jake Marisnick

Finally, with the sixth pick of the third round, the Brooklyn Hipsters select Brad Mills. Whatever.

And that's it. I fear protecting Rajai Davis was a mistake. In light of his play (both recent and historical) and two players I lost, I regret it. Leaving Davis exposed while protecting Cecil and then exposing Hill while protecting Thames probably helps me sleep at night.

On the other hand, I feel like Thames-type players are exactly the kind to move in an expansion draft. Maybe he could be the Webfoots' Al Woods? Sucks to see him go but players like him are not too hard to find. Hopefully, he proves me wrong.

In the end, not bad. Too mid-rotation lefties and a decent-if-defensively challenged power bat lost. The pitching depth makes the first two losses easier to swallow, the outfield competition and Bautista contract make Thames a little easier to take.

What are your thoughts? Always a good exercise to help realize other fans don't value your prospects quite like you do.

Make sure you click over and check out the full rosters, it's good stuff. Awesomely Keith Law compares the rosters and breaks down their merits. Once you finish taking in their entire project, come back here and tear a strip off yours truly in the comments.

Sad image of a happy guy courtesy of Reuters via Daylife.

Life Sucks and Then You Die

Yup, that is your Toronto Blue Jays ranking 4th in Beyond the Box Score's mathematically-derived power rankings. Ifs, buts, candy, nuts.

Credit to Alex Anthopoulos and his team for doing their best to avoid the candy & nuts aspects of his job. As he told John Lott (after mentioning that Aaron Cibia will get the bulk of the playing time):

"We want to create depth at premium positions,” he said. “At shortstop and catcher, we feel like we have that now. Even in centre field, although it’s lower down the rungs, there are guys like Gose and Jake Marisnick [a third-round draft pick last year].

“From a position-player standpoint, those seem to be the most difficult positions to either draft or acquire in a trade.”

More than depth, they have ceilings. They have two players who, if they're tools develop into skills, could become high-end major league baseball players.

Which brings me back to the Mop Up Duty piece I linked above. Of course scouting is important, more important than ever as the cost of doing business is now so very high. The biggest driver, in my eyes, of this approach isn't a Scouts versus Stats, Us versus Them battle. It is about the difference between being a good team and a great one.

If you look at the numbers compiled in the aforementioned Beyond the Box Score post; you'll see the Jays are either a good team or an average team playing over its head. The debate could go all night long, but nobody would ever argue the Jays are great. And that is what they need to be to sate the playoff!!!1 lust of this fine city.

The Jays traded up this year, building progressively to improve pieces and solidify the team moving forward. But plugging holes with league average guys like John Buck or Fred Lewis is one thing, the Jays needs are going to change in the next few years. The days of replacement-level scrubs popping up here and there are, or should be, nearly over. Now¹ is the time to write some checks and install high-end players into important places.

And for that, they must pay. Upfront or down the line, the marginal value of a scrap heap finds and somethings for nothings compared to the value of securing top-line talent is the next challenge. Obviously free agency is a fool's errand with far more risk than reward. So it comes to the kids. Gose or Marisnick or the next toolsy kid they find in Cuba or Venezuela or Japan, somebody needs to develop into a 6 win type player.

It is a similar story in the rotation. The common refrain "there isn't a number one in this group" might be tired but there is something to it. With only 25 spots on a big league roster, having two 3 win guys isn't as good as having one 6 win guy. So you have to pay for the privilege. A staff of four 4 win guys is pretty good (damn fine actually) but finding an true stud — and his extra three wins — is the kind of upgrading Alex Anthopoulos stays up nights thinking about.

It isn't that building an 85 win team on a budget is easy, it surely isn't. Building a sustainable 85 win core then building on those extra 6 or 7 wins is the real challenge. I think AA and his team are on the right track but the hard work is still very much ahead of them.

¹ - Now is relative. Not now like today, but now like whenever you plan to make the next step.

Image courtesy of Beyond The Box Score

Prospect Pr0n - Barely Legal Edition!

Here we go, no bullshit. I don't know the first thing about Anthony Gose, just as I knew next to nothing about Brett Wallace. Being a sportsnerd on the Internet in the year 2010, it's easy to jump to irrational positions and fall in love — hard — without thinking clearly or seeing the whole picture.

Brett Wallace came with pedigree, an accomplished hitter with gap power and a sweet swing. We saw the home runs pile up in Vegas and sat back, content in the knowledge that the first baseman of the future was secure. Very few, if any, of us bothered looking much more deeply at Wallace or many of his numbers. The harsh, sober light of post-trade day opens eyes and invites scrutiny. Maybe his power wasn't what it should be, maybe his splits were unfavorable, and maybe a potential franchise cornerstone should absolutely demolish the PCL, leaving no question as to his viability at the next level.

Flipping him for a raw 19 year old confuses and frustrates those of us who began investing heavily in his cause two weeks into Lyle Overbay's early season slump. 19-year toolsy outfielders are difficult to project and nail down. Sure, you can throw pigtails and a cheerleader uniform on just about anyone (athleticism off the charts!) Toss them a lollipop and you're halfway to 10 to 15 (love his makeup!) But does that make the unpolished kid the grade A stuff, unsullied and untouched while the busty, heavy-set proven commodity has the look of someone whose seen one too many DPs?

The numbers for Gose aren't pretty but as a 19 year old in High A, I feel you can throw them out the window, especially for a converted pitcher. A player in the mold of Brett Gardner is incredibly valuable. Patient fly catchers don't fall out trees. But the patient part, that's where it gets tricky. Gose is still learning the strike zone and how to recognize offspeed pitches, we're told. Call me crazy, but I fall in the camp that believes a lot of that ability is damn near innate. This isn't tricking your body to stop smoking or start flossing, plate patience and knowing when to pull the trigger requires an ungodly amount of discipline and control. I'm not sure you can teach it, at any age.

I keep coming back to the Tao's comment section from earlier this week. I drew an analogy between building a baseball team and progressive blackjack betting systems. Place a bet: if you win, you up the stakes a little while feeding your stack. Win again, do the same. Incrementally, you build and build, capitalizing on hot streaks while minimizing losses during the cold snap.

Moving Wallace as his stock slips (but still maintains some value) may be an example of Anthopoulos and friends employing this very strategy. The Jays can't afford to ovecommit to a guy like Brett Wallace - a professional hitter with limited (2 or 3 Win?) ceiling. They keep building the stack. Wallace could be good and controllable, but finding a guy with his skillset is much, much easier than finding 5 tool guys at the Sally league or above.

Consider me firmly in the tank for AA, and willing to explain and justify away any doubts I may have. It's what we do. This team traded my three favorite players in the same season; I think I can roll with a few blue chippers shipping out from time to time.

The Final Piece of the Kevin Gregg Triforce

Vintage Kevin Gregg is not yet on display in Toronto, but it is only a matter of time. Not vintage like the supercool leather jacket your dad used to pull trim at the Gasworks back in the day, vintage as in "shitty like we all thought he was."

Kevin Gregg's 2010 is all about regression. Came out of the gate like an animal, striking out 14 while walking only 1 in April. The wheels steadily came off as the weeks rolled by until his most recent struggles. The culprit? Walks. Lots and lots of walks. Walks to shitty hitters, as I detailed yesterday. But Gregg's single greatest weakness is yet to surface, meaning plenty of fireworks for the rest of the season. Get ready for the tater tots.

Kevin Gregg serves it up more often than your kid sister after 3 Bud Light Limes. Gregg's great love of the gopher ball is what landed him in Toronto for a song in the first place. So far this year he's kept it in the yard, but fear not, it won't last.

With the walks will come a long, important talk with head cheerleader Bruce Walton. Gregg will take the mound with purpose, determined to throw strikes and challenge hitters. And challenge them he will, no doubt. Except the challenge won't be "here's my best stuff, do with it what you will", it will be more along the "I bet you can log a better time on the Tater Trot Tracker than the guy who just hit one so hard the ball peed a little." It's going to be ugly, yet glorious. This will not end well, but then again, it rarely does.

Prospect Porn is Not For the Faint

In all the hustle and bustle, a couple interesting tidbits on some of the Jays best young arms came down last week. The Futures game featured a few Jays farmhands, including Next Big Thing Henderson Alvarez. First piece of exciting information: Alvarez throws damn hard. Only one outing in an unusual circumstance, but the same held for all the other guys on the list. Weee, smoke! That's good, right?

Hold your horses, Jeremy Greenhouse of Baseball Analysts is about to stomp down on your youth and will to live.

Henderson Alvarez of the Blue Jays is currently starting, and impressing, in High-A, but to me he profiles more as a right-handed reliever. His best pitch appears to be a sweeping low-80s slider, and his hard fastball runs away from RHBs, so unless his changeup develops into something, Alvarez looks like a sinker/slider guy out of the pen.

Annnndddd wilt. That's no fun, at all. Sinker/slider guy out of the pen? Great. Jason Frasor is the next big thing. Why is it so hard to retire left handed batters? Scott Richmond should start a support group in Dunedin.

What about giant Canadian Trystan Magnuson?

Trystan Magnuson's best pitch is a cut fastball that comes in at 88, moving across the plate. He also throws a split-finger fastball at 88. And his actual fastball is only a bit harder at 92-93, which makes for a unique repertoire. I don't know how much success it'll have.

Unique repertoire is code for "difficult to pigeonhole", in my mind. Is Magnuson one good offspeed pitch away from climbing the ladder? Projectability means a lot when it comes to the kids, I've learned. Taking minor league numbers at face value is dangerous, as is dismissing them out of hand. Where these two guys fit in or end up is anyone's guess, but a hard throwing guy and a unique 3 pitch mix guy are certainly decent places to start.

Irritant in the Lotion

Regular GROF-lurkers know that prospect pr0n is one of the many relevant, topical items I tend to avoid around here. Mostly because I don't know jack about the kids and additionally because I don't care. That might be harsh, but there is so much noise in the evaluative process that it's near impossible to get a real handle on how players project unless you use a real scout's eye.

As such, the Jays bumpercrop of signed and unsigned kids from the 2010 class doesn't mean a great deal to me. Other than the kid that sounds like Rocco and the kid from Newmarket that didn't sign, I don't know much about prior years picks either.

My lack of prospect acumen firmly established, it is with a little dread that I pass along this tidbit from a Baseball Analysts post dated Monday. Batters Box pro and all around solid Jaysman Marc Hulet examines recent drafts by teams with a multitude of high picks in the early rounds. He lets slip a slight damnation of the previous regimes ability to maximize on the young talent they drafted in bulk.

The club has had little to no luck with developing prep players from this draft and the minor-league coaching staff may have been unprepared to handle the initial wave.

Obviously there is more to this story than a lack of preparedness on the part of the minor league instructors, but it raises an interesting point. Consider how much higher maintenance a player one year removed from high school is relative to a college player. First time on your own with a wad of bonus money in your pocket?

As I see it, minor league development is a numbers game. There are so many players and only so many coaches and instructors. There are so many opportunities to fail yet so little context outside of pre-established allegiances born from the long drafting process. How much love and attention a certain player gets may date back to war room debates and who fell into which camp.

That said; it is imperative the Jays (and all teams) put their kids into a position to succeed. If that means coaching them up or letting them run off and play, so be it. Not every kid is going to make it, the minors are littered with stalled prospects unable to adjust and push themselves to improve.

One can only hope that young prodigy Alex Anthopoulos learned more than "don't piss off every single person in sight" while under the tutelage of a certain Mr. Ricciardi. We can only hope a decent support structure is in place to guide, groom, and gird the loins of this fleet of young studs drafted in 2010. This is the path - no sense sparing the expense of ensuring the best foot goes forward first.

Image courtesy of Fadden Pics flickrstream

I Beg Your Pardon?

The prospect porn world is much like the real porn world, there's so much out there and most of it is glossy trash. I can't pretend to know the first thing about prospects &mdash the fool's gold to quality ratio is very, very high. Staying abreast of the risers and fallers in the low minors is a real slog, one I tend to ignore. The superlatives fly around without abandon, the heavily codified scoutspeak is tough for me to break down, mostly because I don't really care. But one sure way for me to sit up and take notice of a recent Jays draft pick is easy: compare him to my favorite player. Jake Marisnick, welcome to the fold. You're officially on my radar. First, from pgcrosschecker:

As a tall, athletic, righthanded-hitting outfielder, Marisnick has been compared favorably to former first-rounder Rocco Baldelli (Note: emphasis mine. Emphatically.).

Okay, you've got my attention. The last toolsy guy to rise in the Jays system was Alex Rios. I think I already forget how much fun/frustrating Rios could be. Alright, let's escalate the Prospect Porn shoot from missionary to reverse cowgirl, with a helping fluff from the exceedingly appropriately named Base Balls to the Wall:

Marisnick is a legit five-tool athlete with good power potential and a strong understanding of baseball, though I have read that his swing may need to be overhauled. He’s drawing Rocco Baldelli comps which is concerning considering Baldelli’s unwillingness to walk, but the upside is certainly there.

Hmmm, Rocco's patience is a bit of the concern. While there aren't any pro at bats to go on, early word was Marisnick's swing needed a full "rebuild". A progress which is, apparently, already under way.

From John "The Hammer" Sickels recent listicle ranking the Jays system, a comment surfaced from Doug Dirt of Red Minor Leagues.com on prospects discovering patience as they move through the system. In a word, it doesn't happen.

I looked at every batter from 1993-2008 with at least 1500 MLB at bats and a K/BB of 3.50 or worse in the major leagues. There were only 20 players who fit that bill. Only two of them were able to improve their K/BB from the minor leagues to the major...Rocco Baldelli went from 4.01 in the minors to 3.84 in the majors. The other 18 went in the opposite direction from the minors to the majors. Side note – Only 1 of those 20 players has a career OPS over .770 and it's Alfonso Soriano.

Now this comment was in regards to Aaron Ciba and his inability to control the zone in the minors. We can only hope and pray Jake Marisnick has better strike zone awareness than young Rocco; mostly to compensate for his lack of overt ethnicity. Here's hoping Jake rises through the system as fast as I rose upon first discovering this comparison.

Image courtesy of Max Preps

The Take

Poor, misguided soul Andrew wondered about the Halladay take in the comment section of the previous post. I can't even pretend to have any sort of prospect expertise/insight, but I'll offer my thoughts on the players coming this way based on the myriad reactions I've read online.

Brett Wallace

In my mind this pickup is impossible to dislike. As Keith Law said, he hits all pitches in all zones with no quarter given to lefties. There shouldn't be any concerns about his quote unquote bad body since it's nearly 2010. Guys that can hit are always important and will always have a home, no matter how bootylicious they might be. I doubt there's any question as to his ability to put up numbers at the big league level.

Defensively, I'm of two minds. Word is Wallace has steady hands, a strong arm and no range at third. Most people already have him playing first base. However, I'm not ready to close the book on him at the hot corner. If he develops into a "makes all the plays you expect" kind of guy, is that the worst thing in the world? Alex Gonzales isn't the rangiest shortstop around, but is it too much to hope for a plus shortstop to help take the burden off a league-average third baseman? Justin Jackson has decent Total Zone numbers in the minors, but will his bat allow him to rise to the big league level? (Answer: yes.)

The downside, and largest contributor to Wallace becoming the Jays shortstop third baseman of the future, is this. Put another way:

• Brett Cecil - Throws Left
  
• Marc Rzepczynski - Throws Left
  
• Ricky Romero - Throws Left
  
• Brad Mills - Throws Left
  
• Brian Tallet - Throws Left
  
• David Purcey - Throws Left

More left-handed pitching means more right handed batters faced. More righties = more importance of quality third base defense.

If the Jays move Adam Lind to first convert or anyone other than Wallace for 2011; they stand to have weak corner defense countered but excellence up the middle. While a decent idea, I'm not sure you can get away with two mediocre or less-than-rangy guys on the RC turf. One sure. Two, I dunno.

Kyle Drabek

Tommy John? A mere formality in this day and age. Temperament issues? He's a pitcher, who cares? Dave Stieb was the biggest prick in town, but dude was great. Stuff? Unless I read with much less prejudice in the winter than the summer, I think Drabek's stock rose as summer turned to autumn. People are projecting him as close to a top of the rotation kind of guy. Awesome! Two good pitches with a third on the way? A good Arnsberging will coach that third pitch up to speed two pitches are plenty!!!

There is a lot to like about Drabek. Pedigree (less than meaningless!), ground balls, home run suppression, control. All things you'd like to see from a 22 year old. Will he make the big club next year? I doubt it. I'm sure AA is a Super Two hawk and the earliest we'll see Drabek is September 2010.

Travis D'Arnaud

Catcher Of The Future! Who knows? Throw some chicken blood on the floor, smear in the some tea leaves. The COTF's RC+ will be revealed!

Like all COTF, he can hit but has shitty footwork and suspect mechanics. Alex Anthopoulos buys his first ticket in the COTF lottery.

Other Stuff

With this week consumed by Harry LeRoy Halladay, I put off a pretty cool post. Please check back Monday for some exclusive goodness here at Ghostrunner on First. I swear it will be worth it. You may look at The Manager in a whole new light.

Image courtesy of some Korean Website Friction Entertainment. Lube's on me.