Menace. When Brett Lawrie stands at the plate, waving his bat with exteme prejudice, I can only think about the word menace. He is a menacing figure, with his cartoon traps and barely-simmering intensity. I fear for pitchers, standing but 60 feet away from a quaking mass of broed up energy.
He is also a menace because that level of energy — when wholly expelled after an orgiastic grand slam — is going to get someone killed. Be it an errant high five-cum-Ric Flair knife-edge chop to the neck or a pointed fastball between the numbers from a jilted pitcher, somebody is coming away bruised. Consider it collateral damage.
Brett Lawrie is not alone in his menacing ways. The swagger, youth, and confidence that permeates this team belies its fourth place standing. This collection of cast-offs and unwanted middle children has a massive chip on its collective shoulder - nobody believed in them individually and now, facing long odds even as they stockpile talent, nobody believes in them collectively.
Which is foolish for the nobodys. Fools will count this team out, both now and in the future. Not because of the attitude or the swagger but because of the talent.
Good God Damn, there is a lot of talent. Even if the talent can't look eye to eye with the competition today, there are still a whole lot of age 27 seasons waiting to happen in that clubhouse.
Failing that, the league is lousy with potential problem children to absorb into the fiery womb. There are plenty of tarnished dollar bills remaining for Gordious Dougolous to acquire for two shiny quarters.
There is promise and there is hope. There is entertainment and there is pride in the offing. Get in on the ground floor while you still can. Tell a friend. Act like you knew.
Image of Edwin Encarnacion's punctured lung by Fred Thornhill courtesy of Reuters via Daylife Fred Thornhill! Gordie Dougie life!
I really, really hope the Jays are cheating at every turn. Not because I care about a competitive advantage, merely because there is nothing I like more than watching (or reading) sanctimonious jackass scream about cheating makes it easy to track the kind of people to avoid at all costs.
Besides: if ever there was a trustworthy and otherwise focused group of individuals, it's one of the American League's lesser lights relief corps. Only something so heinous and insidious as a man signalling to the plate could drag their attention from the riveting action before them.
Brandon Morrow exceeds at throwing baseballs. He is really good at it. I know this despite results that, on the long view, are merely mixed. He strikes out lots of people while walking only a few, compared to his copious strikeouts.
On days like Saturday, when Brandon Morrow is cruising along and everything seems to be going swimmingly, it seems the he cannot be touched. Then one bad inning comes along and submarines the entire process.
Is Brandon Morrow the victim of consistently bad luck? Is he proof defense independent stats are missing a key element to successful performance? Does his diabeetus limit his potential as a starter? I don't think I can answer any of these definitively, but we can surely look.
Brandon Morrow tires easily
Do I believe this to be the case? I don't believe that I do. It is a possibility, especially when we consider Morrow's fluctuating blood sugar. Some people, like Dustin Parkes, believe Morrow gets hurt during Spring Training because he isn't conditioned properly. This may well be the case but I don't know that I'm ready to condemn Morrow's off-season workout routine. But it is worth investigating.
Firstly, let's look at Morrow's numbers by inning. Using Baseball Reference's numbers it is more about results than process but that is what we're after - the source of middling results.
This...this is something. Something more, anyway. Morrow's numbers in the 75-100 pitch group are actually better as far as strikeouts and walks go but it seems that more balls turn in hits. His BABIP is WAY out of whack with the rest of his numbers.
Beyond the numbers here, I looked at Morrow's pitch f/x info and created the same 25 pitch buckets to look at some more in-depth numbers.
Pitch Bucket
Whiff Rate
Average Fastball velocity
1-25
11.4%
94.02
26-50
13.6%
94.03
51-75
11.1%
93.42
76-100
12.7%
93.18
100+
11.2%
93.55
Does that look, to you, like a man who tires early? It doesn't look that way to me. Less than a full mile-per-hour is not significant in my eyes. He keeps missing bats and the home runs aren't even that much more significant.
One thing that does increase as Brandon Morrow starts progress: errors. Hardly the perfect metric of the fielding support he receives but it stands our none the less. In fact, of the 90 balls put in play in the 50-75 pitch bucket, 4.44% of them were turned into errors. That's only 4 errors of 6 committed behind him this season in total.
It isn't that Morrow is completely free of guilt and his defense has completely let him down, it is that shit happens. Shit seems to happen over and over to Brandon Morrow - only when it matters most. He comes so close to putting together completely dominant starts.
The skill is there. I don't think there is much development left for Brandon Morrow, more discovery.
Sometimes you don't need Twitter to verify shit to know an account is real. Give everyone's favourite Type B Free Agent hopeful a follow. You know, if you're into following someone just because they're a Blue Jay.
If you're not and you've been holding off on following some Blue Jay players may I recommend Brandon Morrow? I recently nominated @2Morrow23 for the Toronto Blue Jays Twitter Level of Excellence (currently holding a single handle; @Lunchboxhero45)
He has the smack talk down (exhibit A / B / C), understands the culture of twitter enough to get sarcastic with it and lets you know he's more than just a 98mph fastball throwing stud (an athlete who's going to hit double digits in books read in a season? Swooooooon). Plus, angry tweets hours after a game show 10 times the Grit (!) and Will to Win (!) than smashing up a Gatorade container mid-game.
If the hashtag #beastmode causes you to involuntary roll your eyes try having #rallysquints pop into your twitter feed.
Yes, the Jays get Rasmus and call up Lawrie since my last post and this is what I write about.
Who's your ace? Who's your number one? Who is the big second half guy and who just fixed his mechanics? NO CHEATING!
Make with the wild guesses in the comments, if you please.
THE RESULTS ARE IN!
Morrow, Carlos V, Cecil, and Ricky Romero.
Watch the unsustainables, Mr. Cecil! Keep being Brandon Morrow, Brandon Morrow. Ricky Romero is, always and forever, Ricky Romero.
The whiff rate breaks down just as you expect for these four pitchers, too. Morrow (11.8%), Romero (10.2%), Cecil (9.2%), and Villanueva (6.9%). League average is 8.5%. Carlos Villanueva, your pumpkinhood awaits.
We all know you have to give to get. It is never easy to give, no matter the return. Except today.
What We Lost
The biggest piece the Jays parted with is Marc Rzepczynski. Whacked out of their gourds as the Cardinals might be, I remain confident they'll do the right thing and return Rzep to the rotation; where he will quickly turn himself into Jaime Garcia's Polish Brother.
Ghostrunner on First is pretty much Ground Zero for Rzepczynski love - losing him hurts differently than the other GROF pet projects. I'm bummed he's gone but tempered heavily by, you know, all the bonerz.
The Cardinals did improve their bullpen for this season, which is the basis under which they generally operate. Appease The Genius and win now. Say what you want, they're aren't exactly wasting the peaks of Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday waiting for a "troubled youth" to figure it out.
Jason Frasor hurts to lose but only in the most sentimental way possible. It is nice (and fitting) he set the appearances record recently and is now gone. It's the nature of the battle he fought so well for so long.
He got his eulogy and we all noticed how fond we are of Frasor and how thankless his role. His job is an easy one to fill right up until it comes to actually doing so.
Zach Stewart will likely appear in a number of big league baseball games. Either as a starter or reliever, he will get there. Some really like him while others suggest he's 25 and playing at Double-A. I cannot pretend to know too much either way so I'll just say neither fate will surprise me.
Trading Dotel and Patterson is a testament to patience, and how much of it smart people have while dummies like us bray for blood all too easily. Two true pros who will go about their highly specialized business in the most businesslike manner imaginable.
Dotel is like a La Russa wet dream, when you think about it. Patterson is a nightmare for Cardinals fans, a La Russa fever dream of too clever by a half in-game ego stroking. Corey Patterson will single-handedly strip the Cardinals of the "best fans in baseball" moniker, just you watch.
What We Gained
Hope. By the truckload.
An unshakable belief in a general manager we already believed in implicitly.
Colby Rasmus, a hopefully not very sick but good to have around again like an old shoe Brian Tallet, proto-LOOGY Trevor Miller, other things shaped like Mark Teahan. Colby Rasmus. Colby Rasmus. And somehow, even more swagger.
As much as AA likes to crow about the value of good people and good citizens, he's clearly drawn to (and sees fit to compile) swagger. Swagger puts some baseball people off, which is fine. Most people I know, in real life and on the internet, are not some baseball people. We like swagger because guys with swagger can often play.
Throw a bunch of swagging ballplayers who aren't quite living up to expectation together and you have, at the very least, potential. Imbue these malcontents with the freedom to let their freak flags fly, with some gentle pillow talk about how much belief there is in them, and you just might have something more.
Throw a few option-heavy contracts their way and you have a carrot-on-a-stick to go with the chip on their shoulder - you have fuel for their hate game. That fuel might just burn hot and move the whole ship along at high speed.
What it all means
Phase One of The Plan is now over. 2012 is now Next Year. It is, in a word, fucking on.
Not only is getting a cost-controlled, 24 year-old centerfielder with a 4 WAR season already under his belt a great move for the club moving forward, it is also the kind of move that reverberates. Moving from a replacement level-ish stopgap to a guy with legit 6 Win upside right now, not 4 years down the road means the club requires one fewer piece to compete. One piece (Prince Fielder?) makes them not a good team but a competing team. A "better than the Rays" team. A "shit down the throats of the AL Central" team. A "buy your tickets now" team.
It is happening, people. Maybe Prince Fielder is a bad example but, then again, maybe he isn't? This coming offseason starts the whole "marginal win value" debate anew. That is a debate that can be an awful lot of fun.
Then again, why go out and throw money at a player when another GM will grow tired of some underperforming asset. Whomever will stand by ready to scoop up that unwanted trash? The Toronto Blue Misfits want your problem children - they're starting a movement.
The Corey Patterson Outfield Experiment of Hilarity may just have hit its nadir on Saturday night. After Patterson replaced Thames in right field for "defense", he spun and twirled and turned a possible inning-ending fly ball into a walkoff hit. It was ugly and Jays fans (myself included) took to Twitter with our knives out.
There isn't a lot of love for Patterson among the Jays fans, most of whom are ready for just about anything and anyone else to take those at bats. The calls for Adam Loewen puzzle me, however.
Adam Loewen is a cute story but calling him up now or any time before September 1st makes very little sense. For my money, Eric Thames is the fringiest player in need of a serious look for as long as possible. With the Brett Lawrie call-up all but a certainty on August 1st, bring up Adam Loewen would only clog up the works.
As a guy without options and a very limited skillset, I can't bringing up Loewen and having him rot on the bench as a positive move for him or the team.
When I say "limited skillset", I am making an assumption based on very little. A career pitcher suddenly reborn as a plus outfielder seems unlikely, doesn't it? He continues to show an improved approach at the plate but a .920 OPS at Las Vegas is only worth so much, especially when you consider Chris Woodward's .860 OPS in 330 PAs in the very same ballpark.
Other than offering him a cookie for waiting in the minors like a good soldier, bringing up Loewen is a waste. Bring up Lawrie (NOW!) and play him every day at third. Snider starts in center against righties with Thames in left and Bautista in right.
You need as much information on Eric Thames as possible. Bring Loewen up in September and give him some run when other guys need rest. But get as much of the core you want to see in the future and let them play. Sorry Adam, it's all in the game.
There isn't a better description of the "Travis Snider to Centerfield" experiment better than the way Stoeten of Drunk Jays Fans presents it - if a commenter or Jays Talk caller suggested it, I would trip over myself trying to shoot it down. What? Snider in center??? THAT'S CRAZY TALK!
Yet here we are. The husky kid some worried might only be DH down the road started two of the last three games in centerfield. And the results, they aren't terrible!
The ball stung right at you is really tough to judge. Snider does well to take a decent route and add the stylish "lunge-dive" at the end for style. Like all good centerfielders do.
Snider's arm and positioning drew raves all season in left after his work with Jose Bautista, will it hold up in CF?
Not the strongest throw of all time but he got rid of it quickly and right on the money. I like the way he just powered off his back leg, not much of a crow hop to eat up valuable seconds.
While this catch stretches my "highlight" credulity a little, it does demonstrate Snider taking a very direct route to a fly ball hit over his head.
Drawing any sweeping conclusions from this tiny sample is folly, but with my eyes I can say he doesn't look out of place in center. Obviously more innings present more challenges but, for now, this experiment deserves to continue. I cannot say I object to Farrell moving Snider to left and bringing in a move experienced guy as a late-inning defensive replacement when the situation allows.
Because the bat, the bat plays anywhere. It plays quite deliciously in centerfield, that much I know.
Update: - According to Total Zone fielding stats, Snider is 6 for 6 on balls in his zone as a CFer with one out of zone play. +/- ranks him as a +2 in a totally-not-worthless 21 inning sample. USA! USA! USA!
AP Photo courtesy of Daylife. Video finally prized from the cold, dead hands of MLBAM.
