bustaheims
Active member
Sarge said:
I did, but, the handful of games he played out there without looking awful means nothing in terms of his ability to play the position long-term.
2012 Toronto Blue Jays Thread
- Thread starter Darryl
- Start date
I did, but, the handful of games he played out there without looking awful means nothing in terms of his ability to play the position long-term.
maplesyrup
New member
bustaheims said:
You're right, playing the position long-term is the only way we'll get a real handle on his position to play the position long-term. In the mane time, if Rasmus can't sort himself out, we'll need to see more of what Snider can do there.
bustaheims
Active member
Sarge said:
So, what you're suggesting is that, if the guy they have who has shown that he can play the position well struggles at the plate, the team should replace him with another guy who has struggled at the plate at the MLB level while being a statistically below average corner outfielder and try him in CF?
maplesyrup
New member
bustaheims said:
I'd like to see Snider here at DH to build upon his very strong spring at the plate. If he ever gets up here to do that AND Rasmus continues to struggle, yes, I would completely support Snider as ore centre fielder for however long it took for Rasmus to work out his bugs.
maplesyrup
New member
At the end of the day, Rasmus should be the CF. I want him to be the CF. It's just nice Snider is there as an option - and it's not a horrible one.
maplesyrup
New member
Wow, pretty harsh. I had them at 77 last year and was way wrong. I'm going to say 89 86 this year.
Edit: 86 (typo)
Edit II: Missed by 4 games last year, I guess that isn't too bad. :-\
Edit: 86 (typo)
Edit II: Missed by 4 games last year, I guess that isn't too bad. :-\
bustaheims
Active member
If everything else remains roughly equal to where it was for the team last season, the improvements to the bullpen should be enough to add around 5 wins, so, yeah, 86 seems like a perfectly reasonable prediction.
L K
Active member
bustaheims said:
Saint Nik said:
I'm actually interested to see how that works out. All things being considered, the Jays pretty much are bringing back the same lineup as last year with a better bullpen. I know it's just a numbers experiment so you can't get hung up on it was biased opinions where someone can just say "Jeter is the greatest fielder of all time" but for the team to lose games?
The AL East didn't get really get better in the offseason. The Yankees kind of stood pat. The Red Sox changed their bullpen a bit but brought in a volatile manager who is more likely to make the clubhouse worse than anything else. The Rays are always a threat to improve I guess because of their line of draft picks still coming through the system but they still have a terrible bullpen (how have they never drafted pitchers for their pen if they won't dip into the UFA market?)
Romero = Romero
Morrow = Morrow
Alvarez > Cecil
Carreno ? (pretty hard to be worse) JoJo Reyes
McGowan ? Litsch
It's not a strong rotation, but it certainly isn't like they downgraded it from what they had.
As down as I am on Rasmus, I think the outfield of Thames - Rasmus - Bautista is better than what the Jays had last year with Davis (who quite frankly hit .200 for the first half the year anyway). Lawrie is always going to be a question mark as a young player, but is an upgrade to the offense until he proves otherwise. Johnson is a big offensive upgrade on what we were getting out of Aaron Hill. Lind continues to be a below average 1B bat. I think the Jays safely downgraded their backup catcher from Molina to Mathis but they also could bring up their catcher of the future at any point in the year.
I think the playoffs aren't quite in reach with the current roster (especially now that Texas/Anaheim have 400 billion dollar payrolls too). But if there are 2 wildcards, the Jays are going to be somewhere in that fight with
Texas/Anaheim and two of New York/Boston/Tampa for those two spots.
The rest of the Central division after the Tigers shouldn't really matter much, and Oakland and Seattle aren't anywhere near contending status yet. Baltimore is just in the league for comedy at this point.
maplesyrup
New member
For those who didn't like the Wallace/Gose trade, I see Wallace was optioned a couple days ago. Now, Wallace doesn't appear to be a was-out or anything but it would seem Gose really may be the far superior long-term prospect.
Kin
New member
L K said:
If I were to guess at why their results were what they were I'd probably guess the majority of it comes down to three things; some key Blue Jays regressing, the general improvement of the AL East and then the improvement in the AL as a whole.
The first one's pretty simple. xFIP has Romero as a good candidate to take a bit of a step backwards and most of the projection systems I have see Bautista being not as good this year(although not by much). Add in that the Jays were a little lucky last year(Outperforming their expected W-L by two games) and it's not much of a projected step backwards.
I disagree about the AL East. I think it got significantly tougher in the off-season. The Yankees brought in two starting pitchers in Pineda and Kuroda to address what was their biggest weakness last year. The Red Sox had more than a third of their games started by one of Lackey/Wakefield/Matsuzaka, so basically three Jo Jo Reyeses(A combined -2.5 WAR compared to Reyes at -0.6 for the Jays) so with a healthy Buchholz and Daniel Bard they should be much improved there. The Rays brought in some bats, have a full season of Matt Moore and have a bullpen that, at a glance, was anything but terrible last year.
Then add in that the Angels/Rangers both improved, the Royals should be better, the Tigers could be better, the Indians could be better...well, the Jays being projected to lose three more games than they should have last year doesn't seem all that bold.
Admittedly BP's system isn't perfect but, again, it's just numbers in and numbers out.
Saint Nik said:
I was just coming back to post that. Yeah, makes a lot more sense.
I think there is a ton of talent and potential in their top 4:
Beckett/Lester/Buchholz/Bard/Bailey (although, I guess he won't be back until mid-season. Who takes the spot now? Andrew Miller?)
Bard is still, obviously, largely a question mark. I hear some rumous now they might want to put him back in the pen, but they tried all spring to stretch him out into a starter. I think this season may be a challenging one for him, but if all goes right he could be a real good middle of the rotation guy.
Either way, you're right. Not having 3 duds take the mound every 3rd day one way or another will be extremely beneficial to them.
Kin
New member
Erndog said:
Well, Bailey was slated to be their closer and from what I've heard the Sox plan to go with Aceves in that role until he's back(although that they wouldn't use Melancon there is a bit of a surprise).
Anyways, the rotation they've announced is Beckett/Lester/Buchholz/Bard and Felix Doubront. Obviously there are question marks at the back end there but it's just hard to imagine they'd be as bad back there as the back end was last year. If they are, I've heard that Oswalt is a likely target for them.