Toronto Blue Jays

This preview is going to take a look not just at the team, but also J.P. Ricciardi, Carlos Tosca, and a study on teams that undergo "youth movements." We hope you find a lot to chew on.

A new GM broom swept through Toronto in late 2001. Expectations were high among sabermetric types, as J.P. Ricciardi had been one of Billy Beane’s right hand men in Oakland. It was clear from Day 1 that J.P. was going to import much of the Oakland model. Skeptics griped that the in-house option (Dave Stewart) and more experienced baseball men had been passed over. They branded J.P. as nothing more than a cost-cutter (one quip at the time was that J.P. stood for "Jettison Payroll").

Over a year later, some in the media are still highly suspicious of the Ricciardi way, but J.P. has many supporters. The organization has been transformed: all of the treadmill players (overpaid, established players whose development had stagnated) have been dealt or let go, and the organization’s primary weakness - young arms - has been addressed though drafting and trading.

Here’s a breakdown of Ricciardi’s additions and subtraction (these lists are not exhaustive, as most minor league contract signings are not included):

J.P traded away two shortstops, the high-priced incumbent and a very young glove wizard with few secondary skills (think Ozzie Guillen). Established relief pitchers (Koch and Quantrill) were dealt and potential starters (Prokopec and Miller) were brought in. The coup of that off-season was the acquisition of Eric Hinske. Looking at the performance of the two groups in 2002, I’d say that they provided about equal value, but the cost savings were significant.

Prokopec was a bust, battling injury and ineffectiveness the entire year. One would have hoped for a little more back for Brad Fullmer, though there was a "bronze" lining to that deal. With Fullmer ensconced in Anaheim, playing time was freed up for the two most promising youngsters in the system. During the first half of the season, it allowed four outfielders to rotate through the DH spot, thereby allowing Vernon Wells to play everyday without benching one of the veteran outfielders. During the second half, one of those outfielders (Mondesi) was traded and Josh Phelps became the everyday DH after a half-season of mayhem in AAA.

J.P. finally found a taker for the rapidly declining Raul Mondesi, a significant achievement even if the Jays retained financial responsibility for part of the balance of the contract. Swapping a good, ancient reliever for a much younger one was a top-shelf GM move - Cliff Politte has emerged as the Jays’ best reliever. This move was further evidence that J.P. and company understand that it is good strategy to cash in big-name relievers for other assets.

The end of the 2002 season brought a new phase in the rebuilding project. With most of the high-priced underachievers departed, modestly priced free-agents have been brought in to fill holes in the hopes of propelling the Jays to a +.500 record in 2003.

Why do this now? Is it a good idea? If it leads to more wins, it will increase revenue and perhaps make Toronto a more attractive destination for future free agents. It also reduces the pressure to play prospects in need of seasoning, keeping them in the minors a bit longer (thereby delaying their arbitration/free agency clock - no small matter in these cost-conscious times). As long as the price tag isn’t high and promising young players are not blocked, useful veterans are welcome.

J.P. decided to non-tender Jose Cruz, a controversial decision. He took the cash he would have paid Cruz this year and brought in a starting pitcher (Sturtze), an infielder/outfielder who can get on base (Catalanotto), a veteran shortstop (Bordick) and a catcher with some pop in his bat (Myers). The non-tendering of Cruz is similar to the Brad Fullmer trade: both are good players but are likely to be overpaid by the arbitrator. The outfield is now wide open for a young prospect to claim a spot: former Oriole prospect Jayson Werth is the closest to being ready; Gabe Gross and J.F. Griffin are a little farther away.

Another bold move was the trade of Felipe Lopez, a middle infielder with superstar potential and a maddening tendency to swing at and miss the inside breaking pitch. Lopez fetched a top pitching prospect, Jason Arnold, and in a roundabout way, John-Ford Griffin, a line-drive hitting outfielder likened to Rusty Greer.

J.P Ricciardi has so far proceeded as if from a blueprint he drew up when he was hired. To date, his plan can be summarized thus: phase 1, cut the driftwood loose; phase 2, plug holes with cheap veterans; phase 1 and 2, bring in and promote good young ballplayers, but not prematurely. What remains to be seen is when phase 3 - winning pennants - starts.

Carlos Tosca is probably the lowest-profile manager in the major leagues, a man of whom those outside Toronto (or even in Toronto) know little.

I am going to use the format and questions used by Bill James' "Manager in a Box" pieces in the 1984 Baseball Abstract -- which he later adapted for his book on Managers -- in order to give everyone a little better idea of who Carlos Tosca is.

NAME

Carlos Tosca

AGE

49 (50 on September 29)

MANAGERS FOR WHOM PLAYED IN MAJORS

Tosca never played professional baseball. He played at the University of South Florida and there came under the wing of Yankees exec Jack Butterfield, who also was influential in the careers of J.P. Ricciardi and Buck Showalter as young men.  Butterfield (father of current third-base coach Brian Butterfield, who acts as Tosca's right-hand man) was Yankees' VP of Player Development before dying in a car crash in 1979.

Tosca has coached for and worked with Jim Leyland and Buck Showalter (three years as bench coach).

CHARACTERISTICS AS A PLAYER

He was a bad one, possibly one of the worst players to ever become a major league manager. Tosca sat on the bench in a not-very-good Division I program and that was as far as he got.

WHAT HE BRINGS TO THE BALLCLUB

IS HE AN INTENSE MANAGER OR MORE OF AN EASY-TO-GET-ALONG-WITH TYPE?

Intense with a capital I. Tosca is routinely described as "fiery" but more than that, he's very insistent and demanding. He is renowned for his combativeness, particularly his willingness to take on a player who does something he doesn't like.

Raul Mondesi decided to test Tosca by showing up late for a team meeting before a game in Tampa at the end of June. When Tosca benched him for it, Mondesi had a characteristic tantrum; he refused to sit on the bench (he watched the game from the bullpen) and questioned Tosca's ability to manage, citing his lack of professional playing experience. Instead of making up with Mondesi, Tosca benched him the next night, then reinstated him after Mondesi sat on the bench. At any rate, Mondesi was gone within the week.

When Felipe Lopez failed to execute some outfield relays, and Tosca felt that he was ignoring positioning directions from the dugout while in the field, Lopez found himself back in Syracuse so fast his head was spinning. Lopez, too, was unhappy with the strict interpretation of Tosca's rules.

Interestingly, unlike a lot of self-styled "disciplinarians", Tosca does not like to fight battles through the media, but keeps matters within the clubhouse. With the circling sharks of the Toronto media always ready to leap on controversy, this is a very positive quality.

IS HE MORE OF AN EMOTIONAL LEADER OR A DECISION-MAKER?

He's more of a decision-maker. His nickname with the Marlins, "Little Napoleon" (Tosca is 5-7) derived more from his tough reputation than from his inspirational strength. Tosca places a lot of faith on preparedness, and is very driven. When he concentrates on getting something done, it gets done; the Jays began 2002 with a horrible stolen base defense, and were only throwing out 15% of basestealers when Tosca took over. Tosca set about improving the Jays' stolen base defense, and by the end of the year, that number had risen to 28% on the year.

If he can be one-tenth as good a manager as the original owner of the nickname, he will be terrific for the Jays.

IS HE MORE OF AN OPTIMIST OR MORE OF A PROBLEM SOLVER?

It's hard to say, but he has acted like a problem solver in Toronto so far. One would normally think that a successful and longtime minor league manager would be a problem solver, since there's little room in development for the wait-and-see philosophy.

HOW HE USES HIS PERSONNEL

DOES HE FAVOR A SET LINEUP OR A ROTATION SYSTEM?

He tends to ride lineups during a winning streak. It was hard to tell whether he would rotate more players through starts since he rarely had many more than a few healthy bench players at any one time. There is likely to be a platoon at catcher this year, but not a strict one as Tom Wilson will probably play against quite a few right-handers.

DOES HE LIKE TO PLATOON?

Not very much at all, he tends to ride the hot hand. Both Orlando Hudson and Josh Phelps would usually sit against tougher lefties.

DOES HE TRY TO SOLVE HIS PROBLEMS WITH PROVEN PLAYERS OR WITH YOUNGSTERS WHO STILL HAVE SOMETHING TO PROVE?

He's not averse to using unproven players, but he seems to prefer older guys (proven or unproven) over younger guys. Tosca had a very good relationship with a number of older players without much MLB experience - Ken Huckaby, Chris Woodward, Pete Walker, Mark Hendrickson. As befits a minor league manager, he knows what career minor leaguers can do.

DOES HE PREFER TO GO WITH GOOD OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OR DOES HE LIKE GLOVE MEN?

His hands were tied given the razor-thin lineup he had in 2002, but he certainly didn't ask Ken Huckaby, Dewayne Wise, or even Chris Woodward (later on) to hit very much. Josh Phelps, whose tremendous hitting ability was also acknowledged by Tosca, rarely played the field because of perceived difficulties with the glove. The team's general philosophy is based around offense, but Tosca appears to act as something of a counterweight to that.

DOES HE LIKE AN OFFENSE BASED ON POWER, SPEED OR HIGH AVERAGES?

I think it's too soon to tell. Tosca didn't run much, and seems to like players who hit for power. In the minors, he ran a great deal, and rarely with much success. He is a strong proponent of cutting down the running game on defense, so clearly he thinks the running game important; when he took over his first order of business was to improve Toronto's defense against the running game. On offense, he used the stolen base remarkably well in 2002.

DOES HE USE THE ENTIRE ROSTER OR DOES HE KEEP PEOPLE SITTING AROUND ON THE BENCH?

In 2002, he didn't have much of a roster to use. Likes to use an awful lot of pitchers (see below) and minor league managers generally are used to getting everybody regular work.

DOES HE BUILD HIS BENCH AROUND YOUNG PLAYERS WHO CAN STEP INTO A BREACH IF NEED BE OR AROUND VETERAN ROLE-PLAYERS WHO HAVE THEIR OWN FUNCTIONS WITHIN A GAME?

Too soon to tell, I think. The Jays essentially had no depth at all last year, and were basically playing the only healthy and available MLB-ready players in the organization. With more veteran talent around this year, we will see a true test of Tosca's ability to build and use a bench.

GAME MANAGING AND USE OF STRATEGIES

DOES HE GO FOR THE BIG INNING OFFENSE OR DOES HE LIKE TO USE THE ONE-RUN STRATEGIES?

The Jays made 34 outs using one-run strategies in 2002, finishing last in MLB in caught stealing and last in sacrifice bunts. Tosca was as extreme a big-inning man as we've seen in many a year. 26 of the other 29 teams burned more than twice as many outs on one-run strategies as the Jays.

This represented a complete about-face for Tosca. In the minors, Tosca was a run-run-run manager who loved to bunt.

DOES HE PINCH-HIT MUCH, AND IF SO WHEN?

He's a typical AL manager in this respect.

ANYTHING UNUSUAL ABOUT HIS LINEUP SELECTION?

Nothing really remarkable. He kept going back to the well with struggling players last year, but he had no choice in the matter as his lineup was so thin.

DOES HE USE THE SAC BUNT OFTEN?

See above. Toronto was last in MLB in sac bunts. As a minor league manager, again, he used quite a few bunts, but seems to have done a 180-degree turn on the subject.

DOES HE LIKE TO USE THE RUNNING GAME?

He used to. He had the personnel to do so in Toronto, so one can only assume that he chose not to. If so, it represents a major change in philosophy. In 1996 in Portland of the Eastern League (Marlins) he ordered 254 steal attempts in 141 games. In 1991 with the Royals' Baseball City affiliate in the FSL, he ordered 315 stolen base attempts in just 131 games. He literally had to be running at every opportunity - his GCL numbers were similar - around 2.5 stolen base attempts per game.

IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES WILL HE ISSUE AN INTENTIONAL WALK?

He would intentionally walk a blind, lame Rey Ordonez if it would set up a double play. Toronto led the AL in intentional walks, mostly due to Tosca. As a minor league manager, Tosca didn't order an unusually large number of intentional walks until 2001 at Richmond, where he also ordered a very substantial number (52 in 144 games).

DOES HE HIT AND RUN VERY OFTEN?

No.

ARE THERE ANY UNIQUE OR IDIOSYNCRATIC STRATEGIES THAT HE PARTICULARLY LIKES?

I can't think of any. He follows the modern orthodoxy of trying to gain the platoon advantage with his relievers.

HANDLING THE PITCHING STAFF

DOES HE LIKE POWER PITCHERS OR PREFER TO GO WITH THE PEOPLE WHO PUT THE BALL IN PLAY?

He seems to be very high on guys who put the ball in play. Tosca raved about Pete Walker when Walker came to the Jays, and Walker is a control pitcher, though not an extreme one. Tosca also likes Mark Hendrickson a great deal, enough to put him in the rotation, and Hendrickson is not a power pitcher either though he has pretty good strikeout potential.

DOES HE STAY WITH THE STARTER OR GO TO THE BULLPEN QUICKLY?

He loves his bullpen. The Jays were second in the American League in relievers used.

DOES HE USE THE ENTIRE STAFF OR DOES HE TRY TO GET FIVE OR SIX PEOPLE TO DO MOST OF THE WORK?

He'll use anybody, everybody, anywhere, anytime. He preferred set roles for set-up man (Politte) and closer (Escobar) with a lead, but otherwise guys pitched whenever they were available, particularly because Tosca loves to get the platoon advantage.

IS THERE ANYTHING UNUSUAL ABOUT HIS HANDLING OF PITCHERS?

Twenty years ago, it would have been unusual. It's not now.

WHAT IS HIS STRONGEST POINT AS A MANAGER?

His leadership and determination. When Tosca wants to do something, he does it. He absolutely does not believe in half-measures. He is a natural for command; players respect him but he is a disciplinarian at heart.

IF THERE WERE NO PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL, WHAT WOULD THIS MANAGER PROBABLY BE DOING?

Remember that awesome movie from the late 1980s, Stand and Deliver, in which Edward James Olmos played Jaime Escalante, a Bolivian math teacher inspiring a class of poor students from East L.A. to take on, and conquer, the Advanced Placement calculus test? Yeah, Tosca would be doing something like that.

Young players, prospects in particular, are the lifeblood of player analysis. When our favourite team is mired in mediocrity, the "unlimited" potential of a prospect represents hope. The urge to predict what a neophyte baseballist might become is almost irresistible, and so there are few things in baseball as attractive as a full-blown youth movement.

I wanted to develop an objective standard to measure such teams. Instead of traditional "age" analysis, I wanted to focus on a player’s exposure to the major leagues (or lack thereof), so I devised a measure I call Experience Index (EI for short, though that acronym will have other connotations for any Canadians reading this piece). A more comprehensive examination of Experience Index as it relates to the development of baseball franchises will be forthcoming in a future article.

What is EI? It is a weighted average of the experience level of the players on a major league team. One reason to focus on previous major league experience is because experienced ballplayers, regardless of age, generally have the highest salaries. There is also another reason: Tom Wilson is older than Andruw Jones, but the latter has played many more games in the majors, and is thus more experienced. This is relevant in distinguishing between true veteran and neophyte baseball teams. Finally, EI promises to be a useful tool for studying rebuilding in a baseball context, because rebuilding is getting rid of veterans and bringing in new (usually inexperienced) players.

For batters, I looked at career games played prior to the season in question. All players making their big league debut would be rated 0 on this scale for that season. This creates some problems of players like Ichiro and Godzilla - perhaps in a future version, I’ll account in some way for games played in the Japanese Leagues. For all pitchers, I calculated career innings pitched prior to the season in question.

I decided to set the scale maximum score at 1000 games played (for batters) and 1000 innings pitched (for pitchers). I reasoned that a pitcher who had 5 years as a starting pitcher was (practically speaking) as experienced as he needed to be. If I gave full credit to pitchers with 2000 or even 3000 career innings, then a couple of guys like Tom Glavine or Roger Clemens on your staff would have an undue influence over the IP index. Instead, both Glavine and Clemens are given a maximum "score" of 1000 IP. A side benefit is that EI has a theoretical minimum and maximum. The minimum is 0 - a team of players with no previous big league experience; the maximum would be 1000 - a team of position players with 1000+ games played and pitchers with 1000+ IP.

Separate indices were created for pitchers and batters, weighted by plate appearance (the Games index or "G index") and innings pitched (the IP index) for the season in question. The indices were then combined - 60% for batters, 40% for pitchers - to determine the overall Experience Index (EI). As luck would have it, the averages of both indices are very close to 500 in the 1965 to 2002 period.

To give the reader an idea of what a veteran team and an inexperienced team might score on the EI, here is a list of the top and bottom 5 teams (ranked by EI) in 2002:

Seattle would rank 3rd if Ichiro, Kaz and Hasegawa were given some extra credit for their seasons in Japan (the Yankees and Giants might have an uptick because of El Duque and Shinjo), Just off the bottom of the list (25th) are the Minnesota Twins, who had the lowest G index of any club in baseball, but had a veteran pitching staff.

Using the EI, we can form a comparison group for the 2002 Blue Jays - a group of teams that had a similar change in EI over the previous year. But this is not enough: there is no point in comparing the 2002 Blue Jays to a team with significantly less (or more) talent.

In order to control for talent level, I identified teams from 1966-2002 that were within a winning percentage of .040 of the 2002 Blue Jays (+- 6.5 games over a full season). From those clubs, I selected those that had had a significant infusion of inexperienced players - I set the threshold for change in EI at minus 100. Lastly, I chose only those teams that were within 100 points of the 2002 Blue Jays on the EI scale (between 229.7 and 429.7). 18 teams met those standards; here they are in descending order of EI.

 The first year of the youth movement was defined as year 1 and the previous year as year 0. I then looked at how the comparison group clubs developed over the next 4 years (defined as years 2 to 5).

The 2000 Astros and the 1999 Cardinals were excluded from the comparison group because they have not reached the end of year 5. Including them would make the comparison group look better than the following table indicates. Houston has reached .550 or better in 2 seasons (year 0 and year 2, with years 4 and 5 to come) and St. Louis has done the trick 3 straight years (in years 2, 3 and 4, with year 5 to come). Of the 16 remaining teams, 14 had mediocre veteran clubs in year 0, so their decision to rebuild is no surprise.

Toronto, by Year
	IP index	G index	EI	Wpct
Year 0 (2001)	445.7	J. Lowenstein Apathy Club Posted: March 14, 2003 at 12:00 AM | 12 comment(s)   Related News: General Reader Comments and Retorts Go to end of page Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments. Page 1 of 1 pages    1. J. Lowenstein Apathy Club Posted: March 13, 2003 at 09:41 PM (#609448) There is one mistake in the article. Where I said that Orlando Hudson and Josh Phelps would sit against tough lefties... this isn't exactly right. It turns out that the Jays must have faced relatively few lefties in the second half of the season, skewing the games started vs. LHP for both players. I think the jury's still out on whether Tosca likes to platoon. With Bordick and Myers in town, we'll get a clearer chance to see that, since Woodward didn't hit lefties particularly well and Wilson would normally be expected to grab the lion's shaer of the time at catcher given that Myers hasn' been used a lot for the last few years.    2. Doug Posted: March 13, 2003 at 09:41 PM (#609451) With Cattalanto's back being an issue, what about Jayson Werth? With an extended injury to a player, I would expect Werth to get some ab's. Thoughts? Thanks!    3. TOLAXOR Posted: March 13, 2003 at 09:41 PM (#609452) ". However, ZiPS likes him, predicting a 4.87 ERA in over 200 innings, which would certainly be welcome." [rubs eyes] I guess I did see that right.... I would think that the Yankees and Red Sox would welcome 4.87, too.    4. Robert Dudek Posted: March 13, 2003 at 09:41 PM (#609454) Yes, Borbon should be in the deletions column... I think Werth will get about 300 PA this year. He may start the year with the team if Cat is injured. If not, I see a late June call up, provided he does well in AAA. Kevin Cash may come up around the same time. Neither of those guys are going to sit on the bench. "neophyte baseballist": I hope the readership will indulge my 19th century style prose in this instance.    5. J. Lowenstein Apathy Club Posted: March 13, 2003 at 09:42 PM (#609456) However, ZiPS likes him, predicting a 4.87 ERA in over 200 innings, which would certainly be welcome." [rubs eyes] I guess I did see that right.... I would think that the Yankees and Red Sox would welcome 4.87, too. THAT is how bad the pitching was in 2002. Geez, I'd think the Jays would be ecstatic getting 200 innings from a starter at an ERA under five. It was a very, very difficult year.    6. tangotiger Posted: March 13, 2003 at 09:42 PM (#609457) Great article! This was actually my lunch time reading (20 pages in landscape). Robert, I'd like to see if you can run a control group, that is the opposite of the Jays. Instead of a team getting 100 points younger, look for a team getting 100 points OLDER (with the same win% parameters you had). Quantifying the experience looks like a useful metric, and the scale sure looks like it would be easy to follow.    7. Joe Dimino Posted: March 13, 2003 at 09:42 PM (#609460) For Tosca's attempted SB being so high in the minors, I could see why you'd try more down there. The catchers aren't as good, but I'd bet lots of toolsy prospects are as fast as your typical major leaguer, what sets them apart is their inability to hit as well as a typical major leaguer. I know others have postulated that running puts pressure on the defense, I'd think this would be especially beneficial at the lower levels. As to why the change, it's possible JP and the gang have convinced him that playing for the big inning is a better way to go. Or it's possible that Carlos realizes the incremental benefit of the running game is smaller at higher levels.    8. Dan Szymborski Posted: March 13, 2003 at 09:42 PM (#609472) I'm not Zipping entire 40-man rosters; ZiPS thinks a lot of pitchers will have ERAs over 5. There's selection bias here since I'm not running projections on the site for the worst options. In the AL, only 14 pitchers with 100 innings had an ERA of 5.00 last year. ZiPS has already projected 11 pitchers with ERAs over 5.00 in the 6 AL articles that have run. As for the Rangers, for the 13 pitchers listed as the primary pitchers by b-r, 7 had ERAs over 5.00. How many of those really should ZiPS have as repeating? - Park has a career ERA of 4.01 (career ERA+ of 104 which gives something under 4.50 in Texas and AL) and had injury problems. 2002 was only the 2nd time his ERA was over 4.00. - Rob Bell wasn't deemed as deserving a projection printed (his ZiPS was well over 5.00). Same situation with Aaron Myette and Hideki Irabu. - Burba has had an ERA above 5.00 the last two years, but a DIPS ERA better than 5.00 both years. - Benoit is a promising pitcher and could very well have an ERA over 5.00. Is a young hurler going from 5.31 to 4.75 such an unjustified reach? - Van Poppel has pitched much better since becoming a full-time reliever. Aside from his ugly 5.45 in 2002, his other relief years in the majors were 3.75 and 2.62. So, who else is more likely than not to have an ERA under 5? Who else should a reasonable computer projection have picked to eclipse the mark? Francisco Cordero of the 1.79 last year? Yan who has had 2 solid years in a row? Urbina and Powell who combine for 1 +5 season in 14 full years of play? Thomson who has a career ERA a hair under 5...in a park that causes twice the run-inflation of the notorious Baker Bowl? There are probably 3 pitchers of those listed that are really good shots to have pitchers under 5 - Benoit, Davis, and Fultz. None were given exactly given sterling projections.    9. kevin Posted: March 13, 2003 at 09:42 PM (#609474) Another hypothesis for the difference between Tosca's minor and major league SB and sacrificing philosophies: The goal in the minor leagues is to develop players, and letting prospects learn how to bunt and steal bases is part of that developement. In the majors the goal is to simply win games, so sacrifices and steals are used more sparingly.    10. Dan Szymborski Posted: March 14, 2003 at 09:42 PM (#609496) For pitchers with mixed usage (starter and reliever), there was a bug that was making certain projected decisions either too low or too high. That's been fixed now.    11. Dan Szymborski Posted: March 14, 2003 at 09:42 PM (#609498) "There are probably 3 pitchers of those listed that are really good shots to have pitchers under 5 - Benoit, Davis, and Fultz. None were given exactly given sterling projections." I'm guessing that doesn't make much sense to anyone. It should read "There are probably 3 pitchers of those listed that have really good shots to have ERAs over 5." In fact, I think the Rangers have improved their pitching staff quite a bit. It's been so bad the last few years that they didn't need to add a top starter, just find 11 or 12 guys that won't get killed.    12. Mike Green Posted: March 16, 2003 at 09:44 PM (#609589) The wild card on the roster is Hendrickson. ZIPS has him at 31 appearances, 16 starts, with an ERA of 4.42 and an 8-7 record. Projecting a 29 year old 6'9" left-handed starter who took up pitching in his mid-20s after playing basketball does not lend itself to conventional approaches. It now appears that he will be the #3 man in the rotation after Hallyday and Lidle. Unless he flames out and there is good reason to believe that he won't based on his 2002 performance, it is likely that he will get 30 starts and 170 plus innings. My best guess is that he goes 17-10 with an ERA of about 3.75. All the other projections are in my view reasonable, except that Justin Miller is unlikely to get 27 starts. I'd say that the Jays should be projected for 87 wins, but they are a young team, and better development than is usual would certainly not be a shocker. Page 1 of 1 pages You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.   << Back to main	Support BBTF My Bookmarks You must be logged in to view your Bookmarks. 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