Look, I have little to no doubt money played a large role in the release of Thomas. That said, he wasn't hitting, and hasn't really shown up JP. Yet.

Personally, I think he'll have a little tear at some point in the season, where MSI and co will yell from the roof tops that JP was a fool. And then Frank will tail off a little, and end up having a pretty mediocre season.

All in all, I don't think cutting Frank was a move that's really going to hurt the Jays. Signing him to what amounts to a 1 year, $18 million deal did, and will.

If Sweeney can't play every day, then what's the alternative to having Frank in the lineup?

Personally, I think he'll have a little tear at some point in the season

Me, too. Only I think it will be in a hamstring.

Uh Toolsy, I was in favour of dumping Thomas, after some thought. I understand the possibility of him hitting well. That's fine, I didn't think this team was good enough to win anyway, without a Barry Bonds or what have you. Are you the one that still thinks JP is an okay GM, or is that Northey? You gotta wake up and smell the coffee.

Frank has a 112 OPS+ and a .287 EQA since Oakland signed him. That's not great for a DH, and it's not as good as what he did the past 2 years, but it's certainly not hurting the A's.

The A's have such a strange offense this year. They have 4 regulars with higher OBPs than SLGs (Suzuki, Hannahan, Cust, Thomas), with two others within spitting distance (Barton and Ryan Sweeney). With that type of offense, they desperately need power, and I think Frank is more likely to provide it than anyone else they have on the roster.

That said, they're going to have a real roster crunch with Chavez, Calero, and Buck coming back, and it'll be interesting to see who goes.

Frank has a 112 OPS+ and a .287 EQA since Oakland signed him.

While he may have a 112 OPS+ and .287 EQA, it's in the form of a .267 .384 .350 performance - if he doesn't start showing power soon, it's very likely that the OBP will drop as pitchers stop bothering to pitch around him. It also has to be a bit of a concern that he's now gone about 100 AB without a homer.

He's had a great career, but it's looking increasingly like he may have hit the end of it - at least as a full time contributor.

Yeah, I'm the unabashed JP apologist. I feel like I've pushed into that role, since no one else does it here.

I suppose you can never have enough OBP, but I think someone recently said the Jays are currently leading baseball in OBP. I just checked though, and that looks wrong.

OBP is still good with Thomas, but he is slow, and for the Jays, they had Stairs who could replicate him pretty much at DH. Even if he had an OPS that was on the upper half of the team for the Jays, still relative to position (DH), it decreases its value even more. Lind and League should be playing right now though.

While he may have a 112 OPS+ and .287 EQA, it's in the form of a .267 .384 .350 performance - if he doesn't start showing power soon, it's very likely that the OBP will drop as pitchers stop bothering to pitch around him.

If so, the A's are screwed, as a bunch of their players are drawing walks without power.

If only pitchers had been smart enough to start grooving pitches to the Eddie Yost set, those guys wouldn't have been able to draw walks for years on end without power.

And those stupid pitchers were more scared of Rickey's power than his wheels...

if he doesn't start showing power soon, it's very likely that the OBP will drop as pitchers stop bothering to pitch around him.

I bet that when they stop pitching around Thomas (if they are, I think it's more likely that his eye is excellent and pitcher's don't change their approach all that much for him), he'll start hitting the ball over the wall again.

Let me just preface this by saying I think dumping Thomas was an ok move

BUT
People keep telling me dumping Thomas was no problem because Stairs is better...but Stairs was in the lineup already anyway.
Thomas gone meant more Stewart and Lind (and now Mench and Wilkerson) which is a far less favourable thing.

Now, personally I thought that was ok because Lind would hit...but he didn't (not that the Jays gave him much of a chance) and I agree that Lind should still be up, instead of messing about with Stewart et. al.

I agree with most of what you say, I just dislike the whole Thomas-Stairs comparison. It is irrelevant to the impact Thomas' release had.

If only pitchers had been smart enough to start grooving pitches to the Eddie Yost set, those guys wouldn't have been able to draw walks for years on end without power.

How many guys have managed to survive in baseball for long careers with drawing a walk being their primary skill? And how many of those guys have played in primarily offensive positions like DH or 1B?

In the case of Frank, it was noted in his final days in Toronto that he seemed to be trying to cheat on fastballs, and that it was possible that he was no longer able to get around on a good one. If that's true, and not having seen too many of Frank's games this year I can't be sure, isn't it likely that his walks will start to drop off as pitchers recognize that he's no longer able to get around on a fastball?

Incidentally, and this is a complete aside, how much of a power hitters walks should be contributed to his eye, and how much should be contributed to his power? I ask, only because of the great example of Sosa, who only seemed to develop large walk totals after he became a 60 HR man, and whose walks quickly started to drop off when his power returned to more mortal levels.

In other words, while Frank undoubtedly has a great eye, how many (or what percentage) of his walks should be attributed to his pitch and location recognition skills, and how many (or what percentage) should be attributed to the pitcher electing to throw pitches which are nowhere near the plate? Please note that this is not intended to play down Frank's career, but just out of curiosity, as it could be asked of many other players (Bonds, for example, or Thome)

How many guys have managed to survive in baseball for long careers with drawing a walk being their primary skill? And how many of those guys have played in primarily offensive positions like DH or 1B?

Impossible to say, really. One can probably run a search and find a couple Yosts, Hargroves or Blues in the league at any one time, but it'd be much more difficult to tease out the Hendersons and Roses who retained the ability to walk for years after they'd lost the ability to hit. "Dozens" is about the most precise answer I can give offhand.

I hope Frank has some life left in him. But if he's done, I hope he retires before his BA drops below 300. I know it's just a round number, but I'd like to him hold onto it.

I hope Frank has some life left in him. But if he's done, I hope he retires before his BA drops below 300.

I absolutely agree with this statement. I don't want to see some writer not vote for Frank for HoF because "He wasn't a .300 career hitter".

In the case of Frank, it was noted in his final days in Toronto that he seemed to be trying to cheat on fastballs, and that it was possible that he was no longer able to get around on a good one.

FWIW, here are the pitches Thomas homered on this year (from Gameday):

4/5: 92 MPH fastball on the outer half
4/6: 97 MPH fastball on the inside corner
4/8: 94 MPH fastball on the outer half

He is currently 2435 for 8073. He can go 0 for his next 43 and still be a .300 hitter. He need get 16 hits in his next 100 AB to still be above .3. I think if he does either of those, he'll lose his job.

Note, I'm taking .300 hitter to mean he is above 30%, not .2995.

The one thing that BPro harped on about years ago was understanding sunk costs- in that respect JP has been very good- he sinks a lot of costs. He's never afraid to pay to get from under what he perceives as bad contracts. The fact that he gave those contracts out in the first place he should be taken to task for, but he's never played a guy just b/c of their contract...

The sad thing about the Jays this year is that they're wasting amazing pitching with that putrid offense. It's too bad, they've never been able to combine both elements since JP's been there. I still think it can turn around, but time is running out.

other words, while Frank undoubtedly has a great eye, how many (or what percentage) of his walks should be attributed to his pitch and location recognition skills, and how many (or what percentage) should be attributed to the pitcher electing to throw pitches which are nowhere near the plate? Please note that this is not intended to play down Frank's career, but just out of curiosity, as it could be asked of many other players (Bonds, for example, or Thome)

And those aren't the only two things that can influence a guy's walk rate. Take Thome. As far as I can tell, he walks a ton for three reasons: 1) a good eye, 2) great power, forcing pitchers to be more careful around the strike zone, and 3) the tendency to swing and miss an awful lot, which gives him more opportunities to get to 4 balls before he gets to three strikes or puts the ball in play. A guy like Tony Gwynn, on the other hand, was going to have a lower walk rate simply because when he swings on 2-0, he's more likely to make contact.

In the end, it probably doesn't matter what the attribution is for a walk rate, though it illustrates why defining "plate discipline" is so difficult.

I thought that walks go up as bat speed goes down because hitters get more selective.

I thought that walks go up as bat speed goes down because hitters get more selective.

I agree with this, but I also thought that it was influenced by a guy swinging and missing more often, thus putting him into more deep counts.

Frank may indeed be done, but do keep in mind that "league average" for Oakland right now is OBP of 320 and SLG of 381. In Oakland, he's basically one HR away from a league average SLG -- not great but with a 380 OBP still a valuable hitter. Granted, Frank's "speed" does detract from the worth of his OBP.

And Sweeney's having a nice season so far, but his OPS+ the last two years are 86 and 102 so it seems unlikely that he'll keep that up with greater playing time. It could of course be that he's healthy for the first time in a while.

I will agree the A's have too many DHs and, as pointed out, will be facing a roster crunch soon. Do any of Cust, Sweeney, Thomas, Brown have any trade value? Can't be much.

It's a really bizarre offense. Mark Ellis has the second highest ISO right now (137).

And you just know that Thomas is rarely, if ever, going to wind up sitting out because of the way he exited Toronto.

I don't agree with this at all. Didn't Thomas and Beane both come out and say (both independently & voluntarily iirc) that playing time didn't even enter into the discussion between them when he signed? I don't think Thomas would kvetch about a day off or two a week. There's a crunch coming, but I think the A's can get by with all 3 of Barton, Sweeney and Thomas -- the downside is Barton's been sitting against lefties, which I don't like for his development.

I don't think Frank has an issue with sitting a day or two a week. He clearly does though if it's 4 - 5 days a week, as that was probably what got the ball rolling on his departure.

Since we've had this discussion 100 times already, I'll just make two fairly important points that seem to come up every time:

1) Thomas was not dumped in favor of Stairs. Stairs was playing almost every day before Thomas left and has been playing almost every day since. Thomas's departure has meant nothing vis à vis Stairs's playing time, and the players who HAVE replaced Thomas have been terrible.

2) Thomas has not made JP look bad. In this particular instance OPS+ is a poor measure of value because a high amount of Thomas's OPS comes from walks, which is the least valuable way to get on base. I would imagine that some type of linear weights formula would not make Thomas look good at all.

Alright, now let's continue around the merry-go-round...

2) Thomas has not made JP look bad. In this particular instance OPS+ is a poor measure of value because a high amount of Thomas's OPS comes from walks, which is the least valuable way to get on base. I would imagine that some type of linear weights formula would not make Thomas look good at all.

I'm pretty sure the opposite is true. Thomas' OPS+ reflects that much of his value has come from walks. If more of his OBP came from hits rather than walks, his SLG would be higher. EQA is basically linear weights with SB/CS and a park factor thrown in, and it rates Thomas as a better hitter than OPS+ does.

Update: Through his two-homer game yesterday, Thomas' OPS+ with Oakland was 145. He went one for four today -- another dinger -- so that should go up.

Of course, it would have been nice if Oakland had won either of those games. . .

As Thomas heats up as Oakland stumbles, strong consideration must be given to the theory that Thomas, like Khalil Greene, is a vampire.

Poor Andrew Brown, with his "appendectomy", was probably the most recent victim.

Thomas has not made JP look bad

Through yesterday, with Oakland:

.305/.408/.512/.920, 161 OPS+

Well, he hasn't exactly made him look good, either.