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The starting rotation is going to get absolutely destroyed.
It's also an improvement from last year's line.
I firmly expect them to pull 5 league average or better SPs out of their ass.
Best Marcs from baseball history:
- Marc Hill, the catcher who failed to adequately fill Dave Rader's shoes with the late-70's Giants, before becoming a longtime backup with the White Sox.
- Marc Wilkins, who pitched more than 200 relief innings for the Bonifay-era Pirates.
- Marc Valdes, who was, I believe, the Marlins' first ever draft pick. His career highlight was probably being traded for Russ Johnson.
- Marc Sullivan, whom nepotism brought a career as Red Sox backup catcher, but did not play any role in their 1986 playoff run.
- Marc Newfield, who was traded along with Ron Villone TWICE.
- Marc Kroon, who has had a pretty good career in Japan.
Can Rzzzzzzzzski outstrip the accomplishments of all these men to become baseball's greatest Marc?
Keep in mind that the defense will also be much worse than last year - Gonzalez is nothing special at short, and Encarnacion is much, much, much, much worse at 3B than Rolen. They'll also be replacing Rios in the OF with either Lind or Snider. The starters are going to put up ugly ERA+ because so many more balls are going to drop in compared to last year.
Good point.
This team's gonna suck.
That's the worst part. I can stand bad baseball. I can spend a lot of time watching a team that loses 94 games. But this season is going to be a grind, because there's nothing interesting about this team. There's no speed, no power, the defense isn't good anymore, and Halladay won't start every fifth game. I don't even think I have a favourite player on this team, except for Jason Frasor. Jason Frasor, it's absurd, but that's what I've been reduced to: claiming that a relief pitcher with a foshball and Trachsel-esque tempo is my favourite player.
Come to think of it, the only entertaining thing that might come from going to the games is watching the inevitable trainwreck that will be the Lind/Wells/Snider or Bautista outfield. Or watching John McDonald be the fifth outfielder.
It won't once it starts having to throw 5 innings every game.
Who is Mike McCoy?
Yup. Go to bbref and have a look at some of the starters' ERAs once Rolen was dealt. Good fun; if I recall correctly, Richmond was solidly over 10 in a decent sample.
I believe that he had more surgery on his wrist this offseason. As a result, I don't see a 110-120 OPS+ in his near future.
Yep. He did have wrist surgery this offseason, which isn't a good sign. What I didn't know was that Encarnacion also had wrist surgery. This offense could be even worse than the projections.
That said, his name probably isn't worth learning.
Quibble: Hill and Lind were two of the top five HR hitters in the league last year.
With Snider, Bautista, Ruiz -- even Wells -- power is about the only thing the Jays have going for them this year, imho.
But, overall....they're gonna suck.
True, I almost went back to edit that to say 'no offense': PECOTA projects the team to have the least runs scored in the AL. Or 'no leadoff hitter', Jose Bautista is currently Gaston's leading contender for the spot. But I'd certainly expect Hill to regress from last year.
Also: for pitching, this is the first year without Brad Arnsberg as pitching coach. I'm not sure if that will have a major effect on the staff, but it'll be interesting to see if the defense and/or new pitching coach (and injuries, I suppose) lead to the Jays' magic neverending well of league average pitching dries up. If it does, it'll be an ugly season.
This is the most dismal outlook they've had going into the season in a long time. That's just a horrible collection of "hitters". Can McDonald still play SS at an above-average level? The one thing JP seemed really good at was fielding a team of guys who could suck up some balls, which made the pitching look pretty decent. I agree with Ryan that this is gonna be a huge departure from that model. Aside from Hill, is there an above-average fielder in the lineup? Buck has to be good at something, right? There's not even an interesting collection of NRIs who could steal playing time.
Is there some philosophy behind the rebuilding effort other than "get good players"? What type of team is AA trying to build here? JP had a plan, albeit a poorly-executed one (I bought it for about a year and a half)...anything similar going on now?
All so true.
I expect a lot of solo HR and 7-2 losses.
EDIT: and that Brett Wallace projection is strikingly pessimistic. Is there something in his performance record I am missing?
Maybe this'll be the year he puts it together with the bat...probably not but...
Better known for breaking the jaw of teammate Jeff Tabaka in a hotel lobby brawl.
Man, what a lousy team. I'll admit, I hadn't realized just how stinky they were. I'd swear there were some Jays moved where I thought "yeah, that looks good" but I'm darned if I can reverse engineer what those might have been after looking at the roster. Can't hit, can't field, can't pitch ... maybe can't even stay healthy. And, yeah, those Wallace and Encarnacion projections are depressing.
OK, picking up Buck on the cheap wasn't a bad move -- nothing special but average-ish.
And not a lot of trade chits left -- Hill obviously, Overbay will probably get moved at the deadline but not for much, and Downs and Frasor (who won't bring much).
I'm used to the Jays always being at least decent, kinda like the Astros. But it would be a miracle this year or, seemingly, any time in the next 3-5 years.
This is apparently such a shock to all of us that nobody's even pointed out that the pitcher and hitter ODDIBEs are out of order (or is it just such a shock to me that I didn't notice when it was).
Now, on Marcum's top comp, is the first name Oil and the middle name Can?
I'll take the over on him.
the lineup has too many serious holes, IMO, for that to happen- C, SS, and maybe CF. I think EE will rebound with the bat. I don't see Snider being as bad as his projection. Hill might not regress as much as we're all expecting. Too bad they couldn't lock up Scutaro...
I remember I requested Jonathan Schuerholz's projection one year, and I think Bocock's is better. Though Bocock actually made the major leagues, unlike Schuerholz.
I'm enthusiastic about the young pitching too, but more in a 2011 view. I expect this year to be ugly as they wade through the options and figure out who is cut out for the starting rotation, who is cut out for the bullpen, and who just needs to be cut.
I'll make sure and do Campbell.
Yeah, I did Jeroloman and Arencibia back-to-back so I looked at the wrong line for one of them when entering it into DMB. Not sure which one on first glance at the moment (new laptop and I don't have ZiPS stuff on it yet), but the player with the wrong projection won't have a good projeciton.
Jonny Nepotism!
The son of Doug Drabek is now in the majors? I'm having an "I'm old" moment.
He's not in the majors yet. You've probably got until the All-Star break before the "I'm old" moment kicks in.
Is it my imagination or is Hoffpauir a noticeably better choice than Encarnacion to play third base? I mean, I know Encarnacion's got the contract, but wouldn't you be doing the young pitchers a favour by playing the better defender (and the slightly better hitter)?
Eric Young's son is, though.
Snider is their only hope there, but not right away at least. Lind had a superstar-ish year in '09, and could improve on it.
It's over here.
Hooray! Love to see that comp for a Jays pitcher. (McGowan)
EDIT: Also I missed the acquisition of Dana Eveland and the return of Zach Jackson. Not that those guys are likely to do much, but when did that happen?
Personally, I'm treating McGowan as a write-off until he starts a few games. His ZiPS comps could be Joey Hamilton, Mike Sirotka, and Juan Guzman and I wouldn't care.
Edit: Eveland happened last week, Jackson in early January.
The Jays are a rebuilding team now.
This team isn't nearly as bad as many in this thread seem to think.
If everyone hits like ZIPS says they will, it'll be a pretty bad team. I don't think that's very likely, though. With Snider, ZIPS is projecting no growth, Encarnacion to hit worse at age 27, and Hill and Lind to both settle in between 2008 and 2009. They could score some runs despite punting SS and C. The problem, as Ryan pointed out, is that their D will be substantially worse. Hill and Overbay are both pretty good, but the positives end there.
John Buck slugged .484 last year, though in limited time. Not bad. Given how bad the Jays' production at catcher was last year, he'll probably be an improvement.
I think it's the second part that's going to torpedo an otherwise potentially interesting case study. I figure the Jays are going to have less pitching continuity from 2009 to 2010 than your average team, not more.
The Blue Jays were weird. I'd seriously be question ZIPS if it got most of the Jays lineup last year <U>correctly</U> because only a poorly designed system would project some of those actual results.
There's just not really any way he can grow unless he drops his K-rate -- and so far his major-league K-rate is right in line with his minor-league. His projected walk rate is solid and, as I said, he's projected to hit about 350/650 on-contact. It's possible he could go all Mark Reynolds but it's unlikely; more likely is he'll have a brief period of Wily Mo Pena usefulness. Hopefully he'll pull a Justin Upton and cut down on the Ks.*
It might normally make perfect sense to think that a 21-year-old with a 98 OPS+ would improve at age 22. But I expect Dan to come along any moment now and say that it doesn't happen that way for guys who K 1 per 3 AB.
* I see Upton hit 406/720 on-contact last year. That's not likely to happen again. ZiPS projects 382/706 which seems a little high for a projection.
Snider's had better walk rates than Pena though, which should be cause for optimism, no? (that's a real question) Pena never walked more than 36 times a season in the minors, 22 in the majors, whereas Snider's been over the 10% mark in his minor league career, and slightly below it as a 21 year-old i the majors. That suggests he's got a clue about the strike zone, no?
Mum mum mum mah
Bo bo bo Bocock, bo bo Bocock,
Mum mum mum mah
Not the results, because I too expect them to finish last in the division, but the idea that there is nothing to root for and nothing to look forward to is just wrong.
Aaron Hill and Adam Lind are worth cheering for. Kyle Drabek and Brett Wallace are players to look forward to as they come up this year.
They are going to lose but AA is sending the team in the right direction.
Hill was a highly touted prospect I think? I'm pretty indifferent on him but I think a case could be made that he can easily surpass that projection across the board.
Wells probably isn't a great candidate to rebound this year if what was said about having surgery on his wrist during the off-season is true. I think he could eventually bounce back and be a fairly productive player but he will never make that contract look good.
I've never been a fan of Overbay, Hoffpauir, or Bautista and I'm close to giving up on Encarnacion but I think you could make a case for them to surpass their projections.
The pitching is even harder to project, a lot of their players have very small sample sizes and there have been so many injuries in recent history with their staff it's hard to tell what they will do. The Jays definitely aren't a strong team but I could definitely see them doing a better than we see above.
Welcome to the shoes of your average Royals' fan for the past 15 years or so.
Don't feel bad -- I have Ray Boone and Gus Bell cards from my youth and their grandsons have aged out of baseball.
Wouldn't it be better to be the worst, if you're going to lose 95+ anyway?
At least get the #1 pick out of your shitty season.
I'm still going to go with the Royals. Monarchs, Missionaries, Cyan Birds, and Natinals in that order.
I don't think they'll be the worst either, but I do think they're likely to be in the bottom 20%. Between an extremely young (and potentially volatile) starting rotation, very little obvious upside on offense (and little to no help in the high minors), a bullpen likely to be overworked, the unbalanced schedule, and the Jays' tradition of underperforming their pythag, this team looks like a lock for 90+ losses.
Off hand, the only team that I would confidentally bet to be worse than the Jays is the Royals.
This is easy to say, but I'm going to go to games and follow the team next year, and I'd like to see them win.
Other than the loss of Halladay, what's going to be worse this year?
I realize that's a big loss, but still, he's only one guy.
3B and SS. Encarnacion and Sea Bass don't exactly match up well with Rolen and Scutaro.
One guy worth 6-7 WAR, on a team that only managed to win 76 games.
They are better at RP... and that is it.
Where they are REALLY better is in the minors, which is why I am not wringing my hands like some. I predict that the Jays win 70-75 games this year, but then immediately start to rise in 2011.
It might normally make perfect sense to think that a 21-year-old with a 98 OPS+ would improve at age 22. But I expect Dan to come along any moment now and say that it doesn't happen that way for guys who K 1 per 3 AB.
This is also a guy whose minor league numbers came against AA pitching at age 20 and AAA pitching at age 21.
I don't know why to completely disregard the idea a talented young hitter can cut down on his strikeouts to some extent.
I'm not sure "optimism" is the right word but, yes, his walk rate is a definite positive. It makes him more valuable than other high-K players and it means it is possible that he can develop into a productive hitter with that K-rate. Now, as you later imply, does a good walk rate suggest that he has a better chance of cutting down his Ks than a high-K guy with a low walk rate. Seems logical but I have no idea if there's empirical evidence in favor of that or not. But, if anything, for a 22-year-old, I'd guess the odds of the bottom falling out and a return to AAA are higher (ZiPS seems to agree given the 45% "poor" ODDIBE).
Presumably Dan's too busy so I'll just keep talking out of my ass until he gets here to share some actual data-driven opinions. :-) K-rates tend to be pretty stable. Obviously some guys do improve their K-rates but I don't know that there's any particular (data-driven) reason to think Snider is one of those. To be successful with that K-rate, you need to have a good walk rate and crush the ball. ZiPS projects Snider to a good walk rate and a pretty solid 350/650 on-contact production and he still comes out to a 99 OPS+. To be substantially better than that, he's either got to drop the K-rate or start crushing the ball. Thing is, with that K-rate, even if he steps up into Ryan Braun* territory (roughly 380/720), that still translates to an overall BA of 253 and overall SLG of 480. Add in the walk rate and that's an overall OPS of 820 which I think comes out around a 115 OPS+ -- that's probably a realistic upside projection for his 2010 season. But as far as I know, despite his youth, there's no empirical reason to think that Snider will follow that development path.
I agree that Pena wasn't the best name to bring up, but I didn't mean to suggest that Snider will share Pena's fate. I meant more that, in his early years, Pena had years where he managed an OPS+ in the 105-115 range by crushing the ball (his career on-contact numbers are a little better than Snider's so far). I'm sure Snider will have some years like that too -- and ZiPS gives him roughly a 30% chance of having one in 2010. I'm just cautioning not to get carried away until you see Snider establish either a lower K-rate or higher on-contact rates.* Until one or both of those things happen, his offensive upside is quite limited.
* For example, Justin Upton's big break out featured both. The question is whether he can sustain.
It's not just Doc (and Rolen and Scutaro as Ryan brought up). Losing Brad Arnsberg was in my opinion as crushing a loss as Doc.
Arnsberg's ability to bring seemingly unready AA and AAA pitchers to the majors and turn them into major-league average starters was uncanny, and I think unmatched in the modern game. He might be the best guy in baseball at working with young pitchers (and why I have a suspicion the Astros are about to get a lot better). Arny hardly ever had a guy fail on him... everyone they brought up at least battled to a draw, especially the guys with unprepossessing stuff. The Purceys he had a bit more trouble with, but still the Jays have relied very, very heavily on young pitching the last several years, and those pitchers have been very successful. And now their very fine pitching coach is gone, without fanfare but I bet with pretty devastating effects.
The loss of Rios will hurt the team defensively, and they now are a Wells hamstring tweak away from Jeremy Reed or Joey Gathright being the starting CFer.
It's been mentioned, but I don't think you can really overemphasize how much this team lost at SS. Scutaro was - by some metrics - one of the most valuable players in the AL (or even baseball) last year, and now he's been replaced by Gonzo, who was one of the least valuable players in all of baseball. Losing Halladay and Scutaro and replacing them with Gonzalez and Morrow are two major losses for a team that wasn't very good to being with.
Edit:
I think there's a real chance they'll simply mail it in.
I think this is another issue. Cito's a lame duck who is unliked by part of the clubhouse. Worse, he's been granted a bizarre retirement tour. Managament seems to be content with tanking this year and picking up a high draft pick. I'd expect everyone to be professional about it, but if ever there was a season for a player to take it easy on the basepaths, to let a ball drop instead of going for the diving catch, to basically follow the Hillebrand 'play for yourself, play for you contract' code, this is it.
Considering his age,I feel pretty confident he will continue to get somewhat more selective and probably improve his contact rate on pitches in the zone as well. Don't be surprised at all to see that K rate dip under 30% as soon as 2010.
He's awful young and has already shown he can move the needle on key indicators.
But how is a statement like that at all useful when talking about a player as young and inexperienced (at the MLB level) as Travis Snider?
It goes without saying that almost every MLB player out there had to improve significantly from their 22 year old talent level to become good MLB players. It certainly isn't very useful as far as projecting anything. You won't project him to be a good player until he becomes a good player?
Well, for a lot of guys, that's true (although ZiPS sees Bruce and Escobar becoming good players based on mean projections).
That's why projection guys are making more of an effort to present the whole array of possibilities in a concise a manner as can be done easily.
In this case, even if the mean projection isn't Snider being a good player, ZiPS does present an estimation that gives Snider a really good shot at being a good player in 2010. The whole line for Snider for OPS+
160+ 1-in-699
140+ 1.4%
130+ 4.6%
120+ 10.2%
110+ 24.5%
100+ 48.0%
90+ 73.6%
80+ 90.8%
60+ 97.7%
Snider is risky and people generally overrate the probability that a young player will improve.
While BABIP is much more of an ability for a batter than a pitcher, it does regress heavily and there's a pretty solid ability-based upper limit. A big part of Snider being a star at this moment involves him maintaining something that nobody ever does. That's a formula for a very risky player in the short-term.
ZIPs generally seem to be conservatives on guys that havn't played in the majors. and Wallace's preformance last year wasn't really up to his reputation anyway. he hit in the low .800s with only averagish control of the strike zone at best. for someone taughted of being a polished college hitter with great eye and power, he hasn't shown a whole lot of those last year. obviously prospects are not exactly the most predictable players out there. but just looking at his minor league line so far there are some definate red flags when you see a "polished" college hitter destroy the low minors then hit only ok in the high one.
We probably need one more season of him in the him minors to make more definitive take on his ability, which also means that if he comes up right now it's probably a disastor.
Given the context of the scheduel, I'm not even sure if the Royals would suck more than the Jays. the Jays have no one on the calibler of a Zach Grienke, and the Royals have at least some mild upsides in the likes of Gordon and Butler. if the wise up a little and not carry so many epic holes they might even contend for .500 in that division.
FWIW: Cairo project the Jays = Royals, PECOTA has them as 3 games worse than the Royals, and Chone's depth chart method have them as a wooping 8 games worse than the Royals (YIKES) .
What's more, the Royals probably can contend in that division if they somehow fluke or breakout to a season slightly over .500 (which is definately within the realm of possibility), the Jays would still be like 15 games back if they played .500 ball.
Part of that is strength of schedule. I'm pretty sure if you flipped KC and Toronto you wouldn't see that kind of gap.
they're playing in a division that have 2 awesome team, a very good one with high upside, and one that was bad but also have amazing upsides. where as KC is playing in a division where pretty much every team have massive holes
Disclaimer: ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance.
Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors -
many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2009.
I'm curious, just how much do you think or how much does your model think a young player can improve? Obviously it is a case by case bases but ZiPS is pretty much pessimistic across the board on young players rarely ever projecting a young player to break out before they do. Even the Heyward projection (arguably the top prospect in all of the minors with a pretty good resume to back it up) isn't that optimistic. Same with Strasburg who is really the only other player in the running by most of the industry leaders.
As far as BABIP, players with lots of power and/or speed often carry higher BABIP's than the normal hitter correct? Howard's career BABIP is .333, Pujols' is .321, Cust's is .331, Ramirez's is .344...I'm sure there are more examples and plenty that disprove it but hitters with lots of power and/or speed can sustain high BABIPs.
Snider turned 22 last week and has posted ISOs near .200 every level he has been (despite rushing through the minor leagues) which is plenty of power to suggest he could maintain a BABIP above average. Do you really think he only has a 50% chance of improving? I think a 20-21 year old holding their own at the MLB level would have a better than 50% chance of improving. I was also shocked at the Lind projection, he is only 25 and you have him regressing an awful lot.
Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors -
many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2009.
I need to ask Sean or Nate if I'm the only one that can't seem to communicate this after years and years of doing this or if it's just because my projections tend to be tethered to a more discussion-based area.
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