Recommended roster moves and predictions for 2011

I agree with most of it but aren’t you forgetting about Yunel Escobar? He had a bad year in Atlanta and so far has rebounded to closer to his career norms, which are actually pretty good for his age. Unfortunately I think two of Buck, Encarnacion and Overbay has to be let go and replaced with already internal options or potentially free agent signings that won’t cost the Jays a pick to sign. I think Drabek should be looked at in the coming spring training of 2011 and see how he does, same with every other spot/5th starter this year because Triple A’s hitting environment isn’t very beneficial to a pitcher’s psyche. Good pitcher’s there have 4.00 era and getting hit around might hurt him in the long run.

Playoffs – 5%
Contention in September – 15%
Same as this year – 30%
Worse than this year – 50%

I’m being a bit pessimistic since we had career years from Buck, Gonzalez, huge year from Bautista and bounceback from Wells while having below-par years from Hill and Lind, even though they still hit a bunch of homers. Plus Cito is gone and with a new manager in place, the team could have a large coach turnover rate. You never know how things will go the first time round.
None of our top 4 pitchers sustained any long-lasting injury and were consistently good throughout the year, which should ahve been highly improbable given their age and experience. Just think of 2006 as things gone wrong and falling short.

I think they’ll have 81 wins next year.

Sorry for my long post

My favourite are:
1) 5th starter – Looks like this could go anyway, love to see it go to Drabek as I simply don’t see Rzep as more than a 5th starter, so why not have all 5 guys being 3rd type starters. Possible candidates: Drabek, Rzep, Hill, Richmond, Stewart.
2) Bullpen – I see Rzep moving there and becoming a bit of a Tallet (spot starter/long relief) on top of that I see Gregg coming back but Downs and Frasor are completely up in the air, I wouldn’t be surprised either way. I could also see Stewart coming up into the bullpen. Possible bullpen arms: Rzep, Stewart, Purcey, Camp, Carlson, Roenicke, Lewis, Ray, Accardo (if he hasn’t burned every bridge already)
3) Rookies playing for spots – I’d like to see at least one of the following rookies competing and possibly earning a spot on the team next ST, Mastroianni, Thames, Hechavarria, Emaus, Stewart.
4) Utility Players carving out niches – There’s many players on this team that can play multiple positions and there’s so many combinations that I could really see anyone playing anywhere. Utility guys include Bautista (3B, RF), Lind (DH, 1B), Hill (2B, 3B), Emaus (2B, 3B), etc.
5) Re-signings – There are many guys who I’d be pleasantly surprised to find back in here come April, among them are Buck, Molina, Overbay, Frasor, Downs, Gregg and to be honest I’d not be surprised if any of these guys swung one way or the other.

I think the number one thing I would like to see the Jays do is add a couple of hitters that can hit for a good average/have a good on base percentage. So I would dump Overbay and Encarnacion, add Hudson, like Tom suggested, since he’s popular in Toronto as well, and Adam Dunn, if he’s willing to come to Toronto after what J.P said lol.

If the Jays are going to serioesly contend for a playoff spot I think they’ll also need to add a top tier leadoff hitter, allstar type closer(Gregg isnt going to cut it for a playoff team, and certaintly not a world series team). How about Ichiro, and Soria? lol

I could see there being a surprise move in the off-season to pick up a legit 3B prospect. My thought would be that the Jays might consider trading Lind and get a 3B prospect that is near ready for the Show…then either bring back Overbay or sign someone like Carlos Pena (power and great D) or Paul Konerko to play 1B?

Having 3B, SS filled for the future would be a huge improvement over where the Jays were a year ago at those 2 positions. 1B/DH/LF types aren’t too hard to come by in free agency

offering EE arbitration

No way you offer EE arbitration. Not because he’s glaring awful, since he isn’t, but he’d get $5mil+ in arbitration, and there’s no way he’s worth that to the Jays. If you want EE back, you decline arbitration, and you offer him between 2-3 million to come back in a 1B/DH role, and if he signs, great.

In terms of Buck/Encarnacion/Overbay, personally, the guy I’d keep is Overbay. Left handed bat that draws a ton of walks, plays great defense, and has some pop. If you don’t make a move to get a big 1B bat, Overbay will likely provide good value for a small investment.

If you sign Buck, assuming his agent isn’t a moron, you’re looking at his contract being a three year deal, at a decent amount. If JPA is the real thing, you’ve overpaid for a backup catcher. If he isn’t, you’re then just hoping he doesn’t regress too much. I think there’s just too much risk there. I say, shake the man’s hand, let him cash in elsewhere, and if JPA can’t hack it, you get another cheap catcher on the market and see what D’Arnard/Perez/Jarolman do.

I think the Jays will pick up his option

How about trying to land Kemp

Catcher: Arencibia, with Molina as back up. Basically, I think it’s time to turn the page and give this guy the starting job. See what you’ve got. Take the picks that go along with Buck, and I don’t think there aren’t really any other viable affordable FA Catchers out there in my opinion. AAA backup Jeroloman.
1B: This one is interesting. I say let Lind play there. There are quite a few interesting FA 1B, but they won’t come cheap and may want a multi-year deal. Playing Lind at 1B opens up the DH for an older free agent slugger.
2B: Hill
SS: Escobar, with McDonald as backup
3B: The FA market is horrible at this position. Therefore, option B is to stick Bautista there. However, Bautista’s D is not much better than EE’s at 3B, and I like Bautista in RF. So I say take a chance with Encarnacion. It seems like every time he struggled this season, he went on the DL shortly afterward. Still, if you give him 600 AB’s this season, as opposed to the 330 he had, it would prorate his HR total to 38 HR’s. Not bad for a bad season eh. His OPS was also at .790, yet he didn’t get on base at his career rate. His D is not great, but it’s probably not as bad as we make it out to. I say give him a full season in Rogers Centre, and he might surprise.
LF: Snider
CF: Wells. I think he showed he can still get the job done out there this season. Not a gold glove, but an OK CF
RF: Bautista
DH: Delgado or Thome or Matsui. I like Delgado if he’s healthy.

1 Marcum
2 Romero
3 Morrow
4 Cecil
5 Drabek

Relief
CL Gregg
SU Frasor (accepts arbitration)
SU Purcey
SU Camp
MR Janssen
MR Rzepczynski
LR Richmond

AAA: Litsch, Stewart, Mills, Ray,

It can’t be similar lineup with similar bullpens, cause I think the Jays were overachieving this year even though it seems like we dropped a bunch of silly games at unlucky times

I don’t think we completely over achieved. Lind and Hill who were the best Jays hitters in regressed sharply and were maybe the worst Jays hitters in 2010. Buck overachieved, and Bautista came out of nowhere. Vernon Wells was better but inconsistent. Alex Gonzalez overachieved and was turned over for Yunel Escobar.

1b- If Lind Get’s the job he should be better than Overbay this year. I would guess he’ll hit .280 with 25-30 Hr’s and bring his OBP up again.

2b- Hill had an awful year. His low Line drive rate and high pop up rate suggest he was trying to hit to much for power. His strikeouts remained low, and so I would guess he can return to hitting atleast .270 with 15-25 Hrs, a pretty big improvement relative to this year.

SS- Given the Jays lack of early in the order hitters, I think their offense will be improved with Escobar around for a full year, compared to the Gonzalez Escobar split this year.

3rd- I think EE showed some signs of improvement towards the end of the year at 3rd base, and project for almost 40 hrs over 600 ABS. that being said, the Jays have a lot of players with low OBP, high HR’s and will continue to probably in 2011 with Arencibia, Hill, Snider, and so I don’t think EE is the type of player Toronto needs right know. I would suggest that whoever ends up here will be atleast equal to this years 3rd baseman.

In the OF Bautista had an enormous year but I suspect he won’t regress too far hitting b/w 240 and 260 with 25-40Hrs and a High obp.

For Vernon Wells I would also assume a similar year. Maybe a slight regression (260 with 20-30 Hrs)

I would expect to see a huge improvement in Snider. In fact his numbers jump I would expect to replace Bautista’s regression. I expect Snider to hit .280 with 25-35 Hrs.

At Catcher it’s unlikely that Arencibia doesn’t have a pretty slow adjustment to the majors given his struggles in unfortunately limitted chances this year. I think he deserves the shot, and I would expect 15-20 HR power with a batting average b/w .230 and .250. I think that Lind/Hill’s improvement will more than make up for the jays regression at catcher. I also think room for improvement from Snider and at Ist base/Dh means that the Jays offense could be as potent next year as this.

I really think we need faster high OBP guys at 1 and 2 and 9 in the order. I really think the Jays should wait one more year be for topping up through the FA market. I’d like to see Mastrionni given a chance in the OF. He could be the kind of top of the order player they are looking for, or if Ellsbury is cheap after a poor year in Boston, I think he’d be worth a look. I would consider a high obp second baseman and moving Hill two third. But I also wouldn’t mind giving Emaus a chance at 3rd. If it’s recognized as a rebuilding year, it wouldn’t be bad to see what we have in the minors. All in all I think because of the flexibility of both Bautista and Hill (moving to third), I think we need to more hitters with high obp, one to go along with Escobar at the top of the order and one to round out the bottom.

I expect our starting five to be better next year. I think the battle b/w Rzep/Drabek/Hill/maybe Stewart will leave us far improved in the fifth spot compared to this year. Morrow shouldn’t have the slow start he had this year, and our young starters should have a little more built in arm strength to last later into the year. Rzep actually looked really good to me his last couple of starts.

I think the reason we weren’t in the race in september this year is their weren’t enough runners on base when we hit our home runs, and we did not have a dominating bullpen so I feel like we lost a lot of close and late games. It doesn’t matter who you send out when the game is over, but I think you need a strong bullpen to win the close games and I don’t think we were strong enough or consistent enough in that department.

Unfortunately we did not get to see much of Roenicke and have destroyed our relationship with Accardo, and are probably losing at least Downs. I think our Bullpen is a work in progress, and I wish we would have experimented more with Mills, and some of our minor league starters in the pen in seeing what we had for next year, especially knowing that we might lose quite a few of our current relievers. I think we should have a decent amount of strong arms between those who don’t make the rotation next spring.

 I don’t think it makes sense to spend to much this offseason until we see what we have in the minors Mastrionni and possibly Emaus and in Drabek, Stewart and Rzep, Roenicke, etc. In the majors we need to see how Snider, Arencibia, produce in full years and if Bautista can produce again, and if Hill and Lind can rebound. I think theirs a good chance that between who we currently have we could have a pretty strong team, and I actually think we underemphasize the real weaknesses that the Yankees, Rays or Red Sox have in the lineup.

I expect us to be marginally better next year, and if we solve our weaknesses at the top of the order, and in the pen, I think we can compete. However i think it makes sense to stay in rebuild mode at the start of next year, and only trade to shore up the bullpen and the top of the order after we see what we have internally, and we recognize that we have a strong shot at the playoffs (say at the midway point of next season).

Trade to Kansas City: Drabek, Hechavarria and Arencibia for Greinke

Trade to San Diego: Zach Stewart, Anthony Gose and Travis D’Arnaud for Adrian Gonzalez

Trade the rest of the farm system to St. Louis for Colby Rasmus

Sign Cliff Lee to 6 yr-120 million dollars contract
Sign Carl Crawford to 5 yr-100 million dollar contract

Plus $16M that was going to players who are leaving as free agents (not even counting obvious non-tenders), plus $22M that we know the team was able to spend but chose not to, plus AA claims the payroll isn’t a hard cap. So, the Jays can absolutely afford to spend (competitively!) on big free agents, and I don’t know why AA is handcuffing himself by saying he won’t.
Anyways, my offseason plan was sign Crawford to play LF (moving Snider to RF, Bautista to 3B, NT E5) and Thome to DH (moving Lind to 1B), and generally stand pat on the pitching side, but then I realized that that would be wasting an opportunity to sign a second type A free agent for only a second round pick, so… maybe go after Rafael Soriano too?The other type A relievers don’t seem good enough to bother going after (ie. Guerrier) or young enough to keep it up (ie. Wagner, Rhodes).

The Jays were only 1.4 fWAR behind the Rays this year. Go to Fangraphs and add up the pitching and batting numbers if you don’t believe me. Rays: 43.5; Jays: 42.1. The funny thing is, the Red Sox had 48.5, ahead of even the Yankees’ 47.5. And that’s with those teams actually trying to be good, and us just plodding along. Do you think Aaron Hill will play like he did in 2009? That’s 3 more wins. Do you think Adam Lind will hit like he did in 2009? That’s almost 4 more wins. Do you think Brian Tallet’s place will be taken by a replacement level player? That’s a win and a half. Look, we’re better than the “big three” and we didn’t add anybody yet. So I don’t get why people think we’re only good enough to see what other teams will have when they sign it away from us at the end of the year. We’re not as far away as you think.

Carl Crawford on whether he might be back with the #Rays next year: “You always keep that little ounce of hope.” (link)
So much for him wanting to be off turf.