Bluebird Links - Berkman, Fasano & Roster Musings
by masterkembo on Nov 29, 2010 11:08 AM EST
in Toronto Blue Jays Links
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After asking Tom and Hugo, we're going to try to have a regular (maybe every other day) linkfest posting here on Bluebird Banter. I'll toss some links up every couple of days and everyone can use the post to discuss, well, whatever you want. Use it like an open post - if you want to talk about the Jays, baseball in general, or something completely unrelated to baseball, have fun in the comments below. In general, I'll try to have a posting up by 9ish in the morning.
Of course, after volunteering for this, I spent the weekend painting my house and didn't touch a computer or TV all weekend, so excuse me if a few of these links are a little old (it doesn't look like I missed much). Random side note - if you're painting, take off the light switch covers paints and for that matter, any other removable fixtures. I mean really...it takes how much time? 24 hours later and I still smell like vinegar from stripping paint off of random fixtures that someone was too lazy to take off.
Anyway, check out the links after the jump, and if there's enough interest, hopefully we can keep this going through the off-season.
Jays Links:
Berkman Names Interested Teams: MLB Rumors
Add another name to AA's list.
Lugnuts manager Fasano could be on the move | lansingstatejournal.com | Lansing State Journal
Fasano (check out that mustache) is being considered for the managerial position at Double-A New Hampshire.
Rule 5 Draft Possibilities: Pitchers | Jays Journal | A Toronto Blue Jays Blog
Jared Macdonald at Jays Journal has a look at a few interesting pitchers available in the Rule 5 Draft.
1 Blue Jays Way : Toronto Blue Jays Blog: Rule 5 Draft
And here is a list of all available Rule 5 Players.
Fluke watch: Ricky Romero
The Hardball Times takes a look at the pitches of Ricky Romero to determine if he can repeat or improve upon his performance from this year.
The 5th starter -A Toronto Blue Jays Blog: Compensation picks
The 5th starter takes a look at Jays compensation picks of the 2000's. I think Adam Lind was missed as part of the Kelvim Escobar compensation. A quick list of older comp picks that played for the Jays includes: John Cerutti, 1981 (Roy Howell); Tom Henke, 1985 (he was already drafted, but the Jays picked him as compensation for the loss of Cliff Johnson); Shawn Green, 1991 (Buddy Black) - yeah, that one worked out okay for the Jays. Shannon Stewart, 1992 (Tom Candiotti); Chris Carpenter, 1993 (Tom Henke)
Toronto Blue Jays Top 20 Prospects for 2011 - Minor League Ball
John Sickels at Minor League Ball takes a look at the Jays top 23 prospects. He has 1 A prospect, 2 B+ prospects and 11 B/B- prospects (not bad for a self-labelled 'tough grader')
The Blue Jay Hunter: Will You Accept This Arbitration Offer?
Blue Jay Hunter wonders who accepts arbitration by Tuesday's midnight deadline
Around the League
Joe Posnanski - The Age Of The Setup Man
A must read about bullpen strategy. Seriously, read this one.
Dirk Hayhurst " Blog Archive " Pitching Mechanics, and You.
I teach pitching mechanics because it’s what I know. Actually, it’s all I know. I can’t hit and I don’tturn double plays with decorative leaps over sliding runners. I pitch, and I do it my own unique way.
THE BOOK--Does (one-year) UZR tell us exactly what happened?
Short answer, no. Interesting read / refresher.
A repentant Josh Hamilton has miraculously restored the skills - Albert Chen - SI.com
An old (circa 2008) but great article about Josh Hamilton's struggles early in his career. Incredible how far he has come from then, to deservedly winning the MVP last week. If you've never heard his story (and really, who hasn't?), read this. If you have heard his story, it's still a good read.
If I missed a link, throw it in the comments and I will add later. So, Bluebird Banterer's, who accepts and who declines arbitration by the deadline? I think the biggest question mark is Jason Frasor - the others all decline.
Late Additions
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great work, mk!
this will be a real asset to the site
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
definitely
really helps organization-wise, and always good to have another pair of eyes on the interwebs
Very much so,
I wanted to do something similar during the year but with game threads almost everyday and work I rarely found the time to read everything in my google reader let alone make a post up about them.
Thanks to MasterKembo for doing this.
Never Explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe it anyway - Elbert Hubbard
Twitter is the thing with all the tweets...
Don’t you love the SBnation clipper?
Never Explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe it anyway - Elbert Hubbard
Twitter is the thing with all the tweets...
Random side note – if you’re painting, take off the light switch cover paints and for that matter, any other removable fixtures. I mean really…it takes how much time? 24 hours later and I still smell like vinegar from stripping paint off of random fixtures that someone was too lazy to take off.
Good advice. For non-removable things, painter’s tape works really well.
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
I agree – so does wiping excess paint off right away.
Other random painting pet peeve from this weekend: use the right kind of paint! Latex paint doesn’t generally work on an oil based paint or patch. Results in peeling. I think we spent more time this weekend doing prep work than actually painting.
by masterkembo on Nov 29, 2010 12:16 PM EST up reply actions
Yes, with oil, you absolutely must prime before you put latex over it (remember that oil and water do not mix). Talk to someone who knows paint at where ever you buy the paint about which primer to use.
These days, there’s really not much reason to use oil-based paints indoors. One good reason is if the walls already have oil-based paint on them. The disadvantages of oil are obvious: the smell and the drying time.
As far as prep work goes, the prep work often takes longer than the painting time. My father-in-law, who was a professional painter for GM (not painting the cars, but painting in the factory) came over a couple of months ago to help me paint our house and he spent about 2 hours doing prep work for every hour he spent actually painting. Mind you, he’s pretty quick with the brush, as you might expect.
I thought that fluke watch article was going to tear into Ricky and call him a fluke like a lot of places do with Jays Players.
Glad to see I was wrong as he concluded that Romero is likely to remain very steady going into next year.
Never Explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe it anyway - Elbert Hubbard
Twitter is the thing with all the tweets...
It is Vin Scully's birthday
The voice I hear in my head when I think about baseball, he did the game of the week when I was a kid. Here is the link.
Speaking of Dirk
Is Hayhurst still on the roster/coming back this year?
Granted Free Agency on Nov. 6
Hopefully he comes back though – the Jays may have just wanted to avoid arbitration?
by masterkembo on Nov 29, 2010 12:18 PM EST up reply actions
Thanks for the link!
I’ve edited the post to include Adam Lind.
The Compensation system was completely different when Henke was drafted. It was structured more like today’s Rule 5 draft, where you protected a certain number of players in your organization, and the rest could be selected by teams that had lost players to free agency. I couldn’t find the bookend years for that system, but it was most of the 1980’s. It’s an interesting article at baseball-reference.
That’s interesting. Here’s the article
That free agency comp. system only lasted 4 years (1981 to 1985) and there wasn’t a whole lot of top notch players taken through it.
Sal Fasano
There’s now a shortage of excellent mustaches on the Jays right now with Cito retiring. Sal’s definitely looks major league ready, which is why they are probably promoting him, but they may be keeping him in the minors to prevent his clock starting.
PS, my wife is counting down to December 1 so I can shave my mo’. It’s decent right now but nowhere near Sal’s league.
There’s now a shortage of excellent mustaches on the Jays right now with Cito retiring
I can’t even think of many potential mustaches on the team. Bautista has the potential but yeah, that’s about that. AA might have to work on that during the off-season to keep up the storied line of Blue Jays mustaches.
And Overbay's gone...
Greg Zaun used to have quite the “I’m-a-Redneck” moustache… And gone is Brian “70’s kid” Tallet…
Ithink we should make it a rookie-initiation thing: Every rookie that makes the bigs have to grow his handle-bars for all of his first year. In the end of the year there should be a vote in which the players decide who’s got the best MO and just must keep it…
I think that we start experimenting it on JPA.
Festina Lente
It might take some of these kids all year just to finish growing a handle bar. Snider might have to stick with the eye paint.
Heh – trying to picture Litsch with a mustache…
I've missed Dirk
First, I must say that this guy is good with words and managed to sneak that “intrinsically” again (read the BP Gospels for reference).
The Blue Jays should have them on their roster as the team writer/blogger/historian/whatever…
One quote from that link caught my eye:
Besides, pitching is the one place where you get to be yourself. They whole game waits for you to act before it can do anything.
To that I say: “Hey! Dirk! This guy is stealing 3rd base!” ;-p
Festina Lente
Re: Joe Posnanski - The Age Of The Setup Man
It’s just a bit too tedious and long, but he has a good point. (for those of you that didn’t read it – You should use your best reliever as a Set-up guy and not as closer)
HOWEVER, I don’t get why he think he’s invented the wheel here. Arguably that’s what the Jays did last year whenever they used Scot Downs to set up before Gregg closed. Right?
I’m 100% with him about the closer job being WAY overrated, and I do believe that the “Saves” stat is one of the silliest of this game (and this game has a LOT of silly stats…)
That was a good read. Thanks Masterkembo!
Festina Lente
It was a little long winded, but I actually enjoyed the part about 9th inning lead win percentages.
Teams held 95.5% of their ninth-inning leads in 2010. Teams held 95.5% of their ninth-inning leads in 1952.
With all the hype of the closer position since the mid 80’s or whatever, you’d think they would have made some quantifiable difference. There might be some physcological difference in ‘knowing’ that the game is locked up after the 7th of whatever (thinking Ward & Henke, or Rivera & Wettland), but as a league, the numbers haven’t changed really at all.
Yeah, that 95.5% line really sums it up (which makes the erst of it all the more long winded…)
Do you think that the Jays’ BP startegy was planned along those lines?
Do you think that “No roles” BP is a good idea?
Festina Lente
Yes and No
Because simple answers are boring!
Seriously though, there’s a very good case for the no roles bullpen, which is fairly well supported by statistics. However, players like to have defined roles, and especially in terms of pitching, sports psychology is important. Mental perperation gets reinforced when understanding what role is expected of you out of the bullpen, and can aid in performance.
So, sure, I’d love to have non-set roles that I can mix and match based on the best matchup in my favour. But I think unless you’ve got the right type of bullpen and all of them sold on the idea, it would end up hurting you in the long run.
Forgive me being simplistic (let alone being a simpleton…) But shouldn’t the job description of a reliever be “Get in there. Get outs. Don’t yield runs. Get out of there.”?
I think that it might even enhance a “Team feeling” , and (hopefuly) constructive competition. In addition, It may enabl a better load-sharing.
Tom has Hentgen’s number. He should call him… ;-p
Festina Lente
It might, but it also might play merry hell with the minds of the relievers, who have grown up entirely in a baseball world where relievers have roles; long men, LOOGY’s, set-up guys, closers, etc.
Pitching has very simple guidelines to met to be successful. However, meeting those guidelines involves an inordinately complex and rarely stable process, of which things like mental preperation can play a role.
So I’m not saying it couldn’t be successful. I’m just saying it needs the right group who are willing to honestly embrace the idea wholly to give it a real shot at seeing true results.
by dexfarkin on Nov 29, 2010 4:24 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
that was really my takeaway too
“the age of the closer” hasn’t given the team a better chance of winning when leading after the 9th. You can argue, I suppose, that the percentage would have gone down but for the heroic efforts of shutdown closers, but it’s by no means an open and shut case
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
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