Jays Make Bullpen Moves. Accardo, Valdez down. Roenicke and Lewis Up.
by Tom Dakers on Apr 27, 2010 1:26 AM EDT
in Toronto Blue Jays News
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PrintYeah, we knew it was coming. Jeremy Accardo has been optioned to Vegas and Merkin Valdez has been designated for assignment. I guess the team is hoping they can slip Valdez through waivers but I doubt he'll make it.
Coming up is Josh Roenicke and Rommie Lewis. We figured Roenicke would be coming up soon, he hasn't given up a run in 8.2 innings in Vegas, with just 4 hits against. When we saw him this spring it looked like he was throwing hard but pretty straight and he was getting hit. It is likely a minor change could get him more movement on his pitches. He had pitched 2 innings in 3 of his appearances in Vegas.
Rommie has a 2.35 ERA in Vegas, 10 hits, 3 walks and 7 K in 7.2 innings. He is a lefty. We saw him a few times this spring too, I can't say I thought that much of him then but we aren't using Valdez and Accardo has been terrible so trying someone else is a good idea. Cito said Rommie 'pitched outstanding' this spring and could have made the team if he didn't have options.
Our pen has pitched a bunch the last couple of days so getting fresh arms is important. The big thing will be to see if Cito uses them. Valdez he clearly didn't want to use and he really didn't show great in the couple of games he got into. Whether he would have been better if he threw more often we don't know, but he didn't give Cito any reason to use him more.
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That leaves the Vegas pen a man short.
Will it be Magnuson (older guy, faster track presumably)?
Will it be Collins (young as he is, it would be a shock given the “don’t rush them” philosophy now in place)?
Will it be a placeholder scrub like Bubby?
Something tells me the latter.
Another question – try Purcey as a closer with other obvious candidates out of the way?
also, totally off topic, I wouldn’t object if someone who’s an ESPN Insider were to e-mail this poor low-income shlub the details of KLaw’s top 100 prospects for the June draft…ya know, i wouldn’t be offended or anything ;)
if no one else does
I will when I get home from work ~6pm est. I have insider but can’t do much from my smartphone.
by NHfishercatsfan on Apr 27, 2010 7:59 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
my guess
Is bubbie. He was in vegas last year and no one else seems ready. Collins is only 20 and farquhar has had command issues that you don’t see in the box scores. I guess it could be Randy Boone also.
by NHfishercatsfan on Apr 27, 2010 8:00 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
jackson is still kicking around in AAA, I believe
I think in the bullpen
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
I don’t really get why they didn’t use Valdez more and give him a chance to see if he could actually be effective before DFA’ing him. I understand releasing him if they aren’t going to use him, but my why question is why did Cito never use him? I guess we’ll never know. I hope he makes it through waivers and they just send him down because I really was hoping to get a better chance to see more of him.
Being fair..
Cito’s closer to it than we are, maybe he had good reasons. But generally you have to prove yourself to him before you get any use.
True enough. But Valdez didn’t get much chance to prove himself, that’s my problem. Weird thing is, Cito kept using Accardo despite the fact that Accardo kept proving that he sucks. I guess we’ll never know what’s going inside that head of Cito’s. Probably a world of wonder.
Because Accardo was a quality reliever and this early in the season, you want to see which guys the wheels are going to fall off of and you need to replace. Accardo earned the spot in the spring, so you run him out to prove he can keep it. Otherwise, it’s a waste of a spot.
As for Valdez, I just don’t think there were a lot of situations where it made sense to slot him. I think they figured the starting rotation would be weaker and need more bullpen innings, and Valdez was the blowout reliever for them. Turns out the bullpen went deep enough times and in enough close games that you want your higher leverage relievers out there first.
Accardo is a quality reliever? Really? And if Valdez was the blowout reliever, why didn’t they use him when they were up by 8 runs or so that one game…I think it was against KC? Or did you mean when the Jays are the ones getting blown out? The truth is, they didn’t give Valdez enough of a chance to even find out what kind of situations to use him in. Maybe he could have been the stopper for the Jays in last night’s game, who’s to say? It’s not like he really could have done much worse than Accardo or Janssen.
Accardo is a quality reliever? Really?
I think you missed the fairly important ’was in my first line.
Valdez has never had any history of sustained success. He’s an erratic heater hurler who is known to have control trouble. I think they grabbed him to see if his arm could do anything expecting a different cast to the starting rotation. Since the starting rotation looks a lot more solid than they had expected, Valdez doesn’t fit into the plans. You can agree or disagree with it, but the decision is not as facile as you’ve attempted to paint it.
As for using Valdez as the stopper, the advantage of hindsight is that you can review after getting the results. Janssen has been strong so far. Accardo hasn’t been good, but he’s had some good moments which means you see if he builds on it. He didn’t, he’s gone, and now there’s a new piece up. The loss sucks, but this is what you want to be doing in April; shaking out that bullpen and finding out which guys are going to get you to the end of the season.
Nope, I didn’t miss the “was” in your first line. Some people tend to use the past tense like that without thinking it over, I didn’t know if you were or not. Anyway, I’m entirely aware of everything you’ve said, and I’m not disagreeing with it, I just think you’re missing my point. It made perfect sense to send Accardo down, given that they’d given him a chance and he’d done nothing to prove his worth. Emphasis on “given him a chance”. All I’m saying is it would have been nice to be able to see Valdez a bit more before deeming him worthless. 1 1/3 innings is hardly enough time to do that.
1 1/3 innings is hardly enough time to do that.
As a fan, sure, I totally agree. However, we don’t really know why he got so little time in the field. I think circumstances were one part, but it could be that his bullpen sessions or practice might have made Walton and Gaston really reluctant to call him in in a lot of situations. Bacause we’ve only got the window between the start and finish of a game and the analytical tools from that time period, we really don’t get the whole picture a lot of the time.
Yeah I'm sure if he looked good between games
Cito would have likely used him more. He likely had his reasons and whatever they were, he wasn’t going to us Valdez so it was a waste to have him in the pen.
When you say 'keep using Accardo'
he only pitched 7 innings. I can blame Cito for this. Not like he kept running him out there half the season.
As I wrote on the Southpaw just now, Cito acts 180 degrees opposite when it comes to pitchers as he does when it comes to hitters. if he applied the same “lose one today to win 2 tomorrow” logic to the pitchers, he’d have used Valdez and Accardo enough to keep them fresh.
you can’t learn to trust a guy you never give a fair chance to.
Lewis did okay in Spring Training
though he only had a few 1 inning looks at the end of games, mostly when opposing teams were already batting subs. It’ll be interesting to see how he manages against full big league lineups.
maybe
Lewis is a lefty, something the Jays have in short supply in the bullpen. I think he’ll get some work, particularly if the rest of the relief corps implode now and again like we’ve already seen happen early this year.
Wonder what is the future
for Accardo in the Jays organization?
Best Guess
AAA for 2010 barring injuries at the major league level, and either traded or released at the end of the season.
Not That Easy
He doesn’t make big money, but he’s got lousy numbers and a history of injuries. I don’t know that we’d get much for him.
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