April Reflections on the Blue Jays

Cecil is looking awesome and I really like the way the three amigos (Romero, Cecil and Rzep) are shaping up Bodes well for the future, a future as early as next year.

The only thing Cecil has to work on is getting his pitch counts down a bit to carry him through 7 more easily and a bit better stamina, but these I expect to come with time. Looking great so far.

If someone told me right before April started that the Jays would be hovering just below .500 at the end of the month and would I be happy with it, the answer would have been yes.

Great young rotation, snakebit bullpen, lots of offensive woes but some real positives mixed in. We’ve mostly lost to better teams, and beaten the teams we should have beaten. I’m not unhappy with that.

He has the lowest BABIP according to fangraphs of anyone in the majors this season. The balls will start fiding places in time, right? http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2010&month=0

Should be a win-win trade for both teams.

Wallace inability to play 3b longterm, made him available. A’s have been hyping daric barton for years and is finally showing it at the mlb level. His approach is very wallace like, but with less power and more defense. Also they have chris carter at that 1b logjam.
Wallace has seemed to re work his swing for more power which could be huge for his upside. It will be interesting to see how jays rotate ab’s with wallace, arincibia, lind, and snider at some point who all have good bats, but defensive issues.
Taylor’s offensive start has been solid, but not as good as wallace. Yet has flashed his wide range of skills with SB’s, 4 triples, and even said to have CF capability by their farm director. Call me skeptical, but we’ll see. Cant see a 6’6" lasting in cf longterm.

I know the sample size police may issue me a ticket, but:

Home: 4-9 .226/.285/.408 ERA: 4.72

Away: 6-3 .224/.311/.452 ERA: 4.14

One thing not shown in those offensive splits is “clutchiness”, i havent seen every game this year but it seems we have more timely hitting on the road.

I never thought poor attendance affected a teams performance, but I’ve never seen attendance this poor. Are we just lucky on the road and unlucky at home so far, or is there more to it?

The Jays poor record so far can be attributed to one person and he is the last remaining piece of incompetence in Toronto. Cito Gaston is managing every game to lose, through stupidity and bad judgement. Whether it is putting in the wrong pitcher at the wrong time, penciling a lineup of players hitting .125 and struggling, or doing nothing to surprise the opposition, it all ends with the same result. – Another loss in the standings.

People here can look at statistics all they want, but there is one thing they can’t ignore. If a player is batting .126 and killing innings every time he comes to bat, he is a liability on the team and is sent down, regardless if he is hitting linedrives most of the time through statistics. Production keeps guys in the majors and all the potential in the world means nothing if they consistantly strike out or kill innings when they play. Snider is another Brandon Wood in Anaheim and this is his make or break season. If he continues to struggle, he should be traded, regardless what his potential could be.

Gaston puts players in situations to fail, not succeed and he has all the vision of an earthworm. Every game is the same and he refuses to run, exercise bunts, hit and runs, etc or pinch hit for players that struggle against certain pitchers late in games. Overbay is in the lineup every day for one reason. Gaston is quoted as saying that he is a free agent and wants him to secure a lucrative contract for next year, regardless how many games he loses for the team this year.

Gaston kept going with Accardo etc, when he knew that he gave up runs every time he appeared on the mound. He will have Camp burned out by June through overuse, the same way he destroyed Janssens arm in 08 and Carlson in 09. Now that Roenicke, the closer in Las Vegas and Lewis, the set up pitcher for the eighth are called up to replace Valdez, who never got a fair chance this year, it will be interesting to see how often they are used in late innings. To sum it up in a nutshell, Wallace will replace Overbay in June, Ruiz will continue to veg on the bench, and Snider will be left to self destruct in the lineup every chance Gaston has to destroy any confidence he currently has in himself. It is time for a new manager to take over in Toronto, that works well with young players and helps them succeed. As long as Gaston runs the show, fans will be left frustrated and very angry at his stupidity in the dugout.

Games are won and lost on the field, not through calculators and statistics that mean absolutely nothing in the games. There are many here that put statistics ahead of anything else, but when the player strikes out twenty times in a row with the bases loaded and the game on the line, what good did they do, if the stats say they hit line drives 40 percent of the time. Anyone that puts their faith in stats to make players appear better than they really are, are dillusional and have destroyed the fun of just watching the game for what it is. The game is simple. Throw the ball – hit the ball – score one run more than the opposition and win the game. Everything else means nothing, but it looks good on paper. Teams are always world series champions on paper, but in reality, they lose 100 games a year and all the statistics fans throw around meant absolutely nothing at the end of October.