Bluebird Links and Upcoming Jays Milestones

It was a fairly slow weekend for baseball related information so I thought I would put together a list of the Jays potential upcoming 2011 milestones.  Two Jays players have a chance to reach some pretty big milestones this year.  First off, the hitters.

When Vernon Wells plays a game this year, he will become the first Jays position player to appear in a game in at least 13 seasons.  Only Dave Steib appeared in more seasons (15) for the Jays.  Over 13 seasons, Wells has now accumulated some significant counting numbers.  Here are the milestones Wells can reach this year:

Category	Current Total	Current Team Ranking	Obtainable Ranking	Requirement to move into Ranking	Player Currently at Ranking
Games	1390	3	1	50	Tony Fernandez
PA	5963	2	1	56	Carlos Delgado
Hits	1529	2	1	55	Tony Fernandez
fWAR	25.3	5	4	3.5	Lloyd Moseby

So, Vernon Wells can easily move into 1st all time on the Jays list for Games, PA and hits this season.  That's a big accomplishment for a guy that's typically viewed as a disappointment.  He's still 113 HR and 245 RBI behind Carlos Delgado (Wells sits 2nd all time in both categories).  I doubt he ever reaches the HR totals, although he has an outside shot at the RBI total if he can put three more good seasons together.

Some more potential milestones and your links, after the jump.

Wells' milestones are the big ones for hitters, but a few other guys can reach a nice position on the Jays all-time list. 

• Aaron Hill needs 128 hits to move into 10th on the Jays all time list (passing Jesse Barfield). 
• 30HR and 108 RBI would put him 10th in both of those categories as well (passing Shawn Green and John Olerud respectively). 
• Aaron Hill (90HR), Jose Bautista (70HR) and Adam Lind (80HR) are all looking to move into the 100HR club.  Only 14 others have hit 100 HR in a Jays uniform. 
• Jose Bautista only needs to accumulate 1.2 fWAR to move him into the 10 WAR club.  Only 21 Blue Jays have accumulated more than 10 WAR in their careers.

Onto the pitchers, and the other player that can reach a big Jays milestone.  Jason Frasor currently sits 4th in games for pitchers with 411.  He needs to pitch in 42 games to pass Duane Ward, and move into 1st on the all time Jays list.  The other two guys he's set to pass are Dave Steib and Tom Henke.  Fairly elite company for Jays pitchers. 

Other pitching milestones:

• Ricky Romero (currently at 61 starts) needs 31 starts to move into 15th on the Jays all time list ahead of Jesse Jefferson. 
• He needs 12 wins to pass AJ Burnette for 15th place (he's currently at 27 wins). 
• He can also move into the top 20 in IP, K's, and fWAR. 
• Casey Janssen (166 games) and Shawn Camp (167 games) can both move into the 200 game club.  Only 19 pitchers have appeared in 200 games for the Jays.
• Frasor (currently at 389 K's) only needs 11 K's to move into the 400K club.  Only 18 pitchers have accumulated 400+ K's for the Jays.

That's pretty much it for potential 2011 milestones, so onto the Links!

Jays Links

Griffin: Young Snider learning to be a leader
A good piece on Snider, what he's learned in his career, and how he can pass it on to the other youngsters coming up through the system.

O Baseball Canada
Wilner with some tidbits from the annual Baseball Awards Banquet. He had the opportunity to talk with a bunch of guys, including our own Scott Richmond. He had this to say:

Richmond says his shoulder is ready and that he will go to Spring Training in Dunedin prepared and able to compete for a job.  He wants to start, but will go to the bullpen if asked.

Payroll Totals w/Arbitration Predictions
The Southpaw takes a crack at predicting the Jays 2011 payroll.

Top 50 Jays Prospects, Jays Journal Edition: #28 Michael McDade
Jays Journal with another prospect post.

The Tao of Stieb: Room for more
The Ack makes a case for Escobar as a 'bounce back' candidate for the 2011 season. He should improve on his sub-.700 OPS, but will he bounce back to MVP candidate? What do you think?

For Bautista the Salary Arbitration Bell Tolls
Ian at BJH thinks that if the Jays and Bautista don't reach an agreement prior to the arbitration deadline, that we can wave bye to him.

Around the League

Review of Hitting Prospects, James Player Rater 1994
A look back at the Bill James rankings of 1994 prospects, and how they fared over their careers.

Ten years of spending
How much did teams spend on players in the last decade? A look at the key trends.

Early Baserunning 101
Homer takes a look at an interesting early base running technique. If anyone were to try this today, I'm pretty sure it would be Scutaro.

Are fastballs as overrated for relievers as they are for starters? | Baseball Canadiana
A look at how fastball velocity relates to fastball and overall pitcher effectiveness.

And for Something Completely Different...

Watch the Watson Computer Kick Jeopardy’s Ass (video) | Singularity Hub
IBM has developed a 'pure language processing computer' (whatever that means). To put the computer to the test, it is facing off against former Jeopardy champions (airing in February). It already took down Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a brief exhibition (video link in the article). Interesting stuff - here are the computer specs for those interested (can someone explain to me what a teraflop is?):

To do so, Watson uses massive amounts of parallel computing power. Inside the large machine are racks of servers, over 2000 cores, with 15 terabytes of RAM, and about 80 teraflops of processing power.