With the comments from Richard Griffin on what he'd do if he were GM of the Jays, wonder what people in the Jays community would do if they were GM?

I have 2 schools of thought on this one, but will post the most fun one...I'd have to put together a strong business plan to Teddy Rogers for the extra cash, but with NYY falling, Boston not as dominant as in the past and TB being new to winning (who knows what they'll do next year), the AL East is at it's most vulnerable right now!

1. Let AJ Burnett walk, he's a nice to have as a # 2 but with Marcum/McGowan behing Doc we're still pretty strong, hoping Purcey can improve in his 2nd year leaves only 1 hole.

2. The BIGGEST move would be to make a deal with the devil (Scott Boras) and sign Mark Teixeira to a 5 year deal $19-$22M, he'll give us the much needed power that's been lacking from this lineup.

3. Fill the biggest hole in the lineup at SS with either FA Orlando Cabrera or Rafael Furcal, either is a productive top of the order bat with sound Defense at SS

4. Fill the last spot in the rotation with FA SP Oliver Perez, Derek Lowe or Randy Wolf, someone that can eat innings and keep their team in the game.

5. Sign minor league FA 3B Dallas McPherson, give him a chance at meaningful DH ABs and he'll be a fill in for when Rolen goes on the DL.

6. Lose Zaun, keep Barajas as the everyday C and get a quality defensive minded backup.

7. Trade Lyle Overbay, he's got a nice bat but no power for a 1B and with Teixeira he's easily expendable.  Get some bench depth and some youth

This leaves the Jays with a lineup like:

SS Cabrera or Furcal

RF Alex Rios

CF Vernon Wells

1B Mark Teixeira

LF Adam Lind

3B Scott Rolen

2B Aaron Hill

DH Dallas McPherson

C Rod Barajas

Bench: keep Stairs, Scutaro, Inglett, back up catcher, maybe keep Wilkerson

Rotation: Doc, McGowan, Marcum, Oliver Perez, David Purcey

Bullpen: Janssen, League, Downs, Carlson, Tallett, Ryan

With a team like this the city would have some high hopes and deservedly so, this is a team that could make a run at a pennant and for sure the wildcard.  I do realize it's a pipe dream and it's highly unrealistic to beleive that Ted Rogers would spend an additional $30M+ on the team but it was all for fun!

What would YOU DO?????

I was personally hoping the Jays would throw in the towel and trade the likes of AJ Burnett, Gregg Zaun/Rod Barajas, Matt Stairs, David Eckstein and even (if they could get a king's ransom) Roy Halladay.  I feel that this team is not close to competing in the AL East of even seriously for the WC and they need to start with young players and build a strong core and then surround it with some vets, enough of this patch work system we've had for a while now.

But, then I heard grumblings the Jays were looking at Bay and/or at Ibanez to help boost the offence and thought that even though it may not be great to continue patching a lack luster team at least JP was looking to do something and was trying to show the players and fans that he had faith that with a little tweak the team may get right into the WC/AL East hunt.

In the end JP did nothing...which is by far the worst possible thing for the team.  JP has proven once again he has no sense of direction for the team.  He's not trying to rebuild and he's not trying to seriously make a run for a WC.  He has told the players and fans that he doesn't know what to expect from his team and he's not willing to guide them down a path whether it be for now or the future.

So now the Jays will lose AJ Burnett and get 2 supplemental draft picks for him and with JPs draft history who knows what to expect from them.  They still do not have a SS for the future that can play everyday, catching both offensively and defensively is a gaping hole as is producing runs on offence.  Which moving Burnett along could have filled a few of those holes at least. 

The only hope I have is that the upper management blocked JP from making any moves because he will not be the one running the team in the future and they did not want him screwing things up more.  I pray that the off-season brings the removal of JP as GM and that his replacement has a plan for the team that he will actually execute!

Bluejays.com reported today that Dustin McGowan will have season-ending surgery on his pitching shoulder. That's the bad news.

The worse news is that rather than going under the knife to repair his rotator cuff, which was the injury to which his current DL stint was originally attributed, the operation will focus on fixing "fraying" of his labrum.

Many, including Will Carroll of BP, have written that the track record of pitchers who are able to come back from labrum tears is quite bad. This does not mean that they never make it through rehab or that they never throw another pitch in the bigs, but that they never get back to their previous skill level. If this is the case with Dustin, that is a major setback for any short- and medium-term plans the Jays have to contend (assuming they actually have such a plan, which is no given).

According to Torgen in the last game thread (5 game winning streak, woo!), the location of the tear is important for prognosis (rear tears being worse than front, meaning Casey Janssen's tear might not be terrible). The report said nothing of the location of the tear, so let's hope that DMC is able to come back. I've not heard this before, but I'm certainly no expert on the subject. Information on the topic is welcome.

The surgery will also explore the rotator cuff to see if it needs repair. Seems to me that the best case scenario is that he's back for next spring training nearly as good as new. Worst case, he needs cuff and labrum repair, is out longer term and never makes it back to his current form or reaches his future promise.

I'm not sure if you guys have read this or not but it is absurd in my mind.

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Baseball/MLB/Toronto/2008/07/16/6171536-sun.html

I was at Rogers centre a few weeks back, ordered a beer and got ID'd (I'm 30), then a few innings later went to a different beer stand and ordered beer and didn't get ID'd, so did the person that didn't ID me get fired because apparently to someone else I looked under 30.  OH WAIT, it's subjective, how can you rate someone's work performance on something so subjective and then fire him without even a warning even though in the past he's never had problems at work...sounds like a lawsuit to me!

Also wanted to say I just found this site and so far it's really great, keep up the good work

Right rotator cuff tear...with surgery a possibility. I'm finding JP his usually cagey self, refusing to comment on the severity of the problem.

I think we need to assume he will be gone well into August, and worse-case-scenario till the end of the season. That vastly complicates trading AJ.

Best case scenario: Marcum gets better quickly, we trade AJ, Parrish stays up, and give Purcey a chance to shine.

Worst case scenario: We trade AJ, Marcum stays down, and our rotation is Halladay, Litsch....Parrish? Purcey?.....do we even have another major league ready fifth starter? Should we consider stretching Downs? Something I've thought had some upside. 

How crazy would it be if we had to trade AJ for  pitching after all of this.

Hi, I'm baseball fan in Seoul, South Korea.

New team of Kane Davis  is   Kia Tigers in Korea Baseball League

The team   won 9 times  Korean Series Title.  (Since 1982)

Kane Davis will  play in place of Jose Lima (yes, "Lima Time" ).

Signing Bonus  :  $ 0.04M

salary  : $ 0.16M

He will  first start in Korea League on weekend.

But, most of Korean baseball  fans  don't   know Kane Davis.  (me, too)

So,  Jays fans give some information   about  Kane Davis. , please.

The Pitcher Mid-Term Report Card:

Anyway….the pitchers……I’ll note that the league ERA is about 4.10……

Halladay B+…Doc is amazing….has his strike out rate up this year, only bad thing you can say about him is his record, only 8-6 but with our offense a winning record is an amazing thing.

Marcum A+…He’s been amazing, is very sad that he got hurt because he’s been so good. He should be going to the All-Star Game.

McGowan C+… ERA in June is 4.99. Inconsistent would be the term for him.

Burnett C…This month he’s had two terrible starts and 4 good to very good starts. Today he was amazing.  But anyone that can have an 8-7 record with this offense is doing something right.

Litsch B….Amazing in May, less so in June but his last start was great. I’m hoping he just went thru a dead arm period and that he’ll be consistently good the rest of the way. But you couldn’t hope for a better 5th starter. And a red head. As the father of two red head boys….I gotta love him.

Tallet B…Has been having a rougher time of late…7.00 era for June. Cito seems to like him and there is little not to like.

Carlson A…Cy’s still amazing, He has been used more as a LOOGY but would rather see him pitch an inning or more at a time.

Downs A+…Can we give a higher mark than A+. Hasn’t given up a run since April 30th. If it were a fair world he’d be in the All-Star Game. Nice to see Cito leave him in for a couple of innings at a time.

Frasor C-…Gibby had no confidence in him and Cito will likely learn to have no confidence in him.

Ryan A+…Damn near unhittable till June, then well very hittable. Couldn’t expect him to be perfect all year long after coming back from Tommy John surgery.  Seems to have found himself again of late, hasn’t given up a run in his last 7 appearances.

Camp C…Considering he had a 7.10 era last year his 3.80 this year seems like some sort of miracle.  I still wouldn’t give him any high leverage sports but then Cito doesn’t seem to be either.

Wolfe C...Got sent down, not sure he deserved it but someone had to go down.  He has had some troubles of late, not the way to impress a new manager.

The others get an incomplete. Cito doesn’t want to use League, even in blow outs or lost causes. Parrish looked great in his start. I wouldn’t mind seeing him start another.

Last time I grade Gibby and JP. Grading Gibby now would be like kicking a man when he’s down but I still think he did a wonder job with the pitchers. The batters….well I do think they quit on him near the end. It’s too early to grade Cito…I will note that the Jays were 0 fer a bunch with RISP again today. Let us see how the season goes on before we Knight him.

Ricardi F…Marked him F+ at 40 games but….since then he ranted about Mr. Dunne for no apparent reason and seemingly lied about talking to him after. He wouldn’t call up Lind even long after Wilk and Mench showed they were no long major league baseball players.  If Cito doesn’t do anything else he deserves credit for getting Lind back up and putting him in left, hopefully, to stay. If we are going to lose, lets lose with guys that are going to be here next year instead of losing with guys that were good years ago before baseball tested for drugs.

If I was his boss I’d say ‘give me some proof you didn’t lie about talking on the phone to Dunne or you are gone’. No more lies, no more saying ‘I deleted the call’. Tell the truth or you are gone.  Between that and the mistake contract to Thomas and the fortune given to Wells after a career year that hasn’t been repeated, drafts that didn’t work out…..he should be on a really short leash.

At  81 games it’s time for mid term report cards. As they were at the quarter pole the Jays are under .500. To me .500 should be C average. So.....well don’t be expecting a bunch of honor students.

Zaun B...At the 40 game mark he only had 1 home run, he’s got 5 now and really seems to be turning his season around.. On base of .362 and playing regular under Cito, at 40 games he looked old, now he’s looking decent.

Barajas A-…Again....at 40 games he looked awful but turned it around while Zaun was hurt. Only 3 catchers with a higher OPS in the AL than him.  On base of .354 and slugging almost .500, the only complaint has been his defense. Cito hasn’t used him, I am hoping  he will sooner or later.

Overbay B-…He is hard to mark. An on base of .372, if he was a lead off man, I’d be happy. But he’s a first baseman hitting in the middle of the order and he’s shown little power....He hasn’t looked as good in the field as he has in the past. At the rate he’s going he’ll end up with 12 homers and 64 RBI’s which clearly isn’t what you’d want from 1B

Hill D…Hard to mark an guy out with a concussion, but before that...he was awful. The good new is he won’t remember the mark. (a joke, it was a joke) Great defense though.

Eckstein C…He improved his on base to the point that I wouldn’t mind him leading off again. His Defense doesn’t impress.  Cito doesn’t seem to be a fan.

Scutaro C+... He’s getting on base fairly decently .354....not what you’d want from your leadoff man but that’s where Cito likes him. His defense hasn’t looked bad. I can’t imagine he’ll continue to hit even this well but Cito does seem to get the most out of his players.

Rolen B+…He’s started off looking like Mike Schmidt, but went thru a bad slump. He is starting to show some power again under Cito. Great Defense. But 6 homers after playing 56 games isn’t what you’d like from third base.

Rios D….He has been various shade of awful all season, has been hitting better under Cito. Likely the one player most to blame for getting Gibby fired. 4 home runs at 81 games is not enough for a corner outfielder. Has 29 RBIs at the moment, so might end the season under 60....this is our power hitting RFer.

Vernon Wells C-.... Hasn’t seemed to found the power the other guys have under Cito. Doesn’t get on base well, isn’t hitting for power and has 2 steals. If he doesn’t find his stroke sometime he could go down as the worst signing of  JP’s stint as GM and that’s saying something. Saddest stat...with 33 he leads the team in RBI’s!

Stewart F...He was awful before the injury. With luck he’ll be released when he comes back from it. Added to his .240 BA, .303 Slugging, and .325 On Base is awful defense in LF. What JP though he had here I’ll never know. Just a stupid signing.

Stairs C-.. Leads the team with 8 home runs. Batting a big .255 with .335 on base and .410 slugging. Not what you want from a DH. And then not only throws the old batting coach under the bus but throws it into reverse to run him over again, saying Denbo was the reason that he wasn’t hitting. Shouldn’t a 40 year old be able to ignore a batting coach if he doesn’t agree? Saying ‘he didn’t let me pull the ball’ sounds like a kid making excuses.

Inglett A…Hitting .311! On base almost .400  and only 6 back from the team lead for home runs.  Ok, yeah that means 2 but still he’s been amazing and playing good D at second. When Hill gets back I’d like to see Inglett at SS. Course it’s still a small number of at bats, but let’s get enough at bats to prove that he is this good.

Wilkerson F…Batting better in June but when hitting .265 is hitting better you know a guy’s been awful. Best move Cito’s made is getting him out of the lineup. Yeah. I liked him too, years ago, when he was hitting 35 homeruns a year and getting on base at a .400 clip. It seems strange to me that he could get so bad so quick. Makes you almost wonder if he was juicing.

Everyone else gets an incomplete. I hope Cito gives Lind 300 plus at bats. If he does that one thing he’s a better manager than Gibby. Cito has said all the right things....I hope he follows thru. We aren’t winning so better to not win with someone that will be around latter than not win with guys that were good years ago. Mench was poor but didn’t play much. MacDonald hasn’t been used. I hope Cito plays him some.

That’s my marks for the hitters…pitchers later in the weekend.

I'm thinking so.....the team isn't performing at all. I think Gibby has done amazingly well with the pitching staff and I thought that was his weakness last year. I don't know what happened during the off season but he must have studied how to run a pitching staff because he's been almost a totally different manager, as far as pitchers go. But...the team ain't playing and it's his job to get them to play.

I think the hitting coach has to go too....it might not be fair but 'hitting' is in the man's job title and they ain't hitting. If sales manager is your job title and there are no sales, your fault or no, you'd be fired.

I also think it's time to release Wilkerson, he's slugging well under .400 and he's a corner outfielder.  You can't have that. I think that if Stewart hadn't been injured he'd have to be released too. Corner outfielders have to slug over .400....unless they can get on base at a .400 clip. We don't owe these two much money, let's cut and run. It might tell the players that they have to hit like a major leaguer to keep a major league roster spot.

Rios also isn't slugging at all (.371). There are only 4 outfielder in the AL slugging worse with 200 or more at bats. But since we owe the boy a few bucks releasing him isn't posible. But maybe it is time to take him out behind the wood shed, at least . Call him out in the papers and say this is unacceptable.

It is almost the half way point of the season and our top home run hitter has 8. We might not have a 20 home run season out of any player. Wells  is our leading RBI guy with 28!! We might not get 70 RBI's out of anyone this year. Josh Hamilton has 74 RBI's already.

Mike Wilner, in his blog has often said that the Jays should have an average offence.  So that they don’t means they aren’t playing up to their potential, offensively. His feeling is that, with their pitching, if they had an average offence they would be in contention.

I’m not sure he’s right….I’m not sure that we should be expecting too much more out of the offence as a whole. Some players…sure…they are well below what they ought to be doing, but personally, using Stewart in a corner outfield spot, I don’t feel he’s near average as a corner outfielder. Barajas wasn’t a favorite of mine, going into the season. Eck….isn’t great.  Wells had a great season two years back, but was poor last year, which Wells should we have expected this year?

Anyway, how to would one go about proving if we should have had an average offense.  After some thought I figured I’d compare the expected OPS with the league average OPS and see if we should have expected the offense to be better. I’ll use the Baseball Predictions and compare them to the average OPS by position for each the players and see which ones should average or better at their positions and then see which ones are really are. Then we can decide if we think the team should have an average offense.

Catchers:

So our catchers were expected to have OPS slightly above what league average is. Surprises me some…but Barajas projections were figuring he’d play in Philly, so may have been slightly lower in Toronto.  Barajas is doing much better than anyone could have expected. Of course, he’s been hot lately, his numbers could fall back to what was expected of him. Zahn is doing almost exactly what BP thought he would. Is worth noting that, of catchers with more than 100 at bats, Barajas is second in OPS to Joe Mauer. Who’d have thunk that???

First base:

Lyle’s OPS was projected to be slightly above league average and basically has been about that…just about average. The interesting thing about his projections is that his OB is much higher than projected but his Slugging is much below what they expected.

Second Base:

Hill’s OPS being over league average for 2B surprises me…is worth noting that NL second basemen are hitting far better than the AL one.  We all think he should be batting better and hopefully he’ll recover from his concussion soon and hit the way we’d like him to. Scoot’s batted like an average 2B, course he’s played all over the diamond.  BP expected a bit more power than he’s shown so far.

Shortstop:

Eck…..Well, he’s been a bit of a surprise….actually doing better than what we would expect.  And……of AL SS with over 100 at bats only Mike Young has higher OPS!!  Who’d have thought that Eck’s OPS would be higher than Jeter’s?  Yeah, yeah I know….only by .003 but still. So BP thought he’d be a little bit over league average and he’s really been a bunch over. Yeah….his D hasn’t been what we would like, but we’ve been spoiled watching Mac.

Third Base:

Rolen was projected to just above average…and he’s turned out to be much better than that. He does seem to be in a slump at the moment but up till now he’s been far better than what we could expect.

Left Field:

BP didn’t expect Stewart to be anywhere close to a league average LFer, but he has been far, far worse than they though. Of AL OFers with 150 at bats, there is only one with a lower OPS, Gathright in KC. Yeah he should be better, but he never was going to be league average.

Center Field:

Wells had been worse that BP expected, but the little hot streak when he came back from his injury brought him back to their numbers. Seems to be slumping again the last few days but is doing about what they expected.

Right Field:

Well….the two corner outfield spots are killing us….Rios should be well above average in right and he’s below. Wilk’s projection is based on playing in Texas so is higher than it would have been in Toronto, but the projection is much higher than I’d have though. That being said he’s doing a lot worse than we’d expect him to before the season.

DH:

I really don’t agree with BP’s projection….they figured he’d have much the same season he had last year and last year came out of nowhere. How would you expect that to happen twice?  But he’s been a little better than average at DH, but we could have hoped for better.

So I guess I’d conclude that Wilner is right…..we should have expected major league average offence (at least) from every position except for LF.  And we have received major league average offence from every spot but left and right field. I would say that the only reason we aren’t getting major league average offence is the black hole we’ve had in LF and the extremely poor batting we’ve had with RISP. IF the second part improves and if we could find a reasonable LFer we’d be ok.

The only players to significantly out perform their projections are Barajas and Rolen. The ones that have seriously under preformed are Stewart, Rios, Wilkerson and Stairs though Stair’s projection seems off to me. The one I’d hope for improvement from is Rios.