Can offence make up for Jays' mound woes?

[LittleOzzy]

The good news for fans in '09 is that the Blue Jays will most certainly be a better team by the end of the season than they are in April. That is if they hang on to ace Roy Halladay at the trade deadline and if young starters don't hit the wall in September.

The bad news is that, in the meantime, they may not be able to keep pace in the extremely competitive AL East ... or even close. The Jays' core fans will stay with them, no matter. Casual fans, affected by the economy, may find other things to do.

So, what is their biggest area of concern regarding the only realistic goal, finishing above .500? The pitching staff, last year's strength, is this year's problem.

Consider that Wells has a .283 lifetime batting average, but is just .268 from the seventh inning on and just .246 in late innings with the game within three runs.

At 30 years old and in the midst of a huge contract, ranked among major-league centre fielders, one would take Grady Sizemore, Curtis Granderson, B.J. Upton, Josh Hamilton and Torii Hunter ahead of him in the AL alone.

Wells is running out of chances to change that perception and at the same time the fortunes of the '09 Jays.

http://www.thestar.com/Sports/Baseball/article/614237

[s e n s i]

I don't have the stats, but I wonder how the Jays bats fared after Cito took over last year. I'd think they were solid, or good enough. But they'll obviously have to be better than that to make up for the talent and experience at the 3,4,5 spots in the rotation.

[Michael Bradley]

I don't have the stats, but I wonder how the Jays bats fared after Cito took over last year. I'd think they were solid, or good enough. But they'll obviously have to be better than that to make up for the talent and experience at the 3,4,5 spots in the rotation.

Wells: 244 AB, .316/.355/.537 (.892 OPS)
Rios: 350 AB, .309/.344/.534 (.878 OPS)
Lind: 307 AB, .296/.329/.463 (.792 OPS)
Rolen: 229 AB, .253/.340/.437 (.777 OPS)
Overbay: 308 AB, .276/.346/.429 (.775 OPS)
Scutaro: 319 AB, .276/.338/.376 (.714 OPS)
Barajas: 211 AB, .223/.257/.365 (.622 OPS)

* Hill never played under Gaston, and Snider's numbers with Gaston are the same as his total MLB numbers.

Rios and Wells saw massive improvements, and Lind was decent. Other than that, nothing earth shattering. I think Cito is far more likely to help power guys like Wells, Rios, Lind, and Snider than some of the veterans/fringe talent, which is good since the four players mentioned there are likely going to be our best hitters (unless Rolen and Overbay have bounce back years).

I think the offense will be better, but it is still not a team strength.

[Modern_epic]

Apparently if you prorate the run total under Gaston over the whole season, we would have had the 4th most runs in the AL, as opposed to the 2nd fewest if you prorate the pre-Cito runs. (That's from memory, so I might be a bit off, but both were near the extremes.)

I don't expect they can keep up that pace... but playing devil's advocate:
Under Cito our record was also equal to our Pythogorian record. So there is perhaps something to coaching situational hitting that doesn't show in those numbers, MB; something Cito et al. are far better at than Denbo (well, something else). I recall us being awful in RISP and even worse in 2-out RISP situations early on in the season.

I have no idea where I would find numbers to back that up, though. Also, I'm pretty sure our offense would need to be better than the prorated numbers in order to offset the likely decline in our pitching staff. So even if it's true, I wouldn't be ordering playoff tickets based on it.

[SharoneWright]

don't even get me started on Wells.... just go back a page or 2......

on the offesive side:

Lind and Snider are upgrades over what we had there last year.

we know exactly what we'll see from Rios (A-), Wells (C+), Barajas (B-) and Hill (B+).

we need Overbay and Rolen to have big years.

we need to outright release Scutaro, Millar, and Barrett.

[dennistokyo]

Until I see mound woes, we have no mound woes. Let's wait until the pitching boat starts sinking before we abandon ship. I may be overly optimistic because after Doc, the rotation is one huge question mark but the bullpen is still killer. Let's see what happens.