Taking a look at the new(er) players on the Jays!

[Alfred]

We have a lot of players that we have just aquired this season, or the season before this one. Because we may not be fully familiar with these players, let's take a look at them using stats.

(Warning, this is a very stat-centric look at players, so look away unless you like this sort of thing)

BATTERS/FIELDERS:

BA/OBP/SLG/OPS

Fred Lewis:

.309/.347/.500/.847

Those are some very solid numbers. Fred is actually one of the guys that might not slide down the charts and could potentially stay in this range, because on the Giants he had a ton of plate appearances and was consistantly in the mid to high 700 OPS range, and had a couple of seasons flirting with near-800 OPS numbers. The biggest anomaly is the SLG, as he has been a mid to low 400 type guy for the majority of his career. I think Fred Lewis has a good chance of being a real asset for the Blue Jays. Whether that means holding onto him, or trading him remains to be seen, but at 29, I think his value to us is through what he can bring back.

Alex Gonzalez

.264/.299/.586/.885

HOLY ABBERATION BATMAN! Alex Gonzalez's career numbers are .248/.294/.401/.695 over 10+ years, so he either miraculously transformed into a awesome batter at age 33, or we're looking at a small sample size, and his play will probably fall off the table at some point in the near future. I'm in the latter camp. If he can continue his hot streak for long enough, perhaps his numbers will look decent enough for us to do a nice little pump and dump, and unload him for a better asset. I wouldn't hold my breath though, because at age 33, and with a long, long trackrecord of sub-mediocrity, getting a good return for him seems unlikely.

John Buck

.270/.302/.610/.912

Those are some pretty beastly numbers for the Buckman, but if we analyse his career stats up to this point, they are far higher than what he has produced over his career (.237/.298/.417/.715). Note the nearly .200 jump in his slugging average, and what we're looking at here is most likely another case of a player playing above his head. One thing I'll give Buck is that he had far better OPS and SLG numbers in his injury shortened '09 season (.484 and .782 respectively), though this might also be a case of small sample size. I expect that his godly SLG average will take a nosedive at some point pretty soon, though he might still have a career year in the batter's box, which shouldn't be difficult.

Jose Bautista

.211/.318/.461/.779

I like Jose Bautista. He has been a good fielding utility player for most of his career in the majors, and he is a decent hitter as well. This season, he has been batting quite well. Looking at his career numbers (.236/.329/.404/.732), nothing is really that far off. His SLG has gone up, but his OBP has gone down. While it's obvious that his stats should move towards his career averages, I'm not entirely sure that they will. I like his batting mechanics, and perhaps, like with Scutaro, being the leadoff hitter could give him some extra confidence. I think Jose Bautista remains one of the Jays' best scrapheapers, as he can play multiple positions, and can hopefully remain a solid hitter. If he can keep it up, we might have a valuable trade asset on our hands.

Mike McCoy

.235/.316/.324/.639

At 29, we can probably move along here.


Edwin Encarnacion

N/A

With only 37 plate appearances, you can't really grade him yet.


Jose Molina

.200/.333/.240/.573

Again, let's move along.

STARTING PITCHERS:

WHIP/ERA/HR per 9I/SO per 9I/W-L

Dana Eveland

1.551/4.81/.7/4.1/3-2

Well, Dana Eveland has virtually the exact same stats as his career averages (1.685/5.45/0.7/6.2/8-9), though with a better ERA and less strikeouts over 9 innings. He's a middling pitcher in almost every regard. He will most likely be a middling pitcher for his whole career. Not too good, not too bad. Yay!


Brandon Morrow

1.714/6.69/1.3/11.8/2-3

Right now Brandon Morrow is something of an enigma. He is a converted closer/relief pitcher who throws the ball really hard and doesn't have very good control. He currently leads the league in strikeouts over 9 innings at the aforementioned 11.8, which is a super gaudy stat, and not too far off his career average of 9.7 strikouts over 9 innings. However, he gets hit a bunch as well, and walks people, leading to a sub-par WHIP and ERA. As of right now, like most relief-pitchers-turned-starters, his ERA has jumped up, and currently sits at 6.69. He is only 25, and has quite the arm, so all of these stats don't mean a whole lot. He is certainly an intruiging prospect, so I'm not going to pass any sort of judgement on him using stats yet, though it was interesting looking at them.

Kevin Gregg

0.813/1.13/.6/10.7/0-0 (9 Saves)

Look at those insane numbers. Gregg currently leads the league in saves with 9, which is wicked. However, his career stats tell a different story (1.304/4.00/.9/8.3). Certainly not as gaudy, or really even very impressive at all, although he has not always been a closer. Expect his stats to wane as the season wears on. At 32 years of age, we shouldn't expect anything outside of the norm to occur, but it is a nice start, and perhaps we will be able to flip him for something nice if things don't deteriorate too quickly for him.


Hopefully this has been helpful!

[s e n s i]

Eh, good work Al.

I rate Mr. Anthopolous an A, maybe even an A+, in his short tenure as GM. I love the Lewis pick-up and the Morrow deal. Also liking how he's called dibs on a few hopeful latin american prospects.

If we can parlay maybe one or two of our overproducing guys, granted they don't fall off entirely, for some more picks and maybe a stud bat somewhere down the road, then I'd have to say year 1 of the rebuilding phase was a major success.

[Hoopstarr]

If slash lines are scary stats, I don't want to know what you think of the other stuff out there.

I don't think we can judge any of these guys yet just based on extremely small sample stats. I'll say that I only really like Lewis and Morrow long-term, and maybe JoBau. And by long-term I mean after the next month. Gregg actually looks legitimately good but I trust him to descend back to his career mediocrity. Eveland was a nice pickup for depth but The Manager wouldn't have even used him for his stated purpose if not for the Rzep injury; they inexplicably gave priority to Tallet. A-Gon was a good signing for defense but he'll regress down to a Barajas-like stupor soon. The others are vomitrocious.

[Randle McMurphy]

If slash lines are scary stats, I don't want to know what you think of the other stuff out there.

Pretty much what I was going to say. They even give them on ESPN broadcasts now.

[Alfred]

If slash lines are scary stats, I don't want to know what you think of the other stuff out there.

Have you seen the Raptors board? Sometimes it seems that even the simplest stats are looked at with suspicion and disdain. Some people just don't like stats

[Hoopstarr]

True, but baseball fans (at least the sub-45 year olds) are much more stat-savvy.