Rays @ Jays - August 6-8

[Avenger]

I sometimes wonder what our record would be like right now if we had Halladay along with our 4 other great arms.

you could probably add about 5-6 wins if you replaced Litsch/Tallet/Eveland with the good Doctor, that still only barely put us in a race for the wildcard.

[victor page]

Awesome season by the Jays thus far all things considered but what would it actually have taken to put them over the top?

If Halladay in, 5th starter out would only have added 5-6 wins, and I can't imagine doing much better than the Romero, Marcum, Cecil, Morrow crew have done, that still leaves the Jays like 5-6 games out of the wild card.

The offense has been in the top 3-4 in the majors. I think the bullpen has been held together by duct tape all year but Schad and the statisticians have reminded me repeatedly that they are performing above average. The defense seems to be pretty good at the key positions too.

So where would they improve to vault themselves into the wild card? Score even more runs?

[YogiStewart]

I sometimes wonder what our record would be like right now if we had Halladay along with our 4 other great arms.

you could probably add about 5-6 wins if you replaced Litsch/Tallet/Eveland with the good Doctor, that still only barely put us in a race for the wildcard.

exactly.
and payroll would be $15 mil (or whatever it was that he's getting) higher and attendance would still be crap.

[evilRyu]

nah, I definitely have Romero above Cecil. And I can't drop Marcum all the way to 4th, after being the current "ace". He's not having a bad season to justify going all the way down to 4th.

I'd re-arrange your rotation to be:
1. Romero
2. Marcum
3. Cecil
4. Morrow
5. McGowan/Drabek/whoever

Romero may be good but he won't be an ace. he's a great #2 option.
Marcum is like a VERY good version of Josh Towers. you don't get blown away by Marcum. but he's a very nice piece to have on your staff. don't be shocked if he's traded next year for prospects.

Morrow always had potential. if he puts it all together, he can rise high on the list. if you ignore his first 1/3 of this season, he's had a great year. has 4 great pitches. you can't say that about Marcum and, not yet, about the rest of the starters.

Why can't Romero be an ace? Out of all those pitchers, I'd say he gets my thumbs-up. Yes, he's an *excellent* Number 2, just like all the others in the rotation.

I agree with you about Marcum, but if he's on the roster come spring time, he will be at least the #2.

You had Cecil as your starting ace, do you want to elaborate? I think if he has a much better season next year, then maybe for 2012.. but not next year.

[Randle McMurphy]

Romero has been the ace of the rotation this year (10th in WAR in the AL, between Greinke and Sabathia), and there's no reason to think he won't continue improving.

[Ong_dynasty]

Awesome season by the Jays thus far all things considered but what would it actually have taken to put them over the top?

If Halladay in, 5th starter out would only have added 5-6 wins, and I can't imagine doing much better than the Romero, Marcum, Cecil, Morrow crew have done, that still leaves the Jays like 5-6 games out of the wild card.

The offense has been in the top 3-4 in the majors. I think the bullpen has been held together by duct tape all year but Schad and the statisticians have reminded me repeatedly that they are performing above average. The defense seems to be pretty good at the key positions too.

So where would they improve to vault themselves into the wild card? Score even more runs?

Well you can make an argument that with Halladay = less bullpen use / another 1 or 2 wins...+1 or 2 of those wins could have been against rays / yankees. then you can make an argument that we would really be in it.
What if stories...!!

[Hendrix]

Romero: 3.34 FIP, 3.56 xFIP, 3.4 WAR
Marcum: 3.42 FIP, 3.82 xFIP, 2.9 WAR
Morrow: 3.51 FIP. 3.86 FIP, 2.5 WAR (not counting today's start)
Cecil: 3.67 FIP, 4.14 xFIP, 2.3 WAR


Romero has been the best pitcher on the team this year, but if Morrow keeps developing at this rate, it might not be too long before he takes that mantle away.

Am I looking at the wrong stat? On baseball reference it has Romero 2.6WAR, Marcum 2.4 WAR, Cecil 2.2 WAR, Morrow 1.1 WAR.

Regardless, that was an amazing weekend of baseball, Escobar, Snider, JP, Morrow, Romero, Cecil, Bautista are really making this team fun to watch.

Would it be too early to throw around some money this off season to try and get in the hunt next year? Seems like all we really need is a closer, a 3b, a 1b, and maybe some relief pitching.

[Schad]

Am I looking at the wrong stat? On baseball reference it has Romero 2.6WAR, Marcum 2.4 WAR, Cecil 2.2 WAR, Morrow 1.1 WAR.

Regardless, that was an amazing weekend of baseball, Escobar, Snider, JP, Morrow, Romero, Cecil, Bautista are really making this team fun to watch.

Would it be too early to throw around some money this off season to try and get in the hunt next year? Seems like all we really need is a closer, a 3b, a 1b, and maybe some relief pitching.

Assuming that the team has a finite budget, it's still too early...8-10 games is an awful lot of ground to make up, such that if we were to swap Overbay and Encarnacion with Adrian Gonzalez and Evan Longoria WAR suggests that we'd still come up a little short.

Patience is tough, but we're getting somewhere.

[Randle McMurphy]

Am I looking at the wrong stat? On baseball reference it has Romero 2.6WAR, Marcum 2.4 WAR, Cecil 2.2 WAR, Morrow 1.1 WAR.

Baseball Reference uses ERA in its WAR calculations. I prefer to use Fangraphs' numbers which uses FIP (and takes out a large amount of the luck).

Would it be too early to throw around some money this off season to try and get in the hunt next year? Seems like all we really need is a closer, a 3b, a 1b, and maybe some relief pitching.

The relief pitching is fine. And with the Jays' rotation, I don't think they'll have to do very much to be a very good team next year.

[Hendrix]

Assuming that the team has a finite budget, it's still too early...8-10 games is an awful lot of ground to make up, such that if we were to swap Overbay and Encarnacion with Adrian Gonzalez and Evan Longoria WAR suggests that we'd still come up a little short.

Patience is tough, but we're getting somewhere.

Are we really 8-10 games back though?

I\m not so great at baseball advanced stats. But our Pythagorean w/l record is 60-51. That puts us at 88 wins projected on the season. Then considering the age of the roster there's definitly a possibility that they collectivly add a couple WAR's among the group just based on internal improvment. So say that bumps it up above 88,. It takes what, 95 wins to have a legit shot? Having a solid #5 alone (Rzep, Drebek, Litsche, etc) in itself could add 4-5 WAR's above the Talet, Rzep, Litsch, Eveland group that performed to -2.5WAR

If we were able to sign or trade for some guys that arn't old vetrans, but instead somewhat younger that their age could fit into the plans I think it might make sense. Maybe we don't make it the whole way next year but atleast then there's not a short window.,

[SargentBargs101]

So whats gonna be tomorrow's lineup.....

Lewis ( because he hasn't been playing this days)
Esco
Bau
Overbay
Hill
Lind
EE
Travis
J.P

i would like cito to get creative for tomorrows lineup

[Schad]

I\m not so great at baseball advanced stats. But our Pythagorean w/l record is 60-51. That puts us at 88 wins projected on the season. Then considering the age of the roster there's definitly a possibility that they collectivly add a couple WAR's among the group just based on internal improvment. So say that bumps it up above 88,. It takes what, 95 wins to have a legit shot?

95 to have a shot, though I fear that the accumulation of talent in the East will make it closer to 98 for the next couple years. And while adding a good fifth starter certainly helps, there are also a tonne of questions to be answered. Can Bautista put up 5+ WAR next year, as he's heading for now? Has Wells truly returned to his pre-2007 form? Is Arencibia going to be the real deal straight out of the gate? Will Escobar's production match what we got from Gonzalez in the first half of the year? And most importantly: have we been more that a touch lucky with injuries, because while there've been a handful (and the loss of McGowan for the entirety of the year) they don't really approach what other teams have suffered through, especially given that we've had four starters who've been there throughout, which is a rarity.

And yeah, there are possible comebacks as well, with Lind and Hill. But we're far enough out and with enough question marks that I really wouldn't want to stake the farm on having a chance to chase down two of the big three in the AL East. We've got talent, but I don't think that we have enough where it's time to start diverting funds to 'win now' mode if it hurts the long-term rebuild which has gotten off to a terrific start.

[Randle McMurphy]

It's a virtual certainty that Hill and Lind won't continue to be total anchors going forward (combined -0.2 WAR).

[Randle McMurphy]

So whats gonna be tomorrow's lineup.....

Lewis ( because he hasn't been playing this days)
Esco
Bau
Overbay
Hill
Lind
EE
Travis
J.P

i would like cito to get creative for tomorrows lineup

I don't care what it is as long as Snider and Arencibia are actually in it.

[Hendrix]

I'm not talking necisarily about going and trading all our farm system, and young guys to do it. I don\t want to jeopordise the future by any means.

Just from my limited knowledge I think we're potentially within striking distance that a couple pieces might do it. We definitly couldn't withstand a ton of injuries but I also don't think we'de completly be relying on everything going perfect, and people having career years either to attain it.

If......

Bautista, Wells, Lind, Hill as a collective group produced collectivly the same as they are this year.

The starting 4 pitchers performed as good as they have this year colletivly.

One of our other pitchers stood up into the 5th starter role and provided ~2.5 WAR (probably a 5 WAR swing from our 5th slot this year)

Snider is healthy and/or improves a bit on this year.

We get similar production out of the C spot

Pick up above average players at 1st and 3rd.



That seems like a team that can at least make a run at it and win mid 90's next year while still having a bright future no? Doesn\t seem overly optomistic either I don't think as it's quite possible Wells,Lind, Hill, Bautista are better collectivly next year then this year, and our first 4 starters perform better then they did this year.

[evilRyu]

Is the OP going to be making the new series thread??

[LLJ]

Am I looking at the wrong stat? On baseball reference it has Romero 2.6WAR, Marcum 2.4 WAR, Cecil 2.2 WAR, Morrow 1.1 WAR.

Regardless, that was an amazing weekend of baseball, Escobar, Snider, JP, Morrow, Romero, Cecil, Bautista are really making this team fun to watch.

Would it be too early to throw around some money this off season to try and get in the hunt next year? Seems like all we really need is a closer, a 3b, a 1b, and maybe some relief pitching.

One of the biggest problems with the Jays--no matter what position-- is that very few guys have good years two years in a row, let alone 3. We basically have to have everyone playing either above their heads or at least the average expected of them. With the Jays, it's either a really good year or a really bad year for any one of the guys.

That's what made Halladay so special, he was consistently good. I think that more than anything is what people prized about him--I mean, there have been guys with better individual games and better individual years than Halladay before, but not many guys in the league who's consistently good every year.

Another factor to consider is that the Jays have largely avoided the injury bug this year. That might not happen again in subsequent years.