Aaron Laffey: fool's gold or better than we thought?

[YogiStewart]

So what do we make of Laffey? Until he was brought up, many posters thought he was Josh Towers Lite.

You have to admit that he's looking pretty good. so what is it? teams don't have the book on him yet, or he's actually pitching well?

[Skin Blues]

Fool's gold, unfortunately. He could stick in the rotation, but that's not saying much. Even when pitching over his head, his peripherals are very mediocre.

[JoeyBats]

Who would have thought that Laffey and Villi would be our best pitchers in July?
Laffey is having some run, maybe we can get value for him, but until than just keeping throwing him out every 5 days with low expectations.

[HangTime]

He's working the corners, mixing his pitches, and he's calm.

He could be like Mark Buehrle, and he's only 27, and may have figured out what clicks.

[torontoaces04]

Whatever he's doing, he should just keep doing it. I hope for him he has figured something out. The Jays pitching situation has the potential to make a lot of mediocre players, a lot more $$$.

[mikero]

http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120708&content_id=34706548&vkey=news_tor&c_id=tor

[Leolovinliberal]

Who would have thought that Laffey and Villi would be our best pitchers in July?
Laffey is having some run, maybe we can get value for him, but until than just keeping throwing him out every 5 days with low expectations.

Charlie Villanueva was pitching pretty good for us last year. Bad on the Raptors, good on the Jays.

[Gibby]

Someone get Ricky and Drabek that book ASAP

[Al_Oliver]

13 scoreless innings vs. Boston. Weird with his underwhelming stuff

[Al_Oliver]

Who would have thought that Laffey and Villi would be our best pitchers in July?
Laffey is having some run, maybe we can get value for him, but until than just keeping throwing him out every 5 days with low expectations.

Alvarez has been better lately. That has to continue or his season will be a step backwards

[kwamebargnani]

Fool's trash.

[raptorforlife88]

He's outperforming his peripherals by a lot right now, but his FIP is 4.3 and his xFIP is 4, so he's pitching like a solid back end guy at the least.

[youreachiteach]

The thing I notice this year about Villaneuva and Laffey is that they are actually getting strikeouts to supplement their groundballs. We all know they aren't top end rotation starters and they are 4-5 guys at best.

But the nice thing is they are striking people out at a nice acceptable/better than decent rate--which is definitely transferable. In fact, the only reason Villanueva got in any trouble today was mainly due to him overthrowing a bit, getting a little overconfident after striking out the side in the first.

It's true that both of them have little margin for error--but I'm fine with one of them in the rotation and one in the pen next year. I don't even mind if they are the four five at this point. Of course, that is unlikely when Morrow and Hutchsion return--although I'd rather demote Cecil or put him in the pen as a mop up guy.

[dballislife]

his stuff is avg at best, much of it is below, people just haven't seen him enough yet...once they catch on, its over

[baulderdash77]

I think Laffey is outperforming his stuff right now, but his advanced stats and his track record suggest he can be a decent 5th starter. With our defense behind him he can remain solid.

I'm certainly happy to see him doing so well.

[dballislife]

even alverez, drabek, and hutch did good their first 5 or so starts, but once the scouting report got a little thicker look at them now, and these guys stuff blow laffey's away