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It seems that I wasn't the only person disgusted with Accardo's performance so far this season.

Raptor_Guy wrote:This just in: Accardo sent down, Valdez designated for assignment, Josh Roenicke and Rommie Lewis called up.

According to Bastian's twitter

As per the gamethread. Thanks Raptor_Guy!

Two things:

1)Can Roenicke throw strikes?
2)Who the hell is Rommie Lewis?

1.) Yes this guy can throw strikes. He's a pretty good arm who I was confused as to why he didn't make the club.

2.) Rommie Lewis is a 6'5 lefty pitcher who has closed for the 51's. I'm a little surprised with this move. Thought it would of been Jesse Carlson.

I don't think Accardo really ever had a chance though...he hasn't since Cito took over.

Merkin is also gone.

The Blue Jays optioned right-hander Jeremy Accardo to Triple-A Las Vegas and designated Merkin Valdez for assignment, giving the club 10 days to either reassign, trade or release the righty. To fill their spots in the 'pen, Toronto recalled right-hander Josh Roenicke and purchased the contract of lefty Rommie Lewis.

http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100426&content_id=9588414&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=tor

Well, new arms are nice. Hopefully they can give us more than Downs, Frasor, Accardo and Janssen have (OK, I'm ripping on Janssen because of last game, he's been fine so far).

Interesting stuff. It's nice to see a little shakeup in the 'pen.

Shouldn't we have given this valdez guy a shot?

Accardo has sucked since he got rid of his electric blue glove. We don't need a seven man bull-pen. We could use the extra bench spot. Besides the only people that should be coming out of the pen are Frasior, Camp, Downs and Mr. Gregg and in that order.

Guys, Downs is our best reliever. Did you watch him last night?

Downs is generally a very good reliever and has had a few bad performances. Last night, he pitched a good inning with a couple of strikeouts, started to look a little like the real Scottie Downs.

our best reliever is gregg, its really not even close right now.

rarefind wrote:our best reliever is gregg, its really not even close right now.

20 games into the season and we're saying Downs, the team's best reliever for 3+ years (and one of the best relievers in baseball over that time), is worse than Kevin Gregg?

Are you serious?

I'd hope that the comment had an unstated "to date" hanging after it, Murph. That, at least, would be true.

It is true to date. None of our relievers look good except Camp and Mr. Gregg. It's going to sound dumb, but I wish we still had League, that guy was wild but he could through a hell of a heater.

Valdez can throw a hell of a heater too, and where is he?

Randle McMurphy wrote:

rarefind wrote:our best reliever is gregg, its really not even close right now.

20 games into the season and we're saying Downs, the team's best reliever for 3+ years (and one of the best relievers in baseball over that time), is worse than Kevin Gregg?

Are you serious?

Gregg - 0.90 ERA
Downs - 6.23 ERA

Sorry but Downs isn't good enough to not be in the "what have you done for me lately?" category and this year Gregg has outperformed him by a large margin.

Scott Downs is coming off of three very good years as a reliever. The first two of those were bloody outstanding.

Last year was still a good year, but he REGRESSED to an ERA of 3.09 and a WHIP of 1.264.

Now, his H/9 and some of his other peripherals were starting to come down to Earth a little bit, but by no means does that suggest Downs is anything other than what he has been for 3 years: a really good relief pitcher.

Yeah, Gregg (apart from walking home the game-winning run) has largely outperformed Downs.

But what you are failing to consider is that Downs has a BABIP 30 points over his career average and his contact percentage is like 85%. It's early, he's had a few rough performances, and reliever ERA is even less reliable at this stage of the season than a starter's ERA because it fluctuates dramatically based on single-inning performances.

Yeah, Downs has been hittable, posting what would be a 6-year high in WHIP so far.

Maybe you want to give him the benefit of the doubt with a half-decade of performance track records behind him suggesting that he's just got a little bit of bad luck at the moment, plus we've got weaker D than we've had in recent years?

C'mon, man. Downs has pitched in 11 games this season for a total of 8.2 IP. It's not a meaningful sample. Let's wait until he's had a little more than just 20% of his previous season's G total, shall we?

Give him like 15-20 IP before you start hanging him out to dry like that.

tsherkin wrote:Scott Downs is coming off of three very good years as a reliever. The first two of those were bloody outstanding.

Last year was still a good year, but he REGRESSED to an ERA of 3.09 and a WHIP of 1.264.

Now, his H/9 and some of his other peripherals were starting to come down to Earth a little bit, but by no means does that suggest Downs is anything other than what he has been for 3 years: a really good relief pitcher.

Yeah, Gregg (apart from walking home the game-winning run) has largely outperformed Downs.

But what you are failing to consider is that Downs has a BABIP 30 points over his career average and his contact percentage is like 85%. It's early, he's had a few rough performances, and reliever ERA is even less reliable at this stage of the season than a starter's ERA because it fluctuates dramatically based on single-inning performances.

Yeah, Downs has been hittable, posting what would be a 6-year high in WHIP so far.

Maybe you want to give him the benefit of the doubt with a half-decade of performance track records behind him suggesting that he's just got a little bit of bad luck at the moment, plus we've got weaker D than we've had in recent years?

C'mon, man. Downs has pitched in 11 games this season for a total of 8.2 IP. It's not a meaningful sample. Let's wait until he's had a little more than just 20% of his previous season's G total, shall we?

Give him like 15-20 IP before you start hanging him out to dry like that.

Totally. It's absolutely ridiculous to assume that Scott Downs regressed so badly that Kevin frickin' Gregg is now better than him. That's crazy talk.