Its going to suck seeing JPA leave

[Kapono]

He seems to have taken a leadership roll with the club. He is very well liked by the whole team, especially two of our cornerstones in Lawrie and Romero. He is fantastic with fans and seems very genuine, seems to love the city. Is a big hockey fan.

Its going to be tough seeing him leave.

[hyper316]

if JPA leaves, that means d'arnaud is the better player. I don't mind seeing that

[SharoneWright]

Best "team-mate" on the squad imo. I want to delay that decision as long as possible.

[UN-Owen]

Is he not a candidate to be our long term DH?

Then we've got our back up catcher

[Kapono]

Is he not a candidate to be our long term DH?

Then we've got our back up catcher

Keeping him around as a DH would be dumb. You'd be able to get a good return for a catcher with his power and his age.

[DonYon]

I don't see why him being here long-term is such a farfetched idea. He should be given every chance to prove himself and if he ends up being here long-term it'll only mean that he warranted his stay, in which case I'll have no problem seeing the jays trading away a top prospect for some value.

[kavan]

We might get good return for him but unless that guy is a killer DH with a bat like Jose I think you keep JP around because EE is great, but I think he would be even better off the bench he is really only around because of the relationship him Yunel and Jose have. I really think our DH/2B and maybe CF but I give Rasmus credit he is a good player are only question marks this season.

[tiger7]

He would be great to keep if he improved his average and could actually throw out any possible base stealers. We'll see how D'Arnaud works up in the big leagues before we make any rash moves. Otherwise he would be another good trade chip for some starting pitching.

[dillio]

He seems to have taken a leadership roll with the club.

I like JPA a lot, but I think you need more than 1 full season in the bigs before someone can take on a "leadership role".

[Deron05]

I dont really care. I just want the better guy to be up here.

[Lateral Quicks]

I agree it will suck, but go he most assuredly will unless he develops the ability to hit 35-40HRs and bat .250+. That's what we'd need for him to stick at 1B or DH. Of course he can also stay if d'Arnaud falls flat on his face.

He's obviously good enough to be a mainline catcher, so backing up d'Arnaud would be an insult to him and an unnecessary waste of his value.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

He seems to have taken a leadership roll with the club.

I like JPA a lot, but I think you need more than 1 full season in the bigs before someone can take on a "leadership role".

I think people are confusing "guy who everyone seems to like because he makes funny jokes" with "guy who is taking on a leadership role"

[flatjacket1]

I agree it will suck, but go he most assuredly will unless he develops the ability to hit 35-40HRs and bat .250+. That's what we'd need for him to stick at 1B or DH. Of course he can also stay if d'Arnaud falls flat on his face.

He's obviously good enough to be a mainline catcher, so backing up d'Arnaud would be an insult to him and an unnecessary waste of his value.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, unless JPA can a) remain behind the plate and b) improve immensely, he will only have value during his controllable years.

[sule]

IMO, they should bring D'Arnaud along at the end of the season as a backup. If D'Arnaud shows he's ready, you still keep him as backup for one more season to JPA, and then decide at the end of that season what you want to do. If JPA can improve his batting enough to be a DH/backup catcher, then you keep him and move forward, otherwise, you trade whoever is the less reliable of the two in a package for a front of the order starting pitcher.

[satyr9]

D'Arnaud's potential is exciting, but if JPA shows improvement with the staff, a tiny bit more OBP, and sustained power, he's going to be very hard to move out. IMO, if D'Arnaud wrecks LV the way he's expected to and JPA cements himself as a starting calibre MLB C, the potential trade opportunities for D'Arnaud get pretty enticing. High end C prospects can flame out at any time and if you've just spent two years getting your staff together with JPA, if you can get value for Travis it's much safer than starting all over again with another rookie C.

That being said, I think I'd rather have D'Arnaud, but JPA doesn't have to do all that much this year to make it very very hard on AA IMO.

[Bigdaddy1980]

I thought I'd pass along an interesting comment concerning JPA over at DJF

"if jpa can have can slug the same as last year ( 50 singles, 20 doubles, 4 triples, and 23 hr in 486 PA's ) which isn't unreasonable to project/expect, then all he has to do is add one base on balls per week. so one additional walk for every 20 to 25 PA's over the given 4 to 5 games played per week.

so what would that result in?, we'd be looking at on obp of .335 and slugging of .465 for a delightful ops of .800 out of the catcher position."

http://www.drunkjaysfans.com/2012/03/talkin-jpa-blues-or-perhaps-not.html#disqus_thread

[PimpHandStrong]

Drawing 75% more walks should be no problem...

[Bigdaddy1980]

Drawing 75% more walks should be no problem...

True, that is overly optimistic, but improvement should be expected. He drew 46% more walks his second time through AAA.

[Leolovinliberal]

Is he not a candidate to be our long term DH?

Then we've got our back up catcher

Keeping him around as a DH would be dumb. You'd be able to get a good return for a catcher with his power and his age.

Your post appears to contradict itself. If his #'s are so good, why not just switch him to dh? Who are the Jays gonna get, and equally important, who are they going to have to give up, to play there that would put up comparable #'s at his age? I just don't understand this fatalistic JPA, D'Arnaud either/or mentality. They're both keepers and both good enough to start and be great contributors to the team. This team has plenty of problems, no need to create one where it doesn't exist.

[flatjacket1]

Is he not a candidate to be our long term DH?

Then we've got our back up catcher

Keeping him around as a DH would be dumb. You'd be able to get a good return for a catcher with his power and his age.

Your post appears to contradict itself. If his #'s are so good, why not just switch him to dh? Who are the Jays gonna get, and equally important, who are they going to have to give up, to play there that would put up comparable #'s at his age? I just don't understand this fatalistic JPA, D'Arnaud either/or mentality. They're both keepers and both good enough to start and be great contributors to the team. This team has plenty of problems, no need to create one where it doesn't exist.

As a catcher, his fWAR was 0.9 fWAR. If he DH'ed and put up the same numbers, his fWAR would be around -1.6 fWAR or the worst DH in the game by about 1.6 fWAR. (That's like a win and a half off our win total, or around 3 wins off our win total you include the cost of taking Edwin, a 1.5 fWAR DH off his post and replacing him with a below replacement level player.

Basically, if Edwin played catcher his fWAR would be around 4 fWAR but since he plays DH, its -1.5 rather than +1 for catcher which is a difference of 2.5. The reason for position adjustments is simple. A catcher who hits .300/.450/.580 is worth a heck of a lot more than a 1B who hits .300/.450/.580. So if your catcher can barely bat at his own position, moving him to DH or 1B would cost him a lot when his fWAR/rWAR is being calculated.

Basically, making JPA a catcher is the worst idea ever. If we trade him as a catcher he hold some value, while if we move him to DH he may be one of the worst players in the league. How many DH's put up a sub .300 OBP?

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.p ... ulate_war/

^ Here is a link which explains all of this positional adjustment stuff.