The Super Bullpen

What's that on the field a catcher an outfielder, no it's the Super Bullpen

Yesterday the Blue Jays signed former closer (not that it matters) Francisco Cordero. Surprsingly to some fans at only 1 year and $4.5 million Cordero's contract is the largest guaranteed free agent contract that Alex Anthopoulos has signed in his short tenure as Blue Jays General Manager. Now as the offseason is coming to a close Anthopoulos has acquired four top end relievers in Sergio Santos, Jason Frasor, Darren Oliver, and now Cordero. With the Jays having already had Casey Janssen they now have five different guys with late inning experience. To me that doesn't matter, but to the fans who believe in the flawful (Yes I made that up) save statistic, it carries a lot of weight.

Beyond that on paper the bullpen surely looks good, definitely one of the better bullpens the Jays have had in the past decade, well until we see the production of course. Collectively Sergio Santos, Darren Oliver, Francisco Cordero, Casey Janssen, Jason Frasor, Carlos Villaneuva, Litsch had a 3.23 ERA in the 2011 season. That number would rank 6th in the league, which is 15 spots higher than where the Blue Jays 3.88 bullpen ERA ranked this year. Of course that looks good, but rather than hyping up the bullpen as many are, I thought I'd take a conservative approach.

As I said before the bullpen sure looks good on paper and has pretty good depth with Joel Carreno, Chad Beck, and more, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will perform. Last offseason the Jays signed Jon Rauch and traded for Frank Francisco expecting a couple of pretty good pitchers. In 2010 the collective ERA and FIP between the two of Rauch and Francisco was 3.44 and 3.03 respectively. Only one year later at the end of the 2011 season their collective ERA and FIP was 4.20 and 4.53. The collective ERA was 0.76 points higher and the FIP was a whole 1.50 points higher. Granted some of the production loss can be attributed to injury, but injuries are just another potential issue with relief pitchers.

Now getting to this year's potential relief pitchers there is some upside, but there's also reason to be concerned.

Sergio Santos
Being a converted shortstop, despite being 27 this will only be his third year in the MLB. So far he has been effective with a 3.29 ERA, 2.97 FIP, and 31 saves if you care about that stuff. On top of that Santos raised his strike rate and lowered his walk rate in 2011. Though all that is encouraging what also happened last year is Santos' HR/FB% raised to 11.3% and his BABIP was a concerning .269. Granted these numbers could be statistical anomalies as both were more "average" in 2010. I guess the real problem here is just that there isn't a lot of data on Santos, but he does have one of the best sliders in the league and doesn't have a whole lot of innings on the arm.

Darren Oliver
Oliver at 42 is almost twice the age of Brett Lawrie, but like a fine wine has only gotten better with age. The whole thing on Oliver is that he has posted a better ERA every year for the last five years, but what is even more encouraging is the 2.77 FIP that he posted in 2011. One thing to consider is that his strikeout rate dropped last year, but so did his walk rate so it kind of balances it out. The only real knock on Oliver would be his age and how long he can sustain success, but even that is a argument with really no basis.

Francisco Cordero
Cordero on the surface looked to have a pretty good year in 2011 with a 2.45 ERA and 37 saves (Whoopee!), but just a quick look at his FanGraphs page has quite a few reasons why he wasn't very good in 2011. For starters Cordero's FIP was at 4.02 and 1.57 points higher than his ERA, which is never a good thing. Beyond that it looks like he was pretty lucky in 2011 with an unsustainably low BABIP at .214, 80 points lower than his career average and a LOB% at 82.3%, 5.4% above his career average. Finally the stuff seems to be declining as according to Pitch/FX (via FanGraphs) he lost 1.5 MPH on the Fastball velocity. All of this sums up to an interesting 2012 for Cordero, if he doesn't get lucky again, we could be looking at a long season.

Casey Janssen
Janssen had a very good 2011 and was arguably Toronto's best relief pitcher. Beyond that there isn't much need be said. The peripherals match up with the ERA, the velocity was consistent. The only real knock I see on Janssen is that from year to year he has been a bit inconsistent, but this year and previously in his career he has shown he can be a great relief pitcher. The question really is will we see that great pitcher in 2012?

Jason Frasor
Frasor was a piece of the Colby Rasmus trade at the 2011 trade deadline and now its seems the Jays only payed pennies on the dollar to re-aquire Frasor. Besides that, over his career Frasor has been as consistent as a relief pitcher not named Marian Rivera can be. He has only posted an ERA above 4.50 once and and posted the third best numbers of his career last year. I'd really like to point out something wrong with Jason Frasor, but to my knowledge there just isn't anything.

Carlos Villaneuva
Last season Villaneuva was the swingman of sorts for the Blue Jays. He filled in when the Jays needed a starter and he wasn't as bad as Jo-Jo, but that sure isn't saying much. This year with a bevy of options for the rotation Villaneuva will almost surely be in the bullpen, where he belongs. Though despite that what is concerning about Villaneuva, last year he almost cut his K% in half, which is never a good thing. Maybe it was the extra innings that caused a lack of Ks, but I'm not so sold. Villaneuva had similar production to the rest of his career, but if he doesn't start striking guys out it could be difficult to sustain success and he could add another half a point on his ERA to match his xFIP.

Jesse Litsch
I remember the days when Jesse Litsch was pitching way above his head to a sub 4.00 ERA as a starter and how the peripheral stats suggested he would regress. Now he has reached that point and stats like xFIP and SIERA suggest that he will get better and sometimes I just don't get it. If he pitches to his peripherals again he could put out some very good production and if he doesn't well then he just won't be a very good pitcher, kind of like last year.

Final Thoughts
On paper the Jays bullpen looks scary good and maybe the best they've had since the early 90s. But as we baseball fans should know bullpens are volatile and things don't always turn out the way they were "supposed" to. Notwithstanding the great bullpen that Anthopoulos built, I don't really see the value in all the money on the bullpen, when for example you could have let Joel Carreno pitch instead of Francisco Cordero and he could not have possibly been much worse. Some say that Anthopoulos is stockpiling arms for the trade deadline, but once we get to the deadline I'm sure we'll realize teams are willing to pay as much as they used to.

The reason being that in past years when a good, but not great relief pitcher went to free agency he'd likely end up being a Type B free agent, meaning the Jays could have gotten a supplemental first round pick out of him. That means that in negotiations at the deadline Alex could have always said that whatever you're offering, it better be worth more than a supplemental first round pick.

Now with the new CBA nixing the Type A and Type B free agent systems all of these good, not great relief pitchers will be worth nothing come the offseason. So rather than having the leverage of the possible pick that Anthopoulos could obtain, if he really wants something out of them, he'll have to take whatever he can get. More often than not I'm guessing the "prospect" will not be better than a supplemental first round pick, nor will it be worth half of the salary that is paid out to the reliever. If Alex Anthopoulos truly wanted a good bullpen thats fine he built one, but to suggest he's stockpiling arms seems a bit naive.

Of course we haven't seen how the market will react to the new CBA, so come July 31st I could be the one looking like the idiot. Because we all have to remember that last year Anthopoulos did trade some relief pitchers for one of the better young outfielders in the game at last year's trade deadline. At the very least this "Super Bullpen" should shush up the FAN 590 Jays Talk callers, and for both our sanity as well as Mike Wilner's I sure hope that happens.

As a side note I know the last couple posts have been kind of crapping on people's expectations, but in the next post their will be something quite a bit more optimistic so you can stay tuned for that.

Sources: Fangraphs, Baseball Reference

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Jays Bolster Bullpen by Bringing Back Frasor

Frasor closing for the Jays

On New Years Day the Jays traded minor league right handers Daniel Webb and Myles Jaye for relief pitcher Jason Frasor from the White Sox. On the surface the trade truly brings back a semi-true Blue Jay in the sense that Frasor has been a Jay almost his entire career save for the half a season he spent in south side Chicago. As you delve further you see how the trade helps the Jays as well as the effect that is has on Frasor.

Another plus in the trade is that the Jays only had to give away a couple lower level talents in Webb and Jaye. Webb is a 22 year old playing in A ball (so a little old for the league) and only pitched to a 5.59 ERA and 4.40 FIP. Granted the rate stats such as the 2.13 K/BB ratio are somewhat encouraging, but either way this definitely isn't a prospect that you'd see on any Blue Jays Top 10 Prospects list and likely not on any top 30 lists either.

As for Jaye, he has a little more polish and potential. He was the Blue Jays' 17th round pick in the 2010 draft, but was signed for $250,000 which is well above slot. As a deadline signee Jaye didn't play in short season ball in 2010 but in 2011 with the Bluefield Blue Jays of the Appy league he posted a 3.00 ERA and fantastic peripheral stats. Jaye may be better than Webb, but like Webb he won't be popping up on any Keith Law or Kevin Goldstein lists any time soon, well at least on the Jays side.

To go along with the very little that the Jays gave up because it was part salary relief, in Jason Frasor the Jays bring back a solid bullpen arm and a guy who has been among the most consistent relievers in the MLB over the past decade having only posted an ERA above 4.50 once in his career. As well with Frasor comes some veteran leadership that casual fans just eat up and a well known face because of all the time spent with the Jays.

In the bullpen, the role that Frasor likely fits in to is a share of the right handed setup man role with Casey Jannsen. He figures to add yet another piece to the surprisingly quick built bullpen in Toronto as so far this offseason Anthopoulos has added Sergio Santos, Darren Oliver, maybe Aaron Laffey and now Frasor to a bullpen that was in the bottom half of the league in most conventional and sabrmetric statistics.

Frasor while with the White Sox

AA took ahold of the Andrew Friedman method and quietly built a strong bullpen much like the Tamba Bay Rays last offseason and in their pennant winning 2008 season. The Rays are often cited as an example of why you don't need to spend big bucks on the bullpen and how bullpens can be built in a year. From the looks of it Anthopoulos has taken note from a division rival and hopefully like it did for the Rays it works for the Jays.

Overall there really doesn't seem like any downside to this trade for the Jays and almost limitless upside. The prospects really don't figure to turn in to too much as they don't seem to have large amounts of promise. In the endwhat the trade boils down to is just a feel good trade for the Jays, something the Jays desperately needed after the Yu Darvish fiasco and the Prince Fielder drama. Because no one can complain about bringing back the Johnny Mac of the bullpen, Jason Frasor.

Trade Grade: ★★★

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Both photos courtesy of Keith Allison and licensed under Creative Commons

Thoughts on the Elias Rankings

Courtesy of the ESB Official Website

With the passing of the draft pick signing deadline on midnight August 16th, MLB Trade Rumors put out an updated version of the Elias Ranking projections (seen here) to give us a glimpse of how the draft might be in 2012. These Elias Ranking projections showed us that the Jays currently have 5 players who could garner them sandwich picks in the 2012 MLB Draft. These players are Jose Molina, Edwin Encarnacion, Aaron Hill, Frank Francisco, and Jon Rauch. Though that looks good on paper it is still dependent on many variables such as guys accepting arbitration and some club options possibly being exercised by the Blue Jays. Nonetheless it is an impressive number that if all 5 players sign with other teams then it would be more compensation picks in the sandwich round for 2012 than in this year's draft.

Jose Molina
Jose has been a solid back up to rookie J.P. Arencibia this year with a 138 wRC+ (per FanGraphs) in his 139 plate appearances this year and the fact that he has hit well in limited plate appearances this year and last has propelled him to Type B free agent status. While looking at stats for this post, one thing that I did find interesting is that Jose actually has a better WAR this year than J.P. according to both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference. According to FanGraphs he has been worth 1.5 WAR, where as J.P. has only been worth 1.0 and according to Baseball Reference the difference has been even bigger with Molina at 1.2 WAR and J.P. at 0.5 WAR.

By no means am I suggesting that we should have played Jose Molina all year, because had we played Molina more he probably would have regressed as the way he is hitting is far above his career numbers (2011 wRC+=138, Career wRC+=67). As well the hot hitting J.P. is still our catcher of the future (at least for now), while Jose Molina is just one of many stop gaps that AA has instituted. At the very least he has been a pretty good stop gap in terms of offensive and defensive numbers as well as being able to mentor J.P. and catch for the young pitchers (Drabek, Morrow, etc.).

He may be a valuable commodity to the Blue Jays right now, but currently he qualifies for Type B status and a draft pick is worth more than keeping him on board. There will be other Jose Molina type catchers in the offseason like Ramon Castro, Ivan Rodriguez, and Jason Varitek (if he would play for a team other than the Red Sox next season). With that potent backup catcher free agent class as well as Travis d'Arnaud absolutely lighting up AA pitching it would appear as if the Jays don't need to bring Molina back next season and therefore can afford to let him go for that ever so precious compensation pick. If AA can pull off a draft pick for a guy that we signed to backup John Buck then that will be yet another accomplishment to place on his resumé.

Edwin Encarnacion
If you had asked anyone knowledgeable about the Blue Jays at the end of May whether or not the Jays would exercise EE's option to bring him back next year I'm sure you would have got a resounding no. But since then Edwin has turned things around to become one of the most productive hitters in the whole league. He still may not be hitting a lot of homers, but he is hitting to a 218 wRC+ (per FanGraphs) in August which ranks him seventh in the league.

If he can continue this pace or at least continue on his July pace then he may be able to reach Type A status next year, but that is assuming that the CBA remains unchanged and it doesn't take away or change the free agent compensation system. As well it assumes that he gets some playing time at 3B to stay in the 2B/SS/3B category. If either of these things change then that could mean a lost draft pick in 2013. So then what this comes down to is whether the Jays feel like they are contending next year and that they could use his bat in the lineup everyday or whether they give themselves one more year to groom young players such as Eric Thames and Travis Snider, who would presumably be sharing the DH and LF spots for 2012. It is a big decision that could either potentially lose the Jays a draft pick or if they play well enough next year a playoff spot.

In my opinion I don't want to see Edwin back in a Jays uniform for next year. Yes, he is producing at extremely high levels and yes, he would be on an extremely team friendly contract, but this surge in production for EE is nothing new. He may not have produced at levels this high before but nonetheless Edwin Encarnacion is a very streaky player and when you delve further into the stats you see for yourself. What I found through research on FanGraphs is that in every year that Edwin has played since 2005 he has been consistently inconsistent.

When you look at Edwin's wRC+ month by month for every season in which he has played since his call up in 2005 you generally see a pattern. There is a couple months where he is above average, a couple where he is below average, a suckage month, and then a monster month. So far this year according to wRC+ Edwin has had two above average months, two below average months, and a monster month (which isn't done yet and will probably die down), therefore we would have to think that would lead us to believe that EE is going to have a suckage month in September. The only thing that is different about this year is he has gradually got better. After starting out badly the first couple months Edwin has gradually progressed and has posted a higher wRC+ every month.

Taking that in to account it may be evidence that there is improvement, but I don't buy it. There is no way that he can hold this 218 wRC+ that he currently has as he holds a BABIP at .400 which is 115 points above his career mark. What all this says is that this hot streak shouldn't be taken too much into account when the Jays decide upon his fate for next season, if Emilio Bonofacio can have a 26 game hit streak then EE can do what he has done in the month of August, but that doesn't mean it will continue forever.

Aaron Hill
Aaron Hill is definitely the most interesting of all of these free agent cases as he was the star player in 2009 and has been declining ever since, which is something that shouldn't be new to any of you. But what is interesting is that in recent Blue Jays broadcasts specifically last night's broadcast Buck and Pat were discussing how Dwayne Murphy has been working especially with Aaron Hill lately and how the Jays would like Hill to be their second baseman for the foreseeable future. Presumably because of this "extra" time working with Dwayne, Aaron Hill has been hitting better lately than before, but not to a level where he should be our starter with his 2012 salary. In the last week he has hit to a 96 wRC+ which is much better than his season mark of 67, but it is still below average and you don't purposely pay a below average player $8 million dollars.

I'm not in the Jays front office and I don't really know what they are considering for next season in terms of who is playing second base, but I can't see the Jays paying Aaron Hill $8 million to start for them. There still is the possibility that they decline Hill's options for 2012 and 2013 and then try and rework a contract for him, though if they do that then they give up any draft pick that they may get this year. Where as if they sign another second basemen to a one year deal then they can let Adeiny Hechavarria improve in the minors and then presumably take over at shortstop in 2013 with Yunel Escobar moving to second base (If you don't believe in Hech's progress then check out this Jays Journal article here). That seems like the most likely possibility, but the Jays may believe in Aaron and may want to keep giving him at bats. In my opinion I believe that he has had enough chances and that we should start moving away from the past and towards the future, which seems to be Adeiny Hechavarria.

Frank Francisco
With Frankie there isn't much to say other than what has been said. Some fans may say that we never should have traded for him in the first place pointing to the 3.0 WAR that Mike Napoli has produced for the Rangers, but Napoli never fit into our long term plans and he would have taken at-bats away from other deserving players. Regardless the Francisco for Napoli trade happened and there is no taking it back, but then the question becomes what do we do with Frank Francisco. We could offer him arbitration and have him decline it netting us a sandwich pick, but that depends on whether he would decline arbitration.

With Francisco having the bad-ish season that he is, with him making $4 million this year, and with the 2012 free agent market filled with top notch closers Francisco may want to accept arbitration or on the flip-side the Jays may not want to offer him arbitration at all. This creates a problem not only for the front office as they wouldn't get a draft pick, but it also gives the haters something to jab at Anthopolous with. This is because not only has Napoli had a good season for the Rangers on the field, but he has also produced enough to be projected as a Type A free agent for the 2013 offseason. The only way this would seem to work out for the Blue Jays is if AA and Frank Francisco have a handshake agreement for him to decline arbitration, thus netting the Jays yet another 2012 sandwich pick and then all is good in the world.

Jon Rauch
Last but not least is the guy who is currently on the 15 day DL Jon Rauch. There isn't much to say with Jon Rauch other than that he has had a bad season shown by his 1.79 HR/9 that ranks second last among qualified relievers as well as a 4.45 xFIP that ranks 16th last among qualified relievers (but still better than Kevin Gregg). Despite this he has still been able to muster up 11 saves woo hoo [sarcasm]. I along with most of you probably wouldn't care to see Rauch back next year despite his club option.

To be honest there is probably at least 5 other Rauches out there on the free agent market this offseason so then it would seem like AA won't have a hard time finding a replacement. The only problem then becomes whether Rauch would accept arbitration because he may test the market, but he may also want to keep the "guranteed" money from arbitration. Presumably AA would have to do the same thing with Rauch as he would with Francisco and that is to get the handshake agreement to solidify whether or not to offer these guys arbitration.

Final Thoughts
It would be nice to see the Jays have 7 picks in the first round (including the sandwich round) for the 2012 draft, but something is bound to change. Someone will probably accept arbitration just like Jason Frasor did last year and the Jays may just want to keep someone around for next year (Hill? Encarnacion?). Overall I am sure the Jays will find a way to work things out and they may even pull another Miguel Olivo to acquire another sandwich pick even if teams are more wary this time around. If all goes well then the Jays could be looking forward to another top farm system in 2012 and 2013 as we continue to take advantage of the free agent compensation system that may be gone in the next couple years.

Any Opinions, Arguments, Criticisms? Let me know in the comments below.

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Blue Jays Biggest Trade Chip?

Photo by Keith Allison licensed under Creative Commons

At this point in the year it is saddening to say, but also safe to say that the Blue Jays will be sellers at this years trade deadline. But then the question is who to trade, because the Jays team right now consists of mainly young guys who hold the future of the team and the Jays definitely aren't in firesale mode so guys like Lind and Romero won't be traded. Though in my eyes the guys that the Jays could trade include Jon Rauch, Octavio Dotel, Frank Francisco, Jason Frasor, Aaron Hill, Corey Patterson, and Carlos Villaneuva. Some of the guys on this list may be a little unlikely, but with the silent assassin as our general manager, you never know what could happen.

Jon Rauch, Octavio Dotel

The reason that I clump these two guys together is that they are pretty similar in terms of play and contract. Both have about a 4.00 ERA and both their xFIPs suggest that their ERAs should be higher. Regarding the contracts of Dotel and Rauch, they are fairly similar both have the two players making about $3 million this year along with $3.5 million options for next. The options may be appealing to a team because it gives them an extra year of control and still at a formidable price. Some teams these guys could be shipped off to includes Detroit, St. Louis, and Texas, all teams who could use some bullpen help. These two are probably the more likely bullpen pieces to be traded. Though Anthopolous surely won't be giving either of these guys away as they do have an extra year of control and both project to be Type B free agents.

Frank Francisco, Jason Frasor
The reason I clump Francisco and Frasor together is because they too have contract similarities, as well they are two players I believe are more unlikely to be traded. The contracts of these two guys are one year each with no options at about $3.75 million a piece. Why I don't see them being traded is in Francisco's case, it seems like the Jays believe that he is and should be their closer, which I don't necessarily agree with, but whatever. As well it will be hard to trade away Frasor who has the longest tenure with the Jays of all current Blue Jays. Also the Jays need at least one solid bullpen piece to somewhat hold late leads. Even if the Jays do trade away Frasor, I know it will be a hard loss, but I think he would resign with them in the offseason.

Aaron Hill
We all know the story of Aaron Hill. The once great player, whose career seemed to have its climax in 2009, with everything after just getting worse and worse. I wrote more about this in the previous article "The Rise of One, The Fall of Another". But as I stated in that article I would welcome the trading of Hill to whatever team still believes in him. Though as I also stated I don't see that being a likely possibility. The reasons being as I stated that the Jays are weak when it comes to middle infielders, with only Hech in the higher part of the farm system. Then the fact that the 2B free agent class this year isn't great, though Anthopolous has had interest in the past in one free agent second basemen Kelly Johnson. But Johnson isn't exactly having an All-Star year either. So it leaves the Jays with the realization that if they trade Hill they won't have anything else to fill the spot other than John Macdonald who is great defensively, but isn't stellar with the bat.

Corey Patterson
Now to Corey, the former top prospect who never really panned out. The Jays saw him and gave him a shot with a minor league contract this year. Earlier in the year it didn't look bad because Patterson was performing and we were able to plug his bat into the lineup every once in a while with Snider and Bautista manning the corner outfield spots. Then Snider was demoted to AAA to "revamp" his swing. This left us with the understanding that we would have to plug either Juan or Corey into left field and we really couldn't afford Juan's catcher like figure trying to run around and attempt to adequately fill left field. So this left us with Corey Patterson, a guy who really shouldn't be a major league starter, but the Jays were almost forced to plug his bat into the lineup everyday. Though now that we have Thames and Snider in Toronto and Loewen in Vegas, we really have no need for Patterson and we can trade him away. He probably wouldn't bring much value but there is still teams who would give away a lower tier prospect for him. As was said in a Fangraphs article he could be this year's Cody Ross. Teams that may try to get Patterson includes the Diamondbacks and the Braves, both playoff contenders in need of an extra bat.

Carlos Villaneuva
Now finally to Carlos Villaneuva, a pitcher that I have heard no body really talk about in terms of trade, but a guy who is 5-1 with a 3.24 ERA  should garner some interest. Especially when teams know that the Jays may be looking to shed a pitcher whether its Jo-Jo or Villaneuva. Because the Jays have 2 guys in Litsch and Drabek who could be pitching in the majors come August as well as a stocked farm system with such top prospects as Zach Stewart, Henderson Alvarez, and Deck McGuire. So shedding a guy like Villaneuva who is pitching much better than he should be according to his xFIP of 4.13 wouldn't be such a bad thing, if the team is overpaying. If the Jays could get even a C level prospect for him than that would be more than enough. As well the fact that he only makes less than a million this year helps out. Teams like Cleveland, Detroit, and Arizona.

I think that our overall biggest trade chip would have to be Carlos Villaneuva, just based on the way he has played this year and I do think that he could help a contending team such as Arizona who has been known to be looking to add smaller pieces at the deadline. Other guys who I do expect to be traded include Corey Patterson and Jon Rauch. The other guys still could get traded, but I think with the situation that those guys are in and how they both excelled early, they would be most likely to go. Though none of these trade chips will net us any top shelf picks, but they can still get some positive contributors to our farm system. Because you never know what you have in a player until you can fully evaluate him yourself and as Jose Bautista has shown, anything can happen.