Blue Jays starting rotation announced!

GIBBY!

I am so glad that you and I are starting off the year like this:

And not like this:

The coach of the Jays, John Gibbons, has announced his starting rotation, and it goes as such:

RA Dickey
Brandon Morrow
Mark Buehrle
Josh Johnson
Ricky Romero


Now, all of you avid followers will recall that I called this rotation, with one minor difference; Morrow and Johnson flip flopped.

I'm definitely still calling it a win, even though I technically only had 60% correct (which is actually the best you can do aside from 100%). My theory was that you need to follow the knuckleballer with a guy who throws hard and then also split up the lefties. I am very happy to see that Gibby has the same philosophy, although I am shocked to see a guy of Josh Johnson's caliber sitting in the 4 hole. I figured that he and Morrow were interchangeable, but expected to see the nod go to the former long time ace for the 2 spot.

It may have come down to not wanting to start off the rotation with three newcomers, relegating the incumbents to the bottom of the rotation. It may have been a bit much to have the newbies as the top 3 in the rotation and the top 2 hitters in the lineup(which will definitely be the case with Reyes and Melky). The other option would have been to sticky Ricky 3rd, after Johnson, and move Buehrle to 5th, but I much prefer having Dickey going out after the harder throwing of the two southpaws as the rotation turns over. Or it may have come down to Gibbons really liking what he has seen from Morrow (when healthy) over the past few years, and not being as excited by JJ's diminished numbers from last season (neither of which I can particularly blame him for).

The bottom line is this. 4 of our starters have been aces on staffs, and Morrow certainly has ace type stuff. This is an INCREDIBLE staff. If Josh Johnson doesn't get uppity about suddenly being the 4th guy, and Morrow can give us a full season, this is the best way to set the rotation, and I'm happy to see it being properly managed.


Gibby is 1 for 1 on my scoresheet.


How about your's?

Just a quick rant on new stat systems...

Am I the only one who thinks that a lot of these new stats, to try to determine what a players performance SHOULD have been for the previous years, in an effort to try to predict what they WILL do the following year, are complete and utter horseshit? Seems to me like a bunch of dorks playing baseball video games that don't even know what a baseball feels like came up with these.

I just read a breakdown on Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) that stated that it only factors in stats a pitcher can really control, which are strikeouts, walks (and hit batters) and homeruns. They then go on to say that a pitcher can't really control what happens to balls when they are hit into play, which is a stat called BABIP (batting average on balls hit in play).

WHAT a nonsensical conclusion. If pitchers cannot control what happens on balls into play, how can they control homeruns?

First and foremost, let me say that if there was (and probably is) a stat that factors each teams given overall defensive performance and uses a numerical value to shift the ERA to where it would be on a league average defense, I would be down with it. Not to replace any of the actual stats, but something I would be interested in.

NOW.... ooooooobviously a pitcher can't reeeeeaally control anything beyond throwing strikes or balls. Hitters hit fantastically located pitches out of the ballpark sometimes. Sometimes they watch strike three go right down the can. Sometimes they swing at ball 4 as it bounces 2 feet in front of the plate. But for Jamie Moyer's sake, don't tell me that you can't really control what happens to balls hit into play... by those means batting practice pitchers should have the same effectiveness as Verlander as long as they aren't getting taken yard!

No, no, no, no......... no.

Anyone who has actually played anything beyond t-ball knows its about keeping it off the sweet part of the bat. Velocity, command, movement, change in velocity and pitch sequence are all factors that move the ball an inch up or down, in or out, off the barrel and turn a line drive into a lazy pop fly or easy groundball.

The stats on defense, I can get on board with. There is science there that is easily gathered (by computers).

But pitching, and to a slightly lesser degree, hitting, are too complex to diagnose in such a limited way. Just let the numbers speak for themselves, guys.

yowza... that got me all fired up.


Oh... and MLB made the "fake to third, throw to first" pick-off move illegal. It's a balk now. It was always my favorite to watch 30, 000 people boo the opposing pitcher for a perfectly legal move. The fans felt duped. The fans felt cheated. The fans finally got their way. It's pretty bush league anyway. I'm glad it's gone, it only worked like once a year anyway. GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH!


Allright. I am thoroughly vented.

Stay tuned for my predictions on the starting batting line-up and defence, coming soon.

Holla!!

Dickey-ing around with the rotation

 So, hey, did you hear? The Jays got R.A. Dickey!

Yeah, yeah, everyone who's not Helen Keller (you know... dead) has heard that at this point, so I'm not going to comment on it very much. What I will say is that while I do not like the isolated deal as far as what we gave up, it sure makes me excited as sheez for 2013. Also, an overlooked aspect of the deal is that we got the Mets to eat Buck's awful contract, which makes Dickey's extension that much more affordable. Hopefully it inspires Josh Johnson to sign an extension with the Jays as well, and also acts as a bit of insurance if he doesn't.

Time to have some fun speculating on the starting rotation and the every day lineup!! I can't believe Gibbons gets paid to do this... what a gig.


The first real question is who is the ace. And it's not an easy one to answer, unless you are brilliant like me. Here is my take:

1. R.A. Dickey

I actually think Josh Johnson is the more talented of the two, and Morrow might actually have the highest upside on the staff, but Dickey gets the nod because of the way the whole rotation shakes out.

Dickey throws his disgusting knuckleball harder than any knuckleballer who has ever knuckleballed. His average velocity on the pitch was around 77 mph last year. He can obviously vary the speed as he deems fit, as it seemed to clock in anywhere from about 70 to 83 mph last season, also with the very occasional Wakefield-esque slow floater peppered in. A few of those harder ones may have been misread sinkers, which R.A. features as his "off-speed" pitch (who says off-speed can't mean faster?) which sits in the low to mid 80's. He also throws a third pitch very seldom; some call it a fork-ball, others a curve, others still a change-up. I haven't seen enough footage of this 1-2% featured pitch to judge for myself (I'll let you know after opening day), but it's obviously something he feels he controls well and can throw to confuse a hitter and buy a strike a few times a game. But the man features the knuck 80% of the time, and will adopt an "if it ain't broke" attitude with it. I'm sure he'd be happy to throw a 100 of em and call it a day if he ends up with the W.

The thing about knuckleballers is it's not just the day they pitch when they are effective; it's the day after as well. The lowly Mets, who sorely lacked a quality second starter last year were 14-6 on the day directly following when Dickey pitched. It's like playing whiffle ball for a day and then back to the real sport.

And to maximize the potency of the morning after glow, you need someone with fast balls, which is why....

2. Josh Johnson

Morrow could make sense here too, but while Johnson won't mind playing second fiddle to the reigning NL Cy Young winner, he would mind playing 3rd or 4th fiddle... to anyone.

Anyway, bottom line is you want a guy coming in throwing hard after guys have been fishing around for that knuckler the day before, and Johnson fits the bill. He should be pumping in that hard 4-seam (92-96 mph) and riding 2-seam fastball (91-94) mph and mixing in a very hard biting slider (85-88 mph) which already has one of the best whiff rates in the bigs, never mind the Dickey assist. Johnson also features a curve ball and a change-up, but both are thrown with a fair bit of velocity as well, frankly too much for the changeup to be as effective as it could be. The guy is coming at you with hard stuff, and thats just works perfectly in this rotation spot.

And then after facing that nasty 6'7, 250 lb bulldog you get....

3. Mark Buehrle


Just to throw another completely different pitcher at our opponents, we next trot out the extremely fast working, pin point accuracy having, any pitch on any count throwing, innings eating machine. Mark Buehrle is as consistent as they come. Ridiculously so. The infield is put on notice on his game days, he's a groundball robot. The guy throws a mid to high 80's 2-seam with lots of sink and run away from righties, a low 80's slider, a low-mid 70's curve and a nasty low 80's changeup, and as mentioned before, you might see any pitch on any count, and they are always down in the zone.

Expect to be back outside the stadium in 2 hours if you go see this guy pitch, he's back on the mound and ready to go before you can take a sip of beer. He fields his position as well as anyone and he picks guys off on the regular. 200 innings and double digit wins are just what you get every year with this guy. He is suuuch a nice piece to have in any rotation and he slides extremely well into our 3 hole, directly in front of.....

4. Brandon Morrow

Yes, this means Ricky goes from ace to 5 hole in just one season, but you have to spread out the lefties. It was a topic I covered in this blog a while back: The Jays, for a few years there, had a multitude of similar starters and it lessens each one's effectiveness any time a team has seen a similar pitcher the day before. This year, the Jays are only a sidewinder short of having the most diversified rotation possible and they are fools if they don't take advantage of it. And I like to think they won't be fools.

So Morrow takes his 97 mph fastball, hard slider, hard curveball and ever improving changeup and slides in right in between the two lefties. Like I said, if not for Johnson, Morrow should be throwing after Dickey, where he would be most dominant, but after Buehrle is no disservice either. This guy is one consistent season away from being a huge star in this league. There are VERY few pitchers in the league who have as dominant pure stuff as this man right here. We will have to see if going down in the rotation loosens him up or bums him out. Which is the same thing that can be said for....

5. Ricky Romero

Ricky put together an amazing season in 2011, going 15-11 with a 2.92 ERA and then followed that up with a 2012 in which i don't think I saw a single outing where he didn't look frustrated with his command, gave up the most runs in baseball and went 9-14 only because of a MASSIVE amount of run support. He easily could have been 5-18. Woof.

So what's the deal with this guy? To me, he looked tired. Reminded me a lot of Cecil out there overthrowing his fastball to try and keep the velocity in the 90's, and in the process, losing command entirely. I also believe that Ricky started tipping his changeup a couple of years ago. Whether it be visible during the delivery, or the way he puts the ball in the glove, hell, maybe he sticks his tongue out a la Babe Ruth's curveball, but hitters seem to be laying off very good changeups that are close to the zone.

Obviously, the biggest reason for this, whether he is tipping his pitch or not, is the accuracy with the fastball. If he is hitting the zone, and especially the corners, with the fastball, hitters will chase the changeup, and then you can see a dominant Ricky Romero who can easily be the best 5 pitcher in all of baseball.

I would love to see an experiment with Ricky next year, wherein he abandons his cutter until he can consistently find the zone to either side with his regular fastball. Somewhere along the way, he lost confidence in that thing, and he needs to get it back. Perhaps the fact that he will not bare the responsibility of trying to be this team's ace will allow him to find that control, even at 89-90 mph, and he can get back to missing bats with the changeup and vastly improved curveball he has shown much more of the last year and a half. Ricky; the best pitch in baseball is strike one, and if no one respects your fastball, you aren't going to be effective in this league.

Unless you are R.A. Dickey and have the nastiest knuckleball in history. That dude doesn't need a fastball.



Okey dokers, that's my take on it.

I would love to see Josh Johnson be the ace of this staff, but it just doesn't break down well for the rest of the rotation, because Dickey would definitely be the 2 guy, and then you either have the lefties back to back or you don't get a really hard thrower going after Dickey and that just seems like a waste to me. Besides, the fans will be clambering to see the guy with the hardware on opening day, and I don't blame them. I'm excited as hell to see that man throw that crazy pitch.

So there you have it. Make sense to you? You have a better idea? Want to make some Dickey jokes? Put it in the comments, homeys. And follow if you dig the article....

And stay tuned for the opening day lineup and batting order.

Jays pulling the old switcheroo?

Just wanted to bring something up that no one seems to be addressing in the analyst world:

The Blue Jays are hoarding switch hitters.

If you've been a fan of the team for a while, you've no doubt been frustrated at points with Travis Snider's, or Adam Lind's, or Colby Rasmus' difficulty handling left handed pitching. Nothing quite like getting to a critical point in a game and having one of your key hitter's batting average drop 100 plus points because of a call to the bullpen. It seems as though there has always been a platoon or two or three going on, and it's frustrating to me to see such different lineups vs lefties.

Okay, so, let's look at the recent acquisitions.

2B/3B Maicer Izturis Bats S Throws R
SS Jose Reyes Bats S Throws R
UTIL Emilio Bonifacio Bats S Throws R
OF Melky Cabrera Bat S Throws L

Out of all our offensive adds this year, only John Buck is sticking with one side of the plate.

Now, it's mostly Lefties who struggle with Lefty pitchers; this due to the lack of seeing left handed pitching throughout the early developmental years of baseball, especially the curveball, which starts coming at you and breaks away from you. Welcome to our world lefties...
 Anyway, that is to say, there is no big problem with a right handed heavy lineup vs a righty starter. No one brings in a ROOGY (aside from side-armed guys). Righties have seen righties their whole life, thats what they are used to, and stats do not dramatically go up or down vs. lefties for most guys. At least nowhere near as much as the opposite.

So, if we take a look at what our starting 9 is likely to look like.

C JP Arencibia Bats R Throws R
1B Adam Lind Bats L Throws L
2B Maicer Izturis/Emilio Bonifacio (both Bat S Throw R)
3B Brett Lawrie Bats R Throws R
SS Jose Reyes Bats S Throws R
LF Melky Cabrera Bats S Throws R
CF Colby Rasmus Bats L Throws L
RF Jose Bautista Bats R Throws R
DH Edwin Encarnacion Bats R Throws R

So you can see the trend. We have only 2 true lefties.

So when we face CC or David Price or Lester we will be trotting out at least 7 right handed hitters, more if Lind is given the day off, Edwin slides over to 1B and Bonifacio or someone else DHs. Similarly, Rasmus can be benched and Bonifacio and Melky can cover CF and LF between the two of them.

On the other hand (pardon the pun), vs righties, their guy will be seeing 5 lefties. As I have said, the stats do not dramatically swing, but there are certainly pitches that guys will use that have more affect against righties. Any pitcher with a dominant curveball or slider as his secondary pitch will definitely find more success vs similarly handed hitters. A pitcher with a split-finger or change-up may actually find that pitch being slightly more effective to opposite handed hitters.

But the real benefit here is not even vs. starting pitchers. Any starter worth his weight in tobacco juice has figured out a way to get lefties and righties out, if not with the same level of ease.

No the real benefit comes late in those tight games when the opposing manager would love to see 2 lefties up in a row so he can bring in his lefty specialist to throw 6 sweeping curveballs and get out of whatever they are in. Either that, or we are forced to pull one of our guys from the game in whatever inning it may be.

The Blue Jays will not send 2 consecutive true lefties to the plate ALL YEAR, barring injury.

WOW.

And there will only be AT MOST 2 guys you can bring in a LOOGY against (lefty one out guy).

This team, as talented as it is, will also be a NIGHTMARE to manage against.

Just thought I'd bring it up.

Anyone else notice this? Do you think this was a deliberate tactic from management? How's that rash doing?

Please leave your questions and opinions in the comments section, and if you haven't already, follow me!

I guess the owners were serious....

In case you haven't heard, the Toronto Blue Jays have pulled off a massive trade. A Blockbuster. Very possibly the biggest trade in years, not just for the Jays, but in all of baseball.

Coming to the Jays are RHP Josh Johnson, LHP Mark Buehrle, SS Jose Reyes, C John Buck and UTIL  Emilio Bonifacio.

Going the other way are 7 players, 4 of which have seen major league action; RHP Henderson Alvarez, SS Yunel "Gay slurs are funnier in spanish" Escobar, C Jeff Mathis and SS Adeiny Hechavarria. The prospects included are CF Jake Marisnick, P Justin Nicolino and P Anthony Desclafani.

The only guys I am sad to see go are Henderson Alvarez, Marisnick and Nicolino. I think those guys will make some noise on the big league level, but only Alvarez has actually shown flashes of that, so who knows.

Before I start splooging on the screen about how excited I am by this massive deal, let me preface this by saying it sounds like there is an outside shot that some dummy like Bud Selig steps in and puts the brakes on. If the Yankees were doing it, it would be done already, but Bud doesn't give a shit about baseball in Canada, and this deal sets a terrible precedent from the Marlins side. Ownership there just roped the Miami taxpayers into fronting 80% of the bill on their new stadium. The promise of an exciting, competitive team certainly fed into that. Reyes and Buerlhe were signed as free agents in the offseason  to big deals, and now it is looking a little bit like a bait and switch on the fans.

BTW these are the same morons who sunk the expos.

I don't see how MLB can step in though. If they do I will personally go find Bud Selig and tell him just what a greasy dick he is.

OK! So, now to how this affects the team!!!

It's a good thing. That's obvious. I mean, Buck was clearly thrown in as a money dump similar to when we had to take Mark Teahen in that multi-player deal for Rasmus. Buck is not worth $6 mil a year, but its certainly not an albatrossian contract to absorb if the Jays can't pass it on to someone else. Jays fans may remember he hit 20 dingers with us in 2010 while hitting .281. Ehhhhh, no, he is a career .235 hitter, and hit .192 with Miami last year. If we can ditch him, we will.

But the rest of these guys are STUDS!

Josh Johnson has top 5 stuff in baseball. When he is healthy, he is utterly dominant. The health is the concern with him, as his shoulder has been problematic in the past. But the guy is 6'7, 250 lbs. He's not Tim Lincecum, there is no reason he can't stay healthy, and in fact was for most of last year, although the stats are a little less impressive, indicating to me he was still recovering from 2011's injury for the first part of the year. His .BAA was .220 for the second half of the year. If he is healthy, he is the ace, unquestionably. The best pitcher Toronto fans have seen since Roy Halladay. He is, however, in the last year of his contract, and if possible, the Jays should try and tie him to a 4 or 5 year deal. He is 28 and in his prime right now, and because of last years slightly less impressive performance, he will be most affordable now.

Jose Reyes is one of the most exciting players in baseball. A far stretch from Yunel Escobar's slow and steady take on playing the game, Jose is a walking highlight reel. The Jay's haven't had a genuine leadoff hitter since Devon White in 1994. Almost two decades. He provides speed without the OBP liability of Rajai Davis. This is a guy fans are going to want to shell out money to see on a nightly basis. His big concern is his hamstrings, and I have no idea how they will respond to the artificial turf in Skydome. He is a guy who has MVP type talent. There are not that many of those guys out there, fewer still who play SS. If he can play 140 games, you are looking at double digit HRs, double digit 3Bs, 100+ runs and 40+ stolen bases. This is a guy who has stolen 78 bases during a single season. Wow.

Mark Buehrle. The guy just keeps getting it done. And health concerns? Nada. 12 straight years of 30 games started and 12 straight seasons of 200 IP. Then there's the pickoffs, which is just plain fun. I, personally, will ensure I go to a game and sit on the 1st base side when he is pitching just to see that filthy move to first. He's not going to get a ton of K's, but he keeps his team in the game, all the time. Not a guy who gets blown up routinely. An ideal 3rd or 4th starter. I feel bad for his dog though... http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-mark-buehrle-toronto-dog-20121115,0,7337754.story?track=rss    What a stupid law.

And last but, well, better than Buck, is Bonifacio. A very underrated commodity. This guy, over the past few years, has played everywhere on the diamond except 1B, P, and C. He may be in the lineup almost everyday, and one would assume most of those would come at LF due to the void there, but he is best used as a utility guy; a swiss army knife that is such an advantage to have on your team. He has wheels too; 30 stolen bases in only 64 games last year. 40 the year before that. He can start due to injuries, give people a day off almost anywhere, come off the bench. Great talent to have. He's exactly the type of bench guy that championship teams have.

It is a talented, high calibre group of guys coming in. The vegas odds went from 100-1 to 15-1 for the Jays winning the world series. Nuff said.

One overlooked aspect of this is how this will affect the search for the manager. Not a lot of guys clammer for a job in Canada. If you are a manager with an impressive resume, you are going to get a job somewhere, and Toronto is generally going to be last on the list. Or rather, not even on it. All of the sudden, there is a lot of extra enticement to take a shot up here on an incredibly talented club. Perhaps the list opens up a bit to some more formidable names (how much fun would it be to see Lou Pinella or Bobby Cox down there?).

Every other team has found its manager at this point, and so the Jays have their pick of those still in the market for a gig. This move may bring a few fellers out of the woodworks.

Allright. That's how I feel about this trade. So nice to feel like all the money I've given to Roger's Communications over the years has actually been worthwhile, and that all these years of talking about where the payroll "could be" weren't total garbage. We have a competitive team folks!!!

I will post another one o' these here bloggies discussing how i feel the rotation and lineup should be set up once the deal has been finalized by Fartface Selig. Don't buy your jerseys yet.

What do you think of the trade? Which player are you most excited about? Saddest about seeing leave?

Post these in the comments section and I will tell you why you are just straight wrong.

Lawrie looks lovely at leadoff.

Allright, I called this a while back.

Brett Lawrie lead off for the Blue Jays today, going 3 for 5 with a double and 3 runs scored.

The Jays don't have a true leadoff hitter until Anthony Gose is ready to rock in the Majors, which won't be this year. Brett Lawrie is the closest thing to it and will provide something thats been lacking at the top of the order; EXCITEMENT! Yunel and Kelly Johnson are vanilla at the dish and on the base paths, but Brett Lawrie has all the sprinkles and chocolate sauce (my blog just popped up on gay-google searches everywhere).

The OBP needs to go up, no doubt, but I don't think the Jays are going to want to curb Lawrie's aggressiveness much at the dish. I believe it is the natural progression for young hitters to be aggressive first before they can become selectively aggressive, which is where you should be to be a successful hitter for any sustained period of time in the bigs. His style of play is disruptive, and he always puts pressure on the opposing defence to contain him on the base paths. This can lead to rushed, slide step deliveries to Colby Rasmus and Jose Bautista. Any pitcher with a high leg kick is going to be really worried about Brett over there at first, and that can wreak havoc on pitch locations and finish.

So I was listening to Jay's talk after the game and fans as well as Mr. Wilner, his genius self, were saying that this was only on a trial period (Brett and Colby hitting 1-2) and that it wouldn't be a whole season thing or anything. What idiocy. I bet Ricky Henderson hit leadoff as a trial run as well at one point. Duuuh guys. You can bet we will keep seeing these two at the top as long as they are producing at a respectable clip, with this being a permanent fixture by no means out of the question.. I heard lots of callers answering the question of whether Lawrie should be the leadoff man with "Yes, if he performs like tonight". Yeah, I'd take a .600 hitter as a leadoff guy too. Dummies.

Lawrie will hit wherever he is stuck in the lineup, but who knows what this experiment will drag out of him. Maybe he will learn a little patience trying to see a few more pitches. He's not too bad in that regard anyway, he doesn't walk that much but doesn't swing at a ton of balls out of the zone. Stat wise, I would suspect maybe his average will drop slightly but his OBP will go up as will his SB's and certainly runs scored will improve.

Anyway, until Edwin Encarnacion is back, I believe we will see a lot of this formation atop the lineup, and I am excited to see what Lawrie can do with it. From seeing his personality so far in his young career,  I believe he will thrive in this role. Let's hope his infectious energy trickles all the way down through the rest of the batting order.

Oh yeah, and Colby Rasmus went 5 for 5 with a dinger and 4 runs scored. Not bad either.

Bullsh*$-pen

Again? Really? What are the relief pitchers eating/drinking/smoking/putting in their rectums that the starters are not?

Santos' struggles have been well covered. Farrell is standing behind his closer, which he should. Early struggles with moving to a new team, new mound, new catchers.... I get it, it can happen. That can explain Santos' playing cricket with his slider out there I guess. And as far as Cordero, who gave up a 2 run shot to Nolan Reimold today to lose the game in the ninth, same deal. Plus being moved into the set up man position maybe doesn't get his blood pumping like it used to. Adjustments to be made there.

I hope that is all it is for those two guys, but I truly wonder. Much was made of Fat Frank Francisco and Long Jon Rauch's struggles here last year. I wrote it off to Francisco being a little washed up and Rauch just being real tall without great stuff, but maybe there is more to it. Both are certainly having early success with the Mets. Let's look at some possibilities...

1) Playing in Toronto.
Maybe guys feel a bit like... who gives a shit. I'm in Canada. I might expect this from veteran US players, but the Franciscos (Frank and Cordero) are Dominican, so I wouldn't have thought it would really be a factor. Maybe the fact that so much attention is paid to the god awful hockey team in this town means that guys who thrive on the spotlight feel unmotivated. Seems a little farfetched, but....

2) Our bullpen coaches suck.
This might be more to the point. If there is any other way to judge a bullpen coach than how the bullpen performs, I'm all ears. Pat Hentgen stepped down last year after our BP (bullpen, not batting practice, although we seem to get those two things confused in the late innings) blew 25 saves for the most in the AL, citing family reasons, but probably would have been fired otherwise. Let the former star player save some face I guess. Now we have another former Jays chucker, Pete Walker, out there getting the reserves ready. The guys that have come in here have been guys that had success elsewhere. Santos was pretty effective as the closer in his gig with Chicago last year, Cordero has been solid for years in Cinci, Oliver had been aging like fine wine in Texas. Geez, Dotel and Rzep left us last year and went on to be crucial cogs for St. Louis' World Series win. For whatever reason, guys in the bullpen definitely seem to underachieve here and maybe it could be as simple as they are not as mentally prepared as they have been in past stints, and that falls squarely on the bullpen coach. Maybe in the offseason next year instead of giving out millions to bring in new parts for a car, we change the driver... lure someone away who has had big league success as a bullpen coach. Don't bring in Juan Guzman. Although that would make me smile.

3)The daunting AL East.
The toughest division in sports. Maybe guys look at the last 18 years, maybe they look at the payrolls, maybe they look at the talent of the other teams and a little voice in the back of their head says "We have no shot at making the playoffs". Once again, you would hope guys making this much money would be above this, but we all know that's not the case.

4) JP is overly focused on the starters.
Arencibia is a young catcher, and a lot of new arms have been rolling through our bp over the past couple of years. And veterans too, not guys that will defer to a catcher's game calling, especially one as green as JP. As a pitcher myself, I can tell you that familiarity with a catcher makes a world of difference. It's frustrating going through 2, 3, 4 signals out there on a regular basis and sometimes it makes you second guess what you want to throw, or even worse, you go with a sign you don't have total faith in. Those pitches have a way of going very far. And even beyond game-calling, you need to know that if you bury your deuce in the dirt (sounds filthy), he's digging it out for you, keeping it in front of him. Maybe JP needs to put in more time with those guys before games, in practices, in spring training, watching video, getting a feel for what each guy wants to do up there. I have actually been very impressed with Arencibia's defence this year, he looks like he has a bit more of a feel for the starters, he's been blocking very well, and he's been gunning down base runners, even when they are getting great jumps. He's throwing from his knees a fair bit, which I think he will find a very successful tactic for him. He's just too tall to pop up super quick, it kills his release time. A slightly slower ball out much quicker is going to get runners more often than the alternative. But anyway, he seems to be off rhythm with the relief staff and that can't help them at all.

So there are a few thoughts on why our bullpen looks like a pigpen over the last couple of years. Honestly, when was the last time we had a steady, solid closer? I know thats a luxury item for contending teams, but boy oh boy it's been awhile. I'm hoping these are just some early jitters from the new guys, and just some poor early luck from guys like Jannsen, but if this year turns out like the last in this regard.... it's time to start digging a little deeper for a solution.

What do my millions of followers think? Is it the players? The coaching staff? Is there beer and fried chicken being consumed out there too, ala BoSox? Holler at your boy.

Ughhhhh. I hate losing to Baltimore....