SBNation.com User Blog: Jared Macdonald

Blue Jays need to produce vs. AL East teams

Jared Macdonald — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:02:53 -0000

The Blue Jays’ 9-4 loss to the Yankees last night didn’t just kick off a three-game series between the two clubs, it marked the start of the Jays’ most important stretch of the 2013 season.

Major league teams play each of their divisional opponents 19 times this season for a total of 76 games. For the Blue Jays, 33 of those contests—nearly half of their season total—will already be in the books before they hit full-time interleague play at the end of May.

Over the next 37 days, the Blue Jays will play nine more games against the Yankees, seven each against the Orioles and Rays, and six against the Red Sox. Series-wise, it divides up to one at home and two on the road against New York, with one each at home and on the road against Baltimore, Boston, and Tampa Bay.

The best way to for a team to control its own destiny and put itself in a better position to make the postseason, obviously, is to dominate against divisional opponents. The only problem, though, is that the Blue Jays haven’t had much success in that department in recent memory, especially over the last four years.

Sure, the Jays were able to string together a lengthy streak of consecutive wins against the Orioles. Since the start of the 2009 season, the Blue Jays have gone 43-29 against the O’s with a run differential of +42--though it was an Orioles club that finished last in the AL East three out of four times.

The results against the Yankees and Red Sox aren’t as rosy. Over the same span, the Blue Jays have gone 30-42 against New York with a run differential of -24, and 32-40 with a run differential of -72 against Boston. The results against the Rays are much, much worse, as the Jays have gone 22-50 against Tampa Bay with a run differential of -142 since 2009.

Starting with the 2009 season could fall into the arbitrary endpoint argument, but the results aren’t drastically better when going further back in Blue Jays history. Though they have came close a few times, the Blue Jays haven’t finished .500 or better against all four divisional opponents in the same season in 15 years. 15. The last time Toronto accomplished the feat was in 1998, when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays played their first season and when teams only played divisional opponents a maximum of 12 times. In other words, since Major League Baseball increased divisional play in 2001, the Jays have never had a winning record against each of their foes in the same season.

Doing just that this season wouldn’t only be nice, it’s essential.

Melky Cabrera Gives Blue Jays Much-Needed Change In Left Field

Jared Macdonald — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:28:39 -0000

During the Q & A portion of the Blue Jays' State of the Franchise event last week, the second-last question, from multiple season ticket holders, was directed toward general manager Alex Anthopoulos:

We're interested in learning about the dialogue and consideration process behind the ultimate decision to invest in Melky Cabrera, who's been banned for 50 games due to high levels of testosterone, and R.A. Dickey, a 38-year-old man.

While Anthopoulos quickly addressed the topic of Dickey's age, he offered a lengthier reply regarding Cabrera. Although he touched mainly on Cabrera's 50-game suspension, Anthopoulos did add one simple nugget for these season ticket holders that should have stood out the most.

We believe he can help us win games, and that's the number one criteria.

Whether Cabrera plays like he did for the Giants this past season or the way he did during his time with the Yankees, he'll help the Blue Jays win in 2013. Not only will Cabrera bring stability to left field for Toronto—he averaged 144 games per season prior to his shortened 2012 campaign—but in any capacity, he represents an upgrade at the position, one that has been awful offensively for the last two years and far from elite in five of the last six.

Flash back to 2006. The Blue Jays' primary left fielders, Frank Catalanotto and Reed Johnson, contributed to one of the club's best overall offensive seasons in the last decade. That year, Catalanotto hit .305/.393/.448 with 26 doubles in 401 plate appearances as a left fielder, while Johnson managed a similar .315/.397/.459 slash line with 17 doubles and seven home runs while playing left field. Since then, however, production from left field has been mediocre at best for the Blue Jays; something that needed to be addressed given the club's plan to contend in 2013 and beyond.

From a WAR perspective, Blue Jays left fielders ranked 29th in MLB with 0.0 fWAR last season. Zero. The chart below shows the fWAR Blue Jays left fielders have accumulated in each of the last six seasons, along with how they compared to the rest of the league:

Season	fWAR	MLB Rank	AL Rank
2007	1.2	23rd	8th
2008	-0.2	28th	12th
2009	4.8	6th	2nd
2010	1.7	18th	7th
2011	1.3	23rd	9th
2012	0	29th	13th

In 2007, Blue Jay left fielders collectively hit .260 with 38 doubles, 21 home runs and a .742 OPS. Matt Stairs put up MVP-level numbers whenever he played left field that year (.341 average, 1.076 OPS in 148 plate appearances), while Adam Lind and Reed Johnson lagged far behind in larger sample sizes, managing an OPS of just .674 and .641, respectively.

In 2008, a whopping nine different players (Lind, Shannon Stewart, Brad Wilkerson, Kevin Mench, Travis Snider, Stairs, Joe Inglett, Marco Scutaro and Buck Coats) played left field for the Jays, amassing a .258/.325/.384 slash line. Lind started coming into his own, hitting .292 while adding 23 extra-base hits, but when he wasn't in the field, fans were forced to watch veterans at the ends of their careers in Stewart, Wilkerson, and Mench. Snider, who was tearing it up in the minors, made his major league debut and managed an .803 OPS in 24 games.

Despite a hot start, Snider was optioned to triple-A in May 2009 following a three-week hitting slump, and Lind saw more time in left field as a result. That 2009 season was, of course, when Lind won a Silver Slugger award (and received MVP votes) for his career year, when he spent the bulk of his time at DH. But he still raked when he fielded a position, hitting .316 with a .991 OPS as a left fielder -- the main reason that, along with Snider, Jose Bautista and four others (remember David Delucci?), Jays left fielders ranked near the top of the league in offense.

After that bright spot in 2009, though, left field has gone considerably downhill from an offensive standpoint, and the best way to illustrate this is simply with numbers from the last three years:

Toronto Blue Jays - Left Fielders (2010)
	G	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
F. Lewis	84	380	336	90	25	4	8	32	82	.268	.343	.438	.781
T. Snider	50	206	193	50	12	0	9	13	54	.259	.306	.461	.767
A. Lind	16	61	58	11	2	0	2	2	11	.190	.213	.328	.541
+ 4 others	19	71	64	11	3	1	1	7	19	.172	.254	.297	.551
Combined Total:	162	718	651	162	42	5	20	54	164	.249	.312	.421	.733

Toronto Blue Jays - Left Fielders (2011)
	G	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
E. Thames	53	231	210	52	15	2	7	16	49	.248	.309	.438	.747
C. Patterson	45	192	176	47	7	2	2	8	33	.267	.296	.363	.659
T. Snider	43	166	151	35	9	0	3	11	45	.232	.285	.351	.636
J. Rivera	22	81	74	15	3	0	1	5	11	.203	.259	.284	.543
+ 5 others	10	29	25	6	2	1	1	4	7	.240	.344	.680	1.024
Combined Total:	162	699	636	155	36	5	14	44	145	.244	.295	.382	.677

Toronto Blue Jays - Left Fielders (2012)
	G	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
R. Davis	105	391	358	91	19	2	4	22	77	.254	.305	.352	.657
E. Thames	41	156	144	37	7	1	4	9	36	.257	.301	.403	.704
A. Gose	14	47	41	6	2	0	0	5	12	.146	.239	.195	.434
T. Snider	10	40	36	9	2	0	3	3	14	.250	.300	.556	.856
+ 4 others	14	24	23	5	2	0	0	0	0	.217	.217	.304	.521
Combined Total:	162	658	602	148	32	3	11	39	139	.246	.297	.363	.660

Will Melky Cabrera hit .346 with an OPS over .900 again this season? Probably not. But it's a safe bet that he'll do better than the sub-.700 OPS that Thames and company collectively put up over the last two years, especially when you look at the favourable change in park factor going from AT&T Park to Rogers Centre.

Buffalo Bisons Hot Stove Luncheon A Hit With Fans

Jared Macdonald — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 23:13:16 -0000

Two months after showcasing their new team logo, the Buffalo Bisons revealed their highly-anticipated new uniforms on Friday afternoon at the club’s annual Hot Stove Luncheon at the Adam’s Mark hotel in downtown Buffalo. In front of a packed house of over 200 guests that included a nice mix of new and longtime fans, Bisons general manager Mike Buczkowski revealed his team’s new home, road and alternate jerseys along with their on-field hats, reiterating the club’s desire to go back to their roots with a red, white and blue color scheme.

Much like the star-studded group that made the trip to the logo unveiling in November, another impressive group of Blue Jays personnel came to support this afternoon’s luncheon, as team president and CEO Paul Beeston, vice president and general manager Alex Anthopoulos, director of minor league operations Charlie Wilson, outfielder Anthony Gose, and former Blue Jay George Bell were all in attendance.

Also on hand was Jays area scout Randy Kramer, a former right-handed pitcher who spent parts of three seasons with the Bisons from 1988-90. It was another nice, local touch between the Blue Jays and Bisons, as Kramer was a familiar face to many of the older fans and season ticket holders in attendance. Back at the logo unveiling, the Blue Jays pleasantly surprised the local media by inviting Buffalo native Jim Negrych to sign a minor league deal with the team at the press conference.

Bisons play-by-play announcer Ben Wagner (read Minor Leaguer’s prior interview with him here) emceed the event, and kicked things off by interviewing Bell as the audience partook in the buffet lunch. Bell reminisced about his playing days, from passing through Buffalo’s old War Memorial stadium in the early 80’s to playing at Exhibition Stadium with the Blue Jays and eventually at the SkyDome, which he thought could have very well been called something else.

"When they built the SkyDome--that was the name--it was supposed to be George Bell Centre," he joked, which drew a light-hearted laugh from the audience.

Up next with Wagner was Gose, who talked about being called up to the big leagues, what it was like being in the majors, and the feeling of hitting his first major league home run. Given the current state of the Blue Jays’ roster, Gose also added that he’s mentally prepared to open the 2013 season in Buffalo and looking forward to getting things rolling.

"I couldn’t stop smiling, I know that; it was a really good feeling," Gose said of his home run. "I felt like it took forever, though."

After Wilson and Buczkowski added a few words on the affiliation between Toronto and Buffalo, Beeston stepped up to the podium and added words of his own on the topic, mentioning that an affiliation runs two ways and how the Jays wanted to be in Buffalo for years. Beeston also mentioned the talk earlier in the offseason about how Travis d’Arnaud and Adeiny Hechavarria were supposed to be high profile additions to the Bisons’ Opening Day roster but were traded, setting the stage for Anthopoulos to take the mic.

Today was obviously a busy day for Anthopoulos with the arbitration deadline looming, as nearly every time Minor Leaguer and I looked over at him his head was down and his fingers were furiously texting. Upon taking the podium, Anthopoulos apologized for having to multitask so much and made the announcement that he had come to contract agreements with all three of the Jays’ remaining arbitration-eligible players in J.A. Happ, Emilio Bonifacio and Josh Thole.

Referencing the departures of d’Arnaud and Hechavarria to improve the big league club, Anthopoulos dialed up the hype machine on Gose, as he spoke very highly of the center fielder, saying that he’s "right there" with Jose Reyes in terms of everything he does and that "you may not see a better defensive center fielder in the game" than him.

Once again, Anthopoulos also spoke very highly of the partnership between the Blue Jays and Bisons, stressing its importance.

"It’s great. This isn’t just any other minor league Triple-A affiliation, this is a big deal. I know it’s a Triple-A affiliate but it’s as Major League as it gets, from the management team to the way they run it," Anthopoulos told me. "This team means a lot to this city, it means a lot to this community, it means a lot to us. From that standpoint it’s as good as it gets."

Judging by what the Blue Jays have done over the last few months, they’re doing a great job of showing the Bisons how much this affiliation means to them, with even more opportunities coming in just 77 days, when the Bisons face the Rochester Red Wings in their season opener at home on Thursday, April 4.

Please welcome our newest writer Jared Macdonald to Bluebird Banter! Jared has written about the Blue Jays and baseball for three years and has contributed to Jays Journal, Jays Prospects and The Good Point.

SBNation.com User Blog: Jared Macdonald

Blue Jays need to produce vs. AL East teams

Melky Cabrera Gives Blue Jays Much-Needed Change In Left Field

Buffalo Bisons Hot Stove Luncheon A Hit With Fans

Please welcome our newest writer Jared Macdonald to Bluebird Banter! Jared has written about the Blue Jays and baseball for three years and has contributed to Jays Journal, Jays Prospects and The Good Point.

Also, Minor Leaguer's piece on the new Buffalo Bisons uniforms can be found here.