Thanks to Redonred for alerting us to the news that Jose Bautista is on the cover of the upcoming Canadian release of MLB12: The Show. Jose twoot a link to a commercial featuring him that the producers of the game made. It, predictably, shows multiple examples of Bautista doing what he does best - mashing dingers. Check out the video.

I have taken it upon myself to identify as many pitchers as possible who are depicted as victims of Bautista's power in the ad. I have ID'ed most of them, but I need my capable BBB colleagues to help fill in a couple blanks.

The list is after the jump:

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Editors note: Promoted from fanposts.

There have been lots of Blue Jays rumours so far this off season and they have spurred tons of discussion. Though purported Jays' targets like Yu Darvish, Carlos Beltran, and Gio Gonzalez have gone to other teams, one player who has consistently been thought to be a good fit for the Jays is Prince Fielder. Many objections to his potential signing focus on the large contract he is likely to command and whether this outlay represents good value for the signing team.

Some BBBers have questioned the utility of signing any free agents to large long term contracts given the likelihood that aging will catch up to the player well before the end of his contract. Certainly the extension JP Ricciardi handed to Vernon Wells has left a bitter taste in Jays fans' mouths and made some recoil from offering similar money to any big name free agent. But the question remains: is it ever a good idea to hand out 9-figure guarantees to a free agent? Do these contracts ever actually provide good value or do they all become albatrosses to their teams and cripple their finances?

The answer is after the jump...

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You may have noticed that the banner ads atop some of the SBNation blogs, including Bluebird Banter, are carrying an advertisement for the upcoming Moneyball film. I am seriously considering attending the opening night of this film, and I imagine many baseball/SABR fans are doing the same.

Lining up for a film opening, sometimes for several hours or even days, is seen as the height of nerd-dom. Traditionally, this behaviour has been most prominent among fans of sci-fi/fantasy franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, and Lord of the Rings.

However, might it not be even nerdier to get overly excited about the opening of a film that does not conform to this archetype? At least if you line up for the new LOTR film, there is a sizeable group of like-minded fans who are doing the same thing as you. With Moneyball, you may leave yourself as the sole object of ridicule.  

I have been trying to figure out what the nerdiest film is to line up for, but I couldn't come up with an answer myself. So I have decided to polll my fellow BBBers.  

EDIT August 9 13:45 - Per Bowling_Guy25's suggestion, I have started a Twitter campaign to get people to cheer, not boo, Wells during the upcoming weekend series. I am using the hashtag #dontbooVW. I am new to Twitter, so to make this a success, I need your help. Any BBBers who use Twitter and agree that VW deserves applause, send out thwips using the #dontbooVW tag over the next few days. Time is of the essence, so start now. If we can get this topic trending, maybe the boo birds will be drowned out by cheers over the weekend!

On to the post! -->

This coming Friday, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim make their first appearance at the SkyDome of the 2011 season. Which means, of course, that that game respresents Vernon Wells' first game back after his trade this past offseason. I don't have to remind you of the contract that Vernon received after the 2007 season from JP Ricciardi: 7 years/$126M, which eventually became known as one of, if not, the biggest  albatross contract in sports. When The Great AA was able to trade Wells (and the final 4 years of his contract, totalling $86M in guaranteed payments), there was much rejoicing by BBBers and non-blog-based Blue Jays fans alike.

When reading the post-game recap from August 7, there was a brief thread about the upcoming Angels series. Commenter benk said: "if [Wells] gets boo'd (sic), I hope Howarth rips the fans a new one like he did when Overbay came to town." I must say that I agree wholeheartedly with this assessment. I have no idea why Lyle Overbay was booed on his return to Toronto (I actually didn't know about that episode until reading benk's comment, as I was out of the country at the time). But Overbay never did anything to earn Toronto fans' wrath. He never dogged it on the field, never spoke out against the fans or the city and he didn't demand to be traded or leave under poor circumstances. He just was a player that the Jays acquired and thought would become an excellent player, and turned out to be a good-but-not-amazing one. 

Vernon Wells falls in a similar category and does not deserve to be booed. It would represent the height of pettiness and classlessness to do so. Indeed, Vernon carried himself admirably during his time with the team, and should be appauded for his service in Toronto for several reasons. 

I will preface this discussion with the caveat that this post may very well be a complete strawman. It is possible that noone is considering booing Vernon Wells upon his return to Toronto. If you think that's true, then there is no need to read further. But my experience with Toronto fans gives me reason to believe this is not the case.

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By now, unless you have been under a rock for the entire day (or at work, I suppose), you know that the AA and the Jays pulled off 2 trades that culminated in the Jays acquiring Colby Rasmus for Jason Frasor, Zach Stewart, Mark Rzepcynski, Octavio Dotel, Corey Patterson, undisclosed amounts of cash, and an agreement to give large sums of money to Mark Teahen for a season and half.

The reaction to the trade was swift and unequivocal. BBBers rejoiced, denizens of Viva El Birdos cromited, and many outside observers loved what the Jays did here. The Cardinals and White Sox got what they wanted (present-day pitching help and salary relief, respectively) but the consensus was that the Jays got the upper hand and that the Cardinals, especially, were fleeced.

Not much I can say that hasn’t already been said here or elsewhere on our favourite series of tubes, but I absolutely love this trade. Love, love, love. That’s all.

But where does this leave the Jays going forward? The Jays currently stand 4th in the AL East, 13 games behind  the Red Sox and 11 behind New York for the AL Wild Card. Unless the Sox and Yankees (and the other teams ahead of us in the WC standing) all succumb to 1951 Dodgers-level collapses, the best we can hope for is to battle it out with Tampa for 3rd place in what is, again, the most competitive division in North American professional sports. So let’s, as we’ve become accustomed to for some time, look ahead to the future. If you are interested, follow me past the jump.

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I have a nagging feeling that this still isn't the end of the Jays' offseason moves. I'm completely bummed about the Manny non-signing (we couldn't front $3M for a 4WAR hitter?!?!?!?), but I'm sure AA is aware of the Napoli/JPA catcher situation. Both are clearly capable catchers, with JPA holding the upside/potential advantage and Napoli being the established commodity with 2 more years of arbitration (FA after 2012 season). The trade has to be called a win for the Jays, since they got the best player in the deal (Napoli - according to fangraphs analysis) while dumping a huge salary commitment.

I have to think that AA is going to be shopping the two of them around and seeing what he can get. JPA probably can command more in trade, but teams with a good prospect in the mid-minors and looking for a boost now would surely want Napoli. Even if we trade JPA, Napoli bridges the gap very nicely while we see what we have in D'Arnaud and Perez.

There is also still the issue of 3B/RF and where does Bautista play. Is Rivera pencilled in as an everyday corner OF now? Does Bautista move to 3B, even though he apparently wants to play RF? What do we do with E5, is he really only playing 1B and DHing? All these questions lead me to believe that the offseason moves haven't ended yet.

Second, and this is probably a case of me looking through rose-coloured glasses but please humour me, does jettisoning Vernon really make the 2011 team appreciably worse? Vernon was good last year (4 fWAR), but had been worth a combined 3 fWAR the previous 3 seasons. I doubt that we could count on 128 wRC+ again from him in 2011. A 5-3-2 weighted projection puts him at 110 wRC+ for next year, still quite good. Shane Victorino put up 111 wRC+ in 2010 and was worth 3.3 oWAR. But Wells' defense is probably also going to regress (same weighting gives him -10.7RAR next year). This quick projection pegs him at somewhere around 2-2.5 WAR in 2011.

If it's true that we are looking at Scott Podsednik and we stick him and Davis as a platoon in CF, as unpalatable as that sounds I figure we can expect around .750 OPS from that combo. Adam Jones had a .767 OPS with a similar fangraphs speed rating to both Davis and Podsednik, which translated to 106 wRC+ last season in a slightly-more-hitter-friendly home-park environment than Toronto (Camden Yards was the 5th best hitter's park in baseball 2010, SkyDome was 8th). So let's put the Pods/Davis' CF combo down for ~105 wRC+ next year. Using the same 5-3-2 weighting as for Wells, Pods' defense projects at -6.1 RAR in LF (maybe -15 in CF) and Davis +1.7. Overall, I'd give the pair somewhere around -8RAR, pretty close to Jones' -5RAR. Jones was worth 2.3 fWAR last year, so the Pods/Davis combo can probably give us ~2 fWAR production next year. That looks pretty similar to the value that AA and the Jays could reasonably have expected from 2011 Vernon. Even ignoring Podsednik, Fangraphs' fan projection system projects Davis alone to be worth 1.7WAR, which would be better than Vernon was in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Alternately, Corey Patterson projects as around a 0RAR CF. He also had a .794 OPS last season versus RHP (though .720 career). If, admittedly a big if, he can be counted on for .750 OPS vs RHP in 2011, such a Patterson/Davis CF combo would provide approximately similar offensive production to 2010 Adam Jonesand be a half-win better in the field. If Patterson can hit RHP even a little bit, he and Davis together could put up 2.5-3 WAR together. I just threw up in my mouth a little, but a platoon CF situation with Davis and Patterson could reasonably be expected to be anywhere from slightly better to only slightly worse than Vernon in 2011.

There are a few clear caveats here. One is that Wells' upside is MUCH higher than Pods/Davis, who could never reach a 4WAR season. Second is that my analysis assumes that fWAR is able to accurately analyze and value defensive contributions, which is still up in the air. Third, I've clearly drunk too much of the AA Kool-Aid. But if we accept regression for Wells as a likelihood given his 2010 production spike and current age, he may not actually be better in 2011 than the Jays' current CF options.

The Blue Jays have been fairly active this offseason retooling their lineup and organization both for 2011 and beyond, though perhaps not as active as some would like. As dedicated readers of this forum know, I am firmly of the belief that the 2010 Blue Jays were a top tier team and can continue to be so with only a few easy-to-make improvements, both from inside and outside the organization. Given the ease of these moves, such activity does not preclude AA and the Jays’ front office from continuing to retool for the future via trade (Lawrie, Gose) and investing in the draft and international signees.

Here, I present a modest proposal for improving the Jays offense in 2011 – a platoon-based lineup. The idea of a positional platoon is very well accepted in baseball. However, given that the Jays have several players capable of playing multiple positions on the field, I propose to not simply interchange players at one position, but to change half the lineup depending on the handedness of the starting pitcher the team is to face.

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There has been much discussion lately around these here parts about whether to bring back Edwin Encarnacion (which is now a moot point, since we just resigned him) and what to do with him in 2011. Since E5 has always played third base (>600 GP in his career, and only 2 at any other position - both first base), the assumption was that he will continue to play there. This no longer seems to necessarily be the case, but it's certainly still a possibility.

More speculation has centred on the Blue Jays' first base position in 2011. The presumption was that Adam Lind, formerly an outfielder and DH who was a second team All America first baseman at the University of South Alabama, would be converted into a first baseman under the tutelage of our great infield coach Brian Butterfield. In anticipation of this, Lind was played at first 11 times last year and he generally underwhelmed in his limited action. 

Given E5's seeming entrenchedness at the hot corner and his poor defense both when playing in Cincinnati and last year, some have questioned whether Lind should be the one to man first base and be responsible for tracking down E5's errant throws. These naysayers explain that E5's seeming improvement over the course of last season was an aberration, that Lyle Overbay's glove was responsible for significantly moderating the effects of E5's arm, and that the downgrade to Lind would be devastating to the team. They suggest that the Jays should look for a player, via free agency or trade, with more experience at first base (e.g. Derrek Lee or Carlos Pena) as an offseason priority rather than stick with the Lind plan.

Others (including myself) feel differently. I believe that first base, as it is the least demanding defensive position, can be fairly easily learned by most reasonably athletic people. Given that such players as Jason Giambi, Adam Dunn, and Carlos Delgado have capably played first base in the past, I figure Lind could be coached up to be at least as good (or bad) as these guys and probably even a little bit better.

Unfortunately, such debates can go on ad nauseum, since they are largely subjective in nature. So, I decided to run an analysis and determine how detrimental the change from Overbay to Lind at first base would be to the Blue Jays if Edwin Encarnacion were to play a full season at third base.

Read on after the jump...

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Recently, a fanpost by Sivvi raised the question of whether moving Vernon Wells to RF would actually be beneficial to the Blue Jays. He came down in the negative, saying Vernon would not be a very good defensive rightfielder and that, even if he was, the bump in defensive value was overstated by many BBB commenters (including me).

I decided to investigate the matter and determine whether there is actually a bump in defensive stats by moving from CF to a corner position and how large that bump is likely to be.

Herein, I provide my analysis.

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about the Jays’ offseason, what should be done, and how much money the team will have to spend on acquiring new players. Unfortunately, it seems like not everyone is always on the same page with regards to player costs and savings from various transactions. Therefore, I have created the following list to provide an estimate of what various moves will cost the Jays for the 2011 season and how to come up with money to sign new players (e.g. Manny, Pena, Thome, etc).

This post is meant as a combination reference manual (with 2010 salaries, 2011 guaranteed salaries where applicable, and my estimates for arbitration raises where applicable) and suggestion guide for where I see the Jays going this offseason. Feel free to quibble with my numbers and suggestions, though I think my arbitration raise estimates are probably pretty good. As well, I use only salary numbers, not including pro-rated bonuses.

A huge thanks goes out to Cot's Contracts, a great website that you should all refer to frequently for all your MLB contract, free agency, and arbitration reference needs.

On to the $$$.

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Bluejays.com reported today that Dustin McGowan will have season-ending surgery on his pitching shoulder. That's the bad news.

The worse news is that rather than going under the knife to repair his rotator cuff, which was the injury to which his current DL stint was originally attributed, the operation will focus on fixing "fraying" of his labrum.

Many, including Will Carroll of BP, have written that the track record of pitchers who are able to come back from labrum tears is quite bad. This does not mean that they never make it through rehab or that they never throw another pitch in the bigs, but that they never get back to their previous skill level. If this is the case with Dustin, that is a major setback for any short- and medium-term plans the Jays have to contend (assuming they actually have such a plan, which is no given).

According to Torgen in the last game thread (5 game winning streak, woo!), the location of the tear is important for prognosis (rear tears being worse than front, meaning Casey Janssen's tear might not be terrible). The report said nothing of the location of the tear, so let's hope that DMC is able to come back. I've not heard this before, but I'm certainly no expert on the subject. Information on the topic is welcome.

The surgery will also explore the rotator cuff to see if it needs repair. Seems to me that the best case scenario is that he's back for next spring training nearly as good as new. Worst case, he needs cuff and labrum repair, is out longer term and never makes it back to his current form or reaches his future promise.