Over at Drunk Jays Fans a reader named Scott commented on an article pertaining to AA's comments on the battle for left field by suggesting the following: (http://blogs.thescore.com/djf/2012/03/14/anthopoulos-speaks-part-two-eric-thames/#comments)

"I don’t understand why they can’t play Thames, Snider, Lind and Encarnacion equally across the 3 spots (LF/DH/1B). That’s 120 games each. We all know the 3 starters aren’t going to play 160 games each so why not spread those 3 spots among 4 players? Snider plays 75% of the LF starts. Thames picks up the remaining 25% of LF and splits DH 50/50 with Encarnacion. Lind plays 75% of the 1B starts (including all the righties) and EE picks up the remaining 25% of 1B starts to combine with his DH duties. Everybody wins. If a couple months into the season someone is struggling badly you adjust the playing time or send someone down. There’s more than enough at bats to go around. This is also a form of preventative maintenance as all of these players minus Thames have suffered through injuries in recent years."

I think this can only help Lind's numbers as he showed glimpses of his formal self at the start of last season but seamed to wear down and be fighting injuries throughout the season. I feel like Lind is worth another half year of patience. In fact all four players have had injury problems over the course of there young careers. I would also argue that they have all shown enough potential to be starters on a contending team, but enough inconsistency or weaknesses to warrant playing 75% of the time. It also leaves the Jays with a pretty potent Pinch Hitter for late in the games. Snider could also relieve Bautista and Rasmus occasionally pushing his totals up closer to 500ABs. Let them each collect around 480 ABs over the course of the season but give each of them the rest necessary to stay healthy.

On the other hand I'm not sure if Thames is a long term option if he doesn't improve especially his patience and so more seasoning in Triple A might not be the worst option either. The Jays could send him down for one more year with Lawrie-like instruction to take more walks and give Snider an extended look.

The headline is a rip-off of DJF post called 'tis the season for believing in comeback's' where mentions Farrel's excitement over how McGowan has looked so far. McGowan is one piece of a lot of things that seem to be coming into place in the early goings.

1. EXPANDED WILD CARD SPOT: it looks like there will be an extra wild card spot this year which significantly improves the Jays chances of making the playoffs.

2. MCGOWAN:

(below is quoted from DJF http://www.drunkjaysfans.com/2012/02/tis-season-for-believing-in-comeback.html)

"The right-hander, catching people’s eye with his command and stuff, dazzled teammates Adam Lind, Kelly Johnson and Yunel Escobar with his slider and changeup, each of them taking turns walking out of the cage shaking his head," writes Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.

"The fact that he was down in the strike zone, with the kind of power he had, with the heaviness to his fastball, the action to his secondary stuff – he was impressive today, there’s no doubt," John Farrell said, as quoted by both pieces.

Continue reading this post »

Until this off-season most Jays fans had assumed that AA propensity to pick up free agent relievers (or trade in the case of Frank Francisco) had mostly to do with the possibility that they could bring in draft picks as Type A or B free agents.

As members of the Jays the moves didn't really pay off. Last year for instance Frank Francisco was inconsistent, Octavio Dotel's slow start and misuse against lefties brought his numbers down, and Jon Rauch had a pretty awful year. However this off-season again the Jays have emphasized improving the bullpen again despite the fact that it no longer can bring in draft picks by bringing in Santos, Oliver and Cordero as well as bringing back Jason Frasor.

Though he has put a lot of priority on the bullpen he managed to do this fairly cost effectively.

Jays Bullpen (salaries from Cot's)

Sergio Santos (R) (12:$1M, 13:$2.75M, 14:$3.75M, 15:$6M club option, 16:$8M club option,17:$8.75M club option; $0.75M buyouts for each option)

Darren Oliver (L) (1st yr 4.5m 2nd yr 2.5m or .5m buyout)

Francisco Cordero (R) (1yr 4.5m)

Jason Frasor (R) (1st yr 3.5m or 2nd yr 3.75m)

Carlos Villanueva (R) (1yr 2.28m)

Casey Janssen (R) (1st year 2m, 2nd yr 3.9m, 3rd yr 4m club option)

Jesse Litsch (R) ( 1 year/$0.975M)

Luis Perez (L), Joel Carreno and Chad Beck

The entire pen will cost the jays about 20 million next year, and gives them plenty of options if someone's injured or inconsistent.

I have been trying to sort out for myself whether I feel like the Jays have overprioritized the pen and though I think the Santos deal was a good trade especially if they would use him in high leverage situations rather than as a traditional closer I'm less convinced that they needed to stalk up like they did. Although one of Oliver, Cordero and Frasor was important I feel like the emphasis on the pen was excessive, and to some degree it will keep people like Litsch, Carreno, Perez and Beck from getting a decent look in the pen. I also think that the pens failure last year though in part due to bad luck was in part due to mismanagement (using small sample sizes of hitters against individual pitchers rather than a hitter or pitchers carreer splits, etc)

On the other hand...
Despite relievers price relative to WAR being high WAR maybe underrates good relievers because they have show up in high leverage situations and have more of an affect on game outcomes. In other words there WPA (win probability added) is higher relative to there WAR then other baseball positions. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/can-wpa-explain-how-teams-buy-relievers/

Relievers are also both more inconsistent and injury prone and so given their value in affecting game outcomes it may be good to stock them up. It may make more sense to pay for a number of pitchers who could possibly be used in high leverage situations then pay for one who could fail? http://blogs.thescore.com/mlb/2011/11/10/theres-no-need-to-spend-money-on-a-proven-closer/

AA has also explicitly emphasized the importance of mid-season trades to his philosophy and relievers such as League, Frasor, Rzep, and Dotel have been part of trades that have brought significant players back to the Jays. Are relievers possibly overvalued at trade deadlines that make them worth stocking up during the offseason?

What are readers thoughts on the Jays emphasis on relievers this offseason.

Just Updating the numbers on Snider against power pitchers. The problem isn't going away.

Against Power pitchers (Avg/OBP/Slg/OPS)

Against AVG Power/Finesse

Against Finesse

Jays Team Against Power Pitchers

This is posted from an earlier article on the same issue: http://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2011/3/27/2074922/travis-snider-and-power-pitchers

An article by Matthais Koster looked at Travis' batting average for different pitch locations assuming that balls up in the zone are generally fastballs. Travis hits a paltry .071 on high inside fastballs, .130 on pitches up and over the heart of the plate, and .182 on pitches up and outside.

http://mopupduty.com/index.php/travis-snider-cant-hit-high-heat-is-it-time-to-send-him-down/

Another way of looking at this problem is looking at his stats against power pitchers which is defined by baseball reference as pitchers in the top 1/3 of strikeout+walks per inning.

Travis has hit a combined .130 in his three years against this category of pitchers and never seasonally over .143 in his career 162 Abs against this category of pitchers.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/split_stats.cgi?full=1&params=power|vs.%20Power|snidetr01|bat|AB|

Career Travis hit .130 (OPS .403) against Power pitchers, hit .259 (OPS of .703) against avg power/finesse (middle 1/3 of strikeouts+walks), and hit .328 (OPS of 1.010) against Finesse pitchers (bottom 1/3 of strikouts+walks) .

Last year he stayed close to that hitting .130 (OPS .443) against Power pitchers and .250 (OPS .698 against avg pitchers) and .339 (OPS 1.031) against Finesse pitchers.

Of course most hitters probably generally do poorer against power pitchers. But, Travis Snider has been not only week against Power pitchers but comparably week.

Last year he hit .130 (OPS .443), career .130 (.403). The Blue Jays as a Team did substantially better though still struggled as I am sure most teams do with power pitchers.

Snider against Power (.130, .443 OPS), AVG P/F (.250, .698 OPS, Finesse (.339, 1.031)
Jays’10against Power(.220, .713OPS), AVG P/F (.242, .738 OPS, Finesse (.267, .812)
Jays’09against Power (.237, .697OPS), AVG P/F(.262, .762 OPS, Finesse (.285, .823)

Sniders substantial OPS difference is .580 points b/w Power and Finesse versus a team OPS range of .100 in 2010 and approx. .125 in 2009. His BA range is .209 versus a team range of .047 or .038. His consistent and drastic improvement from power to avg p/f and then again to finesse pitchers suggest a substantial weakness.

Sniders OPS of .443 versus power pitchers compared to the Jays of .713 or .697 is rather concerning. I am not saying that it is impossible for Travis to figure it out against Power pitchers. 
Bautista OPS prior to the Jays against Power pitchers was .545 with a .169 BA and since his OPS .812 in 2009 and .854 last year, and his BA was .222 and .237. All I am saying is he does have a legitimate problem catching up to power pitchers compared to the rest of the Jays and may need to make a comparable adjustment of starting his swing earlier, or working at shortening his swing.

He also seems to crush low strikeout pitchers OPSing 1.031 against them suggesting to me that adjusting his place in the lineup depending on the pitcher might be a way of taking advantage of his strengths while still playing him against power pitchers in hopefully working through what seems to be a problem against power pitchers. It is also disconcerting that the problem carries itself into league average pitchers as well where his OPS is around .700. I also think the sample size is small enough to know that there is a possibility that he can adjust but large enough to recognize a real problem.

It's probably way to early to make strong conclusions about the Blue Jays offence. The early indicator that I like the most is that the Jays seem to be walking a lot more. 16 walks/15 in 99 ABs as a team projects to the team averaging almost 100 walks per 600 player ABs. Though they won't keep this rate up all season, I have noticed the Jays working the count a bit. http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/stats/batting/_/name/tor/toronto-blue-jays

Though it's early I also feel like they have been spraying the balls a little bit more to all fields.

I did have some shared concerns with seeing the sacrifice bunt the other day. Teams score an avg (taken from 1993-2010) of 1.542 runs every time they have runners on first and second with nobody out, and only average 1.438 runs with runners on second and third with 1 out. Not only that these probabilities assume the success of the sacrifice. If a pitcher assumes a bunt the player is even more likely to get strikes. If a batter wastes the first couple of pitches, with the first one being most likely the best pitch he will see, pushing bunts foul, etc and does not advance the runner he significantly decreases his chances of getting a hit. Maybe with Escobar a good bunter up and Rivera following, a good contact hitter Farrell thought the particular circumstance was favorable for ensuring the run from third.

But generally sac bunts should be saved for pitchers. If you are on 1st with none out on average the team will score 0.929 runs that inning. If your bunted to second taking an out your team will score on average 0.714 runs that inning. If you are on 2nd with none out your team will average 1.172 runs that inning, compared to 0.984 runs with a runner on 3rd with one out. http://blogs.thescore.com/mlb/2011/04/04/why-i-dont-like-sacrifice-bunts/#more-8206

These numbers don't account for the likelihood of possibly increasing the odds of the lead runner scoring while decreasing the chance for a rally (by adding an out) which in the case of game tying runs might make the single run more important than the possibility for more. I'm not sure if someone has calculated probabilities for percentage of lead runners scoring as opposed to run probability added.

I have similar concerns about the desire for an aggressive running game, though we've only stolen a couple of bases so far. I have heard that generally runners have to be successful 75% of the time in order for it to be worthwhile. This does not account for wear and tear and so it would also be interesting to measure this against injury rates for basestealer etc. I hope we take intelligent risks on the basepaths running against particular catchers with particular players. 

Players/Teams seem to be more aggressive with base-running than risking being thrown out advancing a base or scoring and I'm guessing that if we are taking proper chance we could take up a more aggressive style in that regard, despite occasionally being thrown out.

All in all I'm pretty excited about our offence and out team so far.

A comment by a fan in another post led me to do a little bit more research on Travis and power pitchers that I though interesting enough to share elsewhere.

An article by Matthais Koster looked at Travis' batting average for different pitch locations assuming that balls up in the zone are generally fastballs. Travis hits a paltry .071 on high inside fastballs, .130 on pitches up and over the heart of the plate, and .182 on pitches up and outside.

http://mopupduty.com/index.php/travis-snider-cant-hit-high-heat-is-it-time-to-send-him-down/

Another way of looking at this problem is looking at his stats against power pitchers which is defined by baseball reference as pitchers in the top 1/3 of strikeout+walks per inning.

Travis has hit a combined .130 in his three years against this category of pitchers and never seasonally over .143 in his career 162 Abs against this category of pitchers.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/split_stats.cgi?full=1&params=power|vs.%20Power|snidetr01|bat|AB|

Career Travis hit .130 (OPS .403) against Power pitchers, hit .259 (OPS of .703) against avg power/finesse (middle 1/3 of strikeouts+walks), and hit .328 (OPS of 1.010) against Finesse pitchers (bottom 1/3 of strikouts+walks) .

Last year he stayed close to that hitting .130 (OPS .443) against Power pitchers and .250 (OPS .698 against avg pitchers) and .339 (OPS 1.031) against Finesse pitchers.

Of course most hitters probably generally do poorer against power pitchers. But, Travis Snider has been not only week against Power pitchers but comparably week.

Last year he hit .130 (OPS .443), career .130 (.403). The Blue Jays as a Team did substantially better though still struggled as I am sure most teams do with power pitchers.

Snider against Power (.130, .443 OPS), AVG P/F (.250, .698 OPS, Finesse (.339, 1.031)
Jays’10against Power(.220, .713OPS), AVG P/F (.242, .738 OPS, Finesse (.267, .812)
Jays’09against Power (.237, .697OPS), AVG P/F(.262, .762 OPS, Finesse (.285, .823)

Sniders substantial OPS difference is .580 points b/w Power and Finesse versus a team OPS range of .100 in 2010 and approx. .125 in 2009. His BA range is .209 versus a team range of .047 or .038. His consistent and drastic improvement from power to avg p/f and then again to finesse pitchers suggest a substantial weakness.

Sniders OPS of .443 versus power pitchers compared to the Jays of .713 or .697 is rather concerning. I am not saying that it is impossible for Travis to figure it out against Power pitchers.
Bautista OPS prior to the Jays against Power pitchers was .545 with a .169 BA and since his OPS .812 in 2009 and .854 last year, and his BA was .222 and .237. All I am saying is he does have a legitimate problem catching up to power pitchers compared to the rest of the Jays and may need to make a comparable adjustment of starting his swing earlier, or working at shortening his swing.

He also seems to crush low strikeout pitchers OPSing 1.031 against them suggesting to me that adjusting his place in the lineup depending on the pitcher might be a way of taking advantage of his strengths while still playing him against power pitchers in hopefully working through what seems to be a problem against power pitchers. It is also disconcerting that the problem carries itself into league average pitchers as well where his OPS is around .700. I also think the sample size is small enough to know that there is a possibility that he can adjust but large enough to recognize a real problem.

Typically teams seem to put their better weakest outfielder in Left field. I would argue however generally that a relatively faster outfielder should be in left field, and in my impression it is a more important defensive position than right field. The reason is that 62.1% of hitters are right handed, 9.3% switch hit, while only 28.5% are left handed (http://en.allexperts.com/q/Baseball-Trivia-General-2552/2010/1/Percent-handed-Hitters-2009.htm). The reality that most hitters are righthanded, that hitters tend to pull the ball more often than not, and that righthanders pull the ball towards leftfield suggests that the majority of the balls hit to the outfield should go to the left of center field. A strong arm would be typically more valuable in rightfield, given the relative frequency of singles and the possibility of putouts at first base and so if Travis Snider had a relatively stronger arm then either Juan Rivera or Jose Bautista it would make his defensive position more difficult. But given that both player have relatively strong arms it seems to me that the relatively speedier and more defensively inclined Snider should stay in left field. I'd also guess that speed ages quicker than arm strength and so keeping Bautista in RF where he get's fewer ball hit in his direction and taking advantage of Snider's relative speed seems to make sense in the medium term. This could also be offset if Snider was a relatively better fielder in RF versus LF or Juan Rivera and Jose Bautista were relatively better fielders in RF but this also doesn't seem to be true. I'm not sure if there's anything glaring that I'm missing, but I think there is a relatively strong case to keep Snider in leftfield.

UZR for Rivera, Bautista and Snider--I recognize in the case of Snider the problem of sample size (http://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2011/3/8/2037181/thoughts-on-jays-defence)

Juan Rivera comes from one of the most pitcher friendly parks in Baseball, and has consistently hit substantially better on the road.

On average the Angels and there opponents only score 86.4% of the runs they score on the road and 82.5% as many home runs and so one would expect hitters to have somewhat lower production from Angels players. He is moving to a hitter friendly park in Toronto, where teams score 105.8% of the runs that Toronto and their opponents score on the road, and where they hit 135.8% of the home runs.

( http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor )

Juan Rivera has rough home stats.

2009 Road BA-.308 OPS -.851 Home BA- .270 OPS-.762

2010 Road BA-.283 OPA-.819 Home BA- .223 OPS-..625

If we average his road OPS over the past two years we get .835 which would be good enough for 14th among all outfielders in baseball last year.

( http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/position/of/sort/OPS/order/true  -- I didn't include either Luke Scott or Vladimir Guerrero because they played the vast majority of their positions at DH)

This is not even accounting for the fact that he is not moving to a major league average park, but a park that should give him a significant boost in terms of both OPS and especially home runs.

He is moving to a hitter friendly park in Toronto. He is coming off a poor season in a while, and so his trading value is fairly low.

Even if he isn't in the Jays long term plans, I think he is likely to have more value towards the trading deadline and is worth holding on to till later in the season.

The Blue are in the process of heading into arbitration with Bautista. In the words of Michael Vlessides a consultant to major league teams on arbitration cases "Arbitration... is an Ugly Process" (http://sports.nationalpost.com/2011/01/14/bautista-should-cash-in-on-breakout-year/) and that if the Blue Jays can get a contract through they would surely prefer avoiding arbitration.

Arbitration is low risk after a single break out year. Though Hills contract had a number of team friendly options, recent and current contracts with Lind, Hill, Wells, BJ Ryan, and Alex Rios all reflect the dangers of free agency. Although the Hill and Lind contracts are a bit early to tell, the Jays have been less than lucky with many of their medium/long term contracts.

That being said (and though the list doesn't reflect this) I feel that hitters (especially because they are less likely to get of injured) are less risky. I also feel like patient hitters are less likely to completely lose their value although a Carlos Pena like regression would not be impossible for Jose Bautista (though Bautista strikes out less).

I think the Jays should try going for it without morgaging the future. Given the relative rebuilding in Tampa, and the age and quiet offseason in New York, the Jays have a legitimate chance at the wildcard spot. I would argue that atleast one if not both of Hill and Lind will rebound  while Travis Snider will make up for what I see as a fairly modest drop off in production from Bautista. Given this already leaves the Jays much improved I think the Jays should consider some low risk free agents.

I think the Jays should sign Manny and Chavez short term. I also think that Brian Fuentes (a type B) would offer the Jays a closer that can get both lefties and righties.

If we aren’t in contention we can ship at least Manny and Fuentes for prospects. If Chavez is healthy then he could be traded to. (Neither of them will cost prospects to sign them). If were out of contention then we can see what we have in Mastro at midseason and move Bautista to third, or Lawrie if he’s ready.  It doesn’t cost us prospects and possibly brings in some prospects. They are not really blocking any positions where we have prospects currently ready. It be a safe short term deal that gives us a chance to take a legitimate run at making the playoffs.

 The lineup as suggested by dexfarkin would look like this 1B Lind,2B Hill,SS Escobar,3B Chavez,LF Snider,CF Wells,RF Bautista,C Arencibia,DH Ramirez

with the backups being: INF/OF MacDonald, C Molina, INF Encarnacion, OF Davis

The batting order would depend to some degree on Chavez's health but could look something like this:

1. Escobar
2. Chavez
3. Bautista
4. Ramirez
5. Wells
6. Lind
7. Snider
8. Hill
9. Arencibia

This lineup would be a far more patient lineup with Ramirez and Chavez and would subsequently help generate a lot more runs compared to last year. I think both players would be helpful to both Arencibia's and Snider's development. It has some flexability with Davis and Encarnacion being somewhat proven players if someone goes down, and with Mastro and Lawrie possibly being ready for a shot later in the year.

The Marcum trade though clearly directed at the future, I don't think should seriously mortgage the present given that we should get some improvement from Morrow, and our fifth starter over last year which will in my mind make up for what we lost in Marcum.

Rotation:

Morrow
Romero
Cecil
Drabek
Rzep

With Stewart and Litsch around in case of injury, I still feel that we have solid depth and a reasonable chance at an improvement rotation if Rzep is as strong as I expect him to be (I feel like Rzep will be put up similar numbers to Marcum, and that Drabek will be improved over last years fifth starters).

In the pen,

Dotel - R
Fraser - R
Purcey - L
Camp - R
Ray - R, Richmond - R, Roenicke - R, Janssen - R, Carlson - L

I think the Jays should consider signing Brian Fuentes to close and Dotel should be used basically strictly against righties.

The moves as I have suggested will cost the Jays little in terms of the future, and though Fuentes and Manny will probably cost a bit, I think if it generates some more excitement around Jays baseball and brings in some more fans with a playoff run, it will more than pay for itself. If things fall apart, I feel like all those pickups would come at modest costs relative to the opportunity of a playoff run. It will also generate some excitement around the team and maybe bring the fans out early in the season, which may generate the type of fanbase that can allow a little bit more regular revenue to spend on free agents. They could all aside injury generate a decent return in trades if they Jays are out, and could continue to help the Jays build towards the future.

To make a cost adjusted decision, I'm going to assume that Chavez is going to cost 3 million for one year (2 million in incentives), Manny will cost 7 million (3 million in incentives) and Fuentes will cost 6 million. If you think these figures are off the mark high or low let me know in the comments...

The 5th starter suggests that the Jays should go after Hoffman despite his awful 2010 (ERA of .589) particularly because he could be a mentor to a young bullpen.(http://5thstarter.blogspot.com/2010/12/santanthopoulous-wants-closer-get-hoff.html)

I'd love to see a one year deal with a team option for a second year. I agree the Jays should go after him, but also because I think he has a strong chance to be a dominating closer again, and could either help the jays next year or become trade bait similar to Gonzalez.

 His season seamed to be a bit of an aberration given that he had an
ERA of 1.83 in 2009, (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hoffmtr01.shtml)
  and
he had a great second half and an awful first half...
he gave up 8 HR's and and batters hit .306 and had an OPS of 1.019 in the first half.

(http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=hoffmtr01&year=2010&t=p)

In the second half hitters hit .208 with an OPS of .544 against him.

Sure he's old at 43 and correspondingly comes with risk but the second half numbers and his 2009 numbers suggest he is still capable of dominating.

Although I also am open to the idea of Manny Ramirez coming to Toronto, and would prefer that option provided he can be signed for around 8 million, another option at Dh or even first base is Nick Johnson who fits well into the Jays most glaring weakness (OBP) though he probably won't hit for as high of average as Ramirez he probably could be signed for under 5 million. His career OBP is over .400 and though he's not fast if he batted after Escobar, I don't really want him running to much with Bautista next anyways.

1. Escobar – SS

2. Johnson - 1b

3. Bautista 3b

4. Wells – RF

5. Snider – LF

6. Lind – 1B/DH

7. Hill – 2B

8. JP/Molina – C

9. Mastroianni - CF

How about Mastrionni in centre-field? He hit .301 last year in New Hampshire, with a .390 obp and 46 steals. So far in the winter leagues he has hit a modest .581(18-31), with a .639 Obp.  You have to get excited about that even though the sample size is small enough to make it meaningless. I see him as a Gardner/Ellsbury type and I think given the Jays need for both speed and OBP, he should be given every chance to earn the job at some point next year, the sooner the better as far as I am concerned. (http://mlb.mlb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=l135&t=p_pbp&pid=518991)

I also think Emaus should be given a legitimate chance to DH (If Mastrionni's in cf and Bautista is at third) or play third (If Mastrionni's in triple A). He hit .290 with a .397 obp last year with 13 sb(only 2 cs) with 15 home runs. We have lots of power but I want to see some speed, but especially obp in the 1,2, and 9 spots in the order. I think both Emaus and Mastrionni should be given serious looks next year. (http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=458587)

As Drew explains at Ghostrunner on first "Hills contract calls for $4 mil this year and $5 mil next. The next three years are club options; three of which can be activated at the end of this season with only two available at the end of 2011." (http://www.ghostrunneronfirst.com/2010/08/alex-anthopouloss-first-real-decision.html#comments) It seems that if the Jays want Hill at 8 mil, 8 mil and then 10 mil for three more years AA has to make the decision this off-season. Should AA activate Hill for three years or wait till after next year to decide on the two years remaining.

(for more discussion see http://www.drunkjaysfans.com/2010/08/on-aaron-hill.html#disqus_thread)

Hill has improved significantly since the all star break though his average is still down.

First Half:

.189/.272/.359/.631/.180/ (avg/obp/slg/ops/babip)

Second Half:

.256/.299/.481/.780/.244 (avg/obp/slg/ops/babip)

He's had 9 Hr in 156 Abs since the All star break.

I think even if his average remains down next year it will remain closer to the .250 mark, and though he doesn't get on base he has continued to hit home runs this year, and I think his second half numbers line-up pretty well against other second or third baseman.With a low OBP percentage I'd rather see him down in the order especially when struggling.

Should the Jays activate him for three years.