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MLB Weekly Power Rankings – Week 3
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Follow @mlbreportsMonday Apr.22/2013
The Giants have gutted out a 12 – 7 record despite Matt Cain being 0 – 2 with a 7.15 ERA, and Ryan Vogelsong featuring an early season ERA of 5.89. Buster Posey is also off to a slow start. This team has so much depth and talent, I see nothing that will stop this club from taking their 3rd NL West Division crown now that the LAD have had severe injury problems to their Starting Rotation. The Giants take their rightful spot as #1 in the MLB Reports Weekly Rankings thids week.
By Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Analyst/Website Owner): Follow @chuckbooth3024
The Major League Baseball Season is roughly 10% over and we are seeing some trends and patterns. The next time you wonder why games are so long in the game right now, look no further than there are about 150 hitters that are currently on pace to Strikeout 100 plus times this season.
Other Notes:
The Cincinnati Reds won every game this past 7 days, after losing every day the week prior. This is simply why they shot up the rankings. I think the NL Central is the weakest Division this year. It was my prediction that the oldest professional baseball club would run away with this Division by at least 10 games.
Shin-Soo Choo and Joey Votto are on the Basepaths at all times – carrying an OBP of over .500 plus each. Votto is starting to drive the ball with authority too. Brandon Phillips, Todd Frazier and Zack Cozart are driving in Runs at an incredible rate.
Look for BP Follow @DatdudeBP to be a dark horse NL MVP candidate.
Brandon Phillips Talks about Winter Workouts:
Can The Blue Jays Weather The Jose Reyes Injury?
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Follow @mlbreportsWednesday Apr.17/2013
Anthopoulos is about as prudent a man as you will find. He is all smiles in this press conference, but he knows what is at stake. He has deemed that the “time is now” for the Blue Jays to go for it all, and convinced his bosses to risk hundreds of millions of dollars. If the team he has assembled does not compete, for any reason, he may be out of a job. The team has had a mediocre start at 6 – 7 in the tough AL East – and have lost their prime Leadoff Man for 3 months. Going the extra mile to add depth in the franchise may enable the club to stay in contention until Jose Reyes comes back in July.
By Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Analyst/Website Owner): Follow @chuckbooth3024
Jose Reyes was the best player acquired over the winter by the Toronto Blue Jays. He was supposed to be the Leadoff Hitter, provide speed and flash the glove at the Short Stop position.
The 30 Year Old was doing just that before going down in a heap at Second Base over the weekend stealing a bag.
Incredibly, the guy almost was injured even weeks doing the very same thing just a few weeks back.
Brett Lawrie was activated from the Disabled List last night. The initial plan was to maybe play him at Second Base, with Jose Bautista moving back to Third Base. This would put Maicer Izturis at Shortstop, with relegating Emilio Bonifacio to Right Field.
Jose Reyes Injury:
Dissecting The Blockbuster Trade Between The Blue Jays And The Marlins
Wednesday, November.14/2012
Jose Reyes is a .291 Career Hitter and has averaged 55 Steals and 110 Runs Per 162 Games Played. He should have no problem scoring runs with Encarnacion and Joey Bats hitting in the middle of the lineup for Toronto.
Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Writer): Follow @chuckbooth3024
I think you can safely say that the off-season has truly begun! I was writing on my computer yesterday when the big trade blew up on twitter. I live in White Rock, British Colombia, Canada, so you can only imagine how excited the whole country of Canada was to talk about baseball on the big media Social Website. Within minutes, it was clear that the Marlins and Jays were talking about a huge deal. There is a remarkable quality that I have admired about Alex Anthopoulos for a few years now. That his organization is pretty tight-lipped about their negotiations with any MLB team, just as it was with the Marlins on Tuesday. I waited a few minutes and then…..WHAM! A Blockbuster trade came right down the PIKE! Here is the trade in case you have been living under a rock for the past 24 hours.
To visit the 2013 Updated Version of the Toronto Blue Jays 2013 Payroll Blog I did click here
To the Blue Jays 2012 Stats:
SS/2B Jose Reyes .287 11 HRs 57 RBI, 86 Runs, 40 SB
SP Josh Johnson 8-14 3.81 ERA 191.1 IP 165 SO
C John Buck .192 12 HRs 41 RBI
2B/ss/3B/ Emilio Bonifacio .258 1 HR 11 RBI, 30 Runs, 25 SB in 244 AB
SP Mark Buehrle 13-13 3.74 ERA 202. IP (12th straight year of 200 IP+)
4 Million Dollars Cash
To the Marlins:
SS Yunel Escobar .253 9 HRs 51 RBI
2B/SS Adeiny Hechavarria .254 2 HRs 10 RBI, 126 AB
C Jeff Mathis .218 8 HRs 27 RBI, 211 AB
SP Henderson Alvarez 9-14 4.85 ERA 187.2 IP
Also Prospects:
SP Justin Nicolino:
RP: Anthony DeSclafini:
The Blue Jays Payroll 2013: A Reader’s thoughts On The Jays Part 7 of a 7 Article Series
Wednesday, September.12/2012
Note from Chuck Booth: Sometimes at the Reports, we are fortunate to have someone take out some serious time to write a huge-detailed explanation of their thoughts on a piece we have written about. I was blown away by the enthusiasm of one of these such readers. Alex Mednick and I started back and forth on the piece I wrote about the 2013 Toronto Blue Jays and I suggested that we should give his analysis a full appreciation by posting it in a guest column for him, So this is Alex’s guest column:
Alex Anthopoulos has fixed a lot of the problems that J.P. Ricciardi left him with. It will take a few more years to see the club reap the benefits of the stock-piled talent coming from the replenished Minor League System.
Alex Mednick: (Special Guest Writer):
Update after the Nov.13 Trade with Miami:
Man, I gotta say…The move with the Miami Marlins made by the Blue Jays shows that management want’s to play ball. Signing Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle give the Blue Jays two bonafide front-end starters to add into the mix in 2013. With a healthy year from Johnson and Morrow, you’ve got to guys with electric stuff going 1-2, and Buehrle is about as solid of a #3 any team could wish for. Romero in the number 4 slot, takes a lot of pressure off of him to bounce back, and even if he can simply perform at 90% of what he is capable of…it’s a pretty sight for the Blue Jays to have this kind of rotation in the AL East. Management definitely quieted some dubious fans and put it’s money where it’s mouth is!
The signing of 29 year old Jose Reyes gives the Blue Jays a superstar shortstop up the middle for the next 5 years. A guy to lead off who gets on base and steals 40+ bases a year will be very nice to set up the table for Bautista, Encarnacaion and Lawrie. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Blue Jays still added some more pop to the lineup by trading for an offensively minded left fielder or DH.
The Blue Jays inherited a lot of salary from the deal, but only parted with a few prospects from their deep farm system (Nicolino…one of the Big 3 pitchers, Hechevarria, and Marisnick). They now have Bonifacio and Izturis at 2nd base who are nearly identical players and can deal from a sudden strength there in a emaciated 2nd base market…and they have a plethora of catchers in another thin market, that they can trade. Not to mention the remainder of their extensively talented farm system which they can use as trade bait.
I don’t think the Blue Jays are happy with expecting Adam Lind to bounce back, and I’m unsure whether they are comfortable with Gose/Rasmus in CF either so I would expect them to bring in another outfielder or DH. They already have incredible speed on the basepaths between Gose, Lawrie, Bonifacio, Reyes and Davis.
They may still go after ANOTHER pitcher in the mold of Edwin Jackson, but it is doubtful that they want to spend any more money on the rotation after acquiring Johnson and Buehrle. If they did anything it would likely be via trade, but why when they have Drew Hutchinson, Kyle Drabek, JA Happ and a bunch of other great 5th starter possibilities laying in wait? They are more likely at this point to use trading chips for offense/and or bench players.
The Blue Jays finally made a bold move that shows they recognize that with their current players/contracts/core and the current health of the AL East…the time to strike was now…we couldn’t continue to wait for a rich farm to develop and then harvest. Who would have ever guessed that the two front end starters we required this offseason would come in a single trade? Out of nowhere! And we knew that Yunel Escobar was on the trading block, but we never would have expected to have a Super Star like Jose Reyes at SS for the next 5 years? I know the Blue Jays inquired on Reyes last year during the offseason, but wow…All we can say is “Thank you Mr. Loria”.
I really enjoyed your analysis of the Blue Jays future (for that blog click here ) along with your digest of the various possibilities and directions that may chose going forward.
Furthermore, you hit the nail on the head: When Alex Anthopoulos inherited this team from J.P. Ricciardi, he was merely a protégé of a failed, and over-hyped GM (Ricciardi), who was the protégé of Billy Beane…possibly also “over-hyped”. If Anthopoulos learned anything from his time working under J.P. Ricciardi, and his time sweeping floors in Montreal it may have been this: “While some people may quantify your value based on perceived potential, it is best to quantify yourself on what you have actually done”. Therefore, Anthoploulos wasted no time making moves and proving to all of Canada (along with most of baseball) that he truly is a Ninja. Somehow, someway…he was able to convince the Angels brass, and the ChiSox to fill in the holes that Ricciardi had dug with contract extensions to Vernon Wells and Alex Rios (respectively).
For Part 1 of a 7 Part Article Series: The Toronto Blue Jays Franchise 1977-1993, click here
For Part 6 of the 7 Part Series: Blue Jays 2013 Team Payroll Click here:
The Toronto Blue Jays Payroll 2013 and Contracts (Updated For MIA Trade Nov.13/2012)
Monday, September.10/2012
Note from Chuck Booth: I am attempting to bring the history for each of the 30 MLB Franchises into a 5 part series that will focus on 1. The teams history. 2. The hitters 3. The pitchers. 4. The Teams Payroll going into 2013 and 5.The Ball Park that they play in. (The stadium articles will all be done next summer when I go to all of the parks in under a month again.) Be sure to check my author page with a list of all of my archived articles section here.
The Blue Jays have not qualified for the Playoffs since they won Back to Back World Series in 1992 and 1993. At that time, they were around the top of the MLB Payroll for all teams. How much will they spend in 2013?
Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Writer): Follow @chuckbooth3024
It has been a disastrous season for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2012. Only the Boston Red Sox can usurp them in the AL East for being more disappointing. It is not entirely anyone’s fault, injuries to many key pitchers-plus the loss of Jose Bautista just after the All-Break, crippled the team’s ability to compete. Just chalk up the season to unlucky. Fortunately for the Blue Jays, Alex Anthopoulos has kept the team flexible with the payroll going forward. I still think that getting out of the Vernon Wells and Alex Rios contracts was the biggest ‘Houdini Act’ of the New Millennium. Since he got out from under those contracts, only Joey Bats makes more than 10 Million Dollars now on the club. To contend in the AL East, the Jays will need to spend at least 100-110 Million Dollars. The core of the team is intact for a couple of more years. From 2013-2016 is the clubs best window to make a charge at the playoffs and have some success.
Perhaps the best move that the Blue Jays GM did this year was to lock up Edwin Encarnacion to a 3 YR/27 Million Dollar contract before he hit the Free Agency Market. In a downtrodden year, EE could have requested an arm and leg for his services and been obliged. He left between 8-10 Million Dollars on the Table in my opinion. The keys will be to lock up a couple of their young player to long-term contracts. The catching looks solid (Arencibia and Mathis) for years to come with some more prospects filtering through the Minor Leagues (Travis D’arnaurd.) Trading away Eric Thames and Travis Snider paved the way for the club to lock-up Colby Rasmus long-term-and maybe take a run at a power hitting Outfielder. The team’s starting pitching must heal up from multiple Tommy John Surgeries and come back to be relevant. The team should definitely be players for free agent pitchers.
For Part 1 of a 7 Part Article Series: The Toronto Blue Jays Franchise 1977-1993, click here
For Part 7 of the 7 Part Series: Blue Jays 2013 Team Payroll: A Readers Thoughts, Click Here:
Josh Johnson brings a career record of 56-37 (.602) to the Blue Jays lineup in 2013. With one year and 13.75 Million Dollars left on this current deal. will Toronto try and extend him or wait to see if he can stay healthy all year.
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