GeorgiaPeach

Ahhh. I haven't frequented this forum as much as I posted on the old forum. The only posters I really have an idea of what they're about are the regulars from the old site, people I've been to games with, or posters I play or have played Fantasy Ball with.

Statistical knowledge is good. But sometimes people who are very good with numbers boil everything down to a number and ignore everything else.

Because a cooler head may eventually prevail. And it might not be CoolerHeadsPrevail.

What does non-applicable intelligence have to do with baseball?

TORONTO—Max Pentecost is about to find out a lot more about Canada. Max Pentecost (Photo by Cliff Welch) Max Pentecost (Photo by Cliff Welch) The 21-year-old catcher from Kennesaw State, who had never been north of the border and admitted he knew little about Canada, was assigned to short-season Vancouver after signing for slot value at $2.9 million. Before reporting to Vancouver, the 11th overall pick needed to obtain a passport and work out at the organization’s training site in Dunedin, Fla. Pentecost said that the closest he had been to Canada was Massachusetts and Maine. “I’m a huge outdoorsman, so I’ve always watched hunting videos, and I know Canada’s got good hunting and fishing, and that it’s a beautiful country,” he said. Toronto could be a longtime future address for Pentecost, who won the Johnny Bench award as college baseball’s top catcher. The Blue Jays, who took Pentecost three picks after selecting injured East Carolina righthander Jeff Hoffman, also like his hitting. “I’m more of a gap-to-gap, line-drive kind of guy,” he said. “I have power, but I’m not known as a power hitter, you know, it kind of happens. I feel I have pretty decent speed for baserunning or stealing bags. “I usually have a pretty good approach, hit offspeed well. I know there’s a few things I’m going to have to work on and I can be better at.” This was Pentecost’s second draft experience. The Rangers took him out of a Winder, Ga., high school in the seventh round in 2011. He decided to attend Kennesaw State after the Rangers wanted to put a special clause in his contract because of a recurring injury, a stress fracture on the tip of his elbow. The injury first occurred when he was a sophomore at Windsor-Barrow High near Atlanta. Rest and rehabilitation were prescribed but the injury recurred during his junior and senior years. JAYS CHATTER • Hoffman signed for $3.1 million. He had Tommy John surgery in May and is probably about a year away from pitching. • General manager Alex Anthopoulos said it is possible that righthander Aaron Sanchez could be in the majors as a starter or reliever before the end of the season. (He will join the 40-man roster this offseason, regardless.) He earned an early-May promotion to Triple-A Buffalo, where he went 0-2, 4.18 in six staarts after making an adjustment to his arm slot.

MANCHESTER, N.H.—There probably won’t be a game the entire season with as many potential impact prospects on the field as there were Saturday night between Double-A New Hampshire and Portland. There was a dream pitching matchup of Red Sox lefthander Henry Owens and Blue Jays lefty Daniel Norris, the No. 15 and No. 25 prospects in baseball, respectively. With 22-year-old Red Sox catcher Blake Swihart (No. 14) and 21-year-old Blue Jays center fielder Dalton Pompey in the lineup (No. 47), the game featured four prospects from the Baseball America Midseason Top 50. Aside from the Futures Game—where all three except Swihart were last week—it’s hard to cram more high-end prospect action into a three-hour window than we had in this game. Changing Speeds Key For Owens It was a strong start for Owens, who held the Fisher Cats to two runs over 6 1/3 innings, with six strikeouts, one walk and nine hits allowed. The bread-and-butter pitch for Owens is his changeup, an easy plus offering that flashes well above-average at times, generating nine swings and misses on Saturday. Owens’ changeup is arguably his only plus pitch, but he uses it so effectively that it helps makes his two-seam fastball seem harder. The first time through the order, Owens attacked hitters with his fastball, operating at 87-91 mph with heavy sink. When he ran into trouble with runners on base, he reached back for a little extra velocity, throwing 90-93 mph. “It might be adrenaline, might be a little more effort,” said Owens, who turned 22 today. “With runners in scoring position with less than two outs, I’ll try to amp it up, try to get a swing and miss, but I’m pitching to contact, so I’ll change speeds with my fastball throughout the game.” Starting the second time through the order, Owens leaned more heavily on his secondary stuff, throwing any pitch in any count. Let’s walk through his at-bats against the switch-hitting Pompey. Leading off the bottom of the first, Owens fed Pompey three straight fastballs, with Pompey swinging through an 89-mph two-seamer on a 1-1 pitch. Pompey can consistently square up mid-90s velocity, but even at 89 mph, Owens’ fastball can be a swing-and-miss pitch. His delivery has deception as he drops the ball downhill from his high three-quarters arm slot and 6-foot-6 frame. With the extension he generates, the movement on his fastball and hitters having to stay back in case he drops a changeup, Owens generates a surprising number of tardy swings even when he’s throwing in the high-80s. On the next pitch, Owens finished Pompey swinging through a slow, big-breaking curveball at 72 mph. The next time up, Owens went to the offspeed stuff. He started him with a curveball for a strike looking, then a 91-mph fastball that Pompey fouled off to get ahead 0-2. Pompey laid off back-to-back changeups, then let a 92-mph fastball travel deep, shooting it to right field with an inside-out swing for a single. Owens had Pompey confused the rest of the night. The next time Pompey came up, Owens needed three pitches: An 88-mph fastball for a called strike on the outside corner, a 78-mph changeup that Pompey swung over the top of, then back to the inside corner with a 91-mph fastball to freeze him for the called third strike. The best pitch sequence Owens threw all night came in his final matchup against Pompey: 1. Changeup, 77 mph: Foul 2. Changeup, 78 mph: Strike, swinging 3. Fastball, 91 mph: Foul 4. Changeup, 77 mph: Strikeout, swinging “I was trying to get him as uncomfortable as possible,” Owens said. “He’s at his best when he’s comfortable, especially from the right side of the plate. I had a good offspeed mix working. The first time I got him on a curveball, and then the second time he fought off a good fastball for a single, that was a good at-bat. Then I got him with a fastball in and finished him with a changeup later. He had good at-bats. I think, just the moment of the game, the last two at-bats, I kind of geared up and he did too, so it was a fun battle.” After the first time through the lineup, Owens was mixing his pitches liberally, to the point where he was throwing fewer than 50 percent fastballs. He threw first-pitch changeups and doubled up on the pitch frequently. He did get hit when he made mistakes up in the zone with the changeup, but he mostly sells the pitch with consistent arm speed and deception, with excellent separation off his fastball. The curveball has always been a pitch that comes and goes for Owens, but on Saturday it was effective. At 72-74 mph, Owens’ curveball is at the slower end of the scale, which gives hitters more time to react and read the pitch out of his hand. If he’s not precise with his location or he gets around the ball, it’s liable to be a below-average pitch that could get crushed. Yet Owens shows feel to manipulate spin on his curveball with big, rainbow break, so it can be an average pitch when it’s on, which Owens felt it was on Saturday. “Honestly, my curveball felt more consistent, but my changeup was there when I needed it, and the curveball felt good. I was trying to throw it off my fastball, a couple pitches drifted up in the zone, but for the most part, they stayed down in the zone.” Improved control has helps Owens, who dropped his walk rate from 4.6 per nine innings last year mostly with high Class A Salem down to 3.3 walks per nine this season. If he can maintain those improvements in his command and make his curveball a more consistent pitch, he could be a No. 2 or No. 3 starter. “Strong outing,” Portland manager Billy McMillon said. “He pitched well. He was able to initiate his breaking ball a lot more today and his changeup was really good. He pitched well, one of his better outings of the year. “He’s working on being more consistent with all of his pitches. He has a lot of confidence in his fastball/changeup and he’s getting ever more confident with that breaking ball, so it’s good to see him mixing in all counts today. He pitched very effectively.” Norris Leaves Early Again The good news for Norris was that he lasted longer than his last start, when he got yanked after just two outs having gone over his 30-pitch limit for a single inning in the first. Early on, Norris was effective. The 21-year-old retired the first eight hitters he faced, mowing down batters the first two innings while pitching almost exclusively off his fastball, which sat 90-94 mph and touched 95. Here he is striking out Red Sox second baseman Sean Coyle with precise location in the second inning: The third inning started well, with a pair of fastballs to retire Jonathan Roof on a routine groundout to shortstop, then a big-breaking, 73-mph curveball to freeze Peter Hissey for the strikeout. But a double by Ryan Dent, a walk to Derrik Gibson and a Shannon Wilkerson single brought home the first run. After that, Swihart took a 1-2 pitch over the left field fence for his 11th home run of the season, making it 4-0 Portland. After back-to-back singles to start the fourth, Norris took a groundball off his foot for another single to load the bases for Hissey, who singled to left field on a slider to score a run and keep the bases loaded. Dent followed with a line drive up the middle, which Norris appeared to knock down with his left hand, but Dent reached safely scoring another run. That was it for Norris, who appeared fine despite walking off with the trainer. After two of the runners he left on base scored, Norris ended up allowing eight runs on eight hits over five innings, though he did strike out five with only one walk. In terms of pure stuff, Norris was solid, with a plus fastball, an 83-86 mph changeup with good sink that flashed above-average, a solid slider in the mid-80s and a usable 73-75 mph curveball that looked like his fourth-best pitch. Norris has a history of command issues, and he does throw across his body, but his athleticism was evident (certainly moreso than with Owens) and the stuff was solid, even while the results were not. Swihart, Pompey Showcase Skills Blake Swihart pop time Blake Swihart pop time Swihart finished the game 2-for-5, with the home run against Norris and a first-pitch, 91-mph fastball he ripped up the middle for a run-scoring single off righthander Scott Gracey in the sixth inning. He showed defensive skills in the bottom of the third inning with Pompey on first base. With Owens throwing an 0-1 changeup, Pompey took off for second. The pitch was low, but Swihart made an athletic move with nifty footwork by snapping the ball up, quickly transferring the ball to his throwing hand and firing an above-average, accurate throw to second base in 1.91 seconds, but it wasn’t quite enough to catch Pompey’s plus speed (see the third video). Pompey struck out three times against Norris, but he still finished 2-for-5. Pompey’s swing is geared more for line drives and keeping the ball on the ground, which will limit his power potential, but in his final at-bat he drove a first-pitch fastball from Noe Ramirez into the right-center field gap for a double. With at least 10 scouts in the stands, Owens lived up to his reputation as a pitcher who could develop into a mid-rotation starter or better, while Swihart and Pompey both showed the skills to be two-way threats and potentially above-average players. Having seen Norris’ last two starts—one in which he gave up a season-high eight runs, the other lasting a season-low two-thirds of an inning—it’s difficult to jump to conclusions when you’re clearly seeing a talented pitcher at his worst.

You can move around the entire park with ease. I didn't spend much time in Seattle but did take time to go take pictures of the Cobain house.

We're fielding a AAA lineup for the next 3-4 weeks.

I'd welcome a major re-tooling with open arms over the has-beens they've been fielding the past 1.5 years.

I still didn't have a problem with where the team was before the Marlins and Dickey trades, no idea why the Jays trudged down this road, or why they can't head back. But apparently everyone is against building a team patiently through the farm. So, oh well. No idea who the Jays were selling out to. The casuals who weren't coming when we didn't have name players, would've shown up eventually.

I agree about the payroll being market appropriate. What I disagree with is ownership saying "okay, here's this huge sack of 35m go build us a contender over the course of one off season." Doing that forces a GM to seek out trade(s) or free agents attempting to spend this huge amount of money they were handed in a short amount of time and rapidly. You give someone time to handle the money and properly and there's a likelier chance they spend it more efficiently than a force quick spend.....depending on the person.

Anticipating another Dickey book.

If Rogers isn't giving Alex any flex to bring on a vet, then the Jays should be in sell mode. And if Alex doesn't sell, then he needs to be fired.

It's not small, but lumping the Jays in with the Yanks or Dodgers is beyond silly, they're easily in a couple tiers up on the Jays and there's a handful of other teams who are a superstar salary up on the Jays. Something the Jays FO won't touch, so the Jays are essentially not in the same level as a bunch of other teams.

So how's this gonna work? They refuse to trade anyone from their 25 man, leaving only prospects to trade and they want to bring on a vet making millions. This is getting plain stupid.

Just f***ing around with you bud. Now accept my trade offer.

Link bro?? Otherwise it wasn't planned.

Crossing fingers Alex has a deal in place to move Janssen

And this amazing fan base we have will give him a nice cheer. Guarantee it.

I'd rather the Jays give Drabek a shot in the 'pen instead of this audition or showcasing of Sanchez. There's no reason to rush prospects, unless the org. is ultra conservative to where they're waiting until every guy is like 25, 26 and then promote.

There's some underlying reason for this, besides "let's bring Sanchez up to pitch out of the 'pen and make us better." Otherwise I'd have preferred they give Drabek a try out of the pen before Sanchez

Beeston hasn't been here for the last 20 years.

Hanlan's Point

He was explaining what it was at the time, which is 100% accurate. Camden Yards built a couple years after was the starting point to the retro stadium craze. Haven't you been paying attention of late? The Jays Brass are looking into replacing the turf with a grass surface when the Argos lease expires around 2017 and the Rogers Centre becomes a baseball only facility.

Josh Thole would be happy. Or would the Jays have to find the catcher who caught Zambrano the most, sign him and carry 4 catchers?