fireballW

Umm of course not make the decision on the best possible outcome. YOU need to get your head out of the sand because that is not what people are saying. It's a year where we need better pitching than Rogers and Redmond could offer. The other guys at least have a CHANCE of that. If the organization sees a big change in Romero's stuff and if he looks good there is no reason to not start him instead of ESMIL ROGERS! At least give ourselves a chance to make the playoffs. A lot changes after a couple months. There are enough stories of people coming back after a winter* off and being very different ballplayers. Deciding before camp even starts to not even pay any attention to what happens in camp with some of your higher upside starters is ridiculous.

There are lots of examples of pitchers going through things like this and then making a comeback. Cliff Lee is one example who lost it after numerous Romero type seasons, was sent down and still sucked, but then the next year became one of the best in the league. Halladay is an example of a guy like Drabek who lost it, started walking as many as he struck out and needed to go back down to the minors. I am not saying these players will do these things. But they happen!! If you close yourself off to the possibility of these things happening, then you are really giving yourself a chance to miss out. If our rotation was full then I get it, but we're talking about guys like Redmond and Rogers potentially blocking guys like Romero or McGowan if they are looking good? AA pinpointed the exact inning in a game that Romero's STUFF (not results) just look a large step up. The next game Romero came out and had a decent outing. Why the hell wouldn't we be open to seeing what he could do. He lost it in a hurry, there is no reason he can't find it again just as fast.

McGowan isn't going to make the team? Huwat?? Anyway, guess we have different opinions. I for one am glad the Jays sometimes use spring training to evaluate though. As ordinary as JA Happ was last year to start the year, it was better than watching Romero who was going to be out 5th starter.

Rogers is horrendous. Happ isn't much better, Redmond we don't know. But none of them are good enough to deserve to have these spots. You are completely limiting your chance for getting any upside out of this rotation, when the only thing that will give us a shot is getting lucky on a couple of these guys breaking out. It's easy to say that about Drabek now that he's sucking. But after 6 walks in nearly 50IP at the end of last year, if he came out, dominated and walked only like 2 guys in 20IP, we'd all want him to get a shot including you. It isn't a coincidence that the one guy doing good this spring is the one guy whose spring training stats didn't matter. McGowan's put up a better season than Hutch. He was a lot of reporter's pick for darkhorse Cy Young candidate. Sure he never really dominated in the MLB but this is pretty much it for him unless he steps up. We've paid him a lot to be injured, if he is healthy we should get our money's worth while we can. IF he is healthy I'd definitely take him over Redmond. Of course things that you see and that happen in ST should mean something. For 93.43% of the players it doesn't but for some it certainly should. Players can and have changed a lot of an offseason.

Drabek is in about the exact same position as Hutchison. With how good his control was, if he had come in throwing strikes each game in ST then it should have definitely had an influence. McGowan if he was healthy and had all his stuff working (mid-90's fastball + awesome off speed pitches) would have worked his way into the rotation. Even Romero, yeah if he all of a sudden looks like the old Romero (which AA hinted at his stuff all of a sudden looking better than it had in two years) then OF COURSE all of a sudden you need to start thinking about him over Happ. It is called "position battles". It is not smart to lock up your rotation without even checking out the players in ST. The whole point to position battles is that it is already close between the players, whether it be injuries or results, so whoever looks better in ST should get them job. By better that doesn't mean results, but velocity, command, off speed stuff of course. And if a pitcher is showing that it usually follows that they'd be having good results in the spring.

Can we please get Brad Miller and let them keep Franklin. Brad Miller is super fantastic and all spring they are batting him low in the batting order and actually making him compete for a spot at shortstop he deserves. Let them keep Franklin and take Miller please.

Don't think this has been brought up so I will just add a little fuel to the fire. AA was interviewed by Blair in regards to Santana and near the end here was his quote (or close to it)... "I'm actually pretty excited to see Romero today, just because the second inning of last game...was... we haven't seen that in two years from him. So I'm curious has he found something or was it just an unbelievable inning from him. But he's been working a lot on his arm action, doing towel drills, trying to emulate a little bit Johan Santana and Cliff Lee a little bit. The second inning of his last appearance his stuff was electric. We haven't seen that in 2 years from him. So I'll be very curious to see if it carries over with all the work that he's done." .... and then today it did carry over. He wasn't asked about him, just brought him up. It could happen. I remember when Cliff Lee was almost out of baseball, struggling. Romero and Hutchinson!

I am one of the few that believes AA can still be a very good GM. As weird as it sounds I think he just needs to get the spark back, which could probably start by him just getting a bit healthier and getting some more confidence. But there are two things I am having a hard time getting over. One of them is why just because Butterfield left, we had to stop using defensive shifts as much. We had been one of the pioneers in the rest of the league seeing just how valuable it was, along with TB, but then we stopped just because our infield coach left? The other is Walker still being here. None of our pitchers have really over performed since he's been here and many have under performed, including a few complete disasters! Why is this guy anywhere near our pitchers at this point? Why would any of them have any confidence in him as their coach?

I have almost as much faith in Romero as I have in Morrow at this point. It was good when they told him he doesn't need to throw as hard as he can all the time and stressed the importance of location, but now he seems to just throw 91-93 most of the time. Kind of sad.

You are talking to a fanbase that thought AJ Burnett would be excited to come back to Toronto if there offer was the same as other teams. Don't expect to get anywhere.

Cool. Continue thinking money is the only thing that matters to players at the end of their careers.

Said it when he became available and will say it again. Anybody who think AJ would return to Toronto without being massively overpaid is kidding themselves. The most famous game of the last three years is because of just how badly our fans shiat on AJ Burnett upon his return. No way he was coming here for anywhere near equal value despite him saying all the right things. Just common sense.

If he's going to suck on defense just put him at second base instead. One of the best arms in baseball and he'll be playing 1B.

At this point it should be Walker syndrome.

My God since Pete Walker has been here SP have not performed to expectations at all. Even young guys coming up just can't seem crack through. Maybe it's not his fault, but after seeing Arnsberg get the most out of some pretty bad pitchers for years, it is pretty frustrating to see Walker still around. It seems our pitchers get worse each season.

The biggest mistake was trading Syndergaard. I really hope they didn't have the option between choosing whether to give Sanchez or Syndergaard. It was painfully obvious he was more valuable at the time with his superior control.

Yawn. It's a blue jays message board, not a journal article. Get a life maybe?

You are quoting me earlier in the thread where I said I think Drabek will be one of our teams two breakout pitchers and somehow using that as evidence against me in a later post where I am making a "well durh obviously nobody would BET MONEY on Drabek breaking out because there are only 4 or 5 guys in all of baseball safe enough to bet on a breakout season." Congratulations on being completely oblivious to being a dumbass and I look forward to watching you flail away further on this topic to try and convince people that I meant something other than what I typed for no apparent reason.

Seriously. How can somebody be dumb enough to read that post and get out of it that I would bet on Drabek breaking out. God people here are getting dumber all the time. The whole point to the post was to say OBVIOUSLY nobody would BET on Drabek to break out. that there are only a very few pitchers you would BET to breakout. But that my gut says Drabek will this year and there are some good reasons too, despite all the negative ones people are pointing out. Just wow.

I believe Arencibia's negative effect on the rotation is not even measurable. Hopefully major league pitchers are tougher mentally than I was, but still I can't imagine they weren't annoyed by the way he wouldn't even flip up a target until either the last possible second, or not at all. I had a catcher who wouldn't put up a clear target before when pitching and couldn't stand it. In fact just pitching to such a cocky, arrogant catcher would have me annoyed each time he signaled for me to calm down or each visit he'd make to the mound. It's hard to pitch to a guy you don't like / respect. Let alone one that is terrible and cocky at the same time.

Ur dumn

Halladay's career path is still the one that reminds me the most of Drabek. I just can't write off his control like some people can. He went from decent control to terrible control to amazing control, same as Halladay. Injuries are a clear difference between the two, but coming up Drabek was never a guy expected to run into big control problems. He has it in him to throw strikes and at the end of last year he was just tooooo good with his control for me to write it off as SSS.

There are maybe 4 or 5 pitchers in the MLB that it would be a safe bet to actually bet on to breakout. It's very clear way more pitchers bust than breakout. There are lots of arguments against Drabek, but some good ones for him.

Drabek will be one of the 2 breakout pitchers this year.