Zen Dayley: Halladay stays, Rolen goes, and so should that attitude

Hang on tightly, let go lightly.

The straight from the gut is that keeping Roy Halladay and moving third baseman Scott Rolen to the Cincinnati Reds calls to mind a line from The Simpsons when Homer got a dishonorable discharge from the U.S. Navy: "It's the most any of us could have hoped for." Thirteen more Halladay starts, plus several million off next season's payroll? Score! Great move, Paul Beeston J.P. Ricciardi!

The wild guess that the juice (sorry for the double entendre, Red Sox Nation) was not worth the squeeze with regard to the Rogers Jays trading Halladay actually turned out to be right ("I know, kids, I'm scared too."). Granted, sometimes making moves to appease fans can be very bad for a team's record.

Rolen will be missed the first time the third baseman they got for him, 26-year-old Edwin Encarnacion, uncorks a throw that reminds us there is no fair catch rule in Canada.

Whoever is making the calls seems to have shrewdly gauged the law of diminishing returns with Rolen. He is 34 years old. He has only been healthy two of the past five seasons. In case people forgot (or never knew to begin with), was in Toronto because he asked out of St. Louis.

Taken together, Halladay's Non-Independence Day and people being upset over seeing Rolen go to some wrongheaded thinking. Who are we, White Sox fans?

This is not an apologia for the Roger Jays. Stephen Brunt nailed it when he wrote of Rogers, "there is a reason the NFL forbids corporate ownership of its franchises."

It is more an appeal for some clear eyes to go along with the full hearts of those who hang in season after also-ran season. One enduring belief in my whole watching baseball through adult eyes life is that the entire history of the game is a history of money.

That is a main reason why the Yankees are pretty much always on top. The only exceptions were when they were, wait for it, owned by a media conglomerate (CBS in the late '60s and early '70s) and the period when George Steinbrenner was at his most megalomaniacal, demanding the Yankees trade away future all-stars such as Fred McGriff, Doug Drabek, and of course, Jay Buhner ("Ken Phelps, Ken Phelps") to plug leaks on the big club.

The Boston Red Sox had ownership issues around that time; old Tom Yawkey, a sole proprietor, died in 1976 and the franchise was kind of circling the drain until his widow passed. It took another decade beyond that before John Henry, Larry Lucchino and Tom Werner got the Red Sox. That is a big piece of understanding which is left out when people hearken back on the Jays' glory years, 1983-93. The twin banes of their existence were both a mess in hindsight.

Baseball also had a two-division format in each league and a balanced schedule (AL teams played 13 games vs. each division rival instead of the current 18 or 19), which also levelled the playing field. Part of the reason that changed is ESPN. The rule of thumb two decades ago was that regular-season baseball was a write-off in terms of the U.S. TV audience. A 162-game season, as opposed to the NFL's 16, means there was not enough at stake to draw in the casual viewer. NFL fans can count on seeing certain personalities. There's nothing like that in baseball.

ESPN refuted that and Bud Selig, who is no dummy, fulfilled their need to play up rivalries by creating the unbalanced schedule and interleague play. People can kick and scream about ESPN, but a lot of their themes filter up from the audience. By and large, people want to see the Sox and Yanks ad nauseam.

That illustrates why baseball has an unbalanced schedule while carrying on as if it is a fair fight for the eight playoff berths. It sucks. However, deep-down, as fans people have to accept the sporting tail wags the business dog. The Red Sox and Yankees are also paired with regional sports networks (NESN and the YES network). The difference for the Rogers Jays, to borrow from a comment good friend Pete Toms left at ShysterBall when the Halladay soap opera premiered, "There just aren’t enough ball fans here." There were only 24,000 people at Halladay's last home start, which Rogers Sportsnet did not even broadcast to the entire country. Some show of love. It's enough to make one utter the words "death spiral," but if the Pittsburgh Pirates haven't been moved after 17 losing seasons in a row, the Jays should be safe.

This is straying farther afield than anticipated. The point was to address the derision, some of it Twitter-amplified, about dealing Rolen and keeping Halladay, and to reiterate the folly of falling in love with players instead of falling in like, unless it's for humourous effect (here one thinks of The Tao dubbing Rolen GBOAT for Greatest Blue Jay of All Time).

The Jays did what they said they would. In Mike Wilner's phrasing, "They listened, they weren't blown away," so they passed. It is amusing, as others have pointed out, that the same people who said Ricciardi was unfit to make this deal will now rip him for not making said deal.

(By the way, within a hour after that became official, the NHL's Edmonton Oilers have said they are officially not interested in making a trade for disgruntled Dany Heatley. Honestly, it was just ass-talking writ large to say two weeks ago that the Jays would "trade Halladay the same day the Ottawa Senators deal Dany Heatley.")

The upshot is that there is still time to work out something amenable for Halladay, as Bart Given wrote before the trade deadline. The price tag might be lower, but it will still be more than the two compensatory draft choices a team gets for losing a big-time free agent.

"Assuming the mandate of remains the same, the Blue Jays will try and move their ace beginning in November. His value will be less than right now, as he will have just six months left under his current contract. On the positive side, there will be more interested teams in the mix as organizations ponder the opportunity to build their off-season around acquiring Roy Halladay.

"From a fan perspective it has to be torture. It will be like a farewell tour for the remainder of the season. I guess some fans will hold out hope ownership changes itss mind and tells Ricciardi to pull him off the market – or that no trade package is good enough. Unlikely – but possible I guess."

As for complaining about the loss of Rolen, please. Beyond Aaron Hill, who is signed through 2014 counting club options, the rest of the Jays infield consisted of three likeable 30-somethings they can move out for a younger and/or more productive player (whether one materializes, well...).

True, Rolen is hitting .320. However, his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is an unsustainable .342 (most players come down to the median, which is around .290). Going month by month, he just had a 200-point drop in OPS from June (.966) to July (.761), and that was still with an average BABIP (.301). You don't make calls based on one month, but one wonders if his July performance was closer to reality.

Please keep in mind Rolen was acquired straight up for Troy Glaus, who hasn't played all season. You could say the deal was Glaus for Encarnacion and two relievers with some potential. From FanGraphs:

"Josh Roenicke looks like a decent middle reliever who will be glad to get off the Louisville-Cincinnati shuttle. His fastball has some giddyup and he throws a solid cutter as well.

"Zachary Stewart is the 'get' of the trade. He has a 92-95 MPH fastball with good sink and a hard cutting 82-85 MPH slider. He’s quickly climbed the ladder, pitching at High-A, Double-A and now Triple-A, and has a cumulative 2.92 FIP (fielding-independent pitching) in 92 innings pitched. He pitched mostly out of the bullpen last year but is showing some good promise as a starter. He’s a solid B grade pitcher.

Of course, that would be too honest and rational. It's just that people shouldn't start dismaying over Rolen. The Jays picked up some young talent for very little. Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo did that with his trade with the Golden States for guard Marco Belinelli this week and was hailed as a genius.

For pity's sake, when all this was going down, a friend who knows better started dismaying about Hill leaving. Of course, he'll leave someday. All players do. And one day the sun will explode and since cockroaches and columnists are all that will survive, they’ll blame that on J.P. Ricciardi, too.

DocTalk: The juice ain't worth the squeeze

Reading anything into the Blue Jays setting up their pitching rotation so Roy Halladay gets two starts at home before the July 31 trade deadline is a fool's play, likely.

It is just that if Halladay was throwing Friday against the Red Sox instead of Sunday, his next two starts would come on the road, assuming a normal five-man rotation with no one getting bumped. This way, with the temporary move to a four-man rostation, Halladay is in line to start a Friday home game on July 24 vs. the Tampa Bay Rays, so if Doc is headed out of Toronto (to possibly Philadelphia, San Francisco or St. Louis) that is the night to head down to Rogers Centre with a black armband fashioned out of hockey tape affixed to a powder-blue throwback jersey. (If they were still using a five-man, it would be July 25.)

Gut feeling: Richard Griffin's rationale that the Jays should hold on until the winter, do some fact-facing and say, "We're not gonna contend in the 2010 AL East," makes some sense. The media and fanbase will be on a less of a hair trigger.

The reasoned response all along was that Halladay was not going to be traded before the end of this season. By the way, the snappy answer to the question, "Where is Doc headed?" is, "Cooperstown." Those of you who like to feed two birds with one scone can say, "They'll trade him the same day the Ottawa Senators deal Dany Heatley."

During the all-star game telecast on Tuesday, FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal came off like he was backpedalling like a Pro Bowl cornerback when he reiterated that Halladay would be traded, and now he's admitting the St. Louis Cardinals and L.A. Angels are all but out of the running, although Cardinals fans sure were fawning over the right-hander. No doubt you read speculation that the Yankees could take Vernon Wells ludicrous contract off the Jays' hands. Of course, as Jason Rosenberg at It's About The Money, Stupid noted, adding Wells might be too rich even for the Yankees' blood, even with the extra revenue they're bringing in by streaming broadcasts online. It would potentially leave them with almost $170 million committed to nine players come the 2011 season.

"That's flat out insane. Of course, this doesn't include resigning Halladay or any other free agents. They might try to overpay Jason Bay (assuming he's not signed to an extension by Boston), sign Matt Holliday or any of the eventual Rays free agents. Bottom line, that money's gonna be spent.

"Wells might be another Bobby Abreu with a lower OBP and less SB; a solid player with 20 HR power. Is he 'worth' $23M? Not a chance. Is he worth absorbing that contract to land Halladay, assuming you don't have to give up Joba (Chamberlain), (pitcher Phil) Hughes, (outfield prospect Jesus) Montero? I'm not sure. I've been debating this for a long time and I've been staunchly saying that 'there's no way the Yanks take on Wells,' but maybe I am wrong. (Veteran outfielders Johnny) Damon and (Hideki) Matsui are gone after this year. (Xavier) Nady, too. Can you put Wells in CF for the next few years and have greater productivity than (Brett) Gardner and/or Melky (Cabrera)? Probably. Can you absorb Wells' abortion of a contract for the year and a half (at least) of Halladay's services? I'm not sure."

It cannot be stressed enough that all of this is just a fan's futile attempt to, in the parlance of those MacLean's promos which are played ad nauseam on Blue Jays radio broadcasts, make sense of it all. The best one can do is try to offer some guidelines:

• Baseball Prospectus believes the Jays should act with Halladay and the left side of the infield, 34-year-old third baseman Scott Rolen and 33-year-old shortstop Marco Scutaro. A lot of people have fallen in love with those two, instead of merely falling in like.
  
  
• One should shudder at hearing any rumours about a deal with the Yankees that would send Chamberlain, Hughes, Gardner and Shelley Duncan to Toronto. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Chamberlain has plateaued as a pitcher. Also, he's shown a lack of durability in his career to date, which would make the optics of dealing Halladay even worse.
  
  
• It should have been stressed from the get-go that using the 2008 Erik Bedard trade, where the Baltimore Orioles got all-star outfielder Adam Jones and closer George Sherrill (among others), is a poor baseline. That was more of an anomaly and the GM who signed off on that, Bill Bavasi, has since been fired.


• Meantime, the San Diego Padres' story arc with their ace Jake Peavy is pretty germane. That franchise has overriding internal issues (change of ownership), not unlike the Blue Jays (an interim CEO, a meh attitude in their local market and questions about their uninterested ownership). The Padres were unable to get anything done with Peavy, and are now on course to finish with about 97 losses. The gist of it the Jays probably have to act, but there's a time and place for it and that time is not in the next two weeks.
  

Anyway, you know it's not my style to rubberneck rumours (better to dilettante around committing to nothing, that's how it's done in Sageritaville, right?), but this one was rich:

"The Phillies remain 'very, very interested' in acquiring Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay and are currently putting together a package of prospects that may actually also include recently-signed P Pedro Martinez. The Cardinals are also a favorite to land Halladay if, and only IF they are willing to part with blue-chip prospect, OF Colby Rasmus, along with several other prospects. The Dodgers remain in the action as well and a late entry into the field are the San Francisco Giants who are unsure of the availability of Randy Johnson for the rest of the year. Their package is said to include former AL Cy Young winner Barry Zito and the highly-touted Jonathan Sanchez, who threw a no-hitter in his last start right before the All Star Break.

Halladay and Tim Lincecum in the same starting rotation in San Fran? At least that would be ironic. Another irony for an Ottawa-based Jays fan: Michael Taylor, the one outfielder whom the Phillies are said to have dangled, just got promoted to Lehigh Valley. Oi, a thousand times, oi.

(There's no graceful way to segue into it, but Bart Given has a post up at Inside The Majors explaining what a travelling secretary does in major league baseball. He managed to dig out a picture of George Costanza and Wilhelm from Seinfeld. Kinger referenced Seinfeld when Given was a guest on his CFRC sports show several weeks ago.

A Jay a Day: Chad 'Stephen' Jenkins, the difference is pitchability

Hopefully for Chad Jenkins, it's not a bad omen that MLB.com's draft tracker displayed his name incorrectly for several minutes.

The Blue Jays seem to have said "yes" to the several-million-dollar question about going over slot to sign a draft choice; baseball nerds everywhere, rejoice! There was interest in that than who they were actually going to draft. Jenkins, a Roy Halladay-idolizing right-hander from obscure Kennesaw (Ga.) State, was described as a "a cheap option who could rise quickly to the major leagues." However, they used the compensatory pick they got when A.J. Burnett flew the coop to take a Canadian left-handed pitcher, James Paxton.

Paxton's agent is Scott Boras, so yippie-ki-yay, it looks like they're finally going over slot, finally. Expect that A.J. Burnett angle to become a big part of Paxton's backstory.

Anyway, this is about the slotting thingamajig. Former Jays assistant GM Bart Given wrote Monday night at sportsnet.ca wrote that the Jays pretty much had to do it this time around, if not in the first roundt: "After a while, what's the point of playing the game with one hand tied behind you back?"

For the time being, this looks like a win-win. Leave aside that it is is lily-gilding to say Jenkins was seen as a potential 10th overall pick. The Washington Nationals were seemed mostly interested in using that pick on someone who would "agree to a pre-draft slot deal." Meantime, Paxton, who can touch 98 mph and who played for the University of Kentucky with Ottawa native Chris Bisson, the Wildcats' second baseman, ended up falling to the Jays at 37th overall.

There was some more CanCon. The Jays' second-rounder is another Canadian lefty, Jake Eliopoulos from Walkerton, Ontario. (A pitcher from Walkerton? It must be something in the water. What, too soon?) Hell, if you want to localize even farther, the third-rounder, high school righty Jake Barrett, played for Team USA when it won the silver medal at the world junior championship in Edmonton last summer. Barrett, who was on the cover of ESPN Rise, is apparently supposed to be going to Arizona State.

Anyway, ours is not to say how those four pitchers will develop for the Jays. It would be a minor miracle if two of them have a substantial major-league career. Jenkins, for one, is a very intelligent pitcher, with a three-pitch mix. Oddly enough, if you poke around on Google, "three-pitch mix" comes up a fair bit with Barrett and Eliopoulos. They all have pitchability.

In a sense, it seems like the Jays worked around the broken draft system. As Given explained:

"The MLB draft is broken; the lack of enforceable slotting allows the best players to set a bonus price so high, they essentially place themselves with the teams employing the largest budgets. Not surprisingly these teams have commonly been the Red Sox and Yankees, although the Tigers and a couple of others have joined the superpowers in recent years.

"Toronto's organizational policy of not going over slot has effectively reduced the number of players available for director Jon Lalonde's scouting department to draft. If an amateur player's representative set a high price tag, the Blue Jays have placed him on the 'unsignable due to price' board. In recent years, this board has increased in size to contain hundreds of names.

"In a way, it's been commendable that Toronto has been the only team to play by the rules in recent years. But after a while, what's the point of playing the game with one hand tied behind your back?"

That dynamic came into play with Mike Trout, a high school outfielder from New Jersey who is seen as a five-tool player and who was available. Trout, who is said to be demanding a $2.5-million US signing bonus, went appropriately enough 25th overall to the L.A. Angels (by the way, Bud Selig's pronunciation of "Los Angeles Angels" has to be heard to be believed).

Trout, at least according to MLB Network (like the The Tao of Stieb says, can we get this in Canada, please?), provided the feel-good moment of the first round since he was in the TV studio in Secaucus, N.J. However, it's really kind of twisted. You have a plaer who's elated to be taken 25th instead of 17th since the Angels have a bigger budget than clubs which were drafting earlier. Only in Bud Selig's world could that be treated as positive news.

Anyway, it's nice to see one's favourite team in any sport come around. Imagine the fallout if an owner came out and said he would pay his players the lowest salaries in the major leagues. It would be bloody scandalous. The refusal to go over slot is on a smaller scale. It does not get much attention outside of Seamheads. There's enough trouble in Canada getting people to understand that draft choices cannot be traded in baseball. However, people have to understand, it's not about the payroll with the Jays. It's about what they put into player development at the front end, going over slot in the amateur draft and international scouting. They weren't doing that for several years. There's a little glimmer of promise, although it looked shaky there when Chad Jenkins' name was called tonight. It's probably too naive by half to hope playing the Canada card would help in negotiations with Paxton, but one can always dream.

Jenkins seems like he could be a good buy-low. Two writers at Baseball America who did a mock draft saw him ending up with the Jays:

"We have other options for power lefties in this draft though. Two, Andy Oliver and Canada native James Paxton, are attractive at 20 but also have Scott Boras Corp. advising them. ... In the end, Kennesaw State righthander Chad Jenkins is too attractive. Yes, there are college closers we could convert (and we've had success doing it), but why do that when Jenkins is on the board? He has stuff, he has pitchability and he has relatively low mileage on his arm because the Owls were never postseason-eligible while Jenkins was in college. Make it so." (Emphasis mine.)

For those wondering, Kurtenblog did a riff on "pitchability" right before the 2007 World Series.

Mike Wilner said on Jays Talk tonight that Jenkins expected ETA in the majors would be late 2011. Coming from an off-the-beaten-path school such as Kennesaw State, which plays in something called the Atlantic Sun conference, isn't a mark against him. He didn't put a lot of extra miles on his 21-year-old arm by pitching in the post-season, when college coaches run up ginormous pitch counts.

Plus, you have to like that Jenkins described being scouted as "hot and heavy." He must be a Seinfeld fan.

Bottom line, the Jays took three youngsters with pitch, wait for it, ability.

Besides, it was another part of a good sports night. We're getting a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final. The Orlando Magic ensured the NBA Finals will not be a sweep for Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers. Meantime, at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox lit A.J. Burnett up like the Coconut Grove fire in a 7-0 rout.

(Incidentally, someone in the Tampa Bay Rays front office obviously was a big fan of The Band, judging by the given name of their first-rounder, LeVon Washington.)

OOLF Hot Audio: Bart Given

Today, your humble pseudo-blogger had the pleasure of welcoming former Toronto Blue Jays Assistant GM, Sportsnet columnist, and proprietor of insidethemajors.com, Bart Given, to Offsides, Kingston's most listened-to hourlong sports talk program. And as always, we're sharing the audio here on Out of Left Field, because it's swanky to do so.

So listen on for insights on Bart's rise from in-game entertainment to baseball operations, the methods by which J.P. Ricciardi ran his front office, and finally a few bouts of prognostication, including on Roy Halladay.



(you'll have to boost your volume a bit - I forgot to amplify the mp3 and with how slow my rural internet is, it's not worthwhile to re-upload it)

Also, since my brain was not working well today (flu not quite gone yet apparently), feel free to guffaw at my frequent inability to formulate complete sentences. It's hard to concentrate when you've got to keep your finger on the cough button. Listening to it now at times my voice cracks so much that I almost sound like one of Stewie Griffin's "how about that novel you been workin' on" rants.

That novel you've been working on | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

Jays: Bart Given shares secrets of his soul, hopefully

Former Blue Jays assistant general manager Bart Given, who was let go as part of some corporate belt-tightening (wink), isn't sitting idly by.

Given has started a blog called Inside The Majors, which means all of us ass-talkers should live in fear. Given did strike back at Chipper Jones for his birdbrained comments about Team USA being stuck in Toronto during the first round of the World Baseball Classic. He's even running a Chipper poll, asking people where they would rather stay for a week, Toronto, Las Vegas or anywhere else:

"It's obviously Chipper’s prerogative to choose Vegas, but why pluck your own eyebrows out one at a time? Team USA was stationed in Yorkville for a week, and he couldn't find a spa to help him with a uni-brow issue? C'mon ... that's just plain lack of effort."

Anyway, Rob Carnell of CFRC 101.9 and Salt Water Music has been raving about Given's early blogging efforts at ITM all week, so it is probably worth a link.

The Jones comments barely rated as news. No disrespect, but anything some cracker National League player says about Toronto should be like water off a duck's back. He studies frappeurs, not Frommer's.

He's one of Holden Caulfield's athletic bastards. People just have to realize that, as NBA Hall of Famer Kevin McHale once said of his teammates, "Most of our guys' idea of culture is going to McDonalds for lunch."

There are some players who do have eclectic tastes and are comfortable enough in their own skin to let it be known: Steve Nash, Carlos Delgado, Jim Bouton (who after the Seattle Pilots moved to Milwaukee after only one season, mused in Ball Four that if people in Seattle would rather go to the art gallery than the ballpark, he couldn't blame them).

One would suspect there are more athletes with such tastes. Pro sports, really, any male sports team once you're past the age of 16 is very much like the military. The group mentality rules all, so the weirdos who like books and plays and movies have to become adroit at subterfuge, like Jonathan Moxon in Varsity Blues hiding a Kurt Vonnegut novel inside the team playbook.

Then there are a few like Chipper Jones, God bless him, who once in a while open their mouths and remove all doubt.

Anyway, Bart Given is blogging and some might want to know.