How much longer is Wilkerson going to be with the team? Aside from that grand slam, he’s done next to nothing for the Jays. I would love to see Adam Lind brought up for the rest of the year and given a real shot to play everyday. He’s proven he can hit in the minors and hasn’t been given a fair chance with the Jays. Inglett can’t play everyday and neither can Mench, so why isn’t with the team?

MW: It’s a good question.

I would like to see Overbay moved up into the 2 hole. What do you think of this batting order (vs righties)

Ecstein ss
Overbay 1b
Rios rf
Bonds dh
Rolen 3b
Stairs lf
Wells cf
Zaun c
Hill 2b

MW: Except for the fact that Eckstein is at the top, it looks pretty strong. Of course, that’s mostly just because Bonds is in it, which is a pipe dream.

Love the Blog! I wanted to talk about some young Jays.

1) Do you think Snider will be in the everyday lineup in 2009 or should we expect him in 2010.

2) Doesn’t J.P. Arencibia remind of Brian Mcann with his offensive stats?

3) Ive heard Justin Jackson is the reakl deal down at A ball. Whats his ceiling as an MLB player?

MW: 1 – No, I don’t. 2 & 3 – They’re both supposed to be very good, but the drive-thrus are littered with guys who were great in A-ball. Let’s see how they do once the competition improves.

I think he’s draft record is pretty rockin compared to some other clubs. Imagine how many expletives would be in this post if we were Pirates fans. JP is doing a fine job to the people who understand how hard it is to draft.

MW: I’ve gone over J.P.’s draft record many times, it’s not bad at all.

I have noticed that when the television crew at Rogers Sportsnet use the ‘strike zone graphic’ to show where a particular pitch was located, it seems that on many occasions, the pitch was called a strike by the umpire while the graphic shows the pitch was not in the strike zone (and often not even that close to being an actual strike).

It seems to me that one of two things are occuring: Either the strike zone graphic they are showing is not accurate, or the umpires have a strike zone that is larger than the rules stipulate and are calling a lot of ‘strikes’ on pitches that are not in the actual strike zone.

If the graphic is inaccurate, then Sportsnet should stop using it. If the umpires are getting this many calls wrong, either expand the strike zone rules to conform with the umpires’ current expanded zone, or perhaps, if the computerized strike zone is accurate, maybe it’s time for the system to become automated where, after every pitch, the umpire would look down to a mobile electronic device in his hand which would flash either ‘ball’ or ‘strike’ based on the accuracy of the automated system,, and the umpire would simply bark out the result indicated on the device. I know this is blastphemy for the baseball purists, but it seems like there are way too many missed for the sytem to remain as is (or maybe a simple refresher course by the league to umpires pointing out all their missed calls and the need to call the strike zone as stipulated in the rules is all that is needed….?).

MW: It’s really, really hard to call balls and strikes correctly, and for the most part, the umps do a terrific job. Still, I’m all for robot umpires.

As for all the JP lovers/haters, I think when it comes down to it he’s been average. Look around the league and compare him to his peers, they’ve all got some hits and misses. Of course you’ve got some better recent drafts for some teams (Boston) but Toronto isn’t at either extreme.

Here’s to the Jays continuing to score enough to win!

MW: You said that Scutaro has filled the shortstop vacancy, the vacancy in question is for next year when Eckstein’s contract runs out. I actually read your comment.

MW: I’d love to, but no one has offered me a job.

MW: You can find the stats that will tell you all you need to know if you look hard enough though you’re right, defense is difficult, if not impossible, to measure objectively. The stat regarding catchers throwing out runners is very misleading, that’s why you also look at the pitchers’ SB-CS numbers. Roy Halladay’s 5-5 record isn’t at all telling of his performance, that’s why you look at all the other numbers he puts up. I find it hilarious, though, that you would ask what within the past seven years tells me the Jays can finish ahead of Boston and New York and then mention the Rays. What within their franchise history tells you that Tampa Bay can finish ahead of anyone?

In his first 4 drafts he’s managed to find 5 decent to good (maybe very good) MLB regulars already in Marcum, Litsch, Janssen, Bush, and Hill. On top of that, he’s got Lind and Purcey tearing it up in AAA at the moment, and pretty likely to have some sort of MLB career. That’s 5-7 legit at least decent MLBers in his first 4 drafts.

That’s not bad at all, if you take the time to compare to other teams. Getting 1-2 quality MLBers per draft is at least average, if not better.

And on top of that, from his 5th and 6th drafts, we have a number of very exciting prospects in A and AA at the moment, most of them doing very well (Snider, Cecil, Arencibia, Ahrens, and a few others), making it start to look like a safe bet that JP will once again get 1-2 MLBers out of these last two drafts as well.

If you compare to our AL East opponents, only Boston has clearly done better in the draft over JP’s time here. And for fun, a quick comparison with the mighty Rockies and their genius Tulowitzki pick (Tulowitzki and his great 90 career ops+ no less), shows that JP has clearly done better than them at the draft table since he started in 2002.

I guess its mostly because some are still skeptical on Marcum and Litsch (although the objective numbers tell us that they’re clearly quality MLBers), but I think it’s becoming very clear that JP’s performance at the draft table has been underrated to this point.