12:57 AM Eastern
We can’t have an off-day with no news, can we?
The Blue Jays, fed up with the offensive outage that has seen just ten runs scored in the first six games of this road trip, decided to make some changes as the players enjoyed a day off in St. Louis.
First, the call went to Las Vegas for Eric Thames. On his way back down to AAA is Mike McCoy, optioned for the 238th time this season, and a guy I had trumpeted recently as the potential solution to the short-term issue at third base.
Turns out, they found a better solution – Jose Bautista.
Bautista was supposed to be the Jays’ third baseman to open this season, but two things happened that changed the minds of John Farrell and Alex Anthopoulos late in Spring Training, sending Bautista back to right field and moving Edwin Encarnacion to third for a couple of months.
The first thing was the play of Brett Lawrie. The 21 year-old super-prospect moved his timetable up from “maybe September” to mid-June by simply blowing the doors off in Dunedin; if Farrell had had his way, Lawrie would have made the team out of Spring Training, but the Jays erred on the side of further development. They broke camp feeling that Lawrie would be up in the bigs much sooner than they’d originally anticipated, though.
The second thing was the play of Juan Rivera in right field. The Jays didn’t feel comfortable running Rivera out there defensively every day and that, combined with the fact that Bautista’s move to third would only have lasted a couple of months, made them make the change – sending Jose back to right, moving Rivera to DH and sending Edwin Encarnacion back out onto the field at third base. After all, it wasn’t going to be for that long, right?
Then they traded for Jayson Nix and figured that they had even more short-term insurance at third in case Edwin couldn’t do the job.
Well, Edwin couldn’t do the job, making six errors in his first seven games at third, and Nix came out strong, homering in his Jays debut and making almost every play defensively. But then he stopped hitting. And Edwin never really started, but for a few games in which he was DHing.
Still, though, that was OK because a freight train named Brett Lawrie was coming up the track awfully quickly. Lawrie was set to become a major-leaguer the first week of June, but then Anthony Bass happened. The Padres’ young righty drilled Lawrie in the left hand with a pitch, the hand was later found to be broken, and all the plans went up in smoke.
The Jays had hoped that Lawrie would recover enough to be in action in late June, then the all-star break, and now August. The hand isn’t healing as quickly as they’d hoped – he’s still not able to grip a bat without pain. Now that they see another six to eight weeks before Lawrie is ready to come up, a surplus of young outfielders tearing it up in Las Vegas and a team that’s in desperate need of an offensive spark, the move has been made to send Bautista back to the infield in hopes of getting some more offense overall.
Thames is up to play a little left, a little right and some DH, with Travis Snider hot on his heels, having had a clean MRI in the wake of last week’s concussion. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that we’ll see Thames start out platooning in left with Rivera, while Rajai Davis and Corey Patterson share time in centre – at least this weekend in St. Louis, during which Bautista will remain in right field while working out at third during batting practice.
Once the Jays hit Detroit for their make-up game on Monday night, you’d think Thames takes over in right until Snider gets here, with Encarnacion getting the lion’s share of the DH at-bats. When Snider is ready to come up, Patterson and Davis probably split centre, or maybe Patterson becomes the fourth outfielder he was always supposed to be. We’ll have to see which one of Patterson and Davis gets himself straight at the plate.
And don’t be surprised to see Thames hitting second in the St. Louis series opener on Friday night.
The moves are welcome, heck, they’ve been clamored for for weeks now by the people. Hopefully Thames is here to stay and, soon enough, Snider is back for good, too. If Encarnacion takes to the DH spot as well as the Jays hope he will, then you conceivably could go from a team that has six dead spots in the line-up right now to a team that shortly could have only two struggling players – and that’s assuming Aaron Hill and whoever is playing centre don’t shake out of their current slumps.
When Lawrie is ready, and that might not be until September, he’ll get his fair share of work at third base. The expectation is certainly that Lawrie will be the Jays’ everyday third baseman in 2012, with Bautista moving back to right. Snider or Thames will play left, and the other might DH (assuming they’re both still with the organization and no, I haven’t heard anything to the contrary) or there’s always the possibility that the Jays give Snider a shot at centre. He’s not the ideal candidate, but he handled himself just fine in the one opportunity he got to play there with the Jays in April and in the four games he’s played in centre with Las Vegas.
It’ll be great to see Thames and his fantastical facial hair back with the big club, and here’s hoping his return and the buzz about the moves to come provide that spark the Jays so desperately need right now.
Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!
11 Responses to “The St. Louis Shuffle”
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Mike,
Care to reveal where you heard how Snider handled CF down in Vegas? Were any further details offered?
MW: No further details.
- gabrielMike:
- Grant CarterVery nice analysis of the recent season.
Good move bringing Thames back and hope that Jose’s move to third does not cause his offensive production to falter.
I do have a real problem with Patterson in center: he has demonstrated on several occasions an aversion to have an acquaintance with center field walls. Fenway earlier this season when he gave up on a fly ball that dropped for a double and Rogers Center on a couple occasions. The guys in the booth have commented that he is much more comfortable in LF than center.
Otherwise, something had to be done. Management can’t allow Jays players to believe that they have mailed in the season. And, if this is a development year, part of that process is learning to compete each game.
Enjoyed the blog as always.
Never a dull moment in Jaysland…somehow it would be nice to get on a mini-run and get back to .500
- GaryHi Mike,
I was thinking the other day about E.E. and how in all fairness to him, he never really got the chance to DH full time as per the original plan. I think putting him back at 3rd (just a few days before the season) messed him up.
It has been frustrating watching the team lately. However, unlike past seasons it seems that there is more hope. You can see the talent in the minors developing, and when you realize that guys like Rivera, Patterson, Nix and even Davis are placeholders for the future, it doesn’t seem as bad. I do really wish they had called up Lawrie just a bit sooner. This injury really sucks for him and the fans.
Thanks as always.
MW: I agree with you about Encarnacion.
- Rob H.Mike,
At this point Thames isn’t enough to get my juices flowing again. Recalling him doesn’t make up for the damage of sending him down in the first place. I thought he had earned his spot on the big club.
So Thames plays right? What do we (aka you) know about Thames and right?
I know that people are talking about getting pick for Rivera and EE….but what if the jays offer arbitration and they accept?
MW: I can’t imagine that Encarnacion or Rivera will be Type B free agents. Most of my experience watching Thames has involved him playing left, and he’s been an adequate outfielder. But I didn’t see him much.
- JWAA has no one to blame but himself. He simply got too cute with Lawrie and it backfired. Really bad scenario? – sometimes players never fully recover from hand injuries. Now he discards, picks up one card, reshuffles the hand and hopes for the best. That strategy rarely works but allows for a moment of hope. Well, I guess, here’s hoping.
MW: I don’t think Anthopoulos got too cute at all. He could just as easily have been hit on the hand by a pitch in a big-league game.
- KennethHi Mike, great update. The one question with Thames is that despite his power, he rarely hits a ball that hard. The ball just doesn’t seem to pop off his bat like it does with many of the Jays better hitters. Is that just me? How do you feel about that?
Thanks.
MW: You realize you’re basing that on a tiny number of at-bats, right? And you probably only saw a fraction of them.
- Jay…and the move to 3B might just be the ‘smelling salts’ Jose needed to snap him out of it.
Good to hear that Snider ‘only’ got hit in the head and not the hand. As stupid as that sounds, for a ballplayer, your hands and eyes rank ahead of your brain. Many a slumping hitter has stated after he got hot again: “I just stopped over-thinking about everything – cleared my head and just played “See the ball. Hit the ball”.
…worried about Lawrie though.
Also sad to see Albert get ‘Cliff Floyded’ the other day. Career numbers may have been radically impacted from this point forward.
- MiguelHey Mike, so if I’m reading your blog right, and I’d like to think I am, Lawrie would have been here in early June. So my question is, do I have to pay out a $100 bet that he would be called up before July 1st. I knew Lawrie would be here before July 1st and he would have, if not for Bass. So do I have to pay this bet out? It’s not based on his abilities that he’s not here, heck, he was two days away from The Show! I’m thinking I pay half. Just wondering what your thoughts are.
Thanks and keep rocking the Jays talk, love listening.
Dave
MW: If the bet was that he’d be up in the big leagues before July 1st, then you lost that bet. He won’t be in the big leagues by July 1st. You should have put an injury rider in there!
- fastballsnfoodHi Mike,
Re Loewen. I was going to ask you if Sept was a good time to take a look at him, i.e. when rosters expand, etc. You commented on a blog post yesterday that this might not happen. Obviously, if he is hurt or something they wouldn’t do it, but was there something else you were considering? Is it still about making room on the 40-man roster?
Also, what is your best guess as to which game Halladay will pitch (if any) when the Phillies are in town? I would like to either be there or for the day after when (I hope & assume) he will get a nice round of applause.
Love all the Jays radio coverage – you and the gang do a great job.
MW: Thanks! I’m led to understand that Halladay will be pitching on his regular day, which means July first. I don’t think I said Loewen wouldn’t be up in September, but that he might not be up until September.
- Ceiling FanMike, I find your commentry interesting and more times than not, fair. In saying that, this strong belief you have in Snider perplexes me, there are countless players in the past who had the physical tools to play this game, just not the head, I think Snider falls into this catagory as well. I agree with Dave Perkins asesment on prime time the other day, to good for the minors, not good enough for the majors. Thanks….
MW: He’s 23 years old. It’s insanely early to decide that he’s a AAAA player.
- stretch