As you may or may not have heard, All-Star voting is in full-swing. The game itself isn't until July 12th, and voting ends before that at 11:59 PM ET on June 30th. The rules are simple: per e-mail address, you have 25 votes. So who goes from the Blue Jays?
So who to choose? Well, I guess it helps to pick only those Blue Jays who are actually on the ballot. Excluding Bautista, these include: 1B Adam Lind, 2B Aaron Hill, SS Yunel Escobar, 3B Edwin Encarnacion, C JP Arencibia, DH Juan Rivera, OF Rajai Davis, and OF Travis Snider (who of course was just demoted - so I think he's out). I decided to just look at OPS (I know, it's a sabermetric...but it's the one I vaguely understand) to figure out who has, up til now, given the Jays the best chance at scoring runs.
Arencibia has the highest OPS of all of them, with 0.805. Escobar and Lind are pretty close, coming in at .757 and .730 respectively. After that they're all respectable, with the exception of Davis - who is the lowest at .344, but to be fair, he's missed quite a few games due to injury..
Given this information, I think only Lind and Arencibia are the only Jays (again, other than Bautista) who have a shot at making the all-star team. I'm going to go ahead and predict now that the only Jays player to go to Arizona will be Jose Bautista, with Lind coming very close but just losing out. I don't think the other members of the Jays have made a big enough splash compared to Jose. Still, I have at least four e-mail addresses so I am going to put my 100 votes to good use and get our Jays in there.
Assuming Bautista stays consistent (he was just named player of the month by the way), I think that Adam Lind has the best shot at making the All Star Team. He's already benefiting by getting tons of great pitches to swing at after a Jose Bautista walk.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's going to keep happening though (walking Bautista I mean). You have to think teams are going to get smart about Adam Lind, or that the Jays will switch up the lineup.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you've ever watched Barry Bonds play, but Bautista is getting the exact same treatment. If 1st base is open, he gets walked (either intentionally or he's pitched around). His RBI total is low because he only gets good pitches when the bases are empty. Pitchers and managers would much rather face Lind and he's been reaping the benefits lately. Watch the game tonight and you'll see what I mean. (I'm PVRing it...)
ReplyDeleteWell, there you go - a case for Farrell changing the lineup. Lind isn't going to keep on his torrid pace, either because opposing teams are going to realize that facing Lind is equally as bad as facing Bautista (well, maybe not *equally* as bad) or because his production will drop to more average levels.
ReplyDeleteYou're not getting my point though, given the choice, pitchers would much rather pitch to Lind instead of Bautista. In theory, you could slot any player in the 4 spot and they would produce. But if you put easier outs in the 4 spot like Juan Rivera or John McDonald, Bautista probably wouln't get any pitches to swing at. Lind is the best choice because of his power. And traditionally you slot all your power hitters in the middle of the lineup.
ReplyDeleteOh and according to www.drunkjaysfans.com Bautista is out of the lineup with a sore neck and he might even need an MRI. So we'll see how the rest of the team performs without him...
ReplyDelete