The Return of Trump

Just about everyone and their dog, cat and pet fish has a view on why Kamala Harris lost the US presidential election. The answer is pretty simple: she had fewer votes and fewer votes in the electoral college. I am not trying to be flippant. Like you, I'm sure I've read an endless stream of commentaries on the election and the Democrats across-the-board failure. And, also probably like you, watching the US election from afar, I've been surprised by friends -- well, more acquaintances -- who have said they were undecided or even voted for Trump.  And, I am sure like you, I personally feel that there is more than enough blame to go around. In an effort to say something perhaps slightly different let me make a few points.

First, I don't fault Harris. She did the level headed best that she could have done. She came to the campaign late, the normal leadership contest -- which would have allowed her to stake out policy positions and explain them in more detail -- was not there, and she inherited a political infrastructure that appears to have been little short of a mess. Outside of their core areas of support, the Democrats as a party did not seem to have an organization on the ground that would have allowed them to turn out their vote or broaden it. Harris had about 10 million fewer votes than Biden, while Trump remained constant (suggesting that there was, in fact, not a lot of movement to Trump outside of his core constituencies).  The difference, however, is not that the Biden campaign was better at mobilizing voters. They're weren't and the late Mike Davis actually wrote a really piece on this in Sidecar. Where Biden made inroads, he was able to piggy back on other political groups that organized on the ground but were not part of the Democratic Party apparatus. None of this was Harris' fault. In fact, I think she campaigned as long and as hard as possible. She was dealt a losing hand (for a range of reasons) and ... lost. 

The take away point here is this: in retrospect, what would have happened if there had been a Democratic leadership contest? Harris might have won and used the contest to create her own political space within the Democratic Party. Or, she might not have. I noticed CNN was already lamenting that there is no Democratic front runner for 2028. Allowing that it is way too early to make that determination, let me also say: (1) good and (2) that is lazy journalism on CNN's part. Looking around for a front runner allows easy reporting. The absence of a front runner pushes the party to where it needs to be: considering its voting base, thinking about the policies needed to build the future, counteracting incredibly weak and lazy journalistic presentations of Democrats, and organizing. If there had been a real leadership contest, we don't know who would have won. But, it might not have been Harris. In either case, all bets would have been off. The take away here is that political leaders who are past their best before date need to step aside and it should not have taken George Clooney to make this point. 

Second, and connected to this, is the actual nature of the Democrats campaign. I am not certain it convinced anyone of anything. IOW, those who supported Harris did so before the campaign. Those who supported Trump ... same thing. The voting shifts don't seem to have been from Harris to Trump (or, vice versa) but from Biden to not voting. The Harris campaign amounted to a series of celebrity endorsements.  I understand why they did this. It was a second best option in the absence of an effective on-the-ground organization, but it got tiring to listen to pop stars endorsing Harris. It really did and I wondered ... why should anyone take their cue from them anyway? The drop in vote suggests to me that a lot of people felt the same way. 

The Republicans, I hasten to add, did not necessarily do any better organizing but they could continue to piggyback on self-organized groups and on evangelical churches to motivate and -- in this case maintain -- their vote. 

For the Dems, the take away is this: they need to do three things: 

1. Rebuild their party apparatus where it is weak 
2. Make alliances with other existing groups with strong organizations on the ground (groups that are opposed to Republicanism but have similar ideological perspectives as Democrats)
3. Begin the process of going after the Republicans on their "home turf." 

I'll come back to that last point in a future blog. But, for now, let me say that I think it is important for Democrats to use the time that they have to take the political contest to the Republicans on their home turf. This is, in fact, what Trumpists did to the Democrats in the Blue Wall. This is not a TV commercial, snap your fingers and it is fixed, kind of thing. It will take time but the Dems have time right now. And, it will be the right politics. But, I'll explain that later. 

Third, if you have not read Carol Anderson's White Rage, you should. Anderson makes a number of key points to which more people should have been paying attention. In very brief these are as follows. (#1) The Republican approach to politics that we have seen under Trump is not new. In fact, it dates to well before Obama, even if Obama's electoral success gave further impetus to it. The easy contrast between a pre-Trump Republican Party and a Trump one does not really stand up. In fact, it was the changes through which the Republican Party passed independently of Trump that laid the ground work for him. An example is "voter fraud." I've listened in amazement to commentators who seem to honestly think that Trump made this up and that his supporters who continue to believe it are being tricked by him. As Anderson points out, the truth of the matter is that the idea of voter fraud went back to the Bush, Jr. days. The numbers Trump cited may have been his own but the idea of massive voter fraud was circulating within the Republican Party long before Trump arrived on the scene. Said differently, Republican supporters believed Trump because they already believed -- independently of him saying it -- that voter fraud had become part of American public life. The campaign against Trump's perspective needed to dislodge not Trump's words but a couple of decades worth of self-confirming discussion replete with its own data among Republicans.  It turns out, that was impossible to do.

(#2) Likewise, the use of vigilante politics (let's call it that) long pre-dates Trump as well. Again, Bush, Jr. could be implicated, but the roots are deeper than that. Republican politics has long empowered ordinary citizens to take the law into their own hands and feel that they are right in so doing. One could recall the disruption to recounting in Florida during the Bush/Gore election. Said differently, no one in the Republican Party batted an eye at the vigilante politics that accompanies Trump because it was already deeply embedded among the faithful. 

What does this mean? It means that getting high-profile Republicans to endorse Harris could do little good because the trajectory of Republican politics was already set. The discourses Trump and his followers mobilized were not new, but old and that oldness gave them strength. In the face of everything else, Harris was fighting history. 

Chris Bassitt is a Smart Guy: Part II

One of the odd/interesting idiosyncrasies of the Blue Jays this past year is their love affair with old rookies. Not all of these players are technically rookies, but they all got their first real significant playing time with the Jays this past season. The Jays opened the year with twenty-five year old Davis Schneider in LF and twenty-eight year old Ernie Clement in a utility role that morphed into a regular gig at third base. Bowden Francis, also twenty-eight, made the pitching staff (although was in and out for the first half of the season). Over the span of the year, the Jays brought in Will Wagner (26), gave playing time to Nathan Lukes (29), traded for Joey Loperfido (25) and called up Spencer Horwitz (26). The only players that looked like real rookie-aged rookies were Addison Barger, who was 24, which would have made him an average aged rooked and Leo Jimenez (23) who was more or less forced into duty after the Jays conceded Bichette couldn't play and they had no one else on their roster who was anything more than an emergency sub at short. 

Collectively, they weren't horrible. Clement looked (to me) good at third base. His offensive numbers were break even (102 OPS+). Horwitz had a good season at the plate. Second base is not his natural position and its showed.  His dWar (a measure of defensive value) was bad and really bad when he played second. But, his 125 OPS+ put him well above replacement offensive value. He had serious problems against lefties, but this also means that his numbers against right handers were even better. Lukes and Wagner had good offensive numbers but more limited playing time. And, Francis, of course, pitched incredibly well down the stretch. Jimenez was basically average and that is actually not bad for a player in their first year. The other old rookies did not fare as well. Schneider (78 OPS+, 100 is average), Barger (70), Loperfido (65) looked enthusiastic but overmatched. 

What are we to make of this? I think it is a development strategy. IOW, I think this was an intentional choice. But we need to be careful with the word "choice." People make history, but not under circumstances of their choosing. IOW, if, given other options, the Jays management might have gone a different way. My bet is that they'd prefer to a team like Baltimore's, which is loaded with good younger and young players. Or, they would have preferred a farm system that was producing talent. Or, they would have preferred to have signed Ohtani. Failing that, however, I think they tried to do the best with what they had. 

What was the best with what they had? They had two choices. One: burn the house down, which is what I said was a smart plan.  This was a nuclear option in which everyone was on the block with the idea of securing grade-A prospects from other teams to rebuild the farm system and become competitive in three years. They didn't go this way and we don't know why. Maybe they tried and no one wanted Bichette or Gausman or Kirk, etc. The other option was to try to find players who would be ready to fill out a major league roster and contribute next year.  This is they way they went. Hence old rookies. 

Said differently -- and to their credit the Jays management said this -- they were not looking to rebuild but believed that their core talent was good enough to compete in 2025 with the right additions. How will this work? It is very difficult to say. Bowden Francis pitched really well down the stretch but this was down the stretch against a lot of teams that were not good and playing out string. Pitching well is better than pitching poorly. He had two good starts against the Angels, one against the Cubs, a couple against Boston and one against Texas. He did pitch against good teams, the Phillies, Mets, Baltimore, but his best games were against teams that were poor, out of it, and auditioning players for next season much like the Jays.  And, this might not be fair, but I am also haunted by the Chris Colabello story.

Colabello, you may recall, was a Jays player who had kicked around the minors and had a couple of shots with the Twins in which he seriously under performed before he was pressed into duty by the Jays who were in a playoff hunt but short on bench players. Colabello played like he never had before, nor would again. In a bit more than than half a season's worth of at bats, he hit 15 HRs and drove in 54 while scoring 55 runs. His OPS+ was 138. His OPS .886, all-star territory for a regular player. Here is the thing, he was 31 years old and this is shockingly unusual. Very few players established completely new performance levels for themselves after about 27, before which they are improving as they age and gain experience. And, you can usually see them coming. Some do. The example, I always use is Tony Phillips, who went from being a regular at Oakland to an all-start in Detroit at a similar age. He scored 100+ runs for the first time in his life at 33. It happens, but it is exceedingly rare. Jose Bautista did something similar with the Jays at age 29.

But here is the thing, neither Bautista nor Phillips were poor players. They were major leaguers who were under performing but had been solid starters. Colabello was nowhere to be seen. He went from being a poor player to playing at an all-star level late in his career and that is winning lottery ticket rare. It turned out, of course, that it wasn't true. Colabello was using performance enhancing drugs.

Now, I am not saying Francis is. In fact, he doesn't have the look of a player who uses PEDs. My point is simply that he might be good.  The Jays might have found a diamond in the rough and I kind of hope so because I liked watching him pitch and he seems like a good guy. It is just rare and the rarity makes it improbable that he'll keep pitching at that level. 

Horwitz played well, but really can't hit lefties at all and has no natural defensive position on the Jays. Clement impressed me, but is he a championship quality player at third? 

In my last post, I agreed with Chris Bassitt: the Jays are not one player away from being competitive. They go into next season hoping that Romano and Bichette are back to form, that Springer can arrest his decline, that Kirk really is an everyday catcher. That's a lot of "ifs." And, here is the thing. I am not sure there is space on the team for Barger and Loperfido if they sign an outfielder. I am not certain what they do with Horwitz if they sign a middle infielder. 

The Jays have gambled on a very unusual team development strategy. I think they were doing the best they could with what they had. Exactly how they got to this "what they had" place is another story (and, not a good one), but let's leave that aside for now. Will this strategy work? I'd love it if it did but I think the odds have to be against them. 

Chris Bassitt is a Smart Guy

As the World Series wound to its close in a hail of hyperbole and a triumph of big budget teams, Blue Jays media is rife with rumours.  That might be because they don't have a lot else to discuss. The Jays have made some significant steps behind the scenes, firing coaches and player development folk in the minor league system. This is simply a belated recognition of what everyone already knew: the Jays suck at player development. If these rumours are to be believed, the Jays are in on just about every potential free agent that they can in on in an effort to rapidly redevelop (what baseball folk call "reload") the team to be competitive (aka, make the playoffs) next year. What is interesting is that the most intelligent comments we've heard on the Jays season likely came from one of their players, Chris Bassitt, who strikes me as a pretty observant guy. Before the end of the season Bassitt gave an impromptu assessment of the Jays season and what went wrong. His assessment is basically correct. And, if it is basically correct, it suggest that the Jays woes will likely continue. Why? 

In that interview -- after which Jays reporters and media people were at great pains to deny that he said what he said -- Bassitt said the Jays had three problems:

1. The Jays had no back up plan. They allocated close to $700 million to signing Shohei Ohtani -- who landed with the Dodgers -- but didn't have a plan in place if -- as it turned out -- they didn't sign him. In effect, the Jays put all their eggs in one basket. They quickly tried to cobble together some kind of back up plan (Vogelbach, Kiermaier, Turner, IKF) but that was more a prayer than a plan and it was about as effective as one should have expected it to be. Bassitt's point: the front office is paid a lot of money to have a plan.  The fact that they didn't, is a problem. 

2. The Jays are not getting any younger. I forget Bassitt's exact wording but it was something like "there is no way to make me twenty six again." His point is this: the Jays entered the season with an aging pitching staff. They were, in particular, relying on starters who were good but whose careers were necessarily going to start to decline because of their age. Berrios pitched well (but he was the youngest of the crop). Bassitt, Gausman, and the now departed Kikutchi all took steps backwards in a year where -- failing a real plan for team development -- the Jays front office was counting on a repeat of the previous season from the starters. It just wasn't there. All pitchers added to their ERAs and Bassitt himself pitched significantly fewer innings that the year before. This put strain on a bullpen that, in turn, just wasn't there and was, in turn, relying on relying on aging pitchers with injury histories. 

The logic could, of course, be extended to positions players. Springer and Kiermaier were just not going to get better. 

3. The Jays are not one player away.  I don't remember the exact number but I think it was four. Bassitt suggested that the Jays were four -- all-star quality -- players away from competitiveness. Put in other words, the difference between the Jays and making the playoff is not a player or two having an off season but a significant difference in talent. The gap is wide.

If that is the problem what can be done about it? 

Well, rebuilding the farm system and player development is a necessary first step. The Jays were putting all their eggs in one basket because their system was simply not producing the players that would make them competitive. The Jays aren't Baltimore.  

Put all this together, and what it means is that the Jays will likely not be competitive this year coming, if we define competitiveness as something like having a real chance at winning. I strongly suspect the Jays will be better next year. I suspect, for instance, that Bo Bichette was actually injured the entire year but the Jays kept him in games -- despite truly rotten play both offensively and defensively -- out of sheer desperation. I think they were hoping the problems that plagued Bichette were not as serious as they ended up being, that he'd catch fire -- and he is a streaky hitter -- and propel that Jays into competition for a wild card spot. I do worry about Bichette's long-term prospects. I'm not sold on his D and his swing looks to me to guarantee injury problems. But, he was nowhere near as bad as he played this past year. 

I also think Alejandro Kirk might have finally gotten his act together after what was a close to two year slump. He end up with a slightly sub 100 OBS, which means offensively he was costing the Jays games, and scored a measly 23 runs. He is not a kid anymore either. He'll be 26 next year and has been in the league since his late-season arrival at the age of 21. But, regular playing time after Jansen was traded seemed to do him good. 

Finally, I think the Jays will go after free agents. There are free agents I'd be worried about. Santander is a player I've long liked, but he had his best seasons at 30, the year he is set to be a free agent. He also plays right field, which means that if Springer is coming back (!?), one of them will have to move to left.  My view, however, is that signing Santander would be a lot like signing Springer: it would add an expensive name to the payroll on a longer term contract that the team will end up regretting after a year or two. 

Even with this, I suspect the Jays will look at add real value via free agency or trades.

They Jays will be better but ... so what? They won't be a good enough to win the World Series. They might get into the playoffs but is that our definition of competitive? I honestly don't know. It might be. It might be what the front office is setting as a goal. And, that being the case, it is likely within reach. But, Chris Bassitt is a smart guy. If you definition of competitiveness is something else: say, a reasonable chance of winning, then, the Jays are much further away. 

Labour's Mandate: Thoughts on the UK Election

I happened to be in the UK during the election and I was impressed by the overall dignity and decorum of British politics. It wasn't perfect. The Tories raised all kinds of false spectres in a vain effort to ward off the scope of their inevitable defeat. There was a scandal involving sitting politicians gambling on the election (one labour candidate seems to have tried to short himself, betting on his opponent), and the expected racist fiasco coming out of the new Reform UK. Overall -- and perhaps because the election was a foregone conclusion -- there was little of the Boris Johnston effect. Much of the commentary has focused both on the size of Labour's victory in terms of elected representation and its supposed absent mandate in terms of its popular vote. I think this was a good election for Labour and not simply because they won. I think it provides Labour with an opportunity to refashion Britain for what is now clearly a post-Brexit age along lines something other than the "new Labour" of Tony Blair. There are a number of significant points that follow from the election. 

First, the issue for Labour might not be the overall size of their popular vote (however important this can be), but the fact that they won in virtually all key geographic regions they needed to. The British electorate appears deeply divided, something that should not surprise us and something that is not a horrible thing.  I would argue that a divided electorate represents actual divisions in society and that an organized response to this on the part of Labour is preferable to a false sense of popular unity. For Labour, what was significant was not that they took advantage of a divided electorate but that they were able to defeat different opponents in different regions. They took Scottish central belt from SNP, retook the northern "red wall" from the Brexit Conservatives, and pushed back Reform UK in southern Wales and urban northeast. They drove the Tories out of urban London and recaptured the industrial/post-industrial northern and midlands. Moreover, they finished second in an impressive number of seats, suggesting that they have not exhausted their growth potential.  (Wikipedia has a map of second place finishes.) 

What this means is that Labour is, in important ways, the architect of its own victories. With the SNP on the run (despite what its proponents say), the Tories disorganized, and Reform largely kept off the board, the main opposition will come from moderate centrist Liberal Democrats. For Labour this not a horrible thing. Labour is not competitive everywhere and this is where their low popular vote really shows.  Rural southern England was a battle between the Lib Dems and the Tories; they have no real supporters in Northern Ireland, and the strongest Scottish unionists still prefer the Tories. What all this means, though, -- and this is why Labour should be in a good mood -- is that they fought a multi-front electoral campaign against different opponents and won the battle on the ground. 

Second, the Tories are left with a question and it is the same question that confronted American Republicans and Canadian Conservatives. Is an inclusive conservatism possible? In Canada, we are seeing something of a wave of nostalgia for Brian Mulroney's government, at least among political historians. I've been struggling to understand why. The answer, I think, is that Mulroney's PCs represented that last real effort to build a diverse and inclusive conservatism in Canada. At some future time I'll go back over that history to consider what ultimately made that project impossible. For now, however, we likely should take Mulroney at his word. He supported Charter rights, looked to build a big-tent conservatism that ditched its grass roots opposition to bilingualism and multiculturalism while respecting regionalism and promoting some kind of green politics. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. I don't think I share this nostalgia, but I think I see its appeal. Mulroney's government -- and the figures who tried to keep his form of conservatism alive -- believed a diverse, inclusive conservatism possible. 

In Canada, the Harper agenda pushed away this idea and Poilieve has -- and will, if elected -- go further. In the US and France, this connection of conservatism with intolerance is even more advanced (and, my list is not complete). The Tories under Sunak tried to position themselves differently than under Johnston and that positioning was a gamble. That gamble wasn't just unfavourable electoral conditions befalling a government that had been in power for an oddly long (and unstable) time. The gamble was that one could shift British Toryism away from name-calling and toward a broadly inclusive centre-right movement. I don't know what will happen next for theTories, but this gamble is not off to a good start. 

Third, Reform UK was Reform UK. A few of its candidates were shocked that there were racists in the party but no one should be. Reform represented a peal away from the Tories but it also represented something else: the creation of a new intolerant political movement. Some Tories seem to feel that this movement can be folded back into the Tories but it is not clear -- to me at least -- that Reform supporters were good Tories to begin with. I suspect, most found themselves into Reform through the fraying boundaries of the Brexit Party and the shadow of UKIP that still floats about British politics. Said differently, folding Reform UK into the Tories would likely mean -- ideologically at least -- the reverse: folding the Tories into Reform. In this case, it is not clear that one could simply add the two votes together (Reform and Tories) and see how many seats that might have won. 

Why? Well, like the Republican voter base in the US, I suspect that there are a heck of a lot of Tories who (1) accept intolerance as a good thing and won't jump ship because someone points out that their party is drifting to populism, but (2) there are voters who will not move to the Tories (say, Lib Dem or SNP voters) and that will continue a split electorate. There are moderate Tories who will sit on their hands or consider other options (like the Lib Dems). 

Fourth, what about the SNP? They took a real kick and find themselves in a position similar to the BQ in Canada. They are a party with a purpose but without a potential means to that purpose. The influx of Labour and Lib Dem MPs combined with the remaining Tories likely means that the SNP has no chance of winning another referendum and they may not want to even try. Losing a second referendum (as the PQ discovered in Quebec) deflected separatism for a generation and brought to light new political formations (like the CAQ). The SNP has also discovered what others separatist parties in government discover: that policies other than independence count. Said differently, if one is not a good government, getting voted back in because of independence is no guarantee of victory. 

Overall, then, it is easy to be critical of the Labour victory, but I'd rather have a victory than a defeat. I'd rather be Labour, than the SNP, Reform UK, or the Tories. Victory gives Labour a chance to build a different kind of Britain. I hope they take it. 

Not yet on Fire ... Or, Blue Jays corrective measures

The increasing media consensus is that the Jays are going to deal at the trade deadline.  This isn't clairvoyance. It simply makes sense. Ultimately deals are determined by both what one has to trade and what other teams want. Thus the Jays decision to DFA (in effect, to cut) Kevin Kiermaier, a player who I thought they could get something for, makes sense in this light: they couldn't. The Jays might have preferred to trade Kiermaier, even if the return would be slim, but if no one wants to offer even that slim return, the Jays are left with little option.

In a previous post, I suggested that the Jays should burn down the house, engage in a fire sale, and start a multiyear rebuilding process. That process has not yet started. The Jays have made a significant number of roster moves but these moves are more corrective measures. I'll complement Atkens and Shapiro for making them. Why? Because they are, in fact, admitting that earlier roster moves -- particularly building the team for this year -- were mistakes, have failed and they are in the process of trying to extradite themselves from that failure while, I suspect, hoping that some combination of players can be found to make a run at the expanded wildcard playoffs. Said differently, the roster moves we have seen so far do not necessarily presage a fire sale, although they well could. What have those moves been? 

Well, they actually started in Spring Training when the Jays front office conceded a point that had been evident for some time: Santiago Espinal was not a major league player and he was -- and had been -- taking a roster spot from players that were more talented. 

Move #2: Mitch White was sold to the Giants. Enough said except to note that Schneider had used White in crucial situations last year. 

Move #3: Designating Dan Vogelbach. The Jays media tried mightily to find a reason why Vogelbach was even on the team. He couldn't play defense and Turner was their FT DH, with plans to use Vladdy there as well to save the periodic embarrassments at 1B. Dan and Buck noted frequently about that Vogelbach brought something to the team because he "talked baseball" and, ergo, was supposedly a good clubhouse guy. They explained that his .186 batting average was not really his fault because he could not get consistent at bats. This was likely true but also irrelevant. What the Jays front office did not seem to calculate when they signed him  was where more consistent at bats were going to come from anyway. 

Move #4: trading Cavan Biggio. I thought Biggio was going to a good player. I never pegged him as a star but I thought he'd hit for an average average and that combined with above average defense, good plate discipline (which would put him on base), good base running skills and modest power would keep him in the starting lineup for, say, eight years. The Espinal fiasco ended that as the Jays tried to ride the hot hand and left Biggio's development to ... well ... no one, saddling him with a position (3B), he could not really play. The Jays, then, tried to convert him to a Ben Zobrist kind of "super sub" but playing that role is not a matter of will (which Biggio surely had) but a skill set (which he did not). They finally admitted that they had no place for him on the team and traded him to the Dodgers. 

Move #5: Giving up on Manoah's season. I don't know what is wrong with Manoah. The likely truth is that Jays don't either, but rather than suffer through another bad -- and potentially corrosive -- year, the Jays elected to sideline him early and see what could be done with his arm. 

Move #6: Designating Tim Mayza. Mayza has done a good job for the Jays but he was also a 32 year old pitcher who was getting no one out. A few years ago, Mayza might have hung on longer as a one-out lefty. That role no longer exists. The Jays don't really have any hot prospects but the idea that Mayza will ever again be a key part of the bullpen needed to be put to rest and someone else given a shot. 

Move #7: Kiermaier: the truth of the matter is that Kiermaier's offence has become so bad that no amount of defensive was going to save him. I suspect the Jays knew this when they signed KK, but gambled because they believed they needed outfielders (which they might) and were hoping he could post stats similar to last year in a limited role.  Keeping Kiermaier, however, was keeping Varsho in left field. In other words, it was keeping a better defensive outfielder in a traditional hitters position, where his own offensive weaknesses were becoming more and more evident as the season wore on (and for the second year in a row). Moving Varsho to a more defensively demanding position puts the best outfielder the Jays have in that position and better covers over his offensive limits. It also provides Schneider with playing time. Schneider does not look like an outfielder to me but he was not becoming one giving up playing time to players who are not the future. 

This amounts to a fairly impressive list of moves but with next to zero return, which is the point, of course, to blowing up one's team: the goal is to trade established players for prospects. It appears, no one wants -- yet -- to deal with the Jays and they have found themselves forced to designate (the baseball equivalent of fire) players as opposed to trade them. 

Moreover, these moves don't clear salary. The Jays sent a bit of salary away with Biggio and Espinal and moving Manoah to the IL (one assumes) has implications for insurance. But the other moves don't alleviate salary. Kiermaier cost the Jays 10$ million this year.  Because he's been designated, the Jays will remain on the hook for that salary, as they will for Vogelbach and Mayza. In baseball terms, we are not talking a huge amount of money, but the point is that these moves have not brought in new prospects nor cleared salary that might allow for free agent signings in the future. 

I think more moves are coming. My view is that this is a preliminary step. The Jays are correcting bad decisions they made earlier this year and getting playing time for players for whom they should have been finding playing time already. I think they are hoping something will click (like Schneider last year) and they will be able to settle their lineup, and make a late season run. I don't think there is a long leash on that. Dan and Joe mentioned it during today's game. The Jays are going to have to deal bigger pieces soon. Will that be a burn down? I don't know but I'd rather have a management that makes that decision intentionally than one that is forced into by its own poor decisions. 

Burn the House II: Or, how you know when your team ain't good

How do you know when the baseball team for which you cheer is not good? Well, sometimes, teams just tell you. I was listening to Blair and Barker a few weeks ago and they interviewed one of the White Sox announcers. Perhaps to be nice, perhaps to generate some excitement, Blair (I think ... might be misremembering) complemented the Sox and asked what was ahead for that team, were they expecting a good second half as the team improved? Whomever he was interviewing immediately said "no" and went on to state the self evident fact that the Sox were not a good team. There was no chance that they would be even close to the mix this year. 

I liked it. With exceptions, the Jays media is only now coming around to this view about the Jays. They are not stating it outright (on Sportsnet this AM, there was talk about June being pivotal month!), but in retrospect there were signs and a lot of them. What were those signs?

Sign Number One: "if" syndrome. As the season started there were a lot of people talking in "if" language: if Manoah is back to form, if Vladdy plays better, if Jano is not injured, if Schneider can play even close to the way he finished the season, if Romano is healthy .... There is always an if or two for every team but if a team's season is depending on just about everything going right, that is too many ifs. The plexiglass principle (an old Bill James idea) suggests that luck evens out over the longer run. Thus, if some things go right, one needs to figure that other things are going to go wrong. 

Sign Number Two: hoping players are better than they are. There are a lot of seasonal ups and downs in baseball.  That is part of the game, but to begin the season counting on players who have not demonstrated an ability to play at a certain level is hope; not strategy. I cheer for Ernie Clement and Bowden Francis, too. I do. If one of them makes it, that is a good news story by itself. But, what are the realistic chances that they will be a core part of the team (say, an every day starter or playing third base)? Francis entered this year as a 28 year old rookie who had pitched a grand total of less than forty innings in the majors. Clement, likewise, is 28 with less than 500 career MLB plate appearances and an OPS (a measure of offensive ability) of 66. That is not good. What this means is that the Jays were counting on players who they had no reason to believe they could count on. I'd love them to succeed. I would. This is not about them. It is about something else: how we know our team is not good. And, counting on performance from players who have not demonstrated that they can play at an MLB level -- let alone a good MLB level -- is another of those ways. 

Sign Number Three: jargon. Baseball has its jargon and that jargon can be hard for new fans. "Protect the plate," "cutter," "turn two" ... there is a baseball language one learns as one watches the game. However, when commentators start using words as if they were magical weapons, that is a sign that "the owls are not what they seem." The year's jargon word was "flexibility."  With the ability of Biggio, Schneider, Clement, IKF, perhaps even Turner ... to play multiple positions, the team had a lot of "flexibility." 

You see the problem? Flexibility does not win games if your players aren't good. Flexible players -- players who play more than one position -- can be good. All teams are looking for them. But, there is a difference between Mookie Betts' flexibility and Craig Biggio's. The ability to move weak offensive players around does not score runs. 

What is more: this is a misunderstanding of flexibility. The Jays are actually not all that flexible. As I pointed out in another post, the way the Jays have designed their team is actually pretty standard and brings with it built-in constraints. The number of pitchers the Jays carry, for example, forces them to look for flexible fielders and to play players out of position (which carries a defensive downside). The Jays under Bobby Cox, back in the day, were flexible. Using an extensive platoon system, they were almost impervious to injury, for instance, while the smaller pitching staff allowed them to keep extra players to expand overall team flexibility. 

Finally, flexibility is not just something to have, it needs to be a strategy. I will confess that I don't see that strategy, other than to try to ride the hot hand and ... well ... you can see how well that is working. 

Sign Number Four: hope and patience. As the Jays limped through the first quarter of the season, commentary from coaches, team official, commentators, went something like this: we know our team is good. We just have to wait until we get hot. The key to a really good team, of course, is to win when they are not hot. But, hoping to get hot is the baseball equivalent of praying for rain. 

There may be other signs, too. But, when we hears these things being said and see these decisions being made, they suggest that the team we're cheering for may not be as good as predicted. We heard these things and saw these decisions.

PS: Confidence

One thing I find personally annoying is the talk about confidence as the key to success. I don't doubt that confidence is better than insecurity. And, a sense that you are going to fail is a recipe for stagnation (why try if you are not going to succeed?). But listening to the game last night, it struck me that this is another point of confusion. Dan and Buck, in commenting on Baltimore, mentioned over and over again that they were "confident" and "free and easy" (or, words to that effect). The intimation was that this was the root of their success (this was linked to a discussion about Turner and supposed lack of confidence right now). It seems to me that this is actually the reverse of what is going on. Baltimore is confident because they are winning; not winning because they are confident. 

Burn Down The House? The Jays Can't Win and Should Start Over

 I was watching my morning sports show and the announcers were at great pains to explain that the Jays were a defense first team. This was, I think, to partially excuse what has been (a few recent games excepted) a pretty anemic offence. In fact, this has become the company line. It is repeated on Jays Central, during games, and hyperbole abounds when someone does make a fine defensive play. The only problem with the company line: it just isn't true. A quick look at dWar (a metric that measures defensive) shows that only Dalton Varsho and Kiner-Falefa are having really good years. Alejandro Kirk is putting up good defensive numbers but his offence is so bad, his defensive just can't compensate. Bo Bichette -- whose improved defence is supposedly the result of hard work -- is break even. Springer, Schneider, Guerrero and Turner  have negative dWars. They are not horrible but they are playing defense in a way that is not helping the team. 

No one should be particularly surprised buy this. Schneider has been asked to learn a new position. My own view is that he plays outfield about as well as the average infielder. No one really thought Geurrero was a defensively good. I've explained in an older post that his gold glove did not represent defensive ability but rather changes in the game and the fact that -- that year -- he was the best of a bad lot. As for Turner and Springer ... Turner was not brought in for his defense and Springer is a 34 year old outfielder who is playing like a  34 year old outfielder. What is more ... Springer's defense was never particularly good. His primary value lay elsewhere.

Let me add that I am not saying this to shoot these players down. I watch the Jays. I cheer for them. I have my own favourites, like all fans. That is not going to stop. The point I want to make is this: there is no particular reason to be upset at what is being cast as the Jays sub-standard play. If this was supposed to be team that led with defense (which is a legitimate approach to winning baseball games), this is not the team to do that and we all know that. The Jays media need a good news story because it is impossible to disguise the weak offence through the first quarter of the seasons. I watched Blair and Barker's show one time last week and they were apoplectic. OK, fair enough. I was, too. But, in thinking about it later, I thought ... why? Why was I upset? I was upset because I held out hope that the Jays were good enough. I was skeptical of Turner but ... he might play good enough. If Vladdy and Bo take even half-a-step forward from last year and Varsho takes a step. Biggio plays better and Schneider is ... well half the real deal ... we're not in bad shape, I reasoned, with a strong starting staff and good bullpen. 

There were so many "if"s in that sentence ... you can see the problem right away: having a good season was not a matter of playing to potential. A whole bunch of things had to go right that had an equally plausible chance of going wrong. Bo might take a step forward, or he might injure himself with that wild swing of his and spend half the season on the bench. In my view, it is time to face two facts: (1) this team is not as good as advertised and even with a hot streak (something their loses to Detroit don't suggest that is coming down the tube), and (2) is not good enough to win it all.  The way forward, in my view, has to be something other than what the Jays have been doing. 

What have the Jays been doing and what is the alternative? In 2020, the Jays played unexpectedly well in the Covid shortened season. The offence looked good. The Jays had strong OPS+ (a measure of offence ability in relationship to the rest of the league) numbers and the problems they had -- pitching -- were clear and could be addressed. The Jays core was also young. Biggio, who had a fine season, was the oldest of the potential stars at 24, but only one starter (Shaw at 3B) was 30. The Jays didn't really improve in 2021 in terms of their place in the standings but they had three players score 100 runs and four drive in 100. Shaw was gone and Marcus Semien brought in. He was the second oldest player with the addition of Spring, now 31. But the core remained young. 

The Jays management continued to tinker with the team, canning their manager and replacing him with his bench coach (a move I didn't like), and bringing in older players to address weaknesses to the point where in 2023, the Jays were old. Five starters were older than 30 (Belt was 35 and Merrifield 34) and their youngest starter (Berrios) was 29 (let's leave Manoah aside because of his odd season). The oldness continued this year: Ernie Clement, who is getting a chance to play 3B is actually 28 and Biggio is now 29. What all this means is this: the strategy which was to see the core as solid and add the veteran pieces to win, didn't work. And, the Jays have now reached the point of no return, or what economists call diminishing marginal utility.  Adding more veteran pieces can't produce wins. And there is precious little help on the farm. This was a solution that was touted last year. I'd give Schneider a chance to play but he was a 24 year old rookie. That is about average and does not really project out as player around whom one builds a team (although, with the right development he could be valuable). Of the other AAA players periodically discussed: Barger is 24, Lukes is 29, and Horwitz is 26. Only Martinez, at 22, could be considered a legitimate star prospect. 

The alternative for the Jays is to burn down the house. And, this is what I think they should do. While the Jays can't win, they have a lot of potentially valuable trade pieces. This might be a case where the parts are greater than the sum of the whole. The Jays should be willing to trade just about everyone they have to rebuilt what is, in fact, a weak minor league system. Baltimore, by contract, a team already playing considerably better than the Jays also has a much better farm system.  For the Jays, this does not bode well for the future. 

The Jays should be willing to unload just about all their starters, with the exceptions of Berrios -- because of the long-term contract-- and Manoah (because he's under control for a number of years). Despite the unevenness of their pitching, teams will be interested in Bassitt and Gausman once we get closer to the trade deadlines and perhaps even now. Kikuchi has pitched well and he's a lefty so he will draw interest.  Springer, Kiermaier and Turner might be harder sells but it is a question of matchups. No one other than the Jays wanted to offer Kiermaier a job as a starter (and we can see why), but he might appeal to a team looking for a fourth or fifth outfielder defensive sub, pinch runner, occasional start verse a righty.  I'd trade Jansen, too. His value will not get higher.  And, I'd trade anyone from the bullpen I could. 

Finally, I'd be willing to trade Vladdy and Bo as well. That might not be popular and I suspect they will both land on their feet elsewhere, play well, and be named to several all-star teams each.  The Jays seem to have taught Vladdy pitch selection, but since the Jays are years away from winning, I think it is an even bet that he'll hit the free agent market after next season, as will Bo. The Jays can maximize the return ... getting a number of prospects and likely top-notch prospects ... by trading them now.  Said differently, since there is a good chance that the Jays will lose both of these players, the logical thing is to maximize their value now. That value can be maximized by getting good younger players around whom the Jays will built for the future. 

Another finally: I think it also goes without saying that the current coaching staff is almost certainly not the team to bring up a new team.  John Schneider does not seem to really have a good feel for the game. He makes odd decisions -- some of which I've ranted about before -- the logic of which is lost on me. He seems to make a habit of yanking a pitcher one pitch too late. Pete Walker works best tinkering with veterans and has not shows any ability to work with younger pitchers. Ask Nate Pearson how his career is going.

I was listening to commentators say that it is not the coaches fault. That the players have to be accountable. I do think there is something in that but, the Jays also pay those coaches a lot to do things and the thing they were supposed to do is figure out how to win. It is rotten but if you pay someone to do a job and they don't do it ... do you stick with them? 

The same goes for upper level management. The truth of the matter is that Ross Atkins let the Jays enter the season without a lead off batter. Few teams win without one. He decided what the Jays needed was a bunch of players who could not play the field (Turner, Vogelbach, Votto, Vladdy). And, their player development is just messed up. What position does Biggio actually play? 

In short, it is time for a fire sale.