Sign Stealing Allegations Ring False

By The Common Man

Amy K. Nelson and Peter Keating are taking a lot of heat today for their story in ESPN The Magazine about the Toronto Blue Jays allegedly stealing signs. Nelson in particular, has had to deal with a ton of sexist, misogynist crap on Twitter, on her Facebook page, and probably on the ESPN article itself. That’s wrong. It’s freaking wrong. It is 2011, and The Common Man thinks it’s ridiculous that anyone should have to put up with the hateful crap being leveled at Nelson today. If you want to dispute Nelson and Keating’s contentions, do it with evidence, not with vitriol. Do it with numbers and facts, not with personal degrading insults that suggest that women don’t have a place in sports journalism. They do, dammit. If you’re going to criticize Nelson and Keating, do it like this:

Re-Projecting Jose Bautista

By Bill


"Re-projecting" is something I would occasionally do early in the season at my old blog (at least in 2009; I don't remember whether I did it again in 2010). The basic idea is this: we know, or should know, that no matter how convincing a player's performance is after 18 or 20 or 30 games, his performance over the last several years -- adjusted for age, park, etc., as the various projection systems do -- tell us a lot more than these first few weeks do about how he's likely to perform over the next 120-plus games.

But the other thing about these early games, of course, is that they still count. Any given player is likely to match his projection from here on out, but these first few weeks still happened, and will impact his overall numbers. So what I did, and what I'm going to do again with one player right now, is look at one player with a particularly surprising start to the season, apply the projections to the rest of the season, and take a look at where his end-of-the-year numbers might end up.

The system I'm going to continue using is PECOTA -- not because I think it's better than the rest, but because I think they're all pretty fungible, and Baseball Prospectus puts nice descriptive words alongside their numbers (and, now, because I know and like a bunch of these BPro guys).

And the player is Jose Bautista.

3 Questions: Toronto Blue Jays

By Bill

Continuing to go in order of 2010 record from top to bottom, we've come to the last AL team that finished above .500 in 2010.  Gone are first baseman Lyle Overbay, starting pitcher Shaun Marcum, catcher John Buck and reliever Scott Downs. Coming in to replace them is...well, nobody, basically. Pretty much every spot figures to be filled from within.  How's that gonna work in the toughest division in baseball?


1. Can Jose Bautista Really Do That?
One of the stories of the year in 2010, Bautista -- who came into 2009 age 29 and the proud owner of a .238/.329/.400 line, mostly in the weaker of the leagues, with a career high of 16 homers and an average of 19 per 660-plate-appearance full season -- went absolutely nuts, at least tying (and usually smashing) his career bests in literally every positive offensive category.  Including, of course, those majors-leading 54 home runs (which helped Toronto lead the majors in home runs too, with 257 to second-place Boston's 211).

So this is kind of Bautista's "prove it" year.  Nobody would expect fifty-four homers again, but it'll be really interesting to see whether he keeps producing at an elite level or turns back into a pumpkin.  And for the Blue Jays' season, it'll be a lot more "necessary" than "interesting."

Nickname Review: Toronto Blue Jay

As a companion to yesterday’s Nickname Review, which Rob Neyer linked to this morning (thanks Rob!), The Common Man is going to press on and objectively assess another member of the MLB nickname avian community: the Toronto Blue Jays.


Basic Stats:

Name: Toronto
Nickname: Blue Jays
NicknameTypology: Bird
Color: Blue, black, and white
Size: 22-30 cm (9-12 in.), 70-100 grams
Special Abilities: Flight, Speech, Teamwork, Super-intelligence, General bad-assery

Best thing about the Blue Jay: Blue Jays are tough as hell. They bully smaller birds, and can band together to fight off predatory birds, such as hawks and owls, that hunt them. They’re kind of like Voltron like that. If the Toronto club is ever going to leapfrog the big boys in the AL East again, that kind of teamwork and toughness are going to be absolutely essential.

Worst thing about the Blue Jay: They’re kind of jerks. As TCM said above, they push around other species that are smaller than they are. While that’s a positive as they try and win ballgames, they’re loud and obnoxious about it. And they’re highly aggressive at taking over other teams’ territory. Indeed, Toronto has recently become the only MLB team in Canada after successfully pushing out the Montreal Expos (or such is TCM’s interpretation of events). And not having baseball in Montreal is a bad thing.

More good news: These birds are super smart. Not only have they learned to work together to survive, but they also can learn to mimic human speech. There is some speculation that they can make and use tools to obtain hard-to-reach food. They also will patiently watch farmers and gardeners plant seeds, remember where those seeds are buried, and go dig them up. If they have a surplus, they’ve been known to save food for later. They are extremely adaptable, to the point where they can even survive the complete deforestation of their habitat, if they can find other sources of food. It helps that they’re omnivorous. Perhaps the new regime headed by Alex Anthopoulos and the Jays’ hot start in 2010 is indicative of this flexibility, intelligence, and resilience. And also, they fly. That’s awesome.

On the other hand: Because they’re intelligent, young blue jays can be easily distracted. They’ve been known to pick up shiny objects and make off with them. They’ll fly around with, say, tin foil in their beaks and play with it until they get bored and remember that they were supposed to help fight off a hawk or eat a caterpillar or something. As Toronto looks to rebuild and get younger, they will have to work hard to avoid this problem. Also, blue jays are kind of amoral.

Final Analysis: Blue Jays do have an AJ Pierzynski-esque jerkiness to them. But we should expect them to have a chip on their shoulder, having to deal with the likes of the Yankees and Red Sox. Other than that, they’re pretty awesome. When the Blue Jays replace man as Earth’s dominant species, TCM hopes they will find this post and fondly remember The Common Man as one of their truest and earliest supporters. And for that reason, they will spare his descendants from the horrible swarming and pecking death that await you all. Blue Jays are bad ass. Don’t piss them off.

Good work, Blue Jays, The Common Man gives you an A!