Hustle & Heart

The Jays recently unveiled a very Jays Connected-esque video package containing what I assume is the tagline for the 2010 season: "Hustle And Heart". At the very least, it raises the expectation that someone from this team wins the award it takes its tagline from (our 2009 nominee was evidently "Rob Barajas", who plays with so much heart that he doesn't care how you spell his name) . I don't know if the Jays will be running their usual funny-the-first-time comedy spots of the 2-3 players casual fans have ever heard of finding themselves in WACKY situations, but count me down for a vote in favour of variations on this simple theme. It's about 70 seconds long and, instead of just going back to the same old suspects, features cuts to 10 different players talking about how this team is going to play with Hustle & Heart. Unintentional comedy is had when Vernon explains that "when nobody is watching, that's when I push harder". 1) Isn't that motivation for people to not come? 2) If that were true, 2009 should have been a career season.

Don't get me wrong, I know this isn't hockey where the difference between success and failure is often intensity and effort. I know that no level of work-rate is going to unseat the Two Headed Monster in the AL East when you've got Alex Gonzalez as your everyday shortstop and not a single starter with 400 career innings pitched. It may not be hockey. But this is a hockey town. And the ad features all sorts of verbal candy for the puck-loving crowd, from Vernon speaking of "old school baseball" to Snider calling the team a bunch of "grinders" and Scott Downs (looking like The Undertaker circa 2002) talking about the need for "heart when you know that you're the underdog". And for the crowd that still proudly wears their Tie Domi jerseys? How about clips of last year's Rumble in the Bronx (sadly missing Cito grabbing Edwar Ramirez by the scruff of his neck) with the voice-over of John Buck exclaiming that "we're not laying down for you, we're gonna come after you"? All that's missing is Adam Lind talking about how he's going to keep his head up in the corner outfield.

A lot of these cuts actually infer to the players' various back stories. The youngster Travis Snider talking about how he is motivated in the gym by thinking about all the people who helped get him to the show. Or former first round draft pick Ricky Romero talking about how he is motivated by pressure and expectation. And of course what is probably my favorite clip of Shaun Marcum talking about how he's been "building for this moment" for 18 months. As the voiceover by Saukrates explains, "this season is about the name on the front of the jersey". Y'know, because the names of the back of the jersey probably add up to in around 70 wins. All in all it's the Jays version of "Spirit is Everything" but at least this team's "Hustle & Heart" will be supplemented with some draft picks.

NUMB3RS: The Case for a Lead-Off Platoon

.285/.392/.516

It's the Jays secret weapon and most of us don't know it. Equally deadly against either side and, with a .392 OBP, really tough to keep off base. 21 home runs in 559 plate appearances so not necessarily a clean-up type, but with Lind so perfect for the number 3 spot why not lead off with him? Well we could, except he's not one person. He's the combined numbers put up by Lyle Overbay against righties and Jose Bautista against lefties.

I know that neither Overbay nor Bautista strike anyone as an obvious lead-off type. They aren't going to steal you 30 bags. Overbay's become the secondary punching bag to Toronto fans who've grown tired of heckling Vernon Wells. But realistically, who else is there? Vernon, who is allergic to walks? Mike McCoy, who has had all of 5 major league at bats? Against right handed pitching, Lyle Overbay was the hardest player on the Blue Jays to get out.

And against lefties, Jose Bautista had a .382 on base percentage with .537 SLG. Only Marco Scutaro gave southpaws more trouble. Yes Scutaro stole 14 bases, but given that the Bautista/Overbay lefty/righty split put up 15 more extra base hits in 121 less plate appearances, they shouldn't have much trouble getting into scoring position just as often.

So what's to stop it from happening? Well, traditional baseball logic that says you need a speedster at the top of the order. Or a manager that confuses ignorance with loyalty. But at the end of the day, it makes sense. Neither deserves to even sniff the top half of the order against same-side pitching. Both have proven themselves more than capable table setters against the opposite side. And hell, in a lineup with this many holes, you need to load the deck as much as possible for Hill and Lind. Look, if Cito wants to play the loyalty game for his last season as a big league manager, fine. I think it's a waste to see a guy like Randy Ruiz sitting on the bench against lefties until the 8th while Lyle OPS's a cool .534. But whatever, it's a rebuilding year and you can't really argue Ruiz is a big part of this team's future. But if you're going to run them out there every day, at least put them in a position where they're going to do the least amount of damage to your chances of winning. And hey, along the while maybe take advantage of a good split to make sure we at least don't completely suck at the top of the order.

This Week In The Jaysophere (3/21-3/27)

As spring training winds to a close, with meaningless games turning slightly meaningful because suddenly everybody's down to almost their opening day rosters, it's time to introduce a new regular feature at Blue Jays A.D.

We don't want to be your one-stop shop for all things Jays-related (and judging by the statistics Google gives us, we sure aren't). There's lots of people out there who know more about the Jays and are better writers than we are. Every week, we'll provide you with a short list of some of our favourite articles from the past seven days.

Why Lyle Overbay as everyday 1B might not be such a bad thing (The Tao of Stieb)
Digging deep into Youtube (Drunk Jays Fans)
Brian Tallet is not a fifth starter (Drunk Jays Fans)
Dave Stieb bobbleheads and other goodies (Mop Up Duty)
Still talking about Doc (Ghostrunner On First)
The best of the spring (Jays Journal)
Remember Buck Martinez? (Blue Jay Hunter)

Know Your Jays #2: Scott Downs

A good ol' boy from Kentucky, Downs was drafted by Atlanta in 1994, but opted to play college ball in his home state instead. In 1997, the Cubs took a chance on him - and this time he turned pro.

In two months of single-A ball after being drafted, Downs impressed mightily - a 1.83 ERA in ten starts. Good enough to earn a promotion to high-A Daytona for 1998, where his numbers were a little closer to average. At the end of 1998, the Cubs sent him to Minnesota for Mike Morgan.

Minnesota tried Downs at AA, and he bombed spectacularly - an 8.69 ERA in six appearances, three starts. Moved down to Fort Myers, he didn't allow an earned run - but still managed an 0-1 record. Sent back to the Cubs in late May with Rick Aguilera.

Did much, much better on familiar turf - 5-0 with a 1.88 ERA in Daytona, 8-1 with an amazing 1.35 ERA in his second kick at AA ball.

Impressed the Cubs enough that he was part of their major league rotation to start 2000, where he went 4-3 with a 5.17 ERA - not great numbers, but good enough by the standards of that year's last-place Cubbies.

At the deadline, the cash-strapped Montreal Expos unloaded outfielder Rondell White's contract on the Cubs, and Downs was headed north of the border. After one start in Montreal - three innings, three earned runs, no control whatsoever - Downs went on the DL.

Downs returned to professional baseball in mid-2002, but was limited to mostly AAA action - thirteen starts for Montreal between 2002 and 2004, with stats that weren't too pretty.

After the 2004 season, the Jays - under the regime of J.P. Ricciardi, well-known for taking a chance on any pitcher who had any level of success at any time - gave Downs a call.

He started the year in Syracuse, where a line of 2-3, 4.81 was enough to get him called up to Toronto to help a badly hurting bullpen. Here, Downs showed flashes of what he would become, but he was also maddeningly inconsistent - over three innings hitless on May 28, two innings hitless on June 25, compare to five earned runs in two innings on June 5, three hits and two runs in four batters faced on June 21.

By late July, the Jays' lack of pitching depth forced Downs into the rotation, where a couple of shaky outings were followed by a very strong run through August and early September - in one five-start run, he complied an ERA of 2.20 - the rest of September was much harsher; Downs never made it past the sixth inning.

Downs started 2006 in the Jays' rotation, but after only two starts, he was moved to the bullpen - where, aside from a few emergency starts now and then, he would remain. In the grand tradition of Kelvim Escobar, Paul Quantrill, Billy Koch, and Kelvim Escobar again, the Jays turned a below-average starter into an above-average reliever - Downs compiled a 2.17 ERA in 2007, 1.78 in 2008, and 3.09 in an injury-marred 2009.

Used primarily against left-handed batters, Scott Downs has become one of the best short relievers in baseball - and if he's not named the Jays' closer early in the season, there's a strong chance he'll be dealt to another team to be their top bullpen dog. At which point we will promptly rename this blog "Blue Jays After Downs".

International Draft Not the Key to Parity in Baseball

Reds GM Walt Jocketty with Cuban pitcher Aroldis Chapman, who he signed to a 6 year, $30mil deal in January.

Jorge Arangure Jr has an interesting piece up at ESPN (if you're willing to poney up for Insider) about the likely addition of an international player draft in the next CBA. This is an issue that's been discussed for some time and has recently intensified with the big time signing bonuses awarded to prospects like Michael Ynoa, Aroldis Chapman, Noel Arguelles and the impending 10 million dollar contract the Jays are expected to sign with Adeinis Hechavarria. In the 60's, the amateur draft was implemented as a parity driven measure to prevent big market clubs from scooping up all of the best and brightest leaving the smaller market clubs to take what was left. But is the international market really in need of similar measures, and could this seriously hinder the development of players on the international market?

We'll come back to the former, but to the latter question Jorge Arangure doesn't seem to think so. While the amount of Puerto Rican players in Major League Baseball has declined since they were included in the amateur draft (last year just 28 players spread out across 30 major league rosters), he feels that the economic differences between PR and the Dominican Republic should mitigate a huge change in that country's baseball culture. He points out that with the GDP per capita running between $5,000 and $8,500, a standard big league slotted signing bonus would still make a huge difference in a Dominican family's life. Contrast that with Puerto Rico, where the GDP is more than twice as high. Assuming that the baseball culture in the Dominican is driven by the pursuit of a better life as much as it is passion for the game, to Dominican families the crapshoot of trying to encourage a child's athletic development as a baseball player still seems like potentially very lucrative way to make a better life for their children.

But I think what the article leaves out is in the potential detrimental effect on the efforts by major league clubs to train and develop these kids. Almost every team in the Majors has a Dominican academy. Players can be signed at 16 and develop at home with the best instructors that American money can buy before jumping to professional ball at 18. The clubs themselves undertake this because they know that it is a cheap way of bringing in high ceiling talent with physical gifts and nurturing them. Big thing here is that when they're training at the academy of big league teams, they are under contract to those big league teams. Those teams have the rights to develop them into big leaguers and then have 6 years of service time under that team's control.

But what if that control was taken away? If developing a player's gifts for 2 years only made them more refined for the team that drafted them, why on earth would they bother wasting their resources? The answer is they wouldn't, at least not to the extent they are now. That leads to two years of less than optimized development, which inevitably leads to lesser players. I'm not saying that the Dominican is completely incapable of instructing and nurturing its own, but if these kids weren't getting better training at the big league academies the academies wouldn't be a success. Simple as that.

But let's set aside that question for a moment and assume that the Dominican system remained healthy and thriving. Is all of this really necessary? Small market teams are growing worried about the increasing disparity between themselves and the big market clubs. Bud Selig is looking at any and every way to address that disparity short of the obvious solutions, a salary cap and a balanced schedule. But is international free agency really where the disparity comes from?

From a tertiary glance, I can't see it. Among the recent big name Latin American free agents, Adeiny Hechavarria is expected to go to the Blue Jays, Aroldis Chapman went to the Reds, Miguel Angel Sano to the Twins, Michael Ynoa to the A's, Noel Arguelles to the Royals and Rafael Rodriguez to the Giants. Sure the Yankees got Gary Sanchez and the Red Sox got Cuban Jose Iglesias, but they've hardly dominated the market. According to Baseball Prospectus, Iglesias is the only prospect in Boston's top ten signed from Latin America (and one would strongly doubt Cuba would be part of any international draft). The Yankees have 4 after trading Arodys Vizcaino to the Braves, with only Jesus Montero and Sanchez considered players with impact ceilings. More than the Sox, but most of their top prospects still come from the amateur draft, which they haven't had a high first round pick in for 17 years.

The point is, unlike the amateur draft which has no mandatory slotting and clearly doesn't work, Latin American free agency seems to work just fine. I know that Chapman's 30 million dollar contract with the Reds has people crying foul over the fact that he's making double what Stephen Strasburg got. But it's not like it was a big market club using their financial muscle to steal yet another rising star. It was the Reds, who have never in their franchise history had a payroll above 75 million dollars. Then the Jays, who haven't been big spenders in 15 years, were able to take Adeinis Hechavarria right out from under the nose of the Yankees. And these aren't isolated incidents. Take a look at this list of the top 31 largest Latin American signing bonuses of all time. 19 of those contracts came from teams who had payrolls under $100 million in 2009. When these small to mid-market teams do their homework and like a player, they're more than willing to spend the money. I just hope that major league baseball doesn't take away their incentive in an ironic attempt to "help" them.

Forget Hechavarria, Jays Sitting Purdy

Not a lot to talk about today. Jays game was rained out, leaving us with call-in segments with Jerry Howarth and Alan Ashby that were otherwise un-noteworthy other than hearing Howarth on multiple occasions praise organizations who bring in top sabermetricians to their front office. Nonetheless, Bob Elliott's twitter page has alerted us to the fact that Jays Canadian scout Jamie Lehman has completed his first signing - Grafton, Ontario's Nick Purdy.

So what do we know about Purdy? Well, he was drafted in the 2008 Amateur Draft in the 36th round by the Kansas City Royals, 1,075th overall. So what we can safely assume is that he is among the best 1,100 20 year old baseball players in North America. Before that he went in the 50th round to the Mariners in 2007. So at the very least he's been moving up the draft board. However he did warrant 3 minutes of video on the 2008 MLB draft page, so if you want to you can check that out here.

Perfect Game USA has a number of scouting reports available on Purdy, and they're all particularly encouraging. One scout clocked his fastball velocity in at 94mph with a "good" 75mph curve and a "solid" change. He described the kid as a "top level pitching prospect" who has solid bat speed and power as a hitter. Another scout clocked his fastball at 90mph but compact arm action and easy delivery, labeling him a "highest level prospect".

Those reports were from before he was drafted in 2008, and he ended up not signing with the Royals. He went undrafted in 2009, and although Canadian Baseball Network listed him among the Canadians in College 2009 at Hillsborough Community College in Florida, he is no longer listed on their roster. At 19 this past summer he played for Oshawa Dodgers of the Intercounty League, struggling with his control over 6 innings of work walking 6 while striking out 7 and posting an ERA of 6.00. He did however spend most of his time at third, appearing in 17 games and posting a less than staggering .245/.327/.367 with 2 home runs.

His stats are less than impressive over this stretch, but we are talking about a 19 year old kid getting infrequent stretches of work against much older competition. The simple fact is that in 2008, scouts considered this kid a potential impact pitcher. For whatever reason he's never been able to get a big league contract, but in terms of low-risk high reward moves this pretty much takes the cake. Clearly the Blue Jays and Jamie Lehman felt the same way.

Know Your Jays #1: Randy Ruiz

Even if you haven't really followed the Jays for a few years, you might already know a bit about Vernon Wells, Aaron Hill, and Dustin McGowan simply through osmosis if nothing else.

That's where Know Your Jays comes in - to save you from embarrassment by introducing to the second-stringers, the lesser known members of your favourite ballclub. First up, Randy Ruiz.

An impressive spring looks to have earned Ruiz a slot on the Jays' Opening Day bench. Rumour has it he'll get the bulk of starts at first base against left-handed pitchers, and perhaps a few DH starts here and there. Judging by the rest of the bench, he'll be the first guy Cito calls on for pinch-hitting, and he can also play in left field if absolutely necessary.

The story of Randy Ruiz begins in 1999, when then-21-year-old Randy is signed out of college by Cincinnati. After four years, he had displayed a great ability to get on base, and some power, making it as high as the Reds' top single-A affiliate. But for some reason - maybe because he was 24 and still in single-A - Randy was let go.

A game of musical chairs followed, as Randy played in the minors for eight different organizations over the next five years - working his way up to AA, mastering AA, and struggling in AAA. He signed on with Minnesota for the 2008 season, and tore up AAA pitching with their Rochester affiliate - hitting .320 with 17 home runs and a 24-game hitting streak. Despite those numbers - and a respectable .274 average in a brief major league stint, his first taste of the bigs - Minnesota didn't renew Randy's contract.

Enter Toronto. Before the 2009 season, the Jays signed him to a contract to help a depleted AAA squad in Las Vegas. Ruiz posted his best numbers yet - again hitting .320, but taking far more walks (his OBP was a very strong .392), striking out less, and hitting for more power. He got the call to Toronto in August, and became a regular DH at the end of the season - hitting .313 with ten homers.

Sounds like a perfect storybook, right? Guy plows through minors, never gets a chance to make the big time. Toronto gives him a shot, he turns out to be a great hitter.

And maybe that's the case. I don't know. But there are some red flags.

In 2005, Randy was suspended twice for violations of baseball's drug policy. He claims he was not actually taking steroids and the results were false positives caused by an erectile dysfunction medication.

His bouncing from franchise to franchise also sends a tingle down my spine - generally, somebody with stats this good isn't constantly finding himself losing his job. Not unless there's something else going on. Upon his exit from the Reading Phillies, the Reading Eagle noted that Randy "never seemed to comprehend the magnitude of his mistakes", and there was also a reference to him being part of a "toxic trio" of players.

On the field, there's only one area for concern - strikeouts. Randy struck out once every 4.67 at bats in Vegas last year (once every 3.29 AB in Toronto) - and that's actually an improvement over his 2008 (once per 3.59 AB) and 2007 (4.09). For comparison's sake, only J.P. Arencibia and Travis Snider had worse ratios in Vegas (minimum 100 AB). Snider and Jose Bautista were the only Jays to have worse ratios than Randy's Vegas result, to say nothing of his Toronto numbers (again, minimum 100 AB).

Of course, there's the chance that none of this matters. Maybe Ruiz will strike out less as he adapts to big-league pitching. Maybe he's just been genuinely unlucky in finding employment. Maybe he really did have erectile dysfunction.

No matter what, he's good for some high-excitement offense. And in this season, 1 A.D., maybe that's what we're looking for.

NUMB3RS: Jays Add Sabermetrician To Front Office

Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos has overseen a major overhaul of the scouting and player development side of the organization in his less than 6 months on the job. Doubling the size of the amateur scouting staff to 36, he has been able to more adequately cover the regions where prospects are most consistently produced. On the pro scouting side, he's brought the team's staff up to 21, giving them the ability to focus more scouts on fewer teams to hopefully get better looks at players at all levels of pro-ball. He's also added experience to that staff by bringing in former GM's Jim Beattie and Ed Lynch. And now he's given his player development side another shot in the arm, hiring statistician Tom Tango as a consultant.

According to an article in the Toronto Star, Tango is a self-taught authority on sabermetric (the attempt to quantify baseball performance in as accurate and objective a way as possible) stats from Montreal who has previously worked with the Seattle Mariners. Some of the quotes about him are encouraging, to say the least:

"There's nobody better than (Tango) in the world," said Wayne Winston, a professor of decision sciences at Indiana University and author of Mathletics.

"He's a genius. He knows everything about baseball. I think he'll help (the Jays) a lot to make better decisions."

Theo Epstein may be the boy-wonder who pieced together the two Red Sox teams that won championships in the last decade, but he also counted amongst his front office advisors Bill James. James coined the term "sabermetrics" and is one of the foremost thinkers in the pursuit of objective baseball knowledge. Among James' innovations are Pythagorean Win/Loss (which analyzes a team's run for and runs against and produces what a team's record should be), Range Factor (which calculates how involved a player is defensively in a game) and Runs Created (duh). His ability to crunch the numbers and constantly create new formulas for evaluating performance have given the Red Sox a competitive edge over the past 7 years. Obviously the Jays will hope Tom Tango will bring with him similar innovations.

It's easy to gauge and evaluate players based on sabermetric stats, but its tactical application goes beyond just a player's strengths and weaknesses. Hard data on major league baseball games go back decades, giving stats analysts a gigantic sample size for studying and projecting ratios that predict with startling accuracy the way various in-game situations often turn out. Want to really know how to pitch Alex Rodriguez? Scouts can help, but so can detailed information on his performance and results in 9,611 career plate appearances. Want to know whether to attempt a steal in a late inning situation? Piece together scouting reports on the speed of the runner, arm strength and accuracy of the catcher and pace of the pitcher's delivery with 60 years of data on the average steal success rate in major league baseball and you can predict with near certainty the outcome.

Reliable and detailed scouting information is an invaluable evaluation tool, but it can only give you anecdotal evidence. Likewise statistical analysis can give you probabilities and provide great information for tracking a player's development, but it can't provide you with information on a player's physical and mechanical strengths and weaknesses. You need both to succeed in modern baseball, and it's good to see the front office realising this. Now they just need to find a manager with enough of an open mind to actually take advantage of all this information.

NUMB3RS

Baseball is dull only to dull minds.
-Red Barber-

The above quotation is not fair, and probably not entirely true. Yet to be a fan of the sport is to encounter a considerable amount of blanket statements equally ignorant from the other side. Baseball is boring. It’s too slow. There’s not enough scoring. Elijah Dukes got me pregnant then threw a Gatorade bottle at me. Okay, that last one might be true.

But to an average sports fan with delusions of grandeur and an armchair quarterback complex, baseball is a self-congratulatory buffet. You can make almost any argument as long as you have enough patience to find the statistics that help you and in some cases wilfully ignore the others. If you’re a traditionalist who thinks that Joe Carter is the greatest player to put on a Jays uniform, you can point to his 5 All-Star Game appearances, 2 Silver Slugger awards, 7 consecutive years with 20-plus home runs or you can get sentimental and point out that he hit the single most important home run in Blue Jays history. If you’re a seamhead, you’re probably more likely to appreciate Roberto Alomar’s sublime defensive play, his ability to steal successfully 81% of the time or his .382 on base percentage in 5 seasons with the team. And if you’re one of those rational in between types, you’ll point out that you can’t replace a guy who carried his team to a .596 winning percentage in games he started over 12 years and that you don’t see any blogs named “Blue Jays After Alomar”.

I guess what I’m saying is that baseball is an easy sport to become obsessed with. If you can gain a better understanding of the various statistical measurements, you can much more easily follow the game. Wonder why the manager has gone to two relievers in two at bats? Look at the pitcher’s situational splits and realise that no, Shawn Camp should most definitely not stay in to face a lefty slugger. Why does a team’s best power hitter bat in the middle of the line-up? Because the guys hitting immediately in front of him are particularly good at getting on base, giving the sluggers a better chance to score multiple runners with a single swing of the bat. Why did Kevin Millar spend so many games in the clean-up role last year? Well, that’s because Cito Gaston doesn’t give a shit about your “stats”; you can kiss his ass. And you can print it too.

It’s a game quantified by stats, but its fun to watch too. I’ve always been a fan of the pitcher’s duel; nothing like a good low scoring game in the late innings where you get two out situations with a go-ahead runner in scoring position. Pick your pitches carefully, but don’t miss over the plate because if you do all he needs to do is push it (or fist it, if you’re Skip Caray) in to left to cash the runner. And hey, don’t miss off the plate because their slugger is up next and he can turn a tie game into a 3-run game deficit fast. But no pressure, it’s just some boring game.

As a Jays fan, I live for the rare moments. Moments like when Marco Scutaro took second on a walk in Philadelphia. Or when Aaron Hill booted a Nick Markakis grounder in the 10th leading to an unearned run against the 0’s, only to step up to the plate that inning and tattoo the first pitch he saw into the crowd in left to even the score, and later cash the winning run in the 11th with a single. Or the highlight of the past few seasons, when AJ Burnett made his walk of shame last May as Doc and the Jays KO’d him to the tune of 5 runs over 7 and a two thirds innings. I gleefully remind Red Sox fans that Jacoby Ellsbury was statistically the worst defensive centre fielder in baseball last year, while deluding myself into thinking the fans are to blame for turning Vernon Wells from a good hitter on the road (.300/.335/.444) into a complete lost cause in front of the home crowd (.214/.285/.348). I’m coming to grips with my favourite team being ace-less in the AD era, but I believe wholly in the Anthopoulos plan. I promise you stats geekery and sentimentality mixed with unbridled optimism and a twinge of realism. Because even without Harry Leroy Halladay, there is still hope in the Jayosphere.

At least until August. Then we’ll all want to kill ourselves.

Blue Jays After Doc

That's tough, isn't it?

Seeing the best pitcher - arguably the best player - in franchise history wearing another team's colours? And not just any other team, but your one-time rival?

It's not easy.

Jays fans could be forgiven for thinking that the A.D. (After Doc) era isn't going to amount to anything - our undisputed best player sold off for a few youngsters who might turn into something down the road.

But you know what? There's still reasons for hope.

Adam Lind and Aaron Hill are two of the premiere offensive players in baseball. There are a ton of young prospects - legitimate prospects, not Eddie Zosky types - who we can watch with enjoyment as they blossom into the stars they will become. The Jays' pitching staff might not have anybody on the level of Halladay anymore, but there is an unbelievable amount of depth - no more sending out a 6.75 ERA because he's the best of a poor choice, there's always going to be somebody better in the minors.

In fact, the A.D. era could be a lot of fun.

That's where we come in. Blue Jays A.D. is here to guide you through 2010 and beyond - the ups and downs (spoiler: there will be plenty of downs), the minor victories and the inevitable heartbreaks.

If, like me, you've been following the Jays only half-heartedly for a few years, we'll bring you up to speed on which players you need to know, and which you can safely ignore because you'll never hear of them again past June.

And as well as analysis of 2010, we'll dig into the past to remind you times that were much better for the Jays - and times that were much worse.

We've got a great roster of writers lined up, each with their own unique take on the Blue Jays and baseball in general. Stats geeks, casual fans, and everybody in-between will find something to read.

The A.D. era is going to be one heck of a ride. Let's enjoy it.