Making the Grade: The Outfield

The fourth and final segment of "Making the Grade" will be Toronto's outfielders. Beyond Jose Bautista (who even split time at third base), the outfield saw a lot of new faces throughout the year, with the end of season outfield looking vastly different than the Opening Day version. This list will be for outfielders who finished the season with the major league club, or played in 40 games with the club throughout the duration of the season.

Part I Making the Grade: The Starters
Part II Making the Grade: The Bullpen
Part III Making the Grade: The Infield

RF Jose Bautista (31)
513 AB, .302/.447/.608 (1.056 OPS), 24 2B, 2 3B, 43 HR, 103 RBI, 9 SB, 132/111 BB/K

I wrote a post in June describing how Jose Bautista is the Toronto Blue Jays, and while his final slash line is slightly less impressive than his midseason slash line, nothing has changed. Bautista is the premier offensive player in Major League Baseball. While the home runs dropped off from his franchise record 54 in 2010, he still led baseball in the category once again, while putting together a much better all around season. American League pitchers and managers took notice, intentionally walking him 24 times (132 total) after doing so only twice (100 total) last season. Prior to the season I predicted a .272/.391/.563 (.954 OPS) slash line with 39 home runs and thought myself bold. Joey Bats exceeded even the most demanding expectations.

Grade: A+

RF Adam Loewen (27)
32 AB, .188/.297/.313 (.610 OPS), 1 2B, 0 3B, 1 HR, 4 RBI, 0 SB, 3/13 BB/K

Loewen put together a strong season with Triple-A Las Vegas, earing himself a September callup. While he displayed a nice swing and impressive power, I was a little confused by his plate approach. He often seemed more inclined to work the count than to swing, even when the pitch was very hittable. As a former pitcher he obviously wants to try and think along with the opposing pitcher to discover the pitch sequence and get an edge, but such an approach put him in far too many two-strike counts. Loewen would do well for himself to show a bit more aggression early in the count.

Grade: C+

CF Colby Rasmus (25)
471 AB, .224/.298/.391 (.688 OPS), 24 2B, 6 3B, 14 HR, 53 RBI, 5 SB, 50/116 BB/K

While the sky is the limit for Rasmus, he didn't look great in his brief stint with Toronto late in the season. Across 35 games (133 AB), Rasmus hit only .173/.201/.316 with an ugly 5/39 BB/K ratio. The struggles are understandable, as he was moving to the American League for the first time and was in the middle of the most stressful season of his life. Given the disrespect LaRussa shows Rasmus in the media, it's difficult to even fathom the venom that was spewed behind closed doors. With a fresh start Rasmus should be much better in 2012, but his late season struggles left a bit of a sour taste in the mouths of Blue Jays fans.

Grade: C-

CF Rajai Davis (31)
320 AB, .238/.273/.350 (.623 OPS), 21 2B, 6 3B, 1 HR, 29 RBI, 34 SB, 15/63 BB/K

Rajai's season got off to a poor start with a pulled hamstring in the season opener, and he was never able to fully get on track before eventually tearing his hamstring in August. Despite the injury and offensive struggles, we did learn where Davis can be effective moving forward. The leadoff experiment failed miserably (.483 OPS in 24 games hitting 1st), but Davis did show some comfort hitting in the back of the lineup (.720 OPS in 17 games hitting 9th). He hit lefties extremely well (.288/.367/.463), but was a black hole against righties (.221/.239/.313). This translates into an obvious 2012 platoon in left field, splitting time with whoever of the two lefties (Thames, Snider) makes the team out of spring training.

Grade: C

LF Eric Thames (24)
362 AB, .262/.313/.456 (.769 OPS), 24 2B, 5 3B, 12 HR, 37 RBI, 2 SB, 23/88 BB/K

Despite putting together an impressive spring, Thames was sent to Triple-A in April. He crushed PCL pitching with a 1.033 OPS in 53 games, earning a promotion to Toronto that he would not relinquish. While there was a stretch in late August in which he looked positively awful, Thames still had a solid debut season. His bat speed and power are unquestionable, but his plate coverage is poor with a lot of holes in his swing. He probably won't ever be a full time player. His defense came as advertised, which is not a good thing. According to FanGraphs, Thames was the 5th worst defender (minimum 350 PA) in left field, behind only Raul Ibanez, Logan Morrison, Michael Morse, and Juan Pierre.

Grade: B+

LF Travis Snider (23)
187 AB, .225/.269/.348 (.616 OPS), 14 2B, 0 3B, 3 HR, 30 RBI, 9 SB, 11/56 BB/K

If Brandon Morrow was the biggest disappointment on the pitching side, Travis Snider takes the cake for the hitters. Snider was expected to step in as the full time left fielder and work his way into the heart of the Blue Jays lineup. That didn't happen. Snider was demoted to the minors in late April to "simplify his swing". After a couple months on the farm, Snider rejoined the big club during the summer. He got off to a hot start, demolishing the Red Sox in his first series back. Things went downhill after that, culminating in a demotion back to Triple-A as a roster spot was needed for the phenom, Brett Lawrie. Snider was expected to return as a September callup, but a wrist injury ended his season prematurely. Many Blue Jays fans have soured on Travis, but he's still only 23 and deserves another chance to prove his worth. His tools are miles ahead of Eric Thames' (power included), and I have no doubt he can win the left field job next season if given a fair opportunity. With that being said, 2011 was a colossal failure.

Grade: F

Jose Bautista is the Toronto Blue Jays

The Blue Jays offense is in shambles. Seemingly every year around this time -- that is, interleague play -- the Blue Jays roster collapses on itself, struggling to put up any kind of a fight against their opposition. This year, the offense has been especially putrid having scored 4 or less runs in each of their last 8 games. Their record is 3-5 in those 8 games, due mostly to strong pitching performances by the starting rotation, particularly team ace Ricky Romero.

The question that needs to be asked, however, is are these struggles an isolated incident -- a cold stretch if you will, or are they a microcosm of a poor roster being exposed with the smoke and mirrors of "small ball" gone?

I have to lean towards the latter. The Blue Jays offense is constructed in a way that almost relies on hot streaks from the poor hitters to have any form of success, as when the poor hitters are hitting like themselves, the good hitters can easily be worked around, and the offense has entire innings where they send up nothing but garbage. While they are led by the league's premier hitter Jose Bautista (.474 wOBA) and have strong secondary pieces in Adam Lind (.410 wOBA), Yunel Escobar (.344 wOBA), and J.P. Arencibia (.316 wOBA), the remaining 5 spots in the lineup have been, for lack of better words, dead weight. Below are the Blue Jays wOBA values, by position, and their rankings compared to the rest of major league baseball.

RF -- .474 wOBA (1st), 4.5 WAR
1B -- .341 wOBA (15th), 2.2 WAR
SS -- .344 wOBA (5th), 1.9 WAR
C -- .334 wOBA (6th), 1.6 WAR
CF -- .292 wOBA (26th), 0.6 WAR
LF -- .295 wOBA (24th), 0.5 WAR
2B -- .272 wOBA (26th), 0.3 WAR
3B -- .269 wOBA (27th), -0.1 WAR
DH -- .294 wOBA (12th in AL), -0.7 WAR

As you can see, the Blue Jays have 4 positions ranking in the top half of baseball in wOBA, and first base would me much higher if not for Adam Lind's month long DL stint and hitters such as Juan Rivera and David Cooper getting extended time there.

Even when considering defense and base running, the remaining 5 positions have played as roughly replacement level players, at best. A replacement level player is basically organizational filler and often goes by many names among baseball fans, inclding the "Quad-A player" and "25th man". With a combined 0.6 WAR from 5 positions, each of those 5 spots has averaged 0.12 WAR this season.

In other words, on any given day, the Blue Jays lineup contains 1 superstar, 1 star, 2 above average players, and 5 players who belong on the bench of in the minors. As a serious baseball fan for over 10 years, I can't honestly say I've seen a lineup like this, particularly in the American League where the DH position should make the offense more potent. Toronto's -0.7 WAR contribution from the DH is unfathomable to the point of being laughable.

Perhaps even more amazing than the horrific nature of those 5 spots in the lineup is that, despite them, Toronto still has the 10th best wOBA (and 15th best WAR) as a team in all of baseball. We're an average to above average lineup. It's borderline unbelieveable to read and believe that sentence after seeing the numbers I just mentioned above. Jose Bautista has (albeit with substantial contributions from Lind, Escobar, and Arencibia) basically carried this team on his back for 3 months. His WAR of 4.5 consitutes 43.7% of our positional players' 10.3 WAR. We have 12-13 positional players on our roster at any given time, and one of those 12 or 13 has accounted for nearly 44% of the production. Incredible. Perhaps even more amazing is that Jose Bautista's 4.5 WAR is greater than the totals for both the Athletics (3.1 WAR) and Mariners (1.7 WAR) positional players.

Obviously, the offensive issues need to be addressed. Perhaps the most devastating and unfortunate loss this team has suffered this season is Brett Lawrie's broken hand, seemingly days before his promotion to take over the reins at third base. It was recently revealed that the injury will keep Lawrie out until atleast August, and with such news it was announced Jose Bautista will temporarily move to third base in order to remove that black hole from the lineup and create a position for the recently recalled Eric Thames. Thames will play right field, left field, as well as some DH for Toronto. Thames should help the offense, however his defense in right field does concern me. The next logical move would be to promote Travis Snider, who after a rough start to the year has revamped his swing in the minor leagues. Snider was recently hit in the helmet by a pitch, and although he is symptom free, he is likely still a couple days away from returning to the lineup. Once he has played a few games back in Las Vegas, I expect him to be promoted to Toronto, which should really help the club.

These 3 young players would dramatically improve the offense, and give Jose Bautista the support he needs and deserves. While lineup speculation is never wise, by mid August I hope to see Toronto fielding the following lineup:

1. SS Escobar (R)
2. LF Snider (L)
3. RF Bautista (R)
4. 1B Lind (L)
5. 3B Lawrie (R)
6. DH Thames (L)
7. C Arencibia (R)
8. 2B Hill (R)
9. CF Davis (R)