may we not see him again this entire season

Nope

I get the sentiment of wanting to see long time Jays contributing, but playing Kawasaki over Pennington for the sake of sentimentality is insane.

I love Kawasaki. I hope he retires a Jay, and they give him a job in the PR department.

Having said that, the gap between Pennington and Kawasaki is not much smaller than the gap between Tulo and Pennington.

Nope. The guys we were cheering for back then just weren't very good. I cheer for AA and the laundry.

You must've/would've hated 1992.

I'll have to look back at this roster and it's moves. I've never seen a team make so many in season moves.




And you may very well be right. But Cliff Pennington only has 0.2 WAR this year prior to today's weak game. and 0 WAR since joining the Jays. IMO there has to be some low level of acheivement reached where the 2b job is up for grabs. And we made need Kawasaki, so I think it's worth getting him some PA's and some innings in the field to keep him sharp just in case. With the way Pennington has played, I think a random Kawasaki start or 2 is worth trying.

Spots in the lineup have to be earned at some point. The only season of Pennington's career that indicates he's clearly better than Kawasaki is 2010. Pennington has 1.1 O-WAR since the start of 2013 in 236 games. In that same time Kawasaki has 1.8 oWAR in 196 games. Both are good defenders but Pennington wins in those limited stats 3.1-1.1 in that sample. And fielding WAR is high variance stuff. So I just don't think it should be 100% Pennington's playing time with no consideration for trying Kawasaki or even keeping him sharp based on the track record available. If Tulo can't come back and Pennington's giving us a sub .500 OPS and shaky defense, it seems a shame to not give someone else a chance.

Was a drunken rant earlier so I hope it was entertaining. Hopefully many of the current Blue Jays will be around for a while. I've never seen a contending team change so much with a year, 2 years, and 3 years, maybe this more normal than I realize and someone can show me examples of teams that had so many players so new and replaced in-season.

It actually wasn't quite that bad. But White, Carter and Alomar came the previous season in trades, Morris and Winfield were more or less one year and out free agent signings, Maldonado came in the previous year and was gone the following year, Cone came in after the non-waiver trade deadline...winning teams make moves. This team was going nowhere without making moves.

thanks for nothing mets

It may be the combination of changes and some frustration with Tulo gone (thus Pennington in) that is getting you frustrated.

A couple of thoughts.

1. Keep in mind that at opening day the Jays didn't look like the Jays. The team that was put together to win with the Mets trades and Miami trades was basically shook up.

Gone were Rasmus, Lind, Melky and Lawrie. We had no idea how 2nd base was going to work out, and we had added Martin, Donaldson, and Saunders. Pompey was an experiment in LF and Pillar was in CF. So, we all had to get our heads around the new starters, including Travis. We had 4 new position players and Pompey ended up in LF. So, before we even start we are not looking like the Jays of the year before.

2. The changes we just made pre- trade deadline (as another poster noted) were similar to what we did in 92 and 93. We got Price and Tulo, and Revere and we were all happy. Many of head-scratched why Valencia was gone and why did we need Revere, but except for his noodle arm he has been really good and really fast. We knew we needed an ace, and we knew Reyes was not performing. So, now we only have JoeyBats and EE at 1b/DH as constants. Everyone else is new.

We started winning like crazy and then Tulo goes down, and at first it seemed like Goins and Pennington were going to be fine. Pennington makes some errors and doesn't, hit, and then we have two games in which we boot the ball all over the place, so it seems pretty bad.

My take is that we had a couple of games that have reminded us of the 1st half and we are frustrated. But, it is just two games of crappy play. This was never going to be easy. The Jays never make it easy.

We are in for a tough ride right to the last series against Tampa.

We'll see what we are made of. People think the next three games against the Yanks are what matters. I hope we secure things soon, but don't expect it to be sorted until the last weekend of the season.

haha carnivore

i love that u care so much about the guys on the team

just fall in love all over again with these guys!

Playing Tampa twice scares me more than the Yanks. I don't have the season series in front of me, but it feels like they always drink our milkshake.

I just looked back at 92 and 93 and I see one prominent pick-up each year, Cone in 92 and Henderson in 93. That's about what I remember. The rest of the team was at least together all season.

That's what Price would've been this year. He's really been the only pickup that's had a major impact. The offense was good all year, and we had a big run differential that just hadn't translated into a winning record.

Tulo/Revere/Hawkins/Lowe/Pennington/Barney haven't really been a big part of our big second half surge. I still like the Reyes for Tulo trade. But the real reason for our recent success is the emergence of Estrada as a stud, the resurgence of Dickey, and the dominance of Price with now the return of Stroman.

In other words, in the first half, Mark Buerhle was the ace of our staff. In the second half, he's become our number 5 pitcher. And that's the difference between a weak staff and what is currently an unbelievably strong staff. We literally have 4 guys pitching like aces right now.

In 1992 we traded for Mark Eichorn
In 1993 we traded for Tony Fernandez and signed Dick Schofield as a free agent and picked Doug Linton off waivers.

You are doing a lot of cherry picking, where you are forgetting some moves made by the 1992/1993 teams and counting every inconsequential move the 2015 team has made.

Barney/Pennington are only on the roster because we had two middle IFers that got injured.

I doubt 12 years from now you will remember Mark Lowe/Hawkins as being the key parts to the this team.

+1

The spare parts have changed. It is not Johnny Mac and Muni filling in.

Embrace the change.

Doesn't count.

So crazy that I've never been this excited for a regular season series in my life... these next few games are going to be tense and I'm fully expecting the blue Jays to get swept and crush my emotions in epic fashion this year.

https://instagram.com/p/7tvtqnM8Sg/

that's how i approach every series

Holy ****, that ball from Ellsbury was nearly SEASON OVER

Good start!

Pennington.....

How is that his first error?

Sigh....

he is nothing if not consistent