Roto Baseball Guru

It’s been awhile since the Toronto Blue Jays have played meaningful September baseball, and this year will be no different.  However, as we are in the midst of a 7 game winning streak (the longest in over 4 years) and I just witnessed another thrilling last at-bat grand slam come from behind victory over the AL East leading Tampa Bay Rays - I can say that at least it’s enjoyable to watch.  I can also soak in the solace that with this win, we are also dead even with the New York Yankees at 75-66, still a good 10.5 games back from Tampa Bay.

The Jays seem to relish in playing spoilers in September.  Although I don’t have the stats in front of me, I do recall that September is usually a good performing month for the Jays, and so far with a 5-0 record to start September, the Jays look to continue that trend.  But the bigger question is, does this all really matter?  Even with all of the great recent play, the Jays are once again not playing any meaningful games in September.  Although they may mathematically be still in it, the reality is that the Jays management is getting a better feel of what they have and what the future will hold.  From what I have seen so far, the future should be bright.

With a 1-2-3 of Vernon Wells, Alex Rios and Adam Lind in the outfield, the Jays will have a young and solid group, that if playing up to their potential, will rival any other outfield tandem in the AL East.  They have shown this year that they have the top pitching staff, but that will take a bit of a hit next year with the wide known speculation that A.J. Burnett will opt out of his contract and walk away for greener pastures.  I have also been quite impressed by 20 year old September call-up, Travis Snider, who is eating up Major League pitching like he was back in Triple A Syracuse.  Finally, there’s the Cito Gaston factor.  Although there were many critics of his re-hiring back in June, the results that he has brought to the Jays since he replaced John Gibbons cannot be ignored.

Gaston and his staff has slowly but surely began to bring the bats around and given them confidence to deliver in the clutch, the critical weakness of team all year.  Although he’s not magician, it’s been night and day at times the way the Jays hitters approach their at-bats and there has been a gradual improvement till this point.  All of the recent results, plus the whole aura of being the only manager to bring Toronto a championship in baseball - has earned Gaston an extension to his contract until next year.

As a Jays fan, I maybe disappointed with another September of meaningless baseball, but with Gaston in charge, the players that we have locked up, and ultimately the progress that the team has made in the past few months … I am shockingly optimistic of what we can do next year.  But until then, at least I know there will be entertaining September baseball to watch!

Update: September 9th, 2008

The Jays have run their winning streak to a whopping 10 games in a row!  This is their longest streak since the franchise record 11 game win streak back in 1998 between the strech of Aug. 27-Sept. 7.  Although it will still take a miracle for the Jays to make it into the playoffs, this is a fun ride that we should all enjoy while it lasts.  Let’s go Blue Jays!

So the weekly hot hitter stats are up on the main site, and while updating those stats I was pleasantly surprised to see the Blue Jays own Alex Rios at the top of the list.  Alex has been tearing it up since the all-star break, hitting more home runs (a total of four) in the past week than he did in the entire first half.  It’s a bit sad if you think about it, but it’s really part and parcel with the pathetic Jays offense this year.  Viewing from a glass half full perspective, it’s good to see Alex starting to pick things up … it’s long overdue.  However I’m not holding my breath that he’ll keep this going.  I’m still kicking J.P. Ricciardi for the fact that he didn’t trade Rios for the current leading NL Cy Young candidate, Tim Lincecum.  Hindsight is 20/20 but that would have been a sweet trade … you can never have enough quality pitching!

On another note, when I was reviewing the weekly top hitters from the past month to look for any trends, it became apparent to me how quickly a player rotates in and out of a hot streak on a weekly basis.  Over the past 4 weeks, only 2 players were able to make it to the Top Ten list more than once.  Can you guess who they were?

If you guessed the usual suspects such as: Alex Rodriguez, Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Albert Pujols or even Josh Hamilton, you would be incorrect.  No, instead of these fantasy household names the two players that have earned this prestigious distinction are:

Ryan Braun (Mil - 3B,OF) - Ranked #2, Week of July 20-26 and Ranked #8, Week of July 6-12
Matt Holliday (Col - OF) - Ranked #3, Week of July 20-26 and Ranked #1, Week of June 29-July 5

What does that tell you?  One thing is that picking up the hottest player of the week doesn’t necessarily equate to that same player staying hot for the next week.  More often than not, that player will fall out of the Top 10 the following week.  The other is that baseball is a long season, and any metric at a specific point in time is not enough to make a good fantasy player evaluation decision.  It’s really a good mix following the latest news, as well as the weekly stats that will help you find that next hot fantasy gem.

Remember that you can always get the weekly top hitter stats for the fantasy baseball source: www.rotobaseballguru.com