Most Blue jay fans probably don’t realize that the team is still playing right now. For those that do, they would have witnessed (or at least known about) two phenomenal starts from Roy Halladay down the stretch.

On September 25, in what may be his last start at Rogers’ Center as a Jay, Halladay spun a gem against the Mariners, to the tune of 9IP, 0ER, 7H, 0BB, 9K. It was a complete game domination we have come to expect, though that doesn’t make it any less spectacular.

On September 30 at Boston, in what may be his last start as a Jay, period, Halladay shut down a potent Red Sox lineup, posting a mesmerizing 9IP, 0ER, 3H, 2BB, 6K. Again, complete dominance we have come to expect and take for granted.

While many are hopeful that these won’t be his last starts as a Blue Jay, it would be a fitting way to end a 12-year tenure where he has set franchise records in almost everything. His career line stands at 148-76 over 313 appearances (287 starts), 1.20 WHIP, .255 AVG against, 3.43 ERA, 1495 K, 2046.2 IP, 49 complete games, and 15 shutouts.

Arguing Halladay as one of the best pitchers of all time is an article for another day, and his place as the Greatest Blue Jay Ever is simply not up for debate. What he has brought to the franchise and the city is one of those unspeakable experiences being sports fans affords us; we can not describe it to a non-Jay fan, but every one of us will somehow hurt if he leaves the team this offseason.

But this piece isn’t meant to be a pre-emptive goodbye or reminiscing. Instead, the point of this article is to posit one more time a debate that Jays’ fans have argued for a decade now:

Be it resolved that Roy Halladay should be the 2009 AL Cy Young Award winner.
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There’s a reason baseball fans crave September. It’s certainly not the declining temperatures, shortened hours of sunlight, or hockey buzz that comes with the month. Instead, it’s September call-ups, it’s statistic tracking, and it’s playoff races.

And as I write this on September 3rd (it will be updated after the games tonight to be posted September 4th for your enjoyment), I’m starting to feel the excitement. The first few weeks of September, they say, is just a gateway to the winter in the sports world. Football training camps and fantasy drafts prepare us for the mid-September start of the NFL season, NHL and Olympic hockey training camps get most Canadians excited, basketball season is just an earshot away, and October…baseball playoffs…are just around the corner.

But the excitement to come is no reason to ignore the excitement happening around you at present. The MLB playoff races have already gotten hot; they are beyond the heating up stages. Races in nearly every division and complicated Wild Card scenarios are abound, making us all pay closer attention just a little earlier than it seems we usually do.

So here, heading into the first weekend of September, with a full month to go before playoff baseball, is a look at all of the teams still contending and their schedules down the stretch (American League only today…National League early next week!).
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The recent call up of Randy Ruiz over Travis Snider has Jays fans talking. At first, I was being asked questions about arbitration eligibility and Snider’s Triple-A performance. But now, after a five game audition where Ruiz has gone 7-for-21 with two homeruns, the questions have started to focus on the Rod Barajas look-alike.

Questions like Who is Ruiz? Why are the Jays calling up a 31-year old career minor leaguer? Why is he a career minor leaguer? Did he eat Travis Snider? Do they really expect us to believe he’s only 240 pounds? Why wasn’t he called up for All You Can Eat Day?

But seriously, the question I’ve pondered most is this: how does a player with such a strong minor league track record get tagged with the ‘Quad-A’ label (a player who’s skill level sits somewhere between Triple-A and Major League) without getting a shot in the Majors to prove himself?

The Quad-A tag is generally reserved for players who dominated in the minors and struggle in the majors, but Ruiz wasn’t even given a chance until his age-30 season (last year), and it was just a 68 plate appearance audition with the Twins.

So, with an OPS consistently above .850, I tried to find out if Ruiz was unlucky at each of his 11 organizational stops, if he was always blocked by better players, or if there’s just something about Ruiz that has kept teams from giving him his apparently deserved chance.
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I guess it’s difficult to argue with the Blue Jays on this one. After all, the team has the American League’s sixth best team ERA with a mark of 4.19, and the company line can sometimes be confused for “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…and if it’s mediocre, don’t fix it…you know what, just leave it alone.”

Still, the fact remains: The Jays are 55-60 at the time of this writing, but their Pythagorean Win-Loss record dictates that, based on runs scored against runs allowed, the Jays should be 61-54. Generally, this kind of gap can point towards bad luck. It’s possible, but I also think it’s an overlooked statistic when evaluating managers – maybe there is some (or a lot) of luck involved in this difference, but it could simply be an indication that the team fails in close games. The Jays are 14-21 in one-run games, so I may not be too misguided in attributing some of that gap to game management. This, of course, includes bullpen management.

And I’m not calling out Cito. Since I haven’t introduced the topic of this article yet, I guess three paragraphs in I should: I’m just wondering, who did Jeremy Accardo piss off?
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Lost in the news of Mike Vick signing with the Philadelphia Eagles was a gem of an interview from Bronson Arroyo yesterday. It was my favorite news of the day, for certain. I knew I wanted to write about it, but I really couldn’t decide how I felt about his statements. Is Arroyo an idiot? Ahead of his peers? Looking for trouble? Creating awareness? I have no idea. Rest assured, though, Arroyo’s statements are extremely thought provoking.

This ESPN article does a good job outlining the words Arroyo used, and that’s about it. This USA Today story does a little better. But what was Arroyo really doing? In a time when nobody will admit to steroid use even when they’re caught, when everyone has an excuse as to why they’re on the List of 104, when players walk on eggshells regarding supplements and vitamins, Arroyo flat out accused himself of taking banned substances.
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With the Fantasy Baseball season beginning to wind down for those not in contention, most leagues have begun discussions about what changes should be made for next year. With my 5×5 Roto League lead now up to a disgusting and insurmountable 14.5 points (runs is the only category I’m not top-4, OBP the only other I’m not top-3), people in my league have been especially active with these discussions.

Among talks of more keepers, new rules for the cost of keepers (e.g. do you keep them at the same price you paid, +10%, +$5, etc), and increased roster sizes, one change has me thinking hard and researching.

This year we chose to go with OBP over AVG, because it’s generally a much better statistic in evaluating a player’s value. To some effect, it has been successful – high-OBP players are more regularly featured, and there is a better sense that available fantasy players are actually less valuable baseball players. Still though, this improvement could be taken a step further. While possibly difficult, could a fantasy league use OPS (On Base Plus Slugging) in place of AVG or OBP?
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According to ESPN, a team has made a waiver claim on Jays’ right fielder Alex Rios. While the details of such a waiver claim can confuse some fans, it is common practice for several hundred players to go through waivers after the trade deadline – it allows the player to be traded past the deadline, and in rare cases, this situation comes up.

The team is undisclosed (per league rules), and the Jays have until Tuesday to make a decision. And it will certainly be a tough one. While Rios has irritated some fans with an apparent laziness in the outfield and a less-than-friendly off-field demeanor, he is a young and talented player on a team without any true stars.

The Jays have three options per league rules:
1) They can pull him off of waivers, like it never happened.
2) They can trade him to the team that made a claim on him.
3) They can let him go. Completely. For nothing in return. But the other team would absorb his entire contract.
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In 2009, Ben Zobrist has been, to say the least, a surprise. A terrific surprise, at that. A minimum-contract player once acquired as part of an Aubrey Huff trade (along with Mitch Talbot), the 2004 sixth round draft pick of the Houston Astros has made quite the impact for the Tampa Bay Rays this year.

Seriously, this came out of nowhere.

Coming into this year, Zobrist had accumulated just 530 plate appearances over parts of three seasons with the Rays. He had an OPS+ of 48 in 2006, a disgusting OPS+ of 4 in 2007 (meaning he was 4% as good as a replacement player, really), and was a below average defensive contributor in each of those seasons.

In 2008, things seemed to click a little bit for Zobrist. In 227 plate appearances over 62 games, Zobrist put up an OPS+ of 118, stroking 12 home runs in a very small span. Because the production was spread out over the entire second half, his prominent bench role went largely unnoticed. Zobrist also improved his glove, splitting time at shortstop (still –18.1 UZR/150), second base, third base, and all three outfield positions. A fielding score of –2.2 runs above replacement isn’t terrible for a young player being asked to play six positions. So the signs of change were apparent.

But this? This has been incredible…enough so that I had to take a closer look at the transformation from Ben Zobrist to Zorilla.
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The 2009 Blue Jays season is, for all intents and purposes, now inconsequential. While one can argue the morale value of playing spoiler for the Big Dogs down the stretch (and the Jays will have the chance, with a grueling remaining schedule), there are only a few goals that a 51-56 team in the AL East can have. So, with the official ‘seller/spoiler’ tag securely fastened to the black, blue, and silver, I took a look at five tasks the Jays should accomplish over the next 55 games.
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The Dodgers sit at 62-35 right now, good for first place in the AL West. They have a sizable lead in the division, up a full nine games on second place Colorado, giving them an 86.9% chance of winning the division. Their chances of making the playoffs sit at 96.7%. The Dodgers are eighth in runs scored, first in ERA, and appear to have no real weaknesses in the lineup or pitching staff.

The Dodgers are widely assumed to be primed for a great playoff run. Lead by Joe Torre, a man with loads of playoff experience, I agree that the Dodgers have a damn good chance at a World Series run.

Still, I have a question for the man who has killed more middle relievers than Tommy John Surgery and Regression to the Mean combined, Joe Torre: why the hell is Matt Kemp batting 8th?
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