Marcum's Elbow Ruins Everything...

The thing is that, a week ago, we were set in terms of starting pitching for 2009, even if AJ Burnett is a Yankee or whatever. Doc Halladay was the Ace, then we had 3 young pitchers who, while still oozing potential, established themselves as very good ML pitchers; Marcum, Litsch, and McGowan. Purcey, late in year, evidenced enough upside so that he could maybe join that group (all three of those guys had similar inconsistencies as Starters for a while, but grew out of them pretty expediently). And even if Purcey didn't quite work out (as it sometimes doesn't), we're only talking about a 5th starter, and we have a surplus of bullpen arms that could do nicely if it didn't work out, and if not, we have some AAA guys. Most teams throw out some sort of wildcard as their 5th starter, so I think we'd be more than covered.

Only Marcum needs a doctor to build him an elbow. Which ruins everything.

All of a sudden, the fact that McGowan is missing the first month or two of the 2009 season seems important. Doc, Litsch, Purcey, X and Y is a completely different animal than what I mentioned above. Given that its unpredictable, lets look at the best case and worse case scenerios.

Best Case:
1. Roy has a similar season to this season. While its no sure thing, this looks pretty good.
2. Litsch continues to pitch the way he did since being recalled from AAA. While young pitchers fall off all the time after big starts, Litsch has put two extended good stretches together this season, mitigated by a smaller, awful stretch. Furthermore, he can reinvent himself, as he did in his AAA stint. I think this means that if he falters, he can get it back pretty soon. I'd say, at this point, its almost as good as having Marcum in this spot.
3. McGowan, who has electric stuff, comes back from the injury and becomes a little more consistent than he was in 2007 and 2008, both pretty good years for a number 3 starter. But if he improves a little, he's a very good 3rd starter or even a good 2nd starter. 2009esque Burnett is probably optimistic, but its not absure for a best case scenerio.
4/5. Purcey or Janssen are both serviceable. Or pretty good. Or one is serviceable. Or one is pretty good. Either way, I'm thinking if we get one of them to have a good year, we're set. Even if this doesn't work out, there are other options, but getting something from one of these young pitchers would really help.

Worst Case:
1. 2 possible situations here; Doc has sort of a hangover year after hitting a home run in 2008 (it happens...), or Doc gets hurt. Even in a hangover year, though, he's still an ace. As for the injury thing, Roy is as durable as anyone (9CG?) and anyone could get injured.
2. Litsch struggles. Even in this case, he becomes more of a serviceable depth starter as opposed to a young arm holding down a prime spot in a strong rotation.
3. Regarding McGowan, since he's got some amazing stuff, I'd say he won't go into the sort of freefall that I could possibly (but hopefully unlikely) imagine for Litsch. In other words, the worst case scenerio for McGowan would be some mix of the inconsistency that plagued him in 2007 and the injury problems in 2008. Even if this were to happen, I'd say he's still a decent 3rd starter compared to most around the league, and he'd still be good for throwing a gem every couple of starts.
4/5. Even if everything goes pretty bad, I'd say its extremely improbable that none of Purcey, Jannsen, Richmond, Parrish, Wolfe, some AAA shmuck, or possibly Downs if we convert him doesn't at least produce a average/ slightly below average 4th or 5th guy. Then we only have one more slot to fill, and we'd only have one guy in the rotation who was completely unreliable. Contrast this with some of the other pitching staffs around the league (or the type of rotation we started 2007 with), and most teams have this sort of situation. And whatever JP's misgivings are, we can at least rely on Moneyball tactics to fine one guy to fill this rather undemanding role.

Ok, so what I think comes across from all this is that without Marcum a) its going to be hard to predict what our pitching staff will be like next year, b) possible outcomes, in my opinion, range from an above average starting rotation (albeit not the dominant 2008 ptichng staff) in the optimistic scenerio, but no worse than an average starting rotation even if most guys stumble a little.

However, if we were to throw a decent free agent pitcher into the equation, I'd say the range of possibilities is restored to pre-Tommy-John-Marcum standing. By this, I mean that, like before the injury, our pitching staff would range from excellent if things work out very well to above average even if we get a reasonable amount of setbacks.

The problem is that getting Free Agents is harder than it seems, especailly for a small market team like Toronto. I have a theory that GM's shouldn't be judged very harshly on FA contracts that are too high; because if you're just offering Fair Market Value for someone, you probably won't get them unless their wife is from the city or something like that. Therefore, you have to go into FA bidding knowing that you're going to have overpay to get somebody. Its better to pre-understand that every FA contract (for a FA with a substantial amount of interst, anyway) is going to look bad compared to other contracts, and that the 20-40% difference (or whatever it is) should be written off as the cost of acquiring an asset without giving up another (like via Trade).

But its always easier to make someone stay, than convince them to sign as an FA. I guess the reason for this is that players become accustomed to their team and the city, or maybe that during the period leading up to when they are actually a FA the team offers them a deal that the player figures approaches the amount they would make on the open market, and they say "what the hell" and forgoe a chance at making a few million more because they don't want to move or figure not taking it is a little risky because they could get hurt or that the market could collapse or something. Actually, the Jays have been pretty good at this under later-era JP. So, compared to paying the "FA Premium" for someone else, they might be able to save a little if they throw a big contract at AJ Burnett before he opts out.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think they'll get much of a discount for AJ. Probably our offer would at least have to approach (by this I mean be within 5-7 million or so) what AJ (and his Agent) figures will be the probable offer from the Yankees or the Cubs or whoever. You'd still be playing the FA Premium and giving what would likely be considered a bad contract, but this would be our only chance to target someone who would want to play in Toronto for an amount around what anyone else would pay, rather than most other guys whom we would have to pay significantly over this amount.

I think AJ would want to stay in Toronto, just as long as its not costing him 10 million or anything like that. A lot has changed since everyone booed him off the mound (at a game I was at, although I didn't boo; as a rule I find it hard to justify booing pitchers), and he seemed to genuinely respond to what seems like a much friendlier atmosphere these days, both in a dugout that seems to have a lot more fun in the second half of the season, and a fanbase that has slowly but surely picked up on the good vibes. AJ is no lawyer, and generally says what he thinks, and its hard not to hear a change from when he was telling everyone he wanted to play for the Cubs to his more recent comments. He seems to have a lot of fun with the rest of the team. Also, if its success he's after, given that Boston, Tampa, Anaheim, and CWS all have very strong Starting Rotations and thus probably aren't going to put in much of a push for him. I guess I'd throw the Cubs in that group too, although who knows what's happening in the NL. More likely, the big contract he's looking at is with the Yankees, and do the 2009 Yankees really look that better than the 2009 Blue Jays?

I think, when you look at the 2009 rotation issues above, finding a way to retain AJ really would solve a lot of the questions. Its going to be hard to admit, but at least in the last couple months, AJ has been even more reliable than Doc. He's defintely the protypical "could put together a 'Perfect Storm' season" and win a Cy in any given year. If we keep him for another 4 or 5 years, we might get 2 or 3 stinkers, but I bet we get a couple 2008-ish years too, and maybe even a dominant year. He's not Pedro, but he's (probably) not Zito either.

Then, think about 2010, if Marcum comes back at full strength. We had the best pitching in baseball this year, and only Halladay strung it together for the full year. Burnett got better as the year went on, but had more than his fair share of horrible starts (inflating his ERA, which seems unfairly high for the type of season he had). With Marcum, we got an evolution of Good Marcum - Great Marcum - Hurt Elbow - Mediocre Marcum - Strange AAA demotion - Great Marcum - Tommy John Surgery. Litsch similarly went through a few phases; Great Litsch who was talked about as an Allstar - slow turn into Terrible Litsch - AAA demotion - New Great Litsch. I don't even remember what McGowan was doing, but he's continuing to improve, and is completely unhittable sometimes. Definitely a very intimidating rotation.