Another Canadian Icon Traded - The 2015 Toronto Blue Jays Thread

I'd be interested in a study that compares Bautista to another set of similarly-skilled 35-year-olds. (Could be difficult to find a large enough pool of players--Bautista's career arc has been pretty unusual.) Seems to me that the biggest risk he's taking is that he heads into the break this year hitting .225 with 11 home runs or something. That wouldn't be out of the question for someone his age.

His age-based similarity scores (on B-R) list names like Jason Bay, JD Drew, David Justice, and Jay Buhner. All of them were good through Age 34, and all of them pretty much fell apart within the next couple of years. But none of them were as good as Bautista has been from Ages 30-34.

Darryl Strawberry appears as a comp, but it's misleading -- Straw was great in his 20's and then declined, JBats had his first great season at age 29, but if you compare their career stats at Age 34, they're similar.

So yeah, finding a good comp is tough.

Oh please:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/14943065/goose-gossage-rips-jose-bautista-toronto-blue-jays-nerds-ruining-baseball

I suspect half the reason people my age remember Gossage so well is because of the flair and colour he brought to the game--he was a character. I know I've said that walk-off bedlam for a meaningless game in June can be a bit much, but the bat-flip game wasn't that.

worst thing about north american sports in general and baseball in particular: old white guys getting mad at non-whites for being insufficiently reticent.

someone started a new thread:

In the Unlikely Event Drew Hutchison Posts a Sub-5.00 ERA, How Will You React? (Toronto Blue Jays 2016)

Yes, someone...I thought I was on the new one, oops.

You're right--I didn't even mention the underlying racial implications. I don't know much about Gossage the person, so it's not an accusation, but you can't avoid acknowledging that. Anyway, Bautista handled it well, and I like the Harper quote in there.

haha hadn't noticed you were the thread starter on the other one