Sep 21, 2011; Toronto, ON, Canada; Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Dustin McGowan (29) delivers a pitch against the Los Angeles Angels at the Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

According to John Lott at the National Post, the 31-year-old McGowan is finally ready to begin a Minor League rehab assignment and has been assigned to the Dunedin Blue Jays. The Blue Jays own website is somewhat cryptic on the matter though, as they are reporting McGowan has been assigned to both Dunedin and New Hampshire, although Dunedin seems more likely at the time.

The Blue Jays are likely to be very careful with McGowan and are expected to utilize the full 30-day window they have at their disposal. The plan for now is to transition McGowan to a bullpen role, which should help reduce the workload on his arm and allow him to return to the Major Leagues in a role the club currently has a need for.

Once that 30-day window is up, the Blue Jays will have to assess whether McGowan is ready to join the 25-man roster or the team will have to expose him to waivers, as he is out of Minor League options.

McGowan did make one appearance this spring, throwing one scoreless inning on March 26th against Pittsburgh. Since then, he has been in extended spring training, working on his arm strength.

McGowan owns a lifetime record of 20-24 with a 4.80 ERA and a 7.3 K/9 ratio. He enjoyed his best season in the Major Leagues in 2007, posting a career-high with 12 wins over 27 starts, with a 4.08 ERA and 144 strike-outs in 169.2 innings pitched.

Four times in his Minor League career, McGowan ranked at a top-100 prospect according to Baseball America, peaking at #18 in the pre-2004 list. However, a series of shoulder and elbow injuries have kept him from fully realizing his potential.

McGowan is under contract through the 2014 season, and the Blue Jays hold a $4 million team option for the 2015 season with a $500k buyout.

UPDATE: Dustin McGowan made his first appearance of 2013 in Dunedin on Tuesday night. In 1 inning against Fort Myers, McGowan allowed 1 hit and struck out the side in a scoreless outing.

The first two instances of this debauchery that immediately come to mind occurred a little over a year ago, during spring training leading up to the 2012 season. Supposedly healthy when they reported to camp in February, before long both Sergio Santos and Dustin McGowan found themselves being held out of games. In the case of Santos, then-manager John Farrell spoke to the right hander being too amped up too early trying to impress his new team, and that they wanted to slow him down to a more normal routine. For those who have somehow forgotten, Santos would make just six appearances during the 2012 season, before months of rest – and eventually surgery – was required to repair a bum shoulder.

With Dustin McGowan, the organization declared he was suffering from a foot injury and he’d be off the mound for a few days, but that he should be 100% in time for Opening Day in April. They even went as far as to sign him to an often-ridiculed (and rightfully so) two-year extension for the 2013 and 2014 seasons. That foot injury somehow turned into a shoulder injury over the course of a couple weeks, leading some – or at least me – to question whether the foot injury ever even existed in the first place. McGowan still hasn’t thrown a pitch for the Toronto Blue Jays in the 13 months since he signed that fully guaranteed, major-league contract. Considering I haven’t read an article mentioning his rehab in a solid month or two, I wouldn’t hold my breath in anticipation of it happening any time soon, either.

The team was decimated by injuries during the season, but as all of them happened during nationally televised games – as opposed to hidden on backfields of a spring training complex – it was pointless for the organization to try and feed the masses any kind of bullshit. When Kyle Drabek throws a pitch and he immediately grabs his right elbow with a grimace on his face, you don’t need a medical degree to surmise that maybe he just injured his UCL.

February 24, 2013; Tampa, FL, USA; Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Brett Lawrie (13) in the dugout against the New York Yankees during spring training at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The offseason and spring training leading up to 2013 is a different beast entirely. Casey Janssen underwent shoulder surgery in mid-November, and the public didn’t even know he had been having issues with it until a week after he’d already gone under the knife. It was also just supposed to be a quick cleanup of some AC joint spurs, yet Janssen was just barely ready for Opening Day 20 weeks later, and is still on a very strict pitching schedule.

During March, starting third baseman Brett Lawrie left to represent Canada in the World Baseball Classic. In an exhibition tilt against the Cincinnati Reds on March 6th, Lawrie felt a grabbing sensation on his left side and removed himself from the game. Originally it was thought he might only miss the first round, but he needed to be evaluated by the Blue Jays back in Dunedin before a more accurate prognosis could occur. An article from the Globe and Mail, written by Tyler Harper on March 7th, quoted General Manager Alex Anthopoulos as saying

“He’ll be back on Monday, he’ll get some more exams, but he said it has improved today. It’s just one of those things that you need to rest. It’s very mild, which is certainly good news, and they’re saying two-to-three weeks on the really conservative side, which means there’s obviously a chance that it’s sooner than that.”

He used the words “very mild”, and “chance it’s sooner than that” when describing the two-to-three week timeframe. In reality, Lawrie missed almost six weeks, and it’s fair to say that with a healthy Jose Reyes, it might’ve been another week until our great maple hero returned.

In addition to Lawrie, Sergio Santos again made headlines this past spring. After appearing in a few games – and looking downright filthy, forcing many to question Janssen’s grasp on the closer job – he was shut down for a few days because of some right triceps soreness. Upon his return, while he still looked pretty good, there was a little missing. His fastball was still buzzing but he struggled to command it, and his monstrous slider wasn’t quite as sharp as it was when we saw it in early March. Regardless, he was declared ready to head north, and after making three appearances on the home stand, he was once again held out of the Detroit series because of that same triceps soreness. Santos pitched in back-to-back games against the Royals on the 12th and 13th, and was then officially placed on the disabled list yesterday with, unsurprisingly, a sore right triceps.

I can only really see two possible explanations for the inaccuracies in the diagnoses I mentioned above. The first, which is more than a little farfetched, is that the Blue Jays employ a training and conditioning staff composed of morons who can’t even operate an MRI machine, let alone comprehend and analyze the results it offers. Considering the Blue Jays are a professional sports team valued by Forbes at $337 million back in 2011, and are owned by a media conglomerate valued at $18.36 billion in 2011 (according to Wikipedia), I doubt those are the kind of doctors they choose to employ.

The second, which is far more realistic, is that the organization simply doesn’t find it necessary to keep the ticket paying public in-the-know when it comes to player injuries and recoveries. They may see it as a competitive advantage issue, as if the public knows, so do opposing teams. The thing is, baseball isn’t like hockey or football – both of which are far worse when it comes to “stretching the truth” about injuries to be fair – where a certain weak spot on a player could be targeted and exploited. What could the Yankees or Red Sox possibly gain by having the knowledge that Brett Lawrie’s going to miss six weeks instead of two or three? They’re not going to alter their roster in any way, shape, or form because of that news, and if they would, they have such a poorly run and reactionary front office that you really don’t need to worry about them anyways.

My question is, how much truth does a professional sports organization owe to the public when it comes to injuries? Fans, whether it is through ticket and concession sales or TV revenue, are the gasoline that runs the engines of professional sports. If the team was a corporation, the fans are the shareholders whose investments allow for the corporation to flourish, and without those investments the corporation will fail to survive. What kind of accountability should they be held to, for, perhaps not lying, but certainly stretching and smearing the truth for their own unforeseen benefit?

April 9, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Toronto Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista (19) sits in dugout against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

The Lawrie situation hung with me all March and into April. Not necessarily in a “Why isn’t he back yet?” way, but as the weeks progressed and Brett, well, didn’t, I wanted to know why the team’s original timeline was so horribly far off reality. If a doctor says something will heal in two weeks and it’s still bothersome five weeks later, either a setback occurred or the injury was more serious than originally anticipated. The organization said neither of those things; simply that he was “progressing.”

What drove me to write this article are the shenanigans that are currently revolving around Jose Bautista, and I legitimately fear that this is once again a situation where the team is giving us half truths and paying us little more than lip service. Tonight will be the team’s 15th game of the year, and the sixth of which Bautista has missed due to three apparently separate issues – a sore ankle, a stiff back, and an ear infection. What bothers me even further is that the team constantly uses the “day-to-day” line. They’ll say he’s out tonight, but should be good for tomorrow and can pinch hit if needed. Manager John Gibbons has used that line on more than one occasion, and it was glaringly untrue last night. Down one run in the bottom of the ninth, both Rajai Davis and Maicer Izturis were allowed to bat, and both created outs to end the game. Not only did Bautista not pinch hit, I didn’t even see him in the dugout. Jose Reyes, he of the gnarly ankle, was seen sitting on the bench in both Chicago games, cheering on his teammates with a huge smile on his face. Where was Jose Bautista? At this point, how much trust can we place on anything the team says about injuries?

Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

The bad news continues for McGowan. Sore shoulder, he is more or less shutdown at this point. Only light workload moving forward. No immediate timetable on when McGowan will be able to increase the intensity of his throwing program. Won’t throw off mound for now.

Gregor Chisholm @gregorMLB

Dustin McGowan is no stranger to shoulder injuries. According to his Baseball Prospectus page, the troubled pitcher has lost 698 games to shoulder injuries, including a span of 464 consecutive games missed spanning over three seasons, followed by another full season lost after pitching 21 innings in 2011. While there is little information to go by on how severe this setback will be, the Blue Jays are now at the point where they will have to make a crucial decision if he is to be injured again for a significant amount of time.

Keep Dustin McGowan or release him?

There are pros and cons to either side of this debacle. If the Blue Jays were to keep Dustin McGowan, they would likely put him on the 60-Day DL for however long he would need to recover. Another avenue for them to pursue is to designate him for assignment. It would be highly unlikely for anyone to pick up his remaining 2 year/$3.5M contract on the waiver wire while injured, and when he comes back he can spend as much time as he wants to recover from the injury. If he were on the 60-Day DL he’d only get about 30 days recovery time to work up his arm strength and get back to working shape, but with so much time on the DL already he could really use the time off the 40-man roster. In that scenario, he might be able to get some time to work against non-elite talent in the minors, learn his pitches again and slowly work his way up with the big club over time, perhaps in a bullpen role. There is the possibility that a team with big coffers could take a flier on Dustin McGowan and use him as a high risk/high reward type pitcher, and once put on waivers he’d have no team protection to stop that from happening.

The other side of the coin is to release him and eat the $3.5M he’s owed. Oddly enough, Dustin McGowan is currently the longest tenured athlete in Toronto pro sports, pitching with the Blue Jays since 2005. Despite flashes of brilliance in 2007 and 2008 (in which he collected 6.2 fWAR over that time), he’s been a long disappointment who has been eating up rehabilitation resources for several years, as well as contract money that could have been used on other players to better the Blue Jays. Eating the $3.5M Dustin McGowan is owed now will definitely open up more spending potentials in 2014, when current Blue Jays pitcher Josh Johnson is expected to reach free agency. Also, while it may not be of importance to many, the move to release McGowan would be a symbolic gesture. Alex Anthopoulos has ushered in a new era of expectations for the Blue Jays, acquiring big names like Jose Reyes, R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle, Melky Cabrera, Maicer Izturis and Josh Johnson to add to a strong core that already has great players like Jose Bautista, Brett Lawrie, Brandon Morrow, Edwin Encarnacion and the potential of Ricky Romero. Dustin McGowan being released would signal the final chapter of the “disappointing potential” era that the Blue Jays lived in throughout the 2000′s.

Whatever the Blue Jays decide, it will be hard to swallow for the fans that Dustin McGowan may never pitch another game for the team again.

Sep 22, 2012; Flushing, NY,USA; New York Mets starting pitcher R.A. Dickey (43) reacts in the dugout during the eighth inning against the Miami Marlins at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Anthony Gruppuso-US PREWIRE

Throughout the last week or so I have been posting some games from yesteryear that make me all gooey and warm inside. No-hitters, Pennant Clinchers…days of rampant optimism. I felt that surge coming back but Alex Anthopoulos has me insides feeling like a fresh baked cake still warm wit da fudge all seething out…but I digress…

This off-season now shows to be a cunning 3 part trilogy of pure skill. He really is a ninja in a nice suit with a flare for the dramatic. This trilogy was a mere month and a half long starting with the swift yet deft signing of Maicer Izturis to eradicate the mess left by Kelly Johnson. That was like the sweet and subtle opener where a little surprise hooks you into watching how the first act will unfold.

The second act is usually larger. More complex. It shows you the bare core of intentions and either corrals your faith or destroys it. With the acquisitions from Florida we imported character and talent in exchange for the unknown. We chose the road less traveled (Yes I meant to infer that). We needed a change. AA flowers us with Melky Cabrera. We crave more action so the second act ends with the epic battle for R.A. Dickey.

AA has set up a rather enticing climax leading into the third act. Bringing all of the aspects into a grand finale you could hope for. But if past experiences and talent level is any indication, the final act shall be almost worth waiting 20 years for. If you were excited by the end of the second act, the third will be an astounding amalgamation of the first two acts.

With the relative inaction of the AL East teams in terms of high profile moves and a desperately-seeking-winner fan base in Toronto, AA has risen to the top of the sporting world mountain in Toronto. He saw an opening and as he has always maintained he had the resources to go for it when the time was right. That time is now.

Underneath the astounding change of our beloved Blue Jays is still a firm foundation of prospects with legitimate chances to become major league ready. A completely different story is being harnessed from kids like D.J. Davis, Aaron Sanchez, A.J. Jimenez and Anthony Gose. They are drafting the next trilogy as AA keeps acquiring assets to build a long term contender. If we lose Josh Johnson after the year I would hope one of Drew Hutchison, Kyle Drabek or even Dustin McGowan may be ready to step in…we have more possibilities because this team is built to contend for the next three years. Prime years for most of the guys.

So when the third act begins and your heart is palpitating from all the excitement remember to stand up and cheer this year. Let’s remind the team what it is like to play in a city brimming with optimism and hope. It feels like our year…doesn’t it?

Mar 3, 2012; Dunedin, FL, USA; Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher

As the majority of you who are Blue Jays fans know by now, Dustin McGowan signed an extension with the Blue Jays earlier this week. There was a collective head-scratch from armchair analysts across the nation, and I’ll count myself among those who weren’t sure what the front office was thinking. It was covered fairly well here, so I won’t add anything extra to that.

One line of thought I pursued after hearing about the extension wasn’t what it meant for Dustin McGowan, but what it meant for rotation hopeful Brett Cecil. It doesn’t change a lot for him this year, but it’s certainly something he should take note of, given his status on the team currently. Though it feels like he’s been around the Blue Jays for some time, he’s still only 25 years old. Having a few years’ history with Toronto, the team still isn’t sure what to make of him. While this is natural for a young pitcher, it’s been hard for fans to see the peak of Brett Cecil. What is he capable of?

Cecil’s been with the Toronto Blue Jays for parts of three years now, with mixed results. His best year was 2010, where he finished with a 15-7 record and a 4.22 ERA in 28 starts. Expectations were higher in 2011, but Cecil struggled to a 4-11 record with a 4.73 ERA. The record was as much a function of luck as anything, though Cecil did allow a higher slugging percentage in 2011, which contributed to the rise in ERA. His best game was a complete game shutout against the Rangers in July 2011, where he allowed four hits and walked two, striking out seven. Very good? Absolutely. Has he shown he can be that dominant regularly? I wouldn’t go that far. Looking at his game log, these performances are few and far between. Some of this is a young pitcher developing, but we haven’t seen too high a ceiling. Cecil had been assured a rotation spot going into 2011, but after that year, it’s understandable that the Jays would want to see what he had.

Early reports out of spring training for the Blue Jays had Cecil as being in “the best shape of his life”. Though we can take that cliche with an appropriately sized grain of salt, it can only be a positive for the young pitcher coming off an up and down season last year with Toronto. The better shape he’s in, the better a chance he’d pitch well, and secure one of the rotation spots for the Blue Jays that are up in the air.

Other reports were less positive: Cecil’s velocity was down, with his fastball somewhere in the 87-89 mph range, which would probably be fine if he were a senior in high school and pondering whether he should go to Maryland, but less ideal when facing major league hitters.

There are several schools of thought to consult here. One is that it’s less about velocity and more about changing speeds, and movement on pitches. This is a solid argument- there are several examples throughout major league history of pitchers who were effective with that approach. The Braves made a living off painting the corners throughout the 90s with pitchers like Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux. If someone has a fastball that’s 100 mph, and straight as an arrow, major league hitters WILL hit it.

That said, if you’re given the choice between two equally competent pitchers in terms of stuff/location/command, and one of them is 5 mph faster on average, major league teams will take the guy with the heat. Additionally, if you don’t have that velocity, you need to have better command.

With these in mind, can Cecil be successful with less velocity? Has he shown the control necessary to be more than a league-average pitcher? Thus far in his major league career, his control has been problematic at times, showing a BB rate of 3.1 per nine innings. He’s never been a strikeout pitcher, spotting a low K rate of 6.3/9 over his career. Though he’s had some success this spring (before getting tarred and feathered to the tune of 5 runs over 2 and 2/3 innings last Friday), we know that spring stats aren’t necessarily the best indicator of future performance.

Cecil has several arbitration years remaining (information on Cot’s Contracts was unclear as to his 2012 contract amount, he was pre-arbitration in 2011), whereas McGowan was eligible for free agency at the end of the year, so certainly the Blue Jays braintrust had more urgency to lock up McGowan, who was a pending free agent- if they believed he was a sure thing to produce well in a rotation spot. Do they think that of Cecil? It doesn’t seem like it- and given Cecil’s production so far, it’s hard to blame them.

There’s an irony in McGowan’s foot injury almost assuring Cecil of a spot in the opening day rotation (Hopefully the Jays aren’t moved to keep perpetual junkballer Aaron Laffey in the unfortunate Jo-Jo Reyes/Dana Eveland tradition). With Cecil’s reduced velocity, his inconsistent showing thus far, and a bevy of talented young pitchers knocking on the door, this was already something of a make-or-break year for the Jays’ young left hander. Adding the McGowan extension to the mix makes it even more interesting.

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March 2, 2012; Dunedin, FL, USA; Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Dustin McGowan (29) poses for a portrait during photo day at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-US PRESSWIRE

In a move that absolutely no one saw coming, including the club’s PR department according to Mike Wilner on Twitter, Dustin McGowan and the Blue Jays have agreed on a two-year contract extension at a salary of $1.5 million per. The deal also includes a $4 million club option for the 2015  season.

The timing of the move is most surprising, considering the team was far from being forced into such a decision and that McGowan, a first-round pick by the Blue Jays almost 12 years ago, has pitched a total of 21 innings in the last three years.

That being said, and assuming that the McGowan’s new deal confirms that he is in fact healthy, the Jays have potentially saved themselves money by locking up a once-promising right-hander at a very team-friendly salary. Making $600,000 this season, McGowan was scheduled to become a free agent at season’s end, and would have been in a good bargaining position with teams if he was to have a successful 2012 season. Those are some big ifs, though, to bank on a 30-year-old with a severe injury history to not only stay healthy, but throw the best season of his career.

At any rate, the money is far from the concern with McGowan’s contract, but rather the roster spot that he will now occupy until the end of the 2014 season. With McGowan in the fold, along with Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow, the Jays now have 60% of their rotation nearly set in stone for the next three years.

The Jays, however, have perhaps the most star-studded lineup of pitching prospects in the Majors, a group that is barreling closer to The Show every day. True, not all of them are going to play for the Jays, but surely Alex Anthopoulos, a GM who values flexibility and alternative options more than any other, would want to keep as much of his starting rotation open as possible going forward given that he has such an impressive assortment of pitching talent on the way.

As soon as this season, a considerable number of pitching prospects are close to knocking on the door; what I would call the first wave. Henderson Alvarez has already been tabbed the Jays’ No. 4 starter, but Kyle Drabek, Drew Hutchison, Deck McGuire and Chad Jenkins are all within striking distance in the higher levels of the minors.

Then there’s an entire second wave of guys that will all begin the 2012 campaign at A-ball or higher, like Noah Syndergaard, Justin Nicolino, Aaron Sanchez and Asher Wojciechowski, followed by a third wave of hurlers in the lower minors like Adonys Cardona, Daniel Norris, Kevin Comer and John Stilson. Needless to say, the Jays have quite the sustainable feeding system to their rotation, a rotation that is already going to get crowded at the end of this season, let alone in 2013 or 2014.

McGowan’s contract, though, is far from an albatross and his occupying of a roster spot won’t handcuff the Jays in anything they do going forward. Whether it’s pulling the trigger on a trade, pursuing free-agent starter or giving a youngster with a high ceiling a shot, McGowan certainly won’t stand in the way of the right player or the right opportunity.

In the meantime,  however, Anthopoulos has stockpiled yet another pitcher in McGowan, one that could develop into an asset for the club even as a back-end starter. It’s obviously hard to understand the timing and reasoning for the deal, but it’s also just as hard to understand why this contract could be viewed as a bad idea at all for the Blue Jays.

-JM

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The Blue Jays signed “soft-tossing-lefty” Aaron Laffey to a split contract yesterday. Laffey, 26, was non-tendered by the Royals earlier this month.

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Image courtesy of bluejays.com

One of the brightest spots of the Blue Jays’ 2011 season came September 5, when oft-injured right-hander Dustin McGowan made his triumphant return to a big league mound after taking himself out of a game over three years ago on July 8, 2008.

Few players have endured the kind of heartache that McGowan since that day, and few players understand the term “emotional rollercoaster” as good as McGowan does.

While it was certainly great to see him make it back to the Majors this past season, it’s easy to forget about the Georgia native’s very busy 2011, so here’s a look back.

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In case you missed the telecast or were at the game, here’s a complete rundown of everything Anthopoulos touched on, to get you through until tomorrow.

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