Atkins Speaks (Again)

On Vlad at third base, his future, Bo's future (and recent past), John Schneider vote-of-confidence season, Horwitz, Manoah, Richards, Orelvis, flyball distance at Rogers Centre, and more!

The Blue Jays haven’t exactly been shy about showing signs of desperation this season. One needs only to think back to Addison Barger being called up for his big league debut and then sent out to flail around in left field at Kauffman Stadium—a position he’d never played before in his life in one of the more spacious stadiums in baseball—to understand that pretty clearly. But on Sunday the team cranked it up a notch. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. made a start at third base for the first time since a September 2019 game that featured Richard Ureña standing next to him at shortstop, pitchers T.J. Zeuch, Elvis Luciano, Buddy Boshers, and Ryan Dull, with Billy McKinney leading off, Rowdy Tellez hitting cleanup, and Teoscar Hernández in centre field.

It’s been a while, in other words. But I don’t hate it.

The Jays’ offence was able to add a little bit of extra juice this way. And with Justin Turner coming off the worst month of his career with more than just a handful of plate appearances, it's far from a given that his bat needs to be in the lineup every day, let alone his glove—which has been seven outs below average over his last 660+ innings at third (and that's being generous, seeing as 574 1/3 of those came with the Dodgers in 2022, and his OAA at third that season was just -2).

Vlad handled the position well enough. He still clearly has the arm and the intelligence to make up for some of his shortcomings with respect to range. And even though, over time, he’d almost certainly be exposed as an everyday third baseman, I think he could be fine as an extra one whose deployment is tilted toward games started by pitchers who don’t produce a ton of ground balls or see a ton of right-handed batters.

For reference: José Berríos and Kevin Gausman have somewhat above average groundball rates, Chris Bassitt and Yusei Kikuchi are almost exactly average (though the latter is obviously a lefty), and Alek Manoah, Yariel Rodríguez, and Bowden Francis have all been well below.

I’m not sure the Jays are ready to get quite that radical here, but using Vlad at third more often would certainly clear more of a path for someone like Spencer Horwitz, who currently ranks sixth in the International League by wRC+ thanks to his .332/.451/.500 line so far this season. I’m not sure Horwitz is the answer, but it’s not like the Jays have anything to lose by giving him a bunch of plate appearances against right-handed pitching that Turner—whose wRC+ in that split has sunk to a pitiful 68 (.176/.283/.275)—has been getting.

There’s even a possibility, though at this stage I’d have to think it’s pretty remote, that a some point down the line we could see lineups with Horwitz at second, Vlad at third, Vogelbach at DH, and Turner—or, dare I say it, Joey Votto—manning first.

A boy can dream, can’t he? Bring me some hitters!

Of course, the roster would require some subtraction to get there. But maybe they decide that Ernie Clement has been bad enough to risk losing on waivers, or get to the point where they accept that they may as well set fire to the rest of the $13 million they're paying Turner.

At this point, I’m not even sure that would qualify as desperation. It might even be the sensible play here—particularly if, instead of Votto, we’re talking about the more versatile Barger, who like Horwitz, is lighting up the International League.

Anyway, the Vlad thing is good! Or at least fun. Or, at the very least, will be fun until he makes a crucial error that costs the team a game and all the hater-weirdos crawl back out from under their rocks.

Or, I suppose, fun until this all turns out to have been a way to showcase him for some kind of eventual trade. There’s only one trade here that I want to entertain!

Plus, by the sounds of it, GM Ross Atkins is far from being in a rush to move Vlad—or Bo Bichette, for that matter. And he actually appears to be excited about this bit of experimenting at the hot corner.

How do I know this? Because on Sunday, Ross joined a couple of executive class friendlies, Jim Bowden and Jim Duquette, on MLB Network Radio’s Front Office for a 20 minute segment in which he pretty much said exactly that—and a whole lot more.

What follows is the entirety of what Atkins said on the show, plus a bunch of my thoughts thrown in as well. You know the drill. It’s time for Atkins Speaks…

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Take us through the rotation and what you've seen so far this season

Yeah, it has been very encouraging to see the trend recently. José all year has just been lights out. He has, every start, just given us a really, really good chance to win—other than one. And even in that one, you just feel so good about him being out there. The rest of the rotation has been solid, as they normally have been, over the last several years. I think Yusei's start to the year was about as electric as it gets, and he's worked really hard on the different shapes of his breaking ball. Really encouraged about where he is and what's ahead for him. Chris Bassitt is probably the best competitor that I've ever been around. He's got that figured out—the compete part. And Kevin Gausman I'll take any day of the week. He had disrupted spring training and that slowed his start a bit, but the split is there, the fastball velo's there. And as he just refines that he's going to be very, very important for us.

And then, obviously, a disappointing blow with Alek Manoah's recent—with the news on Alek. We'll learn more this week. But I had 100% confidence that he was just back. I mean, the slider was as good as it's ever been, the fastball velo was climbing, the mindset was incredible, so disappointing. We'll learn more this week. But that was a tough break for Alek and a tough break for us.

Straight away you see what I mean by “friendlies.” The Jays’ rotation, though middle-of-the-pack by ERA and WAR so far, remains incredibly talented and clearly the strongest element of their roster—provided you don’t have to ask for any depth whatsoever.

Atkins here puts a little bit of a shine on things though, as he often does. Gausman’s velocity, for example, is not “there”—at least not in the precise sense. Last season his average fastball velocity dipped below 94.0 mph in just seven of 31 starts. This year he’s averaging 94.0, with seven of 11 starts having averaged below it already.

And his splitter, with swing-and-miss rates solidly above 40% in each of the last four seasons, currently is being whiffed on just 31.7% of the time.

I think the disrupted spring has a good chance of being the answer to this, and I'm with Ross in that I expect he'll keep gaining steam going forward and pitch more like the guy we expect him to be. But I'm not sure you can say the velocity is there or the splitter is there. The velo's close, and the splitter is behaving like it usually does in terms of break, spin, etc., but both are a little off.

As for Manoah, we can only read tea leaves but it very much feels like everybody's bracing for the worst here. You don't go and see the Keith Meister for a second opinion if a thing isn't serious. Jordan Romano, who recently hit the IL himself, had an MRI over the weekend that showed no structural damage, and so he'll simply be shut down briefly and the team will go from there.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that Tommy John—and the 12-to-18 months of recovery time it necessitates—is in Manoah’s future. The Jays' official diagnosis of a UCL sprain is the same that Mason Miller of the A's received last May, and he was back lighting up the big leagues in September.

Of course, the other side of that is someone like Phillies prospect Andrew Painter. He was shut down for four weeks last March because of a UCL sprain termed as “mild,” but ended up going under the knife in July anyway.

However it works out, it's not great. Especially, as Ross says, considering how good Manoah looked prior to the injury.

(I should also note here that, to me, Ross saying “you just feel so good about him being out there” about José Berríos is deeply funny considering what happened in the playoffs last October.)

Who gets the innings in the short-term with Manoah out?

Between Bowden Francis, Yariel Rodríguez, and some guys in our bullpen. Trevor Richards just had a bulk outing his last outing. So we have some options that are on our 40-man. One of them is already here, and Bowden Francis is actually with the team finishing his rehab assignment. We'll see how today's game goes, and Monday goes, to determine how we fill that spot on Tuesday. We also have Ricky T getting back into the fold, Adam Macko's been really good for us in Double-A. So there's some depth there that we'll be able to pull from.

Well, at least we’re not hearing about Paolo Espino, I suppose. Could Richards actually start some games as more than just an opener?

He was a starter/bulk guy in the big leagues for Miami and Tampa all the way into 2020, so it’s theoretically possible. I’m not sure about asking him to turn a lineup over though. Last year he completely ditched the curveball he’d been using 20-30% of the time to right-handers since 2020, and started being exclusively a changeup-fastball guy to both lefties and righties in similar proportion (60/40ish).

Maybe that makes him a good “piggyback” option with someone like Francis, who doesn’t throw a changeup, but this may be a case where if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Sure, Richards’ strikeout rate is down, and batters’ .118 BABIP against him this year raises some eyebrows, but he's been really effective out of the ‘pen and you'd kind of hate to waste that by limiting him to games featuring your worst starter. On the other hand, maybe you do the ruthless thing and look at his pending free agency and simply ask him to pitch until his arm falls off or he stops getting guys out, whichever comes first.

Francis, meanwhile, allowed just one unearned run on a hit and a walk over 3 2/3 innings for Buffalo back on Tuesday, with five strikeouts against a Syracuse Mets team that's been pretty good in terms of record (33-22), but are middle-of-the-pack offensively, at least by OPS (.779; league average: .769).

I… uh… I’m sure he’ll be fine against the Orioles when he is inevitably handed the ball this week.

Are you working on extensions for Bo and Vlad, or is there a possibility that one or both is dealt before the trade deadline?

On the first portion, just talking about them, there's kind of three facets to that. Them as players and their talent, which is unique, and both of them—especially the month of May—have been very solid. Vladdy's been exceptional in May. He had a slow start. Some swing adjustments for him that—he is in a really, really strong place. As I mentioned, Bo had a strong May, and that's going to continue. Both of them just have such good feel for the barrel, and such good feel for competing in the batter's box, that they're going to perform.

On the second part of that, on extensions, of course we have dialogue with them. And that is something that will continue. We believe in them, we believe in their futures, and hope that there's a way they can play here for a long time.

And on the third part, the question of potential trade, it just doesn't make any sense for us. We often times—not often, there will be occasional times—when you're talking to other executives that they'll ask if we'll consider it. And we just say it's not something that we have spent any time on. But because they're so talented and such great teammates they are attractive to other teams. So, they will call.

I was disappointed to see a report that that was something that another executive had commented on about our team. But it just doesn't make sense. So, really excited about what's ahead for them, and how well they've played in may. Really going to be a lot of fun today to see Vladdy playing third base—I don't know if you saw that in the lineup yet. That's been something we've been working on collectively, and he'll get some starts there. He's got an incredible, just, ability and knack for, or feel for baseball, and for the game, that I think his arm and his hands are going to allow for him to play some third base for us, and that's another way for us to deploy a lineup that maybe creates a little more offence. So, a lot of good things happening, and confident they'll continue.

The Jays have been talking like they’ve wanted to extend these guys for years, they just somehow haven’t made it happen. It wouldn’t shock me at all if they take a big run at Juan Soto this winter, fail, and then circle back to their own guys at that point—be that with extensions of their own, or potentially looking to trade them. But I think Ross is right that, for the time being, it doesn’t make sense. At least not in terms of what they could actually receive right now, and what it would cost them regarding the ability to compete this year and next. (Not to mention draft pick compensation, and the chance to tie a qualifying offer to them, suppress their markets, and maybe find a way to get a deal done that way.)

The report Ross is referring to came from MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand a couple weeks back. In it an unnamed AL executive said this: “I don’t think they’re opposed to it. They’ve talked to teams about it. The asks were ridiculous, but I think they’re going to try to retool a lot, and using those guys to get pieces may be the way to do it.”

Could be. I agree on the “retool a lot” bit. But those ridiculous asks and the reality of what those guys are worth just seems too far apart to cause any real friction. Also in Feinsand’s piece, an unnamed NL executive said of Bo and Vlad that “other teams might view them as change-of-scenery guys.”

“Everyone knows what these guys can do, but that roster might just need a change,” he added. Which… fair enough. But that does not sound like a scenario in which the Jays are going to get back some kind of gilded package they couldn’t possibly say no to.

That is, unless they—like many fans—have noticed just how prolonged Bichette’s slump has actually been and are more interested in getting out of the Bo business than they let on.

Since the start of last June—i.e. over a full calendar year—Bo has produced a wRC+ of just 97, and only 2.0 WAR per FanGraphs. Since the start of last August, so over the last four full months of baseball, his wRC+ has been 83 and he’s been worth just half a win. That is staggeringly little to show for four months of baseball from a guy who gets talked about like a potential franchise cornerstone. (Though it should be noted that he missed the first 18 games of August with a knee injury, and his rough end to the season could certainly be attributed to that.)

Out of 125 qualified hitters since last August 1, Bo's 0.5 WAR ranks 111th and his 83 wRC+ ranks 118th. Out of 23 shortstops with at least 300 PA since then, he ranks 17th by wRC+ and 19th by WAR.

It’s not great.

Of course, if he heats up heading into the trade deadline, and his value goes up, I’m not sure that makes dealing him any more appealing to the Jays. It’s just… damn. I’m pretty sure Leo Jimenez could give you two wins playing shortstop every day, even if the vast majority of that would come via his glove. Hey, but at least Bo’s strikeout rate is as low as its ever been, so give yourselves a round of applause for that, Jays.

Has it been just the offence that's kept you out of contention so far?

It's never one thing, right? When you're not playing up to your potential. And a lot of people have pointed to our offence, and I think we are capable of scoring more runs. We're not a team that's going to be in the bottom third, based on our talent, in terms of run scoring. Certainly we feel strong that we'll climb out of that. I think run scoring is a piece of that. As I mentioned, on Bo and Vladdy there's encouraging trends. There's really solid underlying trends with some of the other players on our roster. And we've had some really good performances out of players that have been recently acquired, and Danny Jansen's obviously been incredible for us this year.

So, I think we do have to score more, for sure, for us to be a championship calibre team. But the timing of our bullpen lapses—it's not that our bullpen has had—it's not something that we're concerned about, by any means—but some of the timing of our lapses have stung, where we've blown some saves. And we've had some injuries where we haven't been able to deploy some of our best arms in crucial situations. Which happens, and that's certainly not an excuse. But I'm not concerned about our bullpen. And our defence, as you mentioned, has been really, really consistent over the last couple of years. It's been a point of emphasis, and guys take a lot of pride in it.

And now that same pride—or not now, I think just over time—that same pride has been deployed in creative ways to find solutions for our team to score more. It doesn't just lie there. It's the same guys, right? That are scoring runs that are also going out there and having a big part in preventing them and playing defence. So, these guys are—it sounds a little bit maybe rhetorical, or something you hear all the time, but I am so encouraged by our environment. When you have expectations and you're not realizing them, often times you'll find that clubhouses break down a bit. And the environment becomes one that's not very inviting, and one that is not as comfortable as major league players need it to be for them to perform. That's something that I view to be one of the most difficult things to do in the world, in terms of performance. And our environment has been incredible. The guys are just thinking about solutions, talking about ways that they can help one another non-stop. And through very stressful times. I think that's going to bode well for us.

Look, things have been a bit better on the offensive side of the ball lately, so I’m not going to kill him here, but if the environment is so important for this, and yours is so great, where have all the runs been?

I understand that the guy running the team can’t just say that they just don’t have the players, or that they’ve been giving them bad advance scouting or nudging them in the wrong directions when they need to fix things with their swings or approach. I also get that you obviously would prefer to have a good and positive environment than a bad and toxic one. But if the environment is as great and as important as you say it is, is your team not exactly in the middle of proving that there’s a big disconnect in the very point you’re trying to make here?

Frankly, I don’t want to know the terrifying truth. I just want to see these guys sock a few dingers.

Have you thought about making a managerial change?

No. And I totally understand why people have to ask questions, and do ask questions. But not for a second. John has been incredible. He is at the forefront of our environment, and has worked tirelessly over the offseason on our players, understanding that they are the most crucial part of this environment, and how we can support them in a better way—and lead them, of course, in the most effective way for them to be great. The support that he has created with our staff, their process for preparing, and their consistency that they have with our players has been phenomenal. And I just don't believe in change to change. And change for the sake of trying something different. We have to be better. I do not feel that John Schneider has been anything but a part of the solution, and will continue to be. So, I understand you have to ask those question, but it's just not something that we've spent any energy on.

I know a lot of people disagree, or just want their pound of flesh regardless, but I don’t see Schneider as having anything to do with the problem here, really. He’s a pretty generic MLB manager, as far as I can tell. He does a nice job of shielding his players from heat, and while I certainly don’t agree with every decision he makes, rarely are there ones that you can’t at least find the logic in.

As is usually the case with these guys, if someone wants to convince themselves that he’s terrible, they’re going to be able to find a way to do that. And if someone wants to be fair and convince themselves that he’s fine, there are absolutely ways to do that as well.

I know which of those camps I land in. But at the same time, I wouldn’t think, “Oh no, they let MLB’s next great manager get away!” if Atkins ended up firing him. But a move like that would be a way to release some pressure and cover for the failings of the front office and the players themselves. The heat would immediately be turned toward a GM who had just been allowed to move on to a fourth manager, and rightly so.

I imagine that’s why Ross couldn’t really say anything other than exactly this.

What have been the reports on Tiedemann so far?

Yeah, he's back and strong. The velo's there. His delivery looks really good. He feels as good as he's ever felt. So, I think it's just a matter of getting him built back up to become an option for us. His stuff projects to be one of our better pitchers on the team. So, now I think it's a matter of the compete, the refinement, understanding the deployment of his stuff against major league hitters. Sometimes that can be weeks, sometimes that can take months, but he's got the work ethic, he's got the compete factor, and he certainly has the arsenal. So it should be—we'll learn a ton over the next several weeks about how much of an option he will be for us in the short-term.

Pretty non-committal stuff here and, as we’ve discussed, Ross’s definition of “there” is suspect, but at least we’re talking about Tiedemann pitching and not about him being out injured.

What does Orelvis Martinez need to work on, and what is his best position?

Yeah, I think it's second base. And that's the answer to both of your questions. He is a dynamic hitter with as much raw power as anyone. He does, from a raw power standpoint, remind me of some of the better hitters that come up. To be that young and creating that amount of damage is just so impressive. And I think it's really just ensuring that he maximizes that time in the minor leagues, and comes up and is ready to perform as a complete player. He's newer to second base, and he's grown a lot there in the last year, so we're really encouraged and know that he's going to be a part of our success. But we want to make sure that we maximize that time.

The other piece to that puzzle is who he's taking time away from, and how is he best deployed in our lineup. And this isn't by any means a knock on Orelvis, but we are pretty right-handed—which is fine, if you can hit right-handed pitching. But when you get deeper into bullpens, and your ability to deploy that platoon is something that we want to make sure we're factoring in.

And Addison Barger is another guy that has just gone off in Triple-A. He had a little bit of an opportunity earlier. He will get another one. Nathan Lukes, who is—not his first rodeo, he's been playing for a while—but is having a really, really good year down there. As is Leo Jimenez. Spencer Horwitz has been incredible all year—he had five hits (on Saturday). So we have some options in Triple-A. We want to make sure that when they come that there's plenty of runway and playing time for them. And in the the meantime they're refining different skillsets for different players.

Actually, Spencer Horwitz has played some second base as well down there. It's something we are spending a lot of time on—just what is the best way to have them impact this roster, and what is the runway for them?

Ross goes out of his way to avoid saying it too overtly, but what he's surely talking about when he mentions thinking about how best to deploy Orelvis, and adds that being heavily right-handed is fine “if you can hit right-handed pitching,” are his platoon splits.

Brace yourselves, Orelv-heads, but Martinez is slashing just .207/.287/.414 against Triple-A right-handed pitching this season. I’m sorry, but that’s not a major league player right now. Not on a team fighting to contend, at least. Certainly not against late-inning right-handed relievers.

Yeah, he could come up and probably do very well against lefties and get the occasional plate appearance against a same-sided arm, but long-term you want to give him every chance to be the “complete player” Ross is talking about, and you just can’t do that by taking away a ton of incredibly valuable developmental reps against RHP from a 22-year-old by sticking him in the majors to chase a little extra pop against lefties while otherwise having him mostly sit. All while throwing a major league defensive assignment he’s not ready for at him at the same time!

He needs to play every day. He needs to keep seeing right-handed pitching. He needs to get better at that. He needs to improve defensively. He needs the chance to become more than just an extreme lefty-masher.

He was also down to .205/.314/.432 overall in May. We've really got to stop this.

OK, on to the last one…

On changes to the ballpark

Yeah, the feel in the ballpark from a player and fan perspective is incredible. It really is. It's like a—it is a completely new environment. It feels like a different ballpark, for the way you're playing the game and what you're seeing in the stands, and then the way the fans are looking out.

Our environment below the stands, for the clubhouse amenities, are one of one. I've been in all 30 stadiums and I'm confident in saying that. I'm sure someone's going to chase us down, but the facilities are just so elite.

And then how it's playing, it's still—I don't know how long we can say the sample size is small, but it's still seemingly a bit small after the changes this year. And we're seeing that it's playing relatively similar—as we expected—that it's relatively neutral. We haven't seen anything that different. Even with the foul territory shrinking—we are learning a little bit how much that will impact doubles and triples, and obviously foul balls that are caught. So I would expect it to be a bit more offensive as the sample size grows.

Ross here is correct about the sample size still being small, but I think the way he dithers a bit about how the ballpark is playing is telling. Does he maybe not want to throw whoever did the modeling of how the stadium would play under the bus? Or is it something else?

Well, I brought up Travis Sawchik’s interesting thread on all this in my previous post, but let’s revisit it again for a second. In the post I linked to a chart that Travis used, showing that the Rogers Centre has trended below average in terms of flyball distance over the last couple of years—i.e. since the renovations.

Understandably, some fans—shoutout to Julie!—wondered if what we’re seeing here are numbers dragged down by the Jays’ own underperformance in the power department. To answer that question I went to Baseball Savant and ran may own series of searches, this time excluding the Jays from the results.

Here’s my chart:

If you look at what visiting teams have done at Rogers Centre over the last few years, they are consistently closer to the big league average when it comes to flyball distance. The only outlier in the recent data is 2019, which was hardly a distinguished season for Blue Jays pitchers.

On the offensive side of the ball, on the other hand, the Jays have gone from consistently above average to, in the last two seasons, noticeably below. It has certainly felt like it. And this seems to be what’s dragging ballpark's overall numbers down, rather than anything to do with the stadium itself. At least for this particular metric.

So… yeah. If I were Ross I might not be too quick to point out why it’s felt more like a pitcher’s park over the last two years years either!

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