Atkins Speaks!: On the offensive (woes)!
Jays GM Ross Atkins spoke to reporters on Friday, answering questions about the Alek Manoah situation and his club's struggle to scoring runs. Here are all of his words, and my thoughts on them...
See, I told you I wouldn't only be doing Stray Thoughts posts from now on! But that doesn't mean I am not, once again, going to write something that mostly elides actually talking about what’s been happening on the field in this mostly miserable team's mostly miserable games. And that's because on Friday afternoon, Jays GM Ross Atkins—the man of the hour!—met briefly with a cadre of reporters in the home dugout at Rogers Centre.
Ostensibly this seems to have been a scrum called to give a more formal update on the status of Alek Manoah, but naturally the question that's been on everybody's mind—“what the fuck is going on with this offence, you goddamn boob?”—also represented a big portion of the session.
And while Ross's answers aren't going to be satisfactory to the vast majority of fans—he did not, after all, commit seppuku at Shi Davidi's feet and bleed out on the concrete—he sure did say them.
Did he say more than the quotes I’ve been able to cobble together from a trio of Sportsnet videos, and some clips played during Friday’s Blair and Barker? Well, since Sportsnet.com broadcasts these scrums live, but then disappears the video for some reason, perhaps we'll never know.
We’ll do our best with what we’ve got though. Here's Atkins Speaks!...
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On Manoah
We’ll start with some updates on the guy who, in the span of a year, has gone from third in AL Cy Young balloting to being the Jays’ sixth-best starter—the kind of thing that would be a death blow for most teams, but that these Jays, unlike most of their other problems, have overcome with aplomb.
So, uh, what was up with that whole taking nearly two weeks to report to Buffalo thing?
Let’s get right to the nut of this, shall we?
Glad that he's back in Syracuse and on a baseball field again yesterday. I know he was glad to be there as well. So, it's—ah—it was just to make sure he was in the best possible physical place before he went back there. Taking the opportunity with our very thorough medical staff that is here in Toronto to check that box before he reported in Buffalo, which ended up in Syracuse. And we're glad he's there.
Atkins here is sticking to the party line, which is exactly what you’d expect. And why wouldn’t he? While there are things to poke at in the Blue Jays’ story—and we’ll get to that—medical privacy is a pretty important thing to take seriously. And, more crucially, it’s addressed in the CBA.
Remember COVID? Medical disclosure became a big issue back in 2020 and 2021 because of it, and because of the language about it in the league’s collective bargaining agreement with the players’ association. Here’s Article XIII(G)(4) of the Basic Agreement:
4) For public relations purposes, a Club may disclose the following general information about employment-related injuries: (a) the nature of a Player’s injury, (b) the prognosis and the anticipated length of recovery from the injury, and (c) the treatment and surgical procedures undertaken or anticipated in regard to the injury. For any other medical condition that prevents a Player from rendering services to his Club, a Club may disclose only the fact that a medical condition is preventing the Player from rendering services to the Club and the anticipated length of the Player’s absence from the Club.
Now, to be clear, neither of those situations is happening here. The Jays haven’t said anything about an injury or medical condition, playing-related or otherwise. Nor did they say anything about the anticipated length of Manoah’s absence. I highlight this because the paragraph shows the limited the scope of what teams can say on this front.
The word “may” is also key here.
Obviously trips to and from the injured list will become public, but teams aren’t bound to disclose, or be truthful in their disclosure, about every little ailment. This is how J.P. Ricciardi once ended up claiming “it’s not a lie if we know the truth” about BJ Ryan’s phantom back injury—a cover story for the fact that the highly paid closer was having elbow problems that would lead to Tommy John surgery—back in 2007.
Cover stories are a thing, in other words. Though that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what this is.
Also worth noting is that, in Ricciardi’s case, it was a cover story likely designed to protect the player—probably with his blessing or at his insistence—from questions he didn’t want to have to answer during a difficult period in his career. As much as fans were ready to pillory ol’ JP Moneyball for anything and everything at that point during his doomed tenure, and as funny as it was for him to say something so instantly iconic that made himself look exactly as smug as everybody already believed, fair play to him for that. No fan gains anything by knowing this stuff before they have to.
Asked if there was something specific the doctors were looking for, Atkins offered nothing. “It was really just being thorough, to ensure he was in the best possible physical state,” he explained.
Had he been pitching through injuries?
If you look back at the course of his career, every player deals with, whether they are aches and pains—and I'm not referring to Alek specifically there. Any player is going to go through, even in the offseason, and have hiccups and bumps. And we just wanted to make sure there was nothing that was lingering.
So… yes? Or…
Not to my knowledge, no. We do not believe that he was pitching through—well, our medical staff would have told us if so.
So… no. Still seems weird, but OK.
Are you still figuring stuff out with him? This seems to be a unique pause, no?
Yeah, I think so. We made sure with Major League Baseball that they were OK with it. I think his trajectory—his career trajectory has been unique. This pause, after him being optioned the first time, seemed to make some sense, and to make sure that we were thorough with that assessment.
The fact that the league was involved here is interesting, and to examine why let’s again go back to the CBA. Here’s Article XIII(G)(5) of the Basic Agreement:
5) A Club (and any physician, certified athletic trainer or other medical professional treating, or consulting with, a Player pursuant to Regulation 2 of his UPC or Article XIII(D)) shall provide medical or health information covered by the Authorization to the Office of the Commissioner and to the Association as required by Article XIII(C), Attachment 5 and Major League Rule 2(c) and, upon written request, when a Player’s medical and/or health condition is at issue in a grievance or a potential grievance.
This paragraph may be relevant because it certainly seems like this is a case for a potential grievance. If Manoah was hurt enough to require more than a week of medical testing, yet had been demoted to the minors, he’d possibly have grounds for one because Article XIX(C)(1) of the CBA says that “Players who are injured and not able to play may not be assigned to a Minor League club.”
We can only speculate on this stuff, but an answer to the questions out there about why Manoah wasn’t placed on the injured list—where he’d continue to get big league pay and accrue service time—could certainly be that the league, and presumably the union, gave their blessing to whatever arrangement the Jays and the player agreed to. The league’s involvement suggests that maybe nothing here is as amiss as it seemed on first blush. And, maybe, that the Blue Jays are simply telling the truth.
Why they’d feel Manoah required such extensive testing is a different question, because it is indeed unusual. But it’s also unusual for a player to go from Cy Young candidate to out of the majors—and rocked by Yankee teens—in the span of less than a year without some kind of an obvious physical reason. Especially at age-25.
Being incredibly thorough to be sure that there wasn’t something in there imperceptibly disrupting the kinetic chain of a player who can still be an unbelievably important part of the organization’s future seems… rational?
Did he need a physical or mental break?
No. You would have to ask him on that. Not to our knowledge that he needed either of those two things. It was more about just making sure we were very thorough and mutually working through it.
At the risk of not assuming the absolute worst at every possible turn about the people running this team (Pete Walker obviously excepted), that’s kinda entirely possible.
Asked if all this was happening at Manoah’s request, Atkins replied: “Again, it was a mutual process that we worked through.”
Where do you view him for next year, or the rest of this one?
Very strong. I feel like we were seeing a lot of positive things. The things that we've talked a lot about were the command, the strike-throwing, the swing-and-miss, and we saw really positive trends. And I think there's a lot of scenarios that Alek could have still been here on this team, and may still be here at some point this year. But there's so many positives over the course of his career, and we can still see plenty of reason to believe that he can be a force again.
Aaaaand we’re back to having wonder who on earth Ross thinks he’s fooling. But we all know that, unless it’s Charlie Montoyo on Yusei Kikuchi for some reason, a team official isn’t going to be anything but overly sunny about a fragile player who’s in the middle of an awful run, so perhaps it’s best to just move on…
Is he your sixth starter?
I mean, not today, given the time off. But hopefully he returns to that in the coming weeks.
Another layer of depth could become really important down the stretch, so here’s hoping everything goes well.
How has Manoah dealt with all this?
I've been blown away with how he's handled on the field. He went from Cy Young candidate, and in the voting, to having a tough run. And having some highlights as well. Obviously the Detroit start after his return. The Boston start. There were others—Kansas City early. Really seeing plenty of highlights and reason to believe that that trend could turn. Then we had five other starters pitch really well. And our bullpen has gotten stronger and stronger.
I think, on the field, handled it very well. And I know from having been in this game for almost 30 years now at the professional level that there's no player that goes home when they're struggling and is at complete peace. It's like anything else, that is very difficult for any elite performer, any elite athlete. But, all in all, we feel like he's handled it exceptionally well.
I mean… fair stuff at the end there, Ross. And I suppose Manoah did go deep into all three of the starts cited. But two of those games were against the 27th (Tigers, 87 wRC+) and 29th (Royals, 85 wRC+) ranked offenses in baseball, and he walked five in Kansas City! He also allowed three runs on six hits, including two homers, over 6 2/3 innings in the Boston one.
Damning with faint praise if those are the highlights, my man. But... well... considering how Manoah's season has gone they actually probably were.
On the offence
Ahh, yes. The juicy stuff. The stuff a ton of Jays fans on Twitter seemed to find so infuriating. Job-disqualifying, even! The stuff that… you could absolutely predict the GM of a major league baseball team would have said.
In their defence, some of it was pretty dumb.
On the playoff chase
Well, obviously we're not mathematically in (a spot), but definitely in the mix, and have worked really hard—our team, our players have worked really hard—to get ourselves to this point. It's interesting, just mathematically projected, based on history and where our team projected to be at this point, is roughly in this area.
Let me stop you right there, cowboy. The Blue Jays are right now on an 88-win pace. And while it’s true that this generally lines up with the pre-season projections, most of which had the Jays topping the American League East, why on earth are you crowing about that? Surely you know that’s not good enough
Atkins continued…
A couple of teams have outperformed us. So, we've got some work to do.
Turns out!
I don't think that it is one thing, it never is the case. A lot of attention and focus has been on our offence to date, and those are the same individuals that are going out there and helping us prevent runs, and on some days score plenty to win.
Um, OK. First of all, being good in all phases of the game is pretty important. Secondly, are they? Are they those guys??
Of the 3.3 fWAR Matt Chapman has put up this season, 2.1 was accumulated by the end of April. Since May 1st—over the span of nearly four months—Chapman has been worth just 1.2 fWAR. Sure, the defence has been important, but his bat has been so awful that it's wiped out a ton of that value. Chapman was a league average hitter in 2021 and he still managed to put up 4.1 fWAR because his glove is so good. That shows you—if you don't want to look at his offensive numbers, which... I don't blame you—just how bad things have been.
Or what about Vlad? First base defence isn't handled superbly by the metrics, but both DRS (-7) and OAA (-14) are in agreement that he's been abysmal. And it shows in his putrid 0.6 fWAR.
Again, obviously Atkins isn't going to be too hard on his guys. And there are guys—Chapman, Varsho, Kiermaier, to a lesser extent Springer—who do mostly fit what he's saying here. But it's a swing and a miss if this is supposed to make anyone feel better. And that, I think, makes it harder for people to swallow some of his better points. Such as…
There's a lot of things happening in our batted ball quality that isn't playing out into scoring enough runs. I do believe, as we've said before, that that typically turns. And I still feel really good about this group and the collection of individuals that forms a good team in the clubhouse that have a good chance to go on a good run.
Hoo boy. People sure hate hearing stuff like this. He’s right though! The concept of regression to the mean doesn’t cease to exist just because it didn’t happen after 125 games or something.
It may not happen, and it certainly may not happen in time to save the 2023 Blue Jays’ season, but to crib, as I did in Friday's Stray Thoughts, from Eno Sarris's latest for the Athletic, struggling hitters have a surprisingly high chance of rebounding—even at this late point in the season.
In the piece, Eno pulls out all the qualified hitters who were at least 10 points off their preseason projections at this stage in 2022 and 2021. He then looked at how those hitters fared over the rest of the season. Of the 50 hitters in question, 26 continued to struggle (52%), 10 hit as they were expected to over the season's final month (20%), and 14 "got hot" (28%).
It's not a huge data set, but it suggests that Atkins isn't merely relying on blind hope. Just don't tell that to fans who can't stand hearing anything that doesn't reinforce what they already think.
Ross continued…
They're a team that can really make good contact off any pitcher. I feel good about us making contact off the elite pitching in the game, feel good about our ability to prevent runs and feel feel really good about the defence and pitching that has occurred. It really is a collective and I feel good about the team.
“They’re a team that can really make good contact off any pitcher.”
Hang the banner. 🙄
On urgency…
If you ask for someone to hit balls further, or to places where they aren't, it's really hard. I think the question that runs through clubhouses, and many fans are asking, and I'm sure some of you are wondering, is there some level of pressing? And we just don't see that.
No urgency. Check. Well you hired the correct manager for that, amiright? HEYO!!!
Moving on…
We get to see the work, we get to see their routines. A lot of you get to see their demeanours in the clubhouse, which has remained very steady. They remain united, and (I) don't see low-hanging fruit that we could just offer up.
Having said that, it is what we focus on and look for any time that there's opportunities for improvement. That's where my energy goes. Not with judgement. It goes with how can I help, how can we help as a group? What small opportunities can we see that might help from a game-planning or preparation standpoint.
We’ll pause here to remind you that on Friday I wrote about how the players are driving the bus when it comes to their careers, which is one of many reasons it’s absurd to point your ire in the direction of hitting coaches.
Back to Ross…
It's interesting, as you look at swing decisions, you look at strikeouts and walks, and the contact quality that I mentioned, where it's not turning into as many runs as you would hope, or that that would suggest. The ball's not going over the fence as much as it (typically) does for some of our hitters, and that happens.
It’s sometime tough for people to accept simple explanations, or non-explanations, for things in this sport, but Atkins isn’t wrong about this either. Shit happens. To genuinely stupid degrees sometimes! Like, this is insane:
PLAYER A: 8.3 BB%, 22.1 K%, .254/.319/.426, 105 wRC+
PLAYER B: 8.5 BB%, 21.3 K%, .257/.327/.414, 105 wRC+
WHO YA GOT? Or— hold on. Before you answer, let me tell you that Player A only has one more home run than Player B.
Got your answer?
Player A is the 2023 Baltimore Orioles, who have scored 632 runs. Player B is the 2023 Toronto Blue Jays, who have scored 571. God, this seasons sucks!!
What we focus on and what we look at is the work, the pre-game, and I'm entirely focussed on how I can help, and how I can help not just our hitting coaches but our advanced scouting staff get the best possible information in front of our hitters to ensure that they have every possible angle to be the best they can be.
I mean, once the trade deadline is over there isn’t a whole lot else for a GM to do, is there? Come to think of it, it’s not like Atkins was doing a whole hell of a lot to help this offence before the deadline either.
Is the RISP thing in their heads?
Definitely a better question for the hitters, and asking them that. I don't see it. But it is such a fine motor skill, and such a confidence skill, that that is certainly possible. But we just don't see that.
You can’t read a thing like Travis Snider’s trade deadline day post and be dismissive of the power of confidence in this sport. And you can’t expect a GM to come out and be like, “Oh yeah bud, they’re all kinds of messed up.” But it’s all just unknowable from where we sit, and I don’t think making something unknowable your explanation for something unexplainable is a very good way to get closer to understanding what’s really going on. Comforting though, I’m sure, if you really need everything to have an explanation.
Do adjustments need to be made?
We're not seeing with our team, for sure, that we need to make this one adjustment. There are times where our team is perceived as—and not just perceived—is very aggressive, but so much of that is how we're built. We are built to hit good pitching and make contact, and we are doing that. It's just not turning into the runs and the damage or balls going over the fence as much as it has in the past. I still feel like there's a chance that it can.
This was the second time Atkins said that there isn’t just one thing that’s some kind of fix-all. He’s surely right, but I’m not sure who needs to hear it. Everybody already wants them to adjust the hitting coach, the hitting strategist, the manager, the GM, the president, the division, the third baseman, the chairman of the board, etc. etc. etc.
Ho ho ho.
I’m not exactly sure what he’s on about with the being aggressive, hitting good pitching, and making contact stuff. Surprisingly, though, the Jays’ contact rate does rank fourth in baseball, and only the Dodgers and Astros swing more at pitches in the zone. But I don’t see much else to suggest any kind of identity in their other plate discipline numbers, let alone that particular identity.
How does the power output line up with your projections?
Yeah, that's what I was alluding to, that it hasn't happened as much. But then we look, "OK, our guys in really strong positions, what is their routine? How is it different from years past? What is their game-planning/preparation? How are they being attacked? Is it differently week to week, month to month, day to day, bullpen to starter?" And we see the work that goes into it and feel very good about what's ahead.
Well that all sounds nice, as long as the players are actually listening to what their coaches are telling them. Which brings us, lastly, to a rather interesting comment from Kevin Gausman earlier in the month that escaped my attention until this week.
Back on August 3rd, Gausman, speaking about the club's divisional difficulties this year following a 6-1 loss to close out a 1-3 home series with the Orioles, had this to say to reporters:
“I mean, if I had an answer for you, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation. Both (Baltimore and Boston) have a good amount of young guys that I think are OK with really diving into an approach and listening to a hitting coach and not trying to do too much. Maybe that’s why. I don’t know. We played really well against Red Sox last year so they’re probably gunning for us this year. I don’t know.”
This quote showed up in a bunch of different post-game pieces—the Sun’s, Sportsnet’s, the one from the Canadian Press—and passed without comment, presumably because Gausman is likely rather benignly suggesting that young Orioles and Red Sox hitters are well-equipped to not get overwhelmed by the big leagues. But in the wake of the Jays frustrated ace’s recent comments about “urgency,” some people seem to have come to see this quote as a Big Deal.
Aha! Gausman isn’t just saying the other team’s hitters dive into an approach and listen to their coaches, he’s saying their guys dive into an approach and listen to their coaches unlike our guys.
I mean… maybe? Not impossible, I suppose. But I riffed above about fans who can’t stand hearing anything that doesn't reinforce what they already believe, and I think the other side of that coin is fans who see what they want to see in things like this.
There has developed this strange pathology among a lot of Jays fans this season that poor execution means poor approach—or no approach—and bad outcomes mean bad coaching. Forget that you can ask seven hitters what “approach” even means and get seven different answers—literally; Ryan Divish of the Spokane Spokesman-Review did exactly this back in 2021—a ton of fans seem convinced they’re seeing Jays hitters flailing away without one, or with obviously the wrong one. This isn’t something that’s totally opaque. You could definitely see José Bautista’s approach, for example. And you could see the rare times he expanded his zone or made bad swing decisions and got out of it. But a lot of people aren’t nearly as good at spotting this stuff as I think they think they are, and to me it often feels like “approach” becomes a catch-all for stuff like “swung at the first pitch after the pitcher walked a couple guys, which I definitely wouldn’t have.” Oh, you mean the 85 mph one that looked middle-middle until it dropped off of the planet? That pitch?
Gausman using the word “approach” and talking about coaching while “praising other teams”—*wink*—is definitely going to set off alarm bells for folks who figure, “These pitchers must hate the useless hitters and hitting coaches like I do!” But I think taking his comments that way is probably just projection.
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Is it just me or does every game this year feel like a struggle? Even today - an 8-3 win - had errors, dumb baserunning, an injury and a near injury. To use every player's favourite cliche - it's just been one long grind.
Great deep dive. Thanks.