Don't call it a comeback (of 2023)

The Jays are not hitting at all. Sound familiar? Well, it really isn't. And there are three big reasons—for it, and for obvious hope—at the top of their lineup.

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April ended two days ago and Blue Jays hitters and fans alike ought to have been rejoicing on Wednesday evening. As you likely noticed, they did not. As you likely noticed, the club’s lineup once again did not have a good game.

As you may have also noticed, a lot of people have started to get very comfortable in their certainty that this team is clearly awful and clearly going nowhere—a full-on continuation of last season that the front office should have absolutely seen coming.

This, of course, is incredibly misguided, even if the basic point—that the front office should have done more to add offence this winter—certainly may end up being right, and has essentially been agreed upon by just about anybody who doesn’t work for the Blue Jays for months.

That is not a typo. The Blue Jays scored six-plus runs 54 times last season. That’s 34.5% of their games. They’ve done it four times in 32 so far this year (12.5%) and just twice since the first series of the season (7%). That’s not the same. That’s not sustainable.

It’s also not fun. It’s not good. It’s not good enough.

But, ignoring the incoherent frustration behind things like the hilariously dumb rush to blame coaches, or the exceptionally annoying trait to believe everything bad about this lineup is Who They Really Are and anything good is dumb luck or Danny Jansen (or Davis Schneider or Justin Turner), what exactly do we make of any of it?

Has the loudest cohort of fans out there been validated? Even before Wednesday, there were certainly numbers trending in that direction.

OK, but do those numbers properly acknowledge that offence is down across the league? Are we not missing some context here?

Ahh, well that makes me feel better. Except… is team wRC+ really the best metric? Isn’t the mark of a good offence hitting the ball hard and actually scoring runs? Because these Jays are not quite so “slightly below average” in that respect.

But let’s not also forget that the schedule hasn’t been particularly kind to the Jays so far. That stuff matters a lot at this stage still!

What Chris is talking about here is that the Mariners, Yankees, and Royals rank second, third, and fourth in ERA in MLB, and have been the Jays’ opponents in 16 of 32 games. Fully half!

(Also, since you’re probably wondering, if you take out games against the Blue Jays, those teams remain in those same positions, albeit in slightly different order, and among them only the Royals see their ERA go up—from 3.14 to 3.23.)

Clearly there is at least a little bit of nuance to how one can choose to interpret all this. And yet, thoroughly unsurprisingly, Jays manager John Schneider elected after Wednesday’s dismal loss to do so in the rosiest way possible.

Woof. I mean, that one would have been a tough line for fans to swallow even if it wasn’t the exact same message of patience that Ross Atkins was preaching eight bloody months ago.

To wit:

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.

Oh, hang on. Actually, what I should say here is that Schneider was preaching the same message as Ross eight months ago minus the part about batted ball quality because, as Jonah’s tweet above shows us, they don’t even have that to point to this time.

But they’re not wrong.

Or, at the very least, Atkins wasn’t wrong—the club’s RISP fortunes turned around immensely in August and September—and there’s plenty of reason to believe that Schneider’s right, too.

Now, I understand that fans aren’t going to trust these guys when they say a thing like that. It feels absurd, like they’re telling you not to believe what you’ve been seeing with your own eyes for a full year. And even if plenty of distrust didn’t already exist, those guys are pretty highly incentivized to put a positive spin on things.

But, personally, I do still have trust in the history of baseball performance, and the decades-long effort to study it and what it tells us. I think it’s worthwhile to have trust in that. And, ultimately, that’s what they’re talking about.

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Those who've long been Sabermetrically inclined fans will need no introduction to the name of Dan Szymborski. I first became familiar with Dan’s work nearly two decades ago by way of the late great Baseball Think Factory. He now lists Senior Writer for FanGraphs, ESPN contributor, and data provider for teams/agents among the credits in his Twitter bio. One of Dan's most public and important contributions to MLB's statistical world have been his ZiPS projections—literally standing for SZymborski Projection System—which he’s been doing publicly since 2005.

Dan knows as much about projections as anybody out there, in other words. And recently he tweeted something about them that very much caught my eye—and might offer more hope yet for the 2024 Blue Jays than a lot of fans seem willing to recognize at the moment.

“I'm sure you'd find the same with Steamer, PECOTA, etc.,” he adds. “Not because projections are amazing but that people tend to really overestimate the value of recency.”

Nothing about that is particularly new if you travel in these circles, or if even if your memory just basically functions. I mean, Matt Chapman's 216 wRC+ last April didn't exactly hold, nor did Brandon Belt's 48 mark, or Vladdy's 148.

Still, April being just six percent really does feel quite low. To the point where I think it makes sense to revisit some of this year’s pre-season projections, along with the current rest-of-season ones, and what we’ve seen so far from the Jays’ three most important hitters. Let’s maybe imagine what that 94%-6% mix looks like, and—I dunno—try to not be completely unserious people about it, huh?

Now, are projections the only tool for us to turn to if we’re trying to figure out how well struggling players will perform going forward? No.

Is it important to remember that, as Dan wrote in his roll-out piece for the 2024 edition, the bottom-line projection for a player is “only a midpoint” and “you don't expect every player to hit that midpoint; 10% of players are ‘supposed’ to fail to meet their 10th-percentile projection and 10% of players are supposed to pass their 90th-percentile projection”? Yes.

May there be red flags lurking in areas that ZiPS doesn’t full capture, or in players’ heads that it obviously can’t? Probably!

But let’s not lose focus on the big picture here. Six percent. “People tend to really overestimate the value of recency.”

It seems like every year I feel the need to remind people that nothing in this game is ever as good or as bad as it seems. I’d certainly love it if, for goddamn once, the Jays had a year in which I didn’t feel the need to do that—where the team jumped out of the gates and never looked back. But here we are.

And yet, just maybe, if we follow the data, we’ll again find reason to believe it’s true.

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Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

2024: .231/.336/.347, 104 wRC+
2023: .264/.345/.444, 118 wRC+

ZiPS: .278/.357/.492, 133 wRC+
ZRoS: .272/.353/.473, 138 wRC+

ZiPS was bullish on Vlad's bat heading into the season—though lower than any of the other projection systems available at FanGraphs—and it remains confident despite his slow start. Now, obviously ZiPS is taking his very loud 2021 into account here, but according to MLB.com, “the system uses statistics from the previous four years for players from ages 24-38, and it weights more recent seasons heavier.” It saw what he did last year, weighted it most heavily, put the MVP runner-up year farther into the rear view, and still projected just a nine-point drop in wOBA compared to what he was projected for last year (.362 from .371). And ZiPS’ rest of season projection (ZRoS above) saw that and April and remain on board. That feels meaningful.

Now, MLB.com also adds a reminder that “obviously, no one is claiming that every ZiPS prediction will come true,” so grains of salt here again. And I understand that it might be hard to get excited for Vlad after what feels like a full year of excuse-making —maybe even two, considering how disappointing his 2022 felt after 2021¹. Plus, I’m sure no one wants to hear any more stuff like how badly his wOBA underperformed his xwOBA last year, which has continued on into this season² . And I know people would much rather get granular and complain about each at-bat and swing as it comes, rather than big picture numbers that may be missing something about how he’s changed or something that’s in his head. But there really is nothing wrong with simply staying bullish on him.

As I wrote last week, he’s not far from having a very similar arc as an offensive player as Bryce Harper did. He’s shown he can do it. His ability to generate exit velocity is elite among the elite. I’ll trust the computer over the clown who has already declared him a bust 47 times since 2021. Patience is a virtue.

Bet: Over 118 wRC+

George Springer

2024: .212/.295/.322, 83 wRC+
2023: .258/.327/.405, 104 wRC+

ZiPS: .254/.328/.432, 111 wRC+
ZRoS: .248/.323/.416, 115 wRC+

Even before looking at the projections, it's hard to be as bullish on Springer—or bullish at all, maybe—because of his age, because his 2023 was so mediocre, and because that mediocrity did not appear to come about because of injury.

Springer's health was a big story during his first two years in Toronto—if only we could have a healthy Springer all season, watch out!—but his 683 PA and 1,139 2/3 innings in the outfield last year were both the second highest totals of his career, and his most since he was a 26-year-old back in 2016. The 104 wRC+ wasn't just disappointing, it was concerning.

And this month has done little to alleviate those concerns.

“ZiPS uses growth and decline curves based on player type to find trends,” reads another part of MLB.com’s definition. “It then factors those trends into the past performance of those players to come up with projections.”

The pre-season projections had the 25-year-old Vladdy basically bounce back to something pretty close to his career averages. That's not the case for the 34-year-old Springer, whose 111 wRC+ projection is well out of line with his career mark, which began the season at 130 and has now dipped to 129).

That seems entirely fair for a player of his vintage, even if it's a pretty precipitous drop. Heading into 2023, ZiPS spit out Carlos Beltrán as Springer's best near-age comp; this year it was Joe Kuhel, a first baseman from the 30s and 40s who ended up as a 105 wRC+ hitter for his career. I'm very much just a layman once you actually get into the math-y nuts and bolts of this stuff, but it certainly seems as though something in there didn't like what happened to him last year.

That said, I do think there are things Springer can do to be better than what we've seen so far. Pulling the ball more often—something he talked about this spring, but hasn't followed through on as yet (his 33.3% pull rate this year is down from last year's 39.5% mark, which was his lowest in seven years)—would be a good start. Being more willing to strike out—he's never finished a season with a K% this low (16.4%)—in exchange for some extra power would probably be a good idea too. There’s got to be something more still in there, right?

Even if it isn’t much, I have to believe it’s more than this.

Bet: Under 111 wRC+

Bo Bichette

2024: .205/.262/.295, 62 wRC+
2023: .306/.339/.475, 125 wRC+

ZiPS: .292/.333/.471, 121 wRC+
ZRoS: .281/.324/.450, 123 wRC+

Bo is going to be fine. I mean, come on. He took a 104 wRC+ into August 21st two years ago and ended up having his best statistical season. I didn't jump off the bandwagon then, so I don't expect to do so now.

He's one of the best hitters in baseball. And I don't think anybody concerned about Bo would have the same kind of reservations about Gleyber Torres, Alex Bregman, Corbin Carroll, Mitch Garver, or Yandy Díaz—five players who also currently sport wRC+ marks in the 60s. (OK, maybe Garver!)

Those rest-of-season numbers ZiPS is giving us on Bo are somewhat interesting though, I think. If we do some quick and dirty math—my favourite kind—and add five months of 123 wRC+ to one month of 62 wRC+ and divide by six, we get a 113. That's much farther down from his original projection than the result we'd get from doing the same exercise with Springer (who goes from 111 to 110) or with Vlad (133 to 132). Though I suppose that's to be expected when your first month is nearly 60 points of wRC+ down from your projection versus something more like 30. It's also not really how this works anyway, so maybe just ignore me. I told you I was a layman!

Regardless, it's nice that, as far as I can tell Bo doesn't seem to take as much heat as the other guys here—presumably because he's bought himself some goodwill over the last couple of years—even if it sure would have been a hell of a lot nicer if even one of these guys had been hitting this last month the way they're capable of and almost certainly will again.

And that, really, is the thing. Vlad is 14 points of wRC+ off of last year, and 29 points off his projection. For Springer it's 21 and 28. For Bo it's a whopping 63 and 59.

You can’t say this is the same as last year, or just a continuation of last year. This is nothing like last year! Everything we know about their track records and how players perform over time tells us that it’s very likely to get better—probably a whole lot better.

So, yes, the team will be better.

Will it be entertaining? Maybe not. Will it be better enough? We have no idea.

But we also can't at all be certain yet that it won't. Sowwy!!

And, best of all, they haven’t even allowed themselves to be buried in the standings yet.

Bet: Over 123 wRC+ the rest of the season

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1. To a not-insignificant extent that disappointment partially came about because of changes in the offensive environment. If you compare Vlad's 2022 with Teoscar Hernández's season in 2021 by OPS you'd think Teo was quite clearly better: .870 OPS versus .818. However, by wRC+ it was Vlad who had the better season, 133 to 132. It's not entirely this neat, but part of the reason for this is that the offensive environment changed. A league average OPS in '21 was .728 but in '22 it dropped to .706. (Worth noting: So far this season league average is .699, and league average SLG is .385. Recalibrating for the offensive environment is good, and why I prefer to use a stat like wRC+ whenever possible.)

2. He's in the bottom 30 of 278 qualified hitters right now by this metric, and last year he was second-last of 258. (Worth noting: In last place was Aaron Judge, so... you know... it’s not like you can’t still have an outstanding season while underperforming your xwOBA.)