Finally, a mail bag...
Finally, a mail bag...
On game ops, hot dog heros, Davis Schneider, Vlad's struggles, swing planes, park factors, RISP, Guillermo, uniforms, extensions, José Bautista, playoff seeding, rosterbation, and so much more!
Oh, hello.
A long time ago I asked you all to send some mail bag questions my way. You obliged, as always, with some truly thought-provoking ones. And then I, for some reason, kept sitting on them.
Well, I will sit no more! It’s finally time to crack this mail bag open and feast on the goo inside. So let’s not belabour it any further. Today, we mail bag…
I’ll be honest here, friends. This site keeps the lights on for me, but it isn’t a cash cow. And I could live a lot more comfortably than I do right now if I was willing to put some of my work behind a paywall and push a bunch readers who are on the fence into becoming paid subscribers. But, the thing is, I know that times are tough for a lot of people and I really don’t want to become inaccessible to anyone. So, if you can afford it, and you value what I do and aren’t already a paid subscriber, I’d ask that you consider upgrading your free membership to a paid one. Thanks. — Stoeten
As always I have not read any of Griff’s answers…
What's your take on ballpark security's reaction to the Hot Dog Hero? — Warren
Obviously we’re going a little ways back for this one, but if you didn’t catch it, or simply don’t remember this incident from the distant past, back during that miserable Orioles series earlier in the month, a fan in the outfield stands at Rogers Centre was ejected from a game on Loonie Dog night for buying a tray of hot dogs and throwing them to fellow fans. You can read about it here.
I must admit that I’m of two minds on this. For a brief time in the summer of 2001, I worked selling hot dogs in the stands at the then-SkyDome. The company that had hired me didn’t actually have permission to do this, and had just assumed that because they had a stand on the concourse they could run vendors through crowd, so sadly my days of carrying a metal box with a flame in it up and down hundreds of steps in 30° weather were short-lived. But during that time I learned very early on that a great many people are not fans of unsecured foodstuffs being anywhere near them, their faces, their heads, or their clothes. I completely understand that one speckle of sweat off a lobbed wiener landing on the wrong guy’s shirt will absolutely cause a problem, so I am not in the least bit surprised that security was proactive about this.
That’s probably a bit too polite though. I mean, do the folks running a stadium that pumps in unbelievably incessant noise — who couldn’t even let the crowd do a proper José chant organically at this weekend’s Level of Excellent ceremony without some booming prompt through the sound system — get a bit overzealous and seem to have no ability to read the room and no tolerance for fans having organic fun? Yes. Yes, I think so.
Also, a great ballpark thrill of mine was getting to watch the Philly Phanatic fire a hot dog cannon into the stands of a spring training game in Clearwater a few years back. So, you know, grow up! Let the generous hot dog man cook
I'm looking for a completely arbitrary opinion based on feeling more than fact. Who do you see on this team totally Bichette'ing over the stretch run (hitter and/or pitcher) and posting god-like numbers to drag the team into the post-season? — Graham
Man, if I had only answered this on time and said Davis Schneider! Having watched this team all year it is, of course, pretty hard to see this happening from anybody. It would be easy, though probably unconvincing, to say Vlad. Or Springer. Or Chapman. So I might have to actually go with Bichette, once he’s finally back off the IL.
But… well… Vlad’s quality of contact is still so elite that I’m not ready to accept that he won’t figure it out — long term, certainly, but maybe even before the year is through. So, truthfully, perhaps dumbly, I have to go with him.
The chart you see above is very similar to what the Vlad’s percentile rankings chart looked like in 2021. It doesn’t tell the whole story — whatever the reason his barrelled balls are travelling 24 feet less on average this year is a big part of the puzzle (no, it’s not that he played some games in minor league parks that season) — but it’s still a remarkably good looking chart!
Vlad’s expected wOBA this season ranks eighth in baseball among 135 qualified hitters. Eighth!
His actual wOBA, however, ranks 72nd. The difference between his actual and expected wOBA is bigger than all but three of the 354 other hitters with at least 100 balls in play this year. The lowest wRC+ among the seven hitters above him on the xwOBA leaderboard is 30 points higher than his (Kyle Tucker, at 145, compared to Vlad at 115). Thirty!
I can’t say that he should just keep doing what he’s doing and things will right themselves naturally, but a whole lot is going right with how he’s currently striking the ball. He’s even got just about the same average launch angle (9.2° versus 9.4°), sweet spot percentage (33.4% versus 33.7%), hard hit rate (53.6% versus 55.2%), and pull rate (39.3% versus 39.9%) as in ‘21. Last year those first three numbers had sunk to 4.3°, 27.9%, and 50.4% respectively.
Make it make sense!
I mean, at least when Bo was a gigantic disappointment for most of five months last year, it showed up in his expected stats. His median monthly xwOBA from April through August was .316. He then completely turned it around — as you note in your question — by blasting his way to a .390 mark in September, and hasn’t looked back since.
Something similar could absolutely happen for Vlad. It’s in there. (Sit down, you miserable “2021 was the outlier” freaks). And let’s hope to hell it does very soon, because his 2018 Kendrys Morales impression1 is wearing awfully thin at the moment.
Hey Stoeten, what's your take on “swing planes”? Do we have data on whether players are more/less adaptive in their swing plane and whether this informs match-ups or planning? — Noah I.
Thanks for the question and the support, man! I’m not sure if there’s a take to really have on this, especially when I must admit that I don’t have a lot of expertise to offer about it. Swing planes exist and there is data on them. Teams have more intricate numbers on them than what we can glean from publicly available stuff like average launch angles (which isn’t really the same thing), and they do incorporate it into matchup selections and game planning. Players are also are cognizant of optimizing theirs — something we heard a lot about back when Josh Donaldson first joined the Jays, because of the tweaking of his that helped power his breakout with the A’s, though it’s a concept that has been recognized basically forever.
The image above is from Ted Williams’ 1971 book The Science of Hitting, and I’ve pulled it here from an outstanding 2018 blog post from Driveline called “Using Swing Plane to Coach Hitters: A Deeper Look.” The piece was written by Jason Ochart, who has since gone on to have a long stint as the Phillies’ minor league hitting coordinator, before last year joining the Red Sox as their Director of Hitting Development and Program Design. You will learn, conservatively, a thousand times more about the this subject by reading his piece than by anything I could tell you.
For example, he tells us that “virtually all pitches enter the hitting zone between -4 and -21 degrees. By no coincidence, the attack angles of pro hitters typically fall within this +4 to +21 (range).”
There is variance within an individual hitters’ attack angle, but not so much that you’ll see guys using wildly different swings from pitch to pitch, or even situation to situation. So, I don’t think whether batters are adaptive or not is what’s driving the way teams look at matchups as much as it’s about how well your hitter’s attack angle aligns with the angles within your opponent’s arsenal. It’s probably not quite as simple as “this guy’s fastball comes in flat and so we’ll use our guy whose swing path is flatter,” but that’s maybe sort of a simplistic way of looking at it?
As Ochart puts it, “being a successful hitter is in large part determined by how well athletes can optimize their mishits.”
For instance, if a hitter has a peak exit velocity of 95 mph and an attack angle of 19, a slightly undercut ball would result in a batted ball hit softer than 95 mph and above a 19-degree launch angle (a lot of outs). Now if that same 19-attack-angle hitter has a peak exit velocity of 108 mph, the slightly undercut balls would be hit softer than 108 mph and above a 19-degree launch angle. There are a lot of productive batted balls within those parameters.
He adds:
Looking at it another way, if you have a peak exit velocity of 108 mph and an attack angle of 5, balls hit above a 25 launch angle have high spin and lose a lot of potential exit velocity—this is an inefficient use of above-average bat speed.
Hmm. That last bit sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it?
Anyway there’s lots to chew on with this subject, and Ochart’s piece is a great starting point.
With Davis Schneider getting called up, what is the case against churning the bottom of the roster more because of the sputtering offence, and getting rid of Espinal and Biggio to see what Orelvis Martinez and Addison Barger can do? This may be the allure of the unknown, but the upside of one or two more good bats is quite meaningful right now, with the big bats either injured or underperforming — Noah v.
Since this question was written we've seen Cavan Biggio show some signs of life, and even though we're only talking about 47 PA since the All-Star break, I think that maybe changes things a bit. He's slashed .316/.447/.421 since then. Ride the hot hand, absolutely. And yet, if they gave Martinez, or Barger, or even Spencer Horwitz a shot and they ran with it, I'd have no problem with that.
But I'll do now what I'd like to think I'd have done when this question first was submitted — even though there hadn't been as much discourse on the subject as there has over the last week or so — and that's point out the fact that we need a heavy dose of context for the numbers being produced by some of those high-flying Buffalo bats.
The International League began using ABS — the automated ball-strike system, aka robot umpires — for the first three games of each series back in April, with the other three games of each series using a "challenge" system. The robots, in particular, have reportedly had very small strike zones. And this has had a pretty dramatic impact on offence. Batters in the International League, as a group, produced an average OPS of .743 in 2021, and a .750 OPS in 2022. This year that mark is .802.
If that doesn’t convince you that something weird is going on there, how about this: Ernie Clement has always been very good at controlling the strike zone as a minor leaguer, often putting up sub-10% strikeout rates while he was in the Cleveland system. But it's never been quite like this. Over 251 plate appearance this year he's struck out just nine times. A 3.9% strikeout rate. That's... just... absurd.
Barger and Martinez have both been better in recent weeks than their overall numbers suggest, but neither has an OPS above .800, and therefore both grade out as below average for the season. Steamer projects that putting Orelvis in the big leagues right now would result in an 81 wRC+ the rest of the way, and for Barger that number is 93.
I don't think you'd be out of your mind to bet the over on either of them. But by a lot? I’m not sure about that. It's a big jump to go from there to the big leagues, so I tend to agree with the part of you that wonders if this is just the allure of the unknown.
On the other hand, Schneider's OPS was .969 before his promotion, and Steamer projects him to a 109 wRC+ the rest of the way in the majors. We love our small adult son, but that feels about right to me — if even a little bit high. This means that the guys who were well behind him in Buffalo probably aren't ready to come up and be those extra “good” bats you seek.
I can get my head around individual players having bad stretches of production with RISP over the course of a season, but pretty much an entire team for an entire season? And guys that don’t necessarily have a history of such futility? Help me understand. — Tim
Thanks for the question and support, man! Sadly, this question continues to feel relevant, even after more than a week since it was asked. The thing is, I think it’s not quite as simple as saying it’s been a whole team being bad in these situations all year. It certainly has felt like it lately, but the Jays were basically fine with RISP in April, posting a 105 wRC+ in the split as a team. That put them firmly in the middle of the pack, ranking 14th among big league clubs, and wasn’t at all far off their overall wRC+ of 107 for that month. Completely normal stuff.
Also, though we’re only halfway through this month so far, for August they’ve got a 131 wRC+ with RISP. Unless they go back to being completely awful for the next two weeks, this will likely also go down as another normal month, or better.
Really, then, they’ve only been awful in these situation for three months of the 4.5 month season so far. That is still abysmal, of course. It’s just… literally not the whole season. (Though, to be fair, at the time you wrote this August was only a few days old).
Somewhat surprisingly, it’s also not every player.
Bo (145), Merrifield (130), Vlad (116), Jansen (109), and Biggio (104) have all been good to great with RISP, and in each case has actually produced better than their numbers overall. The problems have really been Espinal (58), Varsho (60), Belt (65), Kirk (66), Springer (68), Kiermaier (84), and Chapman (93).
That's still too many guys on the wrong side of the ledger, obviously. But only five Blue Jays have even reached 100 PA with RISP at this point, so it's hardly unexpected to see some weird variation in there.
And I don't think whether or not someone hasn't struggled in these situations previously is particularly relevant. That's just how this stuff goes.
Yes, yes, players aren't robots, and the mental side of the game is obviously very important. But it's hard to get to the level these guys are at without some major amounts of resilience, and I tend to think that this stuff is in fans' heads far more than it is players'.
I couldn’t say that they'll all simultaneously regress to the mean and these numbers will look normal by the time the season ends. They've already banked a ton of poor performance with RISP, so that's not going away. But going forward, with every new day, the best indicator of how well this team is going to hit with RISP is how well they’re hitting overall. And generally that's quite well! Their 108 wRC+ as a team ranks seventh in baseball, and their 114 mark since the start of the second half ranks eighth. Cluster luck just sometimes has other ideas.
That's not to hand-wave the issue away completely, or to suggest that everything about the offence is fine. But the RISP obsession — understandable given how unbelievably frustrating it's been — is probably going to wind up looking kind of silly in the end. Hitters hit and there's no reason to believe that fact won't ultimately show through. It's never been that they can't hit with RISP, it's that they weren't. And, frankly, I don't think the people in the conversation who understand that have done enough this year to remind others not to conflate the two things.
Hey Stoeten, I'm wondering if there's enough data yet on the ballpark factor this year, or maybe there won't be until the full reno is done next year. I ask this only because based on the eye test from both watching games and going to games, it feels like Rogers Centre is playing way more like a pitchers’ park than expected. When I saw the pre-season images of the outfield walls and bullpens, it felt like there could be a lot of home runs to right field, even though the walls are higher. And that might have explained the FO's thinking in bringing in Belt and Varsho as well as all the talk about "balance". For the Jays offence, clearly that hasn't played out. Does this strike you as a case of the ballpark dimensions playing out differently than expected or is it simply a lot of hitters underperforming at the same time? Whatever it is, clearly Ryan Mountcastle loves what they've done with the place! — Jesse
Ugh. Mountcastle. That whole thing is the absolute worst.
As for the changes to the ballpark, I think it’s really hard to tell if they have much of anything to do with Jays hitters hitting the way that they have. That may not sound like the statistically inclined answer — because it isn’t! — but I just think it’s too soon to take the data we’d be seeing very seriously. What I would expect to see when looking at the numbers is that, because the Jays are a good run-prevention team and have struggled a little bit at home (111 wRC+ on the road, 104 at home), that their park factor would show Rogers Centre as more pitcher-friendly this year. And that’s exactly what we do see. According to Statcast, it’s played slightly pitcher-friendly (98), after being exactly average (100) over the last three combined.
But is that because the ballpark is doing something? Have the higher walls turned a few Vladdy piss rockets that would have left the yard last year into long singles? Because that could add up. Are the different dimensions allowing defenders to take up slightly different positions which are helping to take hits away? Uh… I don’t know.
Here’s how the Jays themselves have positioned their fielders at home and away this season of far:
We can see in that in general that their corner outfielders are starting slightly shallower when at home, so maybe that’s something!
But mostly I tend to think that we just haven’t seen enough here to get any sense of what to believe. The slight tilt toward pitcher-friendliness could just as likely be because the team that plays there most happens to have had homestands that coincided with some of their many offensive funks.
Whatever it is, I certainly don’t think anybody should be changing their opinion of how the ballpark plays based on 57 games. And it’s not going to matter much anyway, because it will be changing again next year when they remove a bunch of foul territory in the next phase of renovations.
Was listening to trade deadline pod. Perhaps the reason they delayed IL’ing Bo was to maintain bargaining power. Doubt it made a difference. — AB
I’d heard stuff like that theorized around the deadline, and yeah… I don’t know. I doubt St. Louis would have been able to extract more for DeJong if they thought they really had the Jays over a barrel, because it’s not like he’s much of an upgrade on Santiago Espinal. Atkins could have very plausibly said no. And the fact that they basically had DeJong in their pockets was probably leverage enough not to get gouged if they were going after a higher-end shortstop options. So I tend to think it’s more likely that they were just waiting for the swelling in Bo’s knee to go down and hopeful there was a small chance he wouldn’t have to miss time. There’s no sense in putting someone that important on the IL until you know for sure that it’s required, because forcing him out for even four or five games when he didn’t have to be would have been an incredibly awful look.
Oh, and thanks for the multiple questions, and the support. I only tackled this one because I think the other ones will be covered elsewhere, but it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it!
Hey Stoet. Just to move away from the trade deadline and this up and down season we seem to be having, I have a quick uniform question for you: I’m loving some of the City Connect jerseys that teams are using (Cinci and Seattle to name two). I’m hoping the Jays come out with one in the next couple of seasons. My question is: If you had full creative control from management, how would you design the jersey? And would you throw in a nickname, as well? That’s is again for all the great writing. — SD
Thanks for the kind words man. Great question. Unfortunately, I’m sure there are people smarter than me already working on this, gearing up to unveil some TTC-worshipping, Mountie-looking red piece of garbage with “the 6ix” on it somewhere. (Prove me wrong, Jays!)
But yeah, this is going to be a tough task. I mean, designing anything new ever is a tough task, but what exactly is the Jays’ identity and how does it fit into the massive and ever-changing mosaic that is Toronto? Whatever it is, it’s going to be hard to express it better than the absolutely perfect unis they already wear, which is why I’m half expecting to get a horse designed by committee.
And why I’m kind of ducking your question.
It’s maybe also why we haven’t seen the Jays produce their version of City Connects yet either. They try pretty hard in their marketing not to connect just to their city but to the entire country. The new renovations have added some Toronto-inspired flourishes, but those all kinda feel like they were designed by the company that came up with the embarrassment below. City connection is maybe not exactly in this team’s wheelhouse.
Were it me, I don’t know… raccoons? Renoviction notices? Rob Ford smoking crack?
Honestly, maybe something GO Train inspired would be my choice. Nice green and white, racing stripes, cool retro font, all the lines converge next door, touches just about every part of the city, literally connects to many of the people who miss the racoons they no longer see because they got renovicted during the Ford era and had to move away. There’s a poetry to it! And not a hint of the colour red — or enormous, gaudy maple leaves.
Also on the RISP topic (too hard to avoid), why not throw a teeny bit of more money at the problem by adding more coaching? I.e. adding a couple assistant hitting coaches? Or having Victor Martinez spend more time in the clubhouse? In short, this particular problem feels like one that is between the ears and that additional coaching could help. Thoughts? — Christ on a Bike
Oh man, this stuff drives me a bit batty. “Chist on a bike!” I say. But thank you so much for the question and the support, man!
I know you’re not saying they should fire everybody, and I do appreciate that, but that’s where a lot of this stuff ultimately ends up. And, like, to argue past your excellent question here for a minute, I don’t know if Guillermo Martinez is a good enough hitting coach for this club, but that’s because no one who isn’t in that room or working with him every day does. If the team felt a change was needed at some point I couldn’t say that they’d be wrong. Some major aspects of this team’s hitting performance have clearly been very poor this year, and while the RISP thing is mostly fluky, being the Toronto Blue Jays hitting coach in the year that Vlad had a 115 wC+ in mid-August isn’t exactly a resumé highlight.
But I mostly think that fans allow themselves to think about coaches in an especially stupid way because having someone to blame helps them make sense of something that, more likely, simply doesn’t. These guys can only do so much. They can’t swing the bat for them. And the way it gets talked about always elides the positive and goes straight to the negative — and that’s precisely because these are unserious conversations that only barely hide that someone is mad and wants his pound of flesh whether it makes sense or not.
Bo was having an even worse season last year than Vlad is in this one, and these same coaches were there to help him get it turned around. Whit Merrifield had a 79 wRC+ when the Jays acquired him late last July, and had been at 90 wRC+ the year before — shocking numbers when you consider that Paul DeJong was at 96 when the Jays acquired him a couple weeks ago. How’d he get so much better? How is Kevin Kiermaier having his best season at the plate since 2017? How has Brandon Belt turned in a very nice season after an unbelievably horrendous start and a 96 wRC+ last year.
Does anyone consider those to be coaching success stories the way they they’re certain Vlad and Varsho (and Springer and Kirk and Espinal) are failures? Or is it just, “well that was Dante,” or “he’s healthier now,” or “they were already good,” or some other excuse that lets a person continue walking around absolutely miserable about the kinds of weird and unexplainable things that happen every single year in this sport?
*COUGH*
Anyway! Not sure they really need any more cooks in that kitchen, tbh!
Looking forward to the offseason, the Jays have a few free agents and some obvious roster spots and needs to fill. If you were in the GM chair, do you push in all your chips to try to win a championship while Bo, Vlad et al are still here, especially knowing that if it fails you can move those guys after the 2024 season and potentially rebuild quickly-ish? I’m really hoping for a continued run of success for years to come and for those guys to get locked up long term, but I’m just thinking about potential contingencies in case it just doesn’t work out. — Julius
Great question man, thanks! It’s going to be a fascinating offseason for this club once again, and if it were me, my inclination is to say that we’ve pretty much reached the point where I'd have to know whether Bo is sticking around or not. Or, more accurately, the point where I’d acknowledge how the industry values 25-year-old five-win shortstops and back the Brinks truck up.
No more hedging. No more, “Maybe it’s Vlad, maybe it’s Bo, maybe it’s both, we’ll see!” There’s no way to make a long-term offer this winter that won’t seem like pennies on the dollar to Vlad, so there’s no choice but to go year-to-year again.
Therefore, it’s Bo. I hand him a piece of paper and ask him to write a number on it. That’s what I pay him.
Otherwise, where even are you as an organization? Do you really want to add another aging guy on a multi-year deal this winter if you think you might have to trade Bo after next season to avoid losing him for nothing? Do you want to start emptying the farm system when there’s a real chance it could become incredibly important again in a year?
In 2025 the Jays already have nearly $90 million tied up in George Springer, Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, and José Berríos. At that point Springer will be 35 with two years left on his deal, Gausman will be 34 with two years left, Bassitt will be 36 with one year left, and Berríos will be 31 with four years left. With Vlad a massive question mark and Bo on his way out, why keep them at that point? Why keep Vlad, whatever he is by then, for one more year? Why keep Romano, who is also a free agent after 2025, or Kirk or Varsho, who are free agents after 2026? That group, minus Bo, probably isn’t going to be good enough not matter what else you do.
So, I think you’re right that there’s a scenario that has to be considered where the Jays actually do pivot into a rebuild — tough as that would be to sell after so much of Rogers’ money has been poured into the stadium. But I’m not sure how quick a process that rebuild would actually be.
Maybe I’m being overly dramatic about the importance of just one player, but they don’t call them franchise cornerstones for nothing. With Bo extended you’re building for 2024 and ‘25 and ‘26 and ‘27. And if Vlad gets it back together at some point along the way, even better.
Without Bo locked up I think you have to be much more cognizant of the possibility that the winter after 2024 could be a huge pivot point. The free agents you’ll be trying to sign will be aware of this! José Berríos was aware of where this roster was going when he got an opt-out built into his extension two years ago. Whether Bo is sticking around or continues to be non-committal will massively affect how you approach the offseason. Or at least it would for me.
Does that mean going “all in”? I mean, somehow I doubt it would for Ross Atkins — helloooo hoping for dead cat bounces from even more one-year free agents! — but for me, if I could find a team actually willing to trade elite big league talent for prospects I suppose I’d go for it. Unfortunately, in the era of three wild card teams per league I’m not sure how many of those are going to be out there. If I could get Cody Bellinger to take a bunch of money? Sure. Why not? That could work — if he even wants to sign with a Jays team that doesn’t have either of its major stars locked up long-term.
Maybe you sign Bellinger, Vlad comes around, you land Alex Bregman the following year, some of the Buffalo guys really pop, and Bo’s looming free agency becomes an afterthought. It’s not like the team is doomed if they don’t get an extension done, especially if they decide soon that it’s not going to happen. But you can’t be sure you can sign any free agent, and you can’t be sure Vlad or anybody else is going to figure it out. You are, however, the only team for the next two years with the ability to sign a long-term deal with Bo. Go and do it. Priority one. Remove the effing uncertainty already.
Trading away Hernández and Gurriel is an unmitigated disaster. Together last year they scored 129 runs and had 265 hits, and that was a down year for Gurriel. They haven't replaced this production and the players they kept have regressed. Next year they should not be so focused on defence and concentrate on the offense. Obviously that is how the other teams are beating us, no matter how great our pitching is. — Wendy
Thanks so much for the question and the support, but I must respectfully disagree with at least a little bit of this. You’re right that the Jays haven’t replaced the production they lost with Teoscar and Lourdes, and that some of the players they kept haven’t been as good as last year. You’re right that teams are beating the Jays because their offence isn’t holding up its end of the bargain. And it’s definitely fair to want the front office to focus on offence in coming winter. But the Teoscar trade has been a huge win, and losing Lourdes really hasn’t been very consequential.
Hernández is having the worst year of his career in Seattle and is going to walk away for nothing as a free agent at the end of the year. We love him, but right now it’s good not to be in the Teoscar business. Meanwhile Erik Swanson has been excellent, will be around for two more years after this one, and came with a nice prospect in the form of Adam Macko. He also makes way less money than Teo, and freeing up that payroll helped the Jays add Kevin Kiermaier and Brandon Belt. There’s a lot to like about that one.
The Varsho trade certainly looks a lot worse, but that’s more because of giving up Gabriel Moreno, not because of Gurriel. Lourdes got written about a lot early on because of his hot start to this season, but as always he’s been streaky. Right now he’s having his least productive season at the plate since his rookie year (106 wRC+). He’s still been quite a bit better than Varsho as a hitter, but Varsho makes up for a lot — if not all — of the difference with his glove. FanGraphs has Gurriel at 1.5 wins above replacement to Varsho’s 1.0, but Baseball Reference has Varsho at 2.5 WAR and Gurriel at just 1.9.
Lourdes and Teo have exactly the kind of lefty-mashing right-handed bats that the Jays have lacked this year, so I can’t say that losing them hasn’t hurt. But a run saved is as good as a run scored, so I think calling either loss an unmitigated disaster is going a bit too far.
This is not so much a baseball question as a (*shudders*) discourse question.
The Jays on Aug 4, 2021 were 56-49, and were 59-46 on August 4, 2022. Today, at 60-50, the Jays are essentially playing the same they were those two years. Run differential may be a bit worse, but I think objectively, it would be very hard to say that this team is *significantly* worse than the last two years.
And yet, it seems that the general mood around this years team among fans has been far worse than in years past, and I would count myself among those feeling a lot worse about this year's team. There are many possible reasons (the RISP issue, the AL East issue, the PTSD from the wild card series, the looming clocks on Vlad and Bo, to name a few) but I think something not mentioned enough is the general shift from "El Barrio" to captains class/red-assery/”serious” ballplayers, and how that can affect the enjoyment of watching the team.
To be clear, I'm not criticizing the changes made from a roster construction sense, but I think it's certainly more “fun” to watch Teo and Lourdes goofing off in the dugout, and just being generally fun people, or the Home Run Jacket. Compared to Varsho/Merrifield/Chapman sitting there stoically, and I wonder how much of that plays into the fans psyche, and overall feeling about the team over a very long 162 games. Do you think there's anything to this? — Kyle
Great question man, thanks so much for it and the support! I don’t want to be overly glib about such a thoughtful question, and I can’t tell you you’re wrong if that’s how you feel, but honestly? I don’t think anyone would notice that stuff if this team was leading the division. And I think there are plenty of fans out there who actually want their team to be less demonstrably fun, and couldn’t stand all the seeds or the home run jacket a lot of times.
My guess is on this is no better than anybody else’s, but for me it’s likely a combination of a couple — or all — of the things you mentioned. To recap: First we watched the Rays rush out to a seemingly insurmountable division lead. Then it seems like the young and rising Orioles have already passed the Jays. The O’s are playing with house money this year and have the kind of incredibly bright future it seemed like the Jays had a couple years ago, but with free agency for Vlad and Bo looming it feels like time is starting to run out and they haven’t done a good enough job of turning all that optimism into real results. Vlad also kinda sucks this year, which makes everything so much harder. Add in the double-whammy of the being so frustratingly inept at cashing in runners and a bunch of losses to teams in their division — things not nearly as worrying as they seem, but don’t tell that to anyone listening to OverDrive or Blair and Barker, or reading the constant barrage of “here’s a Blue Jays stat that’s bad isn’t it bad???” tweets — and you’ve got a recipe for a big ol’ bowl of malaise.
Frankly, I’d put the Anthony Bass fiasco, and the people running organization doing everything possible to make themselves look utterly clueless during that, ahead of anything to do with scowling white guys in the dugout or whatever. But mostly I just think it’s that the games themselves haven’t been entertaining. Getting runs across the plate has been like pulling teeth for this club. There’s nothing entertaining about that at the best of times, and especially not given all the stuff above, and the fact that they’ve spent most of the year in third place.
Re: Kyle’s question: I think that's an interesting point that I hadn't really considered. The team vibe does seem — flat?
Those great 2015/16 teams had this scrappy, junkyard feel. They had a ton of swagger but still played with this big chip on their shoulder. It was a vibe that worked kind of whatever the record, if they were down, there was this kind of grim determination and that chip on the shoulder came into play “this isn't the try league,” and if they were doing well, they had the swagger.
Then yeah, as you say, the last few years the team had the barrio, and this general feeling of fun and lighthearted-ness. It was frustrating when the team was scuffling, but fun when they were doing well.
Now I would be hard-pressed to define a vibe or feel associated with the team. The team doesn't seem to have gelled, at least to the fans (or this fan).
I wonder if, for all their talk of character, the front office has created a sterile, corporate clubhouse that just isn't that entertaining. — Argos
I’ve seen some comments like this about 2015 and 2016 recently, particularly after José Bautista’s Level of Excellence ceremony this weekend — that was cool, wasn’t it? — and… well… I wish I could tell you that I remembered it that way, but I don’t think people were entertained by those teams when they weren’t winning either. For the first four months of ‘15 it was “fire Gibbons!” “fire Anthopoulos!” “fire Reyes into the sun!” and so forth. And 2016 was an absolute grind, with about a billion calls to “fire Shatkins” as backdrop throughout. Yeah, there was swagger at times, but that didn’t stop fans from being utterly miserable about things when they were underperforming their run differential by like eight games, or backing their way into the playoffs.
The vibes seem good and the team seems entertaining when they win, and the reverse is true when they don’t. I really think it’s exactly that simple.
PS. What is the name/artist of that absolutely lovely song at the end of Blue Jays Happy hour? Have been trying to find a full length version online with no success. — Kyle
It’s called Dead Like My by my NYC pals Your 33 Black Angels. Check ‘em out on Bandcamp!
Jordan Hicks has been used a lot since we got him. Do you think that because he's a rental, we're going to pitch him until his arm falls off? Assuming he's not the next coming of Brad Hand of course. — OzRob
David Price tells me it’s possible! I could probably use seeing a little bit less of Hicks at this point though.
With Romano, Richards, Green and Bo all likely (hopefully) coming off the IL in the next week or two, there will need to be some roster moves made. Injuries can always come up of course, but if not what do you see happening in order to clear space for them? I think Espinal has options and can certainly see him being sent down, but that doesn’t solve the crunch that’s looming. — Cheryl
Well, it’s been a while since this one was submitted and we still haven’t seen these guys return. We’ve also seen Kevin Kiermaier land on the IL, and Alek Manoah once again get demoted. That leaves the Jays needing to find one spot on the 40-man (for Green), and five spots on the 26-man active roster.
Obviously these things can all change fairly quickly, but at the moment the position player side of this equation seems somewhat straightforward: Nathan Lukes should be optioned when Kiermaier is ready, and when Bo comes back it most likely will be Espinal who gets optioned down, though I'm not sure it's a foregone conclusion that it isn't Davis Schneider who ends up back in Buffalo. (You could maybe make the case for cutting bait Paul DeJong, but given that he can’t be optioned and they clearly wanted an upgrade on Espinal as the backup shortstop, I don’t see it.)
On the pitching side, clearly Nate Pearson is on the outside looking in if everybody is healthy at this point. Bowden Francis also isn't going to be here if everybody is healthy. And then, sadly, it's probably Jay Jackson who would have to go — though I wouldn't put it past the team to find someone a phantom injury to give them a bit of a mid-season breather, allowing them to keep Jackson around for longer. Nor would I put it past them to start a new rehab assignment for Green once he's out of concussion protocol, and then hold him back until September (when the roster expansion will allow them to add a pitcher).
Forgive me for not buying the ridiculous strikeout rate, but my best guess at a candidate to lose his 40-man spot for Green at this point is probably Ernie Clement. Or maybe it’s Tyler Heineman — the Jays actually had Daulton Varsho putting on some catching gear in the last week, thanks to Danny Jansen’s recent turn as a “ball magnet”. Or Lukes, perhaps. It’s definitely getting tougher now that guys like Mitch White, Thomas Hatch, and Trent Thornton are gone. But, as you say, these things have a way of working themselves out — usually in the form of more injuries.
Thank you so much for the question and the support, by the way!
Am I crazy for hoping for either the #1 or #6 seed for the playoffs? Baseball's flukey, we dominated the Red Sox last year, and now there's reversion. But in looking at our record against the AL East this year vs all other comers, if we can't get a first round bye, I'd rather face the Twins than Tampa or Baltimore in round one. Even better if we're the six, Texas gets the one, and the AL East winner drops to the two seed.
Put another way, is there anything statistically significant in our lack of divisional wins that we need be concerned about in the playoffs, or is the W-L record just noise?
I don’t think you’re crazy at all for wanting either of those seeds, but for me it wouldn’t have anything to do with the Jays’ in-division record. We can’t really say that’s just noise, but it’s mostly noise. The Orioles aren’t built perfectly to “outclass” the Jays, or whatever nonsense people try to say to make it sound worse that they’ve happened to lose a few ballgames to them. They’re a fine but flawed team, just like the Jays are. Nothing to be afraid of there. Much clearer, though, is the fact that the Twins are objectively the worst team that’s currently on pace to end up in the AL playoff field, so they’ve got to be the preferred opponent.
And speaking of objectively, it would be objectively hilarious if the Jays got a chance to sewer the Texas Rangers in the playoffs again, so I’m with you on that as well. (I also don’t think it’s crazy to believe the Jays could still win the division. That run that starts at the end of this month against the Nationals, Rockies, A's, and Royals could lead to a real surge.)
Thanks for the question and the support!
Hey Stoeten - first time, long time. Want to ask about where you think things stand from a Vlad extension standpoint. Specifically, do you think him having a down year makes it more challenging for the two sides to find common ground? As a franchise player with the pedigree and ceiling he has, the assumption has always been it'd take the sort of mega-deal a superstar like that deserves to lock him up long term. But with now two straight seasons middling production, and his defence cratering his WAR this year, won't it be tougher for the Jays’ front office to justify that sort of contract? And from his standpoint, seems like it would get easier to bet on a return to MVP form over the next two seasons if the Jays offer isn't at the top of the market? — Nate
Thanks so much for the question, man. I ended up covering it above, but I wanted to acknowledge that you had a good one here, and that I completely agree. Frankly, it would be scary if Vlad saw the kinds of lowball numbers the Jays will only be able to allow themselves to offer him this winter and said yes. Unless he completely turns his season around immediately — and it could happen, as we saw last year with Bo — Vlad has to bet on himself. There’s no sense even discussing it at this point, really.
Just to have some fun with the Davis Schneider thing, what do you think about Devon Travis as a possible comp ? He sure has the same feeling of being a sparkplug! — Player to be Named Later
A healthy version of Devon Travis would be a hell of a thing. And I do get the comp to an extent — shorter guy, second baseman, facial hair, exciting start. But they’re really quite different as hitters.
Travis was a BABIP-reliant contact guy who didn't really walk, was tough to strike out, and had doubles power more than home run power. Schneider has consistently put up double-digit walk rates throughout his minor league career, but they've come with higher strikeout rates than Travis, and more power. This year he has 23 homers in 423 PA between the majors and minors; Travis only hit 35 in over 1,200 PA in his big league career.
Also... well... look, the Schneider story has been maybe the best thing to happen to the Jays this season. The way he exploded out of the gate at Fenway Park. How badly this team needed a spark like that. The thing with John Vukovich's glove. The nearly impossible odds he overcame just to get a taste of the big leagues, let alone to have a record-breaking start. It's pretty incredible and fun and I don't want to rain on it. But in the two big league seasons he had before injuries wrecked his career, Travis played 163 games and slashed .301/.342/.469 (120 wRC+), putting up 4.9 fWAR/4.6 rWAR.
That's ridiculous production over basically one full season — especially for someone so out-of-nowhere. You're setting the bar awfully high for Schneider there, and I tend to think that it would be better for everyone to just enjoy the ride with him on its own terms, wherever it goes.
Alright, I’ve got uniform-related questions for you: Other than the Jays, what are your favourite jerseys in the game? What colour, if any, would you like to see used more by teams? Would you like to see the Jays get a City Connect jersey? If teams decided to get rid of either home whites or road greys, which would you rather see go? — Julius
Hmm. OK, last one. I don’t spend a ton of time thinking about uniforms, but I’ll give it a go here. I guess I lean pretty heavily to simple, traditional, classic looks. Provided they’re not for teams I completely hate, obviously. The Dodgers’ home whites are great. The A’s Kelly green ones always pop. I miss the Expos’ powder blues. The Mets’ home whites with the pinstripes and shoulder and side stripes from the 80s. I don’t know! There are plenty of great ones, and plenty — like the original Jays ones were for so long — that teams never should have gone away from in the first place.
Colour? There’s not a lot of green out there, and it’s a pretty good one I guess. I don’t know! I enjoy a white and green shoe, like a classic Rod Laver, and VFL Wolfsburg does some nice things with their kits I suppose.
And, actually, I suggested green earlier when I was asked about a possible City Connect jersey, didn’t I? Maybe I’m a green guy? (Alternately on the City Connect front, from speaking with younger people on this, I think there’s a very real market out there for something riffing on the black uniforms with the “angry jay” that the team wore in the late 2000s. They don’t do anything for me, nostalgia-wise, but I am so very elderly.)
On the last one I guess I have to say home whites, if we’re getting rid of one. But I think teams — specifically the Toronto Blue Jays — ought to wear their road greys more often than they do. AND ENOUGH WITH THE CURSED RED ONES ALREADY, PLEASE!
Aaaand, that’s it! Thanks so much for the questions, everyone!
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That year Kendrys slashed .249/.331/.438 (.769 OPS) with 21 HR, a 10.6% walk rate, and a 20.2% strikeout rate in 471 PA. This year so far Vlad has slashed .266/.339/.439 (.778 OPS) with 18 HR, an 8.9% walk rate, and a 15.4% strikeout rate in 507 PA. Like Vlad, Morales severely underperformed his xwOBA, which ranked 17th in MLB. Good lord that’s grim.