Friday Fun: News, Notes, Links, a mini mail bag, Today in MLBTR, and more!
On Springer, Bo, Kikuchi, Jansen, Schneider, Kirk, Chapman, Ryu, Brandon Barriera, Gurriel, Soto, Ohtani, Manoah, and more!
The 2022 MLB season has reached the final weekend before the trade deadline, and it feels like there are a hundred things going on with the Toronto Blue Jays right now. So, rather than wasting time with some kind of a lengthy preamble, let’s dive right in!
About last night…
Nick and I spoke at length about Thursday’s Blue Jays win over the Tigers — among other things — on our post-game episode of Blue Jays Happy Hour, so I don’t want to do a whole-ass Three Up or dwell on it too much beyond that. However, I do have a few stray thoughts to share — with a bunch of quotes from Jays manager John Schneider interspersed! — plus some news and notes to go over before we get into all of today’s rumoury goodness…
• I still have no idea what Bo Bichette was thinking on that play in the eighth inning last night, when he raced from the far side of second base for a shallow fly ball that was going to be easily caught by Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and probably even could have been more handily easeled by Matt Chapman as well. I do know what the folks who took that as more evidence that Bo needs to be run out of town are thinking, though: “When does the Leafs season start?”
• Joking aside, weird play! Afterwards manager John Schneider called it “one of those ‘tweener plays,” meaning that it was tough for the fielders to hear each other a bit, and the ball was in just such a spot so as to make colliding a possibility. He also very clearly said that’s the outfielder’s ball. One of my most hated phrases in sports is “that can’t happen,” especially when applied to something that has literally just happened in front of our faces. Turns out it can and did happen! That one really probably shouldn’t happen though. It was as perfect an embodiment of the “plays with his hair on fire” stuff we used to hear so much about Bichette as I can remember seeing in a very long time — and not in a good way. And yet, as with all things Bo, you take the good with the bad. Of course, that’s easier to do when there’s more good than we’ve seen this year! (Though it should be noted that Bo’s 110 wRC+ in July hasn’t been awful, and he’s been even better coming out of the break.)
• The thing I was more concerned about after this one was George Springer’s elbow. Fortunately, it seems as though the Jays themselves are not. “He's feeling good,” Schneider said after the game, “he really is. He's been grinding a little bit, we all know that, but he kind of had a high impact game — diving catch, a couple huge throws that kept runners where they should late in the game. It's just a little bit of elbow discomfort. It probably looked worse than it is right now. We'll check him out tomorrow and see how he is.”
• I’m not sure how comforting it should actually be that it’s par for the course that the club’s $150 million player is out there grimacing in pain in year two of a six-year contract, but it is at least a little comforting. I guess we’ll in the coming days see whether the Jays’ less-than-transparent recent history regarding injury disclosure continues!
• Both Springer and Bichette — who isn’t being benched, but banged up his shoulder a little during The Collision on Thusday — aren’t in the lineup on Friday. Springer, Schneider told reporters, is available off the bench.
• As an aside, obviously no one is going to have a bad word to say about Charlie Montoyo as a person, nor am I. I’m also certainly not going to disparage anyone for nuance sometimes being lost when they’re interviewed in their second language, which must be an incredibly difficult thing to do and I’m sure requires an extra layer of caution to avoid getting oneself in trouble. But communicating to the fans through the media is a huge part of a manager’s job in the modern MLB — Yankees GM Brian Cashman once called it “part White House press secretary” — and, well, not to belabour a self-evident point too much, but, uh… I guess I’ll simply say that Schneider makes certain aspects of my job quite a bit easier than they were previously.
• Yusei Kikuchi was obviously another big story in this one. Mostly because he was surprisingly fine! Some of that was the fact that the Tigers are awful, to be sure. But according to his manager a lot of it was down to him — and to his catcher. “He was great. Credit to him, credit to Pete, Busch. Made some adjustments, threw a ton of strikes, got better as he went on,” Schneider said. “It was just really impressive to go out there — I mean, he just filled it up. I thought his pitch mix was great with Jano, and he gave us exactly what we needed, so it was awesome to see.”
• Catcher ERA is not a good stat to be applied universally or to draw conclusions from without a whole lot of other context, but it's hard not to notice how much better Kikuchi has been with Jansen than anybody else. In two starts throwing to Zack Collins, Kikuchi has a 10.38 ERA and opponents have produced a 1.074 OPS against him. For Gabriel Moreno is a 6.91 ERA and a 1.044 OPS over four starts. Tyler Heineman caught him four times, in which Kikuchi had a 4.67 ERA and opponents OPS'd .775. He's been OK enough with Alejandro Kirk, albeit in just two starts: 4.00 ERA and .794 OPS.
With Jansen behind the dish Kikuchi has a 3.24 ERA and opponents have produced an OPS of .706 against him this year. There's some major correlation-causation stuff to consider here, but I'd be very surprised if Jansen wasn't given this assignment from here out. “Jano steered him in a very good direction tonight,” Schneider said afterwards. “And he executed. He was great.”
• He did indeed execute — and it’s hard to credit Jansen too much for this kind of a thing. Nice to see Kikuchi’s neck is no longer bothering him, too. Not a lot of talk about that!
• Schneider also had a good one about Alejandro Kirk’s attempted steal — a play he assures us was not a hit-and-run called from the dugout, but that happened because the first base coach thought there was a chance to take an extra base. “I trust Mark Budzinski with everything that I own,” the manager said. “And we're just trying to take advantage of every little situation — and I think he actually would have been safe. I think he was watching Pujols last night, trying to steal a bag, too. So a little inspiration from a Hall of Famer.”
• That’s Chappie.
Links!
A few non-deadline things for your perusal.
• Per SI’s Mitch Bannon, Jays first-round pick Brandon Barriera “probably won’t pitch in competitive ball or the complex league this season,” the reason being that he chose to shut down for the season early in order to preserve his health heading into the draft and is just now ramping back up. He won’t throw off a mound until September. Bannon’s SI colleague Ethan Diamandas adds that the decision was made partly because Barriera’s friend, Padres first-rounder Dylan Lesko, needed Tommy John surgery back in April.
• Elsewhere from SI, Mitch takes an in-depth look at the adjustments Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has made, which have seen him produce a .405 average here in the month of July. Partly that's due to a change in where he stands at the plate — he's not crowding it so much, making those tough sliders away far less enticing — which has helped him produce the lowest strikeout rate of his career. He's also "accepting a backside single as an OK result," per coach Hunter Mense. He's also been working on his swing decisions — something I noted recently that Mense had spoken extensively with David Laurila of FanGraphs about. Gurriel’s wRC+ since June 1st is an astounding 162, especially since he only has 16 extra-base hits over that span (three homers, 13 doubles). He also has a BABIP of .446 since then — the highest in baseball by 34 points among qualified hitters — so I’d be hesitant to say that this is simply going to be who he is going forward. But elements of what we’re seeing can certainly contribute to him being a more consistently productive hitter, I think, than the boom-or-bust guy he settled into being in the early part of his big league career. It’s fun when it’s working!
• Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs recently took a look at the upcoming 40-man decisions for each team in the American League (there’s also a National League piece for those interested), viewed through the prism of this winter’s Rule 5 draft. For the Jays he sees Yosver Zulueta, Orelvis Martinez, Jordan Groshans, and Spencer Horwitz ("a flush lefty-hitting in-house replacement for Tapia") as must-add prospects, with Gabriel Martinez headlining those on the fringe. Interesting stuff, which included some tough-but-fair assessments of Martinez and Groshans. I'll definitely revisit this picture sometime after August 2nd.
• I know I said this was the non-deadline section, but related: the great Future Blue Jays tweets out a piece from Baseball America on how teams might be able to get creative in the next few days and solve their 40-man crunches that way. “Kloff, Horwitz, Martinez, Barger, and Groshans are coming up to Rule 5 risk status. It may not be surprising to see several of them in a deadline package,” he adds. (And yes, indeed, Barger and Kloffenstein will be Rule 5-eligible this winter, per Roster Resource. Man, time flies!)
• OK, so this one is deadline-related too, but what the hell. Nick’s — you know which Nick I mean, obviously — latest for Sportsnet looks back in detail at every trade deadline of the Shapiro-Atkins era, trying to glean some insight into what might be in store over the next few days.
• Speaking of Nick and the deadline, we’ll be back on Sunday with a fresh Blue Jays Happy Hour following the final out of the Jays-Tigers series, and then again on Tuesday — deadline day! — at the end of that evening’s Jays-Rays opener. Plus! Nick and official Friend of the Show (TM) The Zubes have an exciting new-old venture they’ve just announced: talking about all things MLB and reviving the Pitch Talks podcast! Give ‘em a listen!
• Toronto mayor John Tory is getting probed because of ActiveTO vote — and, in particular, because of fellow Rogers employee Mark Shapiro’s lobbying efforts on that file. Lol. Lmao.
• You’re probably well aware of this by now, because Sportsnet has sure been vocal about it, but tonight’s game between the Jays and the Tigers will be exclusively available on Apple TV+. I’m pretty sure that, like last time, it will be free to watch — you just need to get Apple’s app and give them a bunch of information. Thanks, Manfred!
• (Also worth noting: Sunday’s game is exclusive in the States on Peacock. It will be available as normal in Canada, but the start has been pushed up to 12:05 PM ET. Mark it down!)
Mini mail bag!
Hyun Jin Ryu was in the house last night, hanging with his teammates in the dugout during the Jays’ win over the Tigers. Coincidentally, I mentioned Ryu and his “wasted” money in yesterday’s piece, which led to a great comment on a murky subject that I figured I ought to turn into a mail bag question…
In your Rodon bullet point, you mention the "waste" of Ryu's money next season. But don't the Jays have insurance to cover that loss? I would think that's almost a mandatory get for big FA contracts. Or maybe $88M or whatever it was wasn’t deemed a big enough risk at the time? — Patrick C.
I'd say it's very unlikely that they have it fully insured, if at all, but maybe they have some protection. Teams don't disclose stuff like that, but the premiums to get pitcher deals insured are really high, and I think Ryu's age and health history might have made it more trouble than it would have been worth.
It's not mandatory for MLB clubs to get deals insured, so they have to go into the open marketplace and get it done one a case-by-case basis. A 2016 Washington Post piece suggested that the premiums for pitchers can be something like 7%, that there are plenty of exemptions, that teams don't get all of the money back on their claims, and that, at the time, the Nationals had found the process "vexing" to the point where they hadn't insured any of their $100 million-plus deals (Scherzer, Strasburg, Werth, Zimmerman).
Other teams don't so much find it vexing as they simply don't think it's worth it — including the Blue Jays back in the Paul Godfrey days. I don't think we can draw much from the way the team operated three CEOs ago, but in a 2007 Toronto Star piece, Godfrey told Mark Zwolinski that the team paid big premiums for years and never collected, so they stopped doing it. Zwolinski added this detail:
"Insurance policies only kick in when a player is lost for the entire season, or for the remainder of his contract.
"In those situations, a player must first be sidelined for 60 days, after which the team receives only 50 per cent of the balance of his salary for that season."
This is old info, so it may not be exactly how it works now or in every case, but based on the other piece I'd say the shape is likely similar. If so, I can see Godfrey's point.
Ryu will have missed like 60% of this season. He'll likely be healthy enough to at least be removed from the IL at some point in the back half of next year (what they do with him at that point is obviously another question). The Star piece is saying that this year the Jays would get 50% of 60% of Ryu's $20 million salary, which works out $6 million. A 7% premium over the life of the contract would be $5.6 million.
The WaPo piece said it's more like 60-80%. Ryu will miss probably 60% of next year, at least, so even at 50% that's another $6 million. But, of course, the Jays didn't know all this at the time they'd have been getting him insured. And then you have to factor in that they'd be paying premiums on other big deals, too.
The Post says 7% for pitchers, 3% for position players. If we assume that if they'd insure one big multi-year deal they'd insure them all, that means premiums paid for Springer, Chapman, Berríos, Gausman, and Kikuchi. At those percentages on this year’s salaries that's $4.6 million paid out, plus $1.4 million for Ryu. So... for 2022 that's $6 million paid out to receive $6 million back. And probably a similar calculation for next year.
We have no idea the actual figures, and this is far from my area of expertise, but if this is even close, considering that most years there won’t be a heavily insured contract where an insurance claim is applicable, I can see how teams might choose the path of what Godfrey called “self insurance.”
Today in MLBTR
The clock continues to tick on MLB front offices that want to improve their teams — or throw in the towel — before the trade deadline passes at 6 PM ET on Tuesday. Here's the latest that's out there as of 4:30 PM ET-ish on Friday afternoon, much of it via the always invaluable MLB Trade Rumors...
• We’ll start with a wacky one that actually isn’t a rumour at all. And on that front there’s no one who’s a match for Captain Wacky (later renamed Jim Bowden). Over at the Athletic, the former GM who resigned from the Nationals in 2009 after it emerged that he was under FBI investigation for skimming signing bonus money from Latin American teens, suggests what five realistic Juan Soto packages could look like from the five teams best positioned to land him. The Jays are among that group, ranked below the Padres and Dodgers, but ahead of the Mariners and Cardinals. His trade: “Soto, RHP Steve Cishek and LHP Patrick Corbin for C Gabriel Moreno, SS Orelvis Martinez, LHP Ricky Tiedemann, INF Miguel Hiraldo and cash considerations.”
To be fair to Captain Wacky, the “cash considerations” here are in the wrong spot, as he makes clear in his explainer that the idea would be for the Nats to pay half of Corbin’s salary. That would leave the Jays on the hook for $33.4 million just for Corbin — at best it would be structured as $23.4 million over the next two-plus years, plus the Jays taking on all $10 million that’s is deferred.
Soto, as I wrote last week, is looking at about $5.7 million for the rest of this year, $25 million next year, and $33 million or so — hell, likely more — in 2024.
It’s all still a hell of a lot of money to add to the Jays’ books. Doable by Rogers, of course, but could have some real ramifications down the line — as would the loss of Tiedemann. But I dunno. If they can convince Rogers not to let it destroy their future flexibility, sure. Go nuts. Flags, etc. Maybe not so wacky after all!
• The other huge name that’s out there is obviously Shohei Ohtani. He comes with a year less of control, but would be absolutely everything the Blue Jays need — a lefty-hitting middle-of-the-lineup hitter who is also an ace on the mound. How he and Alejandro Kirk and Springer would share DH duties could be an issue — assuming Kirk wouldn’t go the other way — but not one that couldn’t be worked out. Play Ohtani in the outfield, you cowards!
Er… well… you hypothetical cowards. While the Angels have listened on Ohtani, the sense out there is that a trade is unlikely. My sense, based on absolutely nothing, goes even further: not only is a trade unlikely, taking the time to work on one only to be spurned at the last minute by Angels owner Arte Moreno calling off the deal would be a huge waste of a front office’s time — which, right now, is as valuable as it gets. Alas…
Also the Jays should 100% do everything in their power to make this deal happen.
• Ohtani ranks number 60 on MLBTR’s just-released list of the top 60 trade candidates.
• In AL East news, the Yankees are reportedly shopping Miguel Andújar, who has fallen precipitously down their depth chart since smashing 27 homers and slashing .297/.328/.527 as a rookie in 2018. Similarly, Joey Gallo — who I was not alone in thinking was a maddeningly superb get for them back — understands his time in pinstripes won’t last much longer. “I didn’t live up to expectations,” he tells Lindsey Adler of the Athletic. Gallo has a wRC+ of just 81 this season. He’ll be a free agent at the end of the year. There is a world where the Jays take a long look at him as a bounce back candidate, I think. But likely then, not now.
• Elsewhere in the division, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports that “multiple industry sources expect” the Red Sox to trade DH J.D. Martinez at the deadline. On the other hand, Xander Bogaerts — an impending free agent who will be eligible for the qualifying offer — told reporters on Thursday that the Red Sox have told him they won’t trade him.
• In news that will shock absolutely zero Blue Jays fans, Jonathan Villar is having a terrible season. The infielder, who we know the Jays like at least a little bit, was good in 2021 and in 2019 — it’s honestly not worth it to look up his numbers! — but ended up on outright waivers after being DFA’d by the Angels recently. He cleared, but rather than accepting a Triple-A assignment has elected free agency. Hard pass!
• The Brewers are looking at Ramon Laureano of the A’s, apparently. A right-handed hitter, but a once-nifty centre fielder, Laureano missed the start of the year to finish out serving an 80-game PED suspension. And if that all doesn't turn you off enough, he's also posted just a 105 wRC+ this year. WHY AM I TELLING YOU ABOUT THIS?
• Sticking with the Brewers for a second, they’ve apparently inked starter Aaron Ashby to a five-year extension worth $20.5 million. The 24-year-old who debuted last season can “more than double that” if the options in the deal are maxed out. Now, I’m obviously not suggesting this as any sort of a template, but I can think of another 24-year-old who debuted last season who could use a long-term extension of some sort. *COUGH*
• Lastly, sticking with Manoah, he gets the start here on Friday against the Tigers, fresh off being ranked 19th in FanGraphs’ annual trade value series — ahead of the Rays’ Shane McClanahan!
The peripherals haven’t exactly sparkled for Manoah in the same way as McClanahan’s have this year, but he’s certainly been spectacular when it comes to keeping runs off the board, as you can see in the following char from Props.cash — player prop research made easy!
That, according to FG’s Ben Clemens in his capsule on Manoah, is by design.
“He has a Verlander-ish approach to pitching; he often maxes out his velocity late in starts, and tops out above 97 when he really needs it,” Clemens writes. “He’s aggressive in the strike zone, and his four-seamer has enough carry to be a good out pitch, which lets him keep his foot on the gas pedal with two strikes. He’s not posting huge strikeout numbers, but I think that’s more an approach issue than anything else; he seems very averse to wasting pitches, so he’s getting fewer bad swings and living with soft contact in pitcher’s counts instead.”
Hell yes he is!
Other Jays one the list include Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at number nine, and Bo Bichette just behind Manoah at number 21. Don’t run him out of town just yet, folks!
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I forgot we signed Springer for 7 years. Love the player and person, but not sure the body is going to hold up that long. The perils of long term contracts - maybe teams just accept the risk now.