It took some time, and some hits with RISP, before I could adequately put my thoughts on the state of the Blue Jays into words. Finally, here they are.
I think the RISP issue seems bigger this year because they're not hitting as many homers.
Vibes are bad because expectations are high. If this was 2010 and the Jays were on pace for 87 wins, we'd be happy about "meaningful September baseball", but it's 2023. The 2021 and 2022 Blue Jays were good teams, but not good/lucky enough. Over the last 5 years, the AL East has been won with an average winning percentage of 64% which is 103 wins! Yes, that's skewed by the Rays pandemic year, but go back to the emergency of the Yankees/Red Sox juggernauts and there have still been 8 times over the last 25 seasons where 100 wins would not have won the division.
This is a team that feels like it should cruise to 90 wins. You could convince me that the Jays have their own systems that might view it as a 95-96 win team, but 96 wins is not going to win the division and at this point it shouldn't come as a shock.
Is it reasonable to build a true talent 100-win team that might only be marginally better equipped for playoff series? Maybe? But the feeling that a team that's projected for 93 or so wins should be competing for a title in the East may be a little naive.
Relevant quote: "For example, the best over/under in the AL East may be 89 wins, but that doesn’t mean that ZiPS believes that 89 wins will actually be enough to win the division, because you expect half the teams to beat their projections, and some of those by a large amount... To actually win the AL East, the target isn’t 90 wins, but 95 wins. "
People keep comparing this team (negatively) to 2015 but the situation is totally different. That year the AL East was fairly weak. By the trade deadline, if memory servers, the Jays were hovering around 500 but made some moves (not all great) but it sparked the offense into life and made Josh Donaldson a MVP. It would only take a decent Manoah and a recovered Vlad to do much the same thing. It ain’t pretty right now, but in the moment baseball rarely is.
In regards to your first statement: I would have expected better.
In regards to Billy McKinney - I always knew we gave up on him too soon. Where's Derek Fisher these days?
In regards to the negativity out there, I'm all for a little bit of skepticism and pessimism...I'm all for it until it becomes assinine. I always wondered where the commenters on Sportsnet articles came from, but it seems they've migrated to The Athletic, which is too bad. I used to enjoy the sense of community with your coverage as well as John Lott's and Kaitlyn's. But it seems quite petty now.
Oh, I didn't realize that about the Athletic's commentors. That's a shame, the reasonable convos were always one of the positives of being over there -- as were being part of the team with John and Kaitlyn! It's something I appreciate here too.
I don't do Twitter but I do post in the Bleacher Report Jays community. The vitriol and negativity can be nasty but then the other perspective as you've eluded to comes out. Everyone hated Belt and wanted to get rid of Biggio in April, now they're referred to as the best hitters on the team. I'm the extreme optimist in there and I do believe this team will come around. As long as they're in it, it matters most that they're playing their best in September/October.
I think the RISP issue seems bigger this year because they're not hitting as many homers.
Vibes are bad because expectations are high. If this was 2010 and the Jays were on pace for 87 wins, we'd be happy about "meaningful September baseball", but it's 2023. The 2021 and 2022 Blue Jays were good teams, but not good/lucky enough. Over the last 5 years, the AL East has been won with an average winning percentage of 64% which is 103 wins! Yes, that's skewed by the Rays pandemic year, but go back to the emergency of the Yankees/Red Sox juggernauts and there have still been 8 times over the last 25 seasons where 100 wins would not have won the division.
This is a team that feels like it should cruise to 90 wins. You could convince me that the Jays have their own systems that might view it as a 95-96 win team, but 96 wins is not going to win the division and at this point it shouldn't come as a shock.
Is it reasonable to build a true talent 100-win team that might only be marginally better equipped for playoff series? Maybe? But the feeling that a team that's projected for 93 or so wins should be competing for a title in the East may be a little naive.
Excellent points, though I'd note that — at least publicly — all these teams were projected to pretty much the same level.
Finally found the article I was looking for.
Relevant quote: "For example, the best over/under in the AL East may be 89 wins, but that doesn’t mean that ZiPS believes that 89 wins will actually be enough to win the division, because you expect half the teams to beat their projections, and some of those by a large amount... To actually win the AL East, the target isn’t 90 wins, but 95 wins. "
I can't claim to be smart enough to understand the math, but this article states that the 50th percentile AL East winner finishes with 95 (94.7) wins: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-official-hopefully-not-too-erroneous-2023-zips-projections/
Andrew, this is one of your best reads!
Thanks!
People keep comparing this team (negatively) to 2015 but the situation is totally different. That year the AL East was fairly weak. By the trade deadline, if memory servers, the Jays were hovering around 500 but made some moves (not all great) but it sparked the offense into life and made Josh Donaldson a MVP. It would only take a decent Manoah and a recovered Vlad to do much the same thing. It ain’t pretty right now, but in the moment baseball rarely is.
In regards to your first statement: I would have expected better.
In regards to Billy McKinney - I always knew we gave up on him too soon. Where's Derek Fisher these days?
In regards to the negativity out there, I'm all for a little bit of skepticism and pessimism...I'm all for it until it becomes assinine. I always wondered where the commenters on Sportsnet articles came from, but it seems they've migrated to The Athletic, which is too bad. I used to enjoy the sense of community with your coverage as well as John Lott's and Kaitlyn's. But it seems quite petty now.
Oh, I didn't realize that about the Athletic's commentors. That's a shame, the reasonable convos were always one of the positives of being over there -- as were being part of the team with John and Kaitlyn! It's something I appreciate here too.
I don't do Twitter but I do post in the Bleacher Report Jays community. The vitriol and negativity can be nasty but then the other perspective as you've eluded to comes out. Everyone hated Belt and wanted to get rid of Biggio in April, now they're referred to as the best hitters on the team. I'm the extreme optimist in there and I do believe this team will come around. As long as they're in it, it matters most that they're playing their best in September/October.