Mail bag: Mayday!
On the state of the Jays, Vlad's "struggles," Manoah start, Schneider's job, the Varsho trade, sustainable winning, Bo's wheels, Rogers Centre dimensions, and so much more!
Alright, alright. I think we all know why we’re here. So let’s just get straight to it, shall we?
As always, I have not read any of Griff’s answers…
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So glad you are doing this. We can say “it's early” and “we're too good a team to underperform” etc. etc. and make a ton of rational excuses, but I don't think we can sugercoat the bottom line — we can't afford to keep playing like this and have many more extended losing streaks if we want to make the playoffs. Not when the rest of the AL East is so seemingly good.
I think the particular angst the fan base is feeling is that we (well some of us) have put a lot of faith in the front office’s process and goal of building a sustained winner. Well, we are now firmly in our competitive window period and have good success the last three years, but nothing really to show for it. Significant changes were made this year to really get us over that “hump” so with the early struggles there's that feeling of “What if it all doesn't work out?” Then what? There's no immediate help in the minors. Our depth is shocking. We've developed one home-grown starter in 7 years. Do we really need to start being critical of the front office? Maybe they and the team just aren't as good as we think we are — and that's both scary and depressing.
Nothing a 13 game winning streak won't fix though... — OzRob
Great question, man. Thank you so much for it, and for the support! There’s a lot going on here, and for that reason I’m going to tackle this one line by line, FJM style! (Look it up, kids.)
So glad you are doing this.
Thanks! I'm not sure that I am — the less anybody thinks too hard about this team right now the better, myself included — but I'm trying. I'm also kinda worried that my answer may come off as condescending, which would be especially uncool since you've always got great comments and questions and have always been so supportive of my work! (You're far from the only person with these worries, and understandably so!)
We can say 'it's early' and 'we're too good a team to underperform' etc. etc. and make a ton of rational excuses, but I don't think we can sugercoat the bottom line — we can't afford to keep playing like this and have many more extended losing streaks if we want to make the playoffs.
Well, yeah, if they play as badly as they have in their worst stretch for the rest of the season it's not going to be a good year.
Not when the rest of the AL East is so seemingly good.
It's an incredibly tough division, no doubt. The margins are thin and the way the Jays are playing right now is going to have a material effect, likely taking them from the realm of division title contenders to wild card contenders.
I think the particular angst the fan base is feeling is that we (well some of us) have put a lot of faith in the front office’s process and goal of building a sustained winner.
I don't think I'd characterize anything to do with the way fans are reacting to a tough stretch from a team that was 18-10 the month before this one, and projected by absolutely everybody to be among the very best in the game, as having "faith."
Well, we are now firmly in our competitive window period and have good success the last three years, but nothing really to show for it.
It's true. Like 27 other teams, the Blue Jays have zero World Series titles in the last three years.
Significant changes were made this year to really get us over that 'hump' so with the early struggles there's that feeling of 'What if it all doesn't work out?' Then what?
Then a very good group of baseball players collectively had a bad year? I mean, it happens. It could happen here. Personally, I don't think it's worth worrying very much about with something like 19 weeks worth of baseball still to be played. And I especially loathe how we have to do this literally every single year, and how right now I couldn't tweet about how the Yankees had a 3-14 stretch last season on their way to winning 99 games and the AL East title without getting unhinged replies from people I've had muted since 2014 insisting that this is different and Schneider is out of his depth and Atkins should be fired and half the team traded. But it's not like 2021 was very long ago — I do know that you can lose the division in May, even if I find it extremely tiresome that every bit of turbulence seems to convince half the passengers that the plane is spiralling into the ocean.
There's no immediate help in the minors.
Correct.
Our depth is shocking.
I feel like you might be shocked by other teams' depth too. It's not like there are a bunch of difference-making guys just hanging around in the International League waiting for a call.
We've developed one home-grown starter in 7 years.
If that! But, realistically, yeah, that's basically true. I think there are some extenuating circumstances there — they've traded some guys who might have turned out differently if they'd stayed, they felt they needed time to completely overhaul the player development system they'd inherited, and there are some exciting arms on their way — and that, generally, this is a criticism for the sake of having some kind of point-scoring take, and far less useful than simply looking at their performance on the pitching front as a whole. But there have certainly been plenty of big missteps to go along with the wins they've had in that area. I don't think there's reason to be concerned about it at this stage — hey, they developed Nick Frasso! — but the track record is what it is.
Do we really need to start being critical of the front office?
I don't think we need to do anything, but it certainly wouldn't be offside to start asking questions more and more loudly. Like, if Varsho turns out to be as big a mistake as Berríos or Kikuchi or the lack of urgency to build a better bullpen then I wouldn't want to be in Ross's shoes. But I don't think this is something worth looking at on a week-to-week basis. Whether the GM stays or goes is more about an accumulation of a record over time. Maybe we'll get to the point where a move makes sense. Careful as I am to not overreact, right now I'm also far more willing to entertain the idea of bringing in a fresh pair of eyes than I have been since… well… basically since early July 2015.
Maybe they and the team just aren't as good as we think we are — and that's both scary and depressing.
I mean, it's less fun when your team is having a disappointing year and wasting their potential, but if that’s ultimately what’s going on I think we'll survive it and enjoy watching some baseball games in the process.
Nothing a 13 game winning streak won't fix though...
I don't think it would take nearly that many to completely change the tenor of the conversation here— which is exactly why I find it so silly! But, you know, baby steps. How about just two games? Hell, how about one?
Ok, I will ask you the biggie, the one that we have to ask in this moment of doom and gloom:
At the start of 2021, we all thought the Jays were at the opening of a big, multi-year window. Much of that was premised on the idea that Vlad and Bo would continue their [linear?] development and would be supplemented by vets such as George Springer, Marcus Semien and now Matt Chapman. Instead, we sit here two years later and have a team whose best window/year is now two years in the rear-view window (2021).
The front office has tried to re-make, re-balance, and re-load in the years since.
This club's hope and projections for a big, multi-year window were always premised on Vlad's development into a Pujols/Cabrera-type star. Except for 2021, we are still waiting to see that; he is essentially the same hitter through 2020, 2022 and 2023. 2021 is the outlier, not the harbinger of greatness to come.
So, if the Jays flop in 2023 and don't make the playoffs (in what is admittedly a historically tough division), do the Jays' front office re-evaluate the idea and premise of their window? Wouldn't it be easiest to trade Vlad with two years remaining and retool around the big contracts and Bo? Vlad is proving to be a good player that teams would desire, but not the superstar the team has designed their window around. If the Jays are to make the most of other signings (Bo, Springer, Gausman, Berrios), they will need further adjustments. — Jonathan
Wow. Yeah. That's certainly a biggie. But it's also, um, to be polite, not. It's actually a very easy one to answer. And the answer is no.
First of all, while the expectations for Vlad have always been very understandably sky high, I do not for a second believe that the idea has been that it could only work if he became a clear-cut, generational talent, Hall-of-Fame-calibre hitter. An incredibly good hitter? Yes. But Vlad having a 135 career wRC+ and a 141 wRC+ this season — while making just $14.5 million! — is in absolutely no way a problem, the problem, or a reason to pivot. Banking on a guy being a Hall of Famer is not how to build a baseball team, nor is it how this one is built. Even with Vlad being a little off last year, they had a great season that could very easily have broken completely differently for them in the playoffs.
Secondly, speaking of that 135 career wRC+, Cabrera through his age-24 season was at 139. Vlad will end up very close to that level by the end of this year, at the same age, even if he "only" maintains the outstanding level to which he's hit so far this season.
And the third thing is, that, yes, he's been outstanding.
If you're looking at OPS, rather than a league- and park-neutral stat like wRC+, I can understand maybe not seeing a huge difference between Vlad's 2020 (.262/.329/.462) and his 2022 (.274/.339/.480), but the run-scoring environments in those years were very different. His wRC+ in 2020 was 110; last year it was 132. This year it’s at 141 — almost identical to Cabrera's 142 mark as a 24-year-old, FYI — meaning he is way beyond where he was in 2020, relative to the league.
He is absolutely not the same hitter as he was pre-2021, and he's absolutely not proving that he's not a superstar. That doesn't mean he definitely will be one, or that it isn't a little discouraging that the walks have dried up compared where his rate was at in April. But if a big picture conversation would have been unthinkable a month ago — and this one certainly qualifies — it's really not worth entertaining right now.
Ok, we're far enough away (I think) to begin to wonder how much the minor league parks helped Vlad out in his almost MVP year. He's still a great player but do you think he ever gets back to that level or is he more of what we saw last year given that we have a good sample size now? — Steve
Much as I'd like to dismiss this notion out of hand, Vlad hit 21 home runs in the 44 games he played at TD Ballpark (11) and Sahlen Field (10) back in 2021. But it's not like those were all wall-scrapers, and we can see that's the case pretty clearly once we start to look into it. Using the home run tracking data at Baseball Savant, we can see that 13 of those 21 home runs would have left the yard in 28 or 29 other parks. Three more would have been homers in 25-27 parks. Four would have been out in 18-20 parks. Only one was a bit questionable, as it would have left in just 8 other parks — not even enough to be classified by Statcast as a "doubter," the cutoff for which is 7.
I suppose one could wonder if there are wind patterns or other environmental factors that might have aided him when in Dunedin and Buffalo, but I don't know man, he hit 48 and his xHR was 46.3. He'd have apparently hit 53 if he played all his games in Baltimore. It was legit.
Also… uh…
As I mentioned above, getting the walk rate up will make a difference, but otherwise he looks very much like exactly that 2021 guy — except with an even lower ground ball rate, lower infield fly rate, and a higher line drive rate. And, of course, not quite the same kind of eye-popping results just yet.
Also, call me crazy, but... uh... I think I can guess which week had just come to a close when these questions were submitted...
Another rough start for Manoah on Thursday. Do you think there are conditioning issues there that are being exacerbated by the pitch clock? Do you — gulp — demote him, to work any mechanical issues or conditioning issues, or is he better off working with Pete Walker? — Julius P.
Great question man, thanks for it — and for the support!
I’d be lying if I said I the same thought about conditioning hadn’t occurred to me, but ultimately I think that’s a pretty unfair place to go. Besides, plenty of bigger dudes have had tons of success in this game, so I don’t think it’s a particularly useful thing to turn to every time one scuffles for a bit — looking at you, Kirk-hating weirdos who forget what he looked like when he was an All-Star last year! And Manoah pitched into the sixth inning and beyond a ton last season, so if there was a problem would it not have showed up there?
That said, I think the way that the clock has lessened his recovery time between pitches could be part of what’s thrown him off so badly this season, I just can’t imagine that’s the whole story.
What on earth the full story here might be, though, I have absolutely no idea.
Though we may not know the why, we certainly know what's gone wrong. Manoah's slider isn't breaking enough, opponents have been able to lay off his pitches way too easily, and his 6.37 BB/9 is the worst in baseball among qualified starters. In fact, since 1990, only two qualified starters have finished a season with worse marks: a pre-breakout Randy Johnson in 1991, and a post-ruining-the-profit-margin-on-you-baseball-card-collection Todd Van Poppel in 1994. Frankly, I'm surprised Manoah counts as qualified this year given how many times he's been yanked early.
As for what to do with him, it’s really hard to answer from the bleachers. I'm not sure that signalling to him that they don't think his turnaround is imminent is the right thing to do here, especially since they can't — with apologies to Four Inning Francis — credibly suggest someone is banging down the door to take his place. Those on the inside would be able to gauge that much better than I can, obviously, but I suspect he wouldn’t react well to a thing like that.
We do know that the Jays gave a ton of rope to their struggling starters last season, which is why my assumption all along has been that they'll do everything they can to get him right in the majors. The idea of a demotion gets less and less far fetched with every start though, doesn't it?
This question is more about strategy and making the new rules, pitch clock, etc., work for the team. I noticed during the White Sox series that the catcher threw to first base quite a lot. I was wondering if throwing to first might be a way of giving the pitchers a breather without incurring any penalty. Might give those pitchers who are having difficulty dealing with the pitch clock a chance to collect themselves. As an aside, I think this team is a good one and while they’re digging a hole for themselves, I believe they’re quite capable of going on a run to right the ship. I continue to enjoy your writing and insight. — Byngski
Thanks for the kind words, man! Also, I agree on both the hole they’re digging and the run they’re capable of. As for your question, this obviously relates to the Manoah stuff we were talking about and… sure! It couldn’t hurt to try.
What I think I’d more like to see them try, though, is having Danny Jansen catch Alek more often. Kirk did great work back there with him last year, but clearly it’s not working at the moment — even if Kirk has been the better framer at the bottom of the zone (i.e. where Manoah tends to live) despite being worse overall.
I mean, we’ve kind of reached the point of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks here, haven’t we?
How would you grade the Blue Jays’ performance thus far?
1. Acceptable
2. Unacceptable
3. F minus — Conrad Bidet
Thanks for the questions and the support, man! Uh, none of the above? The only one close, for me, is number two. But words have meanings and I will never condone the use of “unacceptable!” for things — particularly baseball things — that, while not great, are commonly accepted, or that we have no choice but to accept. They’ve had a good month and, so far, a bad month. Accept it.
Schneider has made some boneheaded moves with the bullpen, he's said some weird stuff about his relievers not getting it done. In short, he's a big league manager!
Has the team just collectively lost the thread on how to do the little things right, much the same way that I'm losing the thread on this question, or has Schneider made them all crazy enough that they don't give a shit about this team anymore? Because he's doing that to me! — Dave
Thanks for the question and the support, Dave! Some of the manager’s moves have left more than a few fans scratching their heads lately, but I have an incredibly hard time taking seriously anyone who is absolutely certain that he’s awful or losing them games, mostly because those are just people who can’t handle bad things without blaming someone for it. I mean, if it was that easy to measure the size of an iceberg just by looking at the tip, WHAT THE HELL DID I BUY ALL OF THIS ICEBERG-MEASURING EQUIPMENT FOR?
That said, I don’t think there have been a lot of strokes of lineup or bullpen genius to credit him (or his fellow staff members) for. And “little things” talk always threatens to become a petard by which a manager might hoist himself — 2023’s version of “last year was the trailer.” But I’ve seen nothing remotely as disqualifying from him as other fans seem to think they have.
Besides, it’s ultimately really about what his players think anyway. And, uh…
Oh.
Uh-oh.
Ahh….
😬
💀💀💀
Bad looks!
(Note: When originally published I had some quotes here credited to a report from the Sun’s Rob Longley. They were actually from an opinion piece by another writer, which sort of makes it irrelevant to the point I was trying to make, so I’ve simply removed it. Sorry for the error!)
With Gurriel Jr going on a 15 game hit streak at precisely the same time Varsho has gone ice cold at the plate the trade is taking on a life of its own. There is obviously sound logic behind improving the team’s DRS by taking a hit their overall OPS, and this seemed to be the guiding force behind the trade. While Varsho was not exactly tearing the cover off the ball in Arizona he definitely had a respectable 109 OPS+ and 27 bombs last year. The hope likely was that he would continue to continue to improve his bat. I guess I am wondering: did management overestimate Varsho's ability at the plate and did they move out too much offensive production in hopes of shoring up their defensive game? Is this a blip being magnified by Gurriel’s performance combined with the Jays pissing away divisional match ups? Or is this just Varsho? A guy who strikes out around 25% of the time, can hit some bombs, has an elite glove but most importantly was a left handed bat that Atkins desperately wanted as his team was too right handed heavy? Or did we just trade two pretty good players for Randal Grichuk 2.0? — Eric
Thanks for asking about this Eric! And for the support!
At worst, my view is that they may have traded one really good player for Grichuk 2.0. Admittedly, that still isn't great. However, for me, Gurriel is as streaky as he is oft-hurt as he is inadequate on the bases and in the field. That bat on this streak might genuinely be saving the Jays season right now if it were still here, so maybe that's weird to say, but I just don't really rate him and don't blame the team in the slightest for moving him with just a year left on his contract. (I also tend to not believe that Arizona insisted on including him in the trade, mostly because of exactly this. It kinda felt to me like his whole thing had run its course, and my guess is that the Jays were probably happy to not have to deal with the fallout from replacing him as the everyday left fielder, and to get some money off the books to go spend on Chad Green or part of Brandon Belt’s deal.)
But Varsho was definitely a risk. And an even bigger risk was choosing to move Gabriel Moreno in a year when rule changes were going to put an even bigger emphasis on the running game.
I'm not going to try to say that Moreno has already established himself as a very good big leaguer, or that I wasn't all for taking these risks myself, nor am I going to say that the story of this trade is anywhere near written, but Varsho's end of it is absolutely worrying, because the track record of success really isn't there.
Varsho had a 121 wRC+ against right-handed pitching last year, a 51 mark against lefties, and yet projection systems liked him. Like, a lot. FanGraphs' ZIPS-based Depth Charts system had him at 132 for this year. That's a huge step forward and, even as someone who figured there was more in his bat, never quite passed the smell test.
Could the Blue Jays end up being burned by similar results from their own systems? Dreaming on what he did against lefties in 2021? There are some interesting possibilities in there that I’d rather not grapple with just yet. All Varsho has to do is start hitting some more and we won’t ever have to think about them again!
Hi Andrew: Love to hear your views on everything and am interested to hear what you think. I have two questions:
1. A couple of weeks into this slide and a nagging thought has been coming more and more to the forefront of my brain. Vlad Jr. has been hyped beyond belief and sold to us as a transcendent franchise player. The thing is, of course understanding he is still young, he has only really performed at that kind of level during one season mostly played in minor league parks. The larger sample size indicates that he is merely a very good player. When is the last time Vlad came up with big hits and big RBI on a consistent basis? Has the talent been evaluated incorrectly?
2. The front office, Mark Shapiro in particular, promised us a sustainable championship level club, a la the Dodgers. Unless I'm missing something, the minor league cupboards are bare, over the next three years we are going to lose (probably) Chapman, Bo, Vlad, etc., etc. Do you see a way to a sustainable model or is that just a pipe dream and Ross Atkins needs to go? Does sustainable mean sustained not-very-goodness? And how do we improve what seems to be an absolutely god awful bench?
Thanks and keep up the great work!! — William
Thanks so much for the kind words and the support, man. Here goes…
1. We’ve been through most of this Vlad stuff already, but I’ve got a couple of things I can add here. For one, the “minor league ballparks” thing is a nifty new corner in the “Vlad Fraud” universe for me, and I really think folks need to go back to the drawing board on that one — not just because, as I pointed out, all those homers were legit, but because, as I also pointed out, it was only 44 games. Feels a bit too much like “fit the evidence to my predetermined conclusion” stuff there.
I’m sorry to say, I kind of think the same about the “big hits” thing, too. It seems that every era has a guy that fans think only produces during blowouts, and it’s rarely if ever true. There are only so many opportunities to come up with big hits, players are still human when they get those chances, and our brains just aren’t very good at parsing fractions of fractions like that — or noticing the countless times that other teams’ stars fail to come up big over the course of a season. Vlad is 8-for-24 in high leverage situations this year, and though the walks and the power haven't been there for him in those spots just yet, there's really no reason to believe that he won't continue to be the same outstanding hitter he always is, regardless of situation. For his career his wRC+ in low leverage is 134, in medium it's 135, and in high leverage it's 136.
2. First of all, I completely disagree with the notion that they're probably going to lose Bo and Vlad. Even if they do, it's not like they aren't going to use the gobs of money earmarked for those guys on different talent. And while I agree with you that Chapman might end up elsewhere, I have no idea who that first "etc." of yours might represent, let alone the second.
Secondly, and more to your point, promised is certainly not the word that I would use, but yes, there has been a lot of talk about building a sustainable contender, which... is... what every team says? In every sport? Always?
Nobody is out there telling fans who they hope will buy season tickets for years and years to come that the organizational aim is to win it once and then tear the thing to the ground, you know? So I prefer to judge a front office on what it does, not what its marketing says.
On that front, you're certainly not wrong to point out that the upper levels of the minors are not exactly bursting at the seams with with talent. But that's the price of doing business when you're legitimately in a window of contention (and aren't the stupid, anti-labour Rays with their finely tuned garbage model of baseball success). The Jays’ system may be a long way from the top at the moment, but there are some very interesting position players in the lower minors, a number of guys who should be able to help the bullpen at some point soon, and solid pitching prospects like Sem Robberse to go along with the really shiny ones like Ricky Tiedemann and Brandon Barriera. The upcoming draft will add another layer of talent there too.
One couldn't squint hard enough to see a future championship team there or anything, but there are some guys.
What's most encouraging overall, however, is this:
Until Rogers closes up the purse strings — and with all the money they’ve already committed, will commit, and have spent on renovating the Dome, it’s going to be a while — the Jays should be contenders or some sort or another.
As for the bench, it’s certainly an area where they’ll look to strengthen at the trade deadline, because it’s absolutely a bit grim right now. But it’s also just sort of what a bench is going to look like on a team that doesn’t use a ton of platoons and has guys like Biggio and Espinal looking far from their best. Bench roles aren’t what good free agents go looking for, decent prospects are better served getting reps in the minors (or, in the cases of guys like Otto Lopez and Addison Barger, struggling with the level they’re currently at), and pitcher limits force teams to carry more bench guys than are really necessary. I mean, according to Roster Resource, right now the Yankees' bench consists of Greg Allen, Oswaldo Cabrera, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Ben Rortvedt! Where the Jays are at isn’t good, but it’s not exactly unusual either.
One question (and I'm only half kidding here), is the book on pitching the Blue Jays out? By teams saying "how to get the Blue Jays out? Put them on base!"
But by digging deeper, are other teams' advanced scouts looking at Blue Jays hitters and see that the book to pitch them with RISP is to pitch up and in because they will chase? Because from the eye test it seems with runners on this last week they would often take swings that are too big, and swings that often seem to lead to a double play, a jam pop up, or a strikeout, at least until they show that they can lay off those borderline pitches, as I know they have before. One of the reasons the lineup seemed deeper in April was because more hitters were being more selective and were able to lay off more of those pitches. — Jesse
Thanks for the question and the support, man!
With runners in scoring position the Jays have walked only slightly less in May (10.2%) than in April (10.3%), though they've struck out more (24.1% to 22.3%) and their wRC+ has dipped — though maybe not by as much as you'd expect, going from 106 to 94. Their ground ball rate has ballooned, however, going from 34.4% to 48%. That is obviously not what you want, and almost certainly behind their number of GIDPs jumping from 5 to up to 11, but still, those numbers don't look like the difference between a team that has it going right and one that's been figured out by their opponents. To me they look like pretty typical fluctuations that you'd expect to see over the course of a baseball season.
Not to be too glib, but my thinking here is more along the lines of hitting 95 with movement is incredibly hard and they're going through one of those unbelievably maddening collective slumps at the moment.
In 2021, Bichette stole 25 bases, and I thought that with the base size and rule changes this year, he could be a dark horse candidate for a 30/30 season. I think he has just one steal so far this year — is there any indication as to why he isn’t trying to steal more frequently? I know he has Vladdy up after him, but with the number of ground balls Vlad hits, I wonder if moving up that 90 feet could be helpful (keeping out of double plays for example). — Julius P.
The comments section has answered this one for me, but for those who missed it, Leo Morgenstern of FanGraphs wrote about Bo and his speed back in January and found a combination of reasons why his base running numbers cratered last season. “Bichette was slower,” he explains, “the league was faster, and good opportunities to advance seemed less frequent than before. His good fortune on stolen bases caught up to him, and it didn’t help that he ran on a stronger group of catchers.”
In other words, Bo was never really the speedster he appeared to be in 2021, and will likely never recapture that — mostly because of that first factor. In 2021 his sprint speed was measured at 28.0 ft/s (74th percentile). Last year he was down to 27.5 ft/s (52nd) and now this year he's at 26.8 ft/s (43rd). Weird, but a good reason to be running less.
Now let’s just hope this sort of thing doesn’t happen to his bat speed any time soon!
When do we celebrate Biggio's DFA? — Conrad Bidet
Tbh, I think this is maybe more of an option him and then see if he can rebuild enough value to trade him instead of non-tendering him in the winter kind of situation.
Am I misremembering how often people slid over bases (and therefore got tagged out) in the past? Seems this is happening a greater percentage of the time this year, but maybe it is just there is so much more base stealing that you just see it more often. I would have thought the larger bases would make it less likely that you would slide over. Are the new bases harder to grab onto?
Of course, being many years out of practice at the skill could be a factor, too. :)
What about those sliding gloves? Protection from cleats is a good thing, but maybe they are making it harder to grab onto the bag? — Laura C.
Thanks for the question and the support, Laura! This is a really interesting one, but I must admit that I haven’t really noticed this phenomenon — though perhaps that’s just because for the last 10 days or so I’ve found it hard to keep my focus on the TV with the Blue Jays constantly sucking the life out of me!
I don’t imagine that the new bases are any different, and the sliding gloves have been around for a while, so I’m just going to go with the base stealing thing. Through May 25th of last year across the entire league there had been 868 stolen base attempts (74% success rate). This year there have been 1,340 so far (79% success rate).
Happy May, Stoet! If you were the Jays’ GM for the next six weeks, and Shapiro tells you to get anyone you think this team needs at the trade deadline and for any cost, who are you getting and what are you giving up to get them? (You may choose more than one player to get). Keep up the great work. Always a treat when I see you pop up in my inbox! — Steve D.
Thanks so much for the question and the kind words man! I’m in the same place I have been for several weeks on this, which is that Liam Hendriks and Tim Anderson would be an incredible haul for this team if the White Sox decide to pivot hard.
I’m not sure the sentiment to do so is quite the same in Chicago as it was back when they lost 10 straight near the end of April and these ideas first surfaced — right now they’re only six games back in the tire fire of a division that is the AL Central — and obviously a ton of teams would be interested in guys like that if they hit the market, so I doubt it would ever happen. But Anderson rules, Whit’s a better bench guy anyway (and is starting to hit like Whit — his nice series against the Rays only brought him back up to a 102 wRC+ after quietly slumping for a bit there), and it would be so fun and so much better for all of our mental wellbeing if the Blue Jays could ever put together one of those absolutely monstrous lock-down bullpens — which Hendriks, once he gets back pitching now that he is cancer free, would go a long way toward making a reality.
Who goes the other way? Anyone not named Tiedemann or Barriera.
On the Fan recently they were discussing the possibility of a six-man rotation with Mitch White healthy, as apparently the Jays’ starters pitch better with extra rest; there may also be conditioning concerns with Manoah (especially with the pitch clock). I was wondering if that’s something that could work, but I was thinking more so of a six-man rotation once Ryu is ready to return. What are your thoughts on that possibility? — Julius P.
Thanks for the question and the support, man! For a long time I’ve generally recoiled at the mention of six-man rotations, because it’s something that comes up every single year despite the fact that taking starts away from your best pitchers is not a very good idea — you get 33 Kevin Gausman starts if he pitches every fifth game, but only 27 if he goes every sixth. But there are smart teams — like the Astros and Padres at times last year (less so the Angels, though because of Ohtani they do it too) — who have used a six-man rotation to good effect, and situations where it certainly could make sense.
Is shoehorning Mitch White — Mitch White! — into a spot just because he needs to be on the roster due to his being out of options one of those situations? I don’t think so. Especially with Manoah potentially suffering a case of right-arm shittiness. *COUGH*
As for Ryu’s return, I don’t think it’s anywhere near time yet to start thinking about that yet. He’s, like, two months away at best. For moving to a six-man rotation to even become a consideration at that point he’ll have to avoid setbacks, pitch well enough as he ramps up to look worthy of a job, and everyone else will have to stay healthy and productive. There are just too many variables at this stage.
Long-term, though, six-man rotations may be where the sport is going.
Just to keep the vibes rolling, who should the Blue Jays fire first?
1. Schneider
2. Atkins
3. Shapiro
4. Montoya
5. Various and sundry hitting/pitching coaches — Conrad Bidet
Absolutely Montoya.
At this point in the season, is it possible to evaluate if the new outfield configuration makes Rogers Centre more home run friendly? Are we seeing an uptick in the number of doubles? — Paul
Thanks so much for the question and the support, Paul!
I mean, we can look, but it honestly won't tell us anything very meaningful with so little data having been produced to this point. Right now Statcast has the new Rogers Centre as the third-most pitcher-friendly park in the majors in 2023.
Obviously that makes little sense — at least until you realize how these numbers are calculated. Baseball Savant explains that their numbers are "generated by looking at each batter and pitcher, controlled by handedness, and comparing the frequency of that metric (i.e. homers, doubles, hard hit rate, xwOBACON, etc.) in the selected park to the performance of those players in other parks."
They add, "For example, the 135 HR mark for 2018-2020 at Great American Ball Park does not mean the Reds hit 35% more home runs at their home park. It means for batters and pitchers who played both at GABP and elsewhere, 35% more home runs were observed at GABP."
So far the team that has played the most at the newly configured Rogers Center — the Jays — have been 44 points of OPS better on the road, and have averaged nearly one more run per game on the road (5.2) than at home (4.3). It’s understandable, then, why the park factor looks like it does, and why the general rule is to use three years of rolling data.
It’s going to be a while before we start to get a true picture of how the new dimensions play, in other words. Especially because, with the infield getting redone next winter, and a whole bunch of foul territory disappearing, whatever data is produced this year will be rendered instantly irrelevant. We won’t start to really even get a sense for it until the second half of 2025!
Hey Andrew.
Non-baseball question. I'm significantly older than you are and you, unknowingly, have been my tech guide. I searched the new-fangled-to-me internet to find Jays news and found Drunk Jays Fans (and Tao, and Drew, fuck Parkes). I tried to figure out how to get notifications when you posted. I subscribed to the Athletic when they scooped you up. I established my only social media account to follow you (and others; don't want to sound too creepy) on Twitter. I'm a paid subscriber to BatFlip. My question:
When Elon's Twitter devolves further into a Nazi hell-hole, where next? — Thomas W
Lmao. Oh man, thank you so much for the years of support and the kind words. I truly appreciate it, and the question!
It’s a tough one. I’m with you that Twitter absolutely feels like it’s circling the drain at the moment. While I’d like to think there could be hope for it if the world’s dumbest apartheid mine scion stepped away to focus on his exploding cars and exploding rockets and siphoning tax dollars through government contracts and luring places away from building real public transit by “inventing” the world’s least practical tunnel, the die is probably cast. And probably was the moment he was forced by law to honour his insanely stupid hubris and pay $44 billion for a website hardly worth a fraction of that even before he let loose all the bigots with shit for brains making the same three powerfully unfunny jokes over and over at the top of every single reply thread that will be the final nail in its coffin.
As for what’s next, I’d like to think Bluesky has a chance, but — to paraphrase a tweet I saw about this, the origin of which I can’t remember — I have a hard time believing in a social media site whose business model seems to be that it’s impossible for anybody to sign up. I tried Substack’s Notes feature for about 10 minutes — and will do so again if folks really want me to or are already doing so themselves! — but there are way too many Substack types on there, so it basically sucked. Lol. So, I guess I’ll just muddle along blocking assholes on Twitter until someone invents Twitter But For Sports! (TM) or Bluesky buys some servers or whatever else comes next. At least over there I’ve already got most of the bad accounts blocked.
Maybe I’ll just go back to doing it like the old days where practically every tweet or dumb thought became a post1, but I highly doubt it.
Whatever it is, though, you’ll all be the first to know!
Thanks, as always, for the questions everybody. NOW COULD THE JAYS PLEASE MAYBE WIN A FEW GODDAMN GAMES.
⚾ Be sure to follow me on Twitter // Follow the Batflip on Facebook // Want to support without going through Substack? You could always send cash to stoeten@gmail.com on Paypal or via Interac e-Transfer. I assure you I won’t say no. ⚾
Seriously though! Lately I've been getting emails from Blogger about long-ago DJF posts that they've flagged for not meeting community guidelines, which led me to find a way to download the entire site archives, which I thought had disappeared forever. I don't own it so there's nothing I can do with it, but I poked around a bit in "Preview" mode and saw that in 2011 there were 798 DJF posts! Lmao. Who's up for three emails per weekday?
By the way that was an impressive rant about Elon Musk. Brought back DJF memories.
I’m down for 4 emails a day, maestro