Manoah mystery solved (and it's really disappointing)...
Demotions, dollars, service time, and seemingly a disappointing decision.
The Toronto Blue Jays starting poorly at home in the first game of a massive series against the Texas Rangers? Well I, for one, have never heard of such a thing.
Fortunately for us all, I’m not here to write about Monday’s disappointment—a rare dud from the pitching staff. Unfortunately, I’m here to write about something that, honestly, in the grand scheme of things, is probably even more disappointing. And potentially even more impactful.
On Monday afternoon, Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith reported that “it’s becoming less and less likely” that Alek Manoah will pitch again this season, citing sources claiming that “Manoah got further medical testing done last week, meeting with multiple specialists to determine the severity of wear and tear on his knee, back, and right quad.”
The “he needs suspiciously thorough medical testing” story has been the Blue Jays’ go-to since questions started being raised about why Manoah was taking so long to report to Buffalo after being demoted, for the second time this season, back in early August. Not only has it given a bunch of weird busybodies a great excuse overuse the euphemism “conditioning,” it genuinely concerned a lot of fans about the state of the young starter’s health.
Aaaaaand it appears to have been bullshit. (As many people could easily have guessed, seeing as Manoah has never been placed on the injured list despite supposedly being injured.)
Blue Jays radio voice Ben Wagner made an appearance on Monday’s Blair and Barker show in the immediate aftermath of Nicholson-Smith’s story (stick tap to @omair_rana for alerting me to this), and it turns out that he has heard some very different things on this subject. In short: Manoah was upset at being demoted and his “camp” has basically been fighting against it.
Below you’ll find a transcript of the segment—plus video of a portion of it via Sportsnet and @FAN590—with my thoughts peppered in throughout. But I’ll tell you up front, I mostly just think this is all really unfortunate, as I strongly suspect it is going to do real damage to how a lot of fans perceive Manoah, not to mention fellow players and the organization itself. And, honestly, rightly so.
Woof.
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BLAIR: Ben Nicholson-Smith reporting that basically Alek Manoah's 2023 as a pitcher is essentially done.
WAGNER: It's done. It's done.
This may seem oddly definitive here from Wagner, but it’s hardly a stretch to believe that he’s still very plugged-in when it comes to what’s going on in Buffalo, where he was the voice of the Bisons for years. Also: his reporting throughout the segment is a great reminder of why he needs to be sent on the road to call games. So much coverage of the team is enriched by access!
Just wanted to get that out of the way off the top!
BLAIR: OK, it's done. Ah... so... go ahead.
WAGS: So, Ben's right. And, to be honest, I only—I saw some of the bullet points on this story, I've not actually gone to Sportsnet.ca and read it wire-to-wire here. Um, I for weeks have been led to believe this was what will happen with Alek Manoah. It's my understanding that Alek Manoah hasn't even pitched, even in a side session or a bullpen, since he's been optioned back. And there was a lot going on between leadership of the Toronto Blue Jays, the people around Alek Manoah, about the decision to even option him back, and where he would go when he was optioned back. It seemed like the Alek Manoah camp didn't like the fact that this option was coming, because it was performance-related.
Oh? Well, if only there had been something a guy who was handed 19 big league starts this season—which he used to pitch to a 5.87 ERA, a 1.740 WHIP, -0.4 fWAR, and -1.1 rWAR—could have done to avoid a performance-related demotion!
And, Kevin, you and I have both witnessed this from a major league level to a Triple-A level, when guys get sent back and it's performance-related, they're a little salty about it. And they don't like to hear that, especially if they think they can work through things at the major league level and they're progressing. That never happened for Alek.
So, it wasn't in the cards. Ryu was coming back, it was clear that this was not going to be a direction that both parties were going to agree on, and that's why there was such a gap in between Alek being optioned, failing to report to Triple-A Buffalo, and then eventually working things out.
What was the window, like two weeks before he actually even got to Buffalo?
One of the reasons the Jays had a tendency for a while during the Alex Anthopoulos years to sometimes jump their prospects straight from Double-A to the majors, or only give them a little bit of time at Triple-A, was exactly this. Things can get a bit poisonous down there when you get a clubhouse populated with a bunch of sour guys on their way down, who tend to be veterans with bigger presences than the younger guys on the way up.
Understandably, a demotion would be an especially difficult pill to swallow for someone who doesn’t just think of himself as an ace, but has had the entire industry validate that idea through Cy Young votes, TV commercials, playoff starts, fan adulation, etc. It might be especially tough to swallow considering Manoah did so much in 2022 to carry this team’s rotation while the club was giving Yusei Kikuchi and José Berríos even more rope to figure things out than he feels he’s been given this year.
There is undoubtedly a service time element to this, too. Manoah finished last season with one year and 130 days of MLB service. Had he been in the majors for a full year he’d have finished this season with two years and 130 days. The most recent Super Two cutoff was two years and 128 days, and the year before that it was two years and 116. A full year in the big leagues likely would have assured Manoah’s Super Two status this winter, granting him an extra year of arbitration eligibility.
Being on the wrong side of that cutoff will literally cost him millions of dollars. The Dodgers’ Tony Gonsolin, for example, was a Super Two last season and ended up being projected, per MLBTR, to make $3.5 million via arbitration. On the other hand, Oakland’s AJ Puk (since traded to the Marlins) had just 28 fewer days of service, missed the cutoff, and makes just a little over the league minimum at $736,000.
These specific players are bad examples because one’s a reliever and one’s a starter, and because Gonsolin signed a two-year deal instead and has since had Tommy John surgery, but it doesn’t matter. Let’s just think of them as Player X and Player Y, and assume they stay healthy and perform similarly going forward.
Not only does Player X get a little over $2.75 million more than Player Y this year, if things keep going right he likely gets a raise into the $6.5 million range next year, then maybe $10 million or so, then perhaps $15 million. Player Y only gets to $3.5 million next year, then the $6.5 or so, then $10 or thereabouts. They both hit free agency at the same time, but Player X has made $35 million in the four years before hitting the open market, whereas Player Y has only made around $21 million.
And with a third-place finish in the Cy Young race already on his resume, this might be underselling Manoah’s earning potential as a Super Two.
This stuff matters a lot to these guys—and their agents. Understandably so.
And if Manoah hadn’t sucked ass all year, or if the Jays hadn’t been scratching and clawing for a playoff spot and unable to keep running him out there while doing right by all of the other players, he and his “camp” might even have a point that something funky could have been going on!
Not sure Alek is getting great advice here.
Wagner continued…
And there was never a timeline—that I'm led to believe, talking with people within the organization—a timeline to get him back on the mound, even where he could start pitching competitively. Now we have gotten to this point, one, he's not going to be able to ramp back up to help the major league team in any capacity at this point. He was taking a roster spot in Triple-A for a very depleted bullpen and pitching staff to begin with. So they had to make a move. And putting him on the temporary inactive list was just what was needed to be done on paper so they could round out the roster in Buffalo.
He's still in Buffalo, and to my knowledge he is just—just going through things.
BARKER: Must be nice. Must be nice.
I’m not always the world’s biggest Barker fan but this whole segment was a giant win for him. These words, like all of the others he said, were spoken precisely like a guy who never had the option—or the gall—to think he could negotiate his way out of a demotion. And also of a guy who can appreciate how the players in big league clubhouse probably feel about their team losing a potentially important piece of depth as they make their final push to achieve everything they’ve been working for all season over this.
Like… yeah, no wonder Manoah hasn’t been hanging around with the big leaguers while undergoing all these “tests.”
WAGS: You know, and this is the problem. And I don't want to sound like I'm on a soapbox here, but I referenced the fact that moves are made at the major league level, or out out of the minor league level, performance-based. Right? Do you deserve to be in a spot? Did you deserve to get a promotion? Is there a roster squeeze? Also there are a lot of guys that probably look at this situation like, "Well then why am I grinding though this situation? What am I doing here? Where's the organization's standpoint on this?"
Right???
Do you think Barker will agree? I think Barker will agree.
BLAIR: Ben, can this be repaired? This relationship? ... That's an unfair question, let me rephrase it…
BARKER: He works for the Blue Jays. What difference does it make?
Great line. I laughed. However, it’s Manoah’s right to take this seriously as a labour issue if he thinks the Jays are manipulating his service time. Let me be clear about that.
This doesn’t feel like the particular hill I’d be willing to die on, but I’m not him.
BLAIR: Well... no, let me rephrase it, is there a chance that there's longer-running tension out of this? Your gut.
WAGS: Well, sure. Absolutely. I think the history of sport, front office and player, will tell us that this will be a thing that lingers. I think the memory will be very long on both sides with this one.
Yep.
“Good thing Manoah sucks now and it doesn’t matter,” I’m confident many will say.
BARKER: When I stunk I got sent down. Like, his ERA in August in two starts was almost 6.00.
BLAIR: But you didn't finish runner-up for Cy Young.
BARKER: What have you done for me lately? You're trying to get in the playoffs. Like, you're struggling to do that. 'Cause offensively you can't get anything going, and the best—Ben!—the best part of your game is your pitchers! It's not fair to them. They've done enough around you to try and give you enough opportunities to figure it out, and for whatever reason you didn't. I just don't know what he's got to stand on. I don't know how he's throwing his hands in the air and going, "How are you sending me down?" [Laughs]. That's confusing. I don't get that.
That, ultimately, unfortunately for Manoah, is how most people are probably going to see this. And why wouldn’t they?
WAGS: You know, I think there are a lot of voices that are trying to raise their voice to be louder than the other person in this situation, too. I certainly don't think this falls into just two individual's laps, like it's Alek Manoah versus Ross Atkins here. I honestly do not believe that is the case here. I think there are just a number of things that are factoring in around Alek and his camp and the Blue Jays and how they are handling this. But at the end of the day... at the end of the day it's... you don't like it, pitch better.
Hear, hear. Pitch better!
And, well… I’ll cop to the fact that I can sometimes be easier on the front office than a lot of people find sensible, but I certainly don’t think this falls into two individuals’ laps either. How on earth could Ross be expected to coddle a pitcher struggling as badly as Manoah and still retain credibility with fans and in the clubhouse? How many bullets is he supposed to take to avoid a threatened grievance?
For me, this is pretty much all on Alek. And I have a hard time believing fans will be any more sympathetic. Which sucks considering how well-liked he’s been to this point!
There are few ways to get fans to rally behind a front office against a player, but I fear that essentially saying “I sucked but deserve to keep my job anyway” will likely prove to be one of them. Ugh.
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Well, this sucks! I totally get why Alek might be pissed off about not getting more run, but shit man, go to AAA or wherever and force your way back.
This is not going to end well.
After having invested a significant portion of my free time expanding my knowledge of the sport of baseball in 2023, I felt like I needed to get something off my chest. The distressing emotions that have been provoked by my Jays fandom, and become entangled with existentialism and absurdism, seem to be shared by Nick Ashbourne in recent podcasts.
My experience as a Jays fan in 2023 has nauseated me, turned me against the fans, and ultimately against the sport altogether. I was very bullish at the beginning of the year because of the unprecedented roster balance that had been obtained by the front office – inept starting pitching development notwithstanding – compared to the previous teams in the Guerrero/Bichette era. I went as far as to opine that this year’s team would exceed the regular season dominance of the 2015 and 2021 teams, with the possibility of being considered the best team – on paper – in the franchise’s history when it was all said and done. At first, I was delighted by the team's new look, high strikeout, pitching staff, but my enjoyment was being overshadowed by the petulant fans complaining about RISP, who insisted that pitching and defense wins championships for years and years and years prior. While the team has been treading water and playing on par with their pre-season roster projections, at a disconcerting level of consistency, through its first 144 games, my disgust for the sport has only grown in proportion with the consternation of the fanbase and the blatantly false platitudes that continue to disseminate without any regard for the truth.
I started questioning every platitude that has been entrenched in the meaning of the sport itself. Since people have been collecting data, no one has found evidence to support the claim that hitters have more control over the outcome of their at-bats when runners are in scoring position. It would seem reasonable for all the data that has ever been collected on the subject, to trump 120 games of a team’s underperformance in this situation, in our evaluation and formulation of expectations of that team’s upcoming performance. However, most people clearly feel differently about the matter and place a special emphasis on an individual season, as if each player on a roster has a different essence for every season they play, and every single season in a franchise’s history is treated like a different chemical compound. I guess the 2023 Blue Jays can’t hit with RISP because there is something demonic about the number 2023 that scares people wearing blue when men are on second and third.
This led to further questioning about whether 162 games is a large enough sample size to distinguish team quality, which it isn’t. The cream doesn’t in fact ‘rise to the top’ after a season consisting of 162 games: The 2016 Rangers, if I remember correctly, were the 1st seed in the American league, but they placed close to 20th in team WRC+ and close to last in team K-BB%. Rather than questioning the validity of a team’s record in an absurd sport like baseball, this probably validated the opinion of fans and pundits that the team possessed a clutch gene. Another one I hear all too often is, “this isn’t a world series team with player x employed on their roster”. “Bo Bichette isn’t a shortstop on a world series team. Jordan Romano isn’t a closer on a world series team. Daulton Varsho isn’t a cleanup hitter on a world series team.” The concept of rewarding a team for playing better in October than in April is absurd, batting order is absurd and the 2015 royals probably had a worse ‘cleanup hitter’ than Daulton Varsho.
If it isn’t becoming obvious, people don’t subscribe to these narratives because they are incapable of applying basic reasoning; They are concocted by necessity because the sport is unwatchable when its absurdity and ugliness becomes exposed in its nakedness. This problem is unique to baseball because there is no such thing as an eye test. The differences in player ability – like being able to throw a ball 95 mph vs. 90 mph from 60 feet away, or hitting the ball 5 mph harder in an average at-bat – are hardly perceptible to the human eye if we’re being honest with ourselves. Since baseball greatness can only be captured on a spreadsheet, devoid of the awe inspiring magic that can be felt from watching Roger Federer glide on a tennis court or Michael Jordan play a finals game with the flu, it lacks aesthetic quality. I still enjoy thinking about the sport in mathematical terms but watching it feels more like watching a communist lottery system – especially because a team’s pre-season projections predict ROS W% with more accuracy than that team’s current record after a long period of time – rather than a display of greatness. Nowadays, I am only enamored with dominant starting pitchers and dominant pitching performances.