Mid-season report cards!
On Manoah's off night, subtraction by Additon, Kevin Gausman's cleat, Casey Lawrence, bullpen musical chairs, first half letter grades, Danny Jansen, Spencer Horwitz, Nick Frasso, and more!
The Blue Jays came out flat to start this week’s three-game west coast road trip — the four weekend games are in Seattle, so we can go ahead and count those as home games — with Alek Manoah looking uncharacteristically off against the worst hitting team in baseball. Ugh.
So let’s talk about it! Or… well… let’s talk about it a little bit, then move on to more interesting stuff. Here’s something vaguely similar to Three Up!…
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Now on to a bunch of stuff about the stupid 2022 Toronto Blue Jays… ⚾
Down: Jays 1 - A’s 5
The Oakland A's have produced a 77 wRC+ as a team this season. Jays outfielder Raimel Tapia, who according to FanGraphs has been more than half a win below replacement level thanks to his deficiencies both offensively and defensively, currently has a wRC+ of 80. He's slashing .257/.285/.362.
And yet somehow, inexplicably, unbelievably, Oakland scored five runs on Alek Manoah on Monday night, four of them earned. That does not make sense. Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot-tall Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, want to live on Endor with a bunch of two-foot-tall Ewoks??!? That does not make sense!
Granted, the four runs only bumped Manoah’s ERA for the season up to a ridiculous 2.33, but still!
I’d say something conspiratorial here about home plate umpire Ryan “Subtraction” Additon — the man also calling balls and strikes the last time Manoah lost a game, back on June 18th, when Charlie Montoyo got himself ejected to take the heat off of Manoah after he got upset at a ludicrously blown hit-by-pitch call that saw Yankees catcher Jose Trevino sent to first base despite clearly swinging at the pitch that hit him — but it wasn’t like A’s lefty Cole Irvin was working with an impeccable zone either.
Plus, to be fair to Additon, apparently the weird zones he was calling did at least even themselves out in the end, at least by Umpire Scorecards’ measure.
What didn’t get evened out, unfortunately, was the score line. The Jays failed to get to Irvin in this one, managing just four hits against him over eight innings, despite striking out only four times. The Jays put their bats on the ball, producing 24 balls in play in this one, the just came away with very little to show for it. At one point on Sportsnet’s telecast, Pat Tabler mentioned that Matt Chapman — who was visiting his former club for the first time in this one — told him prior to the game that the Oakland Coliseum (or whatever they’re calling it these days) plays so differently, and presumably so pitcher-friendly, at night that batters need to change their swing to compensate. His teammates should have listened!
It might not have done any good though. This was just a weird one. If you look at the overall numbers it shows that Manoah suffered a strange velocity dip for much of the game, but really his best heater seemed to come and go. He was noticeably throwing harder to Sean Murphy in the fifth, for example, offering several pitches at 94 mph or higher.
While you don’t want to make excuses for a listless performance, it’s probably worth noting here that the Jays were coming off of a doubleheader on Saturday, a game on Sunday, a cross-country flight, and a time change, while still dealing with the tragic news about the daughter of their friend and first base coach, Mark Budzinski. Ballplayers are creatures of habit, and I think it’s safe to say that all that was probably a bit disruptive, and that the trip to Buffalo after Sunday’s loss to the Rays, and the subsequent flight from there to Oakland, was probably not a whole lot of fun.
Anyway, I don’t know if the quote is apocryphal or not, but it was supposedly Tommy Lasorda who first uttered the old baseball adage: "No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are, you're going to win one- third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference."
This one felt like one of that first kind. Moving on!
Up: In Cleat We Trust
Kevin Gausman told reporters on Monday in Oakland that the padded high top cleat he was wearing on Saturday when he took a 100 mph smash from the bat of Wander Franco off the ankle — a type that’s much more common among position players than it is pitchers — is likely the only thing that prevented the bone from being “in pieces.”
“It’s getting better, but still not at the point where I can put my full weight on it and push the way I need to,” Gausman said of the ankle on Monday, according to Rob Longley of the Sun. “There’s still a lot of swelling and the long flight doesn’t help.”
That obviously doesn't sound like great news regarding his scheduled start on Thursday in Seattle, especially with it feeling like the Jays need to be in all-hands-on-deck mode a little bit at the moment. But Gausman and the club aren’t going to take any chances.
"I want to be out there, but I also need to be smart and realize we’re only halfway through this thing," he said. "Do you try to hurry back, or push it back a day, or miss a month?"
Charlie Montoyo also weighed in, saying, “Today wasn’t great, but we’ll see how it feels tomorrow.” He added: “If he’s not 100 per cent he’s not going to pitch.”
In his piece, Rob suggests that Casey Lawrence would “likely” get the start of Gausman can’t go on Thursday. That is not yet an official position from the club, but I certainly trust his sense of it.
Whether Lawrence is the right guy for this spot is another matter. You can’t help but admire him for soaking up 5 2/3 innings on just three days rest after Gausman went down in game one on Saturday, giving the better options in the bullpen a chance to factor into the two games in the series that remained at that point. Yet he allowed six runs over that span. To put it politely, he has an arsenal that’s much better suited to Triple-A. And while the six strikeouts he racked up in that outing are at least a little bit intriguing, his minor league numbers are solid, and the hard hit rate of 33% he’s sustained in the majors this season is actually below league average (38.7% per Statcast), the Jays would ideally have a second long-man available for this one, and obviously that’s not where you want to be.
It’s not where the Jays likely will be by then. They almost certainly won’t have a guy like that available, as they don't have a ton of spots they can use right now. Jordan Romano, Tim Mayza, David Phelps, and Adam Cimber aren't going anywhere. Anthony Banda and Sergio Romo just got here. Trevor Richards has had a rough year but is out of options and would be exactly the kind of guy we'd be clamoring the Jays to pick up if he were DFA'd by another club (10.9 K/9 last year!). Trent Thornton is an option to go down, though he might be already be gone by Thursday, as someone needs to make way for Yimi Garcia. (Garcia struck out two in a clean inning of work on a rehab assignment with Buffalo on Monday and, according to Montoyo, may not require another rehab outing before rejoining the team).
Barring injury, the easiest option for Thursday would seem to be holding Garcia back until Friday and sending Thornton down for Lawrence to make the start. If Garcia replaces Thornton sooner than that, maybe they try to sneak Banda through waivers, but that seems less good to me!
The lack of a second long man is also why I suspect the theory here is that the team is leaning toward Lawrence over, say, Max Castillo. A 23-year-old who started the year in Double-A and has done well in Buffalo and looked decent in his recent turn with the Jays, Castillo may have a much more interesting potential future ahead of him than Lawrence does. But it certainly doesn’t seem as though the Jays want to do to him what they did to Lawrence or Thomas Hatch over the weekend. If whoever starts in Gausman’s stead — should that even be necessary! — doesn’t have it, they’re going to have to keep on soaking up innings. It could be a long day for them. And, it should go without saying, for all of us who have to watch.
It could be a whole lot worse, though, I suppose. Three cheers for Gausman’s cleat’s inanimate carbon pad!
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Letter grades!
Following Monday’s loss in Oakland, the 2022 Blue Jays have now played 81 games. They sit at 44-37, 14.5 games back of the division leading Yankees, and a half game up on the Rays for the AL's second of three Wild Card spots. They're on pace to win 88 games — exactly the number won by last season's World Series champion.
How did they get here? By playing baseball games, mostly. And here's my take, in the form of letter grades, on how they've done that!
Position players
Regulars
A+ — Alejandro Kirk
We knew he could hit the ball hard. We knew he could take walks and avoid striking out. But did we know that he could become a legitimate MVP candidate before his 24th birthday? Absolutely not. He's taken a big step forward defensively while slashing .315/.405/.505 (159 wRC+), and putting up 3.0 WAR per FanGraphs, which puts him behind only Rafael Devers, Aaron Judge, José Ramírez, Yordan Alvarez, and Xander Bogaerts in the American League. O Captain! My Captain!
B+ - Cavan Biggio
I can't believe it either, but here we are. After an atrocious start to the season that saw him demoted to Triple-A after a suspiciously long "rehab assignment" following some time on the Covid IL, Biggio returned in late May and has been everything you could have ever wanted him to be. We're still just talking about 43 games, but he's shown a bit of doubles power, turned around some more velocity than we're used to seeing, and as such seems to be keeping pitchers honest — which plays into his one truly elite skill, his eye. Defensive versatility and 127 wRC+ from a left-handed hitter on the Blue Jays? We'll take as much of that as we can get. Keep it up!
B - George Springer
His bat hasn’t quite been at the standard he set with it last year, but what’s most important is his body has and then some. A 129 wRC+ is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but Springer is now just six games played away from equalling his total for all of 2021. There's still a little more power still to be tapped into there, too. Though if this is "all" we get, and Springer continues to stay healthy, that would make for a pretty great season by just about anybody's standards.
B- — Santiago Espinal
Won the second base job outright on merit early in the season, and is still as good as it gets when it comes to flashing the leather. His bat cooled after a torrid start, but that was expected — as was some regression on his numbers from last year, when he posted a 115 wRC+ with a 12.2% strikeout rate. His wRC+ at the halfway mark is a respectable 105, he remains a difficult guy to strikeout, and has gone a decent amount of the way toward proving 2021 was no fluke.
C+ — Matt Chapman
The 90 wRC+ makes it look like the Jays' were wrong to believe that getting farther past hip surgery would help Chapman return to his pre-2021 form, and the defensive metrics haven't liked him nearly as much this season as in years past, but the exit velocity and hard hit rates have bounced back, and the glove and arm have passed the eye test brilliantly. The 55-point difference between his .297 wOBA and his .352 expected wOBA is a good indicator of how unlucky he's been, and if he just keeps doing what he's doing there's a good chance the results will come and his end-of-season grade looks much better.
C — Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Still not fully locked in, still hitting too many ground balls, and yet pretty much exactly as productive as you would have expected him to be had he not raised the bar on what was possible so high during 2021. This kind of a season would grade out as an A for just about anyone else on the team — or in the league, frankly. Alas, this is Vlad we're talking about. A 137 wRC+ qualifies as mildly disappointing, I think. What a world!
C — Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
Gurriel is in the middle of a strange season that has seen him continue last year's trend of trading power for a reduction in strikeouts. His .346 BABIP is helping make that work a lot better (122 wRC+) than it did in 2021, when his BABIP was .305 and his wRC+ was 107, but I wonder how sustainable that is. The TV broadcast might tell you he's becoming a smarter hitter, using the whole field more, etc. His spray charts don't really say that, though. I'd sorta prefer to see the power, myself. The good news is that, given his home runs tend to come in bunches, we may yet be in for a major surge.
C- - Teoscar Hernández
Even a diminished Teoscar is an above average hitter, and I think his struggles in the first half were understandable given the early oblique injury and the difficult he's had getting his timing back. Still, he has just eight home runs in 57 games/233 plate appearances. In 2020 he hit 16 in 50 games/207 PA, and over a full season last year he hit 32. He needs to be better. Fortunately the hard hit numbers still look just about as strong as in 2021, so we’re a long way from ruling that out.
C- — Bradley Zimmer
What on earth has Bradley Zimmer done to earn a C-, you ask? Pretty much just existed. Or, more specifically, he's existed as a guy with attributes a lot of players on this team simply don't have. He's got an elite outfield glove. He's got great speed on the bases. He's also not a prospect, so he's not missing out on valuable development time while you sit him on the bench every night. And he doesn't make a ton of money, meaning that in an emergency, or if a prospect really forced the issue, he could simply be cut loose with hardly a penalty. Sure, he can't hit, so I can’t grade him any higher than this, but he fills a role here rather perfectly (just as long as he’s never asked to swing a bat).
D+ — Bo Bichette
After a five-win year in 2021, it felt like there was more good to come from Bichette, so it's been disappointing that what we've mostly seen more of this year is strikeouts. An outstanding May did a very good job of wiping away the memories of his putrid April, but he looked mortal in June and reaches the halfway mark with a wRC+ of just 102. The defence has seemed better, though having Matt Chapman to his right certainly helps, and I think he could easily get hot and blast that wRC+ beyond what he’s done in his career to this point. But right now it is what it is.
D - Raimel Tapia
Tapia had a really nice June, smacking nine doubles in 22 games to power a 125 wRC+ for the month, but he wasn't doing so by getting the ball in the air — an idea that, when he was acquired, easily seemed like the best path toward better outcomes for him — and he really doesn't offer anything else, despite the Jays' best efforts to act like he's a genuine centre fielder. He's poor defensively, not terribly fast, and other than this one-month outburst is not much of a hitter. He's a fun guy — especially when he's making things happen — and I wish him success, but meh.
INC — Zack Collins/Gabriel Moreno
Collins had that exciting week, and Moreno has more than held his own during a brief spell in the majors so far — and is especially exciting for his athleticism behind the plate and ability to get the bat on the ball (he's struck out just 6.1% of the time!). But neither has been especially crucial to what the Blue Jays are doing, and with Danny Jansen set to return soon, Moreno is probably going to end up getting some more seasoning in Buffalo, and Collins more time on the bench.
INC - Danny Jansen
I want it to be real as much as the next guy, but it must be acknowledged that Danny Bats is riding an unprecedented home run streak over a tiny sample — just 62 PA this season — to a 150 wRC+. I'm intrigued by the newfound power and by the reduction in strikeout rate (16.1% so far, down from 21.5% last year), but mostly I'm just hopeful that he gets healthy enough to show what he really can do. Clearly, with just 19 of 81 games played, that hasn’t been the case in the first half.
Pitchers
A — Alek Manoah
He turned in a rare dud this week, but Manoah has gotten results as good as just about anyone in baseball this year — a remarkable feat for a guy who began last season having never pitched above Low-A, and who, according to Baseball Reference, is the only player from his draft class to have reached even a single win above replacement so far in his career (Manoah is at 5.9). There are still some underlying things that concern me — the fact that he's still a little vulnerable to left-handed hitters, for example, and the fact that as his walk rate has come down so too has his strikeout rate — but how on earth can you not love everything about this kid?
A- — Kevin Gausman
Grading Gausman's season so far an A- might even be unfair. According to Statcast only three pitchers have had worse defence behind them by Outs Above Average, with Gausman and two others being tied for fourth-worst at =7 OAA. And yet he's mostly been brilliant, pitching to a 2.86 ERA and a 1.68 FIP over 16 starts, allowing just two home runs over 88 innings, while striking out 100 and walking only 16. His form dipped a little bit for a few starts and he's currently nursing that nearly-exploded ankle, but you really can't ask for anything more than what he’s given the Blue Jays so far.
B — Ross Stripling
I could have gone higher with this grade because what Stripling has done since moving into the rotation has been nothing short of remarkable. Despite having started the season behind Hyun Jin Ryu — maybe even Nate Pearson! — on the Jays’ starting pitching depth chart, Stripling has given the club 50 1/3 innings of 3.16 ERA ball as a starter. I only hold back because he hasn't done it for terribly long, was a little spottier during his time in the bullpen, really shouldn't be allowed to go through the order more than twice, and because I simply don't understand how or why this is happening. We'll take it while it lasts, though. You love to see it!
D - The Bullpen
I don't want to go through individual names here, so we'll judge the Jays' bullpen as a group — and folks, it’s not good. The magical month of April, Jordan Romano, and the fact that this unit produced Ross Stripling are really all that's saving the grade here. The Jays' bullpen has maybe not quite been the unmitigated disaster that it has often felt like — hell, it hasn't even felt as bad as last year's 'pen, somehow — but as a group the Jays are in the bottom third of MLB by basic things like WAR, ERA, FIP, strikeout rate, meltdowns, and fastball velocity, as well as more esoteric things like WPA and WPA/LI. They need help, Ross. Not just cast-offs.
D — Yusei Kikuchi
Kikuchi has generally been awful, but the caveats we've heard all season still very much apply. The Jays didn't so much sign a pitcher as they did a collection of ingredients with this one, and their task has been to help him fashion those ingredients into a dazzling meal. So far they haven't been successful, but Kikuchi's stuff appears to be as good as advertised and, frustrating as it has been to watch, I think more patience is required. It's worth remembering that he's still not been with the team for as long as when Steven Matz was last year when things began to click. Fingers crossed!
F — José Berríos
Sure, there have been a number of José Berríos starts in which he's been entirely fine. And, yes, I absolutely think he's going to figure it out and be much better going forward than we've seen so far. But I suspect that Berríos himself would give his season so far an F, and if he didn't he'd be lying. This isn't Kikuchi, who was understood to be a project. This is the guy who is getting paid an ass-load of money to be the Blue Jays' workhorse and most dependable starter, and who currently has the third-worst ERA among qualified starters in baseball, better than only a 22-year-old thrown into the fire by the Reds and a guy pitching in Colorado. Slightly better than him is the ghost of Patrick Corbin. There's no point in sugarcoating it.
INC — Nate Pearson and Julian Merryweather
It truly irks me when I see fans dismiss guys like this for being “made of glass” or with some kind of similar barb. It’s not like Pearson chose to have mono, or a lat strain, or a sports hernia, or his elbow shattered by a comebacker in the first game of his first full pro season back in 2018, or whatever else has befallen him since. It’s also not like Merryweather has chosen his injury-riddled path either. Also — and this is important — it’s not like the Blue Jays were stupid for giving them a chance, or are stupid for sticking with them. Merryweather showed us and arm worth dreaming on during his initial run out of the bullpen in 2021, and Pearson was a top 10 prospect in baseball heading into 2020 for both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline. Those are incredibly rare talents and exactly the kinds of guys you want. Plus, though it might be ever-fading there is very much hope for these guys yet. Still, this really is a bit of a tire fire, eh?
INC — Hyun Jin Ryu
I hate to say it, but Ryu is being spared a pretty ugly grade by getting this "Incomplete" here. His fraying ligaments were obviously betraying him already by the middle of last season, and a winter's rest evidently did him little good. I doubt we'll see him again in a Blue Jays uniform, but a second Tommy John will at least give him a chance to potentially pitch again somewhere, for someone. Perhaps a swan song in his native Korea once his Jays contract expires after next season will be the ticket. It would be a fitting end to a great career that, unfortunately, Jays fans got to see much too little of up close.
Other notes
• I thought it was a very nice gesture by the Oakland A’s to hold a moment of silence for Julia Budzinski on Monday night, and for the Blue Jays to wear her initials on their hats. Baseball really is a big family, those of us in the stands just don’t often get to see it that way. It’s heartbreaking that it’s only in moments like these, when everybody’s hurting, that those kinds of bonds really come to the fore.
• I mentioned Yimi Garcia’s rehab outing for Buffalo above, but also with him on Monday night was catcher Danny Jansen, who is making his way back from a broken hand. He’s not quite as ready as Garcia, though Jano did catch six innings of the ballgame, going 1-for-2 with a walk. According to Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi, Charlie Montoyo had this to say about the timeline: “My message to him was whenever you feel locked in and good at the plate, let us know. So that's our plan.”
• Speaking of Shi, he has written a couple of great ones from out in Oakland since the Jays have been out there. First, there’s one about how the Budzinski tragedy is still weighing on these Jays, and how difficult it’s been to compartmentalize so soon after hearing the news. In another, he takes a fascinating look, along with Matt Chapman, about the differences between the A’s and the Blue Jays as organizations.
• Is Cavan Biggio our last hope for a homegrown lefty on-base machine? No, there is another.
• As he usually is, I think John is bang on about this one:
• Fireballer Nick Frasso made his High-A debut for Vancouver on Monday night, striking out 10 batters — including eight in a row at one point — over four innings of no-hit ball. He walked one. The Jays are building some incredibly interesting pitching depth in the low minors!
• How do you not love this? Better question, how is this guy 100??!?
• Lastly, with the Blue Jays on the west coast this week, we’re going to schedule Blue Jays Happy Hour so as to avoid any especially late nights. Nick and I will be back live on Thursday, and again on Sunday. Be sure to get Callin and follow Blue Jays Happy Hour so that you can join us next time. And if you’ve missed any of our recent shows, you can find us on your podcast app of choice — like Apple, Spotify, or Google.
(NOTE: If you had us on your podcast app before we made the move to Callin, you'll need to subscribe again using these links — essentially like it's a brand new show.)
Next up: Tuesday, 9:40 PM ET: Jays @ A’s (Yusei Kikuchi vs. Adrián Martinez), TV: Sportsnet, Radio: Sportsnet 590
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Hard, but fair, marks.