Midweek sweep and a mail bag!
On Jays-White Sox, Kikuchi and Berríos. PLUS: Mail bag Qs on playoff hopes, Romano, Varsho, Merrifield, Tim Anderson, pitching depth, run differential, lefty relief, Ryu, Jansen, Pat Gillick, & more!
The Blue Jays have completed their first sweep of the season, dispatching the Chicago White Sox with ease over a three-game set that ended in an 8-0 victory on Wednesday afternoon.
More importantly than all that, though, is that nothing happened on Wednesday to screw up the mail bag I’ve been working on the last couple of days. Which is, you know, not to say that nothing happened.
This may be ostensibly a mail bag intro that you’re reading right now, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say some words about the Jays and White Sox series. And that collection of words I’m about to say absolutely has to start with these five: “Yusei Kikuchi and José Berríos.”
Kikuchi was brilliant again on Wednesday, the only blemish being his inability to get through six innings. But 5 2/3 innings of shutout work with just four hits, one walk, and eight strikeouts? I'm sure we'll all take that absolutely every time.
We can see from his pitch chart — we’ll look at just his pitches against right-handed batters, seeing as Andrew Benintendi was the only lefty he faced — that there were some pitches that missed by a decent amount. Some fastballs ran much too far to his arm side, some sliders hit the dirt, some of everything caught a lot of the zone. But in general he was hitting the corner down and in, keeping his fastball elevated and mostly away from the heart of the plate, and throwing his changeup for strikes to keep the White Sox’ hitters honest.
What a chart like that doesn’t show us is just how difficult it would been for hitters to pick up which pitch was which before it was too late. And while the GIF below, via @PitchingNinja, doesn’t necessarily do that perfectly — the TV angle isn’t ideal, and we can’t see any spin — I think it gives us a pretty decent idea.
And… you know… yowza.
Kikuchi got whiffs on 42% of the 19 hacks the White Sox took at his slider, which he threw 40% of the time in this one — the most he’s thrown it as a starter for the Blue Jays. He is now 4-0 with a 3.00 ERA, more than a strikeout per inning, and just 2.0 BB/9 on the season, exactly as we all expected.
Of course, on Tuesday night it wasn’t Kikuchi, but José Berríos working his magic on the mound for the Jays.
No, really!
Berríos went seven strong, allowing no runs on four hits and a walk, with nine strikeouts, and may have been even better than Kikuchi was. Normally — or, at least, normally in 2022 — saying a phrase like that would have meant damning him with some very faint praise, and yet today it's an incredibly sincere compliment.
What's been going on with Berríos has been a little bit harder to pin down, because he seems to be getting the job done differently every game. From his previous start to this one, for example, his slurve usage to right-handers went from 49% to 23%. Despite the dip, it was still an effective pitch for him, generating three whiffs on eight swings. The slurve paired well with the sinker — the former pitch breaking down and away from right-handers, and the latter coming in on their hands with arm-side run — especially because he located the sinkers well, keeping them off the heart of the plate, but in the zone or close enough to be effective. And just to make things even more difficult for his opponents, he also mixed in changeups — both to left- and right-handed hitters — which he managed to keep to the edges of the zone or thereabouts as well.
It was an excellent performance from him for a third start in a row, making it yet another huge relief after his worrying first two starts of the season. There’s still time for the ghosts of 2022 to return, of course — and for Kikuchi too — but at the moment there’s an air of confidence that hasn’t existed around either of these guys for a long time. And for Berríos, in particular, some of the underlying numbers are actually starting to resemble his normal. You love to see it.
Oh yeah, and Chris Bassitt pitched well on Monday, Danny Jansen seems to be breaking out, Santiago Espinal is fine after that wrist thing, George Springer hopefully is also fine after getting hit on the hand by a Michael Kopech pitch on Wednesday (the X-rays were at least negative), Whit Merrifield is probably better than I give him credit for, the Jays’ decision to sign Kevin Gausman instead of Robbie Ray is (sadly) looking pretty astute right now, and Vlad and Bo are both still very, very good.
Anyway, the mail bag! We were doing a mail bag in this post, weren’t we? So, uh, here it is! The mail bag!
As always, I have not read any of Griff’s answers…
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There’s a sort of implicit assumption in general that we’re going to make the playoffs. But should we be worried about the Orioles? Or teams in the AL West that get to play the A’s more frequently? Or is this a way too early question… — OzRob
Great question, man. Thanks for it and for the support!
I must admit that it's probably easier to feel confident about what the standings will look like before the season starts than it is once games are underway and some of the inherent weirdness of baseball starts taking place. It's generally best not to waver on these things, but I totally understand where you're coming from.
For one thing, the Rays’ ridiculous start has already started to put the division title — and the best possible path to the playoffs — out of reach. They're not quite there yet, but the team their start reminds me of is the 1984 Detroit Tigers, who went 35-5 out of the gate, led the AL East wire-to-wire and ended up winning the World Series. The Tigers "only" played at a 92-win pace over their final 122 games — and by Pythagorean winning percentage they were on pace for just 90 — but ended up winning 104, and finishing up 15 games on the next best team in the AL (the 89-win Blue Jays). A team that's merely very good can look like an absolutely historic one if they bank enough wins at the start of the year, so that’s a problem.
On the day before opening day, FanGraphs had the Rays projected to win 87 games in 2023. Today, because of their early-season successes, they're projected to win 96. One could argue that those gains are mostly a mirage and the Rays are probably closer to a true-talent 87-win team, but even so, if they played at an 87-win pace for the rest of the season they'd end up at 94 wins. If their true talent is higher than that, things get tougher for the rest of the AL East. The Jays are currently projected to win 91 (though that may go up relatively soon, as their win on Wednesday is not yet being accounted for).
For another thing, you're right that there are other wild card threats out there that were maybe a little too easily overlooked prior to the season. The Orioles gave a middle finger to their fans this winter by not spending, so they absolutely don't deserve to threaten for a playoff spot, but there's enough young talent there for them to potentially do so. Heading into Wednesday’s action they were 10-2 against teams below .500, whereas the Jays were 9-5 (now 10-5). And while not all sub-.500 teams are created equal — the combined record of the O's sub-.500 opponents as of Wednesday morning was 19-48 (.284), and for the Jays was 24-43 (.358) — what playoff contenders are able to do against the also-rans could well make the difference in the end. Right now the Orioles are doing a better job of it than the Jays, just as in the AL West the surprising division-leading Texas Rangers (10-3 vs. sub-.500 teams) are doing better at it than the Astros (3-4) and the Mariners (97).
Ultimately, games against the A's could continue giving a team like the Rangers a boost, complicating the wild card picture in the process — just as games against the awful White Sox, Tigers, and Royals could do so for the Twins and Guardians in the AL Central — but I'd still say that the Blue Jays' fate is completely in their hands, and they should be good enough not to fumble it.
It doesn't hurt that the intra-divisional schedule has been reduced from 19 games to just 13, either. A balanced schedule it is not, but any steps closer to one will be favourable to teams in a division as ultra-competitive as the AL East, at least as far as the wild card race goes.
Hey Stoet! For the record, best baseball writing on the internet. I’ll let you take this time to tell me why Romano is an elite reliever. I’m not sold. — Steve D.
Thanks for the kind words, man! I definitely do sort of understand why people maybe get that feeling about Romano, especially when here in the early season he's had a couple of shaky outings. So far, he’s been a little walk-heavy and strikeout-light, and a little bit BABIP'd (.345). Currently he's sitting on a 1.35 WHIP, which is up from the 1.03 mark he produced across 2021 and 2022 combined. His K-BB% is at 17.4%, down from 21.9% in '21 and '22. He's not yet quite hitting the heights, results-wise, that he did in his first two seasons as the Blue Jays' closer.
But, of course, we’re only talking about 10 1/3 innings here. And also, uh, he’s awesome.
Looking at those great marks for contact quality can only make one feel even more convinced that luck has been against Romano a little bit so far. And thought his strikeout rate is down a little bit, not only is he not having trouble getting guys to swing-and-miss and chase pitches out of the zone, he can also be comfortable letting them put the ball in play, too. I think he’s in a really good spot — especially because in 2022 he actually got hit pretty hard when opponents were able to square him up.
That 21.9 K-BB% in 2021 and '22 combined ranked 30th of 200 relievers with at least 70 innings across both seasons, which isn’t quite elite but is still excellent. If we look at shutdowns and meltdowns, it tells an even better story for him.
Shutdowns and meltdowns are metrics that simply count outings in which a reliever either increased or decreased his team's win probability by 6% or more. FanGraphs explains that “the +/- 6% cutoff puts SDs and MDs on a similar scale as saves and holds, meaning 40 shutdowns is roughly as impressive as 40 saves or 40 holds. Dominant closers or set-up men will typically have 35 to 40+ shutdowns and a handful of meltdowns.”
In 2022, Romano was tied with Houston’s Rafael Montero for the American League lead with 37 shutdowns. Only Milwaukee’s Devin Williams, at 42, had more. Romano suffered just 7 meltdowns.
For context: In B.J. Ryan's dominant first season with the Blue Jays he had 31 and 4. In 2015 and 2016 respectively, the Jays' closer-who-shall-remain-nameless had 28 and 11 then 36 and 6. In the Yankees' World Championship season of 2009, the great Mariano Rivera had 37 and 5.
Since the start of 2021, Romano's 68 shutdowns rank ninth among 114 qualified relievers, while his 14 meltdowns are tied for the 15th lowest. By WPA (win probability added) he's been the best reliever in baseball since the start of 2021, and he’s third by RE24 (a measure of the difference between the run expectancy at the start and the end of every plate appearance a pitcher is involved in). Among that same group his 2.23 ERA ranks third, his FIP ranks 19th.
Among 214 relievers with at least 70 innings since the start of 2021 he ranks 14th by FanGraphs' "Clutch" metric, which measures how much better a pitcher has done in high leverage situations compared to his own context-neutral numbers. By fWAR he ranks 12th, by RA9-WAR he's third.
And though many of these numbers are counting stats, he's just 18th by total innings pitched.
I’m maybe cherry picking a little bit here, but there just really aren’t any bad numbers to highlight. And, given all that, I think it would be significantly more difficult to argue that he isn’t elite.
I don’t want to overstate this, because there are other top relievers that you’d likely rather have on your team, but not many! And despite being a complete layman on this stuff, I have a theory about why fans — and not just Jays fans — sometimes lose sight of the quality of their best reliedvers, which is that it’s probably psychological. Blown saves are a gut punch. They’re hard to forget. The memories of them make us nervous, as does watching your team have to face off against a real flame-thrower with just three outs remaining when a game is still achingly within reach. I suspect this gives a lot of us — maybe even just subconsciously — an outsize sense of the power and the reliability of opposing closers, and sometimes a lack of appreciation of our own.
Romano’s elite!
How much runway do you give a guy like Varsho in the clean-up spot? Or do we just wait because small sample size? I understand breaking up the R-L in the lineup and he hasn't been atrocious in the early part of this year, but is there anyone else that would optimize that spot? — Jaspreet D.
I mean, if we'd have been talking about Varsho ten games ago we'd have been having very different discussion. A whole 46 plate appearances ago he was slashing .317/.420/.463 with a 153 wRC+. The numbers look considerably more ugly now, yes. But we're talking about eleven games. An extra-base hit or three could very quickly swing him back onto the positive side of the ledger.
Thing is, that’s not to say that there would be anything wrong with dropping him the lineup until things get better. In fact, already we saw him dropped to fifth in the order — over the weekend against the Yankees, and also on Wednesday against the White Sox. At least anecdotally, it felt like after John Schneider became the manager the lineup order became a little less rigid. So, as for runway in the cleanup spot, I honestly don't know. He'll continue to play a ton no matter what, but I don't think he can have another couple of weeks like the last two and continue to be pencilled in there just about every day — even if that just means moving down to fifth.
I do think breaking up the right-handed hitters is important, but it’s also not fun right now to watch Vlad or Bo — or both — get on base, only to have to wait through a Varsho at-bat before we get to see the red hot Chapman.
So, if he’s dropped in the lineup more permanently sooner rather than later, I can’t exactly say it would be unwarranted based on results, or his underlying numbers. Though I do think it’s worth pointing out that his .225 BABIP against right-handed pitching so far is quite low even for him, and that at this stage of the season the most important number among those below is probably the 91st percentile rank for maximum velo — which at least shows that Varsho can strike the ball mighty hard, even if those types of exit velocities haven’t shown up in bunches just yet.
Is there anyone else who would optimize the spot? Well, yeah. I always thought that Brandon Belt was the guy the Jays envisioned as their left-handed middle-of-the-order bat. He’s obviously started slow, and it sure feels like the Jays understood he wasn’t quite ready coming out of spring training, based on where he’s found himself in the lineup. But, if we’re doing small sample sizes — which is all we can really do at the moment — if Belt continues to hit the way that he has since those miserable first 25 plate appearances of the year, it wouldn't shock me if the change happens fairly quickly. Excluding Wednesday, since the Jays' home opener against the Tigers, Belt is 9-for-27 with two walks, three doubles, and a home run. His wRC+ over that span is 162, and his strikeout rate is just 27.6%.
That would be a huge outcome for this team if it continues — and also for Varsho, who is probably miscast as a cleanup hitter anyway, and would look better down in the sixth or seventh spot.
The Jays’ biggest issue isn’t the bullpen, it’s running Biggio or Merrifield out there. Any targets to improve jays biggest weakness? — Al O.
Long-term, I think you’re probably right about that, though a lot of what gives me hope for the bullpen at the moment rests on the very untested arms of Zach Pop and Nate Pearson. And, to be fair to Merrifield, he’s done absolutely everything the Jays could have ever asked of him so far. It always seemed as though John Schneider would end up riding the hot hand when it comes to second base, and for the time being Merrifield has unmistakably been it.
But I agree that it likely won’t last. His four straight years of decline by wRC+ and ugly quality of contact numbers…
…are far more compelling indicators of his future performance than, say, a fluky wRC+ spike at the end of last year and the start of this one that doesn’t look like anything he’s done in his career.
Merrifield has been productive so far, so I don’t want to dump on him too much here. His speed and his instincts are good, he’s versatile — he’d be a great bench piece! — and there’s every reason to ride this while it lasts.
I just think that a lot of people are under the mistaken impression that he’s the same hitter he was when he had those excellent years in 2018 and 2019, when he’s really not.
And Biggio, of course, is a total mystery at this point. Worse than that, he’s a mystery who doesn’t seem to have a realistic path to enough playing time to establish himself as the kind of guy he looked like he might be back in 2019 and 2020. (Though it’s worth noting — or is at least just funny to me — that he’s actually been a better hitter by wRC+ than Merrifield in three of the last four seasons.)
As for who the Jays could land at the trade deadline, there aren’t a lot of names that stand out. With all the extra playoff spots these days, fewer teams look like obvious sellers at this stage of the season, and most of the ones that do seem to be on that trajectory have young players they’d be unlikely to trade occupying their middle infield spots. But there are a couple of veterans I could see making sense if their teams ultimately decide that they’re out of it. One is the Angels’ Gio Urshela — though, with Shohei Ohtani in the final year of his contract, I think it’s going to take a lot for GM Perry Minasian to embark on a mid-season fire sale, if he’s even allowed to. And the other is the guy who would have been visiting Toronto with his White Sox teammates this week had he not been on the injured list: Tim Anderson.
Just how likely it is that Chicago would trade a player who manager Pedro Grifol just yesterday called “the heart and soul of this club”? I’m not sure. But with the White Sox at 7-18 coming out of Wednesday’s finale against the Jays, and Anderson only under contract for one more season after this one, it’s a possibility their front will have to consider unless things turn around.
Works for me! Get Liam Hendriks — who has a $15 million club option for 2024 — healthy and back pitching now that he’s cancer free and give Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams whichever prospects they want not named Tiedemann or Barriera. Let’s gooo!
After seeing Chris Bassitt leave the game early with a back injury on Monday night, it begs the question “Who the hell would they call up to replace an inured starter?” They are still terribly thin in the upper minors. — Clint
Yeah… that’s a question I’m sure that the Jays and their fans alike are hoping won’t need to be answered any time soon. It’s a bit grim down there, especially with Bowden Francis — who I thought had a standout spring training — currently on the 7-day IL (though I'm told by @HERChronicles that the issue doesn't appear to be serious and he's still with the team).
Zach Thompson is on the 40-man, but has given up six runs in each of his last two starts, has only eight strikeouts in 17 innings, and in his most recent start generated just four whiffs on 31 swings. Drew Hutchison has allowed just three runs in nine innings with nine strikeouts, but his fastball was down to 90.7 in his last start and he's walked seven in those nine innings so far.
As usual, the standout, by the numbers, has been Casey Lawrence. What's been unusual there is that his strikeout rate is significantly up compared to last season. Right now he's at 36.2% (11.9 K/9), whereas last year for Buffalo he was at 21.9% (7.6 K/9). Against the Iowa Cubs back on the 19th, Lawrence's slider generated eight whiffs on 16 swings, and his changeup generated four on seven swings. His fastball, however, registered at just 88.5 mph. He's just always seemed like a Triple-A guy — which makes sense since he first tasted the level way back in 2013.
So, honestly, I’m not sure what happens if the Jays need another starter — at least until Hyun Jin Ryu is potentially ready in July. My best guess, because they really don’t have any other choice, is that they’ll be pulling from the group above and hoping for the best. With human roster complication Mitch White still not pitching in competitive games, they should at least be able to move him to the 60-day IL to free up a spot. And, of course, the longer the current five stay healthy, the longer Ricky Tiedemann has to put himself in position to potentially get a chance as well — though he did have his first real Double-A hiccup on Tuesday night, and is still being strictly limited in terms of pitch count.
Hey, and speaking of White, it sure would be nice to have Nick Frasso (26 Ks in 18 innings for the Dodgers Doublue-A affiliate in Tulsa, with three walks and a 1.50 ERA) as an option in this conversation, wouldn't it? PUKE!
Do you have any thoughts on the Jays seemingly trading being a team that had large positive run differentials but maybe underperformed them, to now looking more like a team that could have a weaker run differential but outperform that. It seems like more regimented base running and sharper defence may squeak out closer games (plus a better bullpen?), but I’m not as convinced this offence will be overpowering. Is this just an early season overreaction or should Rogers strike up a deal with a heart care pharmaceutical? — Noah V.
Thanks for the support, man! I think there is a really interesting question here about the changes the Jays have made, but I’ve got to say that I’m not with you on framing any of it in terms run differential.
I don’t think you can build a roster to consistently outperform its run differential, because my belief is that much of under/overperformance comes down to luck (with a little bit of how well the manager pulls the strings in-game mixed in). Yes, if you’re tightening up your bullpen and defence you can get away with scoring less, but that won’t change your ratio of runs scored versus runs allowed, it will simply lower both numbers.
For example, the Rays sound a lot like the team you’re describing, yet in 2022 they underperformed their differential, coming in with a .531 winning percentage despite their .537 Pythagorean winning percentage. The 2022 Blue Jays, who very much do not sound like the team you're describing, won at a .568 clip — better than their Pythag of .560.
In terms of just runs scored and runs allowed, the Rays were at 666 to 614, while the Jays were at 775 to 679. Clearly these clubs were built very different, but it all just about evened out in the wash.
Here in 2023, the Jays’ roster is composed in such a way as to make them less likely to mix huge blowout wins with huge blowout losses the way they did last season — or at least that’s the idea — but their run differential will still reflect the quality of their run production versus the quality of their run prevention in a way that more or less lines up with their winning percentage.
And, if you’re actually looking at run differential at this point in the season, you’re certainly going to end up overreacting. Not just because the Blue Jays’ differential had been modest heading into this week’s series with the White Sox — which it was, but only because of the four-game blip from the end of the Rays series through the end of the Astros series where they scored eight and allowed 27 — but because this stuff truly doesn't mean anything until much deeper into the season.
On Tuesday morning the Jays' .495 Pythag had them on pace for 80 wins. After Tuesday's 7-0 win and Wednesday’s 8-0 victory, those numbers jumped to .562 and 91. It's just too volatile to worry about this stuff right now.
Need Nate here permanently. Richards and Cimber not the quality we need to be a true contender. — “Scoop”
Uh, can we maybe give him more than one game?
Also, I've been on record multiple times about Trevor Richards being my preferred odd man out here, but you have to acknowledge that he's been fairly effective so far this season. Just as you also have to acknowledge that, even though low-strikeout relievers who allow a lot of balls in play are dicey, Cimber has been outstanding the last two years for the Jays. He can pitch just about as often as you need him to and has done an outstanding job of getting both left-handed and right-handed batters out. (At least until this year.)
Like, do the playoffs start tomorrow? You know what the bullpen of a “true contender” needs in April? Depth.
There’s no sense in starting to remove guys from the organization before you have to!
Should the Jays consider picking up another left handed reliefer? Neither Mayza, nor Richards, are what anyone would feel comfortable with putting into a high leverage situation. — Winger7
The Jays visited the Astros last week and saw a bullpen without a single left-hander. The reigning World Series champions are pretty good, and pretty smart. And yet last year, prior to trading Jake Odorizzi to Atlanta for Will Smith at the deadline, they used just two lefty relievers: Blake Taylor, who pitched 16 innings before an elbow issue in early June sent him to the IL for the rest of the season, and Parker Mushinski, who made seven appearances across four different stints.
Now, obviously to get away with doing a thing like that a team needs the right personnel. But in the Blue Jays' case I think they do.
Mayza is obviously left-handed, though I think you're right that high leverage is a problem for him — unless it's for one left-handed batter and/or it's a situation where he can intentionally walk any right-hander that may come up, because I definitely don't want him facing any RHB with the game on the line.
I agree with you on Richards, too. Though that's more because I don't think he's very good in general.
However, Adam Cimber has been incredibly effective against lefties — at least until the rough patch he's run into the last few weeks. And, more importantly, Erik Swanson exists. Lefties have slashed .185/.218/.277 (.219 wOBA) against him since the start of last season, and .199/.231/.312 (.235 wOBA) since mid-August of 2021, which was when he supercharged his use of the splitter against them.
At some point a high leverage lefty could make some sense here, provided they can't get Mayza into better form (and they don't think Ricky Tiedemann can be that guy down the stretch), but getting one just to get one? Nah. I think they’re fine.
What is your optimism level for Ryu's return to glory? — Brad T.
I would absolutely love to see Ryu come back looking like the version of him that we saw in 2020, and I could actually see all the time off having a very positive effect on his arm. But optimism? Oh no, I will absolutely not let myself get optimistic for any of that. Anything he can give the team this year will be gravy, but until he starts to actually do so my expectation is that he’s not going to contribute.
Blue Jays Podcast power rankings:
1. ATL
2. BJHH
3. ??? — Jack M.
Thanks for ranking us so high, man! Obviously there’s no shame in being second to At The Letters. But as for which podcast I’d rank third, it’s just too tough. There are so many great ones out there and I wouldn’t want to single anyone out — either for inclusion or by omission. Especially now that my former employer has dumbly turfed the podcast they bought from me and then fired me from!
After the last few series most things seem pretty good to me. I could squint and look for areas of improvement (they are there), but instead I think I will just enjoy this next stretch of very winnable games until the Barves/Yankees in mid-May. Winning is fun and the prospect of future winning is also fun? Does this seem like a good approach to you or is there anything that has you genuinely concerned right now? — Adrian
Thanks for the question and the support, man! I think you’ve got it absolutely right. Even all those wins the Rays have banked so far don’t even seem like that much of a problem.
Keep in mind, you’re asking someone who is much more likely to antagonize the people whose internal circuitry overheats until smoke comes out their ears and sparks start flying out of their eyeballs at the mere mention of the phrase “it’s early” than he is to be one. But only because being that way is incredibly stupid.
As I tweeted on Wednesday morning, from Tuesday night’s performance alone, Danny Jansen’s batting average went up 55 points, his SLG up 182 points, and his wRC+ 59 points. You know, in case anyone needed a reminder of how absurdly volatile the small samples make stats at this time of year.
In other words, most of what we think we know at this point, we don’t know. There’s no sense sweating it.
I was thinking recently about the whole "Toronto almost gets the Giants" thing from 1976. Do you think the city's MLB history would be different inheriting the Giants versus getting an expansion team? Or do the same people wind up in the same jobs getting the same players? — Shane M.
Great question, man. Thanks for it and the support!
I think that it absolutely would have been different. Yes, the same consortium that ultimately won an American League expansion team had first made the deal to purchase the Giants — which was eventually stopped because of the efforts of San Francisco mayor George Moscone (whose name may sound familiar because he was assassinated in 1978 in the same incident as gay rights icon Harvey Milk) — but they would have inherited the Giants' players and staff. They also would have played in the National League, which would have altered the way they built the team.
Spec Richardson had been named the GM of the Giants in December of 1975, while the sale process was going on, and was in place on January 9th, the day that the deal appeared to be approved. (Unfortunately for Toronto, this was also the day after Moscone — who may only have won election thanks to voting fraud organized by Rev. Jim Jones and his People's Temple (Yes, the Jonestown guy!) — was sworn in as mayor.)
Would the Toronto group have fired Richardson so soon after he was appointed? Even if so, would they have found their way to Peter Bavasi?
And even if they had, would they have found their way to Bavasi in time for him to hire Pat Gillick before another organization hired him? Would Toronto have appealed to either Bavasi or Gillick without the expansion draft or the chance to build something from scratch? How long would it have taken to turn over the entire front office?
Because the Blue Jays aren't the Blue Jays without Pat Gillick and what he built. Without legendary scout Epy Guerrero, who Gillick brought in after working with him in the Colt 45s/Astros and Yankees organizations. Without Cito Gaston, who came from Atlanta in late 1981 with Bobby Cox, who Gillick had known from their time in the Yankees' organization. And the list goes on and on and on.
There’s simply no way that it could have ever been the same, given what was already in place in San Francisco. If they’d managed to get to Gillick another way, though, I think it would have absolutely had a chance to have been just as special.
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Great stuff as always, Stoeten.
Hey, since you mentioned it, will we ever get the details on what the hell happened with you at the Athletic? (Not that I want to re-open any old scars! It's perfectly fine if you want to tell me to mind my own business.)