I wanted to get that goddamn picture of Trump off the top of the site, and the Jays played a tremendously fun game on Saturday night, so here’s a Sunday post!
But first, please indulge me while I attempt to make a living. Because if you’ve been sent here by a friend, or are an existing subscriber who would like to move to a paid membership so you can comment, ask questions the next time I open up the ol’ mail bag, or just plain old support what I do, click below to upgrade or become a subscriber. I will be eternally grateful if you do!
It sure didn’t seem like it would turn out that way at first, but the Jays put on an incredibly resilient performance on Saturday night, and gave us a taste of just how special a team they can potentially be.
Let’s play some three up, three down…
▲ George Springer plays for the Toronto Blue Jays
Like the game itself, Springer’s night on Saturday started with some deep worry, and ended with fireworks. Running to first base on a lead-off ground out, Springer very noticeably grabbed at the upper part of his right leg — the dreaded right quad that had kept him on the injured list for most of April. This caused concern from the broadcast booth, and a mix of consternation and angry at the Blue Jays’ recklessness from fans online.
It, uh, turned out he was fine.
Perhaps even better than fine.
The second one he hit went 470 feet into the Florida night (and the schoolyard adjacent to Dunedin’s TD Ballpark). Neither pitch he hit, both of which were 3-0 offerings, was close to the middle of the plate. Clearly that mattered not.
I’ll just put Springer's wRC+ by year right here: 129, 133, 126, 140, 119, 157, 146.
The guy has been an incredibly consistent, incredibly productive big leaguer. It rules so hard, and means so much for what the next few years are going to look like, that the Blue Jays actually managed to sign this guy as a free agent. Fun, fun, fun.
(GIFs via Sportsnet/MLB.com)
▲ The bullpen
Ho hum, another outstanding effort from a string of Blue Jays relievers. Tim Mayza, David Phelps, Tyler Chatwood, Rafael Dolis, and Jordan Romano combined to allow just two hits and one walk over 4 2/3 innings, with five strikeouts in this one.
Yeah, that works.
The Jays' bullpen remain in the top five in baseball by ERA.
▲ Randal Grichuk
Randal Grichuk delivered the game-winning RBI in the tenth after Atlanta manager Brian Snitker's galaxy brained decision to intentionally walk the scuffling Cavan Biggio after Nate Jones fell behind him 3-1. He also hit an RBI single during the Jays' sixth inning rally.
I'm certainly not yet at the point Buck Martinez and Pat Tabler seemed to be at the end of last night's game, where they praised Grichuk for his transformation into a better hitter as though that process is over and this is now what he is. We've seen that movie before, and it ends with Grichuk regressing to his career norms. He's a streaky guy.
But you have to like what you've seen from him over the last two seasons. Coming into 2020 his career strikeout rate was 28.3%, yet over the last two season he's struck out just 20.4% of the time, with a slight uptick in his walk rate as well. Again, I'm not a believer yet, but that's an interesting development in the positive direction, and I'll certainly take what he's been giving the Jays lately — especially when you add in that he's a very competent defender all across the outfield. Keep it up, Comrade Grich.
▼ That Luis Rivera send
I don’t bring this up first because I want to make a huge issue of it, it just happens to involve Grichuk, and that sixth inning, which we were just talked about above. And… yeah. I have sympathy for Luis Rivera, and for any third base coach. Their mistakes are so glaring, and the good things they do so subtle and unseen, that I’m sure just about every fan base thinks theirs is an idiot. That’s not true. But when the only time you talk about somebody is when something bad happens, it’s easy for people to get that impression.
Anyway, something bad happened in this was, which was that Rivera windmilled Grichuk towards the plate on Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s sixth inning double, despite the fact that the ball had caromed off the left field wall directly to noodle-armed Braves outfielder Marcell Ozuna, who had shortstop Dansby Swanson setup perfectly — and right in Rivera’s field of vision — to take a relay throw and easily gun down Grichuk at the plate.
You see Rivera eventually throw up a futile stop sign, clearly having recognized his error, but it was too late. You also see him start waving Grichuk home at a point when Swanson almost already has the ball! It happens, but man, running into an out at the plate when you’re down a run and would have otherwise had runners at second and third with one out? Not great!
(GIF via Sportsnet/MLB.com)
▼ Injuries
The Jays avoided a disaster with George Springer and his quad, but weren’t so lucky on another front. Catcher Alejandro Kirk had to make an early exit due to a hip issue, and on Sunday morning was placed on the injured list, along with last night’s “bulk guy,” Tommy Milone, who is suffering with a bout of left-arm shittiness.
And, as the Jays announced here on Sunday, Anthony Castro has also landed on the IL with a forearm strain. Not great!
As for the catching, though, with Kirk on the shelf it’s sink or swim time for Danny Jansen, which, well… hard to sink much when you’re already at the bottom of the see, isn’t it?
Riley Adams, because he was already on the 40-man, will now get a chance to eat into Jansen’s playing time. Hopefully Kirk can return in short order,
(For the sake of completeness, I’ll add here that Ross Stripling was activated from the IL, and Anthony Kay was recalled from the minors in today’s spate of moves. Stripling gets Sunday’s start — though I assume that already be underway by the time most people ready this, so you’re probably aware of that.)
▼ All those Braves fans at TD Ballpark
I appreciate the comparisons to the Jays’ invasion of Seattle that several people made when I tweeted this, but the bulk Mariners fans could just… get tickets to those games themselves? There isn’t 1,000 miles and a closed-down international border keeping them from balancing things out, y’know?
So, what I suppose I’m saying is that Mariners fans deserve that and we don’t. Sorry, not sorry.
Quickly…
• Gideon Turk of Blue Jays Nation has an excellent piece on the Roberto Alomar mess, and some of the reactions to it in the local media so far — including a particularly irresponsible one printed in the Toronto Star. You should go read what he wrote.
I haven’t written much yet about the subject here myself, mostly because it sucks. But I’ll say, for the record, that the Jays decision to cut ties with Alomar was not just warranted but overdue. I’ll add that I should definitely have included the many credible allegations about Donald Trump to my list of reasons the picture of the Blue Jays owner standing beside him was so offensive in yesterday’s screed on the topic. Otherwise, I’ve mostly tried to avoid the responses from dudes on social media demanding evidence or shouting “innocent until proven guilty,” but I know that’s been out there, as it always is in these situations. And while I obviously can’t force anyone to have empathy for other humans, I’d like to at least say this to those who are still clinging to that mindset: We know that a big part of the reason these crimes don’t get reported, or don’t get acknowledged until years after the fact, is because of attitudes like yours and how traumatic and how hard it is to prove these things — especially in court. If you actually care about justice as much as you claim to, you are going about it all wrong. Not provably guilty by legal standards does not mean innocent. Believe women.
• Moving on, I know that there’s something deep in our brains that makes us desperate to be able to point fingers at a person or a thing or a High Performance department when bad things happen, but no, there does not have to be any sort of reason for the Jays’ rash of injuries beyond the fact that the guys getting injured are baseball players. They break sometimes. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you.
But yes, the size of this list fully sucks ass.
And that was before Castro was sent to the IL, too! He’s been such a fun story, so you have to hope that’s just a bit of extra caution that’s doubling as a breather for him. Ugh.
• Forgive the media navel gazing, but I must admit that I’m very curious about the situation that has been going on over the last week or so with Daniel Kim, a journalist from South Korea who has been covering the baseball for years and years, and has especially been a great resource for Blue Jays fans since they signed Hyun Jin Ryu in early 2020.
Daniel announced back on Monday that MLB had stripped him of his access to cover the league — which includes getting press passes to games, the ability sit in and ask questions on Zoom sessions with players, coaches, and front office staff, etc.
As you can see from the tweet above, this happened on Monday, April 26th. Now here’s something Daniel tweeted the day before.
That footage, of course, is of Hyun Jin Ryu appearing to show signs of the glute injury that would force him to exit that day’s game after just 3 2/3 innings, and has since landed him on the injured list.
In other words, Ryu chose to pitch, and the Jays allowed him to pitch, after already exhibiting signs of this problem. A bad look for everybody involved, especially since it was caught on camera.
Are we really to believe it’s a coincidence that MLB happened to pull his credentials just a day after he released this footage?
And if it’s not a coincidence, it sure is a lot of bullshit. He doesn’t appear to be doing anything remotely wrong or surreptitious here. The bullpens at that Trop are on the field. Any fan in the stands could have filmed that and posted it, for one. And for two, he’s doing his job — and doing it especially well in this case.
Now, if the player is the one objecting I guess the Blue Jays are in a tough spot here, but Daniel is so good, and good for the sport, and so dedicated, that making his life and his career more difficult for him really is a dick move. So I guess I hope this is all just a coincidence. But it sure looks suspicious.
Here’s his latest update:
• Great stuff here from Laura Armstrong of the Toronto Star, as she looks in great detail at the work that Alejandro Kirk did over the winter with Jays nutritionist Jeremy Chiang.
Layin’ Down the Law
The latest edition of The Athletic Baseball Show podcast mentions “the Vlad Jr. we were promised” in the title, but I actually thought that the more interesting Jays-related tidbits came later in the episode, when Derek VanRiper asked Keith Law about the fact that the Jays will be sending Alek Manoah to Triple-A to start the minor league season, with Auston Martin and Jordan Groshans being the biggest names headed to Double-A.
On Manoah
I love it. I'm a huge fan. I thought he was the best pitching prospect in that draft class. Best college pitcher at least. They (had) him as the best overall pitching prospect in the class, even above Nick Lodolo, who was drafted higher. I think Manoah, he's a four pitch guy, he's got command, his stuff has even got a little bit better since he was drafted. Honestly, the only concerns people really had, legitimate or otherwise, were he's a very big guy — he's listed at 260 or so and he might actually be bigger than that — and he would only pitch out of the stretch in college. And I've just never really seen that as a huge impediment. It's not typical, but that doesn't make something automatically bad.
Manoah was electric in spring training, and it sounds like that's what he's looked like at the alternate site for them too. So why not be aggressive and try to set him up to get to the majors for you as quickly as possible this year? So I love it.
Very good stuff, but it gets even better.
We sort of have lost track of some of these college guys who might have even been up last year, but he is coming up on two years after he was drafted. He was drafted about 23 months ago. The best college guys are typically in the majors around that point, or just getting to the majors around that point. He didn't have the year last year. But in the case of pitchers, and this would probably be true of Lodolo, too (and I'm not sure, offhand, other college pitchers from that draft class), but any of the elite college pitchers — the first round or high draft pick college pitchers from two years ago — they should all be in line for call-ups to the majors now if they're healthy.
Free him. Free the young man. Let him eat. You have, like, two healthy starters, damn it! LFG, as the club president would say.
On Martin
We’ll pump the brakes on this one a little bit in a second, but here’s some more deliciousness.
They don't really have a third baseman, right? That would be the ultimate way to get him to the big leagues now, is if he goes out, destroys Double-A, Triple-A, moves quickly. He rarely struck out in college, and as long as he's throwing better — the last time we actually saw him in games, before the shut-down, he was having some issues throwing. The Blue Jays have insisted that that's completely behind him and he's looked fine. And he was, I thought, potentially a plus to better defender at third, too. He's quick, he's athletic, his hands are good. And when I saw him in 2019, he threw great. I had no concerns whatsoever with his arm.
So that is the path. They don't have a guy there, his bat looked like it wasn't very far away. He did perform in the SEC, the best conference in college baseball, he just lost development time. If he'd played all of last summer he probably would have finished in Low-A for them. If we'd had a regular start to this minor league season he would have started in High-A, Double-A, and we'd have data. We would know if all of this stuff I just said about how good a hitter he is and how advanced he is, we'd know if that was true. Instead you just have to take my word for it. But I really believed in this guy, thought he was the best prospect in the draft class, and I thought the Blue Jays got a great deal at five to get him, and I think he could move quickly.
My only real question is just sort of where is he in terms of, does he need at-bats? A lot of guys are just going to get to the big leagues without getting the at-bats they would have typically gotten in the minors on the way. Most guys need those at-bats. A few are just so good that they don't. I don't know which camp Martin is in.
The notion that Martin could potentially move quickly enough to supplant Cavan Biggio at third base is a nice one, but I don’t think anyone should go getting their hopes up for it too much just yet.
For one thing, there are knowledgeable folks out there with other impressions of how well he’d handle the position.
For another, the Jays appear to be looking more toward Jordan Groshans at third and Martin in centre.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that Martin was just drafted last year and has barely faced “real” competition since. You know, that old thing.
But it’s great that Keith is still such a big believer in Martin. More exciting things to come for the Jays, whatever shape it takes.
On Groshans
He's barely played, because he got hurt mid-May, early May two years ago? He got off to this great start in Low-A, got hurt, ended his season. 'OK, fine, he'll come back, he'll play, he'll be ready to go in 2020.' Then 2020 doesn't happen. So, who knows where he is? Unfortunately.
Still a prospect, still like him, but that's just a lot of time missed. Now, if you're a Jays fan and you don't want to be too nervous, Akil Baddoo missed basically about the same amount of time, and then jumped to the big leagues and he's been OK. So, obviously, there are plenty of guys who can miss that time. It might set Groshans' timetable back a little bit, but obviously we have plenty of examples of guys who have missed that much time and have come back and have been fine. It does not hurt his prospect status, I think it just pushes Groshans' timetable back a little bit.
Though he’s been around longer, it’s important to remember that Groshans is a year younger than Martin, so some of this caution is warranted. I can’t help but wonder if the Jays really like what they saw at the alternate site from him, though. As Law noted above, players were playing last summer, and though the games at the alt-site didn’t count for anything, they weren’t nothing either. What’s missing is more the data than the development. But I agree that Groshans is probably going to need more time than Martin because of his age and the 2019 injury. But we’ll see! Would be happy to have him play third base in the big leagues this year too, if he can handle it!
Top image via the Toronto Blue Jays/@BlueJays
Hi Andrew. I had no idea that this site existed until I was searching for something else and out popped an article. Fantastic news, I have been missing your reports. So I subscribed. Then I went back to read your old articles, which is why I am asking a question about something you wrote weeks ago. In https://stoeten.substack.com/p/two-straight-wins-the-bichette-question you wrote:
"For some reason I did this by going to MLB.tv’s video archive, clicking on the bottom of the eighth, then using the MLB video player’s 10 second fast forward button to get from the start of the inning until the Biggio play. " -- and then complained about needing to hit the fast forward button so many times.
I'm in Europe. I watch all of my Bluejays games via the mlb.tv android app. The app lets you select video archives. But, as far as I know, there is no way to select a particular inning to go to, and there is no 10 sec ff button. All I have is a stupid slider, which is hideously inaccurate. You cannot single step through anything. In particular, if you are trying to skip the blue screen of 'the feed is on commercial break' there is no way to get a small enough forward that your best attempt to get you the tiniest amount of forward doesn't land you in pitch 4 of the first man up.
I think that this just means that the android app is a rotten piece of software that is missing basic functionality, which you are getting by viewing the archive via some other app. (In which case, how do I get to do that too?) But -- hope springs eternal -- maybe the functionality is there in the android app but I simply haven't been able to find it? If so, can you please post a screenshot showing where the 'select an inning' and the fast forward is?
Thanks very much, and sorry for the 'only sort of ' bluejays question.
Many fans don't seem to realize that the resolution of L'affaire d'Alomar is a workplace decision.
It's public because MLB is very public entertainment.
That public nature is why players like Alomar made millions.
It's not ideal that a workplace decision on sexual misconduct is public knowledge, but as certain decisions resulting from the Alomar ban are VERY public -- his removal from various honours at the Rogers Centre -- it was pretty much going to have to be public.