Pearson's bad day, Kirk's shifting timeline, Randal Grichuk, Gurriel's laser, Tanner Roark, Atkins speaks!, and more!
The Blue Jays lost two of three in Houston over the weekend, and the much anticipated return of top prospect Nate Pearson to the rotation didn’t go the way anybody wanted. So let’s talk about it!
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I don’t especially want to be negative, but clearly the main talking points — or talking point — coming out of the weekend necessitates it. So let’s flip things around a little bit here and look back on the Houston series with a little game of three down, three up…
▼ Nate Pearson
Nate Pearson may not be in possession of a lengthy minor league track record, but I don’t think he really has anything left to prove down there. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t still learn a thing or two at the Triple-A level, or that he couldn’t use some more time there to better iron out some of the mechanical tweaks he’s made while recovering from his most recent injury. But having him go out and dominate a bunch of over-matched minor leaguers probably won’t do much for him, and it certainly won’t do anything for the Jays. Especially given how thin their pitching staff is at the moment. The only pitchers the team has on the 40-man right now who aren't either injured or in the majors already are Jeremy Beasley, Elvis Luciano, Ty Tice, and T.J. Zeuch. They don't exactly have the luxury of not using a guy like Pearson. It's just not practical to not have him here.
But him pitching the way he did on Sunday doesn’t do the team any good either. He was terrible. He couldn’t locate his pitches at all, walked five batters, struck out none, and needed 64 pitches, just 28 of which were strikes, to get through 2 1/3 innings.
And this, uh, isn’t a compliment:
Josh made it clear in a follow-up tweet that he isn’t at all suggesting Pearson will follow the same doomed path that Drabek once did, and I certainly think he’s right about that. For one thing, Pearson really has dominated in the minors (and at times already in the majors, lest we forget how he struck out five of the six Rays he faced over two innings of work in last year’s playoffs); Drabek posted some tidy ERAs while never displaying the kind of prowess at generating strikeouts that would warrant the kind of hype he came to the majors with.
Still, as I watched a kid with so much talent looking so lost out there on Sunday, and not for the first time, I understood completely where the tweet was coming from.
Funnily enough, it was another once hyped Jays pitcher, Ricky Romero, who added some much needed to perspective to the unfolding disaster.
Anecdotally, it does feel like bad things tend to snowball on Nate when he’s not at his best. It’s worsened by the fact that he just doesn’t yet have the command to be as fine as he’d like to be when he gets in trouble, and that mechanically he seems to rather easily get out of whack.
The first time I remember this happening on such a big stage was in Boston, in one of the Jays’ last tune-ups before last season began in late July. Pearson lost his fastball command two batters into that one, walking J.D. Martinez on four pitches, then giving up two straight singles and a home run. After recording a second out via strikeout, the inning was then spiked, as he'd reached 24 pitches already by that point.
He was better the rest of the way that night, but it was a weird wobble. At the time, however, this was all largely spun as a positive — something I was definitely guilty of as well. Pearson displayed great maturity in talking about his struggles, and about the adjustments he’d made, after the game.
“You problem solve, you look at where you’re missing,” he explained. “I was missing high and I was also missing down and away to righties, like really bad. I had to figure out what I was doing and I figured it out in the third and fourth inning that I was collapsing on my back leg and I wasn’t staying tall enough. As soon as I was able to figure that out, I told Pete, ‘I figured it out. Let’s go.’ I told (Danny Jansen) ‘keep calling the heater, I’m going to get it back.’ And eventually, I started getting it back there.”
The ability to correct his own mechanics and pull himself out of such a skid on the fly was undoubtedly impressive. Unfortunately, since then it feels as though we’ve see more instances of him losing his command like that (though presumably some his issues last year can be attributed to the elbow issue he was trying to pitch through), and not as many when he’s been able get himself out of it.
I don’t doubt that patience and repetition will, in time, make this all better. But just how much better remains to be seen. Especially if his four-seamer’s velocity (95.7 mph on average Sunday, down from a 96.3 mph average last year) and its spin rate (2,062 rpm on average Sunday, down from 2,306 rpm last year) don’t tick back up.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing to be worried about yet, and it was actually great to see Pearson get through a start healthy, but if this sort of thing happens again the Jays will have a tough decision to make. And while ultimately sending Pearson back to the minors for a bit may end up being in everybody’s best interest, he could sure make a lot of people’s lives easier if he looks like the guy he’s supposed to be the next time he takes the ball.
▼ Alejandro Kirk’s shifting timeline
Prior to Saturday’s game the Blue Jays shifted injured catcher Alejandro Kirk from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL in order to add reliever A.J. Cole to the club’s 40-man roster. Asked in a pre-game Zoom session by Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet if anything with Kirk had changed, manager Charlie Montoyo said no.
“Our medical team thinks it's going to take him for sure that long, so that's the main reason that we did that,” he said.
Unfortunate as that is, it’s fine. These things happen. But it sure struck me as odd that on Saturday the team would be acknowledging that the injury will keep him out until July, and saying that nothing has changed, when on Thursday, GM Ross Atkins described Kirk’s situation like this: “On Alejandro, I would expect it to be at least four weeks of him coming back from that injury, and could be longer.”
Teams being less than truthful about injuries is nothing new, and while some people love to pretend they don’t know this so they can get mad about it, I’m personally not bothered by it. Except when it’s done badly — by which I mean when it’s insulting to the intelligence of the fan base.
The Jays just went needlessly through this with the whole George Springer debacle. Now I think they’ve done it again with Kirk. Because there’s no way the timeline for Kirk could ever have really been four weeks if nothing changed and now he’s suddenly on the 60-day IL — a designation that makes him ineligible to play until July 1, two days shy of eight weeks from when Saturday’s announcement was made.
Sure, injury list matters can be fudged a bit. I’m sure we all remember how Elvis Luciano just happened to hit the IL for the rest of the 2019 season at the moment that he’d spent enough time as a Rule 5 pick on the Jays’ active roster for his rights to be transferred to them. But important players who might be able to return in four weeks are not ever going to be candidates for the 60-day IL. I cannot image that the Jays would potentially burn a month of Kirk’s season just to get Cole up for a few days — and if they would, we’d have an even bigger issue on our hands here.
But might they have initially been lying about four weeks being a realistic timetable? That I could definitely believe. However, why they would do that — why they seem to keep doing stuff like that — is beyond my comprehension.
▼ A series loss to the Astros
Woof. I mean, sure, there were some positives to be taken from this weekend series, particularly on Saturday, but in general this series wasn’t a pleasant experience. The Jays have been holding their pitching staff together with tape lately, and it really started to show here.
I don't think Ross Stripling is a more than a long man at best. I don't think bringing Ty Tice into a three run game and then using Trent Thornton, Rafael Dolis, and Ryan Borucki anyway helps anything. I don't think Anthony Kay is in a place where he can help the Jays right now. But save for the one guy in Buffalo who has barely pitched as a pro and isn’t yet on the 40-man — who would really only bump Stripling back into Kay’s role anyway — they don’t really have much of a choice but to keep rolling with what they’ve got.
The fact that Anthony Castro should be back in short order is great, but the fact that his potential return is notable at all is telling.
Granted, things probably feel a little worse than they really are. Certainly on the starting pitching front they do. The Jays just lost two out of three in a series in which neither Hyun Jin Ryu nor Robbie Ray pitched and Nate Pearson was awful. Hardly surprising. But indicative, I think, of how the team is just not healthy enough right now to blast out of the pattern of water-treading that they’ve been in all season.
It seemed for a moment a week ago — before George Springer went back on the IL, before Vlad cooled off, before David Phelps and Dolis got hurt, and before the extent of Kirk’s injury was known — that they might be about to do exactly that.
Again though, the real Nate Pearson showing up next time it’s his turn to pitch makes this all feel a lot better.
▲ Throwing out base runners
In the bottom of the fifth inning of Sunday's game the Jays showed off some rare throwing prowess, as Reese McGuire nabbed Myles Straw trying to steal third base, and a few pitches later Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Cavan Biggio, and McGuire teamed up to nail Martín Maldanado at the plate on a Michael Brantley double. But, of course, the most impressive throw of the weekend by far was Gurriel's flat-footed laser beam to get the speedy Straw trying to tag up and score back on Friday night.
Gurriel hasn’t managed to get his bat going just yet, and his routes in the outfield are sometimes adventurous, but that arm don’t slump.
▲ Joe Siddall
We’re lucky to have Sportsnet’s Joe Siddall, who has the rare talent and smarts to take the kind of unique knowledge he's gained over a lifetime in the game and present it in a way that's understandable and relatable without talking down to people. On Saturday we got a perfect example of this, as he caught something the Astros might have been doing to make their lives easier in Ross Stripling’s Friday start. Danny Jansen was often setting up early, giving Houston players a chance to signal the catcher’s position to the batter — not a form of cheating, as Siddall pointed out, but a bit of good, old fashioned observant baseball, not unlike the stuff Cito Gaston’s Blue Jays teams of the late 80s and early 90s were famous for.
Cue Astros fans getting weirdly defensive. (Gee, I wonder why.)
▲ Saturday’s win
Let’s end this segment on a positive note, with some praise for Saturday’s win — a win that manager Charlie Montoyo called the Jays’ biggest of the year.
I understand why he'd say so. The Jays were facing a tough pitcher in Cristian Javier, playing in Houston's joke of a stadium where no lead is safe, and managed to eke this one out thanks to a gutsy bit of work from a still-not-at-his-best Steven Matz, two huge innings from Tyler Chatwood (who has been excellent all season), and big contributions at the plate from guys not named Bichette, Guerrero, or Teoscarnandez.
Marcus Semien is quietly on pace for a 5 WAR season, despite taking a hit in value by switching from shortstop to second base, and currently sports a 125 wRC+. He smashed a three-run ninth-inning home run to give the Jays the breathing room they needed in this one. (Oh, did it have an xBA of .040 and wouldn't have been a home run in any other stadium? Well, I guess the joke's on you, Minute Maid Park.)
Before that we saw Danny Jansen homer for the third day in a row, taking his wRC+ for the season all the way up to 20. (It has since dropped back to 16). Cavan Biggio also homered — in his home town, with his parents in the house, no less — and continues to show signs of life that might help reverse the trend of pitchers giving him fewer opportunities to get on base via the walk.
Then there was Randal Grichuk, whose wRC+ is now up to 129 for the year. More importantly, his strikeout rate in 2021, despite a career mark of 27.2%, now sits at just 17.6%. That's an improvement on last year's much-improved 21.2% mark, and a sign that this time he may really be a different hitter than before.
Yes, yes, it’s easy to be burned by believing in Grichuk when he’s at his streaky best. The Jays sure were when they signed him to a five-year, $52 million contract extension back in early 2019. Or, at least, for a long time it's seemed that way. But I’m especially impressed with the way he's managed to walk 9.3% of the time he's gotten into two-strike counts — an aspect of the game that Dante Bichette spoke about trying to help Grichuk improve in last year. If that’s a real improvement he’s made, and if he can keep hitting like the way he has been so far, there's a chance that deal won't end up looking so bad after all.
That’s still an incredibly big if, for sure. His production, if we look past the strikeout and walk rates, doesn’t exactly look atypical for him.
Regardless, I’m struck by one of the specific things Bichette said last September with regard to Grichuk.
“Instead of just creating one approach one swing, we've got to go back to making adjustments,” he explained. “Like Grich is kind of learning to do. Make an adjustment, hit with two strikes, and surviving. Because you will get to those hot streaks. I promise you, if you're a big time power talent, you'll get a week where the game's easy, but we've got to fill the in-between times.”
If you look closely at that xwOBA graph above, we can see that in 2021 the line hasn’t yet dipped below average in the deeper and more extended way that we’ve seen from him in other years. Maybe it’s only a matter of time before it does. It’s still very early in the season, and big old troughs are not unusual for him. But maybe that’s where these adjustments are really going to start paying off.
The week ahead
• Monday - Off
• Tuesday @ Atlanta, 7:20 PM ET - Robbie Ray vs. TBD
• Wednesday @ Atlanta, 7:20 PM ET - Hyun Jin Ryu vs. Max Fried
• Thursday @ Atlanta, 12:20 PM ET - Ross Stripling vs. Charlie Morton
• Friday - Sunday: vs. Philadelphia
Links!
• Could Atlanta possibly fill that “TBA” you see above in the most delicious way possible? I definitely doubt it, but maybe!!
• Great stuff from Nick Ashbourne over at Sportsnet, as he takes a look at one of the great mysteries of the Blue Jays’ season so far: How on earth Travis Bergen is managing to get big league hitters out by throwing them fastballs 93.5% of the time.
• Hey, and speaking of Nick, in case you somehow missed it, he is my cohost on our new podcast, Blue Jays Happy Hour. The show drops every Friday afternoon (and will likely feature some early-week bonus content eventually too), which means that there’s a relatively fresh one for you to listen to if you haven’t caught it already. Check it out here, or on your podcast app of choice (including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher).
• Jeff Frye, a former member of the Blue Jays, and a guy who respects the game so much he once pulled up at first base on a clear double just to ensure that he hit for the cycle, apparently would prefer it if these danged kids would somberly round the bases with their heads down when they hit a home run. This is like the baseball version of those weirdos who get mad at the idea of student debt forgiveness because they had to pay off debts themselves. Like, I’m sorry you were forced to internalize the idea that baseball has to be a joyless activity, but why force that nonsense on everybody else? Let the kids play.
Atkins speaks!
I mentioned back on Thursday that Ross Atkins met with the media that afternoon, mostly to try to put out some of the fires that had been caused by the George Springer situation. That wasn’t all that the Jays GM was asked about though, so let’s rewind a bit and go through the rest of the highlights from that session.
On injuries in general and High Performance
It's really interesting, we've talked about it a lot with other teams. We've talked about it internally a lot. We've talked about it with our medical staff. I think there's several factors in the injuries this year. One, we know that at the start of a season, transitioning from spring training to in-season, there is always a spike in injuries. Two, we're dealing with a pandemic, with the uncertainty around teams and resources that we've dealt with not only over the preparation for this spring training this year, but the year prior to that, and the disruption of the ability to prepare. And then third is the workload, and how that workload was impacted last year, what that means moving forward, and how that disrupted routines and their ability to recover and compete.
I think we're seeing a bit of those three things coming together right now — the Toronto Blue Jays are and the industry is, as we've talked to other executives.
We have to focus on what we can control and improve upon it. As it relates to pitching depth, we do feel like we've weathered the storm relatively well, as we've looked across the industry and it's not only us that's dealing with injuries. And we feel good about some of the alternatives moving forward, and some of the guys that are coming healthy soon. Anthony Castro should have a relatively quick return. Thomas Hatch — we're extremely encouraged by his progress. Nate Pearson is already healthy. We're encouraged by Milone and where he is in the process. So we'll have guys getting healthy here soon, and obviously Nate's already healthy and already an option. Thomas Hatch is going to be at the six inning/85 pitch mark when he's eligible to come off of the 60-day. Julian Merryweather, barring any setbacks for both of them, will be full steam ahead when he is eligible June 13th, when he comes off the IL. As it may seem that we've used a lot of the depth that we've used to date, we still feel good about some of the other options that we have, in Patrick Murphy coming healthy and guys that are getting healthy.
In short: This isn’t just a Blue Jays problem, and there are some guys coming back soon. That’s good! Adding Thomas Hatch to the mix will definitely help, as will Castro’s return.
But while the number of injuries the Jays have had to deal with this year isn’t any different than a number of teams, they’re also a team that has been quite public about trying to get ahead of the curve in this regard through their High Performance department.
Take a look at the Jays’ front office directory and you’ll find 30 names (excluding consulting physicians) listed under the Jays’ High Performance umbrella. Meanwhile, a team like the Atlanta Braves (who I’ve selected completely at random, obviously) have just 11 people listed under “medical staff,” which includes trainers, physical therapists, strength and conditioning coaches, etc.
Teams don’t have a uniform way of listing such personnel, so we’re comparing apples to oranges a bit here, but the sense is (based on both these types of org. charts and the way some of the questions posed to Atkins were asked) that the Jays’ staff is bigger than most. Which suggests they spend more than most. So what gives?
We feel they are helping. We feel that we're learning a great deal, and the results have ben mixed thus far. And right now, obviously, our results are less than ideal as it relates to health. But "performance" isn't just dealing with injuries, it's also trying to avoid them, it's trying to maximize guys ability, put them in positions to be successful. So, there's one, there's Toronto Blue Jays specific, and feel incredible about what we've learned, what we'll continue to learn. The addition of Andrew Pipkin this year, already what we've learned from him being on board and how helpful he's been in this process. But secondarily there's the industry and the game, and I'd probably be way too long winded if we started talking about that, but it's a different game. Different in that, how powerful the individuals are, and the rate at which guys throw the ball exceptionally hard and hit exceptionally far has definitely increased, and with that has come some risk that we're trying to manage and deal with. I think the teams that have been more successful over the last few years have dealt with it by having depth, and by managing workload. A lot of our focus is how do we think about putting guys in safe positions to have healthy years and healthy careers.
Along these lines, Akins was asked about the resources that teams have — or haven’t — been able to provide to players during the pandemic, and how that factors into the situation the team is now in.
It's interesting, it's more the players that aren't with us. So, we do know and feel very good about the players that spent time with us this off-season in Dunedin. All, almost to a man, have been very healthy and is in a great spot. And where we feel like we probably missed some opportunities, or just, could we have provided better resources for players that weren't with us? And whether it had been facilities were shut down, they didn't have the same access to the same routines and same resources that they would have normally had. We thought we were doing our best to offset that. I'm sure there's a way we could have done things better based on the results that we're seeing. And it's also been telling to see that the guys who were with us this off-season, and spent significant portions of their offseason in Dunedin have been very healthy.
It’s no secret that the Jays would prefer if their players wintered in the Dunedin area and took advantage of the facilities they have available there. Ultimately they would like to have their own version of Driveline in-house, clearly. Still, this answer is quite a nudge to some of their players, isn’t it?
On vaccinations
On the 85% threshold, I am very confident we will be there, it's just a matter of getting past that second shot with two weeks to be fully vaccinated. Once that happens I'm very confident we will be there, barring anything unforeseen. On the industry front, I've been exceptionally encouraged by what I've heard. I think the majority of teams are in a position similar to ours, where they're just waiting for that two week threshold beyond the second shot to have everyone fully vaccinated.
Good stuff. Get your vaccines, folks.
On choosing to moving to Buffalo at the earliest date possible
The Jays could have continued to play in Dunedin for a little while longer, but instead have chosen to move to Buffalo on June 1st, meaning that the homestand that begins on Friday against the Phillies will be the final one for the team in Florida this season (and hopefully ever!). The Red Sox and Rays also will be in for three-game sets.
Atkins explained why that particular date was chosen.
Really the option, and alternative, and our players' preference were the two things. And I think it was weighing the weather, the facility, and how it plays and the resources they have within it. And having that alternative. And the players ultimately felt that was the best timing, and the best decision.
Fair enough. Now, will the Jays actually be able to make it back to Toronto at some point this season? I think there’s still reason for optimism there, but evidently — and understandably — we’re a ways off yet.
On where the team is at through six weeks
We feel good about how we've weathered this portion of the year, with starting our season with 16 consecutive games, starting away from Toronto at a spring training site, and having George Springer on the IL for the majority of the time, miss some time with Robbie Ray, and have had some other injuries that we've had to deal with. The guys have been competitive. I'm really encouraged by our improving defence. I'm excited about the offensive potential that we have a ton of confidence in. I think you guys saw the difference when you have a George Springer's disciplined approach in our lineup, and how that impacts others throughout. How it impacts the starting pitcher.
So, the odds of us being 100% healthy is not high, but that calls on the importance of depth, and over the course of the year we will be healthier than we are today I would imagine. And as guys get into the flow of things our offence will improve. We've talked a lot about the pitching depth and how those guys have handled things thus far. I can't say enough about how well Pete Walker and Matt Buschmann have prepared our pitchers with our baseball operations staff, and how Charlie has deployed them, to keep us in games and remain competitive. I think the start on (last) Saturday, where we started with Tommy Milone, and he was out early, then went to Trent Thornton, and were facing Charlie Morton. That was not a scenario where the likelihood of us winning, down 4-0, was very high. But the deployment of pitching and the confidence of our team ended well for us that night. We feel really good about the step this team has taken this year and look forward to the time ahead.
Obviously nobody knows whether it will be good enough to thrust them into a playoff spot by the end of September, but I wholeheartedly agree that the best is still very much yet to come for this 2021 Blue Jays team.
Top image and GIF via MLB.com/Sportsnet
The Romero tweet about everything in that situation going 100 mph is such a good point that stats don’t account for and most of us probably overlook. Like, I can’t imagine having that few MLB innings, playing against a team that’s doing everything in their power to steal signs/location, having just tweaked your mechanics, and then having your command completely abandon you like that. The takes out there that “this is who Pearson is” are just ludicrous.
Thanks Andrew, you continue to provide the best Jays content out there. Pearson definitely should have had more time at AAA, but what was the quote from Charlie a few years ago...'We haven't got anyone else?' or something like that? I think that's what we're looking at here. With Stripling struggling, Matz trending down a bit from his nice start, you have to wonder how bad Roark was that we just let him go! If Ryu gets injured again or something happens to Ray, we are in big trouble.