Spring Notes: Thursday, March 11th
On Vlad's big day, Springer's return to health, Tanner Roark, Cavan Biggio, Nate Pearson, new rules, links, and more!
The Jays won today, and we could actually watch them do so — which I definitely did all the way through, because I definitely did not skip out on the back half of the game to watch Europa League soccer. Uh, anyway, time for today’s notes!
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Game Stuff
As I type this the Jays and Tigers have just finished up in Dunedin, contesting what I am sure will go down as yet another Grapefruit League classic to have been available exclusively on Blue Jays Field Cam. I joke, but a stationary camera centred on home plate was actually a perfect way to watch Tanner Roark pitch, because it at least meant we skipped all the footage of dejected outfielders watching as towering moonshots sailed out of TD Ballpark and into the adjacent schoolyard. (Or we would have if that had actually happened to him and not to Tigers starter Michael Fulmer.)
We also got to miss heart-in-throat moments, like when the team’s new $150 million outfielder, fresh off a bout of abdominal tightness, had to race to the gap to make an inning-saving catch in the top of the first.
Springer showed us he was fine in the bottom half of the frame, blasting a home run off of Fulmer. Though his was not as impressive as Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s:
Randal Grichuk and Alejandro Kirk also homered on the day, it’s worth noting.
But, OK, back to Roark. In his tweet, Mike Wilner notes that Roark was up to 92 with his fastball, however, that's a bit generous in terms of rounding. Roark's hardest fastball on the day was thrown at 91.6, and he's averaged just 90.7 on the pitch overall — pretty much exactly where Statcast had average fastball velocity last season.
His curveballs averaged 72.5, per Statcast. That’s pretty much exactly where his curve sat in 2020 as well.
Pitching success isn’t only about velocity. There are other factors to be considered, obviously. But I’m going to go ahead and say that Roark’s velocity being where it was in 2020 is actually probably not “great.”
Still, Roark was mostly fine in this outing. He also showed a bit of self-deprecating humour after the game, joking with reporters about trying to use his hips and glutes more, by saying, “I’ve got a big one, so I might as well use it.” And, truthfully, it’s actually not very fair, and certainly not very nice, to have decided after 11 starts that we’ve seen enough of a pitcher who sports a career ERA of 3.83.
And yet here we are!
Three up, three down…
▲ I have to go here with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who not only blasted the home run seen above, but ended up going 3-for-3 against the Tigers, with a pair of runs scored and four RBIs. Not only do the traditional numbers look good, Statcast tells us he was absolutely crushing it.
Launch angle? Never heard of it.
But actually, no. Things are good!
▲ Up arrow number two goes to Charlie Montoyo, who once again chose to hit George Springer in the lead-off spot, with Marcus Semien, Bo Bichette, and then Teoscar Hernández hitting behind him. We’ve seen this configuration enough times this spring to think that the manager is likely tipping his hand here about what he (or his computer) thinks the club’s optimal lineup is. Whether Semien is the ideal hitter for the number two spot I’m not so sure, but at least the Jays don’t seem to be operating under any illusions about Cavan Biggio being a top-of-the-lineup guy.
Hey, remember that chart of how Vladdy hit three balls today that came off his bat at 107.9 mph or above? You know, the one that’s literally just above here? Well, Biggio has never had a ball leave his bat above 105 mph. Not even once!
Here’s the bottom ten players from 2020 in terms of maximum exit velocity (minimum 150 plate appearances):
Now, obviously Biggio’s prime skill is working walks, not scalding the baseball, but in case anyone was still wondering why some observers are less than encouraged by him, I’m pretty sure that’s part of it!
▲ With apologies to Tim Mayza, who once again looked good here on Thursday, I’m going to have to give up arrow number three to Springer. The $150 million man not only made a great catch and hit a home run here against the Tigers, but, much more importantly, showed that he was healthy.
“I feel good. I think it was a little bit of a precautionary thing,” he told reporters after his day was finished. “It's early. You don't want to do anything too crazy. But I'm happy to be back out there.”
▼ It would be unfair of me to give a down arrow here to Kirby Yates, who made his spring debut here on Thursday and looked… like a guy making his spring debut. What I am going to give the arrow for, however, is the fact that he was only able to throw two splitters in the whole outing.
Yates could be an enormous part of the Jays’ bullpen if he can get back to where he was in 2019, but this wasn’t the cleanest of starts for him. He gave up a pair of singles on balls that weren't hit especially hard, including one to Jeimer Candelario on his first splitter of the spring. That’s the pitch that is going to make or break him, as Yates himself acknowledges.
“I feel like once I kind of dialed those back in, it just plays right off my fastball,” Yates is quoted as saying in a piece from TSN.ca’s Scott Mitchell earlier in the week. “It’s been good. It’s been consistent. I’m getting consistent break with it. It’s just a matter of commanding it, which I feel like I’ve done and it’ll get better as the spring goes on and I get more feel. I can sit here and throw bullpens as much as I want, but the real test is when you’re out there facing opposing hitters and what the hitter is telling you. We’ll see where it’s at. I feel like it’s really good. I feel like with my fastball and everything, I’m really close to being back to what I was.”
The pitch to Candelario wasn’t awful. I don’t think Yates hit his spot, but he put it right on the intersection of the bottom of the zone and the outside black, Candelario just managed reached out and shoot it through the vacant left side of the Jays’ infield shift.
The only other splitter Yates threw generated a swinging strike. So that’s good! But the entire outing lasted just nine pitches, which in this case was less than ideal. And his fastball velocity topped out at 93.8, which is fine for this stage, but not yet where you really want to see it. (He averaged 93.5 on the pitch in 2019, while routinely topping out fractionally above 95.)
▼ It was also not a great outing for young reliever Ty Tice, who was roughed up in the top of the seventh by the Tigers and needed to be pulled in order for Anthony Castro to make the last out of the ballgame. His final line: five runs (all earned) on four hits and one walk, with a home run given up to Ryan Kriedler.
Tice can, however, at least take some solace in the fact that the world now knows that he can indeed dunk.
▼ Down arrow number three today is going to go to myself, not just for my lack of posts this week — though that alone would be fair! — but because when I finally did get around to posting something on Wednesday night, I let Mark Shapiro off the hook on something.
Here’s what I wrote:
Shapiro also made clear that service time is not going to be something that holds either Manoah or SWR back.
“Zero service time consideration,” he said. “I think we've proven that with Nate Pearson and Vladdy, when we made decisions on them.”
I may have gone with Alejandro Kirk as my second example there instead of Guerrero — who the Jays were absolutely going to hold down to start 2019 before he picked up a spring training injury anyway — but hey, that’s me. *COUGH*
What I missed, of course, is that Nate Pearson isn’t a very good example of the Jays’ commitment to not manipulating service time either. He is, in fact, the opposite of that!
Service time stuff is a bit of a third rail for MLB presidents at the moment, so I guess I understand Shapiro attempting to shut down the notion that they would have ever done such a thing, but Josh is absolutely correct.
According to both Cot’s and FanGraphs, Pearson’s prorated service time for 2020 amounted to 169 days. A full year of service is accrued when a player is on a club’s active roster (or Injured List) for 172 days.
Links!
• I thought MLB.com was maybe being a bit cruel when I saw before Thursday’s game started that they had written a piece featuring Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., suggested that there’s the potential for MLB to have a 22-year-old home run champ this season. Sure, Soto and Tatis have absolutely looked capable of pulling off the feat, but having Guerrero Jr. in the same category as those two, at this point, seemed a little like wishful thinking. Then after that performance? Oh yeah, sign me up. He’s back on track, baby!
• Levi Weaver of the Athletic has some great reporting on the Texas Rangers’ decision to open Globe Life Field to full capacity, but the quote of the day on the subject comes from none other than Mark Shapiro, who had this to say, according to Scott Mitchell of TSN:
“I know from MLB calls that they’d been consistently the strongest in pushing to extend limits, but again every team’s got its own local jurisdiction that’s governing so no one’s paying attention to what anyone else is doing other than what we can learn from it,” Shapiro said. “In the case of Texas, there’s nothing for us to learn from.”
• Good lord, make it stop.
• The Jays announced that they’d come to terms on contracts with all 27 of the players on their 40-man roster who are not yet eligible for arbitration. Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi has the facts and figures.
This rules discourse rules!
In what’s got to be the worst edition of “New Rules” I’ve seen since I stopped watching Bill Maher (HEYO!), MLB announced on Thursday some rule changes they are going to experiment with this season in the minor leagues.
In the Low-A leagues pitchers will be limited to two step-offs or pickoffs per plate appearance while there is a runner on base. In "Low-A Southeast" (new home of the Jays' Dunedin affiliate) there will also be expanded testing of the league's Automatic Ball-Strike System (aka "ABS," aka "robot umpires"). In "Low-A West" there will be a pitch timer.
In High-A, pitchers will be "required to disengage the rubber prior to throwing to any base, with the penalty of a balk in the event the pitcher fails to comply." Baseball America, in explaining this rule a year ago (when it was originally going to be implemented, prior to the cancellation of the minor league season), put it thusly:
"The new rule will eliminate the Andy Pettitte-style pickoff move where a lefty hangs on his back leg before either stepping toward first base and throwing over or stepping toward home to pitch. Inside moves at second base are also prohibited by the rule change."
In Triple-A the bases will be made slightly larger, so as to avoid injuries and collisions (and to slightly decrease the distance between bases).
And, in what will surely be the most talked-about rule change, Double-A leagues will require defensive teams to "have a minimum of four players on the infield, each of whom must have both feet completely in front of the outer boundary of the infield dirt. Depending on the preliminary results of this experimental rule change, MLB may require two infielders to be positioned entirely on each side of second base in the second half of the Double-A season."
Now, remember when I implied above that these are bad ideas? Well, it turns out I was joking. Some may even call it lying. Whatever the case, the truth is that I think these ideas are mostly worthy of trying out. Maybe even worth implementing. We’ll see how it goes! But I assure you that, should the wild shifts of recent years ever go away, I will be left with no fondness for them. Nor do I have any time for the “it’s on the hitters to change their approach and beat the shift” argument that clearly hasn’t compelled anyone. (I am, however, lukewarm on the automatic strike zone, not only because I sort of like the fact that the strike zone is really just an idea rather than a specific physical space that exists, but also because I worry what that does for the development of catchers when it comes to framing pitches.)
Do I trust Rob Manfred’s MLB to correctly implement rules like these? Not really. But I think it’s worthwhile for the league to be thinking about how to make a more entertaining and aesthetically pleasing product, and to not be so hidebound by myths about a sport steeped in tradition like no other. Some traditions stink, and the idea that a team’s defensive arrangement can be so fluid as to let the sport be algorithmed to death is maybe one of them!
I’m willing to hear it out, at least.
There are, of course, bigger problems with the modern game, and I’m sure that’s where some of the resistance to these “fixes” comes from. Lower the mound or move it back and those pesky strikeouts would dissipate and the game would see a bit more action. I could live with that too, so maybe I just don’t have the same kind of attachment to the rulebook that a lot of people do.
There is also the notion, I think, that these are solutions in search of a problem. That MLB wants to please some mythical potential fan and doesn’t care about the people who love the game plenty as it is. A balance definitely needs to be struck there, but I think that’s why they’re using the minors as a place to experiment first.
Other sports tinker like this, and sometimes the result is a travesty, while most other changes are merely benign. But occasionally leagues will hit on a tweak that actually changes the sport for the better, and you don’t get that without a willingness to try. So let them try some change, I say. Then, if it doesn’t work, let them change it back.
Top image via @TorontoBlueJays