Stray Thoughts... - A Hot Mess
On a fun victory, another rotation mess, Straw, Scherzer, Varsho, Buxton?, Vlad, Bieber, Yimi, Cease, Sean Keys, Davis Schneider, Springer, and more!
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Well that certainly was better, wasn’t it? The Jays rolled into Boston and put up a six-spot against the Red Sox—including three runs in five innings against flamethrowing starter Payton Tolle, who entered the game sporting a ridiculous 2.70 ERA—behind an inefficient yet spectacular Dylan Cease, who lasted only five himself but allowed no runs while striking out seven.
Cease continues to lead the AL in strikeouts with 110, despite his recent spell on the injured list. He also trails only Jacob Misiorowski in terms of strikeout rate among qualified starters—which at 36.3% is well above third-place Paul Skenes at 30.4%—and even has a slight edge on him in terms of K/9 rate (13.56 to 13.55).
The man who sported an ERA above 4.50 in two of his previous seasons now sits at 2.71 in his first year with the Blue Jays.
Meanwhile, Vlad still looks lost, but Springer seems to genuinely be coming around, Giménez added a home run and a double, Myles Straw played some great defence and put together the best at-bat we’ve seen in ages, and Davis Schneider continued his hot return from the minors with a double and a blast of his own.
Yeah, the Red Sox may be bad. Sure, it maybe got a touch hairy in the eighth when Louis Varland had to be called in. And, in case you haven’t heard yet, tonight’s game is already looking like a mess (more on that below). But this was still was a good one. This was one worth savouring.
Ahhh…
Seriously though!
DON’T LET THIS TEAM GET HOT! (UGH, OR HEALTHY.)
Breaking: Max Scherzer
Well, I’d like to see ol Maxxy Scherz wriggle his way out of THIS jam!
*Scherzer wriggles his way out of the jam easily*
Ah! Well. Nevertheless,
With potentially mere hours left in his historic, Hall of Fame career, Max Scherzer has avoided the big awkward conversation in the sky yet again, as he had a back spasm flare up over the weekend and has been removed from his scheduled start here on Wednesday and placed on the 15-day IL. Chad Dallas has been recalled from Buffalo to take his place on the roster. Brayden Fisher will start tonight at Fenway Park in his place. Simeon Woods Richardson is surely on standby after several days of rest. And Shane Bieber looms after getting up to 80 pitches in a rehab start today for Buffalo.
Bieber may not quite be ready yet. He was averaging 91.8 on his fastball, which topped out at 93.0, and lasted five innings. But he allowed five earned runs on seven hits and four walks, with a pair of balls leaving the yard, while racking up only just two strikeouts.
And Scherzer may not quite be done yet, either. The Jays obviously have all kinds of time for him, and he clearly feels like he’s still got something left in the tank if his body will ever let him show it.
But that’s sort of the thing. Finding fitness at 41 years old as a major league pitcher is difficult in any circumstance, and vastly more difficult once you start actively breaking down on the regular. Scherzer isn’t just fighting his body here, either. He’s fighting the fact that keeping him around is becoming more trouble than it’s worth, considering how often these last-minute scratches and exits keep happening—as well as the blow-ups in the games where he’s actually been healthy enough to take the ball.
The Jays are consistently taxing their already overtaxed bullpen for the dream of a guy with a 10.23 ERA this season, and a 10.10 ERA over his last 11 regular season starts.
Hell, even if you include the playoffs it’s an 8.46 ERA over 14 starts.
It sucks, but it is what it is.
Regarding Bieber, while you’d obviously prefer a prettier line, obviously that wasn’t really what he was out there for. He will apparently rejoin the club and his next steps will be determined in the coming days. With Scherzer’s spot suddenly vacant, it seems fairly logical what happens next.
It appears that the Patrick Corbin experience lives on to fight another day, too.
Would have been nice if this decision could have been made sooner, guys!
“Bring Me the Head of Yimi García”
Another player who lives to fight another day here is probably Tommy Nance. Or SWR.
Reliever Yimi García is just about ready to return to action after nearly a full calendar year out injured. According to pre-game comments from John Schneider here on Tuesday, Yimi will go back to Buffalo for one more rehab game on Thursday, then will rejoin the club for the first time since last July 2nd.
And that outing itself—a two-hit, two-walk, two-run disasterclass that saw him surrender a game-tying two-run home run to Aaron Judge thanks to an ill-advised decision not to intentionally walk him (but which García ended up as the winning pitcher in regardless, affer the Jays scratched back two runs off of Devin Williams in the bottom of the eighth and went on to win 11-9—was his first appearance off the injured list since May 22nd.
Had Scherzer been fit to start it might have had some bearing on who would be dropped when Yimi is ready to return. Could they afford to let go of SWR if Scherzer looked like he still could use a caddy, or worse? Would the end of the road finally come for the nice little story that has been Tommy Nance?
Neither of those options would have been great for the Jays, I don’t think. But now the question has changed with Dallas in the mix.
Any one of those three could potentially lose their spots when García is ready. Though, because he can be optioned and kept in the organization (while the others can’t), Dallas seems like he’ll be the most likely to go. (Though I wouldn’t put it past SWR to pitch his way out of the job, based on how awful he looked earlier this year in Minnesota!)
Stirring the Drink
OK, OK, back to last night for a second.
Now, I don’t want to go overboard in praise of a guy with an 81 wRC+, who has seen his ability to pull the ball in the air tumble back toward earth…
… and whose defensive numbers are surprisingly low this season—especially considering the fact that he clearly hasn’t lost a step or anything.
But Myles Straw’s gruelling 14-pitch at-bat in the third inning sure was a thing of beauty, wasn’t it? Fighting off pitch after pitch after pitch, perfectly attuned to the zone, never relenting, pushing Tolle’s pitch count as high as he could, and ultimately getting a long fly ball to centre that was able to move Andrés Giménez over to third base—an outcome that, on way too many occasions, manager John Schneider would have preferred to achieve by way of a simple, wasteful sacrifice bunt.
You love to see it. And, in fact you can go watch the whole at bat here, via MLB Film Room.
The clip is five minutes and 38 seconds! LOL
Now, one at-bat and a couple of highlight reel plays maybe doesn’t make you think that Straw is a better option in centre field for the Jays than the currently injured Daulton Varsho—though I did some chatter to that effect on the ol’ timeline last night—but it certainly heightens your appreciation for the guy.
And considering all that, considering what a glue guy he reportedly is—I’ll forgive him for steering Okamoto toward choosing fucking Iris as a walk-up song—and considering their contract situations, I do wonder if Straw will end up being the one of the pair who says a member of the club for longer.
I’m not here to run down a guy who’s out injured, but despite having been a net positive value player throughout his time here, Varsho simply continues to underwhelm. This year he’s given up the trade-everything-for-power approach that netted him a 123 wRC+ last season (albeit with a .284 on-base) and become a more complete hitter who still manages to pretty much suck. Or who, at least, feels like he sucks. A guy who spends altogether too much time sucking, is perhaps the best way to put it.
I suppose I can’t turn my nose up at .256/.331/.408 overall. He’s been an above average hitter this year. It’s just so up and down, so inconsistent—probably because he so often seems to be hurt. Add in poor speed, declining defensive metrics, and a contract that’s up at the end of the year, and I just don’t know what you do with the guy.
Except,... actually I sort of think I do know, which is that you give him the qualifying offer at the end of the season and quietly kind of hope he doesn’t take it. Spare us the extension talk, please!
And the Jays, at least theoretically, could render all that talk moot earlier than expected if they could find a way to do something exceptionally bold. Here on Wednesday, ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel and Jeff Passan have released their list of the top 100 trade deadline candidates, and way up at number two they have a perfect option for Ross Atkins and company to go all-in for, even if they don’t list the Jays among his top fits: Twins centre fielder Byron Buxton.
We’ll have time in the coming weeks to talk about that (remote) possibility. I’m just saying, that solves next year’s CF problem instantly—and the following year’s—and would give that Jays an instant impact right-handed bat.
Sure, he’d be a massive addition for anyone, especially considering he’s currently owed just $15 million per season through the end of 2028. And he’s got no-trade protection, so I’m not sure why I’m even talking about this in a section that’s ostensibly about Straw. But once again, I’m just saying!
Meanwhile, the addition of a guy like Buxton likely wouldn’t even impact what the Jays would do with Straw—who has an $8 million option for next year, which the Guardians are covering $1.75 million of. And if they don’t find an alternative to Varsho, I think it’s even more likely that Straw sticks around.
Obviously spending $6.25 million on a backup wouldn’t be the most efficient use of money, but part of the luxury of being a top spender is that you can be inefficient with your money when you think the situation is right. Given the intangibles he brings, and the uncertainty they have at the position, I could see them doing it—sort of in the same way that they acted fairly quickly to add Kevin Kiermaier in December 2022, wanting to ensure they at least had some coverage out there at such a critical defensive spot.
Food for thought!
Be the Change You Want to See
• Dylan Cease’s new work-in-progress changeup wasn’t exactly at its best on Tuesday night, as he struggled to get close to the zone with the pitch—as you can see below.
Yet, despite these struggles—and, to be fair, the chart here is a bit deceptive, because the pitch doesn’t move like most changeups, and his intention wasn’t to have it fall off the table and out of the zone, for example—he still managed to get a whiff every time a Red Sox hitter swung at the pitch.
In this game that meant just three whiffs, but so far the rate has been the thing. According to an excellent new piece from Jared Greenspan of MLB.com that focuses on the pitch, heading into last night’s game it was already producing the second-highest whiff rate of any changeup in baseball (min. 25 swings).
The piece highlights the unique nature of the pitch, and walks us through Cease’s previous attempts to add a changeup, how unserious they were, and how serious he is about getting it right this time. And clearly Greenspan thinks he—and the Jays’ development staff, who get a ton of credit here—are on the right track here, titling the piece, “New pitch has Cease in the Cy Young conversation.”
Changeups are designed to do one of two things: run away from a hitter or dive beneath a hitter’s bat. Cease’s changeup does neither. It drops 9.6 inches less than comparable changeups (based on velocity and release point), which is the lowest among all qualified changeups. It is effectively a “riding” changeup. In fact, Cease’s changeup averages 15.7 inches of induced vertical break (IVB), or carry. The average four-seam fastball from a right-handed pitcher has 16.0 inches of IVB.
Interesting stuff! Worth reading the whole thing!
We love our unique offerings, don’t we?
Quickly…
• Vladdy watched three four-seamers go by during his three plate appearances against Payton Tolle on Tuesday and… yeah…
• At least the one, which came on a 1-0 count with two outs in the top of the fifth, was a reasonable enough take. But the others were, 1) a 2-1 pitch to absolutely hammer in the top of the first with Springer on base with one out (Vlad would swing at the next pitch—a cutter out of the zone—and ground into a fielder’s choice), and, 2) a 2-2 pitch to end the top of the fifth with Springer on second.
• At least George is coming around—he’s slashing .353/.520/.706 in 25 plate appearances over his last week—because Vladdy is still lost, man. It sucks!
• I don’t want to pick on anyone specific, and I don’t want to come off too much like a guy who hates fun, but I saw on Tuesday that some people were riffing about guys who lost the Blue Jays the World Series during the Jeff Hoffman-Isiah Kiner-Falefa at-bat and… like… I just think it sucks that there are guys who it’s acceptable to say that about and guys who it’s not acceptable to say that about. Because there were more than just two plays that happened in that game. They lost as a team. (A team, I should add, that went 4-for-26 with runners in scoring position in games six and seven!)
• I know, I know, I made a big deal in yesterday’s post about hating RISP numbers, and then I just used some there. But there’s a difference between using them to talk about a single game (or two) and using them as meaningful in some big picture kind of way! They do describe things that happened pretty well!
• Ehhhhh! Mama mia! Pizza, lasagna, gabagool! (I’m sorry, trying to delete, please don’t call me a mangia-cake.)
• Sean Keys may be yet another left-handed hitting outfielder in the Blue Jays’ fold, but… uh… we’re getting to the point where we might start having to talk about him.
• I’m pretty sure I’m always going to find the whole Davis Schneider thing that people have somewhat off-putting, innocuous as it may be. But will that stop me from enjoying the hell out of Davis Schneider when he’s hitting like he has in the last couple of games? Absolutely not! Love to see his success, and the Jays sure could use some more righty thump, couldn’t they?
• Brandon Valenzuela taking some grounders at first base in order to keep getting his bat in the lineup? Interesting, but my galaxy brained idea would be to have the guy who already plays at first base actually start hitting enough for such schemes not to matter.
• OK, would you look at the time! That’s just about it for this one, but… lastly… I know I’ve been down on ol’ Mad Max a bit lately, which is why this clip of Buck Showalter talking about his relationship with him was a really good and timely reminder—via a tweet from @iadoreBjs—of how awesome Scherzer is, and how cool it is that the Jays and their fans have had the chance to be a part of his career—wherever it goes from here. (If anywhere!)
• COULD GET WEIRD OUT THERE TONIGHT, BOYS! HOW ABOUT WE SOLVE ALL THAT BY SCORING EARLY AND OFTEN?? I’M TALKING RUNNNNNNS. LET’S GO!!!! STAY HOT!!!
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I had to lookup Sean Keys. My goodness is he ever tearing up the minors! I just don't see anyway there's room for a corner infielder on this Jays roster. He's never played the outfield in the minors.
"I’m pretty sure I’m always going to find the whole Davis Schneider thing that people have somewhat off-putting, innocuous as it may be."
Pretty happy I have no idea what the hell this is about.