Stray Thoughts... - Hor-oh?-witz? Biggi-oh? Man. Oh? Ahh!
An uplifting series split with the Orioles has given way to a big news day for the Blue Jays as they get set to take on the A's in Oakland.
Let’s think back to a few days ago. The Toronto Blue Jays, in a season of demoralizations, may have hit their most demoralizing point. After showing signs of life through an 8-5 stretch against soft competition that rightly should have resulted in even more wins, they were dropkicked back to reality by Baltimore.
In Monday's game struggling staff ace Kevin Gausman again didn't have his best stuff, striking out just three, allowing three home runs, and a career-high 16 hard hit balls (95+ mph). In the Statcast era—i.e. since 2015—only eight pitchers have surrendered more in a single outing. Granted, most pitchers giving up that kind of contact aren't allowed to continue long enough to reach such heights, but still—that's crazy! And I suppose this means that it could have been worse. But it wasn't good: six runs, all earned, on six hits over 6 1/3 innings. And it highlighted the fundamental difference between these two teams: the Orioles have hitters up and down the lineup that can hit the ball out of the park and the Jays don't.
That's a simplification, but right now the O's have eight players on pace to top 15 home runs: Henderson (50), Rutschman (32), Santander (32), Mountcastle (27), Westburg (24), O'Hearn (21), Cowser (19), and Mullins (16).
The Blue Jays have three: Varsho (26), Schneider (18), and Vlad (18).
As an aside, that's why Jays fans seem to be especially—often annoyingly—hung up on RISP numbers. They simply can’t cash in runs without RISP hits. On Monday only one of the three homers that Gausman gave up came with a runner in scoring position, and the one Ramón Urías hit off of Ryan Burr was a solo shot. That's four runs scored without a single RISP hit required—almost the entirety of the difference in a 7-2 Baltimore win.
All this, it’s worth pointing out, is also the reason why fans understandably lose their minds when Don Mattingly correctly assesses that this is not “a club that’s just going to go out and have six, seven, eight guys hit 30 homers, that’s just not how we’re built,” then goes on to act like that's not a problem.1 Or when Ross Atkins insanely says that they “don't have to hit fifteen to thirty home runs, the first six of our guys at the top of the lineup.”
Anyway, on Tuesday it got worse. Trying to find a way to win on a bullpen day when you’re going up against one of the game’s elite starting pitchers in Corbin Burnes was never going to be a easy, but this one was particularly brutal. And, though I don’t say this often, it was no thanks to John Schneider. With two outs, runners on second, and no runs yet on the board, the Jays’ manager allowed lefty Génesis Cabrera to face the switch-hitting Adley Rutschman, even though he'd already seen the requisite three batters, and even though the O's catcher has been significantly better hitting from the right side both this year and last. A single and, after a pitching change, a Ryan effing Mountcastle home run followed; 4-0 Orioles.
Yeah, asking the day’s bulk guy—a fresh-from-the-IL Bowden Francis—to come into that situation would hardly have been ideal either. Yeah, it was only the third inning. And yeah, Francis hadn’t surpassed 3 2/3 innings in an appearance since April 1st, meaning that Schneider needed to be a little cautious not to blow through too many relievers. But come on, man. Woof.
Things didn’t get much better from there, with the game ending with a 10-1 final score. The Jays had been outscored 17-3 over two games, and if you’re the type of person inclined to use my absolute least favourite term to describe anything in the random-ass game of baseball, you might have even said they’d been outclassed.
It was at this point that, searching for a glimmer of positivity, I decided to start looking into teams to have made the playoffs in recent years despite situations as bleak as the one the Jays found themselves in. There were many examples—as I suppose you’d expect. The Jays’ playoff odds were down to about 15% by Wednesday morning, and 15% of teams in such a state should nevertheless find a way get to October. That is very obviously not nothing. But at the time, for a lot of folks, it felt like it might as well be.
My hope with the piece had been to balance out some of the bad vibes. “I think even the most frustrated fan would have to admit that—taking all the teams we’ve looked at into account—things aren't yet at the point of hopelessness here,” I wrote.
I then concluded…
That's not a great tag line for the next four months of baseball—Toronto Blue Jays baseball: it's not quite hopeless yet!—and it certainly feels like it will be a futile effort to keep on shouting “PLAY BETTER!” like we already have been for more than a full year now.
But... well... we don't seem to have a whole lot else left at this point, do we?1
Frankly, I was probably being a little dramatic here. Because it’s now two days later, and the 30-32 Blue Jays sit just three games back of the 33-29 Twins, who are holders of the third Wild Card spot in the American League. And yes, there are a number of teams that sit between them—namely the Rangers (30-32), Rays (31-31), Tigers (31-31). and Red Sox (32-31)—but it's not like all of those teams aren't also flawed. And the Jays have been the best of the bunch, including Minnesota, over both their last 20 games (11-9) and their last 10 (7-3). The White Sox and Pirates will help with a thing like that, obviously. But for all the talk in that piece of teams that needed huge winning streaks just to squeak into a playoff spot, the challenge here—while still a big one, especially when it's being asked of a club that has been so thoroughly uninspiring so far—could be far less monumental.
Whether you’ve once again shifted from “it’s so over” to “we’re so back” because of these last two games or not, all of this feels far less insane to be talking about right now than it would have on Wednesday. And how did we get here? First, a couple of badly needed one-run wins against the Orioles, taking the season series back to .500. Second, and probably more importantly, because of that little footnote at the end of my final sentence.
It read:
1 At least not until they win their next two against the O's, go to Oakland, sweep out there, and everything feels a hell of a lot different come Monday. TRYING TO MANIFEST.
Whoa, we're two-fifths of the way there
Whoa-oh, livin' on a prayer
Time for some stray thoughts…
The End of an Era
The Blue Jays' “bloodlines” era technically ended a year-and-a-half ago, when the team shipped Lourdes Gurriel Jr., whose father was an Olympic gold medalist and a legendary figure in Cuban baseball, to the Arizona Diamondbacks as part of the trade for Daulton Varsho (whose own dad was a big leaguer). But because so few fans had seen or even knew about the elder Gurriel's exploits, and because he didn't come up through the Jays' minor league system with fellow memorably-named starlets, it never really felt like he was part of that group in the same way. It was always the triumvirate: Vlad, Bo, and Cavan.
Always, that is, until today. Cavan Biggio was unceremoniously designated for assignment by the Blue Jays on Friday evening, freeing up a spot on the active roster for the promotion of Spencer Horwitz.
It certainly is a choice.
Not one I'm troubled by, mind you. But one that a lot of fans already seem to be puzzling over, I think understandably. It’s surprising that we’re here, just 131 plate appearances after Biggio finished 2023 having hit to a 117 wRC+ over the season’s final five months. It’s also surprising given how recently Biggio was framed as being a huge part of the Blue Jays' future by the people in charge.
Back in November of 2021, just as front office was starting to think seriously about how best to screw up their outstanding lineup—mission accomplished, boys!—GM Ross Atkins said this on an episode of At the Letters:
There's really strong bullpens that are built, especially in the AL East. You look at the Yankees' and the Rays' bullpens, and the way that they were able to attack our very good right-handed lineup was less than ideal. That's OK. That's not our problem. But someone asked me the question, if possible could you have more balance or maybe potentially another left-handed hitter—I'm excited about Cavan Biggio, and I know he's going to be back closer to the '19 and '20 version of himself; he didn’t with the injuries and the setbacks this year. I'm really excited about his complement. He's the solution. He's a huge part of the solution for us.
It's not just the handedness—I think I talked about that as well—it's, we're fine with aggression, I love to see players that are extremely aggressive. Also love it when players have 10-pitch at-bats. And Vladdy's able to do both of those things. And Cavan's someone that would really complement some of our lineup, sometimes based on who we're facing, because of the ability to really hone in and be patient.
Now, obviously a GM is always going to be positive about his players, and it’s not like like late 2021 was that recent. But we’ve come a long way, baby.
So, why Biggio?
To answer that question let me pose another question: Had they kept him, where and when were they going to play him?
Now let me pose an even better question: Had they kept him, where and when were they going to play him once Addison Barger is inevitably called up as well?
The Blue Jays right now are so desperate for any kind of offence that they’re letting Vlad play third base in order to get Dan Vogelbach’s bat in the lineup—and it’s a move that makes sense. Jays fans may not be enamored of Vogelbach at the moment, and his 78 wRC+ is worse than Biggio's right now. But he's been a little better lately, he’s got a much stronger track record, and he's got a bit of power—something this lineup desperately needs.
Vogelbach is also a candidate to be let go if Horwitz starts well and a move needs to be made to bring Barger up. Biggio, meanwhile, no longer shows the power he once had, with his ISO dropping from .195 in his rookie season of 2019, to more like .140 since 2021, down to just .091 this year. And while that's been going on his strikeout rate has been increasing, his walk rate has gone down fairly significantly, and his marks against fastballs have gotten worse.
In time might he be able to turn these things around and end up with another inconsistent-yet-league average-ish season? Yeah, maybe. But how helpful to this team is that, really?
And then there’s the glove. Biggio is a versatile defender, and may even be more than just an adequate fielder at some spots, but he’s not what you’d call an asset in the field. Plus, now you’ve got Vlad sneaking in some games at third base, Horwitz possibly seeing time at second (and he’s also played in the outfield, though primarily in left), and Barger knocking at the door with his cannon of an arm—a much better candidate to have in right field or at third base, who probably will give you more at the dish anyway, also hits from the left side, and if nothing else should be able to smash a few mistakes out of the park thanks to his elite bat speed.
And as far as keeping Clement over Biggio, I imagine that Ernie’s speed, baserunning, and ability to play shortstop—or to provide very good late-inning defence somewhere if, say, Vlad was at third or Horwitz was at second—gave him an edge, even if the bat hasn’t held up its own end of the bargain yet.
So, yeah, it’s a weird one. A strange end to what we all hoped would be a better story. A sign of what may be to come for other Jays we’ve known for a long time, both as the trade deadline and 2025 approach. And also a chance for a fresh start for Cavan, who should find a landing spot where he can get more playing time than was going to be available for him here.
But the writing, I think, was on the wall. Even if I do have to admit that I wasn’t seeing it myself until the move was actually announced.
Quickly…
• I should note here that Biggio came into this season with four years and 129 days of big league service time, meaning that he needed only 43 more days on the active roster to reach five years—a point at which point he became able to refuse a minor league assignment. Had the Jays done this before mid-May they could have simply optioned him to Buffalo.
• As for Horwitz, according to reporters with the team in Oakland, manager John Schneider says that he could end up playing three to five times per week. He’s not in the lineup here on Friday, but that’s only because the Jays are stacking right-handed batters against Oakland left-hander Hogan Harris. Also, I presume—or at least hope!—because it’s really, really funny to make the people who’d get mad at a thing like that mad.
• You can’t say that Horwitz hasn’t earned his shot. I still find the lack of power and the way his numbers tracked when he was called up to the majors last year dubious, but there's not much more you can do than being the fourth-best hitter in Triple-A baseball, with a 154 wRC+, a .335/.456/.514 line, a 17% walk rate, and more walks than strikeouts. Steamer projects him to post a 119 wRC+ in the major leagues the rest of the way (ZiPS is at a more modest 113). The former mark, if he hit on it, would be better than all Blue Jays currently, except for Vlad, Jansen, and Schneider.
• Moving on, normally I wouldn’t shove a piece of news like this down here but, a) as I’m writing this we’re getting dangerously close to game time and, b) there’s not much to say about it anyway, except that it really sucks. Prior to Friday’s game, John Schneider told reporters in Oakland that Alek Manoah will undergo surgery for his UCL tear on June 17th. They won't know until the knife is in whether full-blown Tommy John will be required of if they will opt for a newfangled “internal brace” procedure. Cody Stavenhagen of the Athletic (never heard of it) wrote all about this back in April, explaining that in athletes who have not completely torn their UCL they’ll have what's left of the ligament “reinforced with a tape-like suture that is anchored into the humerus and ulna.” Lucas Giolito and Trevor Story have opted for this route in recent years, though it's said that the brace often makes more sense for younger players, who have sustained less ligament damage overall. Either way, Manoah won't be back this season. Oof.
• Lastly…
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I still say justice for Diamond Don.
It's the summer of singles, baby! I hope you hate homers because we BABIP-ing our way to WC3!!!
So I'm the guy that said this would be a breakout, all-star season for Cavan Biggio. Can I get some ketchup with my plate of crow?