Stray Thoughts... - Land of 10,000 Rakes
On petty gripes, playoff rosters, lefty-righty matchups, Twins relievers, Pablo López, Royce Lewis, tipping pitches, Jay Jackson, the radio broadcast, minor moves, pre-game reads, PLAYOFFS!!1! & more!
The Toronto Blue Jays have made it through the regular season and are set to get their playoff campaign underway at 4:38 PM ET here on Tuesday at Target Field in Minneapolis. Congratulations to them! And congratulations as well to the large number of Jays fans who I can only conclude have finally made it through watching their first season of Major League Baseball.
You did it!
I'll try to keep the finger wagging to a minimum, but I'll also be honest here. Barring some kind of dazzling run through October—which they're certainly capable of, provided they make it through this coin flip of a series with the AL Central champs (FanGraphs gives the Jays a 51% chance of victory, despite having to play on the road)—I'm probably going to remember this season less as “the one where the offence went missing,” and more as “the one where they pitched their asses off and nobody appreciated it because they were too busy indulging their worst, most doomsaying instincts—and not having them pushed back on nearly enough.”
OK, the title is a little clunky. I'll work on it. But in the meantime, I'm going to be thinking about how many times I put down my phone, turned off my laptop, and chose to do literally anything else but engage in the discourse around the team this year.
I know that stuff is never good when the team loses, but it really felt like the worst of it was especially loud, and that the “I'm a fan so I can't be criticized for pummelling people with my insane overreactions WHAT ELSE DO YOU EXPECT” ethos was way too prevalent. The can be a ton of room still for fan frustration without it feeling like an uphill battle to try say something like, “the entire history of the sport tells us that this thing is almost entirely random and will even out.” Or without feeling like you're going to get snapped at, or called a “Wilner,” for questioning whether anyone has a clue what a hitting coach actually does. We can do both. I believe in us.
Part of it, I understand, was the brand of baseball this team “entertained” us with, and the fact that almost every game felt like it was being played on a knife's edge. The Jays were in the top five in MLB for high-leverage plate appearances both when pitching and when hitting. And they were in the middle of the pack in terms of home runs and runs scored, which on a lot of nights made it feel like a comeback was impossible.
But how much of that was true, and how much was a byproduct of how down people allowed themselves to get on this team? I'm not entirely sure. (The Jays were also in the middle of the pack for comeback wins, putting together as many as the Rays, more than the Astros and Mariners, and just two fewer than the never-out-of-it bats of the Texas Rangers).
Part of this is possibly just also down to my own experience. I see a lot through the lens of Twitter, and as that site breaks down and communities on it fracture, what's left over is simply different than it was before. Surprisingly, though, I'd probably say that this year's ride on the ol' discourse train was less caustic than usual. People were out there being very supportive of each other's right to try to make everyone else miserable as they are through the use of constant, overpowering negativity as a defence mechanism! HEYO!
Anyway, today's a good day, so I'll start wrapping up my petty gripes here. It's just wild to me that a tweet like this...
…can still be met with replies that amount to “yeah but they can’t beat good teams” or “actually they’re shit.”
It’s wild to me, given the tenor of the conversation about him all year, to read in the Jays' updated media guide that “John Schneider has gone 135-101 since taking over as Toronto's Manager last July. The .572 win% is the highest all-time by a Blue Jays Manager through his first two seasons (2nd: Cito Gaston - .566).”
It’s wild to me that anyone would have been surprised, let alone upset, at how the team handled Sunday’s game. And wilder still that folks were out there booing poor Wes Parsons, undoubtedly convincing themselves that they were booing the manager or “the situation.”
I’ve hesitated all year to use the mocking “is it your first season?” thing that I did at the top of this post because the majority of people are not like the ones I’m talking about, plus it’s gatekeep-y and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a new fan. Welcome! Get excited! PLAYOFFS!!!!!1!! But the ferocity with which otherwise intelligent people believe things they can’t possibly know, or aren’t willing to see the counter to—and the way that they come to see certain people as villains, because they can’t accept that, year after year, over and over and over, weird stuff just happens in this sport and things take a long time to reveal themselves—has been a real drag. Again, none of this is new, but it sure has seemed abundant. It’s sometimes felt like swimming against the tide in a sea of those weirdos who go blind with rage if you tell them “it’s early” any time after April 29th. I’ve always said, I don’t mind if you’re wrong, and I don’t mind if you’re a bit of an asshole, but never both.
I hope to hell the Jays smash the Twins and go on a run this month, so all these misanthropes will have to pretend like the regular season never happened. Also, of course, because… go Jays!
Here are today’s stray thoughts…
Let me be honest with you for a second here, friends. This site keeps the lights on for me, but it isn’t a cash cow. And I could live a lot more comfortably than I do right now if I was willing to put some or all of my work behind a paywall and push a bunch readers who are on the fence into becoming paid subscribers. The thing is, I know that times are tough for a lot of people and I really don’t want to become inaccessible to anyone who enjoys reading and couldn’t or wouldn’t pay. So please, if you can afford it, and you value what I do and aren’t already a paid subscriber, I’d ask that you consider upgrading your free subscription to a paid one.
Thanks. — Stoeten
Rosterbation
The Jays have announced their wild card series roster and it’s pretty unsurprising!
Hyun Jin Ryu’s name is the big one that’s missing, but obviously the Jays won’t need a fifth starter in a three-game series, so that’s completely expected. And this doesn’t necessarily spell the end of his Blue Jays career, as Ryu may end up a factor if the Jays make it to the next round. Game one of the ALDS will take place on Saturday in Houston, and if the Jays are in it they’ll potentially have a decision to make. Kevin Gausman’s regular turn won’t come up again until Sunday, and it seems very possible—given the left-handed and switch-hitting options the Twins have—that Yusei Kikuchi will get some usage out of the bullpen in these next couple of days. If the series in Minnesota goes three games, and Kikuchi is needed for multiple innings, Ryu may yet get the call.
This, of course, is part of the reason why you want to win your division and get that bye into the second round. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.
Making it on the roster at Ryu's expense—or the expense of Bowden Francis, who had a case to be given a spot—is Cam Eden, who will be used in the Dalton Pompey role of pinch-running weapon. Theoretically there were also cases to leave Davis Schneider or Santiago Espinal off, but Espinal is really the only guy who can comfortably back up at shortstop (and he's hit well lately when asked to), and Schneider showed too much all season to be discounted due to his recent cold streak.
The Twins have figured out their bullpen over the course of the season, so their overall numbers are not particularly meaningful, as many of the guys who inflated them are no longer there. But left-handed relief is definitely a weak point that a well-placed Schneider pinch-hit appearance could potentially exploit. Which... well, since we're on the subject, here are the players that the Twins will be bringing to the dance:
You will immediately notice that both Royce Lewis (hasn’t played since September 19th) and Carlos Correa (hasn’t played since September 18th) are on there, and hopefully about to put in some rusty performances over the next couple of days. Byron Buxton is not. But let’s not leave these lefty relievers just yet.
The only two on there are Caleb Thielbar and Kody Funderburk. These guys average 93 and 92 on their fastballs, respectively.
Thielbar was very good last season and has a tidy ERA this year, but his strikeout numbers have ticked down, he's been homer prone (2.05 HR/9), crushed by right-handed hitters (.258/.319/.621), and is largely skating by on an 88.5% strand rate. He's also not particularly good at elevating the fastball.
Funderburk only has 12 MLB innings to his credit, but he pitched very well in Triple-A this season, and does tend to elevate the fastball—which can be an issue for Schneider, of course. He also struck out Schneider in a game on May 31st in Buffalo, but needed a couple of tight called strikes to do it. Nice 12 innings or not, if I'm Davis, I'm licking my chops if I get another chance to face this guy.
It is indeed official that Schneider will start game one from the bench, along with Whit Merrifield, Espinal, and pretty much everyone else you’d expect.
Kiermaier hitting in the seven spot is somewhat interesting, as he’s only done so six times this season. However, his two most recent times there were in Thursday’s 6-0 win over the Yankees and Friday’s 11-4 romp over the Rays. The lineup for game one is, in fact, identical to those two big victories.
Plus there’s this:
Also noticeable here is the kind of left-right balance that the Jays sought last winter, and for the two years’ previous. It could especially help against the Twins’ game one starter, right-hander Pablo López, who the Jays tagged for four runs on five hits and three walks over 5 2/3 innings back at the end of May. That game included three hits from Bo Bichette, including a homer, but Cavan Biggio—who hadn’t even started having sex at that point of the season!—also went deep. López has struggled with left-handed hitters this season (.327 wOBA), so the Jays are throwing every one they’ve got at him today.
López has also struggled at home (4.21 ERA), but has been especially good in the second half (3.36 ERA), and his 4.5 fWAR ranks 10th in baseball—trailing only Gausman and teammate Sonny Gray among pitchers in this series. This season he's added a splitter to his repertoire, which he throws 36% of the time when ahead in the count to right-handed hitters, meaning that you know Vladdy's going to have an ugly swing or two at some point.
It won’t get any easier in game two, when right-hander Sonny Gray takes the hill, but we can look at him tomorrow.
What we should still look at today is how the Twins are lining up.
The Twins have been sneaky good offensively this year—sneaky good at everything, in fact. We may all be able to smell the stench of their AL Central crown from here, but if you look at their numbers against playoff teams or teams above .500, they’ve been good. Better than the Jays in just about every way you’d want to slice it. And while I don’t think that particularly matters—the way I see it is that beating better teams is something the Jays didn’t do, not couldn’t do—don’t let the fact that there’s no Buxton, or that Correa has been below league average this year, or that there aren’t a lot of “names” on the roster fool you. Kevin Gausman will be in tough.
He’s always in tough against the Twins, I suppose. But this lineup, in particular, could prove tricky.
Polanco is a switch hitter, and Julien, Kepler, Kiriloff, and Wallner all hit from the left side, and Gausman has strugled with lefties more than right-handed hitters this season. He certainly hasn't been bad (3.52 FIP, .317 wOBA), but coupled with the Twins' success against him and it's a concern. GET KIKUCHI ON STANDBY!
Excitement awaits!
Quickly…
• The issue with Kevin Gausman and the Twins isn’t just that he’s struggled to have success, of course. It’s that there was chatter last season that Gausman may have been tipping his pitches against them. Or somebody may have been. Sportsnet’s Joe Siddall offers some intriguing insight…
• RHP Jay Jackson has cleared waivers and accepted his outright assignment to Buffalo. Though, the Buffalo part is really only a paper move, as the Athletic’s Kaitlyn McGrath tells us that Jackson is part of the Jays’ taxi squad and is with the club in Minnesota. He’ll be eligible to be recalled should an injury occur. Otherwise he’ll have to wait a bit:
• Nice to see Sportsnet’s Ben Wagner, the radio voice of the Blue Jays, tweeting from Target Field this morning. *COUGH*
• Royce Lewis was the first overall draft pick for the Twins way back in 2017, but injuries and the pandemic really threw a wrench into his development. Lewis didn't play competitively in 2020, then missed all of 2021 after tearing his ACL in February of that year. Then in late May of 2022, he tore the same ACL again, requiring season-ending surgery. He proved to be worth the wait, slashing .309/.372/.548 (155 wRC+) over just 58 games this year, smashing 15 home runs in the process. Activated from the IL today, he'll play in this series, and DH in game one. But he's clearly not quite right—something the Jays will need to take advantage of. He's a potential game-changer.
• Semi-lastly, here are some pre-game reads for you, as playoff time gets closer and closer. I previewed the Jays-Twins series for Blue Jays Happy Hour Episode 118 with Nick Ashbourne on Monday night, which you can have a listen to via the link above. Today, Nick’s got a pair of great ones for Yahoo to dig into: in one he looks into how dangerous an opponent the Twins are going to be for the Jays, and in the other he makes the case for giving José Berríos the ball over Chris Bassitt in game two. Elsewhere, D.M. Fox’s Future Blue Jays newsletter puts a bow on the end of the minor league season, looking at a Vancouver championship, Ricky Tiedemann’s Triple-A debut, AFL rosters, notes from around the system, and much more. Meanwhile, Travis Sawchik of theScore tries to figure out which team could be this year’s version of the Phillies—and guess what? It’s a team playing in the Jays-Twins series!
• Lastly, the Replacements suck. LET’S DO THISSSSSSSSSSSSS.
⚾ Be sure to follow me on Twitter // Follow the Batflip on Facebook // Want to support without going through Substack? You could always send cash to stoeten@gmail.com on Paypal or via Interac e-Transfer. I assure you I won’t say no. ⚾