Category: pitching
The First Six’s Good, Bad & Ugly
Well, 6 games in and we’ve already seen the highs and lows of an entire season here in Jays Fan Land, it might seem. A couple of wins make the team look like the reincarnation of the ’61 Bronx bombers – everything they were not last year – and a win last night down to their last out showed an exciting “never say die” quality to them. On the other hand, in two losses they had a hard time mustering a hit, let alone a run, and in the other loss… well we won’t go there. Other than to say so much for the pre-game feeling of “we’re lucky Justin Verlander’s on the IL still and they have this no-name Ronel Blanco filling in! With Verlander, you never know if he’s going to throw a no-hitter!…”
All in all,a 3-3 record to begin the year isn’t bad, given that all the games have been on the road and against opponents who finished last year with more wins than the Jays. But the team needs to do better than “isn’t bad” for the remaining 156 to make it a worthwhile season.
A few quick thoughts – some things to like:
Justin Turner – JT said he planned to come to town and earn respect, not just be revered because of his 15 season history and 2020 World Series ring. Well, so far, mission accomplished! After his first game, where he was kept at bay by Tampa, he’s 7 for 16. he’s already had two 3-hit games, including last night’s and he’s added a walk in both of those games as well. Two of last night’s three hits were doubles. For the first time in some time, Toronto has a real DH that hits like a DH.
Jose Berrios – Gausman’s wonky shoulder early on in spring led to Berrios being the Opening Day starter. So far, he’s looking like a guy worthy of that title. In both of his starts, he’s gone 6 innings, pitched 88 and 91 pitches (strong for first week of season) and has allowed 2 runs (win against Tampa) and last night, just one despite being kept on his feet all night after allowing 6 hits and 3 walks. He’s pitching well but more importantly, pitching like a champion. Anyone can win when everything’s working. Only some of the best can keep the team in the “W” column when the opponent’s seem to “have his number”.
Vladimir Guerrero – he’s had good games at the plate and a couple of bad ones, But he’s taken 5 walks already, showing maybe he’s relying more on his good eye for the strike zone than he did last season. And his one homer was a 450 foot blast to centerfield, sixth longest of his whole career.
Some things not to like as much :
Infield Defence – Justin Turner’s been hitting like a champ but has already made two errors at third base… not good when he’s only had three balls to handle so far! JT may be best suited to an everyday DH, and not as much a backup third baseman. That’s why we have Biggio anyway and the likes of Addison Barger in AAA behind Kiner-Falefa. And let’s not even delve into why Bo Bichette, who looked decent last year in the field has regressed and already made three errors in just four games.
Bowden Francis – actually, half and half with Francis. In his start, his first in the Bigs, he went past 5 innings, and threw 61 of his 78 pitches for strikes. He’s clearly challenging the hitters, Sadly, they were answering his challenge, clipping ten hits including three homers off him in what would be a 10-0 debacle of a loss. Basically, when infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa is the most effective pitcher on the night for you, thats a night not to repeat. Francis has decent pitches and obviously, a good control of them. Now he needs to get the mental part of the game down and out-think the hitters if he wants to stay in the rotation, and that said..
Pitching Depth – we’ve hammered this subject about into the ground, but who is next on the depth chart if Francis falters again or a starter gets injured? Mitch White? Maybe, he’s much improved over his 2022, early-’23 version but he’s also useful as a long man in the bullpen now. Why the team didn’t sign at least one more good starting pitcher this off-season is as big a mystery now as it was when Spring Training began (and there were still free agent pitchers for the signing.)
Well, let’s see what the next six games bring!
No Worries, We Just Like To Make Sure Our MRI Doesn’t Get Dusty
Is it me or is this quickly beginning to look like a lost season for Toronto, thanks to the inactivity of Ross Atkins this past winter? Now, it’s valid to point out that it doesn’t pay to put too much into the first few games of Spring Training. Many of the players on the field on a given day aren’t going to be in the big league squad come April, and some of the regulars are trying a few new things – a new pitch here, new batting stance there – to evaluate if it will help or not. So, on one level, that as of this morning the Jays are 2-7, worst in the Grapefruit League, isn’t of huge concern. Even though the two best teams in that “league” so far have been Baltimore (9-1 and obviously, last year’s division winner in our AL East) and Boston (7-2). Nor should we be burning our caps yet just because the team’s run differential, at -19, is second worst among the 15 teams playing currently in Florida. But there are a couple of things that do seem of some concern.
First, they still seem to be having a lot of difficulty scoring enough runs; can’t put together the string of at bats to pull off a big inning. Of course, the lack of hitting was what really sank them in 2023. No one slotted in to play Second Base or Third this spring so far looks like they want to take the job and run with it… Cavan Biggio, Davis Schneider, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Eduardo Escobar… all have had a good at bat or two but none have seemed like they’re going to be anything more than a merely passable major leaguer this season. Not what you want on a team contending for a championship supposedly. And it’s difficult to suggest that this was totally unforeseeable. While the likes of Matt Chapman, Brandon Belt and Whit Merrifield left an already so-so at best lineup of hitters, all the team did to fortify was bring in DH Justin Turner. A good player to add, but hardly a replacement for the three.
But worse, we have the pitching. Now, while most of the “regulars”, starters and relievers sure of a spot on the roster, have looked good, But there are two striking caveats to that – Alek Manoah and now, Kevin Gausman.
Manoah was flat out bad in his Spring debut this year, going 1 1/3 innings, throwing more balls than strikes, hitting three batters (a Manoah trademark sure to come back and bite Toronto batters in the butt … or face when opponents tire of it and retaliate), and gave up four runs. Of course, he said the predictable things about feeling great and the team beamed with pride over his velocity being up about 1 MPH from last year but any thinking fan who saw him struggle last year would have difficulty taking anything positive out of it. The kicker, as we know, was this past Saturday, when manager John Schneider unprompted, started a news conference by telling the media Manoah “didn’t really bounce back the way he wanted” after the game and has a “cranky shoulder” but reassuring everyone an MRI shows “no structural damage.” He hasn’t pitched since and his next outing is undetermined.
Today the team piled on more bad news, saying the staff ace, Gausman won’t throw in the bullpen as scheduled because of “general fatigue in his throwing shoulder” but, you guessed it an MRI shows “no structural concerns and no injury.” Many, including me, had wondered why he hadn’t started a Spring game yet this year but the team, as of yesterday had claimed it was his preference to get a few simulated games in before taking the mound against real opponents… and who’s going to argue with the guy who finished in the top 3 of Cy Young voting and led the league in strikeouts last year. Today it seems a lot more suspicious of an answer from them.
The Manoah news made me think, flat out “Someone’s lying here”, but I wasn’t sure who. Was Manoah fine and just claiming to be in pain to explain his bad outing and perhaps pre-emptively explain future poor showings? Was the team looking for a ready excuse to prevent a debacle like last year’s when he refused to report to Buffalo after being demoted to the minors? Or was he really seriously injured and they don’t want to discourage fans or make themselves seem too desperate if entering the trade market? That was my thought on the weekend; today with the Gausman news, I tend to think the latter. They’re setting us up for troubling years from both, leaving the team with three real MLB-caliber starters in Berrios, Bassitt and Kikuchi, a few minor leaguers with either flashes of brilliance but limited durability (Bowden Francis, for instance), guys who’ve failed in the past but still potentially show promise (Mitch White) or the Golden Boy, the top prospect, Ricky Tiedemann, who has a very high ceiling but is also going to be on a major innings restriction this year due to his past injuries and limited use last year (15 starts but only 44 innings through the season and only 122 minor league innings in total since being drafted).
Of course, I could be pessimistically wrong. I hope so. But how often do teams publicly announce a player is tired or a bit sore, when nothing at all is really wrong?
This is why I’ve been saying since they walked off the field for the final time last year that they needed to acquire at least one more above-average, #2 or #3 caliber starting pitcher and a couple more budget-friendly guys who could take the mound without embarrassing themselves if needed for a month or so. Ross Atkins chose to do nothing at all to improve the pitching, except sign one completely unproven Cuban pitcher who took last year off and is expected to start the year in Buffalo’s bullpen; while letting Hyun Jin Ryu leave for Asia again. Another big failure from the current brain trust.
If he has any sense, or any real hope of having a playoff team in 2024, he’d better be on the phone right now to agent Scott Boras, asking “how much does Jordan Montgomery want? Take that number and I will double it if he is in Dunedin tomorrow” and then phoning his old employers in Cleveland to find out how many prospects he’d have to dump on them to get Shane Bieber. But I know enough not to be holding my breath…
Jays Say Man-oah-verboard
“Everything is on the table.” So said manager John Schneider after last night’s 11-4 loss to Houston facilitated by… this is getting to sound like a broken record – a terrible start from Alec Manoah. Unfortunately, that isn’t likely to include firing his boss, Ross Atkins who’s left the Blue Jays in this foreseeable mess right now.
Now, saying “foreseeable” is a wee bit of a stretch in one regard – nobody foresaw last year’s All Star, last year’s ace, Alec Manoah becoming one of the , maybe the, worst pitchers in the league. Most, myself included, figured he wouldn’t quite match last year’s excellent tally which included a shining 2.24 ERA, second-best among regular starting pitchers in Jays history. That in itself tells you how hard it is to do that for a season, neither Roy Halladay nor Dave Steib did so. As well, Manoah has only an average fastball, but very good slider and sinker and one would have to figure, given his success in ’22, opponents would be watching his videos more closely to try and figure out how to get an edge on him. I predicted he’d end up with an ERA around 3.10…which would still be very good. All Star team good perhaps.
That of course hasn’t been the case. Instead, Manoah’s been flat out bad. Even he acknowledges it. Out of 13 starts now, he’s had two good ones. And the stats keep getting worse. In his past five starts, he’s lasted past five innings only once, has walked 17 in 17 innings and has had a … wait for it … 10.06 ERA. The team lost all five games. Last night’s was a low point for now, with him getting only one out before being pulled with the team down 6-0. Even his one out was a hard hit flyball that fell just a few feet short of leaving the yard. Jays columnist Mike Wilner pointed out that last night he was throwing more strikes than his past few games. He failed to point out that almost every batter was hitting those strikes with ease and one resulted in a grand slam home run for ordinarily forgettable Corey Julks. Manoah left the field to a chorus of boos, poor taste perhaps but understandable given how consistently poorly he’s pitched this season. It also marks the unsettling second time in a week the fans have booed one of their own pitchers; a few nights back it was Anthony Bass, who’s been adequate on the mound but drew fire for his seemingly anti-gay commentary online. Not a good PR job there Toronto, not so good at all.
So now, almost everyone is in agreement Manoah shouldn’t be put out there in another four days for the team. His confidence is shot … he’s pointed out he used to think “throw a strike here” but lately he’s been concentrating on “Don’t throw a ball!”…and then throwing balls. His velocity is down a little, his fastball from 93.8 last year to 92.9 this season, with his off-speed pitches also about half a mile an hour slower. Mainly though, he’s pitching from behind. His slider in particular is missing most of the time low, and when he puts it in the strike zone, batters tee off on it. Unfortunately, his results with his fastball or sinker aren’t wildly better. Something needs to change.
The team website list three possible solutions. One, obviously is send him to AAA Buffalo, where he can pitch, work on things and have smaller crowds and less impact on the big league team’s playoff hopes. Two, the one I predict will happen, if there is “any physical issue facing Manoah that can within reason qualify him for an IL stint, now might be the time.” They add that if that route is chosen, he could potentially have a month re-habbing afterwards. The third, “Halladay” him. Demote him to low A ball, in Dunedin. That famously happened to Roy Halladay in 2001, after a bad season the year before. He was given an ultimatum to go to A-ball, work with specialist coaches and work hard or essentially, be gone from the sport. He chose the former, spent half a year in Florida and re-appeared as the hardest-working, most successful Jays pitcher of the decade. They point out that now the Dunedin stadium has “more computers than an Apple factory” and they have people there who can analyze, and hopefully correct any sort of motion issue or problem with the delivery Manoah might have.
So, one way or another, the fans probably won’t have Alec to kick around for awhile. I am hopeful he will rebound and by next year be a credible starter once again. And I’m going to irritate a few fans here by adding I hope he’ll be a bit more humble. To say Manoah was confident was like saying Arizona has warmish summers. He was brash, “inyerface”, smug and full of swagger. Last year that worked for him because he walked the walk while talking the talk, but to be quite honest, it turned me off a little, even as a Jays fan. When he at times was insulting opponents by name in press conferences, to me he needed reining in a little. Maybe next year he’ll be a little more courteous and understand that success must be earned, day-in, day-out.
So there’s that. It’s not Schneider’s fault; he’s been between a rock and a hard place. He couldn’t very well bench Manoah, and if he left him in any longer than he did the past few games, he’d have heard about it from fans. On the other hand, by yanking him out so soon, he faced criticism for ending up requiring essentially a whole game from the bullpen. Jay Jackson, a non-descript journeyman called up a couple of days back to replace Chris Bassitt (off on paternity leave for three days) did yeoman work, shutting down Houston for 2 2/3 innings, but the ‘pen is depleted today which puts added pressure on tonight’s starter, Kevin Gausman to pitch deep into the game.
So, now the question is who replaces Manoah for the time being. And this is where I say Ross Atkins is negligent. Because, even in the words of the team’s site itself there is no obvious “knight in shining armor” waiting to save the day. Earlier in the season some people were crying for their #1 prospect, Ricky Tiedemann to be called up. Ricky is a great prospect, a big, powerful southpaw who shows potential of being a true MLB star. Later. So far though, he’s a youngster who had barely made it to AA or logged 60 total innings by the end of last season. To say the call would be premature is an understatement. But the point is moot for now; he had “arm discomfort” on May 4 and hasn’t appeared since (and from what I can see, the organization has been quiet about updating his status.) He’d logged only a dozen innings so far this year, so even if he was OK, a best case scenario might see him built up to strength and pitch counts needed by the All Star break.
A teammate of his at New Hampshire, Adam Klofferstein might be an option. He’s older, has over 300 career minor league innings and is a decent 4-2, 3.12 so far this year over 10 starts…one of them a complete game. However, the inside line being touted is it will likely be Bowden Francis. Francis has made four starts at AAA Buffalo this year, winless but with a similarly good ERA to Klofferstein. However, he’s not fully built up to mid-season shape either, though he did throw 74 pitches last game. He might be a viable option for a four, possibly five inning starter. Better at least than the two Buffalo stalwards with MLB experience, Casey Lawrence (5.74 ERA) and Zac Thompson (6.89), or re-habbing Mitch White (0-1, 10.42 over seven appearances, three of them starts and now officially designated by the Jays as a reliever – not starter – in the future). And of course, there’s always a hope that Hyun Jin Ryu might be able to come back this year. He hopes that will be at the All star break, but a more realistic goal seems like he might begin a minor league rehab and rebuilding his pitch count around then and be back in Toronto sometime in August. Which seems a long time away in terms of this baseball season.
And there we have the trouble I labeled foreseeable. Sure, no one thought Manoah would be a terrible pitcher this year but it was obvious that the team wouldn’t get optimum performances from all five starters and that they’d stay healthy all season long. It’s been a bonus there haven’t been significant injuries yet and Yusei Kikuchi has been much better than last year. It was ridiculous of Atkins to steam ahead into a year that seems to be the one when the Jays window for World Series opportunities is wide open with so little depth in the pitching. Compare the similarly-rated LA Dodgers. They’ve used eight starters so far. When free agent Noah Syndergaard began to fail in a Manoah-like fashion, there was a Dustin May waiting in the wings. Or a rookie Bobby Miller , with two earned runs allowed over his first three starts. They knew what Atkins should have – you can never have too much pitching. The problem with the off-season wasn’t what he did … Kevin Kiermaier has been as good as anyone had hoped in the outfield and at the plate, Chris Bassitt has been excellent (as I predicted) in fact probably if two rough outings were discarded, a leading Cy Young candidate. The problem is all the things he didn’t do. Starting with getting a viable six or seventh starter for 2023.
How’s That Glass Doing?
Baseball’s biggest truism/cliche is probably “it’s a long season.” So, it’s generally best not to get too high, or too low, this early in the season. Things tend to even themselves out somewhere between April and October, and a steady hand and patience are valuable in running a club towards a championship. On the other hand, there also have to be limits to those if you want to contend…”know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em” as Kenny Rogers used to sing. A good example is Brandon Belt, who John Schneider and the Blue Jays have stuck with after a dreadful start to the season. After hitting below .160 as late as April 18 without any homers and one mere RBI, he’s heating up and has been 8 for 22 with a HR this month, raising his average to .221.And he showed his value in the field when Vladdy injured his wrist, albeit thankfully not badly enough to keep him out of the lineup more than a couple of games.
So, the team returns home after a bad road trip – 3-6 – in which they looked like two entirely different teams. In Boston, they were flat out bad. Nothing looked good, not the starting pitching, not the fielding, not the bullpen, not the hitting. Then presto, on to (first place) Pittsburgh and they shut down the Pirates with ease. Then off cross-state and the struggling Phillies take two from them.
So, there are different things to take note of as the team nears the one-quarter mark of the campaign, and it will kind of show whether you’re a glass half-full or glass half-empty type (and either way, if you’re watching with former manager/ current author John Gibbons, that glass is probably 50% full of Miller Lite!)
For instance – ROTATION
Kevin Gausman looks like he might be this year’s Blue Jays Cy Young contender but the big happy surprise is Yusei Kikuchi! He’s been good, end of story. After seven starts, he’s 5-0 (!) with a 3.35ERA and a 0.7 WAR already which almost equals his entire career total before. It’s not a big secret how he’s doing it – he’s throwing strikes and being confident. His walk rate is the lowest of his career (under 2 per 9 innings) and that’s helping the opponents’ On Base Pct. also be best in his career , .301. That’s better than the league norm. More importantly, Yusei’s only had two bad outings in seven…and both times bounced back strongly the next time, most noticeably his last time, when he pitched 4-hit shutout ball into the 7th against Pittsburgh after a rough (5 runs in 4 1/3 innings) outing in Boston. Now, his flyball rate has increased, which is a bit worrisome, but that’s where the much-improved outfield defense comes into play. If Kikuchi can stay confident and keep up at anything like this rate through the year, it will be a gigantic boost to the pitching and the team’s chances.
The flipside is of course, Alek Manoah. Just about literally – Manoah has had only two good outings this year, out of eight. At 1-3 with a 4.83 ERA and negative WAR, nothing about him so far in ’23 looks like a guy who last year was an All Star and a legitimate name in the Cy Young battle. (Last year at this point, he had a 1.62 ERA by the way.) He says he’s “beating myself a little bit” and that involves over-thinking … and a pitch that isn’t working. His slider has been his “go to”, tough to hit pitch throughout his short career, but this year it’s not fooling anybody. He’s having trouble locating it well and when he does, the batters are teeing off on it. It was noted that against Philadelphia, there were no swings-and-misses against his 30 sliders thrown. They were either balls that the Phils wouldn’t offer at, or slugged hard. That’s a bad scenario, and the added “oomph” is he’s struggling to get to five innings most outings now, which adds a bit of a burden to the bullpen. Manoah has, of course, had two sterling outings, seven inning, shutout performances against both KC and New York, so all hope is not lost. But unless he can relocate that slider and make it fool at least a few hitters, it’s going to be a long season for him and the fans.
Then we can look at the BULLPEN-
All in all, it looks like what most expected – pretty good but not as reliable as we might need to be a real World Series contender this year. Jordan Romano‘s been good… but not as “lights out” as he was last year. But there’s a nice unexpected story in the ‘pen with Nate Pearson.
Yes, regular readers know I’ve never been on that Pearson bandwagon. For years now, he’s seemed the “great white hope” for the Jays that never materialized. Sure he throws hard, but in the past he seemed to not know how to do anything on the mound besides that and had extreme difficulty staying healthy enough to play. But, now he’s 26 and throwing 98 MPH fastballs (actually down a tick or two from past years) but mixing in some good curveballs and sliders as well and, changed wisely to a reliever from a starter, he’s been decent so far. Yes, he’s only appeared five times thus far this season, but he’s been pretty good in all five, posting a 1.59 ERA and only allowing a single run and one walk. Opponents slugging percentage is down to .273 compared to .425 in his earlier career. A small sample to be sure, and his “hard hit rate” is quite high, but Pearson looks like he could be that guy to go out and pitch the sixth or seventh, shut down the opponents and get his teammates back to the plate quickly.
On the other hand, stalwards Anthony Bass and Trevor Richards have both been alarmingly inconsistent. Right now even a three or four run lead look risky when they’re trotting out to the mound. Richards has a 5.14 ERA over a dozen appearances. Surprisingly, that’s quite similar to his numbers last year. Why did we think he was one of the more reliable middle-relievers around? Bass is a bit more worrisome, and that’s not just crying over spilled popcorn. In 13 games so far, he’s got a 6.55 ERA. In seven games, he’s been fine. But in six he’s allowed hits…and every game he has allowed at least one hit, at least one has scored. What’s problematic is that last year, he was great – 1.54 ERA over 73 games split between Miami and Toronto. A return to form, or close to it, would really help the team’s odds down the long road to October.
We could add a lot about the infield too – Matt Chapman, AL Player of the Month in April, leading the league in average, hitting doubles at an unprecedented rate, doing more than almost anyone expected. But contrast that to Santiago Espinal, whose All Star appearance last year now seems almost a dream that we collectively had. This year he’s hitting .158, has an OPS of a dismal .466 (compared to last year’s average but not superb .699) and what’s worse, looking iron-gloved at second base.
Half-empty, half-full? It’s a long season. Count on that glass being refilled, then emptied, a few times this summer.
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like What?
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas for Blue Jays fans. Wait…what? Flowers are coming out, winter jackets are being put to the back of the closet, the blue-tinted tropical cousins of the jay birds, Indigo Buntings, have been sighted back in the “416”. So no, I’m not talking literally here. Instead, talking about what do Jays fans want more than anything under the tree this year? How about a World Championship and the memories that go along with it. And that is looking like it might happen.
Now don’t get me wrong – I said “might”. It’s not a slam dunk by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a long season, anything can happen, and for as good a start as the team is off to, their only sitting in third place in the AL East. (It’s noteworthy their 16-9 record would lead three of the five other divisions). But what leads to optimism is that what the Jays are doing seems…sustainable. There are not too many total outliers right now that make one say “that can’t last”. The team’s hitting pretty well, fielding pretty well and pitching pretty well. A bit more than that of late. There’s no big reason that can’t carry on.
Toronto was expected to hit, and that they are…but amazingly, their 120 runs scored thus far is only seventh best in the AL…and three of the six teams with more offense are in the East. Put another way, the Jays are scoring less than five a game on average…but winning. Five runs a game with this lineup is completely do-able for the duration.
After all, few players on the team are truly over-producing. Sure Matt Chapman was the talk of the town for the first couple of weeks, but he’s coming back down to earth (even though his .364 average and .446 OBP still leads the league). In the last six games, he’s a generic 5-20, his average dropped by 33 points but the team has won five of those six. His average will probably drop by another 33, and then some perhaps, but everyone’s known this guy can hit. And this year he’s benefitting from a conscious decision to pull the ball more. He’s using the whole field to hit in, so even if shifts weren’t banned now, he’d be more difficult to defend against than last year when he hit everything right across shortstop into left. Vladimir Guerrero is hitting up a storm, but isn’t that what we always expected of him? Actually, given that he’s only hit 5 HR this year despite hitting the ball harder than any other player in the league so far, it’s not improbable that his power stats will increase with the summer temperature. Right now he’s only on pace to match last year’s 32 homers. We’ve seen him hit 48 before in a season. If Kevin Kiermaier and Bo Bichette might be hitting just a wee bit “over their heads”, it can also be said George Springer, Brandon Belt and Danny Jansen haven’t quite found their footing yet and might get a lot better.
Most importantly, the rotation has got itself sorted out after a shaky start to the season. It’s now looking like the good staff everyone thought it could be…and then some. Consider that over the past eight games, the starters have collectively gone 52 1/3 innings, but allowed only 26 hits and ten walks. Five of the eight games they’ve not allowed a run, and in total only five have scored against them, for a microscopic 0.86 ERA through that run. Each one of the five – Alek Manoah, Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, Jose Berrios and Yusei Kikuchi – have all had a start in which they didn’t allow a run in the past ten days. Read that again and ask yourself how many would have believed that sentence last year?
Sure, no one thinks they’ll continue pitching more games where they shutout the opponents than ones where they give up even one run, but what’s clear is that this is a rote that can beat any team from 1 through 5. Kikuchi in particular has been a revelation. He’s using his 97 MPH fastball still but mixing pitches better and above all, throwing strikes. He looks confident, something he certainly was not in 2022. Similarly, Berrios has changed up his pitch selection just a bit, to throw a handful fewer fastballs, and seems to finally be having some luck. It’s been beaten into the ground how last season he seemed to be doing things right but just got whacked every time regardless. All in all, when you consider last year’s Cy Young bronze medalist if you will, Alek Manoah, has had three bad outings and two good ones, and that thanks to one bad inning, Kevin Gausman’s ERA is 2.84, not something starting with a “0” and you begin to realize these guys could be this good.
And then there’s the closer, Jordan Romano. Many are fretting about him, but consider that he still is tops in the league with eight saves. He’s appeared in 11 games; the team has won 10 of those. He’s allowed hits in only five of the 11, and throw out his one awful three-run meltdown inning and he’s got an ERA under 1. Which is not that different than last year. He’s going to blow a save and be bad now and then, but when he’s slamming the door ten times out of eleven, we can feel pretty good when he walks to the mound.
Add in the outfield defense (note Kevin Kiermaier’s already won the league’s “Play of the Week” award once this year) which is indeed taking away hits left and right as expected and we can see this team is built to win. That doesn’t mean they necessarily will but hey, it’s better than a team with obvious big holes to fill, which has been something most of their teams in the past seven years had.
And you might be thinking, “but what about those Rays?” Well, I have to tip my cap to Tampa Bay. They’re off to a fantastic start. No one can take that away from them or belittle it. But… they are coming down to reality. Does anyone…anyone ? … really think they’re going to keep it up and win 140 this season? I don’t. They probably will win more than the 85 I predicted pre-season (they always seem to outdo my guess) but consider that 1) after their incredible 14 win streak to open up, they’ve gone a pedestrian 6-5. If they play ata just 6-5 pace for the rest of the year, they’ll finish with about 95 wins. Consider also they’re 14-2 in their home dome, just 6-3 elsewhere. Meanwhile, Toronto has had only nine home games so far out of 25. Only Detroit has had fewer times in front of home crowds in the AL. That alone should boost Toronto’s prospects for the rest of the season and play against Tampa’s. And hey, if the two teams do meet in the playoffs? Remember it was Toronto that handed the Rays their first two losses of the season. They can do that again in October. Save a little space under the tree, fans!
Glancing In The Jays Rearview Mirror Before Looking Ahead
So do we need to look back on 2022 for the Blue Jays?
Well to start with, let’s remember back in April, I predicted Toronto would win 95 games, win the division and make it to the World Series against LA. I also had the Yankees sitting with a mere 88 wins in third place for what it’s worth. Well, the Jays of course won 92 – not too far off my guess – made it to the playoffs, only to be dispatched in a tidy two games by Seattle (whom I’d actually predicted would lose in the ALCS to Toronto.) So, that’s a bit of a letdown for me…and many other fans who noted MLB’s own predictions had the Jays as the top ranked team in the AL at season’s start.
All that said, it wasn’t a total loss of a year. Only one team ends up getting all they hoped for in a given season, so in that respect it wasn’t all that much worse year for the Jays as the Yankees or Dodgers. Toronto saw Alek Manoah quickly develop into a pitching ace and Cy Young candidate, and even though some hitters regressed, based on OPS, they really only paled beside the Dodgers. And they played what seems to be becoming Blue Jays-patented ball… starting the season slowly, rather disappointingly, then picking up momentum in the last couple of months. In ’22, we saw happy-go-lucky manager Carlos Montoyo go, and be replaced by harder-edged John Schneider, who turned the team around to play .622 baseball under his direction. So not a total washout of a year.
And with only Ross Stripling flying the coop via free agency so far (of Toronto’s regular contributors; Bradley Zimmer is also departed but not many will miss his two-month, no hits streakiness), the team had a chance to bring back essentially the same lineup for ’23. Obviously, they decided some shakeup was needed, turfing outfielders Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurrriel as well as highly-rated catching prospect Gabriel Moreno, plus outfielder Ramiel Tapia whom they never offered a contract to this season despite his adequate (.265, 7 HR, decent defense as a bench player ) if not remarkable play.
As well, they brought in New York great Don Mattingly to be bench coach. Not unsubstantial, since no matter what his title, one would expect he might share some of his wisdom with the lads on the bench, and being a six-time All Star and seven-time gold Glove winner with a .307 career average, that’s not nothing. They’re hoping the first baseman, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in particular might benefit- after all he plays the same position Mattingly did, and just won his own Gold Glove. Moreover, it’s rumored the Jays like the tough-as-nails attitude he brings, something that perhaps was needed in the seemingly always-happy, always-dancing but not always producing lineup last year.
So they let go of Gurriel and Hernandez, two of the happiest, danciest members of the ’22 squad who also would both become free agents next year. Both were plus hitters but both suffered comparatively disappointing years at the plate compared to the past two seasons. And both were not that great outfielders on most days. To compensate, the team signed free agent Kevin Keirmaier, who’d been synonymous with Tampa Bay to this point in his career, and traded for Daulton Varsho from Arizona. The thought is, with George Springer, they’ll have the best defensive outfield in the league. Which they might.. if they are healthy. IF.
Let’s start with Springer. Long-time readers might remember I was dubious about the big contract Toronto gave him a couple of years back. Well, after seeing him play now and again and looking at his charts, I have revised my opinion – Springer’s a great. When he’s healthy. He plays hard, gives it his all… but also seems pretty injury prone. He missed more than half the season in both 2017 and 2021 with various injuries and of course, to add insult to injury for the team, he ended 2022 on the same day the club did, running into Bo Bichette trying to get to a flyball, spraining his shoulder plus having a concussion as a result. Those are said to be better, but he’s had elbow surgery already this off-season to fix a long-standing injury. The team say he’s good to go for Spring Training, I say “we’ll see.”
Then there’s Keirmaier. He was a bit of a nemesis for Toronto when they played Tampa, and like Springer, he is the type that doesn’t lollygag out there. A good attitude, right down to being on social media with his kids all clad in Toronto apparel only days after signing. The club point to his three Gold Gloves. But fail to mention the last one of those was in 2019, and that he’s 33 by the start of the season. And that he only played a total 185 games in the past two seasons, in part due to stints on the IL in ’21 for wrist and knee problems (as well as Covid) and in ’22 due to an Achilles Heel plus two stints on it for hip troubles. A guy who’s played over 120 games only twice in a nine year career doesn’t seem like a good bet to be an everyday centerfielder. And if he is, he still isn’t going to match Gurriel let alone Hernandez hitting. KK hit .228 last season ,with a rather shockingly low .281 on base, and stole six bases, the lowest for him since 2014, shortened 2020 included. He’s topped the league average for OPS only once in the past five years.
Varsho seems a brighter prospect, being 26 in spring, and being a regular for the first time last year in Arizona, posting a great 4.9 WAR , thanks to things like 27 homers and great defensive skills. Plus, he can catch! Last year he caught 31 games for the Diamondbacks, while playing 125 in the outfield. Yes, his average and on base are low, but being relatively young, and moving to a better hitting environment, one might expect to see improvement in 2023. And his versatility will be a great plus.
On the pitching front, they signed Chris Bassitt, who you might remember, I pegged not long back as the best free agent pitcher, value wise, still available in early-December. He should be a great addition to the rotation…but essentially he replaces Ross Stripling. Stripling was excellent last year, to the surprise of some. Going 10-4 with a 3.01 ERA and 2.7 WAR even though he had to switch from the bullpen to the rotation during the year. He finished stong, going 5-1 with a 2.78 as a starter in August and September and was pegged to be the next on the mound if Toronto had pushed the Wild card series to Game 3. Many think he got lucky and wouldn’t repeat that kind of season, I’m not so sure. But even though Bassitt should be good, he’s likely not going to be that much better than Stripling was in ’22. Which leads to the problem. They have Manoah, Bassitt, Gausman, and Berrios (whom most figure will rebound some from a bad 2022) to start and then…? There is no clear #5 starter. In the time between writing this and posting it, it was announced the team re-signed Casey Lawrence to a minor league deal. A low-risk deal as it were, and not a bad one in such, but let’s hope he’s not supposed to supply the answer. Lawrence is, in case you’ve forgotten, a journeyman pitcher who was very good last year in the minors (with Buffalo) but very bad in his rare call-ups to the Majors. Specifically he was 9-5 with a 2.79 ERA at AAA – very decent – but sports a career 6.80 ERA in the Bigs, spread out over three years dating back to 2017.
Ross Atkins has blithely talked of either Mitch White or Yusei Kikucki taking the role again and being magically good. Fans roll their eyes. Together, they started 28 games for the ’22 squad, and came up with a 6-12 record, -2.3 WAR and 5.97 ERA. Neither was even remotely good. Expecting either to be even an average MLB pitcher in ’23 seems rather far-fetched. Ahh, but some say “don’t forget Hyun Jin Ryu.” Only Ryu was a non-factor in 2022, and underwent tommy John surgery mid-summer. Optimistically, he might be able to start throwing again around the All Star break and make the team sometime in August. But there are no guarantees. And if we have White or Kikuchi in the rotation to then, the season might already be a lost one.
Yet there are still more whispers within the front office hallways, we’re told : “Ricky Tiedemann”. Unfortunately, in one way, Alek Manoah is a double-edged sword for Toronto. Yes, he’s a great young pitcher. But he’s also an outlier. He made the jump to the Big Leagues after only nine minor league games and 35 innings. Very, very few young pitchers can do that, let alone do it well. It would be a silly gamble to think Tiedemann, who is 20 and a third-round draft pick from 2020 would be able to do the same. So far in his career, Ricky’s logged just 78 innings, only 11 of those as high as AA. With his big size, 95 MPH fastball (up two ticks last year) and a changeup the team say is “progressing”, Tiedemann looks like he could be a real deal star. Just not in 2023.
Bottom line – as of now, Toronto’s basically the same talent level it was in the second half of last season. If they maintain the status quo, they’re probably once again a team that will win 90, maybe 92 games, and scramble to make a Wild Card spot. Yet, Ross Atkins and the front office in general say they’re in to “win now” mode; Atkins further states “we’re not limited financially.” Current expert projections have the payroll at $207M (I might note, I calculate it to less but the difference might be in figuring out salaries for arbitration-eligible players not yet settled); the league tax floor is $233M. The team clearly has the resources to find a good #5 starting pitcher (or hell, a good #3 one… nothing wrong with having five above-average guys) and another outfielder, preferably one who can hit and seems durable. Simple requirements, but not that simple to find now that most of the noteworthy free agents have signed on somewhere. The trade route might be the only way forward now for the Blue Jays to again seem like a serious contender for the 2023 World Series.
The Roadmap To October
Whew! They can exhale again. The Blue Jays that is. After going through a disillusioning slump in August they’ve started to come up to speed just at the right time (American League Player of the Week Bo Bichette especially) , have a 1.5 game lead over Tampa for second place in the division and the top Wild Card spot as of the start of today’s game and more importantly, they’ve gotten through the most difficult part of the whole season’s schedule, having to play two double headers in an eight day stretch. A stretch which if it had gone badly could have careened the team off a metaphorical cliff and out of the running for the post-season.
It’s not clear-sailing from here on in, but the schedule does look a lot more manageable and with three days off before the end of the season and no double headers slated (fingers crossed therefore for no East Coast rainstorms during their travels to alter that) they should be able to use their pitching staff to its best advantage, probably avoiding any more “bullpen” days which at best burn out most of the ‘pen for a couple of days and at worst are handing the opponents a win, and perhaps using the Number 5 starter only once or twice down the stretch. And even that looks a wee bit brighter than it did a few days back thanks to Trade Deadline guy Mitch White‘s most recent outing. After six horrendous starts with Toronto, he had a good talk and some instructions from coach Pete Walker and fellow starter Kevin Gausman and did a yeoman’s job Tuesday in the first game of a double header against Tampa. Called up from AAA to be the extra, 29th Man for the DH, White had expected to be called on in the evening game but ended up being needed in the noontime one instead. He went six innings, taking a lot of pressure off the ‘pen and after a shaky first inning (which was the 2nd inning, Julian Merryweather was the starter oddly enough) in which he gave up three runs, not helped by bad defense behind him, he settled in and shut down the Rays for the next five. Significantly, he didn’t walk anyone in the six frames, a remarkable improvement over his past three outings in which he put eight on over a cumulative 12 innings. All in all, it gives us reason to see how he was actually in the lineup for the winningest team in baseball before being traded here and at least not assume we’d lose any game he showed up in. Although he’s currently back assigned to AAA Buffalo, he’s eligible to be called up to “The Show” again long before Toronto should need a fifth starter….once we get past tomorrow.
Speaking of, here’s how the remainder of the season could shake down when it comes to starting pitchers for the Jays
Today , vs Tampa – Gausman
Sep. 16 vs Bal – ?
Sep. 17 vs Bal – Berrios
Sep. 18 vs Bal – Manoah
Sep 19 off
Tu Sep 20 at Phi – Stripling on extra day rest
Sep 21 at Phi – Gausman on extra day rest
Sep 22 at Tampa – Berrios
Sep 23 at Tampa – Manoah
Sa Se 24 at Tampa – White
Sep 25 at Tampa – Stripling
Sep 26 off
Tu Sep 27 vs NYY – Gausman on extra day rest
Sep 28 vs NYY – Berrios on extra day rest
Sep 29 off
Fr Sep 30 vs Bos – Manoah on extra day(s) rest
Oct 1 vs Bos – Stripling on extra day rest
Oct 2 vs Bos – Gausman
Oct 3 at Bal – Berrios or White
Oct 4 at Bal – Berrios on extra day or White
We Oct 5 at Bal – Manoah if necessary or ? (Kikuchi,?)
which could lead to
Fr Oct 7 – Wildcard Game 1 – Manoah if not used Oc 5, or Stripling on extra day
Sa Oct 8 – wildcard Game 2 – Stripling on extra day(s) or Gausman on extra day
Su Oct 9 if nec. Wildcard G3 – Berrios or Gausman on extra day(s)
Not bad. The only real red flag day is tomorrow which may necessitate either another “bullpen” day or else someone like Casey Lawrence being called up from Buffalo. After that they should be able to get by primarily with just the “core four” of Manoah, Gausman, Berrios and Stripling, with several of them getting to make at least one start on extra days rest, a bonus at this point in the long season. The final weekend illustrates the rather obvious need to focus on winning and making every game count. Right now, the sched looks like the final game would be Alek Manoah’s normal game day. At 14-7, 2.43, WAR of 4.8 and 178 innings so far, Manoah’s not only been the team’s top starter but would have been the top starter on the majority of AL teams this season. He’s the one guy the Blue Jays would want out there for an all or nothing game. But better not to have that day be all-or-nothing. If they have, let’s say already guaranteed the top Wild Card spot (or division but that might be asking for a little bit much!) , they could rest him, go with someone like Yusei Kikuchi and not be overly worried about the outcome. That would leave Manoah fresh and ready to open up the Post Season. If however he has to be used Oct.5, it likely means a combination of Stripling, Gausman and Berrios called on for the Best of Three Wild Card series. Which still isn’t a bad deal of the cards.
Ross Atkins still seems negligent in not trading for more pitching at the deadline. But, if the offence can keep turning in some runs for the rest of the month, he might just be able to deftly steer the team to some October success after all.
Atkins Should Have Asked The Magic 8 Ball About Pitching
Last night’s 7-3 loss to Baltimore is all too typical of the Blue Jays of late. Taking on a possible Wild Card rival (and let that sink in – the new look Orioles are a mere 1.5 games behind Toronto right now) , they fell behind early, never really looked highly motivated or able to get back in it, committed a couple of errors and slipped further behind in the race. Whatever momentum and enthusiasm new manager John Schneider brought with him last month seems to have evaporated. And also typical last night, another bad start from Yusei Kikuchi.
Kikuchi’s become a bad joke this year, somehow looking far worse than his 4-7, 5.25 record would suggest. He falls behind early and often, walks far too many, and when he does bear down and throw a hard strike…it’s too oft left right in the middle of the plate for some power hitter to knock into the fifth deck. Even the team’s own website, usually eternally optimistic (as you’d expect for a promotional device for the team) today lament that his ongoing troubles may “force the hand” of the team and manager John Schneider says clearly “everything is on the table…it’s more urgency than patience right now. The season’s getting short.”
That it is, but John’s options are rather limited, something many a fan is pointing out…and pointing a finger at GM Ross Atkins for. Toronto was expected to trade for Reds’ ace Luis Castillo. Seattle got him instead. Toronto was expected to trade for Oakland star Frankie Montas. He went to the Yankees after some reports prematurely already reported a trade to the Jays. Instead, Atkins picked up low-profile young pitcher Mitch White from the Dodgers.
Now, White has an upside, not the least is his youth and fact that this is only his second full season in the majors. He could be a very reliable member of the rote down the road. But he hardly seems like the answer for a team with real playoff aspirations but a struggling (to be generous) set of starting pitchers. Thankfully Ross Stripling is expected off the IL by the weekend, and he’s done yeoman work switching from the bullpen to rotation. But, it’s still hard to be excited for the prospect’s of the team with the current pitching lineup. Which leads many to blame Atkins. But is that fair? Let’s look at how the year’s progressed and how much of it was entirely predictable.
The Jays began the year touting a rotation of Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman, Hyun Jin Ryu, Alek Manoah and the aforementioned Kikuchi. They pointed to Stripling or minor leaguer Nate Pearson as being obvious additions to the rotation if necessary.
Well, first off, Ryu’s been a non-factor and is now recuperating from Tommy John surgery. In six games he struggled, lasted just 27 innings and had an ERA of 5.67. Few were utterly surprised. At age 35, Hyun is not coming into his prime and let’s face it – he has a reputation for being oft-injured. The fact that he wasn’t in 2020-21 might be the outlier, not the fact he’s out for a season now. He missed all of 2015 and almost all of ’16 from surgery too. And it was well-noted his results and fastball velocity (at best one of the lowest in the league) had begun to drop off in the second half of last year. Sorry Mr. Atkins, Ryu’s inability to contribute this year is VERY PREDICTABLE. It was foolish to pencil him in as a #3 starter.
Kevin Gausman was the big free agent splash in the off-season, coming off a career best year with San Francisco. All things considered, Gausman’s delivered. He’s not quite matching last year’s numbers, but at a 3.16 ERA (despite a weird 8-9 won/lost record) and career best rates of walks allowed (1.5 per 9 innings) and homers given up (one per 18 innings), he’s done all that can be expected. As team scribe Keegan Matheson points out, he’s deserved better. For instance on the weekend’s loss to Cleveland, Cavan Biggio let a “soft fly ball” drop in, in a hole in right field and what would have been a second out was instead an inning-prolonging RBI double. Gausman was pegged as the #2 guy on a star rotation, and thankfully, he’s delivered.
Even better than Gausman has been All Star Alek Manoah. Currently he’s sixth in MLB pitchers in WAR (3.3) and sixth in innings pitched in the AL. At 12-5, 2.56 he’s easily the best “#4 starter” in the AL this year and deserving his placement in the All Star game. But, there are a few clouds on the Manoah horizon. Namely, this is only his second pro season. Last year, his first as a professional, he threw 146 innings, 35 of them in his very short minor league career. This year he’s already up to 137, and if things remain as we hope, he’s going to be around 200 before the playoffs begin. I’m not a big believer in “babying” pitchers or limiting innings counts unnecessarily but it does seem to be a bit of a stretch for him to so greatly exceed his entire pro career total innings this year and be effective. In his last three starts, the ERA has risen quietly from 2.24 to its current 2.56 and he’s giving up more hits than before. Signs point to the big youngster starting to tire out a little … just at the point where his contribution is more important than ever. That’s a real problem, and one that should have been PREDICTABLE.
Then there’s Berrios. If Gausman was the big free agent, Berrios was the big “news” of the off-season, with the team signing him to a 7 year, $131M deal based on how impressed they were with his personality and two months he pitched here in 2021. It seemed reasonable. Berrios is smart, strong, and had career numbers that seemed to be slowly, but constantly, improving. And at age 28, he should be in his peak form for the next two or three years.
Instead, Berrios has been terrible. Inexplicably terrible. His 5.61 ERA is among the worst of any regular pitchers anywhere this year, and is worst among MLB’s so-called “qualified pitchers” (which is increasingly meaningless as fewer and fewer pitchers hurl enough innings to “qualify”). His 26 HR given up are worst in baseball too. Now, what’s weird is that nothing too much jumps out as being awful, or awfully different for Berrios this year than in the past. Baseball America still today note he has a “93-95 MPH fastball” and some scouts are still measuring his best pitches at 98, and that his slider is “sharp.” He’s throwing the same four pitches with about the same frequency as before, and his velocity is considered “league average” but his “chase rate” is 85th percentile…which is to say he’s getting batters to swing at a lot more bad pitches than most. Yet somehow, when he’s missing, he’s missing by a few inches and they’re slugging the ball. The exit velocity off his bat is 90.5 MPH, worse than average, and higher than the last two years and when they do connect, the ball is flying higher. His ground ball rate (of batted balls) is only 37%, the lowest since his rookie year of 2016. To say it’s frustrating is an understatement; it’s hard for pitching coach Pete Walker to tweak the problem when nothing appears to be an obvious problem. Put it down to bad luck and while Berrios bad results are UNPREDICTABLE , the basic concept of at least one star pitcher under-performing during the season should have been PREDICTABLE.
Which leaves us with Mr. Kikuchi. Let me say that, like fired manager Charlie Montoyo, Kikuchi the man seems like a decent, nice enough chap. Like manager Montoyo he also seems incapable of getting the job done. For every vaguely encouraging game, there have been several worse and worse yet ones from him. Since coming back from the IL with a “surprise” neck stiffness, he’s gone out four times. He’s not gone past 5 innings in any of them and has walked eight, given up five home runs and 15 hits in 17 innings for a 5.72 ERA. On the season, he’s averaging less than 4 1/3 inning per start and opponents are hitting .357 off him. That’s a career worst for him, but it is worth noting his best opponents average was a poor .314. Put another way, batters have always hit him hard and feasted when he was on the mound. Likewise, his home runs allowed are career worst but he’s not yet posted good numbers of that while in the majors. Maybe his ERA being 5.25 might be head-turningly bad, but it is worth pointing out it’s only been below 5 once in his three previous years. All in all, Kikuchi’s failure this year is of unexpected depths but should be rather PREDICTABLE. Thinking he was going to be a repeat Robbie Ray, a Cy Young winner out of thin air after being among the league’s least effective pitchers, was clearly the bad line of thinking, not those who thought he wasn’t going to pan out.
My bottom line – the way it’s going, Toronto is going to have trouble even picking up one of the three wild card spots. And should they do so, a rotation of Berrios, Gausman and a tired out Manoah (with perhaps Stripling when a fourth is needed) doesn’t fill me with confidence for October. Nate Pearson has never filled me with confidence but is still being bandied about as a possible “addition”, but with him on the 60-day IL with a lat injury (after being on the injured list with mono) and having pitched only 7 innings in the minors this year make it seem a very long stretch to expect anything more than an inning or two out of the bullpen from him in ’22. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong; if so I’ll be a happy camper. But if I’m proven right … it’s time for the organization to replace Ross Atkins. The fact that the starting rotation has not been up for the job in 2022 is very PREDICTABLE.
Time For ‘Plan B’, Since ‘Yusei’, Kikuchi’s Not Getting It Done
The good news – Toronto’s ahead of Tampa in the standings, Teoscar Hernandez and Vladimir Guerrero are beginning to look like the Teoscar Hernandez’s and Vladimiar Guerrero’s we know and love at the plate once again, and rookie Gabriel Moreno is doing a good job living up to expectations early on in his career (like last night, when he had three hits and used his rocket arm to throw out Orioles speedster Jorge Mateo trying to steal second.) But don’t assume the glass full, or even entirely half-full yet. The bad news is that the Yankees seem to be running away with the division (sitting at a ridiculous 45-16 right now with no apparent signs of slowing down), and Toronto’s starting rotation was dealt a big blow yesterday. That with the not unexpected news that Hyun Jin Ryu needs elbow surgery and will miss the rest of the season, if not more. This puts all the more pressure on the existing staff…and one thinks, on Ross Atkins to beat the end-of-July rush and make a trade soon for another starter.
The rote as it is, isn’t terrible. Alex Manoah has become so regularly dazzling, we barely noticed his six inning, one hit, no runs performance on Monday to lower his ERA to 1.67. This from a kid who was an amateur player just three years ago. Kevin Gausman‘s looked more mortal this month than the first couple of months this season (actually walking three last time out) but all-in-all is still “money in the bank” reliable, good enough in all likelihood to make the All Star team. Jose Berrios hasn’t found a good groove yet but is giving the team innings and in all likelihood will improve to something resembling his past performance. Ryu’s spot has been filled in nicely by Ross Stripling, who seems to be loving the chance to finally have a regular, set role in the lineup. In his last two outings, he threw 56 then 74 pitches and gone 11 innings, allowing a mere two hits. Which brings us to Yusei Kikuchi.
Kikuchi’s, as noted before, got a great fastball and lots of potential. But…he’s nothing if not erratic. So far this year, he’s started a dozen games. The result, 2-3, a 4.80 ERA and a negative WAR. He’s lasted beyond five innings only three times, and if you take away those three games, he’s posted a 6.76 ERA. And he’s not been a victim of horrible bad mound luck… Baseball Reference have his “expected ERA” at 5.19. Credit that to the fact that hitters are driving the ball with a 49% “hard hit” rate when they are connecting with his pitches…and too often they don’t since he’s walking too many. So far, 32 walks in about 50 innings; last night he walked four in just four innings. Manager Charlie Montoyo is clear on the subject : “he needs to throw strikes. It’s kind of tough to play from behind somebody. There’s too many non-competitive pitches…having said that,” he added “there’s always hope, because he has good stuff.”
Which is true, but unlike Robbie Ray last year, he’s not responding to the magic formula dished up by coach Pete Walker to boost the strikeout rate and be stingy with free passes. Waiting for him to find the right formula of pitches and control them well might yield a good payout…but seems like a luxury a team competing for a playoff spot can’t really afford to wait long on. Not only is he putting the team behind early on, by going less than five innings generally, he’s putting an added burden onto an already over-stretched (and over-manned perhaps) bullpen. Another dozen starts by him like the first dozen will probably make it much harder to even stay ahead of Tampa.
Worse yet, if something was to happen to one of the current five, the choices for a replacement aren’t deep. Casey Lawrence would probably get the call, and to be fair, that 34 year old rightie has been excellent in the minors this year at Buffalo – 8-1, 1.77 so far, with two complete games even. He’s allowing barely over half a hit per inning. But AAA isn’t the majors, especially not the American League East and to be truthful, there’s not a lot to back Lawrence matching anything close to that level of excellence should he make the big leagues. None of his pitches are extraordinary, and in his past, two major league seasons (between Toronto and Seattle) have seen him mostly pitch out of the bullpen, with a 6.48 ERA and -1.0 WAR. He’s obviously learned to “pitch” better now, select pitches and locations better, but betting a potential World Series on him being able to do that for, say 15 MLB starts, seems poor logic at best. Beyond Lawrence, the options get increasingly bleak for rotation help within the Jays farm system this year.
So, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again … it’s time to trade for another good starting pitcher. Moreno has shown that he’s ready for the “Show”, leaving Toronto with three above-average catchers. They have a good infield with two of the best prospects in baseball being nearly ready, Orvelis Martinez and Jordan Groshans, their #2 and 3 prospects overall (or #1 and 2, considering that their “#1 prospect”, Moreno , is already here.) Nate Pearson continues to impress a few with his 100 MPH heat, though his lack of pitch control and his many times on the IL have seen his star fall in the last year. Add in a good number of usable, if not brilliant, bullpen arms and there should be enough to put together a package for Frankie Montas, or at least Merrill Kelly, or Cal Quantrill we mentioned here before…even Madison Bumgarner might be worth exploring . Kikuchi himself might be interesting to a team who sees his potential upside and have the “luxury” of waiting on it a year or so to show itself. Alex Anthopolous endeared himself to the fans and turned the season around in 2015 by trading for David Price, then a high-end stud pitcher. The 2022 team is better than that squad in many ways. Imagine how popular Atkins could suddenly become if he could pull off a similar trade this week.
Jays Outlook, Part I
Well, a lot has happened since we last actually talked about baseball (rather than labor negotiations) here, and as we type, some baseballs should be in air under the sunny skies of Arizona and Florida. And best of all, despite all the huffing and puffing over the past few months from the owners and players, we have a full-length 162 game season to look forward to. Particularly those of us who are Jays fans…after coming oh so close to the playoffs last year, the team is arguably better and the playoffs expanded by two teams, so our chances seem good.
With yesterday’s trade for Platinum Glove winner Matt Chapman, the roster seems close to filled in. Thus, I’ll give a bit of an overview to the Jays season ahead over the next week or so, starting today with the pitching.
Last year, Toronto’s pitching wasn’t bad, all things considered – the 3.91 ERA was fifth-best in the AL, and mirrored by them giving up the fifth least runs over the year. However, it was far from brilliant too and as we might remember, the bullpen was rather atrocious early in the season. Those looking to why Toronto missed the post-season by one lone game only have to look back to any number of games in May and June when the bullpen blew surefire leads and at times even walked in the winning run.
This year, the situation looks a wee bit better… even though we did lose the Cy Young award winner, Robbie Ray. Steven Matz is gone too, but we have two newcomers to the rotation to balance that out, a new semi-high-end reliever (in Yimi Garcia, former closer in Miami) and late-season carryovers Adam Cimber and Trevor Richards returning. Those guys, with Julian Merryweather, Tim Mayza and Ryan Borucki helping out in the middle innings make a decent bullpen that shouldn’t walk away too many games, when backed with new closer Jordan Romano. Romano, he of metro Toronto origins, looked very comfortable after settling into that role last year, running off 23-straight saves at one point and finishing with a 2.14 ERA.
Hopefully the ‘pen won’t be over-burdened since the starting rotation looks decent too. Who the #1 man is is open to debate right now. It could be Jose Berrios, acquired at the trade deadline and then signed to a big, seven year extension by the Jays. He turns 28 this spring, and has gone 190 or more innings in each of the last three full-length seasons. Along the way, each year he’s gotten better, judged by ERA , opponent’s OPS and his K to BB ratio. Last year’s 12-9, 3.52 might easily be topped once again as those trends seem plausible to carry on.
Or, it might be recent free agent signing Kevin Gausman. Gausman should be coming into his prime at 31and helped the winningest team in the big leagues last year (SF) be just that. He went 14-6, with a 2.81 ERA (career bests) adding up to a 5.2 WAR. Athlon sports have him ranked as the 13th best starter in the game right now, and note his splitter “is one of the best pitches in baseball.” Like most pitchers who begin their career in Baltimore, he’s seen increasingly good results elsewhere. Better still for the Jays, while some might speculate that pitching in the NL West was a big factor in his good ’21, it’s worth noting he did better on the road (2.33 ERA, much better K:BB ratio) than in San Francisco.
Or perhaps it will be last year’s top-dog, Hyun Jin Ryu. Ryu was of course, the big free agent signing leading up to the 2020 short season, and he delivered in a big way that year, finishing third in Cy Young voting.
Last year started promisingly enough for Ryu, but rather slid downhill all year confusingly. He seemingly stayed healthy all year (something he’s not noted for always doing), and made a career high 31 starts. But his overall numbers were mediocre at best – 14-10 with a 4.37 ERA. But alarmingly, after August 3, he made 10 starts and lasted six innings only three times. His ERA during that stretch was an ugly 6.98. there are no obvious red flags as to why he stumbled last year. True, his already slowish fastball was down by a MPH, and his opponent’s had a .435 slugging percentage, his worst since 2017, but still bang on the league average. The most likely explanation is that he got tired, plain and simple. Backing that up is the fact that on his normal (4 day) rest, he struggled, with a 5.48 ERA and barely averaging five innings per start. When he had an extra day’s rest, his ERA was a handsome 3.23, he lasted just about six innings per and opponents were held to an OPS 130 points lower. I am reluctant to advocate relaxing star pitchers workloads or tinkering with the normal routine, but in Ryu’s case, it seems like it might be worth the Jays while to run him on five days rest, adding in a sixth starter once in awhile as needed.
Don’t discount the possibility of the “ace” turning out to be the new kid. Young Alex Manoah is just 24 and debuted ahead of his expected timeline last year, only to be the team’s best pitcher and a Rookie of the Year candidate. He was 9-2 with a 3.22 ERA and 2.8 WAR through his first season and 20 starts. He’s a big power pitcher who limited hitters to 77 hits in 111 innings, in which he struck out 127. He does walk rather a few too many, but with a bit of tweaking of his delivery and more games experience, many thing he soon will among the game’s best.
Who it likely won’t be is Yusei Kikuchi, recently signed to a three-year deal after spending his first three years in MLB with Seattle (after being a star in Japan.) His numbers haven’t been all that good so far – 15-24, with a 4.97 ERA. He does walk too many (3.6 per 9 innings) and is among the less impressive pitchers in the game when it comes to contact. Some 47% of pitches players connect with from him are “hard hit.” However, he has a dominant fastball, often hitting 98 MPH, and GM Ross Atkins is confident coach Pete Walker can refine his game like he did Robbie Ray’s last year and turn him into a winner. One thing Kikuchi should deliver is reliable innings, starting 61 games in his two full-length seasons so far.
Put it all together, and to me, the Jays should have fairly good pitching in 2022. They’re not going to be confused with the mid-’90s Braves…but then again, who is in this era? The rotation is as formidable as any in the division and with Ross Stripling and Anthony Kay potentially subbing if needed, it should be adequately protected against injuries. The bullpen should be much improved from last year’s. Overall, it’s a pitching staff that could keep a team in contention all year long… if the team hits a bit. Which, I’m happy to say, the Jays can be counted on doing.
One Flew Over the Jays nest 