A lot of bandwidth has been used on this site talking about the Jays’ bullpen struggles this season. Recent articles have found some good amidst the Jays’ relief core, which has been somewhere between a combustible gas can and a roaring tire fire so far this season. Save for Roberto Osuna, who remains awesome.
Somewhere between the complete domination of Osuna and the hopeless despair of Drew Storen is Jesse Chavez. Acquired in a controversial trade for Liam Hendriks, Chavez was expected to be a swingman coming into the season, throwing multiple innings and occasionally spot starting. His usage so far has been, really, as a typical middle reliever: his longest outing is two innings flat, and he’s only thrown more than 30 pitches in an outing once. Then, when the Jays needed a spot starter, they called up Drew Hutchison, rather than throwing Chavez or Gavin Floyd into the mix, suggesting that they want to continue use him solely as a reliever.
We could look at Chavez’s numbers. We could look at an increased K/9 rate since moving to the bullpen, an acceptable ERA of 3.96, a DRA of 4.07, and conclude he’s adequate. Or we could see the horrifying 62% of inherited runners scored, the fact that he’s allowed nine hits and four walks in his last five outings, and conclude he’s unreliable. We could shout “small sample size for a reliever” into the breach, throw our hands in the air, and say “who knows”? Or we could look at heat maps and pitch usage, really dig down into why Chavez has been good or bad. But really, who has time for that?
I’ve worked up a new metric that will make evaluating pitchers much easier. You won’t need a slide rule or an abacus, or whatever the math majors are using these days to figure it out. All you need to do is watch the game.
Presenting: TATER. Yeah, it’s an acronym. But unlike BIPs and DIPs and all those weird made-up words, TATER is easy to understand. It’s shorthand for a home run. Here’s the rundown.
Total
Analysis
Through
Every
homeR
What we do, is we look at each home run a pitcher gives up (WATCHING THE GAME), and assign it a score of 1-5 based on several categories: how far it went, where it was hit, who hit it, what the situation was, whether they celebrated, and finally, how thoroughly the pitcher got owned. So, if Jose Bautista launches a moonshot off Darren O’Day and gives the Jays the lead, that’s a 5, easy. You just know that he’s staring that down and flipping the bat all the way to Mississauga. If it’s Josh Donaldson scraping the wall in Yankee Stadium off Chasen Shreve in a blowout, that’s a 1, because that’s off the wall everywhere else, and he’s just padding his stats at that point.
I don’t believe I’m exaggerating when I say that TATER, and the metrics that will follow it (TATERmetrics) could revolutionize the industry. Imagine: being able to watch the game without a calculator, wondering about line drive rates, or wondering if your homemade up-to-the-minute DRA sign in right field is correct. You just wait for the home runs. Who doesn’t like home runs? Let’s see TATER applied to Mr. Chavez, and what it can tell us.
Brock Holt
The Time and Place: April 8, 2016, Rogers Centre
The Hitter: Brock Holt
The Situation: 6th inning, Jays leading 7-2, bases loaded, 1 out, 0-1 count
TATER Score: A wall-scraper just by the foul pole in the Rogers Centre, noted bandbox. Wow, gold star for you, Brock. It was a line drive, by a guy who’s generously listed at 5’10” and 180. Though it was a grand slam that made the game competitive, so a huuuuuge moment for the Red Sox and the worst case scenario for Chavez in that situation. Short of his arm flying clean off his body after the pitch, anyway. For our inaugural TATER score, Chavez gets a 2, because it wouldn’t have been a home run in most parks. It would have scored a bunch of runs anyway because Bautista would have taken ten minutes to get to that ball, and five more to throw it back into the infield with his busted shoulder.
Chris Coglan
The Time and Place: April 24, 2016, Rogers Centre
The Hitter: Chris Coghlan
The Situation: 7th inning, Jays leading 6-2, bases empty, 0 out, 0-1 count
TATER score: There’s a lot to unpack here. Four run game, nobody on, so it wasn’t an important situation for Chavez. The home run ended up not mattering, but it might have if the bullpen continued leaking hits (which it didn’t on this night). On the other hand, Coghlan didn’t even get all of it, and it still went out easily. It’s not clear from the clip, but he might even have flipped the bat, which would have been a bold move with your team down by 4 runs. I get why, though. He was struggling, he wanted to enjoy it. Additionally, Coghlan was hitting .180 before this drive. You can’t give up no-doubt home runs to .180 hitters. Chavez gets a TATER score of 3 for this.
Ian Desmond
The Time and Place: May 15, 2016, Globe Life Park
The Hitter: Ian Desmond
The Situation: 7th inning, Jays leading 6-4, two runners on, 2 out, 1-2 count
TATER score: Oh boy. Where to begin. 1-2 count, Jays clinging perilously onto a two run lead. Chavez hangs a breaking ball, and Desmond absolutely blasts it. Saunders does a courtesy jog over to the high wall in left field, but he knows what’s up. It was gone from the moment the bat hit the ball, and everyone in the park knew it. Desmond tries his hand at flipping the bat (which, remarkably, didn’t lead the Jays to hire a hitman or some other stupidity), and discovers he’s not good at it, but that’s okay. We can’t all be Jose Bautista. The gravity of the situation, the authority that Desmond hit the ball with, and the sheer stupidity of giving a batter anything to hit on a 1-2 count with 2 outs makes this an easy 5 for Chavez.
Desmond Jennings
The Time and Place: May 16, 2016, Rogers Centre
The Hitter: Desmond Jennings
The Situation: 9th inning, Jays trailing 12-2, bases empty, 0 out, 3-2 count
TATER score: This is another one that’s going to be hard to evaluate. It’s the mother of all blowout situations: 9th inning, the Jays already down a touchdown and a field goal, and Chavez was called in to mop up an awful game for the boys in blue. One day after giving up a deep drive to Ian Desmond, they hoped he could get some work in, scrub the memory of that Rangers game away. That didn’t really happen, as Jennings absolutely destroyed a 3-2 pitch down the line in left. Another courtesy jog from Saunders, but he’s mostly staying loose at this point. Jennings admired it for a moment (which was fine, he did get all of it), and just ran around the bases. It was a long home run, but didn’t really matter. That’s a 2.
TATERclusion
Based on only these four home runs, it’s hard to draw any conclusions on Jesse Chavez, who comes away with an average TATER score of 3 (and an odd weakness to guys named Desmond). But that’s what the numbers told us anyway, right? I’m confident that with continued application to other pitchers of the Jays’ staff, and refinement of the overall system, TATERmetrics could change the way we look at pitchers forever. If a pitcher has a high TATER score, it means he’s continually given up long home runs in big situations, and he’s bad. If he has a low TATER score, he doesn’t give up a lot of home runs, and he’s good. It’s an entirely foolproof system that you don’t need a page full of equations to figure out. You just need your eyes, an appreciation for the long ball, and an understanding of game situations.
Lead Photo: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports