Blue Jays Leaning Towards the Right Choice with Aaron Sanchez

In the offseason, the Jays front office went out and got Drew Storen from the Washington Nationals for Ben Revere. Personally, I believe this trade made absolute sense. Not only did the Jays trade from a position of surplus, Saunders and Pompeiy were also fighting for the spot, but they filled a position of need. The back end of the bullpen was stellar last season when they had Osuna closing, with Sanchez and Cecil taking the high-leverage late innings. The main reason I believe the trade made perfect sense, however, was because it allowed Aaron Sanchez to move to the rotation and show the team what he has. After three months on the job, Aaron Sanchez has shown that he has a lot to offer.

In 15 starts, Sanchez has accumulated 97 innings, pitching to the tune of 3.33 ERA, striking out 8.6 per nine while walking only 3.0. He has accrued a WARP of 1.5 which puts him easily in the to 50 starters in the game, and shows no signs of slowing down. Th

e main concern prior to the season was Sanchez’s ability to keep the ball in the strike zone. Last season, Sanchez walked 37 batters in 66 innings – good for 5.05 walks per nine.  As mentioned before, this season he has brought that down to 3.0. He has made subtle tweaks to his pitching style as well; he is throwing more changeups and curveballs and fewer sinkers this year than he did as a starter in 2015. Although it isn’t by a wide margin, he is clearly a much more complete pitcher. Sanchez has improved in the areas that were required and, as a result, he goes substantially deeper into ballgames.

From the onset of the season, the front office has projected the message that Sanchez will be moved to the bullpen at some point in time. Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins hadn’t put an innings limit on it, believing more in a ‘fatigue level,’ but either way it seemed they were determined to stick with their plan. Recently, I became hopeful that the Jays might reconsider their plan. I was quickly dismayed from this line of thinking. Recently, Gibbons announced that the thinking hadn’t changed and Sanchez will be moved.

John Gibbons reaffirms the plan remains for Sanchez to transition to bullpen when innings get high & Hutchison to take his place in rotation

— Arden Zwelling (@ArdenZwelling) June 15, 2016

My confusion and frustration reigned supreme on this matter. I understood the desire to protect a young arm and have an eye toward the future. My frustration entered into the equation because of the route the Jays took to get to where they are right now with Sanchez. Are you really doing him a great service by switching him from throwing 100 pitches every five days, to potentially working two days in a row or three of four? Is that really less taxing on any pitchers body? Sure, perhaps he will be throwing fewer pitches, but working more and having fewr days off seems counter-intuitive to the attempted solution.

A different solution to limiting Sanchez’s fatigue might have been to skip a start a month or something of that nature. Drew Hutchison has pitched quite well in AAA and has spot started once this year already. Throughout the course of the season, Sanchez would lose maybe six starts (approximately 40 innings) and have nine days of consecutive rest per month. Depending on Sanchez’s ‘fatigue’ level, this would potentially give the Jays the option of leaving Sanchez a starter through the end of the season and hopefully the awaiting post-season as well. If the Jays had truly committed to moving Sanchez to the pen, then they have completely limited themselves by their use of his valuable starts so far.

Thankfully, it seems the Blue Jays are changing their view a little bit:

Ross Atkins on moving Aaron Sanchez out of the rotation – "As long as things are trending upwards, there will be no reason to move him out".

— Ian Hunter (@BlueJayHunter) June 29, 2016

My hope is that they do continue down the most recent path; let his results determine his role. If he starts to falter as a starter, then by all means send him to the pen. But as long as he keeps up this level of production, he should be getting the ball every fifth (or occasionally sixth) day.

If they move Aaron to the bullpen when he’s still pitching well, the team will be finding a solution for the relief corps but in doing so, they will create another problem in the rotation. With the lack of depth, the Jays would need to acquire a starter at the trade deadline to fill the void left by Sanchez. It’s really a simple truth: Above average relievers are more accessible and cheaper than quality starting pitchers. It is unlikely that Mark Shapiro and Co. would be willing to let Atkins give up top prospects for a starter considering he reportedly was upset that Anthopoulos’ sold the entire farm system in deadline moves last season. That leaves the team with the option of pursuing a back-end starter or a possible high-leverage reliever. Assuming Sanchez remains healthy, I think it should be an obvious decision for the Jays to keep Aaron as a starter for the duration of the season and seek a quality reliever at the deadline. If the team can manage Sanchez’s fatigue adequately over the remainder of the year, then he should continue to pitch every five days.

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