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		<title>A Look at the 2018 Blue Jays&#8217; Leadoff Options</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/03/12/looking-at-the-blue-jays-leadoff-options/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/03/12/looking-at-the-blue-jays-leadoff-options/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Mar 2018 10:11:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=15342</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s a good thing leadoff hitters don&#8217;t have to be fast in today&#8217;s game, because the Jays don&#8217;t have anyone fast. One of the keys to Cleveland&#8217;s success over the past two seasons has been Terry Francona&#8217;s willingness to start Carlos Santana at the #1 spot despite having speedier options in guys like Rajai Davis, [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It&#8217;s a good thing leadoff hitters don&#8217;t have to be fast in today&#8217;s game, because the Jays don&#8217;t have anyone fast. One of the keys to Cleveland&#8217;s success over the past two seasons has been Terry Francona&#8217;s willingness to start Carlos Santana at the #1 spot despite having speedier options in guys like Rajai Davis, Francisco Lindor, Bradley Zimmer and Jason Kipnis. Santana may be a negative on the bases, but over the course of a 162-game season the extra at-bats he gets from the leadoff spot meant that his ~.360 OBP was getting used to the fullest.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s how it&#8217;s supposed to work: you trade in speed for on-base ability to get an edge over the long run. And when it works, the payoff can be huge. Cleveland is a shining example of this. But it hasn&#8217;t worked out for Toronto since 2016 when John Gibbons experimented with former OBP-god Jose Bautista at leadoff for a stretch of July and August. Last year, Toronto used eight different men in the leadoff spot, with Kevin Pillar (.300 OBP) and Jose Bautista (.308 OBP) accounting for <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/TOR/2017-batting-orders.shtml">109 games</a> between them. With the season drawing near, the Jays will need to make find a way to make it work in order to score enough runs to compete against the powerhouse offences in the AL East.</p>
<p>Devon Travis has shown flashes of promise at leadoff and was the favourite to bat first heading into Spring Training, but a solid early showing from Curtis Granderson has muddied the waters. John Gibbons hasn&#8217;t made any <a href="https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/news/5-questions-for-blue-jays-before-season-begins/c-268273008">final decisions</a> yet, so let&#8217;s take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the contenders and see if we can find the optimal leadoff hitter for the 2018 Blue Jays.</p>
<h4><strong>Devon Travis</strong></h4>
<p>While Travis has spent the majority of his Major league career batting leadoff, he has actually put up far better numbers when batting from the bottom of the order. For his career, he has posted a .693 OPS (74 G) batting first, and a combined .894 OPS (85 G) batting eighth or ninth. I don&#8217;t subscribe to the philosophy that your spot in the order has a huge influence on how well you hit, but I could see Gibbons being influenced by that split in making his decision.</p>
<p>The real issue with evaluating Travis as a leadoff candidate is that it&#8217;s tough to accurately forecast his on-base ability. The .361 OBP from his rookie season was fueled by an unsustainable .347 BABIP, but the 7.6% walk rate was in line with his minor league averages. Since then, his walk rate has been in the more Jonathan Schoop-ian range of 3.6-4.6%. Meanwhile, the underlying plate discipline stats haven&#8217;t shifted too dramatically &#8211; his chase rate was actually at a career-low in 2017.</p>
<p>PECOTA&#8217;s <a href="https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/card/100193/devon-travis">50th percentile</a> projection has him posting a .314 OBP, but if the walk rate comes back up to around 6-7% I could see him coming closer to his 70th percentile projection of .339. That&#8217;s still not ideal for a leadoff hitter, but Travis has the contact skills and gap power to make up for it.</p>
<h4><strong>Curtis Granderson</strong></h4>
<p>The Blue Jays&#8217; King of Spring has started the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/split_finder.cgi?request=1&amp;match=career&amp;as=result_batter&amp;class=player&amp;offset=0&amp;type=b&amp;min_year_game=1913&amp;max_year_game=2017&amp;team_id=ANY&amp;min_season=1&amp;max_season=-1&amp;min_age=0&amp;max_age=99&amp;isActive=active&amp;bats=any&amp;split_1=lineu%3Alineu&amp;sid_situa%3Atkswg=situa%3Atkswg%3Aany&amp;sid_situa%3Aleado=situa%3Aleado%3A1st+Batter+G&amp;sid_outcb%3Aoutcb=outcb%3Aoutcb%3Aany&amp;sid_oppon%3Aoppon=oppon%3Aoppon%3Aany&amp;sid_situa%3Atimes=situa%3Atimes%3Aany&amp;sid_plato%3Aplato=plato%3Aplato%3Aany&amp;sid_situa%3Abases=situa%3Abases%3Aany&amp;sid_defp%3Adefp=defp%3Adefp%3Aany&amp;sid_opptp%3Agbfb=opptp%3Agbfb%3Aany&amp;sid_plato%3Aplats=plato%3Aplats%3Aany&amp;sid_opptp%3Apower=opptp%3Apower%3Aany&amp;sid_hitty%3Atraj=hitty%3Atraj%3Aany&amp;sid_lineu%3Alineu=lineu%3Alineu%3ABatting+1st&amp;sid_age%3Aage=age%3Aage%3Aany&amp;sid_total%3Atotal=total%3Atotal%3Aany&amp;sid_dates%3Ahalf=dates%3Ahalf%3Aany&amp;sid_locat%3Astad=locat%3Astad%3Aany&amp;sid_situa%3Ainnng=situa%3Ainnng%3Aany&amp;sid_locat%3Asite=locat%3Asite%3Aany&amp;sid_dates%3Amonth=dates%3Amonth%3Aany&amp;sid_situa%3Acount=situa%3Acount%3Aany&amp;sid_situa%3Aouts=situa%3Aouts%3Aany&amp;sid_wpa%3Alever=wpa%3Alever%3Aany&amp;sid_locat%3Ahmvis=locat%3Ahmvis%3Aany&amp;sid_role%3Astsub=role%3Astsub%3Aany&amp;sid_hitty%3Ahitlo=hitty%3Ahitlo%3AFoul+Terr&amp;sid_situa%3Aclutc=situa%3Aclutc%3Aany&amp;exclude_incomplete=1&amp;c0gtlt=gt&amp;c1criteria=G&amp;c1gtlt=gt&amp;c1val=50&amp;c2gtlt=gt&amp;c3gtlt=gt&amp;c4gtlt=gt&amp;c5gtlt=gt&amp;c5val=1.0&amp;location=pob&amp;locationMatch=is&amp;orderby=isolated_slugging_perc&amp;sr_split_totals_choice=by_split&amp;number_matched=1">fifth-most games</a> at top of the lineup among active players with 878. And out of the top ten on that list, Granderson has the highest career leadoff OPS at .810.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Jays didn&#8217;t sign career Curtis Granderson. They have 37-year-old Curtis Granderson, whose 50th percentile PECOTA projection has him at a .328 OBP. While the speed has completely evaporated, Ross Atkins obviously still thinks there&#8217;s something left in the tank after watching Granderson post a .228/.334/.481 slash over 111 games (mostly leading off) with the Mets in the first half of 2016.</p>
<p>There are a few things to say about that batting average. One, it is putrid. Two, it was suppressed by a career-low .228 BABIP. Three, batting average always matters, but Granderson also posted a career-high 13.5% walk rate. If the BABIP regresses a touch and the walk rate continues to climb, he could be an interesting option at leadoff.</p>
<p>The greater concern for the Jays is his persistent struggles against lefties. If it becomes a glaring issue he&#8217;ll need to be platooned with someone like Steve Pearce or Teoscar Hernández, which seriously erodes his potential viability as a leadoff man.</p>
<h4><strong>Anthony Alford</strong></h4>
<p>I know I said the Jays don&#8217;t have anyone fast, but Anthony Alford begs to differ. He&#8217;s currently buried underneath Toronto&#8217;s mountain of mediocre outfield options, but Alford possesses a perfect blend of speed, patience, and on-base skills to bat leadoff.</p>
<p>Anyone who has followed him through the minors knows he can work a walk. He posted an absurd .390 OBP across three levels of play last season before sustaining a hand injury that effectively cut his season short. He won&#8217;t go crazy on the base paths but has double-digit steal speed and is a smart runner.</p>
<p>The main question is whether his walk rate will translate to the majors without power. To be clear, power is not an essential tool for a leadoff man. But without the threat of power, big league pitchers will have no qualms about attacking Alford in the zone. The pop could still develop for someone as athletic as he is, but until then I have a hard time seeing him maintain his elite walk rate at the top level. Still, given the unconvincing cases Travis and Granderson make, I would take a gamble on Alford at leadoff when he gets called up. He couldn&#8217;t possibly be worse than Pillar.</p>
<p><strong>The Verdict</strong></p>
<p>Unless Granderson keeps up his torrid Spring, the leadoff job is likely Travis&#8217; to lose. In an ideal world, Alford forces his way into the outfield early on and runs with the leadoff role after Travis&#8217;s on-base ability disappoints.</p>
<p>If you have different thoughts, please let me know in the comments below.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>How to Pitch to Giancarlo Stanton: The AL East&#8217;s Newest Slugger</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/12/20/how-to-pitch-to-giancarlo-stanton-the-al-easts-newest-slugger/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/12/20/how-to-pitch-to-giancarlo-stanton-the-al-easts-newest-slugger/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Dec 2017 11:46:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=14629</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Whew. It was tough work. Exhausting really, but the payoff was well worth it. After watching every plate appearance and digging into every single advanced stat I&#8217;ve done it. It&#8217;s not what I expected to find, but if the Jays&#8217; pitchers just follow these six simple lessons, according to my calculations, newest Yankee, Giancarlo Stanton won&#8217;t [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Whew. It was tough work. Exhausting really, but the payoff was well worth it. After watching every plate appearance and digging into every single advanced stat I&#8217;ve done it. It&#8217;s not what I expected to find, but if the Jays&#8217; pitchers just follow these six simple lessons, according to my calculations, newest Yankee, Giancarlo Stanton won&#8217;t really be a problem.</p>
<p>Of course, what counts as a &#8216;problem&#8217; is relative in baseball. You saw what Stanton did in 2017. He&#8217;s a big boy. The nature of the problem for the Jays&#8217; pitchers this season isn&#8217;t, &#8220;how do we strike out Stanton or get him to make weak contact?&#8221; but rather, &#8220;they&#8217;ve scheduled us to face this man 19 times over the course of the season, which means he probably gets about 90 at-bats or so. How do we not give up 90 home runs?&#8221;</p>
<p>So yes, I&#8217;ll admit it&#8217;s less of a solution and more of a damage control plan. Something like the triage protocol they use in emergency rooms to help doctors treat a massive number of patients and casualties. That may seem like a defeatist mindset, but it&#8217;s really just pragmatic. Because sure, it&#8217;s definitely possible to win against Stanton. Pitchers in their forties have done it with less than overpowering stuff.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/fss1.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14678" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/fss1.gif" alt="fss" width="400" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s tempting to think that if Jason Grilli can win against Stanton, then what&#8217;s to stop the Jays from winning? If a rusted-out sweatbag can do it, then surely any one of Toronto&#8217;s youthful arms is up to the task! The problem with that logic is what happened to Grilli the very next night.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/stanton-dong.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14679" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/stanton-dong.gif" alt="stanton dong" width="400" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>I didn&#8217;t show you these gifs just to pick on Grilli &#8211; they simply illustrate the point that you can&#8217;t go in expecting to win against Stanton every time. I could have shown you similar gifs of at-bats against any number of arms you might consider elite. Of the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/batter_vs_pitcher.cgi?request=1&amp;submitter=1&amp;batter=stantmi03&amp;min_year_game=2010&amp;max_year_game=2017&amp;post=1&amp;throws=any&amp;c1criteria=PA&amp;c1gtlt=gt&amp;c1val=20&amp;c2gtlt=gt&amp;orderby=PA&amp;orderby_dir=desc&amp;orderby_second=Name&amp;orderby_dir_second=asc">pitchers</a> who&#8217;ve faced him over 20 times over their careers, Stanton owns a 1.000+ OPS against Madison Bumgarner, Jacob DeGrom, Stephen Strasburg, Cliff Lee, and Roy Halladay.</p>
<p>There are no easy answers when pitching to Stanton, but we can unpack several lessons from these two wildly different at-bats against Grilli. If we put all those lessons together, we can get pretty close to a solution to the problem of how to pitch to Giancarlo Stanton as a New York Yankee.</p>
<h3><strong>Lesson 1: You may win the battle, but you won&#8217;t win the war</strong></h3>
<p>This is lesson number one for a reason. Succeeding against Stanton is less about executing perfectly (although that certainly helps) and more about your philosophical approach. Getting Stanton out should give you the same sense of accomplishment as when you manage to plug in a USB stick without having to flip it two to three times first. It&#8217;s a minuscule victory in the greater scheme of things and treating it as anything grander will only serve to distract you from your ultimate goal, which is limiting the damage.</p>
<h3><strong>Lesson 2: Don&#8217;t showboat</strong></h3>
<p>See Jason Grilli, above. This is the corollary to lesson one. Once you realize that you can&#8217;t win in the long-run, getting fired up about a strike out doesn&#8217;t make any sense. This lesson is mainly for Marcus Stroman.</p>
<h3><strong>Lesson 3: You&#8217;re allowed to intentionally walk him</strong></h3>
<p>The ol&#8217; Barry Bonds special. And it&#8217;s safer/easier than ever now that you don&#8217;t even need to throw four pitches outside. This thought got me excited for a hot second until I realized that while the intentional walk might have helped Grilli avoid giving up that homer in 2017, it&#8217;s not going to be much help to the Jays in 2018. Aaron Boone hasn&#8217;t yet set the Yankees&#8217; batting order, but we&#8217;ll probably see Stanton in the two or three spot batting in front of either Aaron Judge or Gary Sanchez. That&#8217;s a completely different situation than having to face one of Justin Bour, Marcell Ozuna, or Christian Yelich. But hey, there was that one time where the D-Backs <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi7IPZAcP78">walked Bonds with the bases loaded</a> and it worked out alright, so I&#8217;m keeping this lesson in here.</p>
<h3><strong>Lesson 4: Stay down and out</strong></h3>
<p>I&#8217;m all for throwing zero strikes to Stanton ever, but if you have to throw him a strike make sure its down and out. Since all we really care about here is preventing extra-base hits, I pulled Stanton&#8217;s 2017 heat-map and filtered it to show isolated power. I&#8217;m guessing Grilli had this picture in mind when he threw that slider low and away to retire Stanton in the first gif.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/stanton-iso.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14702" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/stanton-iso.png" alt="stanton iso" width="500" height="500" /></a></p>
<h3><strong>Lesson 5: Don&#8217;t throw fastballs</strong></h3>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/h_tabs.php?player=519317&amp;gFilt=&amp;time=month&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=ra&amp;s_type=13&amp;startDate=03/01/2017&amp;endDate=12/17/2017&amp;balls=-1&amp;strikes=-1&amp;b_hand=-1">Brooks Baseball</a>, Stanton crushed 22 of his 59 home runs off fastballs in 2017. That&#8217;s partly a function of the large number of fastballs he saw, but going by the rate stats (.305/.533/.690) it&#8217;s generally not a good idea to throw him a fastball. I&#8217;m guessing Grilli didn&#8217;t have this in mind when he threw that fastball middle up for a homer in the second gif. Judging by isolated power, your best chance to prevent a home run against Stanton is either a sinker (.274) or a slider (.282). If I were a Jays pitcher, I&#8217;d be asking J.A. Happ for <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/12/13/how-pitchers-should-mix-the-sinker-and-the-fastball-to-be-successful/">sinker tips</a> right about now.</p>
<h3><strong>Lesson 6: Get pitchers with proven success against Stanton</strong></h3>
<p>One way to avoid the problem Grilli ran into in the second gif is to not have had Grilli pitching to Stanton in the first place. This is more of a lesson for the Jays&#8217; front office than the pitching staff. Here is a short list of pitchers who&#8217;ve faced Stanton at least 20 times and limited him to an OPS at or under .700.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/stanton-killers.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14685" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/12/stanton-killers.jpg" alt="stanton killers" width="712" height="467" /></a></p>
<p>Right off the bat we can cross off Hudson (retired), Peralta (signed by Royals), Capuano (retired, I think), Kendrick (signed by Red Sox), and Wood/Gonzalez/Greinke/Teheran (not getting traded). The Mets might have had enough of Wheeler&#8217;s injury issues to deal him in his first arbitration eligible year, but that kind of control would probably come at too high a cost.</p>
<p>That still leaves Ross Atkins with three viable Stanton-killing options to acquire. Hellickson and Clippard are both free agents and could probably be signed cheaply to 1-2 year deals. Harvey is the most intriguing option as the Mets have <a href="https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/12/mets-reportedly-willing-to-trade-matt-harvey.html">reportedly </a>talked to &#8220;at least two teams&#8221; this winter about dealing the former All-Star. While that .544 OPS allowed might not be indicative of his current abilities, the bounce-back potential is tantalizing.</p>
<p>So there it is. I have complete confidence that if the Jays&#8217; pitchers follow these six simple lessons they&#8217;ll be able to limit Stanton to fewer than 90 home runs.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Checking In On 2017 First Rounder Nate Pearson</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/31/checking-in-on-2017-first-rounder-nate-pearson/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/31/checking-in-on-2017-first-rounder-nate-pearson/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 31 Jul 2017 12:12:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nate Pearson]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12652</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Vancouver Canadians have rebounded nicely after finishing with a franchise-worst 29-45 record in 2016. The C&#8217;s clinched a playoff berth with a first-half pennant and are rolling along thanks to an influx of fresh young talent. A key part of that influx is 28th overall pick in the 2017 Draft, Nate Pearson, who may just have the highest [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Vancouver Canadians have rebounded nicely after finishing with a franchise-worst 29-45 record in 2016. The C&#8217;s clinched a playoff berth with a first-half pennant and are rolling along thanks to an influx of fresh young talent. A key part of that influx is 28th overall pick in the 2017 Draft, Nate Pearson, who may just have the highest upside of any arm in the Jays farm system.</p>
<p>Pearson fired two perfect innings in his Vancouver debut against Salem-Keizer last weekend. Somehow, though, perfect might be underselling this outing. Let&#8217;s look at the 1st inning to get a sense of just how dominant Pearson was.</p>
<p>Batter #1 &#8211; Malique Ziegler: Swinging strikeout on four pitches, but catcher Owen Spiwak can&#8217;t handle the last pitch and Ziegler reaches base. It&#8217;s scored as a wild pitch, but Game Day shows it catching the bottom of the zone.</p>
<p>Batter #2 &#8211; Bryce Johnson: Line out to third baseman.</p>
<p>Batter #3 &#8211; Orlando Garcia: Called strikeout on five pitches.</p>
<p>Batter #4 &#8211; Ryan Kirby: Swinging strikeout on five pitches.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s devastating. Officially, that&#8217;s 12 strikes on 18 pitches. According to Game Day, it&#8217;s closer to 15 strikes on 18 pitches. This is a guy who can pound the zone.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/pearson-1st-inning.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12654" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/pearson-1st-inning.png" alt="pearson 1st inning" width="248" height="290" /></a></p>
<p>Yes this is the lower minors, but each of those batters has an <a href="http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ibp&amp;cid=578&amp;stn=true&amp;sid=t578">OPS over .800</a>. The second inning was more of the same. The young righty finished with 22 strikes on 31 pitches, and according to Canadians&#8217; Communications Director <a href="https://www.milb.com/canadians/news/season-in-review-how-the-cs-built-a-winner/c-244176660/t-196097408">Rob Fai</a> he flashed his 100 MPH fastball.</p>
<p>The report on Pearson is pretty simple, but it&#8217;s why many scouts think he could be an impact bullpen arm very soon. Think Roberto Osuna. Let&#8217;s not forget that this guy is only 20 years old, which means he still has some projection left. According to Keith Law he hit <a href="https://twitter.com/keithlaw/status/874446228410347520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bluebirdbanter.com%2F2017%2F6%2F12%2F15779658%2Fblue-jays-select-rhp-nate-pearson-28th-overall">101 MPH</a> in front of a bunch of scouts on Memorial Day. It&#8217;s not out of the question that he adds some velocity on top of that as he fills out his frame.</p>
<p>We&#8217;ll be keeping a close eye on Pearson going into next year. In my mind, the floor for Pearson is something like <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=59351">Joe Kelly</a>. But if he can develop better feel and command of his secondary offerings the upside is something like <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/ct-michael-kopech-white-sox-birmingham-20170602-story.html">Michael Kopech</a>.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Why J.A. Happ is Throwing His Changeup Faster to Succeed</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/22/why-j-a-happ-is-throwing-his-changeup-faster-to-succeed/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/22/why-j-a-happ-is-throwing-his-changeup-faster-to-succeed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Jun 2017 11:14:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=11976</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How might it feel to be one of Ray Searage&#8217;s &#8216;projects&#8217;? On the one hand you&#8217;re no longer mediocre, and that means money—a lot of money—for you. On the other hand, even though you&#8217;re the one dominating, most of the credit is going to Searage. All day long it&#8217;s Searage this, Searage that. As one of [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>How might it feel to be one of Ray Searage&#8217;s &#8216;projects&#8217;? On the one hand you&#8217;re no longer mediocre, and that means money—a lot of money—for you. On the other hand, even though you&#8217;re the one dominating, most of the <a href="https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2015/10/7/9464865/j-a-happ-pirates-the-cult-of-ray-searage-fastball">credit</a> is going to Searage. All day long it&#8217;s <a href="http://m.mlb.com/news/article/104313906/pirates-pitching-coach-ray-searage-out-to-revive-careers-of-clayton-richard-and-radhames-liz/">Searage this</a>, <a href="http://m.mlb.com/news/article/166757902/ray-searage-is-the-pirates-pitcher-whisperer/">Searage that</a>.</p>
<p>As one of Searage&#8217;s &#8216;projects&#8217;, J.A. Happ undoubtedly owes a lot of his success to the Pirates&#8217; pitching coach for revamping his fastball. Our own Joshua Howsam wrote about that <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/31/how-j-a-happ-evolved-into-one-of-baseballs-best/">last season</a>. But this season, Happ has been experimenting with a new weapon that nobody else can take credit for.</p>
<p>Happ has thrown 111 change ups so far this season with an average velocity 86.4 MPH. That&#8217;s a full three ticks harder than he threw his change last season, and way above his career average of 82.8 MPH. Digging into the distribution of that sample, the velocity bump can be attributed to both a higher floor and a higher ceiling.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/happ-velo-dist.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-11985" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/happ-velo-dist-1024x307.jpg" alt="happ velo dist" width="750" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>He&#8217;s also upped his usage rate, selecting the pitch a career-high 17.3 percent of the time. He&#8217;s never exceeded a 10 percent usage rate over a whole season, and is already close to eclipsing his total change up count from last year (194).</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/Brooksbaseball-Chart-2.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-11979" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/Brooksbaseball-Chart-2-1024x683.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (2)" width="375" height="250" /></a></p>
<p>The results have been dramatic. The hard change has limited batters to a .459 OPS. To put that in context, of all the pitchers who have thrown over 100 change ups this season, Happ&#8217;s .459 OPS is the 7th-lowest mark, behind guys like Stephen Strasburg and Carlos Carrasco.</p>
<p>When he throws the hard change, he&#8217;s getting a strike 67 percent of the time due to a career-best 45 percent chase rate and a career-best 17 percent swinging strike rate. To put that in context, of all the pitchers who have thrown over 100 change ups this season, only Johnny Cueto has a higher chase rate.</p>
<p>It also doesn&#8217;t hurt that it looks <a href="https://streamable.com/zc2po" target="_blank">filthy</a>.</p>
<div style="width: 640px; " class="wp-video"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');</script><![endif]-->
<video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-11976-1" width="640" height="360" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/zc2po_1.mp4?_=1" /><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/zc2po_1.mp4">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/zc2po_1.mp4</a></video></div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>This all sounds great, but you&#8217;re probably asking the same question I did right about now. Isn&#8217;t the whole point of an off-speed pitch to look the same but have a significant difference in velocity from the fastball? Isn&#8217;t that what makes Marco Estrada so successful? Happ&#8217;s career fastball-change up velocity differential is around 8.0 MPH. The lowest it&#8217;s ever been is 7.1 MPH in 2015. Right now it&#8217;s at 6.2 MPH.</p>
<p>So what&#8217;s going on here? Since we can&#8217;t just ask J.A. Happ for the answer, let&#8217;s turn to the next best thing &#8211; Houston Astros ace Lance McCullers. You could call McCullers the poster-child of the hard change movement; his career average velocity sits at 89 MPH. He once dialed it up to 96.3 MPH, which is objectively unfair.</p>
<p>Fangraphs&#8217; David Laurila interviewed him <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/lance-mccullers-on-spin-angles-and-embarrassing-batters/">last June</a> and asked him about blurring the line between a change and a two-seam fastball.</p>
<p><em>&#8220;The old school thinking of a changeup is that it has to be 8-10 mph off the fastball, and it needs to look like a fastball. That’s the goal. Make it look like a fastball, but slower.<br />
</em><br />
<em>“The new-day-and-age changeup is more, ‘Throw with aggression; make it spin and kind of fall off the table.’ It’s not a pitch to get people off your fastball anymore. It’s a pitch to try to dominate left-handed hitters with, and to dominate guys who have a tough time with sinkers.&#8221;<br />
</em><br />
According to McCullers, unless you can replicate your four-seam mechanics flawlessly, hitters are discerning enough to tee off the change no matter what the velocity differential is.</p>
<p><em>“It’s not about slower pitches. There are plenty of hitters who can adjust to speed differential if they can tell it’s coming. If you’re one of those special guys, like Mike Morin for the Angels, who can have the same arm action and throw a 70-mph changeup, or a Scott Kazmir… more power to you. But I’m not that guy. My changeup is at its best when I rear back and throw it, and let the action dictate how the batter reacts.”<br />
</em><br />
The change has traditionally been a strategy pitch; something to throw in the middle of an at-bat once you&#8217;ve got the batter sitting fastball. For McCullers—and other hard change guys like Felix Hernandez, Zack Greinke, Danny Salazar, and now Happ—the change can be a finishing pitch.</p>
<p><em>“If it’s a punch-out situation, I’m going to throw it harder. I’m going to throw it 89-91, sometimes 92. The best changeup I threw all of last year was to Melky Cabrera and it was 94. It had the best movement, the best off-the-table kind of tailing action, and I got a great swing and miss on it.&#8221;</em><br />
I went out and found a clip of that 94 MPH change to whiff Cabrera. You tell me if this is a strikeout pitch or not.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="fr" dir="ltr">Lance McCullers, 94mph Changeup (from June 2015). <a href="https://t.co/btRecWSoeT">pic.twitter.com/btRecWSoeT</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) <a href="https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/873203109132214272">June 9, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Happ&#8217;s been lights out over his last two starts, and the hard change is a big reason why. He doesn&#8217;t have McCullers&#8217; freakish genetics, but even at 86 MPH his change up has been near un-hittable.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>MLB Draft: Blue Jays Select RHP Nate Pearson with the 28th Pick</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/12/mlb-draft-blue-jays-select-nate-pearson-with-28th-pick/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/12/mlb-draft-blue-jays-select-nate-pearson-with-28th-pick/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Jun 2017 02:14:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MLB Draft]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=11600</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After making polished college shortstop Logan Warmoth their first selection in the 2017 MLB draft, the Blue Jays picked six-foot six, 240 pound righty Nate Pearson two slots later out of Junior College of Central Florida. Pearson was ranked 13th by Baseball America, 28th by Keith Law, and 35th by MLB Pipeline. Some of that volatility [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>After making polished college shortstop Logan Warmoth their first selection in the 2017 MLB draft, the Blue Jays picked six-foot six, 240 pound righty Nate Pearson two slots later out of Junior College of Central Florida.</p>
<p>Pearson was ranked 13th by <a href="http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft-preview/">Baseball America</a>, 28th by <a href="http://www.espn.com/blog/keith-law/insider/post?id=7154" target="_blank">Keith Law</a>, and 35th by MLB Pipeline. Some of that volatility has to do with the fact that he got a screw put in his elbow in high school, but he&#8217;s been healthy throughout college.</p>
<p>So why does BA love him? That&#8217;d be the 100 MPH+ fastball that made his pre-draft bullpen sessions legendary. Pearson has the most explosive heater in the draft class and can locate it well. They also feel that he has a changeup that &#8220;projects as a plus pitch.&#8221;</p>
<p>Here are his scouting grades per <a href="http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2017?list=draft">MLB Pipeline</a>:</p>
<p>Fastball: 70 | Slider: 50 | Curveball: 45 | Changeup: 45 | Control: 45 | Overall: 50</p>
<p>That&#8217;s right, that&#8217;s a 70 grade fastball on a 20-year-old.</p>
<p>The knock on Pearson is that his secondary stuff is virtually nonexistent. He tinkers with a curve, slider and change, but none are special. Per <a href="http://www.espn.com/blog/keith-law/insider/post?id=7154">Keith Law</a>:</p>
<p><em>&#8220;Pearson hit 101 mph in a workout for scouts on Memorial Day, but the breaking ball and changeup are still inconsistent, and he has a little ways to go to prove he’s a starter.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>He projects as a power relief arm, and if he can develop a slider he could crack the Jays&#8217; bullpen quickly. If the Jays try to bring him up as a starter, scouts have compared him to Carl Pavano due to his size and the fastball/changeup combo. If they go the relief route, he could be a multi-inning impact arm like Raisel Iglesias.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s video of the heater that will be keeping you warm tonight:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lfI1UBfJOUA?ecver=1" width="500" height="280" frameborder="0" ></iframe></p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: </em><i>Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</i></p>
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		<title>Jason Leblebijian is the Answer to the Blue Jays Middle Infield Problem</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/10/jason-leblebijian-is-the-answer-to-the-blue-jays-middle-infield-problem/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/10/jason-leblebijian-is-the-answer-to-the-blue-jays-middle-infield-problem/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 10 Jun 2017 11:20:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jason Leblebijian]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=11483</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The middle infield was supposed to be a strength of this year&#8217;s club. It would&#8217;ve been nice for Gibbons to be able to pencil in Troy Tulowitzki and Devon Travis at the 4 and 5 every game, but it hasn&#8217;t quite worked out that way. As of today, Tulowitzki and Travis have combined for 302 PA [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The middle infield was supposed to be a strength of this year&#8217;s club. It would&#8217;ve been nice for Gibbons to be able to pencil in Troy Tulowitzki and Devon Travis at the 4 and 5 every game, but it hasn&#8217;t quite worked out that way.</p>
<p>As of today, Tulowitzki and Travis have combined for 302 PA at shortstop and second base while the combination of Ryan Goins, Darwin Barney, Chris Coghlan and Steve Pearce have combined for 437 PA. That ungodly quartet has collectively posted -1.3 WAR up to now. Throw in Tulowitzki and Travis&#8217;s production and you bump that number up to -0.4 WAR.</p>
<p>To be fair, unless you&#8217;re the Astros or the Indians, middle infield production can be pretty hard to come by. Here&#8217;s a look at the projected rest-of-season middle infield WAR across the league according to Fangraphs&#8217; <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=2B">depth charts</a>.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11492" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/MI-WAR.png" alt="MI WAR" width="786" height="450" /></p>
<p>Somehow, the Jays rank 16th with a projected 2.5 WAR from their mishmash of middle infield options. Baseball Prospectus&#8217;s <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/teams_by_positions.php">depth charts</a> differ slightly with a 2.7 WARP rest-of-season projection. Tulowitzki accounts for 72% of that sum, and then it&#8217;s pretty much random guesses at who delivers the rest. On the one hand it&#8217;s impressive that they&#8217;re projected to be around league average. On the other hand it&#8217;s profoundly depressing. With a healthy Tulowitzki and Travis you&#8217;d expect Toronto to rank in the upper third, maybe between the Mariners and the Twins. That&#8217;s a leap of a win or so, which is absolutely crucial given how the AL East is shaking out.</p>
<p>But there&#8217;s no reason to take that 2.5-2.7 WAR figure as gospel. With Travis out for at least a few weeks (probably longer, given his knee&#8217;s <a href="https://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/2017/06/06/jays-infielder-devon-travis-out-with-knee-injury-again.html">history</a>), the depth charts bumped his projected plate appearances down to 89 and automatically distributed the remaining playing time to the ungodly quarter (Goins/Barney/Coghlan/Pearce). It even gives some action to prospect Richard Urena, but somehow completely omits 26-year-old utility man Jason Leblebijian. It&#8217;s worth noting that there&#8217;s a human element involved here. As a result, we might as well toss out that 2.5 WAR projection and try to come up with a better number that more accurately captures who will be getting the bulk of the middle infield playing time going forward. Let&#8217;s start with a quick look at Leblebijian.</p>
<p>Jason Leblebijian was drafted in the 25th round (775th overall) back in 2012 as a defence-first infielder. He&#8217;s a plus defender at short, second and third, which would be a huge asset off the bench for a club that&#8217;s already used Russell Martin and Jose Bautista in the infield. Here are a few examples of his defensive wizardry:</p>
<iframe src="http://www.milb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=1398159383&amp;width=400&amp;height=224&amp;property=milb" width="400" height="224" ></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.milb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=1315075683&amp;width=400&amp;height=224&amp;property=milb" width="400" height="224" ></iframe>
<p>Defence is still his strong suit, but over the past two years he&#8217;s risen from Low-A to Triple-A on the strength of his consistent bat. Here&#8217;s a fun comp.</p>
<p>Player A: .299/.366/.461</p>
<p>Player B: .277/.367/.436</p>
<p>Player A is Leblebijian over 178 games dating back to the start of 2016.</p>
<p>Player B is 2015 first overall pick Dansby Swanson over his 127 game minor league career.</p>
<p>Just for fun I calculated their <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/similarity.shtml">similarity </a><span style="color: #0000ee"><span style="text-decoration: underline">score</span></span>—a whimsical stat Bill James thought up to make comps more fun—and it came to 948. To put that in context, that&#8217;s about the same similarity score you&#8217;d get <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lindofr01.shtml#all_ss_other">comparing Francisco Lindor</a> to Carlos Correa or Corey Seager. Sure, Dansby Swanson of the current .609 OPS isn&#8217;t the most flattering comp, but he&#8217;s still projected to put up 1.7 WARP over the rest of the season and has a good track record.</p>
<p>I could see Leblebijian contributing similar defence, with less patience and more pop than Swanson. He&#8217;s got a compact swing with easy power that should translate nicely to the big leagues, and doesn&#8217;t have much of a <a href="https://www.baseballamerica.com/statistics/players/cards/2338/jason-leblebijian/split">platoon split</a>.</p>
<p>Now that we know who Leblebijian is, let&#8217;s take a crack at a revised rest-of-season middle infield WAR projection for the Jays. For the sake of this estimate, we&#8217;ll assume that Leblebijian forces his way into a call up with his continued production in Buffalo and vultures 150 PAs at 2B/SS by the end of the season. Using <a href="http://www.ryantansey.com/simplewar.html">Ryan Tansey&#8217;s</a> simple WAR calculator, I input a regressed version of Leblebijian&#8217;s 2016-present statistics and came out with 1.2 WAR at shortstop and 1.06 WAR at second base. With Travis&#8217; health in question, Leblebijian would probably get more time at second so we&#8217;ll settle at 1.1 WAR over 150 PA.</p>
<p>Plug that production into our new (highly unscientific) depth chart and we end up with a projected 3.9 WAR rest-of-season from the middle infield. BP&#8217;s depth charts currently project Goins for -0.1 WAR at second over 61 PA, so assuming Goins doesn&#8217;t get a chance to suck we could even go a step further and bump the new projection up to an even 4 WAR.</p>
<p>Going back to the middle infield WAR rankings chart up top, that would put Toronto right around the Mariners, Giants, Cubs and Red Sox. That feels right. Time is perhaps the most important part of this hypothetical solution. Whether or not Leblebijian actually sticks for 150 PA, the front office needs to act now, while there&#8217;s still time for him to have a real impact.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports </em></p>
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		<title>Imagining the Ridiculously Athletic Jays Outfield of the Future</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/26/imagining-the-ridiculously-athletic-jays-outfield-of-the-future/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/26/imagining-the-ridiculously-athletic-jays-outfield-of-the-future/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 May 2017 10:53:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anthony Alford]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dalton Pompey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kevin Pillar]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=11141</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We&#8217;ve seen Anthony Alford in the big leagues. He struck out a bunch and reached base just once, but the hit tool isn&#8217;t why he was 93rd on Baseball Prospectus&#8217; annual prospect rankings. Baseball Prospectus&#8217; latest eyewitness scouting report from Steve Givarz gives him a 55 glove grade and 70 speed grade. Alford was fresh off [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We&#8217;ve seen Anthony Alford in the big leagues. He struck out a bunch and reached base just once, but the hit tool isn&#8217;t why he was 93rd on Baseball Prospectus&#8217; annual <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=31160">prospect rankings</a>. Baseball Prospectus&#8217; latest eyewitness <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/eyewitness_bat.php?reportid=378">scouting report</a> from Steve Givarz gives him a 55 glove grade and 70 speed grade. Alford was fresh off the DL that day, so the 70 grade might not even be doing his wheels full justice. Now, of course, he&#8217;s <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-place-outfielder-anthony-alford-disabled-list/">back on the DL</a>.</p>
<p>Alford wasn&#8217;t supposed to be due up until September, or even 2018, but then Kevin Pillar <a href="http://torontoist.com/2017/05/the-blue-jays-have-a-homophobia-problem-how-do-we-fix-it/">said something</a> and Darell Ceciliani <a href="http://www.tsn.ca/mlb/article/jays-ceciliani-headed-to-dl-due-to-shoulder-injury-1.756061">broke himself</a> hitting a homer. His three game stint was hardly enough to show off his tools—Alford had just three opportunities in the outfield and all were routine—but watching him flank Pillar in left last Sunday got me thinking about something exciting: the Kansas City Royals.</p>
<p>Yes, I know, there is perhaps nothing less exciting than the Kansas City Royals in 2017. They just <a href="http://www.upi.com/Sports_News/MLB/2017/05/22/Minnesota-Twins-put-Phil-Hughes-on-DL-for-biceps-injury/1951495493147/">sent Phil Hughes to the DL</a>. It&#8217;s a snoozefest. In 2014, however, the Royals were a base-hit away from winning the World Series. After their dominant bullpen, the most exciting topic in baseball was their ridiculously talented outfield. Ben Lindbergh went so far as to call it the <a href="http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2014-mlb-playoffs-exploiting-kansas-city-royals-ultimate-outfield-jarrod-dyson-alex-gordon-lorenzo-cain/">&#8216;ultimate&#8217; outfield</a>. At Baseball Prospectus, Sam Miller said, &#8220;we’re talking about what one might decide to argue is the greatest defensive outfield of all-time.&#8221; That&#8217;s not even a hot take: Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain and Jarrod Dyson collectively led the league in both <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=of&amp;stats=fld&amp;lg=all&amp;qual=0&amp;type=1&amp;season=2014&amp;month=0&amp;season1=2014&amp;ind=0&amp;team=0,ts&amp;rost=0&amp;age=0&amp;filter=&amp;players=0&amp;sort=21,d">UZR </a>and <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=of&amp;stats=fld&amp;lg=all&amp;qual=0&amp;type=1&amp;season=2014&amp;month=0&amp;season1=2014&amp;ind=0&amp;team=0,ts&amp;rost=0&amp;age=0&amp;filter=&amp;players=0&amp;sort=8,d">DRS</a> that season while holding opponents to a minuscule .060 BABIP on fly balls.</p>
<p>Norichika Aoki prevented this from happening every game, but when the Gordon-Cain-Dyson outfield started it wasn&#8217;t just a nice boost for the Royals starting pitcher that night. It was a demoralizing blow to every hitter on the opposing team. It was like Petco Park before they moved the fences in. It was like those three were trying to kill the fly ball revolution before it even happened.</p>
<p>Why did I just write a bunch of words about Kansas City? With Alford patrolling left field and Pillar in centre, it occurred to me that the Jays were just one name away from assembling an outfield that could conceivably rival the 2014 Royals. That name belongs to a slightly concussed 23-year-old who might develop into a better true CF than any of these guys: Dalton Pompey.</p>
<p>With Bautista likely sticking around Toronto for one, maybe two more years, the Alford-Pillar-Pompey überoutfield might not see daylight until 2019. Still, it feels inevitable. And when it hits, it should generate the same buzz that the 2014 Royals got, that the pre-Marte suspension 2017 Pirates outfield got.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/scouting-reports-alford-pompey.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-11150" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/scouting-reports-alford-pompey-1024x219.jpg" alt="scouting reports alford pompey" width="1024" height="219" /></a></p>
<p>Those are the available speed and defence scouting grades for Alford and Pompey. Don&#8217;t stare too long. Pompey&#8217;s stock has fallen since cracking MLB&#8217;s top-100 list in 2014, but his glove has never been in question. BP scout Chris Mellen gave it a <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/eyewitness_bat.php?reportid=145">60 grade</a>,  calling his defence the &#8220;best present aspect of [his] game in terms of polish.&#8221;</p>
<p>In non-scout jargon, he can make plays like this:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RsBy7F_vhmQ" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" ></iframe></p>
<p>I don&#8217;t know what the exit velocity or catch probability is on that highlight, but he takes a perfect route and has elite closing speed. Barely needed to dive on a ball most centre fielders would probably try to play off a bounce.</p>
<p>Alford&#8217;s glove comes in a hair below Pompey&#8217;s, with the general criticism being that he uses his plus-plus speed to cover up inconsistent routes. If you read that again it&#8217;s not even a criticism, because plus-plus speed is always a good thing. As for the eye test, here&#8217;s the best highlight I could find:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><iframe src="http://www.milb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=178465883&amp;width=400&amp;height=224&amp;property=milb" width="400" height="224" ></iframe></p>
<p>Now that you&#8217;re sold on Pompey and Alford, all that&#8217;s left to do is sell you on Pillar. What&#8217;s that? You&#8217;re sold? My job here is done.</p>
<p>Of course, this ridiculously athletic outfield may never fully come to fruition. Injuries can and will strike. Pillar is somehow one of the Jays&#8217; best trade chips after Donaldson should Atkins decide to rebuild. And Gibbons will always be under pressure to play the hot bat at the expense of stellar defence. But hopefully by 2019 the value of defence will be more quantifiable and he won&#8217;t face quite the same pressure that drove Ned Yost to start Aoki over Dyson <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/KCR/2014-roster.shtml">126 times</a>.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports </em></p>
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		<title>Devon Travis is Primed to Turn His Season Around</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/27/devon-travis-is-primed-to-turn-his-season-around/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/27/devon-travis-is-primed-to-turn-his-season-around/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Apr 2017 10:56:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Devon Travis]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10412</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Stop me if you&#8217;ve heard Buck say this line with Devon Travis at the plate: &#8220;He missed a big chunk of Spring Training, so he&#8217;s still working on getting his timing right.&#8221; Any seasoned baseball fan will tell you that Spring Training stats don&#8217;t matter, but in a game of inches, those repetitions are crucial for [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Stop me if you&#8217;ve heard Buck say this line with Devon Travis at the plate: &#8220;He missed a big chunk of Spring Training, so he&#8217;s still working on getting his timing right.&#8221;</p>
<p>Any seasoned baseball fan will tell you that Spring Training stats don&#8217;t matter, but in a game of inches, those repetitions are crucial for a hitter to get back into his rhythm. In 2016, a healthy Devon Travis got 64 Spring Training at-bats. This year he got just 13.</p>
<p>To make things a bit trickier, while Travis has been calibrating his swing, he&#8217;s had to simultaneously adjust to another challenge. Through 18 games, he&#8217;s seen almost 10% more breaking balls than last season. This trend is not isolated to Travis, and may have something to do with a certain series against a certain baseball team from Cleveland. We&#8217;re not even a full month into the season, so this will regress a bit, but Toronto&#8217;s hitters are being ambushed with breaking balls.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/bb.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-10452" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/bb-1024x662.png" alt="bb" width="500" height="323" /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s not the whole story, but the breaking ball surge has been a huge factor in the Jays&#8217; anemic offence thus far. Against Travis, the plan of attack has been to pound him low and away with sliders to try to induce a whiff or some weak contact. Judging by his .179/.190/.370 slash, this strategy has been incredibly effective. But if we dig into his peripherals a bit, there are several reasons to expect that it won&#8217;t be effective for much longer.</p>
<p>The first, and perhaps greatest cause for optimism, is that his raw metrics have remained at the same level as last season. His exit velocity has actually gone up a tick, and he&#8217;s built on the launch angle gains detailed <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/17/the-fly-ball-revolution-has-arrived-in-toronto/">here</a>. We can wrap this up nicely using <a href="http://m.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/expected-woba">xwOBA</a>, a predictive statistic formulated using exit velocity and launch data from Statcast. According to Baseball Savant, Travis&#8217; wOBA should be <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&amp;stats=bat&amp;lg=all&amp;qual=y&amp;type=8&amp;season=2017&amp;month=0&amp;season1=2017&amp;ind=0&amp;team=0&amp;rost=0&amp;age=0&amp;filter=&amp;players=0&amp;sort=16,d&amp;page=3_30">on par</a> with Kris Bryant and A.J. Pollock right now. That&#8217;s a massive disparity, which should bring about some significant positive regression.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="wp-image-10423 size-full" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/wOBA-underperformers.png" alt="wOBA underperformers" width="340" height="187" /></p>
<p>The second reason is the unseemly .143 BABIP. Last season&#8217;s .357 BABIP may have been due for a bit of regression, but Travis&#8217; mature all-fields approach has always produced high averages. It is a little troubling that he hasn&#8217;t been spraying the ball the other way, but hopefully that&#8217;s a skill that will come around as he gets his timing right. Including his minor league tenure, his career BABIP is .335. The projections have him pegged around .307. He&#8217;ll finish the season somewhere in between those marks.</p>
<p>One last thing to monitor is that Travis is being unprecedentedly selective. His current O-Swing% is around six points below his career average. Being more selective is a great sign if you&#8217;re Kevin Pillar, but it could also be a sign that Travis isn&#8217;t quite comfortable at the dish yet. Another word for selective is timid. Being aggressive is an effective approach for Travis, and a rising swing percentage over the next few weeks will be a good indicator to watch.</p>
<p>If you add up his Spring Training and regular season at-bats, Travis is now at 91 PAs, which effectively brings him even with all the guys who enjoyed a healthy and full Spring Training. There&#8217;ll be no more blaming his struggles on missing time from here on out, but with that juicy xwOBA there won&#8217;t be a need to. In some cases of early season struggles, there&#8217;s something to look for that&#8217;ll be predictive of a poor season to come. In Travis&#8217; case, it&#8217;s predictive of the exact opposite. Assuming he doesn&#8217;t take too many more trips to the disabled list, Devon will be better and he&#8217;s already starting that ascension.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: © Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Reviewing Stroman&#8217;s MVP Performance</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/23/if-you-didnt-know-now-you-know/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/23/if-you-didnt-know-now-you-know/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Mar 2017 15:28:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=9724</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Shouldering a championship trophy half his size, last night&#8217;s starter for Team USA contained his grin under the bright lights of Dodger Stadium as he soaked in his new title. Marcus Stroman, World Baseball Classic MVP. That&#8217;ll look really nice on the resume next to a B.A. in Sociology from Duke. Last night was possibly the [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Shouldering a championship trophy half his size, last night&#8217;s starter for Team USA contained his grin under the bright lights of Dodger Stadium as he soaked in his new title.</p>
<p>Marcus Stroman, World Baseball Classic MVP.</p>
<p>That&#8217;ll look really nice on the resume next to a B.A. in Sociology from Duke.</p>
<p>Last night was possibly the biggest moment of Marcus Stroman&#8217;s career (though he has a couple big postseason performances with it), and he made every effort to make it look casual and routine. I don&#8217;t want to read too much into the iconic shimmy, but I also really do want to. It was partly a bit of spontaneous fun. It was partly directed at those who think Americans can&#8217;t have fun playing baseball. And it was partly a message for everyone who&#8217;s been sleeping on him. Wake up.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">That Stroman shimmy. <a href="https://t.co/HhKka3Z28y">pic.twitter.com/HhKka3Z28y</a></p>
<p>— Ian Hunter (@BlueJayHunter) <a href="https://twitter.com/BlueJayHunter/status/844740983631826944">March 23, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Perhaps the scariest part about facing Marcus Stroman is that he can beat you in so many different ways. When his secondary stuff is on, he can overpower you with <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/wins.aspx?date=2016-08-01&amp;team=Blue%20Jays&amp;dh=0">strikeouts</a>. And when he&#8217;s spotting his sinker, he can mow through a lineup with ruthless efficiency. Last night, he chose ruthless efficiency, needing just 68 pitches to get through six innings of no-hit ball.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Sweet sink from <a href="https://twitter.com/MStrooo6">@MStrooo6</a>&#8216;s Fastball to fan Javier Baez at the end of the 2nd inning <a href="https://t.co/CfQjAymtOZ">pic.twitter.com/CfQjAymtOZ</a></p>
<p>— Pitcher List (@ThePitcherList) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThePitcherList/status/844732399997063168">March 23, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Let&#8217;s do a fun hypothetical using game scores. Stroman ended up with a 75 game score, which is great, but in a normal regular season game there&#8217;s no way he&#8217;d have been pulled after 73 pitches. So let&#8217;s say Jim Leyland left Stroman out to finish the game, and let&#8217;s say he tallied another three strikeouts and allowed another hit. Going off <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/instagraphs/game-score-v2-0/">this formula</a>, that adds up to a 94 Game Score. That would have been a career-best mark against a tough Puerto Rico lineup that featured both Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor.</p>
<p>And just for the record, it&#8217;s not unfathomable that Stroman could&#8217;ve thrown a complete game shutout while staying under the WBC-enforced 95-pitch maximum for starters. He got 11 of his 18 outs via the groundball, leading to multiple sub-10 pitch innings. Of course facing Correa a fourth time is never a good idea, but it&#8217;s mindblowing that Stroman was essentially on pace for a <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/2014/1/9/5292016/maddux-kimbrel-baseball-name-words">Maddux</a> in the WBC Final. There was simply nothing Puerto Rico could do against the Jays&#8217; young righty. He was that good.</p>
<p>If Stroman can come anywhere close to that level of efficiency this season, then we can throw his 160-170 IP projection out the window and safely bet on another 200+ IP season. At five-foot-seven, he&#8217;ll never be considered a prototypical workhorse, but then again, that&#8217;s probably the last thing Stroman would want to be called. Workhorse or not, for at least one night, Stroman was an <em>ace</em>. We&#8217;ll take that.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Fly Ball Revolution Has Arrived in Toronto</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/17/the-fly-ball-revolution-has-arrived-in-toronto/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/17/the-fly-ball-revolution-has-arrived-in-toronto/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Mar 2017 10:04:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Devon Travis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Encarnacion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Justin Smoak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Troy Tulowitzki]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=9322</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[2016 was an odd year for home runs; they went up by 14% between 2015 and 2016. The last time we saw so many home runs was in 2000, when the home run leaderboard looked like this. When this historic spike began to come into focus down the stretch last season, baseball writers had a [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>2016 was an odd year for home runs; they went up by 14% between 2015 and 2016. The last time we saw so many home runs was in 2000, when the home run leaderboard looked like <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2000-batting-leaders.shtml">this</a>. When this historic spike began to come into focus down the stretch last season, baseball writers had a field day trying to explain it. They enlisted physicists and statisticians. They said that the balls might be <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-juiced-balls-the-new-steroids/">juiced</a>. They blamed the historically bad Reds&#8217; bullpen. They thought maybe steroids were back.</p>
<p>But when nobody could find a satisfying stats-based explanation for the long ball lunacy, a few writers began to turn to philosophy. The explanation here isn&#8217;t as easy as hitters closing their eyes and meditating about glorious dingers. According to interviews with several players, any explanation behind the power surge starts with the general shift in the Majors from a line drive-based approach to a fly ball-heavy hitting philosophy. Leading that group of players are Josh Donaldson, J.D. Martinez, Marlon Byrd, and Justin Turner.</p>
<p>This theory has two parts. The first is that it just makes more sense to go for fly balls. In 2016, batters hit <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&amp;stats=bat&amp;lg=all&amp;qual=0&amp;type=1&amp;season=2016&amp;month=18&amp;season1=2016&amp;ind=0&amp;team=0,ss&amp;rost=0&amp;age=0&amp;filter=&amp;players=0">.241 with a .715 slugging mark on fly balls</a> versus a .238 average and .258 slugging mark on ground balls. The second part is that when this approach turns someone like J.D. Martinez or Justin Turner into a superstar, other Major League hitters take notice and try to emulate it.</p>
<p>At Fangraphs, Jeff Sullivan and Travis Sawchik have been compiling mostly anecdotal evidence for this theory that you can read about <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/has-the-fly-ball-revolution-begun/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/j-d-martinez-debunks-conventional-wisdom-thinks-a-tipping-point-is-near/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mlb-hitters-are-getting-off-the-ground/">here</a>. I won&#8217;t go any deeper into the weeds, because what interests me in this is Josh Donaldson&#8217;s role at the vanguard of this fly ball revolution.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just say NO&#8230;. to ground balls. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MLB?src=hash">#MLB</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/striveforexcellence?src=hash">#striveforexcellence</a> <a href="https://t.co/6YANrOZHQE">pic.twitter.com/6YANrOZHQE</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Josh Donaldson (@BringerOfRain20) <a href="https://twitter.com/BringerOfRain20/status/837061212705812488">March 1, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>There&#8217;s that tweet, and there&#8217;s this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyWNCrxVzPU">amazing video</a> on MLB Network. You could argue that Donaldson has been the highest profile proselytiser for the fly ball approach, which makes Toronto the perfect test case for this theory. If I was a struggling bat in the Jays lineup, I would take every piece of advice I could from Donaldson. Players on the same team talk, a lot. That&#8217;s why the Rays pitchers all throw the <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-power-of-pitch-lineage/">same change up</a>.</p>
<p>Now, the Jays are one of only six teams that actually hit <em>fewer</em> home runs in 2016 than in 2015. So Toronto&#8217;s offence was explosive independent of whatever mystery juice may have crept into baseball last season, but let&#8217;s see if we can find any evidence of how Donaldson&#8217;s philosophy has shaped the Blue Jays.</p>
<p>The best place to start is at the root of this philosophy: average launch angles. Unfortunately, Statcast data only goes back to 2015, so we can&#8217;t compare the pre-Donaldson Jays to the current core, but even the past two years are revealing. For starters, the team&#8217;s average launch angle rose from 8.8° to 10.5°. Here are the batters who gained the most lift on average.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="aligncenter  wp-image-9573" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/launch-angle-gainers.png" alt="launch angle gainers" width="510" height="229" /></p>
<p>Donaldson practiced what he preached, adding 4.5° on average according to Baseball Savant. Travis and Martin had big jumps. Encarnacion had one of highest average launch angles in the league (top 20). And at the very top of the list is Smoak, who exemplifies the kind of struggling hitter who might try to seek advice from a successful hitter such as Donaldson. Seven degrees makes me want to bust out a protractor.</p>
<p>Now that we&#8217;ve identified Donaldson&#8217;s disciples, let&#8217;s see if those increased launch angles translated into more fly balls.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="aligncenter  wp-image-9583" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/fb-gainers1.png" alt="fb gainers" width="510" height="295" /></a></p>
<p>Again, Smoak and Travis saw big increases. Somehow, Tulowitzki managed to increase his fly ball percentage by 10% despite only raising his average launch angle by 2.2°. That massive jump in FB% pushed his home run total up from 17 to 24 and raised his ISO from .160 to .189, but Tulowitzki&#8217;s slugging percentage actually remained the same due to a corresponding drop-off in doubles. This could be a sign of Tulowitzki over-emphasizing fly balls at the expense of line drives to the gaps.</p>
<p>Of those six Jays, Tulowitzki was actually the only home run gainer on a rate basis. You might expect Donaldson and Encarnacion to take small steps back after beastly 2015 campaigns, but Smoak and Travis seemed like candidates for power surges according to their FB% and launch angle gains.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="  aligncenter wp-image-9622" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/hr-gainers1.png" alt="hr gainers" width="499" height="263" /></a></p>
<p>Again, we only have average launch angle data for the past two years, but for an entire team to jump from an average 8.8° to 10.5° seem significant to me. What&#8217;s more, the team&#8217;s hard hit rate jumped from 29.7% to 33.1% while the team&#8217;s HR/FB and average exit velocity remained essentially the same. That suggests that the Jays got a little unlucky with homers in 2016.</p>
<p>It&#8217;d be interesting to talk to Tulowitzki, Smoak and Travis to see if they&#8217;ve intentionally adopted Donaldson&#8217;s fly ball heavy approach. Looking at stats can only tell us so much. Still, if those three maintain their launch angle and fly ball gains from 2016, they could be primed for juicy home run totals this year.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: © Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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