<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Toronto &#187; Joshua Howsam and Steve McEwen</title>
	<atom:link href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/author/joshandsteve/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com</link>
	<description>Comprehensive coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Tue, 24 Mar 2026 03:35:47 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1</generator>
	<item>
		<title>Blue Jays Rotation Review: Lousy Baseball Gods</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/19/blue-jays-rotation-review-lousy-baseball-gods/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/19/blue-jays-rotation-review-lousy-baseball-gods/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 May 2016 14:53:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam and Steve McEwen]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rotation Review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marco Estrada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[r.a. dickey]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=2840</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since they say starting pitching wins championships, each time through the rotation we’re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn’t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score. You can read all past Rotation Reviews here. The Blue [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Since they say starting pitching wins championships, each time through the rotation we’re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn’t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score. You can <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/category/rotation-review/" target="_blank">read all past Rotation Reviews here</a>.</em></p>
<p>The Blue Jays starting rotation was coming off by far its best week to date, posting a 1.47 ERA over 36.2 innings. It was their second straight turn with an ERA under 2.00, and had people dreaming of the type of rotation that could carry this team through their current offensive woes. Let&#8217;s see how they did this week.</p>
<h3>MARCUS STROMAN</h3>
<p><strong>Line: 6.0 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 66 strikes, 37 balls</strong><br />
<strong>Pitch mix: 2 Fourseam Fastballs, 50 Sinkers, 9 Changeups, 11 Sliders, 13 Curveballs, 18 Cutters</strong></p>
<p>Coming off a very solid performance against the Dodgers, Stroman faced another decent offense from the NL West and the results were again very good. Despite allowing four runs in his start, only two were earned and he generated mass amounts of groundballs. 21 of the 27 batters either put the ball on the ground or struck out, but some poor fielding performance up the middle definitely played into his numerically average start. In the second inning Stroman allowed a lead-off single to Brandon Crawford, which was promptly followed by an error by Troy Tulowitzki which allowed Crawford to score when Gregor Blanco doubled as the next batter up. A Denard Span groundout scored Conor Gillespie (who had reached on the error) before the threat was ended. The fifth inning was quite different though, as Stroman loaded the bases with two hits and a walk before getting Buster Posey to ground into a double play. A run scored on the double play and Hunter Pence followed with a double that was almost caught by the insane Kevin Pillar (as we learned from Sunday&#8217;s scrum, not just as a fielder).</p>
<p>Despite giving up eight hits, Stroman actually allowed the lowest percentage of hard hit balls of the season. Stroman pounded the lower half of the strike zone with only seven of his 70 fastball type pitches (cutter, sinker and fastballs) coming in the upper part of the zone (see below), and five of those were outside of the strike zone. The only real mark against Stroman in this start was his inefficiency as he needed 103 pitches to get through six innings despite throwing first pitch strikes to two-thirds of the batters he faced. Coming into this game, Stroman IP total ranked second in baseball; he was only behind Clayton Kershaw. I think we can allow him a six inning outing.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s notable is that once again, Stroman leaned heavily on his cutter. It&#8217;s a pitch that we have suggested in this space as being valuable to him, so it&#8217;s nice to see him using it often.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=573186&amp;game=gid_2016_05_11_tormlb_sfnmlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=2&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" alt="" width="500" height="333" /></p>
<h3><strong><strong>R.A. DICKEY</strong></strong></h3>
<p><strong>Line: 8.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 74 Strikes, 37 Balls</strong><br />
<strong>Pitch Mix: 102 Knuckleballs, 9 Twoseam Fastballs</strong></p>
<p>This was easily Dickey&#8217;s best start of the season to date, as not only did he not allow a run, but he pitched eight complete innings. Dickey&#8217;s overall value comes from his ability to eat innings, and he seems to finally be starting to do that. He was facing a reasonably tough Rangers offense, and just completely shut them down, allowing only four baserunners the entire night. The strikeouts were also nice to see, as they show just how badly the Texas hitters were struggling to pick up the knuckleball.</p>
<p>Dickey did a great job getting ahead of hitters in this outing, throwing first pitch strikes to 19 of the 27 batters he faced. That allowed him room to move around the strike zone and get chases. Of course, we often talk about how important command is for Dickey, and this start was no exception, but the thing that made him different from all other knuckleballers (except perhaps for the most recent addition, Steven Wright in Boston), wasn&#8217;t his command of the pitch; it was how hard he throws it. Well this start saw Dickey post his hardest knuckleball of the season, continuing a trend that has been building for him of late. He averaged 77.2 mph on the knuckler and threw a few of them over 80 mph, topping at 82. When a ball is moving at that speed and you don&#8217;t know where it&#8217;s going, it&#8217;s pretty tough to hit. Dickey typically starts to throw the knuckleball harder as the weather starts to warm up, so there&#8217;s a good chance the hot Texas air helped him out a bit here. Hopefully we see more of it once summer finally hits in Toronto.</p>
<p>As with Happ last week, sometimes you just need to see it for yourself. So here you go:</p>
<iframe src="http://m.mlb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=692989283&amp;topic_id=6479266&amp;width=500&amp;height=280&amp;property=mlb" width="500" height="280" ></iframe>
<h3>MARCO ESTRADA</h3>
<p><strong>Line: 6.0 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR, 64 strikes, 35 balls<br />
</strong><strong>Pitch Mix: 39 Fourseam Fastballs, 32 Changeups, 15 Curveballs, 13 Cutters</strong></p>
<p>Coming off two straight excellent starts, hopes were high for Estrada to follow up on Dickey&#8217;s outing and start a mini winning streak. Instead, the command issues he has been facing this season finally came back to haunt him. Marco Estrada will always give up home runs. Even in his magical 2015, he still gave up the long ball at an above average rate. He&#8217;s a flyball pitcher, and sometimes they just leave the yard. What has made him effective was the ability to limit the overall baserunners to turn those homers into solo shots, as he had done in his previous two outings. This time Estrada walked two hitters (and gave up a single to a third one) to load the bases for Bobby Wilson, and Wilson made him pay with a grand slam home run.</p>
<p>Estrada settled down after that, allowing just a single unearned run (a flyball fell between a confused Ezequiel Carrera and Michael Saunders for a triple, then the runner scored on a passed ball by Russell Martin), but the damage was done. The Jays actually managed to tie the game with back-to-back ninth inning homers, but ended up falling in extra innings.</p>
<p>As you may have noticed looking above, Estrada threw almost as many changeups as fastballs in this outing. There were two reasons for that. The first is that Estrada&#8217;s changeup is just that good, and the Rangers couldn&#8217;t touch it (10 misses on 20 swings). But more importantly, Estrada was having all kinds of trouble locating his fastball</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=462136&amp;game=gid_2016_05_14_tormlb_texmlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=2&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" alt="" width="500" height="333" /></p>
<p>This is interesting, because it had a big impact on those first four runs he allowed. In the aforementioned Wilson, Estrada jumped ahead 1-2 with both strikes coming on on fastballs. After <em>just</em> missing with a changeup for ball two, Martin called for fastballs (or cutters) on five of the next six pitches, finally going deep on a cutter. Estrada had already shown he couldn&#8217;t command the pitch (three walks) and Wilson looked absolutely hopeless on the offspeed stuff. Even with the bases loaded, it was a bizarre choice, and it ended up hurting.</p>
<h3><strong>AARON SANCHEZ</strong></h3>
<p><strong>Line: 6.2 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 4 BB, 6 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR, 63 strikes, 34 balls</strong><br />
<strong>Pitch Mix: 12 Fourseam Fastballs, 53 Twoseam Fastballs, 15 Changeups, 17 Curveballs</strong></p>
<p>If you just look at the stat line for this game, you&#8217;re going to come away with a skewed impression of Sanchez&#8217; performance in this start. When he left the game in the seventh, there were runners on first and second, with two outs. For most teams, that&#8217;s reasonably safe&#8230;but not for this Jays bullpen! Jesse Chavez proceeded to clear the bases in a hurry, allowing a home run to the first hitter he faced (he previously did this to Marcus Stroman against Boston). That&#8217;s not to say that Sanchez was absolved of all blame in this game. Three of the six runs he allowed originally got on base via the walk, and he walked another leadoff hitter who he was able to strand. He also gave up a home run to a right-handed hitter for the first time in his big league career when Adrian Beltre took him deep in the sixth. Of course, that kind of stat is impressive, not a problem. Sanchez has faced 346 right-handed hitters and given up just one home run, and it was to a future Hall of Famer. Incredible.</p>
<p>There were still plenty of good things to take away from this Sanchez start. Despite the four walks, Sanchez was very economical; he faced five batters in the 7th, but only threw 97 pitches. That&#8217;s the type of thing people didn&#8217;t expect to see from the young hurler, but that he has been delivering consistently since his first outing back in April. The reason he was able to keep the count is that, with a couple of exceptions, he was very much around the plate the entire game (see below). When he got to two strikes he would go to that power curveball to get punchouts, but he was getting a lot of quick ground balls.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone" src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=592717&amp;game=gid_2016_05_15_tormlb_texmlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" alt="" width="500" height="333" /></p>
<p>Obviously what happened after Sanchez left is going to be the dominant story from this game, but that shouldn&#8217;t take away from some encouraging signs. If he can keep getting quick outs, he is going to be very fun to watch this year.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>J.A. HAPP</strong></strong></h3>
<p><strong>Line: 2.0 IP, 7 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 0 HBP, 2 HR, 30 strikes, 21 balls.</strong><br />
<strong>Pitch Mix: 14 fourseam fastballs, 19 sinkers, 6 changups, 4 curveballs, 8 cutters .</strong></p>
<p>From one of the best starts the Blue Jays have seen in years to one of the worst (interestingly, the front runner for both good and bad starts is Brandon Morrow), Happ really struggled against the Rays. He got hit all around the park, and just never got a chance to get settled and find his groove. The big struggle for the tall lefty in this game was his fastball command as he was consistently missing down and in to right handed hitters or leaving pitches belt high and out over the plate. Pitches were crushed all game against Happ as none of the 10 balls in play were deemed softly hit. He didn&#8217;t struggle with velocity or movement on the day, it was just location. He threw only 35% of his pitches in the strike zone, and when you get behind in the count, this is what happened. As was mentioned last week, Happ has been continually changing his pitch mix from game to game, this week it was the cutter that saw a spike in usage&#8230;but he threw all eight for balls. In particular the sinker really let him down as he gave up two homers and six of the seven hits he allowed on the pitch.</p>
<p>Overall though, there just isn&#8217;t much analysis for a game like this. Happ was awful and lasted two innings. We just have to forget it and move on.</p>
<p><strong>Rotation Stats for the Week<br />
</strong>28.2 IP, 30 H, 23 R, 20 ER, 12 BB, 24 K, 0 HBP, 4 HR. 1-2, 6.28 ERA</p>
<p><strong>YTD Stats</strong><br />
255.2 IP, 223 H, 108 R, 99 ER, 87 BB, 198 K, 5 HBP, 25 HR. 11-6, 3.49 ERA</p>
<p><strong>Final Thoughts</strong></p>
<p>With a 6.28 ERA, the Blue Jays starting staff went from their very best turn to their absolute worst. Some of that is skewed, however, as Happ&#8217;s blow up and the inept bullpen have raised the numbers. Dickey, Stroman, and Sanchez all threw reasonably well (excellent for Dickey), so they really just need to turn the page. After all the early season dominance, the Baseball Gods clearly just wanted them to suffer a little.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/19/blue-jays-rotation-review-lousy-baseball-gods/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Blue Jays Rotation Review: Is This Even Legal?</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/11/blue-jays-rotation-review-is-this-even-legal/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/11/blue-jays-rotation-review-is-this-even-legal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 May 2016 16:18:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam and Steve McEwen]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rotation Review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marco Estrada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[r.a. dickey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Starting Pitching]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=2546</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since they say starting pitching wins championships, each time through the rotation we’re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn’t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score. You can read all past Rotation Reviews here. Last time [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Since they say starting pitching wins championships, each time through the rotation we’re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn’t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score. You can <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/category/rotation-review/" target="_blank">read all past Rotation Reviews here</a>.</em></p>
<p>Last time through the rotation the Blue Jays starting pitchers feasted on opposition hitting (or lack thereof), posting a 1.83 ERA over 34.1 innings. That&#8217;s certainly a tough performance to top. Were they able to build on their fantastic showing the prior week or were there some long faces leaving games? Let&#8217;s take a look.</p>
<h3>Marcus Stroman</h3>
<p><strong>Line: 7.0 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 66 strikes, 40 balls</strong><br />
<strong>Pitch mix: 1 Fourseam Fastballs, 50 Sinkers, 5 Changeups, 18 Sliders, 6 Curveballs, 26 Cutters</strong></p>
<p>Coming off arguably his most dominant performance of the season against the Rays, Marcus Stroman took on a tougher Dodgers lineup in an attempt to help start a small winning streak. For much of the early parts of the season, Stroman was getting a lot of groundball outs, but wasn&#8217;t really getting the strikeouts to help him reach ace level. That changed against Tampa Bay, so the Blue Jays ace hoped to continue the trend. He certainly delivered, going seven strong innings, allowing just two runs and striking out eight &#8211; one off his season high. He also generated 13 swings and misses, which is his second highest total of the year (14 against Tampa). Considering the difference in the quality of opponents (the Dodgers actually take the occasional pitch), this could have been considered an even better outing than last time.</p>
<p>It wasn&#8217;t without its faults, however. Once again, Stroman gave up runs late, giving up both runs in the seventh inning on a two out sequence that went double, RBI double, RBI single. In five of his seven starts this season, Stroman has given up late runs that either blew a lead, or caused it to shrink considerably. Obviously a huge part of that is the fault of the struggling bullpen (either blowing leads or being simply untrustworthy) but the Blue Jays and John Gibbons have to recognize when Stroman is starting to falter earlier.</p>
<p>Overall though, this was still an excellent outing for the Duke University graduate. He carved through a tough lineup and had them off balance for essentially the entire game. As mentioned, he also got a lot of strikeouts for the second straight game. A big reason for this is the further increased use of his cutter. Last week&#8217;s Rotation Review broke down how Stroman was using this pitch as a strong complement to his sinker. By having a pitch that breaks on the same plane as his fastball, just in the opposite direction, it makes both pitches much tougher to hit. There is, however, another factor:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Brooksbaseball-Chart-81.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-2553" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Brooksbaseball-Chart-81.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (8)" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>Last week, Stroman mixed cutters and curveballs. This week, he almost completely junked the curveball and went to the slider as his secondary pitch. Early in the season, he would go back and forth with the changeup, which he barely threw this time out. This is a theme that is going to show up a few times in this piece, but Stroman is altering his pitch mix every start. This makes him almost impossible to scout. If you have to worry about four or five different pitches in any count, it&#8217;s pretty tough to hit.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>R.A. Dickey</strong></strong></h3>
<p><strong>Line: 7.0 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR, 60 Strikes, 27 Balls</strong><br />
<strong>Pitch Mix: 79 Knuckleballs, 8 Twoseam Fastballs</strong></p>
<p>In his last start, Dickey shut down the Texas Rangers and managed to pitch into the seventh inning for the first time this season. This was of some importance, as Dickey&#8217;s main value to this team is as a man who can provide a whole bunch of innings worth of league average production. Therefore, if he&#8217;s not going deep into games, he isn&#8217;t all that useful. Thankfully, after a very rough April, Dickey seems to be finding his stride. He put up his longest outing of the year, and aside from one rocky inning, really held the Dodgers at bay. His issues came in the third inning, but he really didn&#8217;t have help. After Dickey allowed a leadoff single, Corey Seager hit a chopper in the hole between shortstop and third base for an infield single. With two on and none out, Dickey got the groundball he needed, but Darwin Barney failed to field the ball, and instead of a double play (or at least a forceout), the bases were loaded with nobody out. Josh Thole followed with a passed ball to let in one run, then Adrian Gonzalez singled in two more. Dickey escaped without any further damage, but considering he was matched up with Clayton Kershaw, that pretty much meant the ballgame.</p>
<p>Overall, this was a very effective outing. Even though he struggled to get ahead of batters (59 percent first pitch strikes), Dickey threw a ton of strikes overall (69 percent). When he is commanding the knuckleball, he is tough to hit. Joc Pederson took a high floater deep, but really, the Dodgers couldn&#8217;t do any real damage. Another encouraging sign was that Dickey threw his hardest knuckleball of the season, breaking 80 mph for the first time. The thing that always separated Dickey from other knuckleballers was his ability to throw the pitch hard. So far this year, that has been a problem. Thankfully, he tends to get a bit better as the season goes on:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Brooksbaseball-Chart-9.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-2554" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Brooksbaseball-Chart-9.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (9)" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>Whether it&#8217;s the weather or some other external factor, R.A. Dickey really struggles to throw his best knuckleball early in the season. If he can continue to increase that velocity, starts like this one could be come the norm again, instead of the outlier.</p>
<h3>Marco Estrada</h3>
<p><strong>Line: 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR, 63 strikes, 40 balls<br />
</strong><strong>Pitch Mix: 47 Fourseam Fastballs, 26 Changeups, 12 Curveballs, 18 Cutters</strong></p>
<p>For the second straight week, Marco Estrada allowed just a solo home run while completely dominating the rest of the game. The only run he gave up was in his seventh and final inning as he left with a 2-1 lead. Of course, as has happened far too often this season, great starting pitching was ruined by a disastrous bullpen effort. But this is the Rotation Review, not the Staff Review, so we&#8217;ll focus on Estrada. As has become commonplace, the 32-year-old was masterful. The Dodgers really didn&#8217;t hit anything hard all night until the Pederson home run (on a hanging curveball), and Estrada mixed in eight strikeouts, which gives him three starts where has has put up more strikeouts than innings pitched. Overall his, K/9 has risen from 6.5 last year to 8.6 this year, and his K% has risen from 18.1 percent to 23.7 percent.</p>
<p>Even with the strikeouts, as was pointed out in this space last week, it is unusual for Estrada to dominate without any balls in play being classified as infield fly balls. But for the second straight dominant start Estrada has done just that. While there were no pop ups, he still induced his fair share of soft flyball outs. However, the vast majority of the outs were actually on the ground. Estrada put up a 64.7 percent groundball rate, which was easily his highest of the season. A big part of that is his increase used of his improved cutter, <a title="Marco Estrada Is Changing Things Up" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/10/marco-estrada-is-using-the-change-in-more-ways-than-one/" target="_blank">which Joshua Howsam outlined here</a>. In this start, Estrada threw 17.5 percent cutters, which is his highest rate since his season opening dominance of the Red Sox.</p>
<p>Estrada was slightly more fastball heavy than previous starts this season. In a way it was somewhat odd given the left handed heavy nature of the Dodgers lineup. But by using the cutter, he was able to get in on the hitters&#8217; hands which forced them to open up the outside corner for his other offerings. As you can see from the chart below (catcher&#8217;s perspective), almost all the cutters were on the inner half to lefties, and most of the fastballs and changeups were away.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=462136&amp;game=gid_2016_05_08_lanmlb_tormlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=2&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>As is always the case, getting ahead of hitters is also extremely important, and Estrada managed to throw first pitch strikes to 18 of 27 batters (2/3). After 0-1 counts this season, Estrada is limiting hitters to a .157/.203/.271 line and has allowed just 15 of 74 batters to reach base, so this was a big factor in his success in this game. All-in-all, Estrada has done his best to prove all the doubters wrong as he continues to show that last season&#8217;s saviour act was not an aberration. If there is one thing to be somewhat concerned about, it is his rising walk rate, though if he continues his improved strikeout rate, it could be somewhat of a moot point.</p>
<h3><strong>Aaron Sanchez</strong></h3>
<p><strong>Line: 7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 5 BB, 5 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 57 strikes, 48 balls</strong><br />
<strong>Pitch Mix: 20 Fourseam Fastballs, 65 Twoseam Fastballs, 14 Changeups, 6 Curveballs</strong></p>
<p>This was something of an interesting start for the young, fireballing righthander. Against the hapless San Francisco Giants, Sanchez walked five batters and managed to throw just 54.2 percent of his pitches for strikes, while also generating his fewest groundballs of the season (52.6 percent). Of course, 52.6 percent groundballs is still fantastic, and the overall line looks downright dominant. Three hits and one run in seven innings? That&#8217;s elite. So overall, I don&#8217;t think anybody would (or could) complain.</p>
<p>So how did he do it? How does someone struggle to throw strikes and still hold a team down like that? Well, it starts with what we all know of Mr. Sanchez: <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/02/the-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-2/" target="_blank">He has elite stuff</a>. And in this start, the stuff was even better. As you can see from the numbers above, Aaron Sanchez threw a LOT of fastballs (either four or twoseam). What was interesting is that, while they were getting the same horizontal movement they usually do, they were both dropping considerably more.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Brooksbaseball-Chart-10.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-2555" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Brooksbaseball-Chart-10.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (10)" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>That type of increased movement, combined with the raw velocity, will lead to a lot of weak contact. Of course, it should also lead to more groundballs, and as mentioned above, Sanchez had his fewest grounders of the season. Well, the fastballs <em>did</em> lead to more grounders. 58.3 percent of them, in fact. However, Sanchez also threw a lot more changeups in this game, and they just kept on generating weak popups (60 percent of balls in play).</p>
<p>Sanchez&#8217;s evolution as a pitcher has been very interesting to watch this season, as has Russell Martin&#8217;s pitch-calling. Coming into the year, Sanchez was basically a two pitch pitcher. He has a big time fastball, and a power curve, but the changeup was always in question. Then last time out, he threw almost as many changeups as curveballs. In last week&#8217;s Roto Review we alluded to how that adds value, then this time, he threw <em>over two times as many changeups as curveballs. </em>The Giants have a bunch of left-handed hitters, and the development and confident in the changeup gives Sandchez another weapon to get lefties out. It was mentioned above that the Blue Jays are making it nearly impossible to plan for their starters, and here we have another example. Not only is Sanchez getting that extra tier of velocity into hitters heads and possessing a reverse-platoon pitch, he also has teams planning for him to pitch one way and coming at them completely differently. That&#8217;s how you dominate even when you can&#8217;t throw strikes.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>J.A. Happ</strong></strong></h3>
<p><strong>Line: 8.2 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 75 strikes, 36 balls.</strong><br />
<strong>Pitch Mix: 37 Fourseam Fastballs, 40 Twoseam Fastballs, 9 Changeups, and 16 Curveballs, 9 Cutters, .</strong></p>
<p>J.A. Happ&#8217;s first eight innings in this game (before tiring a bit in the ninth) were one of the brightest pitching performances from a Jays pitcher over the past few years. He was sharp from the get go, getting through the first six innings with fewer than 12 pitches per frame. He was doing this by pounding the zone, throwing 45 strikes to just 18 balls to that point. He continued his strong pitching through the seventh and eighth before some wildness, somewhat aided by Tom Hallion&#8217;s tight strike zone, almost put a damper on the effort. He almost got the complete game, but John Gibbons brought in closer Roberto Osuna to shut down the late threat by the Giants and preserve the shutout.</p>
<p>If any start this season was going to show that Happ has maybe taken a step beyond the lasting impact from his time with Ray Searage, this was it. Happ went deep into the game, which he never did with the Pirates, and kept his velocity and mechanics through the first eight innings. He continually worked around the outside of the zone and really had his curveball working, particularly against Brandon Belt, who struggled to deal with it all game. Despite his fastball heavy approach, he continually mixed in his other pitches at times when hitters weren&#8217;t expecting them and generated weak contact with 13 groundballs and 2 pop ups to go along with his five strikeouts. It may be repetitive, but once again, a Blue Jays pitcher completely changed up his pitch usage. In last week&#8217;s Rotation Review, this was written about Happ:</p>
<p><em>Batters go in with a scouting report that tells them they&#8217;re going to see a bunch of curves and fourseamers, so Happ throws sinkers and cutters. Then the next time out, he might throw changeups and curveballs. There has been absolutely no consistency, and that makes him tough.</em></p>
<p>It wasn&#8217;t quite changeups <em>and</em> curveballs, but Happ dropped that cutter usage right back down to the bottom. You combine that with strike zone command, and this start is what you get.</p>
<p>Normally we try to leave you with a chart, or a graph that shows you what was successful. But sometimes, you just need to see it for yourself. MLB hasn&#8217;t made this video embeddable yet, but you can <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/6479266/v682297283/torsf-happ-shuts-out-giants-over-8-23-innings" target="_blank">click this link</a>. And since we don&#8217;t want you to leave empty handed, here&#8217;s a teaser:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.bluejaysplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/HappPenceK.gif" alt="" width="475" height="263" /></p>
<p><strong>Rotation Stats for the Week<br />
</strong>36.2 IP, 26 H, 8 R, 6 ER, 13 BB, 29 K, 0 HBP, 2 HR. 2-1, 1.47 ERA</p>
<p><strong>YTD Stats</strong><br />
227.0 IP, 193 H, 85 R, 79 ER, 75 BB, 175 K, 5 HBP, 21 HR. 11-6, 3.13 ERA</p>
<p><strong>Final Thoughts</strong></p>
<p>Somehow, the Blue Jays managed to top last week&#8217;s performance, throwing more innings, yet allowing fewer earned runs. For the second straight turn, there were no weak links in the rotation chain, as even the worst performance (Dickey) still provided seven innings and two earned runs. If the Jays can keep getting anything close to this level of production, they will be extremely tough to beat.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Lance Iversen-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/11/blue-jays-rotation-review-is-this-even-legal/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Blue Jays Rotation Review: Marco&#8217;s Back</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/14/blue-jays-rotation-review-marcos-back/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/14/blue-jays-rotation-review-marcos-back/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Apr 2016 17:01:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam and Steve McEwen]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rotation Review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marco Estrada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[r.a. dickey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Starting Pitching]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=1483</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since they say starting pitching wins championships, each time through the rotation we&#8217;re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn&#8217;t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score. You can read all past Rotation Reviews here. The first [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Since they say starting pitching wins championships, each time through the rotation we&#8217;re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn&#8217;t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score. You can read <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/category/rotation-review/" target="_blank">all past Rotation Reviews here</a>.</em></p>
<p>The first trip through the four-man version of the Blue Jays starting rotation saw a lot of really encouraging performances. Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez were lights out, and J.A. Happ was very solid in his turn on the bump. Only R.A. Dickey struggled, and even so, put up a passable performance. Week two was a little bit of a different story, with a little bit more inconsistency in the outings.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>Marcus Stroman</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 56 Strikes, 46 Balls<br />
Pitch mix: 57 Sinkers, 14 Changeups, 10 Sliders, 9 Cutters, and 2 Curveballs</p>
<p>What a difference a week can make. From a gem of a start on opening day to a stinker in the home opener. Given that the Boston Red Sox offense is slightly more daunting than the Rays, a small step back was to be expected, but this outing wasn&#8217;t even close. The key to Stroman’s performance against Tampa Bay was his supreme command of the fringes of the strike zone, combined with his ability to get ahead of hitters. Both of those things abandoned him against Boston. In particular, Stroman struggled to get ahead of hitters, starting only 37.5 percent of batters off with a strike. His overall strike rate fell from 78.7 percent against Tampa to 58.8 percent against Boston. Boston isn&#8217;t as aggressive as Tampa, but Stroman was also just having trouble locating.</p>
<p>Also, because he was falling behind so often during the game, Stroman was forced to resort to throwing more pitches in the bigger parts of the zone. This creates more hittable pitches just to get back into the count, leading to harder contact. As you can see in the image below, there are not nearly as many pitches that were hitting the edges of the plate. Walks and fat pitches&#8230;that&#8217;s usually a bad combination.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=573186&amp;game=gid_2016_04_08_bosmlb_tormlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></p>
<p>On a positive side, Stroman had a very good changeup in this outing, registering a couple of strikeouts and four missed swings with the offering. This could come in handy with all the lefty mashers in the American League East, starting with his very next time out against the Yankees. If Stroman can continue to get ahead of batters early to let his pitch variety and ability to hit the fringes of the strike zone play up, he will be successful.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>R.A. Dickey</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 5.0 IP, 8 H, 7 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, 0 HBP 0 HR, 60 Strikes, 41 Balls<br />
Pitch Mix: 95 Knuckleballs, 3 Four-Seam Fastballs, 2 Two-Seam Fastballs</p>
<p>To look at R.A. Dickey’s line from his first start at the Rogers Centre in 2016, you would have thought Brandon Morrow had tossed on Dickey’s jersey and a fake beard and taken the mound. Five innings of two walk, nine strikeout ball looks great, particular in terms of FIP, but seven runs (six earned) isn&#8217;t exactly ideal. Once you factor in the 8 hits allowed and generally hard (40% of balls in play were line drives) contact, it was clearly a pretty lacklustre outing. Like Stroman, Dickey struggled to get ahead of hitters after doing a good job of it in his 2016 debut. Unlike Stroman though, Dickey struggled to find the zone<em> at all</em> for most of the game.</p>
<p>Dickey wasn&#8217;t helped by his defense, though. He made an error himself on a pickoff to second base, and Josh Thole was having all kinds of problems handling the knuckleball behind the plate.</p>
<p>Last time out, Dickey’s knuckleball velocity was up a tick from his 2015 April, but that wasn’t the case against the Red Sox, as he dropped down to 75.2 mph for the game. His pitch mix also changed quite drastically; his fastball usage dropped from 13.4 percent in his first start to just 5 percent against Boston. Dickey struggled in both games as he looks for consistency from the least consistent pitch in existence. When Dickey is getting ahead of hitters he is much more effective at generating weak contact and generally eating up innings. It will be something to watch for in start number three of the season.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooksbaseball-Chart-11.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-1485" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooksbaseball-Chart-11.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (11)" width="750" height="254" /></a></p>
<h3>Marco Estrada</h3>
<p>Line: 7.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 62 strikes, 29 balls<br />
Pitch Mix: 37 Fourseam Fastballs, 27 Changeups, 16 Cutters, and 11 Curveballs</p>
<p>The last time Jays fans saw Marco Estrada in a major league game, he was walking off the mound to an enormous ovation after dominating the Kansas City Royals in game five of the ALCS. Armed with a new contract, Estrada missed a bunch of time in spring training with a sore back and actually started the season on the disabled list. Well, if there were any lingering concerns over Estrada&#8217;s health, I think he put them to bed nicely.</p>
<p>Estrada was dominant from the first batter (a strikeout of Mookie Betts) until the last (a similar fate for Jackie Bradley Jr.). He had even more &#8220;rise&#8221; on his fastball than last year, at 13.6 inches, and combined it with a strong cutter and his world-class changeup to keep the Red Sox hitters off balance for the entire game. In classic Estrada fashion, he induced six popups, as hitters simply have trouble adjusting to a fastball that stays up at that rate. He also worked ahead of hitters with consistency, throwing first pitch strikes to two-thirds of hitters that stepped into the box.</p>
<p>It was interesting to see how Estrada was going to work in this game, as all of his success last year came from throwing to Dioner Navarro, who is now in Chicago. However, Russell Martin and Pete Walker <a title="Marco Estrada Embraces Leadership Role; Ready to Repeat 2015" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/16/marco-estrada-embraces-his-leadership-role-ready-to-repeat-2015/" target="_blank">made a point of watching video</a> from last year&#8217;s plans of attack. Joshua will be tracking this as the season goes on (with monthly updates), but so far it looks like some of the lessons were taken to heart. Estrada mixed fastballs at the top of the zone with the other offspeed pitches to generate a lot of soft flyball contact, which is something that Navarro stressed in their outings last year.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The opposition was hopeless against Marco Estrada today: <a href="https://t.co/HxW4kzHMB3">https://t.co/HxW4kzHMB3</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OurMoment?src=hash">#OurMoment</a> <a href="https://t.co/2jDL5wWHFh">pic.twitter.com/2jDL5wWHFh</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) <a href="https://twitter.com/BlueJays/status/719272038318284800">April 10, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<h3><strong>Aaron Sanchez</strong></h3>
<p>Line: 6.0 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR, 54 strikes, 43 balls<br />
Pitch Mix: 11 Fourseam Fastballs, 60 Sinkers, 6 Changeups, 20 Curveballs</p>
<p>All eyes were on Sanchez in this start to see if he could repeat the dominance he showed in his first start against Tampa Bay. While he wasn&#8217;t quite as strong, it was still an overall very solid outing for the young righty. Throughout his career, Sanchez has had his struggles against left-handed batters, and the New York Yankees are absolutely loaded with them. In this game they set a lineup that included four lefties and three switch-hitters, so Sanchez was working on the wrong side of the platoon an awful lot. The parade of lefty batters makes it interesting that Sanchez threw so many fewer changeups in this outing (6) compared to his start in Tampa (15), instead going to the curveball as his out offspeed pitch. Whatever the reason for that decision, it seemed to work as the Yankees did very little damage all game.</p>
<p>Sanchez struggled a bit with his command, especially in the second inning (he walked two), but he <a title="How Bad Umpiring and Mental Mistakes Cost the Blue Jays" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/13/how-bad-umpiring-and-mental-mistakes-cost-the-blue-jays/" target="_blank">really wasn&#8217;t helped by the home plate umpire</a>. Hoye was really struggling with pitches on the first base side of home plate for both teams, but this particularly hurt Sanchez in that second inning. Both walks came as a result of missed strike calls inside to left-handed batters.</p>
<p><img class="size-full wp-image-1420 aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/SanchezCurveBM041216.gif" alt="SanchezCurveBM041216" width="475" height="262" /></p>
<p>Overall though, Sanchez was able to get key strikes when he needed to, despite not throwing nearly as hard in this outing as he was against Tampa; his average fastball velocity was 95.0 mph compared to 96.6 mph last time out. However, he did a good job of keeping the ball down in the strike zone to avoid damage, with the only real exception being the home run ball to Brian McCann in the sixth. That pitch was almost completely center cut, and McCann did what you&#8217;re supposed to do with those.</p>
<p>Overall, it was another very encouraging outing for the young fireballer. Sanchez showed that he can succeed against a lefty-dominated lineup, even without his best command or his best stuff.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>J.A. Happ</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 6 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 63 strikes, 38 balls.<br />
Pitch Mix: 39 Fourseam Fastballs, 25 Sinkers, 13 Cutters, 5 Changeups and 19 Curveballs.</p>
<p>For the second straight outing, Happ has made it look like whatever he learned from Ray Searage in Pittsburgh wasn&#8217;t lost as soon as he left the Steel City. The tall lefty kept the Yankees off-balance for pretty much the entire game. He used the entire strike zone (see plot below) to keep the Yankees hitters from honing in on one particular location. This was a problem for Happ in Seattle, as he would work almost exclusively away, especially to right-handed batters. That wasn&#8217;t the case here though, as Martin made a point of crowding some of the powerful righties that Joe Girardi trotted out there.</p>
<p>Happ just had really good command in this game, and that&#8217;s how he was able to carve up a lineup loaded with righties (and four switch-hitters). He got ahead of hitters, throwing first pitch strikes to 18 of the 26 batters he faced, and threw strikes on 62.3 percent of his pitches overall. By throwing first pitch strikes, the hitters were forced to be on the defensive, which led to a lot of ugly swings and softly hit balls. In fact, the only time that Happ was ever really in any sort of trouble was the fifth inning when Ronald Torreyes and Austin Romine started the inning by going double-single to put runners on the corners with nobody out. However, Happ was able to use the high fastball to get Ellsbury to pop up, then induced a weak grounder from from Aaron Hicks, before getting an easy fly ball to right from Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees scored their lone run (against Happ), but he did an incredible job minimizing the damage.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=457918&amp;game=gid_2016_04_13_nyamlb_tormlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></p>
<p>If Happ can keep pitching like this, the Jays are going to get a lot of value out of their $36M investment, and more importantly, be in great position for a repeat of the division title.</p>
<p><strong>Rotation Stats for the Week</strong><br />
29.1 IP, 29 H, 15 R, 13 ER, 13 BB, 30 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR. 2-1, 4.02 ERA</p>
<p><strong>YTD Stats</strong><br />
55.1 IP, 53 H, 24 R, 22 ER, 17 BB, 50 K, 1 HBP, 5 HR. 4-1, 3.58 ERA</p>
<p><strong>Final Thoughts</strong></p>
<p>Overall, it was a pretty decent turn for the rotation as Estrada, Sanchez, and Happ were all very good, but Stroman and Dickey both need to be better than they showed this time out. They&#8217;ll get quick chances for redemption though, as Stroman faces the Yankees on Thursday (April 14) and Dickey gets to exact his revenge on the Red Sox in Boston on Friday.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
<p><em>All pitch charts courtesy of Brooks Baseball</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/14/blue-jays-rotation-review-marcos-back/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Blue Jays Rotation Review: Week One Wonders</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/07/blue-jays-rotation-review-week-one-wonders/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/07/blue-jays-rotation-review-week-one-wonders/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Apr 2016 10:56:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam and Steve McEwen]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rotation Review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[r.a. dickey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Starting Pitching]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=1182</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[They say that pitching wins championships. We&#8217;re not quite sure who &#8220;they&#8221; are, and we think the Toronto bats could probably disagree, but who are we to argue? So here at BP Toronto we&#8217;ve decided to make starting pitching a focus, so that when the Jays finally raise that World Series banner, we can look [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>They say that pitching wins championships. We&#8217;re not quite sure who &#8220;they&#8221; are, and we think the Toronto bats could probably disagree, but who are we to argue? So here at BP Toronto we&#8217;ve decided to make starting pitching a focus, so that when the Jays finally raise that World Series banner, we can look back and say &#8220;here&#8217;s how they got there.&#8221; We started with this over at Blue Jays Plus, and now we&#8217;re launching our first Rotation Review for Baseball Prospectus.</p>
<p>Every time through the rotation, we&#8217;re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn&#8217;t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><strong><strong>Marcus Stroman</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 8.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR, 74 Strikes, 24 Balls<br />
Pitch mix: 47 Sinkers,  16 Sliders, 14 Cutters, 13 4 Seamers, 7 Changeups, and 1 Curve</p>
<p>After an inspiring recovery, from a torn ACL to being a key member of the Blue Jays playoff success, Marcus Stroman has sky high expectations amongst fans. It may be one year delayed, but Marcus Stroman finally made his first opening day start for the Blue Jays and he did not disappoint.</p>
<p>Using his usual mix of quality pitches and supreme command, Stroman pitched deep into the game without much hard contact made against him. For Stroman, his dominance started with the sinker and his ability to throw it for strikes. Pitching is so much easier when you are ahead of hitters and Stroman was ahead all night. 27 of the 32 hitters Stroman faced ended up behind in the count, and only four plate appearances ended with Stroman chasing in the count. Even if you count two run 9th inning against him, the Blue Jays ace threw an absolute gem as he pounded the lower part of the zone with his sinker. In the end 62 of his 98 pitches were down in the zone, which led to 17 ground balls and a serious lack of rallies from the Rays.</p>
<p>While his velocity was down almost a half a MPH from 2015, it doesn’t seem to be anything to worry about. Pitchers are still getting their arms back into game shape, and that only comes with more starts. Following up a performance like this one will be tough to do, but perhaps Stroman can build off of his game one success and keep his velocity a bit deeper into the start.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Stroman-plot.gif"><img class=" size-full wp-image-1204 aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Stroman-plot.gif" alt="Stroman plot" width="600" height="400" /></a></p>
<h4></h4>
<h3><strong><strong>R.A. Dickey</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 0 HBP 1 HR, 54 Strikes, 28 Balls<br />
Pitch Mix: 71 Knuckleballs, 11 Two-Seam Fastballs</p>
<p>R.A. Dickey has always been somewhat of a disappointment for Blue Jays fans. Coming off his Cy Young season, he had a high acquisition cost, leading to sky high expectations. Still, he has always been a very valuable starter overall by eating innings with league average run prevention. However, he has often had issues at the start of each year. In each season since joining the Blue Jays, Dickey has seen his ERA rise for the month of April; it was 4.15 in 2013, 5.23 in 2014, and 5.40 last year.</p>
<p>In his first start this season, it was a bit more of the same from Dickey, as he struggled from the outset against Tampa. The Rays had runners on against the knuckleball specialist in the first, second, fifth and sixth innings (he faced one batter before being removed). Dickey was probably lucky to escape with only three runs allowed. He escaped a first and third, one out situation in the first inning, and a first and second nobody out situation in the fifth. In those two innings Dickey&#8217;s strike rate fell to below 60 percent (53 and 55, respectively). It&#8217;s often pretty simple for Dickey: when he throws strikes, he gets outs, and when he falls behind, he is forced to throw fastballs hurt him.</p>
<p>Still, there were some encouraging signs from the 41 year-old. Dickey’s knuckler was a little harder in his first start than it was last April, averaging 76.2 MPH, up from 75.2 mph in 2015. He also threw more strikes than he has in any April since joining the Blue Jays, at 65.9% against Tampa. From 2013 to 2015, Dickey&#8217;s numbers in that category ranged from 62.6% to 62.9%. It&#8217;s also worth noting that Dickey didn&#8217;t throw a single fourseam fastball in this game, per Brooks Baseball. In his career, he has mostly split between two and fourseam pitches when in trouble, with the occasional changeup against a left-handed batter, but yesterday it was all knucklers and sinkers. Given how much damage hitters tend to do when Dickey goes away from the knuckleball, it&#8217;s good to see him aiming for a bit more movement to at least give himself a chance &#8211; he get about an inch of extra run and two inches of &#8220;drop&#8221; on the sinker compared to the fourseam.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooks-Dickey.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1183" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooks-Dickey.gif" alt="Brooks Dickey" width="600" height="400" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><strong>Aaron Sanchez</strong></h3>
<p>Line: 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 64 strikes, 27 balls<br />
Pitch Mix: 14 Fourseam Fastballs, 49 Sinkers, 15 Changeups, 1 Cutter, 12 Curveballs</p>
<p>Without a doubt, the pitcher facing the most scrutiny coming into the season was Aaron Sanchez. He put on a lot of weight in the offseason, then got locked into a serious rotation battle with Gavin Floyd &#8211; one that lasted the entire spring. The young righty emerged victorious in the end, and made his season debut Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Rays. There were a lot of people who had doubted his ability to pitch as a starter before the outing, but I&#8217;m betting a lot of them have been converted.</p>
<p>Simply put, Sanchez was awesome. In fact, he was so good that it&#8217;s actually quite difficult to decide what was most encouraging from this performance. The first thing that probably sticks out is that Sanchez didn&#8217;t walk a single batter, a feat which he accomplished only once all last year. He has had control issues throughout his career, but showed vast improvement this spring. It has only been one start, but it was nice to see it carry into the regular season.</p>
<p>The other thing that stood out in this start was his strikeout totals. Sanchez was a big time strikeout pitcher in the lower minors, but as he has risen through the system and eventually reached the major leagues, his ability to generate swings and misses has gone away. In his career, Sanchez has a swing and miss rate of just over 18 percent. That all changed on Tuesday, as Tampa missed on a whopping 32.7 percent of their swings. To get an idea of how good that is, last year Francisco Liriano led the major leagues with a swing and miss rate of 33.5 percent, and Clayton Kershaw was third at 32.6 percent. If he can keep up anything close to that kind of bat-missing ability, he&#8217;s going to be very tough to hit.</p>
<p>The biggest reason that Sanchez got more whiffs was that he was able to mix his pitches up very well, which kept the Rays off balance for the entire outing. All of his offerings were working well, and the Rays hitters just couldn&#8217;t adjust. For a graphic representation of how good Sanchez was last night, see below:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I&#39;m going to quantify stuff for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlueJays?src=hash">#BlueJays</a> pitchers over at <a href="https://twitter.com/BProToronto">@BProToronto</a>. Here&#39;s a sample from the first 3 games. <a href="https://t.co/8QNHxGIR52">pic.twitter.com/8QNHxGIR52</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Mike Sonne (@DrMikeSonne) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrMikeSonne/status/717865165090213890">April 7, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>That&#8217;s the <a href="http://www.mikesonne.ca/baseball/22/" target="_blank">&#8220;STUFF&#8221; metric</a> that has been developed by Dr. Mike Sonne (and will soon start appearing on this site regularly). Click that link for a more accurate primer, but basically, the metric uses velocity and movement variables to assign value to a pitcher&#8217;s &#8216;stuff&#8217;. Aaron Sanchez&#8217; rating from yesterday&#8217;s start would have put him in the top three in all of baseball last year, which matches up nicely with the strikeout rates. In the end, this was about as good as anybody could have possibly hoped for. If Aaron Sanchez is even close to this good going forward, the Jays are in for a real treat.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><strong><strong>J.A. Happ</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 6 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HBP, 1 HR, 54 strikes, 35 balls.<br />
Pitch Mix: 31 4 Seamers, 25 Sinkers, 18 Cutters, 9 Changeups and 5 Curveballs.</p>
<p>Coming into the season, J.A. Happ was possibly the largest question mark in the Blue Jays rotation. After being shipped off Pittsburgh Pirates in the middle of last season, J.A. Happ had a career resurgence, posting a 1.85 ERA over his last 63+ innings with the Bucs. Over the past few years Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage has helped revitalize the careers of several pitchers, including the likes of A.J. Burnett and Francisco Liriano. However, unlike Liriano and Burnett, Happ has never been a groundball pitcher, which seems to be a part of the Pirates success with their pet pitcher projects.</p>
<p>Instead, what Happ did do was increase his fastball usage even further to around 87%. Mind you this 87% is spread across 3 pitches, his cutter, four-seamer, and sinker. Combined with a far more consistent release point, this led to more strikes for Happ, and better command around the zone. Many of these aspects were apparent in Happ’s first start with the Blue Jays in 2016. He started off 17 of 26 batters with first pitch strikes and maintained his delivery well. The strike-zone was poor and extremely inconsistent for both pitchers and that somewhat hindered just how effective Happ was. Happ did a very good job of keeping the ball along the black, with very few pitches over the heart of the plate.</p>
<p>The one pitch that stood out in particular for Happ&#8217;s first start was his cutter. He threw 18, and four were whiffed on, including a beautiful one thrown on the outside corner to strike out Tim Beckham. Some may argue that his cutter is more of a slutter (slider/cutter), but no matter what you call it, it is a truly effective compliment to his sinker. Happ held his velocity well and should hold up if he goes deeper into his starts. It will be interesting to see if he can build off of this start and go a bit deeper into the game next time out, but overall his start was extremely impressive and a terrific building block to start the season on.</p>
<h4><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Happ-Velo.gif"><img class=" wp-image-1203 size-full aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Happ-Velo.gif" alt="Happ Velo" width="600" height="400" /></a></h4>
<p><strong>Rotation Stats for the Week</strong><br />
26.0 IP, 24 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 4 BB, 20 K, 1 HBP, 4 HR. 2-0, 3.12 ERA</p>
<p><strong>YTD Stats</strong><br />
26.0 IP, 24 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 4 BB, 20 K, 1 HBP, 4 HR. 2-0, 3.12 ERA</p>
<p><strong>Final Thoughts</strong></p>
<p>Overall, it&#8217;s hard to be disappointed with the performance of the temporary four-man rotation. Sanchez and Stroman were excellent, Happ was very solid, and Dickey wasn&#8217;t half bad himself.</p>
<p>That concludes the first rotation review of the season. Stay tuned for the next one which will drop some time in the middle of next week. If there is anything else you would like to see, or something you&#8217;d like us to focus on, let us know in the comments and we&#8217;ll do our best to incorporate it next time around.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo:Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
<p><em>All pitch charts courtesy of Brooks Baseball</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/07/blue-jays-rotation-review-week-one-wonders/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>
