Hello Blue Jays fans, As some of you may already be aware, BP Toronto is joining the rest of the BP Locals in shuttering its doors. After three seasons covering the club at our own special little corner of Baseball Prospectus, we are officially closing up shop as of this post. The good news is […]
Author: Joshua Howsam
Blue Jays Send J.A. Happ to Yankees for 2B/3B Brandon Drury and OF Billy McKinney
On Thursday, the Blue Jays completed their second deal this week, sending J.A. Happ to the Yankees in exchange for utility player Brandon Drury and OF prospect Billy McKinney. Source: Yankees sending Brandon Drury and Billy McKinney to Jays in the trade for J.A. Happ. Congressman @JonHeyman was first to report them as potential return. […]
The Danger in Hunting for Market Inefficiencies
This past spring, I wrote a piece for this site hypothesizing that the Blue Jays had developed a brand new way of targeting pitchers, something I termed as a potential market inefficiency: choosing to go after pitchers with outlier movement on their fastballs. At the midway point of the 2018 season, it’s clear things haven’t […]
How New Repertoires Have Led to Success for the Blue Jays Veteran Relievers
The Blue Jays entered play Tuesday night with a record of 21-20, sitting over .500 largely due to the incredible performance of their bullpen. The unit as a whole has a 2.78 ERA, which ranks first in the American League. Leading that relief corps are three veteran relief pitchers: Seung-hwan Oh, John Axford, and Tyler Clippard. […]
The Rangers Are Taking the Analytics Game to a New, Scary Level
Earlier this afternoon, Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News sent out the following tweet containing a Texas Rangers press release: NOW, this is way cool from #TexasRangers for y'all who want to go into baseball pic.twitter.com/53G244Pgnt — Evan Grant (@Evan_P_Grant) May 3, 2018 On the surface, this looks like a great new initiative to […]
The New Teoscar Hernández May be Here to Stay
At this point, there are no Blue Jays fans who are unfamiliar with Teoscar Hernández. The 25-year-old outfielder burst onto the scene with eight home runs last September, and has done nothing but hit in the early going in 2018. As such, the conversation has shifted from “how long will Hernández stay with the big […]
Tyler Clippard is Getting Back to Basics
DUNEDIN, FL – If you only watched Tyler Clippard pitch for playoff teams last year, you might not have been too impressed when the Blue Jays inked the 33-year-old righty to a minor league deal a couple of weeks ago. He’s coming off a season where he posted his worst ERA (4.77), walk rate (11.7 percent), and […]
Four Potential Relief Options With Outlier Fastballs
With the signing of starter Jaime Garcia last week to a one-year deal worth a guaranteed $10 million, the Blue Jays’ offseason shopping list is almost complete. The only area left to address (since they seem to have no inclination to improve at backup catcher) is the bullpen. Given the loss of Dominic Leone in the […]
Pulling a Fast One: Have the Blue Jays Found a New Market Inefficiency?
A few weeks ago, I found myself in a discussion on Twitter with Scott Mitchell of TSN and Keegan Matheson of Baseball Toronto about Chris Tillman, a player some of us liked as a potential bounceback candidate. The idea that came to me from that discussion was that if they did sign him, he would appear to […]
Blue Jays Sign RP Jake Petricka to a Minor League Deal
The Blue Jays bolstered their relief depth today with the signing of former White Sox reliever, Jake Petricka, according to SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo: Source: Blue Jays in agreement with reliever Jake Petricka on minor-league deal. He'll get $1.3M if he makes the majors, $500k in incentives. — Chris Cotillo (@ChrisCotillo) February 8, 2018 From […]