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	<title>Toronto &#187; Kyle Matte</title>
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	<description>Comprehensive coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays</description>
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		<title>The Blue Jays are Stagnating on the Basepaths</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/06/14/the-blue-jays-are-stagnating-on-the-basepaths/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Jun 2018 14:01:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=16122</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Most fans turn to sports as a pleasant distraction, but the 2018 Toronto Blue Jays have not offered much of a reprieve from the daily horrors of our reality. A relief corps that was the backbone of the pitching staff for the first six weeks of the season has fallen apart since Roberto Osuna was [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Most fans turn to sports as a pleasant distraction, but the 2018 Toronto Blue Jays have not offered much of a reprieve from the daily horrors of our reality. A relief corps that was the backbone of the pitching staff for the first six weeks of the season has fallen apart since Roberto Osuna was placed on Administrative Leave for what has been rumored to be deeply unfathomable actions. Since May 8<sup>th</sup>, Blue Jays relievers have thrown 118.1 innings and allowed a .259/.338/.454 slash line. Their 4.79 ERA as a group since that date stands as the ninth worst in baseball.</p>
<p>The slipping quality of relief pitching feels amplified now that the starting rotation is slowly getting its act together and has given the team some leads to blow. And of course, surrounding all of the pitching woes has been an inconsistent offense that, led by Kevin Pillar and Luke Maile, has been more bad than good.</p>
<p>All three groups have been heavily criticized – and deservedly so. They haven’t been consistent or effective, and they haven’t been particularly fun to watch. One aspect that has been largely overlooked and under scrutinized, however, is just how bad this team has been on the basepaths. As of June 12<sup>th</sup>, both Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs have the Blue Jays ranked dead last by their respective baserunning metrics, though the precise degree of ineptitude is slightly different due to the various inputs each calculation uses.</p>
<p>Taking it a step further, last season <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sprint_speed_leaderboard?year=2018&amp;position=&amp;team=&amp;min=25">Statcast introduced its Sprint Speed metric</a>. Sprint Speed measures the speed of a player running the bases on “qualified runs,” which are considered runs of two-or more bases on non-homers (excluding runs from second on an extra base hit, when a runner would presumably ease up) and home-to-first runs on weakly hit balls (when a runner would presumably bust it down the line).</p>
<p>League average sprint speed is around 27 feet per second. Setting the minimum at 25 qualified runs, the Blue Jays have just five hitters above league average – Teoscar Hernández (28.6), Randal Grichuk (28.3), Lourdes Gurriel (28.2), Aledmys Diaz (28.2), and Kevin Pillar (27.8). Curtis Granderson (26.9) and Devon Travis (26.7) are just a hair below average, but the remaining seven Blue Jays are well behind. The team is particularly held back by Kendrys Morales (23.9) and Justin Smoak (23.8), who rank as third slowest and fourth slowest at their respective positions – positions which are inherently loaded with sluggish players.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/StatCast-Sprint-Speed-Minimum-25-Opp.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-16124" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/StatCast-Sprint-Speed-Minimum-25-Opp-1024x485.png" alt="StatCast Sprint Speed Minimum 25 Opp" width="750" height="355" /></a></p>
<p>We can take this a step further still by using the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2018-baserunning-batting.shtml">team-by-team situational base running numbers from Baseball Reference</a> to figure out where, specifically, the Blue Jays have been failing relative to the rest of the league.</p>
<p>As a slow team, the Blue Jays stolen bases numbers are about where one would expect. Their 23 steals are the fifth fewest, and their 64 percent success rate is the fifth worst. The team has had 867 total stolen bases opportunity and has run on just 36 (4.2 percent) which is tied for 22<sup>nd</sup>. It’s a small positive, but at least the team understands how slow they are and don’t run like complete hooligans.</p>
<p>Some of the more interesting numbers involve the outs on the bases (which excludes caught stealing), and even more so, <em>where</em> the outs on the bases have occurred. Third base coach Luis Rivera has caught a ton of flak for his mind blowing decisions game after game, and the numbers support the ire from the fan base. The Jays have the fifth most outs at third base with six and the second most outs at home with twelve. The latter is five outs above the league average of roughly seven. As a whole, the Blue Jays have 28 total outs on the bases, which is tied for second worst with the Colorado Rockies, behind only the Red Sox.</p>
<p>Baseball Reference also provides metrics on bases taken – on wild pitch, passed balls, or fly balls – and extra bases taken. “Extra bases taken” is defined by the rate at which, when possible, a runner advances more than one base on a single, or more than two bases on a double. The Blue Jays rank 14<sup>th</sup> and tied for 25<sup>th</sup>, respectively.</p>
<p>Extra bases taken can be expanded to look at the specific situations in which they occurred, and the Blue Jays are better (though still bad) in some compared to others. When a single is hit with a runner on first base, the club advanced the runner to third 27.8 percent of the time, which ranks 21<sup>st</sup> but is reasonably close to league average. The same can be said for when a single is hit with a runner on second base, the club scores the runner 57.7 percent of the time, which ranks 20<sup>th</sup> and is also just below league average.</p>
<p>The most damning base running number of all is also the one that has assuredly frustrated Blue Jays fans the most: their inability to score a runner from first on a double. The Blue Jays have found themselves in 45 such opportunities this season, and have cashed in the runner on first just eleven times. That rate, 24.4 percent, ranks dead last in baseball, and is a full 20 percentage points below the league average of 44.0 percent. It&#8217;s not just a one year, three-months-of data blip, either; they were fifth worst in baseball at 34.1 percent in 2017, too.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/Scoring-on-a-Double.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-16123" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/Scoring-on-a-Double.png" alt="Scoring on a Double" width="629" height="433" /></a></p>
<p>The Blue Jays front office is staring headlong into a rebuild, whether they’re willing to admit as much publicly or not. And while you’d be unwise to focus on team speed, athleticism, and baserunning ability during said reconstruction, it would be equally unwise to pay it no heed whatsoever which is what led to the current conundrum.</p>
<p>In the short term, the team is only going to get slower if/when Troy Tulowitzki returns from his foot injuries, as he was well below league average and the second slowest shortstop in baseball last season <em>before</em> another series of surgeries on his lower half. Aledmys Diaz isn’t fast, but he’s a burner relative to Tulo. Steve Pearce taking opportunities away from Hernandez, Grichuk, or Granderson would further stagnate the basepaths.</p>
<p>In the long term, escaping Kendrys Morales and evolving past the “dedicated Designated Hitter” and instead using that position as an opportunity to cycle through players needing rest or as a window to get another platoon bat into the lineup could be one improvement. A youth movement over the next year involving Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette, Anthony Alford, and Danny Jansen would be another, as while only Alford would grade as a true plus runner on the scouting scale, none of the other three would be described as slow. Regardless of how the front office chooses to go about doing it, raising the base running ability of this roster to at least league average needs to become more of a priority than it has been to date.</p>
<p><em>Note: all base running numbers as of games ending June 12th.</em></p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>MLB Draft: Blue Jays Select SS/3B Jordan Groshans with the 12th Overall Pick</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/06/04/mlb-draft-blue-jays-select-jordan-groshans-with-the-12th-overall-pick/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Jun 2018 00:56:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=16023</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With the 12th overall selection in the 2018 MLB Draft, the Blue Jays have made shortstop/third baseman Jordan Groshans the most recent addition to their farm system. It&#8217;s a selection that came completely out of left field. With Matthew Liberatore, Cole Winn, Brady Singer, and even Nolan Gorman &#8212; if the Jays wanted an infielder &#8212; [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>With the 12th overall selection in the 2018 MLB Draft, the Blue Jays have made shortstop/third baseman Jordan Groshans the most recent addition to their farm system.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a selection that came completely out of left field. With Matthew Liberatore, Cole Winn, Brady Singer, and even Nolan Gorman &#8212; if the Jays wanted an infielder &#8212; all available, the Jays went with Groshans out of Magnolia High School in Texas. Groshans was the 28th ranked player on the FanGraphs board, but just 31st, 38th, and 51st by MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, and Keith Law, respectively.</p>
<h4><strong>MLB Pipeline Scouting Grades:</strong></h4>
<p><b>Scouting grades:</b> Hit: 50 | Power: 55 | Run: 50 | Arm: 55 | Field: 50 | Overall: 50</p>
<h4><strong>Reports</strong></h4>
<p>Groshans is projected by both <a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/scoutboard.aspx?draft=2018mlb&amp;type=0&amp;pos=all&amp;team=all" target="_blank">FanGraphs</a> and <a href="http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2018?list=draft" target="_blank">MLB Pipeline</a> to have five tools with a 50 grade or better, with both offering future 55 grades on his power. This is based largely on projection, as despite standing an impressive 6-foot-4 and weighing in at 190 pounds, his swing is quick and contact oriented with a level plane through the strike zone. His stance has quieted down noticeably this year, as in his Sophomore and Junior years in high school, the infielder featured a leg kick in his load and more of an uppercut. FanGraphs believes these mechanical adjustments may need to be reconciled once he receives professional coaching to help unlock that power potential.</p>
<p>Groshans has shown an ability to hit upper-level velocity on the showcase circuit over the past year, but FanGraphs cautions there is some swing-and-miss in his game despite otherwise impressive bat control, making him what they describe as a &#8220;boom or bust&#8221; prospect.</p>
<p>Defensively, the Blue Jays will likely give Groshans a shot to stick at shortstop. It&#8217;s something they did in the past with Bo Bichette despite the public industry contending he&#8217;d be a second baseman in short order, and that&#8217;s inarguably worked out in Toronto&#8217;s favour thus far. He possesses an above average arm and average speed, so Groshans should remain on the left side of the infield regardless of what the Blue Jays inevitably decide as the 18-year old physically matures.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/23583441/casey-mize-tops-mlb-draft-class" target="_blank">Keith Law (Insider req&#8217;d)</a> says that &#8220;[Groshans] has very quick hands but doesn&#8217;t use his lower half much or stay back on the ball, while <a href="https://www.baseballamerica.com/rankings/2018-top-500-mlb-draft-prospects/" target="_blank">Baseball America ($)</a> agrees, adding that &#8220;there were instances where Groshans would get out on his front side and fly open early, leaving some scouts to question whether the big leg kick would create more timing issues as he advanced against better pitching.&#8221;</p>
<p>With Groshans going earlier than expected, one would hope the Blue Jays selected the infielder with a deal in place for less than the 4.2 million USD allotted for the 12th overall pick. In the preview this morning, I mentioned the first two picks must be viewed in tandem. If Toronto did in fact save some pool money with Groshans, they could potentially make a 2-plus million USD offer to another first round caliber talent who slides to 52nd overall. Stay tuned!</p>
<h4><strong>Scouting Videos</strong></h4>
<p><strong>Via MLB Pipeline:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><iframe src="https://www.mlb.com/video/share/2018-draft-jordan-groshans-3b/c-1869109383?tid=262722544" width="500" height="280" scrolling="no" ></iframe>[/p]</p>
<p><strong>Via Baseball America:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iqBQvZfsqZI" width="500" height="280" frameborder="0" ></iframe>[/p]</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<p><em>Lead Photo © Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Blue Jays 2018 MLB Draft Preview</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/06/04/blue-jays-2018-mlb-draft-preview/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/06/04/blue-jays-2018-mlb-draft-preview/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Jun 2018 13:18:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=15992</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The 2018 MLB Draft kicks off tonight, with the Detroit Tigers presumably getting things started with Auburn right handed pitcher Casey Mize at 7:00 PM ET. Having lost no notable free agents last winter and evidently being excluded from consideration for MLB&#8217;s competitive balance picks, Toronto will make just one first round selection: 12th overall. [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The 2018 MLB Draft kicks off tonight, with the Detroit Tigers presumably getting things started with Auburn right handed pitcher Casey Mize at 7:00 PM ET. Having lost no notable free agents last winter and evidently being excluded from consideration for MLB&#8217;s competitive balance picks, Toronto will make just one first round selection: 12th overall. The 12th overall pick has a slot value of 4.2 million USD, giving the Blue Jays the opportunity to land a premium talent. The Jays&#8217; second round pick, 52nd overall, will come later, but the selections need to be considered in tandem. The Blue Jays have just over 5.5 million USD in slot money to play with in the first two rounds, and how it&#8217;s used could depend upon how the first 11 picks unfold. Toronto could try to go overslot on a high-end talent that&#8217;s sliding, or if they happen to like a guy more than the rest of the industry, cut a deal at twelve and land another considerable talent at 52.</p>
<p>This preview will give attention to the players the industry believes the Blue Jays have been targeting over the last few weeks. Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins have built a reputation for having a preference towards college prospects in the first round, but both Keith Law and the experts at FanGraphs believe their focus has shifted to the prep talent over the last few weeks. FanGraphs in particular has had the Blue Jays zeroing in on high school players in each of their three mock drafts to date.</p>
<p>With that being said, the preview is still going to consider each of the four classes of prospects &#8212; College Hitters, Prep Hitters, College Pitchers, and Prep Pitchers &#8212; and identify and briefly discuss the specific names in each group that have been bantered about.</p>
<h3><strong>College Hitters</strong></h3>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">OF Travis Swaggerty (South Alabama)</span></p>
<p>Once projected to go comfortably in the top ten picks &#8212; maybe even the top five &#8212; Swaggerty has seen his draft stock plummet this spring but many analysts consider the Blue Jays to be the floor of any possible slide at 12th overall. Undrafted out of high school, Swaggerty exploded onto the scene during his sophomore season at South Alabama, hitting .361/.487/.567. The performance has dipped in 2018 &#8212; to <em>just</em> .296/.455/.526 this year &#8212; which is a cause for concern given the middling competition in the Sun Belt Conference.</p>
<p>MLB Pipeline describes Swaggerty as an &#8220;on-base machine&#8221; with a leadoff profile, comparing him to Brett Gardner (minus the ghoulish facial features). Across his collegiate career, Swaggerty walked 143 times against 130 strikeouts. All of the prospect outlets referenced consider Swaggerty to be a future five-tool talent, with 50+ future grades across the board. His premium tool is his speed, grading out as a 60/65 current with no immediate projected decay in his athleticism. Swaggerty is draft-eligible as a junior, but is young for the class as he won&#8217;t turn 21 until August. Swaggerty is a consensus top-11 prospect.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">OF Trevor Larnach (Oregon State)</span></p>
<p>Larnach has a ton of helium, climbing draft boards in a hurry after being largely overlooked to begin the season. This emergence can be directly tied to the newfound power the outfielder displayed this season. Larnach had just three home runs in 88 games for the Beavers as a freshman and sophomore, but cranked 17 as a junior to go with a .324/.447/.637 slash line. He has really started using his lower half well and has reportedly racked up exit velocities in excess of 115 miles per hour this season. Strangely, however, much of his power is to his opposite field, which raises questions as to whether it&#8217;s the sign of a mature approach or a potential inability to hit professional-level velocity.</p>
<p>Larnach doesn&#8217;t offer much defensively. He has played right field for Oregon State, where has has enough arm to get by, but the longterm expectation appears to be a move to left field. Keith Law labels him as a 30 runner already at 6&#8217;4, 205 lbs, and even the more optimistic MLB Pipeline only offers a 40 grade on his speed. FanGraphs is the highest on Larnach, ranking him as their 12th prospect, while Law is the lowest, at just 49th.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">3B Jonathan India (Florida)</span></p>
<p>India was tied to the Blue Jays for the first time this morning, and it&#8217;s an interesting turn of events given that the third baseman has long been expected to go well before the Blue Jays take their turn at the podium. Playing for Florida in the hyper-competitive SEC, India was dominant as a junior to the tune of a .362/.502/.723 batting line with 17 home runs and even 11 stolen bases, to boot. He&#8217;s a semi-finalist (and one of the favorites) for the Golden Spikes Award as the top player in the NCAA.</p>
<p>India was a shortstop in high school and even played it some at the collegiate level. His longterm residence likely remains the hot corner, however, though the natural athleticism that made him a viable shortstop shines through as India is a true five-tool talent on the infield. The only blemish on his profile is that he&#8217;s something of a &#8220;jack of all trades, master of none&#8221; &#8212; zero of the five tools project to be legitimate pluses. India fills a role as a high floor, low ceiling talent who, as FanGraphs notes, could be worth 2-3 WAR annually. That&#8217;s not a star, sure, but it&#8217;s a valuable contributor.</p>
<h3><b>Prep Hitters</b></h3>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">OF Jarred Kelenic (Waukesha West HS, Wisconsin &#8212; Louisville commitment)</span></p>
<p>Similar to Swaggerty, the Blue Jays may represent the floor for Kelenic tonight. He&#8217;s been tied to the club by FanGraphs, Keith Law, and MLB Pipeline, and as a relatively polished player, he may be the best balance between upside and risk-aversion among prep talent. Kelenic will turn 19 in July and graduated high school this past winter. He has since been playing travel ball, which has given scouts the opportunity to see him against better competition than what he faced in Wisconsin.</p>
<p>There has been debate as to whether he profiles in center field long-term, but right field is an easy fallback option with an arm that has registered at 96 miles per hour (from the outfield). His arm and hit tools have both been graded as possessing 60 potential, with power, run, and field all average or better. Kelenic is also lauded for his strong work ethic and &#8220;fiery demeanor&#8221;. MLB Pipeline has compared him to a &#8220;more athletic Mark Kotsay&#8221;, and while that doesn&#8217;t sound the most appealing for a high first round pick, Kotsay was a .287/.342/.426 hitter with 95 home runs over nearly 5000 plate appearances from 1998 through 2005 (ages 22 to 29). That&#8217;ll play.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">SS/2B Xavier Edwards (North Broward HS, Florida &#8212; Vanderbilt commitment)</span></p>
<p>Edwards has been linked to the Blue Jays, though it&#8217;s frequently been with the disclaimer that the club <em>hopes </em>to get him in the second round. If the club has truly fallen in love with him, however, he could potentially be in play at 12th overall for a well below slot deal. The number three middle-infield prospect in the draft (behind Nick Madrigal and Brice Turang), Edwards is a switch hitter with a contact-oriented swing. He slaps at the ball, under-utilizing his lower half, which has really held back his power but does allow him to maximize his best tool coming out of the box &#8212; his speed. MLB Pipeline grades the run tool as a 70 with both FanGraphs and Baseball America throwing legit 80&#8217;s on the tool; the latter clocked him at 3.9 seconds to first from the left side. Edwards could develop into a .280-ish true-talent hitter; a number that could play up further as a result of his speed and ability to beat out ground balls.</p>
<p>Edwards is described as having quick hands and feet, and loose, natural actions at shortstop. With that being said, his longterm defensive position is tied to his arm strength. The hope is that it develops into a 50 tool, but if it doesn&#8217;t, Edwards could be moved to second base or even center field where his top-of-the-scale speed would flourish.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">OF Connor Scott (Plant HS, Florida &#8212; Florida commitment)</span></p>
<p>Scott continues the trend of first-round caliber outfield prospects with a five-tool profile: FanGraphs gives him 50-or-better future grades across the board. The best of those tools is his speed, which currently grades out as a 70. Scott is often compared to a fellow Plant HS alumnus, Astros prospect Kyle Tucker, but with more speed and a little less power. The two have comparable swing paths, athleticism, and physiques, and it&#8217;s hoped the power will develop similarly. Scott stands a tall and lanky 6&#8217;4/180 lbs, and has plenty of frame on which to add muscle. As a peculiar aside in the year 2018, he doesn&#8217;t use batting gloves.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s expected that Scott can handle center field as he transitions to the professional level, but could prosper in right field if not with an arm that was clocked at 93 miles per hour off the mound. FanGraphs notes that with a solid curveball to go along with that velocity, Scott has received top-five round consideration as a pitcher as well. The outfielder has dealt with a number of injuries this spring, including having his appendix removed, which has limited the number of looks teams have had. Like Edwards, one would expect the Jays to have a below slot deal in place if they take Scott at 12th overall, as he&#8217;s unanimously considered more of a mid-first talent.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">C/IF Noah Naylor (St. Joan of Arc HS, Ontario &#8212; Texas A&amp;M commitment)</span></p>
<p>Naylor has surpassed Tristan Pompey as the top draft-eligible Canadian this year. He&#8217;s been linked to the Blue Jays, but as Keith Law notes, that interest may be overstated solely due to the Canadian connection. At 12th overall the Blue Jays would be about the earliest he&#8217;s expected to go off the board, though he&#8217;s a legitimate first round talent. Interestingly, if the Jays did select him, he&#8217;d be taken in the same slot as his older brother three years ago. Despite their shared genes, Noah couldn&#8217;t be a less similar prospect to his brother Josh. The older Naylor, generously listed at 5&#8217;11/250 lbs, was a first base (*cough* designated hitter) prospect with prodigious power. Noah has a much more athletic build (6&#8217;0/195 lbs) and has a contact oriented swing.</p>
<p>Behind the dish Naylor has a plus arm but is otherwise raw defensively, with his receiving skills supposedly needing a lot of work. He&#8217;s played third base in showcase games as well as with the Canadian Junior National Team. Keith Law ranked him as his 14th overall prospect, admitting he&#8217;s probably higher than the industry, but that he sees an athletic hitter who can play a strong third or second base, with plus running speed and a plus arm. FanGraphs agrees, throwing a plus grade on his speed with 50-or-better future grades for his hit and power tools. Continuing the trend among the prep hitters linked to the Jays, one would expect a below slot deal at 12th overall.</p>
<h3><strong>College Pitchers</strong></h3>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">RHP Logan Gilbert (Stetson)</span></p>
<p>Gilbert was linked to the Blue Jays by only Keith Law, and this occurred back in mid-May. As previously noted, however, Law sees their interest shifting towards prep talent (or India) more recently. One has to hope that is indeed the case, as Gilbert would not be an inspiring selection at 12th overall despite elite numbers at Stetson. Gilbert began his career in the bullpen, but transitioned to the rotation as a sophomore and was the school&#8217;s number one starter as a junior. This season he pitched to a 10-1 record in 100.0 innings, striking out 143 and walking just 20. In total, Gilbert produced a dominant 2.52 ERA and 0.80 WHIP over his 14 games.</p>
<p>The concern with Gilbert relates to a sudden drop in velocity. The right hander sat in the mid-90s and touched 97 miles per hour last summer, but has pitched mostly at 89-92 this spring and even that velocity has been inconsistent. FanGraphs offered speculation from scouts that he&#8217;s dealing with a nagging injury that isn&#8217;t enough to sideline him but has him below 100%, and that the velocity could return in 2019. Gilbert has the ideal frame at 6&#8217;5/200 lbs with plus athleticism and good extension in a smooth delivery. He has a well-rounded arsenal with a curveball, slider, and changeup, and could advance quickly through the minor leagues. The issue, of course, is that if he can&#8217;t regain that velocity, he profiles as a back-end starter.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">LHP Shane McClanahan (South Florida)</span></p>
<p>McClanahan has red flags that are equally as distressing as Gilbert&#8217;s, though they arise from the opposite end of the velocity spectrum. McClanahan sits 93-97 with his fastball and has reached 100 miles per hour, but that velocity comes from a high-effort, short-arm delivery. This is doubly concerning given that McClanahan underwent Tommy John surgery during his freshman season at South Florida and has struggled to do anything but throw hard since returning. His junior season saw just 71.0 innings of work across 13 games. And while he struck out an impressive 117 batters, he also walked an unseemly 44.</p>
<p>His changeup has nice drop and is ahead of his slider, but both have been extremely inconsistent. His collegiate career may best be described as McClanahan trying to simply throw his fastball by the opposition. And with a low 3/4 arm slot, everything about him screams reliever profile. MLB Pipeline notes that some scouts have offered (amateur) Chris Sale comparisons due to his big fastball and athletic frame, but that seems irresponsible given that for every one Chris Sale there are probably hundreds of lanky left handers who amount to nothing. Any team drafting McClanahan in the first round dreams that he puts his top of the rotation potential together, but must understand how low the probability of that happening is. The far more likelier outcome is that of a high-effort shutdown reliever that you go year-to-year with once he hits arbitration.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">LHP Ryan Rolison (Ole Miss)</span></p>
<p>Rolison was drafted by the Padres in the 37th round of the 2016 draft, but FanGraphs reports he may have turned down a seven figure bonus to attend Ole Miss knowing he&#8217;d be draft eligible again in just two years. The left hander will turn 21 in July and had mixed results as a Sophomore this year. The good was his 107 strikeouts in 90.0 innings pitched; the bad was his 42 walks and surprisingly hard contact surrendered leading to a 1.39 WHIP. The left hander has been linked to the Jays by Baseball America, MLB Pipeline, and Perfect Game in the last week alone.</p>
<p>Rolison sits 91-94 miles per hour with his fastball, touching higher, but his curveball is more highly regarded as a future 60 pitch with sharp break and depth. FanGraphs notes that Rolison became overly dependent upon it and hitters countered, knowing that he struggled to locate his fastball and barely threw his changeup. Continuing the trend of &#8220;college pitchers with red flags that the Blue Jays are seemingly intrigued by&#8221;, Rolison started throwing cross-body in the last twelve months and the public prospect analysts are unanimously concerned. As a total package Rolison doesn&#8217;t have super loud stuff, but most believe he has #3 starter upside.</p>
<h3><strong>Prep Pitchers</strong></h3>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">LHP Matthew Liberatore (Mountain Ridge HS, Arizona &#8212; Arizona commitment)</span></p>
<p>Liberatore is one of the true jewels of the draft, and could very well go in the top-five picks. He receives mention here simply because FanGraphs has linked Liberatore to the Jays <em>twice</em>, though in both cases with the &#8220;if he&#8217;s available&#8221; disclaimer. In the unlikely chance the left hander slides to the 12th pick, he could see the lion&#8217;s share of the 5.5 million USD the Jays have available for their first two selections in order to buy him out of his Arizona commitment. Liberatore is polished and has the best pitchability among all prep arms in the draft. His fastball sits 89-94 miles per hour, touching 96/97, but that velocity has a tendency to slip in the middle innings. Both his fastball and curveball have the potential to be 60+ offerings, with the curveball described as possessing 3/4 tilt with a high spin rate. The two are complemented by a slider and changeup that both project as average or better supporting pitches.</p>
<p>Liberatore has the prototypical build, standing 6&#8217;5/200 lbs, and the hope is that the velocity settles into a more consistent low 90&#8217;s once he matures physically within a professional development program. There are some similarities between Liberatore and Mackenzie Gore, the top prep left hander in the 2017 draft who went 3rd overall, but Baseball America notes that both his stuff and control are a step behind Gore at this stage.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">RHP Kumar Rocker (North Oconee HS, Georgia &#8212; Vanderbilt commitment)</span></p>
<p>Rocker entered his draft season with a ton of hype as a potential top-ten selection, but an uneven spring has seen his standing slip more towards the 20&#8217;s. Vanderbilt is one of the premium pitching schools in the NCAA and Rocker likely has a significant price tag to buy him out of that commitment. Outside of teams like Kansas City, Tampa Bay, or Cleveland &#8212; all of whom have a number of compensatory picks with large bonus pools they could move around &#8212; Rocker could be simply unaffordable for teams outside the top fifteen.</p>
<p>Rocker is the son of former NFL defensive lineman Tracy Rocker and he has the physique to match, standing 6&#8217;5 and weighing in at 250 lbs. There&#8217;s very little physical projection remaining, and in addition to conditioning, maintaining his velocity as he transitions from pitching once per week to once per five days could be a challenge. Rocker doesn&#8217;t need to add much, however, as he&#8217;s set the bar incredibly high. From an easy delivery he already sits 92-96 miles per hour with his fastball, showing heavy sink, and that&#8217;s not even his best pitch. That honor belongs to Rocker&#8217;s slider, which sits in the mid-80&#8217;s and earned the label of &#8220;hellacious&#8221; from FanGraphs. The wipe-out slider is a 60-grade pitch today, and could get even better as he develops. His changeup was seldom used and is a work in progress, but could settle in as an average third offering.</p>
<p>Beyond the conditioning, the biggest concern with Rocker is his fastball command. He doesn&#8217;t locate it particularly well, so when it&#8217;s on the low end of his usual velocity spectrum, it can get hit pretty hard. That was the case this spring when Rocker returned from a hamstring injury and was clearly below 100%. If he puts it all together Rocker has top of the rotation potential, but his progression arc will differ greatly than most prep arms due to the unique challenges he&#8217;ll face. Rocker would be best suited to be drafted by a team that crafts individualized development programs *cough*, rather than blanket ones.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">RHP Grayson Rodriguez (Central Heights HS, Texas &#8212; Texas A&amp;M commitment)</span></p>
<p>Rodriguez remade his body over the winter, losing his &#8220;bad weight,&#8221; and has seen his stuff explode this spring accordingly. Rodriguez sits 92-94 miles per hour with his fastball, topping out at 97/98 and showing heavy life. Standing an impressive 6&#8217;5/230 lbs, Rodriguez uses his height and a high 3/4 arm slot to create a steep vertical plane on his pitches. The fastball is complemented by a mid-80&#8217;s slider, and while he&#8217;s also shown both a curveball and changeup, neither has fully emerged as a viable third offering as of yet. Because of this, as well as the effort in his delivery, there&#8217;s some reliever concern in the profile.</p>
<p>Rodriguez lacks polish and could be a slow mover through the minor leagues, but he has high-end stuff and could reward a team that shows patience. Baseball America observes that he manages his emotions well on the mound and has already pitched in pressure situations in front of large Texas crowds, so if the bullpen is his eventual role, he has all the makings of a high-end closer. FanGraphs in particular notes that, while they don&#8217;t see him as a top-15 talent, opinions on prep right handers differ wildly from team to team, and both Pittsburgh (10) and Texas (15) are in on Rodriguez in addition to Toronto.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline">RHP Cole Winn (Orange Lutheran HS, California &#8212; TCU commitment)</span></p>
<p>As an advanced prep arm, Winn is the complement to Kelenic on the pitching side. The right hander sits 92-95 miles per hour with his fastball, touching 96. The pitch is a true four seamer with little sink, and Winn uses it intelligently, striving for swings-and-misses at the top of the zone. Winn then complements it with off-speed stuff at the bottom of the zone &#8212; something seen frequently around Toronto these days. His breaking ball has evolved from a flat cutter, to a slurve with a ton of depth, to finally a traditional power slider in between the two. Winn also has a changeup, but it was seldom used (or required). High school numbers are always absurdly inflated for top prospects, but Winn&#8217;s 0.20 ERA in 70 innings (with 120 strikeouts) is something to behold. These results came after Winn transferred from Colorado to face better competition and increase his exposure; mission accomplished.</p>
<p>Winn&#8217;s delivery is described as clean, easy, and simple, and his command &#8212; which is already the best among the high school pitchers &#8212; should continue to improve as a result. From my perspective, Winn seems exactly like type of talent that this front office would prefer at this juncture. He has the polish to satisfy the risk averse, but there&#8217;s still room within his development for an organization to imprint themselves on the player. FanGraphs has repeatedly mentioned a rumor that the Giants might take Winn second overall with a well below slot bonus, but if that doesn&#8217;t turn out to be the case, the right hander should absolutely be in play for the Blue Jays &#8212; he&#8217;s a consensus top twelve talent with mid-rotation potential.</p>
<p>Lead Photo © Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports</p>
<p><a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/23583441/updated-top-100-draft-prospects">Keith Law&#8217;s Top-100 Board ($)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.baseballamerica.com/rankings/2018-top-500-mlb-draft-prospects/">Baseball America&#8217;s Top-500 Board ($)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/scoutboard.aspx?draft=2018mlb&amp;type=0&amp;pos=all&amp;team=all&amp;page=1_100">FanGraphs&#8217; Top-130 Board (Free)</a></p>
<p><a href="http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2018?list=draft">MLB Pipeline Top-200 Board (Free)</a></p>
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		<title>Tim Mayza Is Tipping His Pitches</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/04/30/tim-mayza-is-tipping-his-pitches/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/04/30/tim-mayza-is-tipping-his-pitches/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Apr 2018 13:47:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tim Mayza]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=15697</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tim Mayza has incredible raw stuff. Over the first 18 and 2/3 innings of his major league career he’s struck out 33.3 percent of the batters he’s faced, which is among baseball’s elite. Roberto Osuna posted an identical strikeout rate in 2017 and ranked 18th among the 235 relievers with 30 or more innings of [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Tim Mayza has incredible raw stuff. Over the first 18 and 2/3 innings of his major league career he’s struck out 33.3 percent of the batters he’s faced, which is among baseball’s elite. Roberto Osuna posted an identical strikeout rate in 2017 and ranked 18th among the 235 relievers with 30 or more innings of work last season. Strikeouts aren’t a new thing for Mayza; since the beginning of the 2015 season he has struck out 25.3 percent of the hitters he’s faced in the minor leagues, too.</p>
<p>Strikeouts aren’t the only thing Mayza has piled up over his professional career. Observers have been flummoxed by the amount of contact – and hard contact – he has surrendered. Mayza has given up 26 hits over those 18.2 innings in Toronto, after being a hit-per-inning (228 in 229.2 innings) guy across parts of six minor league seasons. Strikeout rate is one of the single best end-points we have for “stuff”, and guys with elite stuff generally don’t get hit around in this manner.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Relationship-between-K-Rate-and-BAA.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15699" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Relationship-between-K-Rate-and-BAA.png" alt="Relationship between K Rate and BAA" width="480" height="344" /></a></p>
<p>The figure above plots the strikeout rate and batting average against for the aforementioned 235 relievers with 30 or more innings pitched in 2017. There is a reasonably strong correlation between the two, in the direction one would expect: guys with the stuff to support a high strikeout rate generally don’t surrender a whole lot of base hits. Based on the slope of the trend line, a guy with a strikeout rate of 33.3 percent like Tim Mayza should have an opposing batting average of .199. Instead, reality has presented a much uglier .317 career batting average against.</p>
<p>Mayza isn’t simply being BABIP’d either; those 26 base hits have included six doubles and three home runs. Interestingly, eight of the nine extra base hits surrendered have come against his fastball, and not one of them was a cheapie: all eight left the bat between 97 and 109 miles per hour. Just one extra base hit – a 90.2 mile per hour ground ball double – came off Mayza’s slider.</p>
<p>The slider has not been a problem. With Toronto, the opposition has hit just .250/.250/.271 against it. The 172 sliders he threw in 2017 resulted in a whiff per swing rate of 52.1 percent, which ranked third among the 80 lefthanded pitchers to throw 100 or more sliders. In addition, its 55 percent groundball rate ranked ninth among the same group. Batters have struggled to make contact with Mayza’s slider &#8211; and when they do, the ball doesn’t go particularly far.</p>
<p>In this modern era of baseball, with hitters amplifying their launch angles to generate more power, pitchers have countered by throwing more and more breaking balls. With his fastball getting crushed and his slider nearly untouchable, the answer for Tim Mayza would seem to be clear as day. But it’s not, because Mayza is already throwing his slider approximately 50 percent of the time and there’s something far more peculiar (and fixable) happening: he’s tipping his pitches.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Vertical-Release.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-15700" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Vertical-Release-1024x572.png" alt="Vertical Release" width="500" height="280" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Horizontal-Release.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-15701" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Horizontal-Release-1024x569.png" alt="Horizontal Release" width="500" height="280" /></a></p>
<p>The two figures above, via <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/velo.php?player=641835&amp;b_hand=-1&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=FA|SI|FC|CU|SL|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&amp;time=game&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=z0&amp;s_type=2&amp;startDate=03/30/2007&amp;endDate=04/26/2018">Brooks Baseball</a>, show Mayza’s game-by-game average release points for his four seam fastball and slider. The two pitch types are consistent in how inconsistent they are from one another. For his career, the two pitches have averaged eight inches of vertical release differential (with the fastball higher) and 6.5 inches of horizontal release differential (with the slider further from the rubber). A quick calculation using Pythagorean Theorem gives an average differential of 10.3 inches between the release points of the two pitch types.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Texas-Leaguers-Mayza.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15702" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Texas-Leaguers-Mayza.gif" alt="Texas Leaguers (Mayza)" width="480" height="360" /></a></p>
<p>The figure above, via <a href="http://pitchfx.texasleaguers.com/">Texas Leaguers</a>, offers a more visual representation of Mayza’s hand position at his release point from the perspective of the catcher. A few sliders were thrown from the fastball domain, but otherwise, the release points of the two pitch types couldn’t be much more clearly defined. The camera angle from the TV broadcast might make this a bit more challenging to pick up, but for a seasoned hitter at the plate, Mayza might as well be throwing differently colored baseballs.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Texas-Leaguer-Logan.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15703" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/04/Texas-Leaguer-Logan.gif" alt="Texas Leaguer (Logan)" width="480" height="360" /></a></p>
<p>For a bit of context, the figure above is Boone Logan’s release point plot over the same period of time. In terms of velocity and movement, Logan’s slider is among Mayza’s most comparable peers. The two even have similar enough fastballs. The biggest difference between the two is that Logan’s release point looks like a freshly opened bag of Skittles in contrast to Mayza’s, which appears to be a re-enactment of a battle from the game of Risk.</p>
<p>Another way of analyzing Mayza’s pitch tipping issue is through the <a href="https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/37436/prospectus-feature-updating-pitch-tunnels/">Pitch Tunneling feature at Baseball Prospectus</a>. One of the metrics it measures is “Release Distance”, which tells us exactly how far apart two back-to-back pitches are released in a sequence. In total, 631 pitchers threw 100 or more pitch pairs/sequences in 2017. Mayza had the sixth largest (read: worst) average release tunnel at 5.8 inches across 261 total sequences. The league average across this sample was just 2.6 inches.</p>
<p>Mayza’s tunneling ability looks even worse when breaking down the 261 sequences by specific pitch patterns.</p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="130">
<p style="text-align: center"><strong>Usage Pattern</strong></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85"><strong>Count</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="132"><strong>Avg. Release<br />
Tunnel (in.)</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="130">
<p style="text-align: center">SL → FB</p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">56</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="132">9.99</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="130">
<p style="text-align: center">SL → SL</p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">73</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="132">2.21</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="130">
<p style="text-align: center">FB → SL</p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">61</td>
<td width="132">
<p style="text-align: center">10.41</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center" width="130">FB → FB</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">71</td>
<td width="132">
<p style="text-align: center">2.22</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center" width="130">Same → Same</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">144</td>
<td width="132">
<p style="text-align: center">2.21</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center" width="130">Diff. → Diff.</td>
<td style="text-align: center" width="85">117</td>
<td width="132">
<p style="text-align: center">10.21</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>When Mayza doubles up on a pitch – which he did a total of 144 times in 2017 – his average release tunnel of 2.21 inches was really good. The inconsistencies occurred when he went slider to fastball or vice versa, for which he had an average release tunnel of a dreadful 10.21 inches. Without doing a similar analysis for all 631 pitchers in the sample it is impossible to precisely quantify where 10.21 inches would rank, but I think “poorly” should serve as a sufficient qualitative answer.</p>
<p>The final piece of evidence is perhaps the most damning of all; a video recorded from behind home plate when the lefty was warming up prior to an appearance in the Arizona Fall League in 2016. The circumstances are as close as you or I will ever get to standing in the box against Tim Mayza, and the yellow marking on the outfield fence offers an ideal reference point. Mayza throws seven pitches in the 56 second clip: three fastballs, followed by two sliders and two more fastballs. On each fastball, Mayza’s hand cuts through the yellow coloration on the outfield fence, and on each slider, his hand remains noticeably below that threshold. If we can pick up the difference in release point in real time, rest assured the competition can as well.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EAenDt7SEKE" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" ></iframe></p>
<p>The left handed relief depth chart for the Blue Jays isn’t a particularly deep one, and manager John Gibbons has regularly voiced his preference for having a second lefty out there. Not only is Mayza currently the number two lefty by default – there’s no other left handed relievers on the 40 Man Roster – but with Aaron Loup’s startling inconsistencies over the last three-plus years, it could be argued the top spot is available if Mayza could string together some impressive appearances when he returns from Buffalo. With his only flaw so apparent and seemingly fixable, Mayza may be just a mechanical adjustment away from seizing a valuable and lucrative opportunity.</p>
<p><i>Lead Photo © Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</i></p>
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		<title>Free Agency Not Looking Like Freedom: A Cool Winter’s Effect on a Donaldson Extension</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/01/17/free-agency-no-longer-looks-like-freedom-a-cool-winters-effect-on-a-donaldson-extension/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/01/17/free-agency-no-longer-looks-like-freedom-a-cool-winters-effect-on-a-donaldson-extension/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jan 2018 11:22:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=14936</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The fourth Collective Bargaining Agreement, signed between MLB Ownership and the Players Association on July 12, 1976, introduced the radical notion of free agency into baseball. It represented a monumental leap in the direction of players’ rights in a sport where, even to this day, their employment options are startlingly restricted. To wit: Players have [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The fourth Collective Bargaining Agreement, signed between MLB Ownership and the Players Association on July 12, 1976, introduced the radical notion of free agency into baseball. It represented a monumental leap in the direction of players’ rights in a sport where, even to this day, their employment options are startlingly restricted. To wit: Players have little to no control over whom they are drafted by; can potentially be kept in the minor leagues as long as five seasons before <em>potentially </em>becoming available via the Rule 5 draft to another team they can’t select; and, once they finally reach the highest level, find themselves under control for three years at baseball’s equivalent of minimum wage, and for another three years after that at fractions of their true market worth.</p>
<p>If the length of team control wasn’t already challenging enough, even free agency has lost a lot of its luster in recent years as front offices have smartened up to the realities of the decline phase of a player’s career. Around the turn of this decade it became popular for teams to leverage those cost-controlled years into lengthy extensions at heavy discounts, forcing players to decide whether to bet on themselves remaining healthy and productive for each of the next five or six years, or to settle for an adequate lump sum of guaranteed cash today. In many cases the players have erred on the side of caution, locking themselves to an organization through their prime years only to find other teams unwilling to pay for their past production once they reach free agency around the age of 30.</p>
<p>The growing trepidation with free agency has been fully realized this offseason, as signings are well below the last five years and have caused some to <a href="https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/37107/rubbing-mud-evidence-price-fixing-far/" target="_blank">raise the possibility of price fixing</a> or <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/heres-baseballs-economic-system-might-broken-224638354.html" target="_blank">collusion</a>. To compare signings across years, I broke down the offseason into 21 weeks, beginning with October 10th through October 16th and ending with February 27th through March 5th, at which point Spring Training has fully commenced. Figure 1 below was produced using these weekly buckets and the annual <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2017-free-agents.shtml" target="_blank">signing tracker available on Baseball Reference</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/All-Free-Agent-Signings-2013-2018.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14938" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/All-Free-Agent-Signings-2013-2018.png" alt="All Free Agent Signings 2013-2018" width="632" height="544" /></a></p>
<p>The 2013 offseason covers the signing period leading up to the 2013 season, and so and so forth through to 2018 (current). The data for 2013 to 2017 trends consistently, with 2017 potentially a foreboding sign of what was to come. The five-year average for free agent signings over the first 14 weeks of the offseason (ending January 15th) was 262. Here in 2018, we’ve seen just 148 free agents signed by January 15th, nearly 44 percent below that average. The previous five-year low by this date came in 2017 with 230 signings.</p>
<p>To hit the five-year average of 364 free agent signings by March 5th, we would need to average 4.4 signings per day from January 16th on, which is nearly triple that of the rate we’ve observed this offseason (1.5 per day).</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/Top-50-Free-Agent-Signings-2013-2018.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14939" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/Top-50-Free-Agent-Signings-2013-2018.png" alt="Top 50 Free Agent Signings 2013-2018" width="632" height="544" /></a></p>
<p>It’s not just the peripheral, mediocre, and older talent that have felt the cold shoulder from ownership this winter. The players widely considered to be the top of the class, i.e. those identified annually by <a href="https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/2017-18-top-50-mlb-free-agents-with-predictions.html" target="_blank">MLB Trade Rumors as the Top 50 free agents</a>, have suffered as much as the rest. Just 20 of the top 50 free agents for 2018 have signed as of January 15th, which is equally far below the five-year average of 34 by that date. Furthermore, most of those 20 were relievers who signed <a href="https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/37107/rubbing-mud-evidence-price-fixing-far/" target="_blank">alarmingly well-scaling deals</a>.</p>
<p>Just one of MLBTR’s top 11 has signed, and unsurprisingly, it’s a reliever: Wade Davis for three years and $52 million. The fifth-ranked potential free agent, Masahiro Tanaka, chose not to opt-out of the three years and $67 million remaining on his deal. And while many were skeptical of his decision at the time, in hindsight, you have to wonder if his agent, Casey Close, might have sensed that something was afoot. Yu Darvish, J.D. Martinez, Eric Hosmer, Jake Arrieta, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Lance Lynn, Greg Holland, and Alex Cobb all still find themselves without a home.</p>
<p>Over the last five years, the longest we&#8217;ve seen it take for two of MLBTR’s Top 10 free agents to sign was December 9th, 2017, when Dexter Fowler joined Yoenis Cespedes in having a deal. In 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, it was November 29th, December 7th, November 18th, and December 4th, respectively. We’re six weeks past the previous worst and still waiting for someone on the above list to join Davis.</p>
<p>All of this is particularly noteworthy given the impending free agency of Josh Donaldson. Barring the unforeseen, Donaldson will be a member of inarguably the most impressive free agent class in recent memory. Among position players he’ll be joined at the top by Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, and not far behind that trio are Charlie Blackmon, Daniel Murphy, and Andrew McCutchen. On the pitching side, both Clayton Kershaw and David Price have the ability to opt out of their existing deals, and will be joined by the untethered Dallas Keuchel, Craig Kimbrel, Andrew Miller, and Zach Britton. That’s just the <em>premium</em> talent: The middle of the class is equally deep and unprecedentedly impressive, featuring Brian Dozier, Elvis Andrus, A.J. Pollock, D.J. LeMahieu, Gio Gonzalez, Patrick Corbin, and Cody Allen among many, many others. Seriously, <a href="http://www.espn.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/84604/looking-ahead-to-baseballs-2019-free-agent-bonanza" target="_blank">just look at the list</a>.</p>
<p>One could argue, and ownership certainly would were a collusion lawsuit to arise in the future, that teams are simply saving their money this offseason with their eyes (and chequebooks) set on next winter. But the current climate of penny-pinching and the depth of the class next winter could seriously hamper Donaldson’s ability to find the deal he seeks. He’s unequivocally among the most talented of his peers, but his 2019 age (33) will be working against him with Harper (26) and Machado (26) looking to push their way into the Alex Rodriguez and Giancarlo Stanton echelon of contracts. Donaldson is hyper-competitive and will want to play for a contender for the remainder of his career, but even the biggest spenders have a finite amount of money at their disposal in a given winter. If the Yankees, Dodgers, and friends splurge more than one billion dollars combined on Harper, Machado, and Kershaw, they might be hesitant to make a $100-150 million commitment to Donaldson as their second expenditure.</p>
<p>It’s why everyone, including both <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/donaldson-says-wants-remain-blue-jays-long-term/" target="_blank">Donaldson</a> and <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-president-mark-shapiro-want-josh-donaldson/" target="_blank">Mark Shapiro</a> themselves, seems to realize that Toronto was, is, and continues to be his best fit. Even with his 2018 salary already settled, the suddenly tight purse strings across baseball and the continued unemployment of J.D. Martinez and Eric Hosmer in mid-January could serve as a catalyst to reignite discussions on a longer agreement. It would take some flexibility from the Rogers ownership group, particularly in the short term with Martin and Tulowitzki still under contract, but they can definitely make the dollars and years work on a fair and realistic contract.</p>
<p>Last week the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/2018/01/09/the-jays-have-the-money-for-josh-donaldson-and-still-they-wait.html" target="_blank">Toronto Star’s Richard Griffin proposed</a> the four-year, $110 million dollar contract signed by Yoenis Cespedes last winter as the framework for a Donaldson extension. With younger players struggling to find long-term deals now, and even younger players likely to command the attention next year, four years and an immense bucket of cash for Josh Donaldson today sounds like an excellent compromise.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Blue Jays Avoid Arbitration with Ezequiel Carrera; Raise Floor in Outfield</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/01/12/blue-jays-avoid-arbitration-with-ezequiel-carrera-raise-floor-in-outfield/</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Jan 2018 14:33:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anthony Alford]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ezequiel Carerra]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Steve Pearce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teoscar Hernandez]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=14903</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On Thursday night, the Toronto Blue Jays came to terms with outfielder Ezequiel Carrera on a one-year contract to avoid arbitration. The Blue Jays, a file-and-trial team, have a 1:00 pm ET deadline on Friday by which they must either reach an agreement or exchange figures with all of their arbitration eligible players. After this [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>On Thursday night, the Toronto Blue Jays came to terms with outfielder Ezequiel Carrera on a one-year contract to avoid arbitration. The Blue Jays, a file-and-trial team, have a 1:00 pm ET deadline on Friday by which they must either reach an agreement or exchange figures with all of their arbitration eligible players. After this deadline the club will only consider multi-year extensions in lieu of seeing the arbitration process through.</p>
<p>The one-year, $1.9 million contract signed by Carrera makes sense in a vacuum, and in fact is exactly what he was <a href="https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/10/projected-arbitration-salaries-for-2018.html">projected to receive</a> by MLB Trade Rumors back in October. The outfielder made $1.2 million when first eligible for arbitration last winter and the $700,000 raise is fair and reflective of his .282/.356/.408 performance in 131 games played in 2017.</p>
<p>Carrera has been worth 1.6 WARP over 827 plate appearances (1.2 WARP/600) across three seasons in Toronto, which cements him in the “good bench player but not someone you should rely upon as a starter” category. What makes this signing slightly unsettling for some Blue Jays fans, however, is that alongside Kevin Pillar and Steve Pearce, Carrera makes three outfielders signed to, or soon to be signed to, major league deals. The outfield still needs help on the top end and this agreement doesn’t preclude a run at the highly sought after Lorenzo Cain, but it could potentially take away opportunities in the short term from a quartet of young outfielders.</p>
<p>For arguments sake, let’s say the Blue Jays sign Lorenzo Cain and he agrees to be the everyday right fielder. With Kevin Pillar’s defensive prowess buying him another season in center, left field falls into the hands of another Pearce and Carrera platoon, with the optionable contracts of Teoscar Hernandez, Dalton Pompey, Dwight Smith, and Anthony Alford all bound for the minor leagues. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.</p>
<p>At this very moment, given that we simply haven’t seen enough consistent performance at the highest level to blindly depend on them, I don’t think anyone would argue that a bit of seasoning in Buffalo or New Hampshire would hurt any of the four. But what if Teoscar Hernandez spends the month of March crushing balls around Florida Auto Exchange Stadium and looks a whole lot like the guy who had 14 extra base hits and a .302 TAv in September? What if Anthony Alford is an on-base machine and appears to be the ideal solution to the revolving door of leadoff hitters the club struggled with last season?</p>
<p>What this Carrera signing does is raise the floor for the outfield jobs and almost perfectly encapsulates the <em>modus operandi</em> of the Shapiro and Atkins tenure: protect from the replacement level through low risk options without suppressing the <i>ceiling</i> of the roster. Having Carrera in place for $1.9 million pushes Teoscar Hernandez and Anthony Alford to earn the job and supplant the veteran, rather than running the risk of an under prepared rookie getting the job by default. If the best case scenario occurs and space needs to be made available for Hernandez and/or Alford in the short term, one or both of Pearce and Carrera can be sent to the bench, or to another organization altogether thanks to their cost-effective contracts.</p>
<p><i>Lead Photo © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</i></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>The Top 10 Blue Jays by Trade Deadline Value (No. 1 &#8211; 5)</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/26/the-top-10-blue-jays-by-trade-deadline-value-5-1/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jul 2017 10:35:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roberto Osuna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vladimir Guerrero]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12570</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is part two of the Blue Jays deadline 2017 top-ten trade value series. The introduction, as well as the tenth through sixth most valuable, went up at BP Toronto yesterday. As a brief recap before, your tenth to sixth most valuable Blue Jays trade assets: #10: RHP Joe Biagini #9: 2B Devon Travis #8: 1B Justin [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is part two of the Blue Jays deadline 2017 top-ten trade value series. The introduction, as well as the tenth through sixth most valuable, went up at <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12567&amp;utm_content=buffer992d4&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer">BP Toronto yesterday.</a> As a brief recap before, your tenth to sixth most valuable Blue Jays trade assets:</p>
<p>#10: RHP Joe Biagini</p>
<p>#9: 2B Devon Travis</p>
<p>#8: 1B Justin Smoak</p>
<p>#7: SS Bo Bichette</p>
<p>#6: LHP J.A. Happ</p>
<p>And now into the top five most valuable Blue Jays.</p>
<p><strong>#5: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=107184">3B Vladimir Guerrero Jr.</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/5-Guerrero.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12588" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/5-Guerrero.png" alt="#5 Guerrero" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>This was an appropriate spot for a break because when I was first getting started on this exercise, identifying the five most valuable trade chips in the organization was easy. While it may not appear that way on a numerical list, you could run the St. Lawrence River through the gulf between Happ and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Guerrero is one of the most highly regarded prospects in all of baseball, placing 13th on the mid-season list at <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=32224">Baseball Prospectus</a> and an astounding <em>second overall </em>at <a href="http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2017-midseason-top-100-prospects-july-7/#6qXSA461V3KqGhzi.97">Baseball America</a>. These types of prospects simply don&#8217;t get moved very often, and when they do—see Yoan Moncada for Chris Sale and Eloy Jimenez for Jose Quintana—it&#8217;s for a cost controlled elite major league talent. In fact, Guerrero has a strong case for being number four on the list. If he shows even a glimmer against Florida State League pitching over the final six weeks of the minor league season, that leap will be a much easier call on the offseason iteration of the Blue Jays trade value series here at BP Toronto.</p>
<p>It can sometimes be challenging trying to compare minor leaguers to major leaguers using the same scale, as it feels a bit awkward trying to assign value to someone so far from the show. <a href="http://www.thepointofpittsburgh.com/mlb-prospect-surplus-values-2016-updated-edition/">Kevin Creagh and Steve DiMiceli of The Point of Pittsburgh</a> have developed and tweaked a model over the years to help make that comparison a bit easier to digest. The whole article is worth your time, but in short, they have divided historical top 100 prospects into hitters and pitchers, and then further subdivided them into buckets based upon specific ranges of rankings. For each of these ten buckets, they provide the average WAR and surplus value over the six years of team control, as well as some bust metrics (less than 3 WAR; 0 or less WAR).</p>
<p>Using Baseball Prospectus&#8217; rankings, the average prospect in Guerrero&#8217;s bucket has produced 13.0 WAR and 62 million in surplus value over the six team-controlled years. Buying into Baseball America&#8217;s #2 overall ranking, those numbers jump to 15.3 WAR and nearly 74 million in surplus value. Only 7 of the 96 from those two buckets produced 0 or less WAR, so historically, someone like Guerrero has more than a 90 percent chance of becoming <em>something</em>. Comparatively, hitters in Bo Bichette&#8217;s bucket averaged 8.1 WAR and 38 million in surplus value. In other words, despite being ranked as the top two prospect in the minor league system and only two spots apart on this list, it wouldn&#8217;t be a stretch to say Guerrero has twice the value as a trade asset. Hence the gulf.</p>
<p><strong>#4: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=56185">3B Josh Donaldson</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/4-Donaldson.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12589" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/4-Donaldson.png" alt="#4 Donaldson" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>Josh Donaldson has garnered the most attention as the poster boy for a potential rebuild in Toronto, but in reality, despite having a Most Valuable Player trophy with his name on it, a .291/.387/.559 slash line, and 19.8 WARP over his last three full seasons, he may actually be only the fourth most valuable trade asset the Blue Jays have.</p>
<p>This ranking isn&#8217;t a slight against Josh, as even with his struggles since returning from the disabled list he&#8217;s clearly still the <em>best </em>player in the organization. Unfortunately, Donaldson has two key factors working against his value. First, he&#8217;ll be a free agent following the 2018 season—a year in which he&#8217;ll be paid in the neighbourhood of 25 million for his fourth trip through arbitration. Any interested team would have to be both willing and capable of stomaching that short term salary and the long term cost of elite young talent in order to have Josh Donaldson play upwards of 200 regular season games and participate in potentially two postseason runs in their uniform. The second is that, while a great story, Donaldson&#8217;s epiphany and renaissance as a hitter led to his service clock starting much later than it does for most players. After 2018, he&#8217;ll be entering free agency looking ahead to his age-33 season, meaning that Donaldson isn&#8217;t necessarily the type of guy that a team pays an exorbitant cost to acquire so that they can throw a lengthy extension on him, too.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, recent comparables for a trade of an MVP-caliber hitter with 1.5 years of control remaining don&#8217;t exist. These days, players like this simply don&#8217;t get traded. Pitchers live in a completely different market; there are 150 rotation spots and even more bullpen jobs across baseball, but there are only thirty spots at each position and only a handful of teams that would match up on both need and the ability to pay. With such a narrow pool of suitors for elite position players on the verge of free agency, opposing teams are likely wary of bidding against themselves, leading to lesser offers. Consequently, rather than enraging their fan base and dealing their star for a pittance—like J.D. Martinez, as one example—front offices choose to hold out hope that an extension with their star will eventually be reached. In a vacuum he may be the fourth most valuable trade asset, but history suggests that Donaldson and the Blue Jays are likely to ride things out for the at least the next two years regardless.</p>
<p><strong>#3: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=68997">RHP Roberto Osuna</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/3-Osuna.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12590" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/3-Osuna.png" alt="#3 Osuna" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>With the chronic blister and fingernail issues that Aaron Sanchez has battled this season, Roberto Osuna could make a legitimate case as the second most valuable trade asset in the organization. What kept him behind Sanchez, at least in my book, was that you could throw Sanchez in the bullpen tomorrow, tell him to exclusively throw 98 to 99 mile per hour two-seam fastballs, and he&#8217;d probably be 80 or 90 percent of the reliever Osuna is. Even with the optimism from the fan base about moving Osuna to the rotation, I&#8217;m not sure he could do an equally similar impersonation of Sanchez&#8217; 2016 season if the roles were reversed. But Osuna doesn&#8217;t need to throw 200 innings a year to be an extraordinarily valuable trade asset. The 22-year old has settled in as one of the most dominant relief pitchers in the game today, and is on pace for a career-high 2.2 WARP this season.</p>
<p>Relievers are the most commonly moved asset, but few have the combination of dominance, team control and experience that can Osuna boast. He&#8217;s controllable through 2020 with three arbitration years forthcoming, and while they&#8217;ll be at less than market value due to the nature of the process itself, the salaries won&#8217;t be inconsequential with his ever increasing save totals. And while most of us have moved past this primitive line of thought, some may still see value in Osuna being a &#8220;proven playoff closer&#8221;. To wit, the Blue Jays pushed into the American League Championship Series in Osuna&#8217;s rookie and sophomore campaigns, and he has answered the bell with a career 1.04 ERA/2.22 FIP across 14 career postseason games. Those were the highest of high leverage situations, and Osuna showed no qualms with being deployed in any type of situation by manager John Gibbons.</p>
<p>Just last year both Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller got moved for massive prospect packages, but Chapman had just a couple of months remaining on his deal and Miller was owed about 20 million over two and a half years on his. Osuna has achieved their level of performance on the field, but offers far more team control with the added bonus of going year-to-year as protection against injury. Looking back another seven months prior for a third comparable, the Phillies moved Ken Giles to the Houston Astros in another blockbuster. Giles had the dominance and team control, but not the ninth inning experience. Still, he landed Mark Appel (when he was still well regarded) and Vince Velasquez in Philadelphia, as well as a handful of other lesser pieces. For Shapiro and Atkins to seriously consider moving Osuna, any package would have to dwarf what those arms got. Incredibly, it&#8217;s not a stretch to think someone might just do it.</p>
<p><strong>#2: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=67107">RHP Aaron Sanchez</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/2-Sanchez.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12591" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/2-Sanchez.png" alt="#2 Sanchez" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>Prior to the 2017 season I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s any question that Aaron Sanchez was the most valuable pitcher in the Blue Jays organization, and he&#8217;d have had a strong argument as the most valuable overall. We&#8217;ve evolved beyond ERA and win-loss record as tools for evaluating pitchers, but there&#8217;s still a certain degree of coolness in leading the league in the former and running a glorious 15-2 mark in the latter, which is exactly what Aaron Sanchez did in 2016 while fighting off questions about being shut down or moved to the bullpen. As a 24-year old he produced 3.7, 3.9, and 4.9 wins above replacement by Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, and Baseball Reference respectively, and Sanchez&#8217; star was burning as bright as a summer day at the ballpark.</p>
<p>Then came the blisters. Sanchez has been placed on the disabled list four times already this season—April 15th, May 1st, May 20th, and July 22nd—for middle finger issues, and unfortunately, they&#8217;re not the same as those that <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/06/01/fan-says-mr-met-showered-with-profane-heckles-before-bird-flip/">surrounded Mr. Met</a> earlier this year. But what seems to have been long forgotten is that these issues first popped up last year. Sanchez was removed from a start on September 11, 2016 with blister issues, and in speaking to <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/can-aaron-sanchez-speed-healing-process-blister/">Sportsnet&#8217;s Shi Davidi</a> afterwards, the right hander revealed he&#8217;d been dealing with blister issues since spring training of <em>that year</em>. Whatever solution he and the training staff used to quietly manage the problem last year clearly hasn&#8217;t translated into 2017. Sanchez dealt with blister issues <em>this </em>spring as well, which led to his delayed start to his year and likely contributed to his trip to the disabled list in April.</p>
<p>With this much uncertainty surrounding his finger, it&#8217;s hard to peg down exactly what kind of value Sanchez has at this point in time. Blisters are supposed to be a bit of a nuisance, not something that will cost a pitcher three quarters of the season when it&#8217;s all said and done. If he had just 36 innings under his belt in late July due to arm-related issues, he&#8217;d be much lower on this list &#8212; were he to make the top ten at all. Yet I feel comfortable that if Aaron Sanchez&#8217; name were floated on the trade market, opposing general managers would be tripping over themselves trying to get the Blue Jays on the line as they barked at their interns to provide them with an exhaustive list of each and every blister fix known to man.</p>
<p>If you take the stance that Sanchez will get over this issue in the coming months, the trade that sent Shelby Miller to Arizona provides something of a parallel comparison. In the 2015/2016 offseason, Miller was entering his first year of arbitration coming off a 5.1 WARP season in Atlanta. In exchange, the Braves received prospects Dansby Swanson and Aaron Blair (who immediately slotted as Atlanta&#8217;s #1 and 4 prospects, <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=28165">according to Chris Crawford</a>), as well as criminally underrated outfielder Ender Inciarte who was coming off a 4.1 WARP season of his own. Of course, the Diamondbacks were brutalized in the public domain for the package they surrendered, and general manager Dave Stewart was fired less than a year after making the trade. Sanchez wouldn&#8217;t net that strong of a return, but needless to say, cheap, young, dominant right handed starting pitching is more valuable than gold.</p>
<p><strong>#1: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=70371">RHP Marcus Stroman</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/1-Stroman.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12592" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/1-Stroman.png" alt="#1 Stroman" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>The most valuable trade asset in the Toronto Blue Jays organization is right handed starter Marcus Stroman. Still only 26-years old, Stroman has already built the reputation as an unbelievably hard worker and a fearless big-game pitcher, and his performance on the field has more than backed up all of the narratives. Never shy to tinker or evolve his repertoire over the course of a game or season if dictated by results or opponents , Stroman has pitched like a top of the rotation starter pretty much from the moment he made his major league debut. As a rookie he produced 3.3 WARP over 20 starts in 2014, added 0.3 WARP over 4 starts in September 2015 after miraculously returning from a torn ACL, produced 3.5 WARP over 32 starts in 2016, and is currently on pace for a career best 5.1 WARP this season. According to Baseball Reference, he&#8217;s on track to eclipse 7 WAR. But it takes more than just great numbers to truly be heralded as an ace.</p>
<p>Stroman is reliable. Stroman is the easiest guy in the world to root for. In aggregate, this July has seen the most embarrassing pitching I&#8217;ve experienced in Blue Jays history. Starters have seemingly failed to complete four innings more often than not, forcing manager John Gibbons to churn through the relief arms in both Toronto and Buffalo like a butter mill. His one saving grace has been his ace, Marcus Stroman. Over his four starts in July, Stroman has faced nothing but terrific offense deployed by the Yankees, Astros, Red Sox, and Indians—all of whom currently sit in playoff spots— and responded with 5.0, 7.0, 6.2, and 7.2 innings pitched. He developed a blister in the first inning against Cleveland on Saturday, but still battled through 117 pitches because he knew his manager and his teammates needed him.</p>
<p>Marcus Stroman has never been on the disabled list with an arm injury and is under control through 2020. He took the Blue Jays to arbitration and won last winter, meaning his second, third, and fourth trips through the process are likely to cost in the neighbourhood of 30 to 40 million total, depending upon the number of Cy Young votes he earns over the next couple of seasons. That&#8217;s not unlike what Chris Sale had left on his contract when the Boston Red Sox swung a deal for him last offseason. As you&#8217;ll of course remember, they forfeited Yoan Moncada, the number one prospect in all of baseball, as well as elite right handed pitcher Michael Kopech and a pair of other intriguing prospects for the privilege of paying him that money.</p>
<p>Now, Marcus Stroman isn&#8217;t Chris Sale, and the Blue Jays window to buy out a few of his free agent years with a long term extension has likely come and gone (if it existed at all in the first place). His trade value likely falls somewhere between that of Sale and Sale&#8217;s former teammate, Jose Quintana. In a word: enormous. Already at the top of this list, if the Blue Jays were serious about moving him—which I&#8217;m skeptical of as his 3.5 years of control provide ample opportunity to trade him later if the team can&#8217;t turn things around in the short term—he would immediately soar to the top of everyone else&#8217;s list, too.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Gary A. Vasquez, USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Top 10 Blue Jays by Trade Deadline Value (No. 6 &#8211; 10)</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/25/the-top-10-blue-jays-by-trade-deadline-value-no-6-10/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Jul 2017 10:59:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bo Bichette]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Devon Travis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biagini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Justin Smoak]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12567</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Twice a year over at FanGraphs, Dave Cameron publishes a list of who, in his opinion, are the fifty most valuable trade assets in baseball. Cameron&#8217;s most recent update was published over the All-Star break earlier this month. Rather than simply listing the best players, he has attempted to blend past performance and future projection [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Twice a year over at FanGraphs, Dave Cameron publishes a list of who, in his opinion, are the fifty most valuable trade assets in baseball. <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2017-trade-value-honorable-mentions/">Cameron&#8217;s most recent update</a> was published over the All-Star break earlier this month. Rather than simply listing the best players, he has attempted to blend past performance and future projection with age, team control, and remaining salary. It&#8217;s why, for example, Clayton Kershaw falls outside of the top fifty despite being undeniably the best pitcher in baseball. Not only does he have a salary prohibitive to all but a small handful of clubs, but his contract has a clause that allows him to opt-out at the conclusion of any season in which he&#8217;s traded. Kershaw is the best pitcher on the planet. He&#8217;s nowhere near the most valuable to anyone but the Los Angeles Dodgers.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t think Dave is the first to come up with the concept, but in terms of both execution and quality, it&#8217;s his that I look forward to most during the lulls of the baseball calendar. With that being said, it&#8217;s always a tad disappointing that we only get his insights and rankings of one, two, or maybe three Blue Jays players, if we&#8217;re lucky. This is why I&#8217;m going to tangent off Dave&#8217;s work, in an effort to offer you my perspective on the ten most valuable trade assets in the Toronto Blue Jays organization. If you have a differing view, please don&#8217;t be afraid to let me hear it.</p>
<p>With the trade deadline only a week away, there may be no more appropriate time for such an endeavour. Not only is the Blue Jays&#8217; 2017 season at a crossroads, but both their short- and long-term outlooks are as well. Few would argue that standing pat and hoping for better luck with the same aging roster seems untenable. Does the front office throw good prospects and money after bad players and try to make one final push, or begin unloading some legitimately valuable assets in an effort to avoid a Phillies-esque unrewarding collapse to the bottom of the division for the next five years?</p>
<p>This isn&#8217;t meant to be the blueprint for a tear down or a shopping list for other teams; there are plenty of both floating around. The players that Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins are most likely to move aren&#8217;t going to shift the needle substantially either way. In fact, I&#8217;d be shocked if any of these ten get moved in the coming days. But just in case they do, here are, numerically, one man&#8217;s outlook of the Blue Jays&#8217; ten most valuable trade chips. Ten to six will be published this morning, with five to one released tomorrow.</p>
<p style="text-align: left"><strong>#10: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=70988">RHP Joe Biagini</a></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/10B-Biagini.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12598" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/10B-Biagini.png" alt="#10B Biagini" width="466" height="104" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left">The tenth most valuable trade asset in the Toronto Blue Jays organization is right handed pitcher Joe Biagini. Since being claimed as a Rule 5 pick from San Francisco, the 27-year old has worked long relief, late innings, and even in the starting rotation. He certainly has the repertoire to stick in the rotation as his four-pitch mix has always graded exceptionally well by <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/12/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-5-all-star-break-edition/">Mike Sonne&#8217;s &#8220;Stuff&#8221; metric</a>. Biagini has produced modest strikeout rates, but offsets this with a remarkable proficiency for inducing groundballs. Belying his advanced age, Biagini has accumulated fewer than two years of service time and thus is under team control through 2021—including next season at league minimum. Biagini has the potential to build up significantly more trade value if he is able to settle into a role in the coming months and give teams a bit more certainty about what he is. The most recent rotation/bullpen swingman of similar quality with three-plus years of control to be traded was Drew Smyly, though he had affixed himself in the rotation by the time he was used as a piece in the <em>first</em> David Price trade back in 2014.</p>
<p>Biagini narrowly edged out catcher Russell Martin, who would have been the eleventh name on the list. Martin is still a top ten or fifteen catcher in baseball, but with the club owing him 40 million over the next two years, he&#8217;s paid like someone in the top three. Not only that, but he&#8217;ll be 35 years old in 2018 and nagging injuries have begun to take their toll on his game—particularly his arm behind the dish. Were the Blue Jays to pay his salary down, something that wasn&#8217;t considered in building the list, he could certainly net some interesting pieces. Look no further than the Astros acquisition of Brian McCann last winter, with the Yankees picking up 11 of the 34 million remaining on his deal in order to get a pair of intriguing prospects.</p>
<p><strong>#9: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=100193">2B Devon Travis</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/9-Travis.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12582" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/9-Travis.png" alt="#9 Travis" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>Devon Travis is 26-years old. He&#8217;s under control through 2020 with his first of three trips through arbitration on the horizon this winter. He capably plays an up-the-middle position, and is a career .292/.331/.462 hitter. This is the résumé of a player who should be one of the most valuable assets in any organization. Of course, as always, the story with Travis isn&#8217;t his performance on the field, but how much time he spends off it. In his brief career the second baseman has already been placed on the disabled list four times, two of which included subsequent transfers to the 60-day disabled list.</p>
<p>If he doesn&#8217;t play another game with the Blue Jays in 2017, shoulder and knee injuries will have limited him to 213 of a potential 486 regular season games since he made the Opening Day roster in 2015. Put another way: by the end of the season he&#8217;ll have accumulated three years of service time despite playing in just 44 percent of the team&#8217;s games over that time. Jedd Gyorko and Dee Gordon are second baseman with similar service time to have been moved in recent years, with the former landing Jon Jay in San Diego and the latter Andrew Heaney with the Dodgers, though neither has the tantalizing all-around upside that Travis possesses. With this kind of asset, the obvious most is to hold. You&#8217;d be selling for pennies on the dollar today, and a healthy Devon Travis is a piece that any team would love to build around tomorrow.</p>
<p><strong>#8: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=58692">1B Justin Smoak</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/8-Smoak.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12583" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/8-Smoak.png" alt="#8 Smoak" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>Of all of the players to receive consideration for the top ten, Justin Smoak&#8217;s value was the hardest to nail down. He was the 11th overall pick in the 2008 amateur draft and a highly touted prospect in the years that followed, but the first seven years of his major league career &#8212; across three organizations &#8212; were a complete nightmare. He hit .223/.308/.392 over nearly <em>three thousand </em>plate appearances, and entering 2017, most Blue Jays fans were hoping the front office could find a way to bury him for as little money as possible. Yet incredibly here on July 23rd, he&#8217;s sporting a .302/.377/.598 slash line and is tied for fourth in all of baseball with 27 home runs.</p>
<p>Better than most others, Blue Jays fans have seen something like this before. Jose Bautista transformed himself from a league average bat to an elite slugger, and while most were skeptical of that production lasting in the long run, he&#8217;s proved us and everybody else but Alex Anthopoulos wrong. On the flip side, we also saw Michael Saunders hit .298/.372/.551 in the first half just last season, followed by a .178/.282/.357 second half, a .205/.257/.360 line with the Phillies in 2017, and his eventual release once they grew tired of him.</p>
<p>Thankfully, that much-maligned contract extension he received last summer gives the Blue Jays—and other teams—extra time to view Smoak with a dubious but intrigued eye without having to pre-emptively commit serious coin in support of this breakout. He&#8217;s under control for 2018 at a modest salary of $4.1 million, with a club option for 2019 that starts at $6.0 million and contains playing time incentives that could push it to $8.0 million. Smoak is the eighth most valuable player in the Blue Jays organization as of this summer, but not unlike the two men behind him, could shoot up the list if he can continue to prove that the last four months are more relevant than the previous seven years. If the Athletics move Yonder Alonso in the coming days, that would set the absolute floor for a Justin Smoak trade if the Blue Jays were to push him to market with the sustainability questions still lurking.</p>
<p><strong>#7: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=107491">SS Bo Bichette</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/7-Bichette.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12584" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/7-Bichette.png" alt="#7 Bichette" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>The Blue Jay with the seventh most trade value is the first of two prospects to make the list, shortstop Bo Bichette. Bichette has taken the prospect world by storm this season, hitting nearly .400 with Single-A Lansing as a 19-year old, and ascending from the back end of the organization&#8217;s top ten to inside the top fifty in all of baseball (#29 on the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=32224">Baseball Prospectus</a> mid-season update; #44 on <a href="http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2017-midseason-top-100-prospects-july-7/#YwyoFbAuhiRBP8uX.97">Baseball America&#8217;s</a> list).</p>
<p>Bichette is an exceptionally interesting prospect, as his ranking on both of those lists—and this one as well—is an attempt to find the balance between his immense upside and the legitimate concerns about how his swing will hold up against more advanced pitching. Some evaluators see him as a 6/6 bat and power guy, which at an up-the-middle position is an unbelievably valuable piece for any organization. There are others, however,  who see his fielding necessitating a move to third base and his bat wrap causing issues when he reaches the upper minors. Still, there are plenty of teams who would gamble on the former, and it&#8217;s why despite being in just the Florida State League he could be the main—or only—trade chip used to acquire a legitimate big league talent.</p>
<p>Last summer the Cubs used Gleyber Torres (BP midseason #34) to land Aroldis Chapman, and Cleveland sent Clint Frazier (BP Midseason #26) to the Yankees to land Andrew Miller. More recently, Blake Rutherford (BA Midseason #36) was sent to the Chicago White Sox as the centerpiece for a package of David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle, and Todd Frazier. Each of those three prospects falls in the neighbourhood of Bichette&#8217;s current ranking, and provides comparables for the type of return he could potentially net.</p>
<p><strong>#6: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=46084">LHP J.A. Happ</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/6-Happ.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12585" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/6-Happ.png" alt="#6 Happ" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>I went back-and-forth between Bichette and Happ on who should be six and who should be seven, and in reality, it probably is more of a 6A and 6B situation. Just last summer a pair of left handed starters with similar production and contract status were moved, with the Padres landing Anderson Espinosa for Drew Pomeranz and the Tampa Bay Rays receiving Lucius Fox (and Matt Duffy) for Matt Moore. Those returns aren&#8217;t dissimilar to the value most are placing on Bo Bichette today.</p>
<p>J.A. Happ will be 35-years old next season, but he&#8217;s yet to show any signs of age catching up to him. His average fastball velocity has remained steady at around 92 miles per hour for the last four seasons, and he ranks in the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pitchfx/leaderboards/index.php?hand=L&amp;reportType=pfx&amp;prp=P&amp;month=&amp;year=2017&amp;pitch=FA&amp;ds=velo&amp;lim=200">upper third among left handed starters</a> by that metric. One potential drain on Happ&#8217;s value is that he&#8217;s only under contract for one more year after 2017, and while it&#8217;s certainly below market value given his performance the last three years, the 13 million he&#8217;s owed isn&#8217;t nothing to a team like Milwaukee or Pittsburgh trying to make a push.</p>
<p>Starting pitching is always in demand, but the type of that demand varies greatly between the summer and winter. Almost every team is looking to bolster their rotation in the offseason, but the market takes a bit of a shift at the trade deadline. The bubble teams may be salivating over someone like J.A. Happ, but the division leaders with plenty of heft at the front end of their rotation might be hesitant to give up a ton of value for someone who would be their fourth starter and might only make one start in the postseason. The Washington Nationals, for example, could see the Blue Jays lefty as a perfect plug for the fifth spot in their rotation over the next two months, but might barely use him come October behind Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Gio Gonzalez.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/26/the-top-10-blue-jays-by-trade-deadline-value-5-1/" title="The Top 10 Blue Jays by Trade Deadline Value (No. 1 – 5)" target="_blank">Click here for the rest of the list</a> as we run from number five down to the most valuable player in the Blue Jays organization.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Ryan Tepera Developed an Elite Cutter and None of Us Noticed</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/18/ryan-tepera-developed-an-elite-cutter-and-none-of-us-noticed/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jul 2017 10:30:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ryan Tepera]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12323</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ryan Tepera debuted with the Blue Jays on May 10, 2015 with little to no fanfare.  The bullpen was struggling through a transitional state, still reeling from the offseason departure of former closer Casey Janssen, the loss of of elite setup man Aaron Sanchez to the starting rotation, and the early season implosions of would-be [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ryan Tepera debuted with the Blue Jays on May 10, 2015 with little to no fanfare.  The bullpen was struggling through a transitional state, still reeling from the offseason departure of former closer Casey Janssen, the loss of of elite setup man Aaron Sanchez to the starting rotation, and the early season implosions of would-be stoppers Brett Cecil and Miguel Castro. It was an entirely non-descript roster move in which Chad Jenkins seemingly made his seventy-eighth trip down the QEW. While Tepera had a 0.57 ERA with Triple-A Buffalo, that he’d pitched 15.2 innings over 8 relief appearances was likely the more sought-after quality as manager John Gibbons looked to add some length and flexibility to help out his staff.</p>
<p>Tepera would be optioned and recalled two more times that season, and by the end of the year the right hander held a fantastic 3.27 ERA across 32 relief appearances. That mark was viewed with heavy skepticism by most: he had excellent control (1.64 BB/9), but Tepera showed little ability to strike out batters (6.00 K/9) or keep the ball in the stadium (2.18 HR/9).</p>
<p>His 2016 season was even more bizarre. He significantly improved his overall strikeout (8.84 K/9) and home run (0.49 HR/9) rates, while appearing to take something of a step back with his control (3.93 BB/9). Tepera allowed just six earned runs over his 20 appearances, good for a 2.95 ERA, yet despite evolving into a legitimate major league quality reliever, he was optioned and subsequently recalled <em>seven times</em>. Remarkably, he managed to stay on the Blue Jays roster for two-plus consecutive weeks on only two of those seven assignments: August 10th to 23rd, and September 2nd through the end of the season.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s because we were never exposed to him long enough to get a feel for what he was doing, but at some point between the 2015 and 2016 seasons, Ryan Tepera made a conscious decision to significantly adjust his repertoire to better suit his new role. Tepera began his professional career in the rotation like most relievers, and featured a five pitch mix – all of which he threw more than eight percent of the time during his 2015 debut season. That number fell to four in 2016, with his changeup being discarded entirely. Now at the All Star break in 2017, having almost completely phased out his slider, his pitch count has settled into something of an unusual triumvirate: four seam fastball, sinker, and cutter.</p>
<p>In an effort to counter the limitations of having such a narrow velocity band (of roughly 88 to 98 miles per hour), Tepera has made adjustments to each of those three remaining pitches to better differentiate them at the plate. He’s getting more arm-side run on his four seam and sinker while maintaining the glove-side movement on his cutter, further expanding the horizontal movement differential. Tepera has also reduced the vertical sink on the four seam and sinker, and perhaps most importantly of all, added about two inches of extra vertical drop to his cutter, expanding the vertical dimension as well. In 2017, it has the seventh most sink among relievers with 50 or more cutters thrown, and he’s about a half inch behind the guy with the second-most sink. The emerging separation of the cutter from the other two fastballs can be observed on the GIF below.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Tepera-Movement-GIF1.gif"><img class="alignnone wp-image-12399" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Tepera-Movement-GIF1.gif" alt="Tepera Movement GIF" width="600" height="500" /></a></p>
<p>The progression Tepera has made with his cutter, developing it into a legitimate weapon, is nothing short of stunning. With some numbers from <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfx.aspx?playerid=10291&amp;position=P">FanGraphs</a>, as the table below demonstrates, he’s throwing it more than ever but has simply decided to stop throwing it inside the strikezone. Opposing batters, meanwhile, haven’t made any adaptations whatsoever. They’re continuing to swing at practically the same rate as before, but are making less contact while chasing worse pitches. The whiff per swing metrics are among left- and right-handed relievers who threw 50 or more cutters in the given year, using the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pitchfx/leaderboards/index.php?hand=&amp;reportType=pfx&amp;prp=RP&amp;month=&amp;year=2017&amp;pitch=FC&amp;ds=ws&amp;lim=50">Baseball Prospectus Leaderboard</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Tepera-Cutter-Table.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12325" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Tepera-Cutter-Table.png" alt="Tepera Cutter Table" width="541" height="140" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left">After it was nothing short of terrible in 2015, Tepera has thrown one of the best cutters in baseball over the past year and a half. The one reliever with a better whiff rate in 2016 was Enny Romero (45.10 percent), while in 2017, it’s Dominic Leone (45.31 percent), George Kontos (39.02 percent), Sam Dyson (39.02 percent), and Roberto Osuna (37.84 percent). You have to wonder if the Blue Jays are on to something with these fastball/slider relievers quietly becoming fastball/cutter relievers, but that’s a story deserving of its own spotlight another day.</p>
<p>It’s maybe time to reconsider the idea that, in moving from a walk rate of 4.7 percent in 2015 to 9.4 and 10.3 percent in 2016 and 2017, respectively, Ryan Tepera actually lost his control or command. The cutter has been his most used pitch in both of the last two seasons, and as the table clearly revealed, he has intentionally chosen to stop throwing it for strikes. The trickledown effect, of course, would be extra walks as not <em>everyone </em>is going to chase. The GIF below shows his <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=FC%7C&amp;hfAB=&amp;hfBBT=&amp;hfPR=&amp;hfZ=&amp;stadium=&amp;hfBBL=&amp;hfNewZones=&amp;hfGT=R%7C&amp;hfC=&amp;hfSea=2017%7C&amp;hfSit=&amp;player_type=pitcher&amp;hfOuts=&amp;opponent=&amp;pitcher_throws=&amp;batter_stands=&amp;hfSA=&amp;game_date_gt=&amp;game_date_lt=&amp;player_lookup%5B%5D=572193&amp;team=&amp;position=&amp;hfRO=&amp;home_road=&amp;hfFlag=&amp;metric_1=&amp;hfInn=&amp;min_pitches=0&amp;min_results=0&amp;group_by=name&amp;sort_col=pitches&amp;player_event_sort=h_launch_speed&amp;sort_order=desc&amp;min_abs=0#results">Baseball Savant-generated heat maps</a> for his cutter over the three seasons. The heat map includes both right- and left-handed batters. Against the former, the focal point has moved from middle-away, to low-and-away, to down-and-away off the plate altogether. Against lefties, Tepera is pounding his cutter down-and-inside more than ever.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Tepera-Location-GIF.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12326" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Tepera-Location-GIF.gif" alt="Tepera Location GIF" width="528" height="509" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left">It’s been a bit of a strange ride for the bullpen this season. Roberto Osuna has been his usual damn fine self, but Jason Grilli imploded and now finds himself playing for the Triple-A Texas Rangers. Joe Smith has been far better than even the most optimistic of us could have predicted, but his free agent comrade J.P. Howell was a disaster and a half over his nine innings of work before a case of left-arm shittiness forced him to the disabled list. These factors, along with Joe Biagini’s trip to the rotation in Aaron Sanchez and J.A. Happ’s absences, have given guys like Ryan Tepera, Danny Barnes, and Dominic Leone opportunities they likely wouldn’t have received otherwise. They’ve each capitalized, and if Tepera can continue getting batters to chase his cutter in a way that has since left Kenley Jansen in the dust, he might keep seeing these high leverage appearances even after Smith returns in the coming days.</p>
<p style="text-align: left"><em>Lead Photo: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports </em></p>
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		<title>Joe Smith: Pitching Backwards and Getting Strikeouts</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/16/joe-smith-pitching-backwards-and-getting-strikeouts/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/16/joe-smith-pitching-backwards-and-getting-strikeouts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 16 Apr 2017 14:39:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pitcher of the Week]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10266</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Every week in this space, we&#8217;re going to be running down the &#8220;Pitcher of the Week&#8221; for the Toronto Blue Jays. This won&#8217;t always be the best pitcher, but it will always be someone who did something notable that we can break down further. Using information from games through Friday (Saturday-Friday), we will try to [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Every week in this space, we&#8217;re going to be running down the &#8220;<strong>Pitcher of the Week</strong>&#8221; for the Toronto Blue Jays. This won&#8217;t always be the best pitcher, but it <strong>will</strong> always be someone who did something notable that we can break down further. Using information from games through Friday (Saturday-Friday), we will try to show you something interesting each and every week. </em></p>
<p>Since last Sunday’s post <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/09/blue-jays-pitcher-of-the-week-j-a-happ/" title="Blue Jays Pitcher of the Week: J.A. Happ" target="_blank">highlighting J.A. Happ’s performance</a> against the Baltimore Orioles, the Blue Jays have continued a stretch of largely impressive starting pitching performances despite the losses piling up in the standings. This week kicked off with Aaron Sanchez’s magnificent duel with Chris Archer, and also featured a dominant complete game loss by Marcus Stroman on Wednesday in which his sinker looked about as good as it ever has. Francisco Liriano turned his season around in a big way on Thursday, striking out 10 Orioles and allowing just two runs over 6.2 innings of work, but found himself taking the loss thanks to one measly run of support.</p>
<p>Still, none of those three will be named the Blue Jays pitcher of the week, because something else happened with the pitching staff that may have gone unnoticed as the offense sputtered and fans turned their televisions off before the late innings came around: Joe Smith took some friggin’ names.</p>
<p>Smith pitched only twice between the 8<sup>th</sup> and 14<sup>th</sup> of April, but both outings might best be labeled as “enlightening”. Little attention was given to Smith after he joined the club from Chicago (and Los Angeles) over the winter, but in just a couple of short weeks the sinkerballer has emerged as potentially a better right-handed option than Jason Grilli in front of Roberto Osuna at the back of the bullpen.</p>
<p>Between Tuesday and Thursday, Joe Smith faced six batters. Five went down on strikes. Over his last three appearances, including April 7<sup>th</sup>, he’s faced ten batters and struck out eight of them. Among 108 relievers to have worked five or more innings here in the early goings of 2017, Smith’s strikeout rate of 44.4 percent ranks as the fourth best. Smith is known more for his groundballs than his strikeouts – his previous career high is 23.9 percent in 2014 – but he’s doing something a little bit differently this season that might explain his 18.6 percent swinging strike rate; a mark more than double his career rate of 8.2 percent.</p>
<p>The explanation is something that most pitchers would consider backwards thinking, but it might be working for Joe Smith because as a sidearmer, he’s a little bit backwards already. Via Brooks Baseball, Smith’s sinker is currently averaging -3.71 inches of sink relative to gravity. That&#8217;s significant in and of itself, as he had been struggling to get the same drop on the pitch in 2015-2016 as he had in his dominant 2011-2014 stretch. He&#8217;s back to those levels now.</p>
<p>What makes things different, however, is how he using another pitch. Joe Smith&#8217;s slider is averaging +3.70 inches of sink. So basically, because of his arm angle and the spin he imparts on the ball, his fastball sinks more than a spinless pitch, while his slider &#8220;rises&#8221; somewhat. That&#8217;s normal for Smith, of course, but what&#8217;s new is the size of that gap. That differential of 7.41 inches is easily a career best, and fact, he’s only ever averaged more than six inches of vertical differential once: back in 2010.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/Brooksbaseball-Chart-5.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-10267" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/Brooksbaseball-Chart-5-1024x683.png" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (5)" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Using this gap in movement, Smith is throwing more sliders in the early going than ever before (35.6 percent vs career 30 percent), making things very tough on hitters.</p>
<p>Most pitchers want to elevate their fastball and bury their breaking ball in the dirt. For Smith, the best recipe might be the complete inverse. It has quickly become something worth monitoring, and if home runs continue to be an issue for Grilli, Smith could find his relief outings occurring in higher and higher leverage settings.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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