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	<title>Toronto &#187; Michael Bradburn</title>
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	<description>Comprehensive coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays</description>
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		<title>Recap: Orioles 4, Blue Jays 2; Jays Streak Snapped, but it Means Nothing</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/18/recap-orioles-4-blue-jays-2-jays-streak-snapped-but-it-means-nothing/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/18/recap-orioles-4-blue-jays-2-jays-streak-snapped-but-it-means-nothing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 18 Jun 2016 23:12:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Bradburn]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Recaps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Baltimore Orioles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blue jays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[r.a. dickey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Zach Britton]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3958</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Toronto Blue Jays came into Sunday&#8217;s day game as winners of their last four straight. More intriguingly though, they also had the best outfielder in all of baseball (measured by TAv) in Michael Saunders. Technically tied with Mike Trout, Saunders currently has a .344 TAv. In the month of June, he has an isolated [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Toronto Blue Jays came into Sunday&#8217;s day game as winners of their last four straight. More intriguingly though, they also had the best outfielder in all of baseball (measured by TAv) in Michael Saunders. Technically tied with Mike Trout, Saunders currently has a .344 TAv. In the month of June, he has an isolated power of .490 and he has contributed just over two wins above replacement player to the Blue Jays so far this year.</p>
<p>Standing in their way, both Yovani Gallardo and J.J. Hardy were making their return for the first-place Baltimore Orioles today. A lot of eyes were on Gallardo&#8217;s return specifically as the Orioles&#8217; pitching staff currently sits <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1932662">25th in all of baseball by DRA</a>.</p>
<p>Tasked with keeping the Orioles in first place, Gallardo worked admirably through five innings but got pulled after just 85 pitches due to body preservation following his return from injury. He allowed two runs on five hits and four walks while striking out five before turning it over to the bullpen. And, despite a shaky ninth from Zach Britton, they locked it down while the reigning AL MVP hit into a double play.</p>
<h4>Top Play of the Game by WPA</h4>
<p>In the storybook ninth&#8211;that only lacked the storybook ending&#8211;Russell Martin worked a walk against Orioles&#8217; closer Britton. Martin, who was pinch hitting, would load the bases by reaching. This came just after Darwin Barney&#8211;who was pinch hitting for Josh Thole&#8211;also worked a walk. Martin&#8217;s walk contributed 11.6 percent of the Jays&#8217; win expectancy (.116 WPA)</p>
<p>Britton was all over the place and nothing could stop the Blue Jays from winning the game. Except the bottom play&#8230;</p>
<h4>Bottom Play of the Game by WPA</h4>
<p>In the bottom of the ninth, the reigning AL MVP came up with the bases loaded and one out. The Orioles&#8217; closer, Britton, had looked shaky at best. This is the stuff movies are made of. Donaldson swung at the 1-1 pitch and hit it right at Jonathan Schoop, who turned two and made Britton look passably good in doing so&#8211;though he wasn&#8217;t. The double play lost the Blue Jays 27.9 percent of their win expectancy for the game (-.279 WPA).</p>
<p>The second worst play was a Blue Jays&#8217; double play as well. In the fifth inning with nobody out, the best hitter among outfielders in all of baseball grounded into a double play. In doing so, Michael Saunders lost the Blue Jays 10.7 percent of their win expectancy (-.107 WPA). Opening the inning with a walk to Encarnacion, it looked like the Blue Jays had perhaps found an opening to crack Gallardo. Alas, after the double play Justin Smoak struck out and Gallardo ended up facing the minimum in his last inning of work.</p>
<p>Seriously though, what has Saunders done for us lately? #GiveUsJayBruce</p>
<h4>Schoop started out that double play</h4>
<p>That double play in the ninth got me thinking. Instead of focusing on Donaldson&#8217;s ball in play, let&#8217;s really focus on Schoop&#8217;s play this game.</p>
<p>In the third inning with two out, Jonathan Schoop hit a solo homer against Dickey, contributing 10.5 percent of the team&#8217;s winning effort in doing so (.105 WPA). It was the Orioles&#8217; third run of the game and all they would need to win. Thanks to a nice play by Ezequiel Carrera and a TOOTBLAN from Joey Rickard, Schoop&#8217;s home run only put one run up on the board. The inning could have gone much worse for Dickey, and three runs could have easily made their way across the plate.</p>
<p>The very next inning Schoop committed an error. Comparatively, this play had almost no bearing on the outcome of the game. I just wanted to balance out Schoop doing two good things with him also doing something bad.</p>
<h4>R.A. Dickey never gets any run support ever. This is no longer a trend, it is a fact of life as certain as your eventual death.</h4>
<p>Sorry to be so morbid. It&#8217;s just that first place was on the line you guys. First place. We could have been a first place team again.</p>
<p>When Dickey is on the hill, the Blue Jays have averaged 2.93 runs scored this season. Twice they have been shutout. TWICE. The Blue Jays have been shutout four times this season. Half of them have been when Dickey was pitching.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s okay. Breathe. We&#8217;re still not halfway through the season. Just breathe. When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.</p>
<h4>Trend to Watch</h4>
<p>The Blue Jays are now 4-1 in their last five.</p>
<p>The Blue Jays are now .500 with Jose Bautista on the disabled list.</p>
<p>The Blue Jays are an enigma that cannot be wrapped into any one small sample size. Though they remain only two games back of first place. There are no facts. Only interpretations.</p>
<h4>Up Next</h4>
<p>The Blue Jays and Orioles wrap up their three-game set with a 1:35pm start time on Sunday. Marcus Stroman will take the hill for the visiting Jays. While Stroman continues to lead all of baseball in groundball rate, the young starter has run into some troubles as of late. Over his past four starts, he&#8217;s pitched 23.1 innings, allowing 19 runs&#8211;all earned&#8211;on 34 hits and eight walks while also giving up four home runs. Furthermore, 37 percent of his batted balls over that time has been rated as hard contact. He had a nice bounce back start against the Phillies his last time out, though his last start against the Orioles was a forgettable 5.1 inning effort in which he allowed four runs on eight hits and a walk earlier this month.</p>
<p>Chris Tillman has been by far the most reliable starter on the Orioles this season, and that&#8217;s not only because he&#8217;s the only <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&amp;stats=sta&amp;lg=all&amp;qual=y&amp;type=8&amp;season=2016&amp;month=0&amp;season1=2016&amp;ind=0&amp;team=2&amp;rost=0&amp;age=0&amp;filter=&amp;players=0">qualified candidate</a>. Tillman is posting the 24th-best strikeout rate in all of baseball at 24.2 percent. In short, he&#8217;s putting up the best numbers of his career in almost every category. That being said, those categories include his strand rate and BABIP, which seem uncharacteristically out of his career norms and could indicate some forthcoming regression.</p>
<p><em>Lead Image: Evan Habeeb &#8211; USA Today</em></p>
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		<title>What&#8217;s Wrong with Brett Cecil?</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/04/whats-wrong-with-brett-cecil/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/04/whats-wrong-with-brett-cecil/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 May 2016 13:22:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Bradburn]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brett Cecil]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=2136</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[To put it nicely, Brett Cecil has had a rough start to 2016. Coming off of an absolutely dominant second half in 2015, Toronto Blue Jays&#8217; fans were probably expecting something better from their elite left-handed reliever. Instead, he&#8217;s been downright pedestrian. Through the second half of 2015, Cecil&#8217;s OPS-against was .326. This season, Cecil&#8217;s OBP-against [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>To put it nicely, Brett Cecil has had a rough start to 2016. Coming off of an absolutely dominant second half in 2015, Toronto Blue Jays&#8217; fans were probably expecting something better from their elite left-handed reliever. Instead, he&#8217;s been downright pedestrian.</p>
<p>Through the second half of 2015, Cecil&#8217;s OPS-against was .326. This season, Cecil&#8217;s OBP-against alone is up at .400. His OPS-against is .900. To put that into perspective, the average hitter against Cecil is 2015 Anthony Rizzo. But what&#8217;s actually wrong with Cecil? We can look at the statistics all we want, but what is he doing differently?</p>
<h3>Is it just noise?</h3>
<p>Cecil&#8217;s BABIP is about .100 points higher than his career norm. His strand rate is also about 10 percentage points lower than last season. That might indicate he&#8217;s experiencing some bad luck. Furthermore, we&#8217;re working with a very small sample size of only 9.1 innings. That doesn&#8217;t tell the whole story though, as Cecil has faced 46 batters. That means he has faced 19 more than the minimum, which is at least enough plate appearances to start noticing some patterns.</p>
<p>For what it&#8217;s worth, I still believe Cecil will straighten this out. But a FIP of 3.61 and a WHIP of 1.82 indicate that some slumping is going on.</p>
<h3>The Diagnosis</h3>
<p>First, I usually like to check pitch velocity: it&#8217;s a quick and easy place to start. The only pitch that seems to be down any notable amount is his changeup, which has decreased from 85.3 mph to 83 mph on average. There are two reasons this doesn&#8217;t actually raise any concern: the speed of a changeup isn&#8217;t what makes it effective, and Cecil has only thrown it 5.7 percent of the time. That&#8217;s 10 pitches. Even further, it&#8217;s been his best pitch so far and has shown an increase in movement. That&#8217;s a good sign and definitely isn&#8217;t what&#8217;s wrong with Cecil.</p>
<p>While we&#8217;re looking at specific pitches, let&#8217;s take a look at Cecil&#8217;s swinging strikes then. Only nine percent of Cecil&#8217;s pitches have resulted in a swing-and-a-miss. This is decidedly down from his 2015 mark of 15 percent, and even further from his 2014 mark of 16.7 percent. Whiffs are good, and Cecil just isn&#8217;t getting them as much so far this season.</p>
<p>The pitch that seems to be the biggest culprit to this regression is the one you probably suspect the most: the curveball. In 2014, Cecil&#8217;s curveball got offered at and was missed 29.3 percent of the time. In 2015, when Cecil threw the curveball, major league hitters hit nothing but air 27.7 percent of the time. That&#8217;s an otherworldly rate at which to embarrass the best hitters in the world. However, in 2016, Cecil&#8217;s curveball has only generated an 11.4 percent whiff rate. The pitch that accounted for a .373 OPS in 2015 just isn&#8217;t missing bats. But why?</p>
<h3>The Prescription</h3>
<p>Pulling zone profiles from Brooks Baseball for pitches identified by PITCHf/x as &#8216;curveball&#8217; and &#8216;slow curve&#8217; unfortunately doesn&#8217;t afford us much comparison. Here&#8217;s the second-half of 2015:</p>
<p><img src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/plot_profile.php?s_type=2&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=CU|CS&amp;time=month&amp;player=446399&amp;startDate=07/14/2015&amp;endDate=12/31/2015&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=count&amp;balls=-1&amp;strikes=-1&amp;b_hand=-1" alt="" /></p>
<p>Here&#8217;s 2016 so far:</p>
<p><img src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/plot_profile.php?s_type=2&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=CU|CS&amp;time=month&amp;player=446399&amp;startDate=01/01/2016&amp;endDate=05/01/2016&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=count&amp;balls=-1&amp;strikes=-1&amp;b_hand=-1" alt="" /></p>
<p>They&#8217;re almost identical. In fact, you could argue that Cecil had more &#8216;mistake&#8217; pitches in 2015. Instead then, let&#8217;s look at where Cecil generated his whiffs on those pitches:</p>
<p><img src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/plot_profile.php?s_type=2&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=CU|CS&amp;time=month&amp;player=446399&amp;startDate=07/14/2015&amp;endDate=12/31/2015&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=whiff&amp;balls=-1&amp;strikes=-1&amp;b_hand=-1" alt="" /></p>
<p><img src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/plot_profile.php?s_type=2&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=CU|CS&amp;time=month&amp;player=446399&amp;startDate=01/01/2016&amp;endDate=05/01/2016&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=whiff&amp;balls=-1&amp;strikes=-1&amp;b_hand=-1" alt="" /></p>
<p>Cecil is getting way fewer whiffs on his bread-and-butter pitch: the curveball low to his glove side; down-and-in to righties, down-and-away to lefties. The surrounding zones have also suffered quite a bit. Perhaps batters are just learning to lay off that pitch, knowing that it will break out of the zone for a ball.</p>
<p>Judging by the 2015 usage, Cecil&#8217;s curveball can still dominate opposing hitters when left in the bottom-third of the strikezone. But let&#8217;s make sure:</p>
<p><img src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/plot_profile.php?s_type=2&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=CU|CS&amp;time=month&amp;player=446399&amp;startDate=07/14/2015&amp;endDate=12/31/2015&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=baa&amp;balls=-1&amp;strikes=-1&amp;b_hand=-1" alt="" /></p>
<p><img src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/plot_profile.php?s_type=2&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=CU|CS&amp;time=month&amp;player=446399&amp;startDate=01/01/2016&amp;endDate=05/01/2016&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=baa&amp;balls=-1&amp;strikes=-1&amp;b_hand=-1" alt="" /></p>
<p>This is such an unbelievably small sample. In the second half of 2015, Cecil&#8217;s curveball was only put into play 48 times&#8230; and six landed for hits. In 2016, 21 have been put into play and seven have already landed for hits. Again, hitters seem especially educated on that low curveball (down-and-in to righties). They&#8217;re swinging at it less and, when they do swing at it, they&#8217;re not missing it.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>It really is such a small sample by which to proclaim an &#8216;easy fix.&#8217; Apart from being a victim of some bad luck, it looks like Cecil just isn&#8217;t getting as many swings at the low curveball. And there&#8217;s just no quick fix to that at all; unfortunately you can&#8217;t tell opposing hitters just to swing more.</p>
<p>Right now, just over 34 percent of Cecil&#8217;s curveballs are finishing in a zone other than the four bottom-left quadrants. In the second-half of last year, Cecil was throwing 42 percent of his pitches to other parts of the zone. Perhaps Cecil is just being too predictable now. Varying location on the curveball a little bit more could help throw off some hitters.</p>
<p>Roughly the same percentage of curveballs are ending up in the strikezone compared to the second-half of last season, but Cecil is choosing to miss in one specific zone almost exclusively. That could be hampering that location&#8217;s effectiveness if it&#8217;s just too predictable.</p>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t strike me as a common occurrence that a pitcher hitting his best zone leads to struggles, and that can be read one of two ways. The pessimist may argue that Cecil can no longer make that pitch work; that &#8216;the book&#8217; is out on him, so to speak. The optimist however, would argue that Cecil is just locating it too well. He knows his strongest zone and he is sticking to it. But maybe he&#8217;s just sticking to it too well. But if a pitcher has that level of control, it seems like a reasonable expectation that Cecil can get himself out of it by precisely locating elsewhere when he needs to.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Recap: Blue Jays 4, Orioles 3; Unconventional Bullpen Usage Leads to Blue Jays Victory</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/19/recap-blue-jays-4-orioles-3-unconventional-bullpen-usage-leads-to-blue-jays-victory/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Apr 2016 02:18:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Bradburn]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Recaps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Baltimore Orioles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=1710</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Just as soon as the game started, it seemed as if Camden Yards was booing Jose Bautista. Frankly, I had no idea this grudge was still held by the Baltimore Orioles&#8217; fans. For the uninitiated, the abridged version: Jose Bautista is good at baseball, and the Orioles keep giving up home runs to him and [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Just as soon as the game started, it seemed as if Camden Yards was booing Jose Bautista. Frankly, I had no idea this grudge was still held by the Baltimore Orioles&#8217; fans.</p>
<p>For the uninitiated, the abridged version: Jose Bautista is good at baseball, and the Orioles keep giving up home runs to him and hitting him with pitches, so their fans are mad at Bautista for that. That about covers it.</p>
<p>The Orioles were 8-3 heading into this evening&#8217;s game, and started the season as the hottest team in all of baseball at 7-0. Marcus Stroman was slated to take the mound against Mike Wright. Wright had only managed to pitch five innings in his last and only start of the still-young 2016 season. Despite giving up four runs on five hits and a walk, Wright came in with a 1-0 record.</p>
<h3>Top Play of the Game by WPA</h3>
<p>The top play was delivered by Matt Wieters via a two-run homer in the seventh inning (.188). With the Blue Jays leading 4-1 and Mark Trumbo on first, Wieters deposited Stroman&#8217;s 1-1 changeup barely over the right field fences. This pushed the Orioles win probability from 17.4 percent up to 36.2 percent.</p>
<p>It was the first in a series of very hard hit balls given up in the inning. Jonathan Schoop took a Stroman fastball for a ride down the left field line as well, but it ended up fairly well foul. After escaping the inning without any further hard contact actually costing any damage, John Gibbons went to the bullpen to begin the eighth.</p>
<h3>Bottom Play of the Game by WPA</h3>
<p>With two-on and two-out in one of the highest leverage moments of the entire game, Mark Trumbo was set to face Roberto Osuna fresh out of the bullpen in the eighth inning. Osuna promptly got Trumbo to fly out to right-centerfield on the third pitch of the at-bat (-.122 WPA). After so much had gone the Orioles&#8217; way in the inning, Trumbo&#8217;s flyout took the Orioles&#8217; probability of winning the game from 28.6 percent to 16.3 percent.</p>
<p>The rest of the evening was clinical, as Osuna made quiet work of the Orioles in the ninth inning, retiring Wieters, J.J. Hardy, and Pedro Alvarez in order on just 13 pitches.</p>
<h3>The Orioles Losing Streak Begins</h3>
<p>We all know the Orioles started 7-0. We also all know the Orioles are still projected to finish very poorly by PECOTA estimations. They&#8217;ve now lost two in a row and the series against the Blue Jays has just begun. Can the Blue Jays muster their first sweep of the year?</p>
<h3>Trend to Watch</h3>
<p>Roberto Osuna coming in for a four-out save seems decidedly unlike the way Gibbons has managed a game before this. With the leverage index getting to its highest point of the game &#8211; and very likely higher than any point the ninth inning may yield &#8211; it was an extremely prudent move. Cecil had trouble dispensing of the top of the Orioles order with no help from the home plate umpire and a very, very hitter-friendly strikezone. Once Cecil had managed to get Chris Davis to pop out on the first pitch of the at-bat, Gibbons wanted a righty to face Trumbo. Instead of pulling a reliever in for a one-out opportunity, Gibbons went straight for the closer.</p>
<p>Whether Gibbons will continue to deploy Osuna in more-than-three-out save opportunities seems very interesting.</p>
<h3>Up Next</h3>
<p>The Orioles will continue hosting their fellow-bird rival tomorrow with first pitch scheduled for 7:05pm. R.A. Dickey (1-2, 6.75 ERA) will take on Ubaldo Jimenez (1-1, 3.75 ERA). In Jimenez&#8217;s last start, he was only able to make it through five innings, giving up four runs on six hits and four walks. Despite a hot start, the Orioles rotation has had trouble staying late into games thus far this season, and could definitely use a reliable start from Jimenez.</p>
<p>In Dickey&#8217;s last start, the knuckleball looked so good that even Josh Thole had trouble catching it. That led to some severe issues including Hanley Ramirez reaching base on a passed ball after striking out in the first inning &#8211; an out that would have been the third of the inning. Instead, the inning continued, and the Red Sox finished up the first with a three-run lead.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Intro to BP Stats Using Blue Jays Players: True Average (TAv)</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/12/intro-to-bp-stats-using-blue-jays-players-true-average-tav/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Apr 2016 11:02:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Bradburn]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Intro to BP Stats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Encarnacion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kevin Pillar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PECOTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ryan Goins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TAv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[True Average]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=1359</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This Toronto Blue Jays based site for Baseball Propsectus is still in its infancy. While the articles here have shown a distinct professionalism and belonging, we&#8217;re still a rookie in the BP Family. We&#8217;re a bit like Trevor Story; showing that we belong here in a small sample, but really striving for sustained excellence and [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This Toronto Blue Jays based site for Baseball Propsectus is still in its infancy. While the articles here have shown a distinct professionalism and belonging, we&#8217;re still a rookie in the BP Family. We&#8217;re a bit like <a href="http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2016/4/10/11395614/trevor-story-colorado-rockies-home-runs-small-sample-sizes-be-damned" target="_blank">Trevor Story</a>; showing that we belong here in a small sample, but really striving for sustained excellence and respect.</p>
<p>As readers, you may have noticed some new statistics and acronyms that you don&#8217;t always see on other Blue Jays blogs. A few examples include WARP, Tav, and DRA. Explanations of those stats can sometimes be long, difficult to find, and even harder to parse. That&#8217;s why this series will undertake explaining the (possibly) new-to-you stats you&#8217;ll see regularly on the site. However, it won&#8217;t just explain the math; you can find that elsewhere and that&#8217;s no fun. Instead, I&#8217;ll put it into context using Blue Jays players.</p>
<p>Today&#8217;s undertaking will be True Average or TAv for short, which is arguably the most important statistic on Baseball Prospectus, it is certainly the most important stat for evaluating a hitter. It&#8217;s goal is to consolidate all of a player&#8217;s batting value into one number, scaled to look like batting average. Straight from the BP glossary, True Average is adjusted, &#8220;for park and league quality.&#8221; Therefore, every player&#8217;s bench mark is the same. In short, there&#8217;s no need to be weary of numbers at Coors Field, or inflate numbers at Petco Park; that work is done for you. The league average mark is set at .260. It&#8217;s worth noting though, that True Average doesn&#8217;t incorporate a player&#8217;s contributions on the basepaths.</p>
<p>For the math-inclined folk, it&#8217;s a pretty simple premise. You take a player&#8217;s runs above average (RAA) &#8212; which is dependent on the situation of each plate appearance. Then, make it a rate stat by dividing by the player&#8217;s plate appearances and multiply by a constant to adjust to the league average. Then, just add your baseline to make it look like batting average. The formula, then, looks a bit like this: <em>0.260 + (RAA/PA) </em>x<em> 0.9.</em></p>
<p>To better understand how RAA works, think of it like this: with a home run in one plate appearance, a player can produce anywhere between one (a solo shot) and four (a grand slam) runs. By R/PA, a grand slam is worth four, no matter how many outs there already are. However, depending on the situation of the game (the base-out state to be more precise), the run expectancy changes. So, by RAA/PA, a home run with nobody out and the bases loaded is worth 1.718 runs as your team was technically &#8216;expected&#8217; to score 2.282 runs in that situation anyways (4 &#8211; 2.282 = 1.718). It&#8217;s a bit more complicated than that though, as the base-out state immediately returns to nobody on-base, nobody out. In that situation, the team is expected to score 0.461 runs. So, the player contributed four actual runs, the chance to add 0.461 more runs, all in a situation that was supposed to garner 2.282 runs. Therefore, the player who hit the grand slam actually contributed 2.179 runs (4 + 0.461 &#8211; 2.282 = 2.179).</p>
<p>Now that you are well-equipped to start calculating your own TAv while sitting right at the bar, lets use some Blue Jays examples for some context.</p>
<h3>The Above Average</h3>
<p>For sample size purposes, we&#8217;re going to stick with the 2015 stats for now.</p>
<p>There was a dead-heat for the best hitter of the Blue Jays 2015 season, and it actually ended up a tie. Both Edwin Encarnacion AND Josh Donaldson had a .324 TAv, and placed ninth among all hitters in baseball with at least 400 plate appearances. That&#8217;s .064 higher than league average.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s where TAv gets most useful: Encarnacion and Donaldson line up comparably despite getting there by slightly different means. While the home run tallies were nearly identical (39 and 41 respectively), Donaldson had 58 more total bases than Encarnacion. That could, however, be attributable to the 87 fewer plate appearances that Encarnacion had. Despite fewer plate appearances, Encarnacion took slightly more walks and struck out 35 fewer times.</p>
<p>Despite lining up nearly identically in TAv, the routes taken there are independent. We can look at this two ways. First, TAv gives us a means to equate player value across multiple avenues; not just simple counting stats that don&#8217;t line up. Second, TAv fails to tell the entire story. I would caution against the second opinion, since no statistic tells the full story anyways, but we&#8217;ll revisit that on the WARP explainer at another time.</p>
<h3>The Average</h3>
<p>The Blue Jays didn&#8217;t actually have a player who was perfectly average last season. However, the closest &#8212; believe it or not &#8212; was Kevin Pillar at .257. That being said, that is well within one standard deviation of the average .260 mark.</p>
<p>Pillar isn&#8217;t considered by many to be a league average hitter. However, in 2015 he was. And you can say so with confidence as long as you have TAv on your side. For posterity, Pillar is sandwiched between Johnny Giavotella and Brock &#8216;All-Star&#8217; Holt on the TAv leaderboard.</p>
<p>It is worth noting at this time that league average does not denote &#8216;replacement level.&#8217; Replacement level is another set-point, quite a bit lower than league average. For instance, if you could &#8216;replace&#8217; all your bad players with league average players, your team would be excellent. Instead, &#8216;replacement level&#8217; is a player that could be picked up on waivers, promoted from Triple-A, or signed as a free agent. From his TAv and base-running, Pillar contributed 22.3 VORP to the Blue Jays in 2015. If held by itself (without his defense), that would contribute roughly 2.2 WARP.</p>
<h3>The Below Average</h3>
<p>Poor Ryan Goins. At .238 TAv last year, he was the worst Blue Jays hitter with at least 400 plate appearances.</p>
<p>Sure, Goins is a below average hitter, but he still contributed half a win by WARP last year. It&#8217;s important to keep in mind then that when TAv is being used, the author is only evaluating hitting value. While some authors value offense more greatly, it is fallacious to pass TAv off as a player&#8217;s one contribution to the game. Therefore, TAv is extremely useful in assembling a batting order, but useless at figuring out where to place your fielders.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re curious, Jose Reyes was barely better at .241 TAv.</p>
<p>There you have it. Not only can you scribble your calculations on the napkins and coasters of the Loose Moose, but you know what TAv actually looks like now &#8212; it&#8217;s personified.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Recap: Blue Jays 3, Red Sox 0; Marco Estrada Is Still Good</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/10/recap-blue-jays-3-red-sox-0-marco-estrada-is-still-good/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 10 Apr 2016 20:12:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Bradburn]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Recaps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boston Red Sox]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marco Estrada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=1282</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At the conclusion of yesterday&#8217;s game, R.A. Dickey described the outcome as a &#8220;confluence of a lot of weird things.&#8221; So goes pitching with a knuckleball &#8211; a pitch Dickey affectionately refers to as a &#8220;capricious animal.&#8221; The Boston Red Sox sent their own knuckleballer to the mound today in Steven Wright to face off [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>At the conclusion of yesterday&#8217;s game, R.A. Dickey described the outcome as a &#8220;confluence of a lot of weird things.&#8221; So goes pitching with a knuckleball &#8211; a pitch Dickey affectionately refers to as a &#8220;capricious animal.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Boston Red Sox sent their own knuckleballer to the mound today in Steven Wright to face off against Marco Estrada, who made his 2016 debut. Wright&#8217;s knuckleball developed some life of its own as well, as his catcher, Blake Swihart, was charged with a pair of passed balls in the first inning alone. That should elucidate how difficult Josh Thole&#8217;s job is when catching Dickey, especially since his knuckleball is also a bit faster than Wright&#8217;s.</p>
<p>Estrada started the season on the disabled list due to a lower back issue and was activated in time for today&#8217;s game. To make room on the roster, Franklin Morales was added to the 15-day DL with the always-worrying &#8220;shoulder fatigue.&#8221; Whatever ailed Estrada prior to the season seems to be fully recovered though, as he spun a gem with eight strikeouts on 91 pitches through seven innings. And, when he needed it in the second inning, his defense bailed him out by throwing Dustin Pedroia out at home plate.</p>
<h3>Top Play of the Game by WPA</h3>
<p>In a game that lacked any singular-moment excitements, Travis Shaw&#8217;s walk to lead off the seventh inning contributed the most to either team&#8217;s win probability (+.059 WPA). In context, Shaw&#8217;s walk was important to the Red Sox&#8217;s cause, however. He was only the third lead off runner for the visitors and a legitimate threat to spoil Estrada&#8217;s strong outing late in the game. Instead, Estrada got Chris Young to fly out and promptly struck out both Blake Swihart and Jackie Bradley Jr.</p>
<h3>Bottom Play of the Game by WPA</h3>
<p>In the bottom of the eighth and with one already away, Drew Storen got Xander Bogaerts &#8211; one of the Red Sox&#8217;s best hitters &#8211; to ground into a double play (-.082 WPA). With the home team only up by two at the time, Bogaerts represented the tying run in a crucial opportunity when the Blue Jays bullpen has been somewhat suspect.</p>
<p>Storen got out of the inning, Josh Donaldson hit his fourth home run of the year, and Roberto Osuna put a bow on it with second save.</p>
<h3>Estrada&#8217;s Back, Baby</h3>
<p>Honestly, that was going to be the headline regardless, right? Either Estrada was back and awesome, or he was going to struggle and we would have blamed his back.</p>
<p>Estrada had a shot at the complete game shutout but, with the game so close and his workload limited, John Gibbons pulled him after a strong seven innings. Estrada had eight strikeouts or more only three times last year in his 28 starts.</p>
<p>He really only got into trouble once today, in the second inning. With how long the bottom of the first went on for, perhaps Estrada&#8217;s lengthy time on the bench can be held somewhat attributable. And, as previously stated, the defense bailed him out before the pitch count got too high. In fact, in Estrada&#8217;s seven innings, he only needed to use more than 13 pitches twice. Efficiency and strikeouts? That&#8217;s an exciting combo.</p>
<h3>Trend to Watch</h3>
<p>Going forward, the story will likely revolve around Estrada&#8217;s strikeout ability making a resurgence. Much was made last season of Dioner Navarro and Estrada&#8217;s alleged game plan to get pop-ups on his well-placed fastball and changeup combination. His strikeout totals have sort of waned, however, his success has only grown.</p>
<p>Perhaps with Russell Martin behind the dish, Estrada can learn to balance both attributes; inducing weak contact <em>and</em> whiffs. Time will tell.</p>
<h3>Up Next</h3>
<p>With an off-day tomorrow, the Blue Jays will look to return to a .500 record when they host the New York Yankees on Tuesday night. First pitch is scheduled for 7:07pm ET, Aaron Sanchez (0-0, 1.29 ERA) will take on Michael Pineda (1-0, 10.80 ERA). It will be the opener to a three-game set between the AL East foes.</p>
<p>Pineda &#8211; a right-hander &#8211; flashed some brilliant starts last year, however, problems seem to materialize for him when he&#8217;s looking for strikeouts too much. With the Blue Jays batters currently striking out the second-most of any team (very small sample size alert), Pineda could get on track.</p>
<p>Sanchez, who was excellent in his first start this season, could continue to validate the club&#8217;s decision to make him a starter with another strong outing. The Yankees have a more fearsome lineup on paper than the Tampa Bay Rays do, and this will be his first career start against them.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>How to Beat PECOTA With the Blue Jays</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/31/how-to-beat-pecota/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2016 15:58:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Bradburn]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PECOTA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[r.a. dickey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Troy Tulowitzki]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=731</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This season, Baseball Prospectus&#8217; editor-in-chief, Sam Miller, will be curating an entertaining game called Beat PECOTA. If the idea doesn&#8217;t already appear self evident, allow me to explain. For the completely uninitiated, PECOTA is the projection system employed by Baseball Prospectus. PECOTA forecasts many things about a player&#8217;s future performance, including BP&#8217;s in-house stats: True [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This season, Baseball Prospectus&#8217; editor-in-chief, Sam Miller, will be curating an entertaining game called <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/extras/beatpecota/beatpecota.php">Beat PECOTA</a>. If the idea doesn&#8217;t already appear self evident, allow me to explain.</p>
<p>For the completely uninitiated, PECOTA is the projection system employed by Baseball Prospectus. PECOTA forecasts many things about a player&#8217;s future performance, including BP&#8217;s in-house stats: True Average (TAv) and Deserved Run Average (DRA).</p>
<p>The rules of Beat PECOTA then are simple. Pick the over or the under on the projected stats of as many hitters or pitchers as you want. Only players who are projected to have at least 251 plate appearances or 50 innings pitched are eligible. In order to win, you must beat PECOTA by at least seven points of TAv and 0.3 runs of DRA. For every correct player, your team will gain 10 points. However, for every incorrect prediction, your team will lose 11.5 points, so choosing wisely will be in your best interest. Anything located within the designated threshold will be considered a &#8216;push&#8217; &#8212; you will not lose points and PECOTA will be considered correct. In the end, the highest overall score wins.</p>
<p>For your consideration, what follows are some suggestions on who to choose. I&#8217;ve selected a pair of Blue Jays players &#8212; one hitter and one pitcher &#8212; to over-perform and another pair to under-perform their PECOTA projections. I will be including these players on my team for accountability sake. In my description of why to choose these players I will give a sort of &#8216;confidence&#8217; rating, which will inform you on whether or not I actually recommend picking them for your team, or whether I&#8217;m just picking that player for the sake of the exercise.</p>
<h3>The Over-Performers</h3>
<h4> <span style="color: #ffffff">s</span><br />
Josh Donaldson, PECOTA 2016 TAv: .299</h4>
<p>PECOTA relies heavily on probability distributions. That means, among other things, it has a tendency to lean at least a tad toward the league average on both phenomenally good or phenomenally bad players.</p>
<p>Good news: the Blue Jays have a phenomenally good player for easy-pickin&#8217;. Over the past three seasons, Donaldson&#8217;s worst TAv was .305. While the difference between .299 and .305 would only be a push in this PECOTA game, I would take the odds that he exceeds that. In 2013, he hit for .326 TAv. In 2015, he hit for .324 TAv. While he may not be an MVP again, he seems like a lock to exceed the requisite .306 TAv benchmark. I would consider myself very confident on this wager.</p>
<h4> R.A. Dickey, PECOTA 2016 DRA: 4.85</h4>
<p>The knuckleballer doesn&#8217;t get a lot of love from advanced metrics in general, so this shouldn&#8217;t come as much of a surprise. But it does strike me as somewhat anomalous that PECOTA would project Dickey to drop this far in DRA after that metric has actually liked him over the past three seasons. It&#8217;s likely almost entirely due to aging curves though, as Dickey will enter his age-41 season this year.</p>
<p>From 2013 to 2015, Dickey&#8217;s DRAs have been 3.84, 3.80, 3.92. Not only would 4.85 be a massive fall, but so too would the requisite 4.54 that you need to collect your 10 points. I will definitely be taking Dickey.</p>
<p>Bonus coverage: Marcus Stroman is expected to post a DRA of 4.00. While 3.69  would be the necessary score for you to collect your 10 points, Stroman&#8217;s career DRA in the majors is 3.21. He should briskly beat his projections as well, though I&#8217;m slightly more confident in Dickey.</p>
<h3>The Under-Performers</h3>
<h4><span style="color: #ffffff">s</span><br />
Troy Tulowitzki, PECOTA 2016 TAv: .291</h4>
<p>This one was a lot tougher, and Tulowitzki is the unfortunate beneficiary of there just not being a lot of options.</p>
<p>While in Colorado, Tulowitzki had 351 plate appearances and had .274 TAv. Since coming over to Toronto, Tulowitzki has had a .258 TAv in 183 plate appearances. Both numbers are well below the .283 requisite benchmark so slam dunk, right?</p>
<p>In 2014, Tulowitzki had a .331 TAv. In 2013, he had a .306. In short, labeling Tulowitzki as an under-performer could go sour in a hurry. Honestly, I wouldn&#8217;t risk the 11.5 points for this. Even further, I wouldn&#8217;t pick any Blue Jays batter because I believe in at least a bit of lineup protection with hitters this good. But if you&#8217;re one of those pessimist-types, Tulo could be your fellow.</p>
<h4>J.A. Happ, PECOTA 2016 DRA: 4.39</h4>
<p>To tell you the truth, 4.39 sounds just about right for Happ. His last full season in Toronto, he sat at 4.55. In his 108.2 innings with the Seattle Mariners last season, he struggled to a 5.09 DRA. It makes you think that not only are the Blue Jays putting a lot of faith into Ray Searage wizardry, but so too is PECOTA. To be fair, in his 63.1 innings with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Happ posted an absolutely sterling 1.89 DRA.</p>
<p>Do I legitimately think Happ will be a 4.70 DRA pitcher &#8212; the required amount to pull off a victory for your Beat PECOTA team &#8212; next season? Probably not. And I wouldn&#8217;t be picking him if I hadn&#8217;t bound myself to that contract I agreed upon earlier. If Searage did truly find the elixir to fix Happ then I could be very wrong. If Happ performs like he did in Toronto previously, then I&#8217;ll be wrong. If Happ is inconsistent and somehow thinks he is still pitching for the Mariners, then I&#8217;ll be in luck!</p>
<p>So there you have it: A couple of interesting picks for Blue Jays players. Now go <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/extras/beatpecota/beatpecota.php">pick your team!</a></p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Where You Can Validly Criticize Mark Shapiro: Diversity</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/23/the-one-place-where-you-can-validly-criticize-mark-shapiro-diversity/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Mar 2016 10:02:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Bradburn]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alex anthopoulos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mark shapiro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ross atkins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tony lacava]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=537</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s been an awful lot of focus on the Blue Jays new President of Baseball Operations over the offseason. If you don&#8217;t believe me, you can take a glance at this petition for his dismissal, which has amassed more than 1300 signatures. This thinking follows from the topic of my last essay &#8211; an interesting, somewhat unhappy quirk of [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There&#8217;s been an <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/sports/mlb/toronto-blue-jays-president-mark-shapiro-more-concerned-with-winning-than-being-well-liked">awful lot of focus</a> on the Blue Jays new President of Baseball Operations over the offseason. If you don&#8217;t believe me, you can take a glance at <a href="https://www.change.org/p/rogers-communications-inc-fire-mark-shapiro-and-resign-alex-anthopoulos">this petition</a> for his dismissal, which has amassed more than 1300 signatures. This thinking follows from the topic of <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/11/where-canada-fits-in-americas-pastime/">my last essay</a> &#8211; an interesting, somewhat unhappy quirk of the Canadian baseball fan. While Mark Shapiro may not deserve the ire of Blue Jays fans, <em>one</em> thing he did during the offseason does follow a troubling trend in baseball: the hiring of Ross Atkins.</p>
<p>Prior to actually getting into this, I don&#8217;t want to imply that I think poorly of either Shapiro or Atkins, personally. However, it has become clear that baseball is heading into an era of exclusivity that desperately needs correcting.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s start with Shapiro. When Alex Anthopoulos stepped down, there was a very brief period of time where Shapiro acted as the general manager. However, that was quickly remedied by throwing an interim tag on Tony LaCava. LaCava, a Smart Baseball Man™, has been an assistant general manager with the Blue Jays since 2007. Although his original hiring actually predates the Anthopoulos era, he has, rightly or wrongly, been labeled as an &#8216;<a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-to-name-tony-lacava-interim-general-manager/">Anthopoulos guy</a>&#8216;. LaCava&#8217;s tenure would last less than a month, as Shapiro interviewed only few other candidates before deciding on current GM Ross Atkins.</p>
<p>Atkins could also be a Smart Baseball Man™. Frankly, I&#8217;m not sure. And Shapiro could be the Smartest Baseball Man™ that made an extremely Smart Baseball Decision™ by hiring Atkins. Or, conversely, the qualifications to get become a general manager in baseball have become misguided.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s look at those qualifications, shall we. Atkins has more than 14 years of baseball executive experience. He has worked his way from assistant director of player development to vice president of player personnel. It&#8217;s an impressive resume for certain. It is also one that may definitely qualify him to become a general manager. Through hard work and determination, Atkins has most-assuredly made himself a suitable candidate.</p>
<p>For those that don&#8217;t know, Atkins&#8217; former boss with his previous organization, and thereby the person at least partially responsible for some of those promotions, was Shapiro. Shapiro came from the Cleveland Indians and promptly poached an old colleague. There&#8217;s a lot to take in about that fact, but let&#8217;s make the fewest assumptions possible and say Shapiro really does like Atkins&#8217; work ethic and thinks he has gotten to where he is on merit.</p>
<p>Perhaps Shapiro and Atkins find it easy to work together just because they have before. Because they had a good rapport in prior work environments. Because they are like-minded individuals. These are by no means outlandish theories. The optimist may look at the last one and suggest that Atkins and Shapiro may not be like-minded insofar as they have simply found effective ways to deal with their differences. To me, that&#8217;s semantics.</p>
<p>Meg Rowley <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=28120">discussed this inequity</a> similarly mere months ago when Jerry Dipoto hired Scott Servais. Servais, who had worked as an executive under Dipoto with the Los Angeles Angels, was hired by the Seattle Mariners following the 2015 season to manage the team. What makes Servais different? He had absolutely zero managerial experience.</p>
<p>This inequity in baseball front offices stems from a really difficult question to answer: What makes someone qualified? For any job even. For some jobs, that question is easier. To teach at the university level, a PhD is required. For others it gets a tad trickier. While administrative jobs prefer some form of formal training, it isn&#8217;t actually a requirement and experience is favoured. So what does it actually take to be a general manager in sports?</p>
<p>Shapiro has a better understanding of that answer than I do. I&#8217;m certain of that and will concede that fact. However, I&#8217;m not certain he made the correct choice. Even more troubling though, it appears as though the correct process wasn&#8217;t even fulfilled; that due diligence wasn&#8217;t met. And Shapiro can get away with it because we all have no idea what it takes to be a general manager.</p>
<p>Perhaps Atkins just really is that good, but how does Shapiro know that if he didn&#8217;t interview other candidates? If he didn&#8217;t &#8216;broaden the talent pool.&#8217; At the very least, show Toronto, the most populous city in a country growing in culture, that you care about diversity.</p>
<p>By my count there will be only four non-white GMs or Presidents in baseball next season: Dave Stewart, Farhan Zaidi, Kenny Williams, and Michael Hill. And that&#8217;s where the inequity becomes most glaring. That&#8217;s both grossly unfortunate and unrepresentative. I would contend that it isn&#8217;t for a lack of qualified candidates either. Instead, it&#8217;s due entirely to the fact that executives get to a discourse on &#8216;inside baseball&#8217; with zero culpability. It is because teams perpetuate a false narrative that <em>they</em> know what makes a truly good executive, and the public is forced to agree because we don&#8217;t have the means to prove them wrong.</p>
<p>Frankly, I&#8217;m tired of hearing about this. I hope you are too. At this point, I&#8217;m really tired of writing about Shapiro even. For what it&#8217;s worth, he seems like a savvy business man and I hope he&#8217;s able to make the Rogers Centre resemble Progressive Field. Mostly though, I&#8217;m looking forward to writing about actual baseball. However, not talking about this has gone on for too long. Baseball should not operate outside of basic human resource principles. It&#8217;s unfortunate that it has. It has been easy to avert our gaze, but doing so has led us to a league that will only have two persons of colour managing clubhouses next season. And that&#8217;s not even addressing the abhorrent gender gap.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t know what makes a good executive, but I do know that promoting diversity should be on that rubric. It&#8217;s time we make it a requirement.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
<p><em>Correction: This article originally stated that the Jays interviewed only two candidates for the GM position; they interviewed four. It also stated that there are only four non-white baseball executives, when the writer intended to say that there are only four non-white GMs or Presidents.</em></p>
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		<title>Where Canada Fits in America&#8217;s Pastime</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/11/where-canada-fits-in-americas-pastime/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/11/where-canada-fits-in-americas-pastime/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Mar 2016 09:00:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Bradburn]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alex anthopoulos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blue jays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[john tory]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mark shapiro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paul beeston]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ross atkins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[toronto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=41</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When the city of Toronto completed work on the Luminous Veil that hems the Bloor Viaduct and held the event&#8217;s official lighting, the 2015 PanAm Games were finally ready to begin. In fact, it worked as a sort of unofficial opening ceremonies. Toronto’s mayor, John Tory – the one that came after the crack-smoking one – was, of [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When the city of Toronto completed work on the Luminous Veil that hems the Bloor Viaduct and held the event&#8217;s official lighting, the 2015 PanAm Games were finally ready to begin. In fact, it worked as a sort of unofficial opening ceremonies. Toronto’s mayor, John Tory – the one that came after the crack-smoking one – was, of course, in attendance. He ended up giving a speech that took a backhanded yet relatively unnoteworthy jab at Torontonians’ propensity to complain. “Toronto, on a regular basis,” Tory said only days later “would be qualifying for a gold medal in (moaning and groaning).” Somewhat anecdotally – or perhaps more to the point – the Toronto Blue Jays were in fourth place at the time, and three games back of the first-place New York Yankees.</p>
<p>Whether or not you agree with Mr. Tory, this, above all else, is what sets us apart as a baseball city. As you know, the 29 other teams are located in a different country. Canadians – the collective ‘we’ – like to think of ourselves as different. We’ve only got one team, and the entire country rallied behind it for two fantastic months at the end of last summer. We like to think what makes us different is our apologetic behaviour, which has seemingly become reflexive, or that we put an extra ‘u’ in some words because we didn’t overthrow our ties to the commonwealth. Maybe it&#8217;s our spelling of &#8216;defence.&#8217;</p>
<p>But it isn’t. What makes Canadians different is our ability to look on the other side of the fence and see that the grass on our side has been turf all along. It’s the Canadian condition. What we self-identify as humility actually comes off as an aversion to nationalism. We’re proud of a nation that takes as little pride in itself as possible. Now, none of this is to paint all Canadians with the same pessimistic brush. In fact, I believe many of us to be very optimistic. But our ability to complain while still staying positive is what sets us apart.</p>
<p>It surfaces in the most sublime ways. Take, for instance, the fact that a fan called in to Blue Jays Talk hosted by Mike Wilner on the day the Blue Jays clinched a postseason berth – their first after a two decade drought– to express his displeasure that Melky Cabrera wasn’t on the team anymore. The caller wasn’t upset; they just expressed empathy that Cabrera wouldn’t get to enjoy this.</p>
<p>If you need further proof, consider the fact that <a href="https://twitter.com/GideonTurk/status/545336856192499712">we joke about how much we hate the turf</a> here, but then also <a href="https://twitter.com/GideonTurk/status/591612706215632896">defend it when other teams threaten to protest</a>. We <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/how-blue-jays-fans-who-hate-toronto-justify-their-support-1.3250886">dislike ourselves, our city, our team</a> insofar as nobody else agrees. If anyone else dislikes us, <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/the-baseball-world-hates-us-because-were-good-lets-embrace-it/">then we unite in our disdain for them</a>.</p>
<p>But nothing epitomizes this better than the fallout of this past offseason. For the uninitiated, the abridged version: Rogers, the corporation that owns the Blue Jays, had tried for a couple of seasons to replace team president, Paul Beeston. It’s worth noting that, when this process began nearly two years prior, Rogers contacted Kenny Williams about potentially taking over as Beeston’s replacement. That news went up to White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who just so happened to be Beeston&#8217;s best friend in all of baseball. As a result, Beeston – the Blue Jays’ first employee – found out for the first time that his bosses were trying to replace him from somebody outside the organization.</p>
<p>Last August 31, it was made official that Mark Shapiro would be taking over the role of team president. By this time, the Blue Jays had rocketed to first place. Somewhat hilariously, David Price was actually dinged with the &#8216;L&#8217; that evening against Shapiro&#8217;s old team, the Cleveland Indians. After the move was announced, there was a lot of speculation about what may have happened behind closed doors after the move. There was <a href="https://twitter.com/rwesthead/status/659697223287074816">one report that</a> Shapiro scolded Alex Anthopoulos for trading so many top prospects. Regardless of the &#8216;how&#8217; it happened, it all culminated in Anthopoulos deciding to <a href="http://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/2015/11/02/new-jays-chief-mark-shapiro-to-face-media-with-anthopoulos-looming-in-background.html">turn down a contract extension</a> to stay on as general manager. To be clear, that&#8217;s all we know. Shapiro got hired; Anthopoulos left. Maybe if Shapiro didn&#8217;t get hired, the Blue Jays would still have Anthopoulos. Maybe he would be in Los Angeles regardless. Whichever parts of the story seem to piece together for you are, predominantly, irrelevant.</p>
<p>All we have are optics. And we have a specifically strange lens through which to look. The day Anthopoulos announced he was stepping away from the Blue Jays, was the same day The Sporting News announced that he had been named <a href="http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb-news/4659623-alex-anthopoulos-executive-of-year-blue-jays-sporting-news">MLB&#8217;s Executive of the Year</a>. Obviously, that was less than desirable. &#8216;We&#8217; had our &#8216;guy&#8217; and he turned out to be the best in the league for one year and now he&#8217;s gone because some other guy may or may not have been able to work with him amicably.</p>
<p>Conversely however, our &#8216;guy&#8217; did trade away a lot of top prospects. And while it brought the Blue Jays a division title – the goal of all executives – if Shapiro did in fact bring that up in a meeting, it wouldn&#8217;t have been fallacious. And don&#8217;t forget, Anthopoulos also traded away Noah Syndergaard and Travis d&#8217;Arnaud – the New York Mets battery for game 3 of the World Series.</p>
<p>The fact is, some Canadians will choose not to like Shapiro. Even further, some may choose to actively dislike Shapiro – <a href="https://www.change.org/p/rogers-communications-inc-fire-mark-shapiro-and-resign-alex-anthopoulos">to request his dismissal</a>. And they need to know how weird that is, and how distinctly Canadian it is; to dislike a man because he isn&#8217;t named &#8216;Anthopoulos.&#8217; If you Google search &#8216;fire&#8217; with any other MLB executive&#8217;s name – <a href="https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=fire%20jeff%20bridich">even the seemingly bad ones</a> – you won&#8217;t find a petition for their dismissal.</p>
<p>Nobody outside of team ownership really knows what makes an above average MLB executive, just as they don&#8217;t know what truly happened that caused Anthopoulos&#8217; to depart. Now that the dust has settled, I&#8217;d be willing to bet it has more to do with upward mobility than anything else. There is nothing that makes Shapiro measurably worse than Beeston. There is nothing any fan can point out that makes Ross Atkins more or less qualified than Anthopoulos.</p>
<p>Even when things are going well in Toronto, we will find ways to gripe. So don&#8217;t pretend that Anthopoulos should be sainted. And don&#8217;t pretend that Shapiro and Atkins are Satan and Mephistopheles. It defies logic to look at the Blue Jays roster – which is still excellent – and grumble about the team&#8217;s upper management.</p>
<p>My only solace is that, the next time anyone located beneath the 49th parallel takes issue with our infield – which is dirt now – or our MVP or our <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/mlb/jays-canada-insult-reynolds-1.3267152">ability to catch foul balls</a>, I know that we&#8217;ll unite in our ire against those foes. Similarly, if this team goes on to win for the next few years, Shapiro and Atkins will have helped that happen. There is, then, a conceivable way that both Shapiro and Atkins become very well-liked executives in this city; this country. So maybe we should appreciate what we have. Maybe we should embrace what makes us different; some of us just need better ways to express it.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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